The New Normal of Healthcare

While COVID19 has demonstrated the capacity challenges of healthcare systems to cope up with a pandemic, it has also set a new standard for a new normal. Healthcare systems can never really be dependent on just physical hospitals, but as we have seen the adoption of a hybrid care model one where digital and physical work seamlessly in a unified manner. The pandemic has also redefined how healthcare will be looked at as an industry as its influence transcends into industries and economies waiting to get back on track.

Lets explore the new normal of healthcare.

Changing Healthcare Regulations

The COVID19 pandemic crisis and emergency has forced the governments and healthcare regulators to temporarily ease the regulations like US not enforcing HIPAA privacy law penalties on telehealth and virtual care. But there are increasingly calls to permanently relax the barriers in the US. 

Previously, telehealth use in Medicare was severely restricted to specific locations and circumstances, like for beneficiaries in rural areas or patients already in a hospital but now we are seeing its usage proliferation.

Increasing Healthcare’s role in other Industries

COVID-19 pandemic has put the healthcare industry in the forefront to help reboot industries badly affected by the pandemic like travel, tourism, hotel industry. But this goes for all other industries as they would need to start preparing for opening their businesses and allowing their workforce to come to factories, offices, retail stores. All of that will require increasing healthcare involvement in the form of resources and investments.

@Salesforce’s @Marc Benioff said 36% of his employees have reported having mental health issues during the lockdown. Telehealth and Telepsychiatry apps will be expecting a huge increase in their usage as more and more people use their services. Even companies preparing from the return of their employees to offices will be subscribing to such mental wellness sessions and packages.

@Hilton is working with @RB’s Lysol and @Mayo Clinic’s Infection Prevention and Control teams to redefine cleanliness at its hotels ramping up their hygiene practices right from the check-in to check-out as part of its Hilton CleanStay initiative planned for rollout in June 2020.

Emirates Airline becomes the first airline in the world to conduct rapid COVID 19 testing with getting results in 10 minutes not days before boarding passengers on the aircraft. 

The world as the Healthcare Innovation Ecosystem Theatre

The notion that Innovation majorly happens in the tech centers like Silicon Valley is not entirely true anymore. Entire World is Innovating and Collaborating together and healthcare solutions can come from anywhere which we have seen in the case of China leading the pack with new disruptive technologies and social platforms, South Korea giving the concept of novel way of testing which is drive through testing centers pioneered by South Korea in parking lots inspired by McDonalds and Starbucks. Bahrain transformed a car park into ICU for COVID 19 patients.

Nevada’s Governor announced a partnership with the UAE government and Emirati tech company G42 to open high-volume COVID-19 testing facilities. NHS England inviting the tech giants (AWS, Google, MSFT) to build a data driven platform and collectively harness insights. 

Cross Industry Pollination

While healthcare will play a major role in kickstarting and rebooting industries and economies, it will also face asymmetric competition and cooperation from other industries.

We are already seeing how the big tech players like @Google, @Microsoft, and @Tencent represent over 70% of digital health deals made in digital health tech startups in the past decade. Their investment focuses and strategies vary in different areas of healthcare primarily digital solutions. 

Nike's innovation, manufacturing and product teams have co-created by working closely with health professionals at@Oregon Health & Science University, to provide for an urgent and dire need of PPE - Personal Protective Equipment with full-face shields and powered, air-purifying respirator (PAPR) lenses to protect against the COVID-19. While this maybe circumstantial to help the healthcare community but in future we may see other non-traditional healthcare industries taking keen interest in developing products, solutions, offerings for healthcare. 

Value Based Care model

The healthcare industry is changing from responding to illness toward sustaining well-being with more patient centric digital solutions. Health care systems are shifting from volume-based, fee-for-service (FFS) payment models to those focused on Value Based Care (VBC) models. The shift to VBC Payment models is changing the economics and placing MedTech manufacturers under threat of commoditization unless they deliver differentiated, high-impact solutions. Digital solutions need to go beyond the device offering and provide patients and providers with data-driven, clinically meaningful and actionable intelligence that support new financial models.

A new Chapter in Wellness and Wearables

No longer are the wearables just used for wellness and fitness, but their data is going to be crucial in understanding and predicting future infectious diseases outbreaks. The Fitbit COVID-19 Study, an in-app study now collects wearable data and asks participants about their recent symptom history. It builds on a previously announced research partnerships with the @Scripps Research Translational Institute and the @Stanford Medicine Healthcare Innovation Lab. These efforts similarly focus on using wearable-collected data to spot early cases of infectious diseases.

Healthcare industry is being reinvented as I write this article where there will be many new players joining the race to design better products, solutions and offerings from totally different industries with very little healthcare experience.