It seems every company in every industry is talking about “going digital,” but to understand the landscape of life sciences, we must first understand some of the shifts within healthcare that are driving change. Below are some trends that are reshaping healthcare and, therefore, life sciences, and are making it harder and harder for life sciences to resist incorporating “smart” technology and other digital solutions into our internal operations and external interactions.
From Acute Care to Preventive Care
There is a shift away from providing acute care when patients are sick to focusing on preventive care.
From Specialists to Self-care
Since patients are more empowered to manage their own health, we are seeing a significant shift from seeking out specialists to depending more on self-care.
From Hospitals to Home Care
Due to the dramatic shift from specialists to self-care, we are also seeing a shift from hospital to home care. More health-related services are taking place in non-traditional settings, such as video conferencing via mobile apps.
From Single Biometric Indicators to Multiple Indicators
Another shift includes the monitoring of multiple biometric indicators instead of a single indicator. This is helping to provide better health insights.
From Empirical Evidence for “Typical” Patients to Personalized, Precision Medicine
There has been a recent shift from intuitive approaches, based on empirical evidence for typical patients, to precision-based healthcare rooted in the individual patient’s characteristics and genes. This is allowing physicians to harness information from intelligent algorithms to inform treatment decisions.
From Specialized Information Silos to Centralized, Accessible Knowledge Centers
With regards to accessing knowledge and information, there has been a shift from specialized silos of medical knowledge to more centralized and accessible knowledge centers. This is allowing clinicians to provide sophisticated care without necessarily having specialized training.
Bottom Line
The importance of using digital technology to engage with customers, like patients, partners, and physicians, is becoming more and more clear. But the solution is not as simple as adopting a more modern technology platform. A complete solution entails a strategy, the appropriate technology to support that strategy, and an exceptional customer experience for your stakeholders.
