Medtech companies can drive the future of health, says a new report, but they should consider teaming up with digital health and consumer technology companies.
According to Deloitte Insights’ Winning at the Future of Medtech Novel partnerships with consumer tech to transform care delivery, medtech companies have the potential to drive the future of health but many may need to form partnerships with consumer technology and digital health companies to meet the needs of the market.
Written by By Pedro Arboleda, Sonal Shah, Debanshu Mukherjee, Glenn H. Snyder, Winning at the Future of Medtech says that the “future of health is expected to be driven by an omnipresent, proactive, and integrated system of health and well-being where transformational technologies (eg. artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cloud storage, augmented and virtual reality, and so on) are poised to play a huge role”.
There is increased expectation for medical devices to incorporate technology that allows us to diagnose and treat illness in the comfort of our own homes. We are also seeing a focus on preventing illness and future devices may use sensor technology to alert us to illness before symptoms start to take shape. According to the authors, “as medtech companies’ business models are likely to change dramatically, they should consider collaborating with technology companies to address the increasingly changing needs and expectations of consumers”.
To determine what tomorrow’s medtech company might look like, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions carried out a crowdsourcing simulation using experts from digital health startups, medtech companies, technology companies, health plans, health systems, and research institutions.
It came to light that one way for medtech companies to stand out was to create devices that could gather data and “use it to improve well-being, anticipate health issues, and help patients change the day-to-day behaviors that affect their health”. The authors state that it is the data that is more valuable than the device and where many businesses have concentrated on the actual hardware, they may find they have to think about software, data collection and data analysis as well.
This change in focus, says the report, “from hardware to software would mean that the medtech company of the future will face intense competition from consumer technology companies. They should also deliver products that embrace new care models. They should be prepared to innovate across the complete patient journey. And while there are some areas in which medtech companies are likely to drive innovation, such as robotics, there are others where they should partner, such as virtual reality”.
The report also outlined that medtech companies are in a good position to help hospitals in “reducing medical costs, optimizing surgeon performance, and improving patient outcomes in the near term through services such as remote patient monitoring, data storage and integration, and improving clinical efficiency.
“With such a strong focus on software, medtech companies should consider partnering with consumer-focused technology and specialized digital health companies to stay relevant in the future of health.”
