We are at a strange crossroads. On the one hand, it feels that the world no longer counts the passage of time since March 2020. On the other hand, in the healthcare industry, it feels as if we have been ahead of schedule by twenty years, but the usually slow pace of innovation has broken records and expectations.
The sinking or swimming mentality brought about by the Covid pandemic has accelerated innovation in all aspects of healthcare. Now, as the dust settles, many stakeholders realize that their reasons for resisting disruptive technologies are groundless, and they are looking for ways to maximize the opportunities presented by Covid. Funding for digital health is exploding, and the sky of the healthcare world is suddenly and firmly committed to technological innovation.
Here are more things we can expect to see in the coming year:
The rise of direct-to-consumer healthcare
As the employer market becomes increasingly saturated, direct-to-consumer technology or concierge methods were once relegated to niche islands, and this year has become a counter-current. The high user quality of technical products such as GoodRx, Hims & Hers, Ro and Curology contributed to their success. These companies cannot be stingy on user experience-because users pay out of their pockets, the barriers to adoption are higher. On the other hand, due to the lack of a secured customer base and the new feature of opt-out of in-app data sharing on the latest Apple iOS, there is less access to consumer data, which means that these companies are going all out to reach users Obtain.
Mental health is the top priority
In the past decade, the stigma surrounding mental health issues has been slowly dispelling, but like many things, Covid has accelerated the exposure to the problem and urgently needs to find a solution, and well-known celebrities like Simone Biles have shared them Regarding the story of the mental health struggle, the market for solutions has never been so mature. However, despite the fact that the market is flooded with text-based therapy applications and other meditation and mindfulness tools designed to support better mental health, issues surrounding efficacy and outcomes have plagued their progress. We can expect to see continued demand for solutions, but innovators will have to solve the problem of scale and provide justification for the applicability of digital media to deal with trauma and other issues.
“Beyond” telemedicine
In the first few months of the pandemic, the health system is eager to provide patients with “telemedicine”—in many cases, this simply means that patients can choose to see the medical provider via video. Although face-to-face visits have resumed, many patients have become accustomed to the convenience of virtual care and want to use it as an option, but worry about the quality of care and the limitations of the types of care that can be provided through video (hint: it’s not much), which promotes use Remote patient monitoring (or RPM) is used as an auxiliary tool. With RPM, patients can track some vital signs through connected or manual devices at home and add their data to a central database (ie EMR). One of the additional benefits of RPM increasing its popularity is the ability to interact asynchronously between patients and providers-especially important in areas that are facing increasing pressure due to a shortage of providers.
Digital health: from solution to ecosystem
The rapid influx of mobile applications that meet various health needs has created a new type of technology-digital health companies exist only to serve other Digital health company. Digital market services such as Xealth and Redox simplify the process for providers to order and issue various digital tools and services directly through EMR, while companies such as Zus are trying to solve the problem of data isolation through patient-centric data exchange solutions.
The basis for all these trends is a broader reform of the healthcare system. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the healthcare industry to plug the dam with any tool at hand. Now that the danger has been eliminated, it is evaluating whether these tools are even suitable solutions to the problems and needs of modern systems. As the world adapts to the post-pandemic world, we will continue to see these infrastructure changes in the foreseeable future.
Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images
