Technology: Bringing patient-centricity to life

Healthcare organizations – be it biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies, hospitals and health systems, healthcare payers, digital health and service providers, or regulators – exist to deliver life-changing treatments and holistic health solutions to patients.

Over the last decade, most players in the health sector have recognized that they cannot deliver on this purpose without a clear prioritisation of patients and their needs. This patient-centricity imperative has been further accelerated by technology and shifts in patient behaviour and expectations. Practical progress on patient-centricity is beginning to come in. However, given the diversity of players involved in the healthcare value chain with varied objectives, priorities, and areas of expertise, there is room for development through interlinkages.

[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]A comprehensive and connected approach across the healthcare ecosystem is necessary to deliver on this imperative. This necessitates looking at healthcare operations with a truly patient-centric lens, overhauling processes and building a culture of patient centricity. Partnerships amongst players in healthcare is also critical, given no one player can deliver on the patient needs along their healthcare journey. Technology and digital health can serve as an enabler and accelerant for patient-centric transformation in healthcare.[/box]

The patient-centricity imperative

Patient centricity has shifted from being differentiating to essential in recent years. Aided by technology and generational shifts in behaviour, patients have become more empowered, more discerning, and more demanding with their expectations from healthcare. 

In this digital age, patients are increasingly able and willing to take greater control of their own health, armed with readily available healthcare information and an expansive menu of healthcare products, services and solutions. Fitness wearables, apps and sensors capture vast amounts of patients’ health data, not limited to impact of therapies, but extending to a broad array of health vitals. Technology has facilitated new, autonomous information channels, with numerous online patient communities sharing experiences with each other.

In essence, there is increasing convergence between the expectations of a patient and that of a consumer looking for personalized services from industries such as retail, fast-moving consumer goods, and financial services. This sets a clear expectation for healthcare companies, including pharma, to ensure that patient engagement and dialogue are at the core of our approach.

Scaling up patient centricity

While healthcare organizations have talked about patient centricity for long, progress had been piecemeal at best. One of the biggest hurdles to scaling up patient centricity has perhaps been our historical approach, which puts the physician at the centre – with inclusion of health systems and payers more recently – to ensure health economic outcomes in addition to clinical outcomes.

Bringing patients to the centre and facilitating shared patient-physician decision-making requires an overhaul of our processes – be it research, development, and medicine or healthcare affairs and patient engagement, or regional and country business operations – on the one hand, and a transformation of capabilities, mindsets, and culture on the other.

Securing the right capabilities and mindsets could be expedited through bringing in diverse talent including from other industries that have already gone through a consumer-centric transformation. Having a critical mass of talent with diverse experience would help challenge the status quo and ultimately evolve from a product-centric to a patient-centric approach.

Partnerships to facilitate holistic patient centricity

Looking at holistic healthcare from a patient-centric lens, it would not suffice for all players to overhaul their own approaches and consequently their offerings. Ultimately, patients want and need holistic care for their health and wellness.

[box type=”info” align=”” class=”” width=””]This means not just solving in silos for a patient’s challenge with a certain disease condition but solving for their total health and wellness. This requires that a multitude of stakeholders – traditional healthcare companies and newer digital health and technology players alike, and across both public and private sectors – come together to look at a holistic healthcare agenda, to connect the dots across various components and areas of expertise, and help build sustainable healthcare models.[/box]

Technology as an accelerant to patient-centric transformation

Technology has undoubtedly changed the healthcare landscape and expanded the possibilities – from democratizing vast amounts of data and information to remote monitoring and tracking of patients’ vitals to facilitating teleconsultation and remote patient care to fostering online virtual patient communities to enhancing patient and customer insights to accelerating traditional approaches and timelines.

We have seen unprecedented progress on this front in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic over the last 15 months. This has been driven by an acute sense of urgency, fostered through collaborations across the healthcare ecosystem, and aided immensely by technology. Within months of the onset of the pandemic, we had a slew of diagnostic tests, therapies and vaccines, which we continue to adapt and augment to keep up with the mutations of the virus. This is exponential acceleration, given such product availability would have taken years if not decades under normal circumstances. That is the power of technology, collaborations, and the singular focus on the benefit to the patient, and in this case, also the society.

If we are to meet the promise of patient centricity, much remains to be done across multiple dimensions including rethinking traditional approaches, forging synergetic health system collaborations, and harnessing the power of technology.

The remarkable progress triggered by the pandemic provides a glimpse of what is possible, urging us to retain the momentum in the post-pandemic era.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ET Edge Insights, its management, or its members

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