What are the key ESG considerations in the US Healthcare BPO industry?

ESG topics in the US healthcare BPO market primarily revolve around social and governance positive aspects and challenges. Social aspects primarily relate to the impact on patient well-being. Herein, healthcare BPOs improve patient engagement by allowing medical professionals to focus more on patient care, with services such as medical transcriptions ensuring accurate documentation and better communication. At the same time, substandard management or lack of oversight can lead to privacy violations, delayed treatments and compromised patient trust. Other social challenges include work-life balance (e.g. long and irregular hours) and limited career growth opportunities for employees. Herein, incumbents aim to address these issues by providing comprehensive training programs to upskill employees and offering flexible remote work options to maintain work-life balance. Governance issues primarily relate to data protection of highly sensitive patient information, as failure to do so can lead to customer churn, legal disputes and costly litigation. To address this, incumbents incorporate practices such as HIPPA-compliant offerings, data encryption protocols, controlled access, regular audits and employee training to mitigate security risks.