Spring 2018 Report Review: A look at the Impact of Healthcare Innovation
Vice President of Marketing
Anyone familiar with the healthcare industry knows that a transformation is happening; it is not some distant event. Digital health is changing how healthcare is delivered and consumed, and innovation is at the heart of the transformation.
Datica’s 2018 spring innovation report examines how the media is describing the digital health transformation through four articles from major industry publications. The report also examines insights from Accenture and the World Economic Forum surveys, and takes a look at HIMSS 2018.
Surprising digital health trends reported by the media
Featuring stories from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, and Healthtech News, Datica’s Spring 2018 innovation report finds that there are some specific, and perhaps surprising trends in digital innovation. From hospitals supporting startups to the competition for data that artificial intelligence is bringing about, the four articles touch on current hot button topics.
In a story titled “Hospitals Fund Potential Game-Changers in Health Tech” the Wall Street Journal reports on how some hospitals are beginning to fund health-tech startups in the hopes of supporting innovation that will result in improvements. Hospitals are in a good position to decide which innovative projects to support because hospitals have the clearest understanding of their own problems that need to be solved.
The Economist tackles the topic of medical data and technologies surrounding it in an article titled “Data and medicine: A revolution in healthcare is coming.” Applications that detect heart arrhythmia or that have diagnostics capabilities are powerful, as are those that may improve the management of chronic disease. However, the article misses the mark in its implication that those types of technologies are on the verge of widespread adoption. Such innovations will change healthcare, but it will happen gradually.
Patient-centered is a phrase that appears in almost every discussion of digital health innovation, and the Harvard Business Review examines the importance of keeping the patient front and center in an article titled “Putting Humans at the Center of Health Care Innovation.” Innovation is most important when it puts people, rather than money, at the center.
Advancing innovation in digital health is going to require a migration to the cloud, according to an article in Healthtech News titled “Eric Schmidt lays out formula for healthcare innovation.” Moving to the cloud will mean having an infrastructure that is tested, interoperable, and secure. However, AI is going to require data acquisition because it depends on large datasets to determine algorithmic success.
Reports from the Experts
Reports from institutions, academic organizations, and consulting firms often contain insights that aren’t always obvious from interactions with partners and customers. The Datica spring innovation report includes summaries from two such reports: the Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2017 and the World Economic Forum report.
Each of the reports points to trends that are going to impact the digital health transformation. AI, digital ecosystems, open marketplaces for talent, the need for better understanding human behavior, and entirely new digital industries are all mentioned in the Accenture report. The World Economic Forum included discussion of how to build a digital healthcare system that will empower people.
Heavyweights at HIMSS18
Microsoft has always been involved in HIMSS, but this year their focus was less on Azure and more on the Microsoft solutions on the cloud. AWS had a bigger presence than ever before at HIMSS, and featured demonstrations of solutions to specific healthcare problems.
Google put on a show bigger than either Microsoft or AWS, with a major booth and high profile sessions and keynotes. However, it wasn’t clear exactly what cloud-based solutions Google is offering the healthcare sector.
Telehealth and population health have matured. They are no longer coming soon but have arrived. Both technologies are now part of the health IT landscape.
IT was also clear at HIMSS18 that there’s more innovation happening than necessarily meets the eye. New projects in digital health products as well as internal innovation within organizations are likely to spur rapid improvements in the near future.
The full Datica Spring 2018 innovation report elucidates the sources currently driving the digital health transformation. By pulling together unique perspectives on disparate topics, Datica clearly describes the innovation situation and how it’s impacting digital health.
