Reaction to “Big Employers Will Use Online Startup to Save on Medicine Costs”

Written By Mishal Avichal

It is difficult to find a single definition of what digital health is and what it means for patients, pharmaceuticals, corporations, scientists, marketers, regulators, payers, providers, the government and the public at large. In fact, if you Google “digital health” you will find no less than 4,370,000,000 results for your search query. Let me attempt to solve this problem by using a word cloud to identify what key words resonate within the top search results on Google. See Figure 1 and you will figure out why these websites are among the top hits. Words such as “health, digital, and care” take the cake in terms of the amount of times they show up on these websites and what people are searching for. Considering there are over 4 billion webpages dedicated to answering their questions, it is safe to assume that most of humanity does not know what digital health really is.

Before I started my MBA, I was also unaware of the subject of digital health, but I was not blind to the technology supporting it. Researchers utilize many forms of data analysis tools such as SAS, R, and RedHat software packages to identify genes, markers, snips, blips and a dictionary of nonsensical terminology for biomedical, pharmacological and clinical research. That’s my scientific knowledge put to good use! Only after I took digital marketing and heard about companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Google revolutionizing healthcare through digital health, that the subject became a question for me. (Buck, 2018) What is digital health? My best definition of it using the word cloud would be, “Technology that delivers medical, data, information and services, improves health-care systems and provides better access to patients.” I’ll explain why I hyphenated healthcare later. First, let me explain why I am passionate about finding an answer.

I just got finished reading Chapter 2 of Dr. Emmanuel Fombu’s debut book, The Future of Healthcare: Humans and Machines Partnering for Better Outcomes. He begins by explaining how the modern healthcare system is “a complicated, confusing system that puts profits and transactions ahead of actual healthcare benefits, and there are all sorts of misconceptions around the industry.” He concludes the chapter by stating, “stakeholders need to usher in the future - a future in which value-based healthcare is the new norm.” (Fombu, 2018) Throughout the chapter, you felt real disappointment at the state of healthcare in America, why a fee-for-service model is broken by design, and how machines can usher in a better future for patients and providers. Think about the numerous patients that are suffering in this broken system and you will also realize, like I did, why drastic improvements must be made to have digital solutions that provide real value.

Health-care should be hyphenated because providing care does not necessarily mean you are providing better health. Care then must be independent of health. Will Apple’s new ECG monitor provide real value to patients? (Nosta, 2019) Only time will tell. What is for sure is we must focus these new technologies on patient-oriented solutions and clinician-oriented solutions so that real value can be brought direct to the end users where it can have the most impact. (Toloui, Eapen, & Jain, 2018) We need a future where every medical provider is provided with an Amazon Alexa bot that can recite life-saving instructions during emergencies and patients live. (The Economist, 2017) 

References

Buck, S. (2018, Dec 19). The Most Significant Moments In Digital Health In 2018. Retrieved 02 02, 2019, from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/12/19/the-most-significant-moments-in-digital-health-in-2018/#18be971d6298

Fombu, E. (2018). The Future of Healthcare: Humans and Machines Partnering for Better Outcomes. New York: Emmanuel Fombu.

Nosta, J. (2019, Jan 17). Apple Has Just Ushered In The Era Of Digital Health. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnnosta/2019/01/17/apple-has-just-ushered-in-the-era-of-digital-health/#79a4c2797da1

The Economist. (2017, Mar 2). A digital revolution in health care is speeding up. Retrieved from The Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2017/03/02/a-digital-revolution-in-health-care-is-speeding-up

Toloui, O. B., Eapen, Z. J., & Jain, S. H. (2018, Apr 26). How to Accelerate the Adoption of Digital Health Technology. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2018/04/how-to-accelerate-the-adoption-of-digital-health-technology

 

Mishal Avichal