5 big questions facing healthcare innovation

• A deep understanding of context-specific incentives is key to introducing innovation in any healthcare system
• New technologies are providing an opportunity for healthcare to think differently about how patients manage, control, and understand their own health data
• Connection and partnership with patient communities is essential to the transformation of healthcare

Five years ago we had the idea to transform healthcare by reaching the hearts and minds of decision-makers, executives, and leaders in the industry. Now, we celebrate five years of Healthcare Transformers! To commemorate the occasion, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to give back to our dedicated audience. Our gift? To answer your questions of course.

Over the past several weeks, we have collected the burning, important questions facing the future of healthcare innovations and new technology today from our subscribers. We picked five of the most frequently asked questions and set up an expert panel to reflect on the big issues. This is what they had to say.

HT: What do you think are the biggest challenges to implementing today’s new technologies into healthcare systems?

Moritz Hartmann: Every change, every new technology, and all the new healthcare innovations we bring to the service of patients need to be safe and secure for their use. I think on the one hand it’s really a blessing that we have a highly regulated industry that puts the safety of patients in the center. But, of course, that is also a delaying factor in the application of new things. Regulators typically take their time to adopt new processes.

So I think there’s a positive aspect to it, but unfortunately, it means that things take longer than we would sometimes wish. The other aspect, of course, is that when you transform, you change a system in a more dramatic way. The challenge that derives from that is that incentives have to be aligned.

I remember six-seven years ago, Roche launched a program in Germany for the prevention of type two diabetes. The aim was to help people who had just been diagnosed with type two diabetes return to health. What can go wrong with that, right? But in Germany, there is more money allocated from the risk fund for public health insurance if a patient is sick. So actually they lose business when that happens.

You need to really find out how the incentives work in a system and how you can align your product to that. These are the kinds of things that are quite hard to understand and it really pushes us to go deeper to understand the incentives in a healthcare system. Where it’s really complicated is when you need several bodies to align, to make a change. In a country like Germany with so many health insurances and a multitude of providers, aligning incentives becomes more difficult. So those are two, I think, really main challenges, that I would say.

HT: From a communications perspective, what do you feel is the biggest challenge for communicating healthcare innovation and breaking through the noise in general?

Karen Heidemann: So, first of all, I think it’s interesting that you do recognize that even a topic like innovation also faces the issue of noise. You kind of think innovations in healthcare and technology would be an easy story to tell because you’ve got something new and obviously that’s exciting. However, the reality is innovation is an overused word. So how do you cut through that? There are so many people out there, and how do you make your innovation relevant to them? You need to listen to have insights.

The second issue I think that we face is a little bit more particular to diagnostics. So as a science-grounded and -rooted industry, we tend to want to come out and say everything that’s in the kitchen sink around innovation. It’s pretty technical. So in order to really cut through that noise, we need to be super focused and make sure that it is clear what this innovation means for patients’ outcomes, access, and reimbursement. We are surprisingly immature at doing this because we often fall back on the technical innovation piece.

The last thing I’d say is that the biggest challenge is consistency. We have so many innovations in healthcare and technology coming, and you communicate about one piece and then you’re onto the next. So, how do we continue to talk about exciting individual innovative ideas or solutions, but as part of a bigger, consistent story?

HT: People are often resistant to change. In terms of human behavior and design, how do you see the upcoming challenges to transforming healthcare?

Cristina Barreca: In my experience interfacing with healthcare professionals, healthcare is incredibly understaffed and professionals are under tremendous pressure. This combined with other factors is leading to large numbers of health care professionals experiencing burnout. I see our job as making the lives of healthcare professionals easier, and so a seamless experience is essential. How quickly can we have a seamless experience? How do we, maybe take a little bit of a step back, and approach the way we do it more as a journey, really understanding the moments that matter? It’s not about product A, B, or C, but the journey of the customer or user.

Solutions can become very complex, I’m an advocate of complexity behind the scenes rather than in front of the user. What we’re seeing now is that users are expecting the seamless experience that they have on the iPhone, but we don’t quite have that experience yet in the laboratory. Introducing that seamlessness and integrated experience is something we really need to strive for.

HT: How can we improve how we share and use patient data?

Cristina Barreca: I feel like drawing from a personal story. That is, I wonder whether we need to strive to give a little bit more independence and access to patients.

I was not feeling so good in the past couple of weeks. I went to the doctor and I got a blood test. The same day I was referred to the hospital and they, at the hospital, asked me to repeat the exact same blood test that I did two hours earlier. So to be honest, I was already thinking, “well, the data should have come here.” So I would’ve loved to have that CRP reading on my iPhone to show it to the nurse. A week after that, I went to a specialist and they asked a third time for the same blood test.

We have an opportunity to think differently about how we enable patients to have their own health data. Especially with the data that patients can produce on a daily basis, there should be a shift more into the hands of the patients. Then there may be a little bit less resistance to the use of data. Those are my thoughts.

HT: How do we educate patients on the different aspects of digital health? Have you seen anything that works?

Moritz Hartmann: From my perspective, we need to build on the connection that we have with patients and customers. We’ve also learned that there needs to be a really clear, economic, or health benefit that you can demonstrate and that you can reproduce on the customer side. So, having a fancy concept isn’t going to create trust. It really is something that needs to have a very tangible impact.

Karen Heidemann: So, a couple of things I think we’ve learned. I think one thing that we’ve learned is that we don’t want to add to the noise. As we move out there, we can all feel like we know something about, for example, a disease area and that we should go out and educate everybody. Yet one of the key things is really to listen to the customer’s insights and the audience’s insights. Understanding what patients need makes a huge difference in building content. 

A second thing is to learn to partner in different ways. When we think about patient education, we can also think about patient groups that are really driven. Is it our role to deliver content ourselves? Or is it our role to partner with organizations, who have either loved ones or who are dealing with a disease on their own, to be able to drive impact in a way that transforms healthcare delivery?

In the end, one of the things that I think a lot about is how to transform education and awareness into action. Because we’re not doing it for education alone. We’re doing it because we want to change the way healthcare is delivered. So, with thought leadership, we build trust across different audiences to actually take a seat at the table. It’s therefore way beyond education and awareness. Those are part of a continuum that leads to action and partnership that drives impact.

HT: Where would you recommend focusing your resources to stay ahead of the curve in healthcare transformation?

Cristina Barreca: What comes to mind is data, and how to utilize data for action. So I would say, insights to action.

Karen Heidemann: I’d probably say community connection in order to change healthcare. Nobody can do it on their own. It’s just impossible. We need to apply discipline and rigor to drive impactful innovations in healthcare and technology. At the same time, you need to remain connected with those who are also doing this or have done it before. I also think one of the biggest values that we have is to share the very pragmatic examples of thought leaders in healthcare to make innovation scalable. Because in the end that’s what we’re trying to do, right? We’re taking innovation and looking to scale it across the globe.

Moritz Hartmann: To me, it’s about continuing to stay learning because I think that’s really where the insights come in and that’s where the community comes in too–to keep learning what’s driving the audience and what’s driving the community. Things are changing at an increasing speed. You have these trends that you need to respond to, and you can’t just stay away from them. So to keep learning is a really important element.