Vice President of Digital and Analytics at XL Health He has been a healthcare technology consultant and business executive for 20 years.
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This article, the first in a two-part series, aims to present digital health in the light of insanity risk investment Over the past three to five years, its importance has continued to shift healthcare and the risks ahead. Before delving into these discussions, let’s define digital health.
• Digital health is a discipline that includes digital care programs and technologies covering mobile health (mobile health), health information technology, wearable devices, telemedicine, personalized medicine, diagnostics and biology. It is underpinned by analytics framework that serves data for all stakeholders.
• This constitutes multi-channel interactions (telephone, video, remote devices, website, surveys, chatbots, etc.) and is intended to impact all aspects of health (behavioral, social, medical, nutritional and other SDOH elements).
• It aims to provide new avenues of access, democratize care, reduce barriers to entry for disruptive solutions, personalize member trips, induce wellness systems, and accelerate bridging the care gap (a win-win for all payers/provider/consumers).
Today, as we see, digital health interventions are largely non-acute or post-acute. However, hospitals of the future may be looking to take digital health to the next level. Some of the ways we might see this trend evolve are by helping manage high-cost conditions and integrating last-mile consumer IoT with hospital infrastructure.
In order to support the next generation of digital health, investors and developers will need to understand where the space is now, what stands in the way of future growth and how to develop solutions that enable adoption.
Drivers and Objectives of Digital Health Innovation
The increase in market consolidation and M&A activity will define the market. Although all investors are either looking for high returns or to change underperforming assets, they have been doing it in two ways:
• Corporate-led investment in SaaS platforms focused on expanding reach, member engagement, and value-based care
• Large tech venture funds looking to enable interoperability, wearable and hardware platforms, as well as required cloud infrastructure
In general, the focus appears to be on personalized medicine, organ revitalization, chronic care, and mental health. Considerations driven by the epidemic about virtual careAnd the health justice And the behavioral health It will continue to dominate the thought process for a value-driven, democratic and personalized model of care.
The biggest barriers to digital health investment
Digital health platforms connect many different entities, use data insights, track members/conditions and implement new treatments. Much of this will be seen through the usual lens of privacy, security, consent, permitted use, controlled innovation, and most importantly, the tendency to harm (eg, incorrect diagnosis and overtreatment) versus benefits (proved by clinical studies).
Digital therapies, software as a device, and black box algorithms have increased the need for them explicability As well as clinical/organizational censorship. Because AI algorithms can be explained, clinical validation of new/improved workflows to the broader community will be a key consideration as regulations mature.
However, leaders in digital health will need to consider other barriers, such as scattered information on rare cases.
How can the industry overcome these challenges
In order to develop or invest in a successful solution, digital health products will need to consider several factors, such as whether the solution:
• Integrates into existing workflows and toolkits.
• Involve the caring clinicians initially to understand and mitigate perturbation (eg, how does AI predict the next action?) and preferences (eg, alert stress that may result from too many reminders). A champion doctor, clinical committee, or step-by-step system can stimulate adoption.
• Allows for phased deployment and the ability to test/verify the solution appropriately.
• Compares favorably with existing solutions, especially for critical healthcare functions.
• Create easy communication channels throughout the clinical journey between payers, consumers and clinicians. Simple communication maximizes desired outcomes and helps avoid disruptions in business continuity, as small disruptions can prevent adoption.
• Receives support from health systems and payers, which may speed up time to market.
Implementation of digital health technologies and systems is fundamental to leveraging the way people use and interact with these technologies for all healthcare outcomes. The right models of implementation will drive results in managing and improving wellbeing and supporting healthcare practices and providers to achieve a viable financial and care structure.
Building on these trends, the next part of this series will focus on governance and sustainability lessons learned from perceived exits and failures in digital health.
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