Today, executives in every industry must keep up with the latest technology to give their customers faster, better quality experiences and services at a lower cost. We all know that Amazon and Uber/Lyft have disrupted their industries and changed the way we do business today. But what about Healthcare? Physicians are burning out, patients dislike the healthcare experience, caregivers are overburdened, and out-of-pocket costs have exponentially increased out of control.
Recently, I was a guest speaker at one of our Healthcare Innovation Think Tank monthly meetings. The topic was "Perspectives from Silicon Valley on Digital Health." Here are a few exciting things that are going on in HealthTech.
Healthcare is just one of many industries that are being disrupted by Digital Transformation. However, the industry is about to see significant changes over the next five years... finally!
There's a ton of money being invested in digital health technology. According to a Rock Health report, Venture Capital companies have grown their healthcare investments from $1.1B (81 companies) in 2011 to $4.2B (296 companies) in 2016.
An example of a VC investment with an Innovative Business Model in Healthcare is HealthTap Global Health Practice in Palo Alto, CA. They offer a service with 100,000 physicians providing virtual visits around the world and have 10 million website visits a month (website questions are free or you can pay $99 a month for virtual visits). They've recently added new Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to self-triage new patients.
In addition, other health-related companies continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new technologies and processes. IBM has been very active working with leading Oncologists to help transform cancer treatments. They provide their latest "Watson" Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to help with better, faster, cancer treatment decisions. According to a recent IBM survey, 81% of healthcare executives familiar with Watson Health believe it will positively impact their business.
Here's an interesting tidbit to finish up the article. Everyone continues to guess if Apple's "big new thing" is going to be a real Apple TV (with a screen) or a new self-driving car. Well, one of the latest Apple rumors (which I happen to believe is true) is that they are pouring millions of dollars into designing Healthcare devices that will dramatically lower the cost of health monitoring and reporting. Hopefully Apple will deliver game-changing devices (like FDA-regulated sensors, Electronic Medical Records (EMR), etc) in the next year or two.
From what I see here in Silicon Valley, I have no doubt that most of the current Healthcare problems (physician burnout, poor patient experiences, overburdened caregivers and obscene costs) will eventually be resolved and overall care improved during this much needed Digital Transformation of the Healthcare Industry.
Every industry and successful business needs to undergo a Digital Transformation over the next few years.
We're happy to help you get started, answer a few questions or accelerate your organization's existing Digital Transformation projects to help you be more successful this year :) Contact us if you want to talk about some ideas.