Three for 2023: Navigating the first economic headwinds of the digital era of health
1. The debate is over: The future of healthcare is hybrid.?
The field
Discussions of virtual-only vs. in-person-only have effectively ended. The field of virtual-first care has matured, and the stark post-pandemic realities of clinician shortages, sustained high costs, and increasingly inequitable challenges to access have set in. The incumbents – traditional healthcare systems and clinics – are seeking strategies to load balance and better extend every unit of clinical expertise they can get their hands on. We’ve finally heard what the newcomers – digital solution and virtual-first care providers – (or most of them) have been saying for a decade: healthcare can’t exist only in the ether.?
The play
Both traditional healthcare systems and digital solution providers have to figure out how to partner for success. The future of care will be a co-created, hybrid that moves beyond the 'call center' and 'bolt-on' models of telehealth to take a holistic, complementary, and integrated approach. Effective leaders will demonstrate sustainable interoperability and an approach that someone is both willing and able to pay for.?
2. Show, don’t tell
The field
“Economic headwinds”, “M&A”, “lock it down, tighten it up,”?are the Silicon Valley buzzwords of Q3/Q4 2022. But healthcare spending remains pretty predictable at a ~3% year-on-year growth rate. So the real question for healthcare providers and digital innovators in 2023 is how are we going to find our chair when the music stops playing? When the flow of cash from unfettered investment does not return and the enormous pressures on the already thin margins of care delivery don’t ease, what is the plan?
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The play
We’re not going to tech our way out of this. Digital health innovators with practical solutions for real problems have an enormous opportunity to thrive in the coming year, but only if they have evidence – clinical evidence – to demonstrate their value. Even better, full-stack digital solution providers will identify pathways to reimbursement that don’t involve throwing themselves at the feet of healthcare systems to carve out dollars from their own (non-existent) margins to pay out of pocket for their services.?
3. R&D have raised their bar
The field
The life sciences industry has raised the bar on partnerships. Medical product developers were dipping their toes in the digital health water long before the pandemic and even before their healthcare delivery colleagues. Even at the height of the digital health boom, pharma was cycling through v1.0 digital collaborations becoming rapidly more discerning about what good looks like. Now, medical product developers are looking for digital partners ready to support the digitization of clinical trials across the full lifecycle.?
The play
It’s simple; digital health innovators must build the solutions that the life sciences want. Incremental improvements to the current state that require extensive work to implement are not going to fly. They’re looking for solutions that are reliable, trustworthy and support systems and data flows that can be used and reused. These solutions must help to improve the way we develop new therapies for patients and ensure the success of these therapies in the post-market.?
Co-founder at Atta Systems & Medicai | VC-backed | Innovation through technology in healthcare
10 个月Jennifer, appreciate you sharing this.
Digital Health Strategist & Operator | Serial Entrepreneur | Healthcare Innovator
1 年Phenomenal write-up! Thank you for sharing. I think it will be most interesting to see how healthcare startups identify reimbursement methods that are not entirely at the beck & call of limited government funding and predatory insurance companies. My hope is that the expansion of digital health will allow for the return of value based care / reimbursement in healthcare and medicine, overall. Your points regarding the need for digital health companies and tech startups ensuring their product is backed by strong clinical evidence will also be key. Unlike non-health DTC products and services, solidifying product market fit using strong clinical evidence will be key to ensuring LONGTERM* profitability, as health is too sensitive of a field to ignore nuances like other products or services. (*not foundationally guided by fleeting health "trends" or false health information. In healthcare, providers/patients WILL stick to health products/services backed by evidence based medicine (EBM) that fulfill their health needs / improve quality of life; It can be difficult to get patients and providers to adjust treatment plans they are already comfortable with OR that they are aware works!)
VP at ACL Digital | Digital Innovation & Transformation | Reliability Engineering
2 年Thanks for sharing valuable insights Jennifer Goldsack . The future is hybrid, the future is in being proactive and getting those insights early. But I also agree fully with those who highlighted that that we can't throw many point solutions at patients and clinicians. Interoperability and seamless data exchange is also critical in my mind for large scale adoption.
Consultant - Novartis Regulatory Affairs innovation
2 年Agree that clinical evidence of benefit for the patient is paramount. Will benefit be adjudged in a similar manner to pharmaceuticals - why not? What’s good for the goose should also be for the gander. The 13,000 MDD certificates extant in Europe still requiring re-certification under MDR are testament to the great redundancy in medical devices and also a lack of enforcement from NB to request clinical evidence of benefit, which finally is being addressed. Neither is acceptable for economic reasons and for reasons of promoting public health, globally. Let’s see if regulators, payers, patients and physicians are able to walk together on this hand-in-hand.
Building AI That People Love—Not Just Tolerate
2 年Jennifer Goldsack you’ve got it super right. The future is hybrid, and I'm glad it's unfolding this way so that the best of deep touch and deep tech can be used to save lives.