This is amongst the new buzz words these days, “digital transformation”, with a strong acknowledgement that this trend will only going to get stronger and disrupt the traditional way of doing things. But understanding at the most senior levels on how to embrace it, varies.
The top 4 themes which are disrupting all medical devices and pharma companies are around:
(a) Pace of change at the customer’s end
(b) Exponential growth expectations regionally (with variations within the region)
(c) Disruptions across business and customer needs
(d) The impacts of big data
For all healthcare companies it’s already late if you haven’t figured out the digital strategy for your business. Long-Term Conditions patients spend less than 0.1% of their time with doctors & 99.9% on their own’ – means we need to be ahead in the data capture game, make diagnoses as quickly as possible and give customers, clinicians and patients the power of real-time data, smart analytics” self-monitoring and self-management.
Some of the emerging trends are fascinating…there are more than 165,000 mHealth apps now available in the various app stores.! Just 12% of mHealth apps account for 90% of consumer downloads, and 36 apps generate nearly half of all downloads.
75% of apps are focused on wellbeing and 25% on disease treatment and management…10% can connect to a device or sensor. A third can connect to social networks – 65% of those most downloaded can be linked to social media.
To be successful in digital health means designing digital tools and connected devices that support and influence the whole person – the behaviours, risk factors and the mental wellbeing of customers.
Only by understanding how each of these impacts on sickness and will create the types of solutions that customers trust and value.
“Source – Transform”
But this means we need to understand to look at digital, not in terms of innovation labs or ‘skunk works’ but as part of the fabric or DNA of our businesses. I strongly recommend all companies to ask these 7 questions to know how “digital-ready” you’re…
1. Strategy: How do you align the hospitals/customer propositions to business objectives with the new “digital world”? Digital should be in service to the strategy and in response to the customer not vice-versa
2. Organization: What is the best way for you to structure & up-skill the business? Devices businesses take much longer to navigate hence start looking at the organization scenarios now.
3. Customer engagement: How do you reach the right customer (private/public/charity/research labs) & make them feel integrated across channels (traditional/new)?
4. Customer centricity: How do you embed this into our customer’s organisation?
5. Data & Insight: How can you unlock the value in data & share across disparate systems & channels? Data is the king in future…..
6. Agility & Change: How do you become more agile in both business & development? Or does it lead to more “layers” in the business.
7. Technology: How do you keep up to speed & choose, then implement technology solutions?