As the technological revolution unfolds, also health is being reimagined, and it combines the digital, physical as well as the biological worlds.

The third industrial revolution is fundamentally altering the way we live, work, and relate to each another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation is unlike anything humankind has experienced before.

The pervasion of today’s data and analytics means that every company is now, in a way, a technology company.  Today, we can connect different types of data, and we can soon expect algorithms to produce unique insights into both health and disease. In the future, organizations from every sector will develop products and algorithms, to improve health outcomes.

But before discussing how organizations can take advantage of this convergence, it’s good to understand why it’s happening. According to EY’s report there exists some factors that are driving the convergence of health care:

1. Longer Life Span, Shorter Health Span

A recent study found that people are living longer, but extended lives don’t necessarily mean healthier lives: there is an increasing gap between how long we live and how long we stay healthy.  As a result, the complexity of care and its costs are increasing. 

2. The Rise of Health’s Super Consumers

In the retail and financial industries, consumers are becoming super consumers, expecting access to personalized products and services, anytime and anywhere.  These consumers are using their ability to share unprecedented amounts of information to drive business change in the retail, banking and transportation industries.  Increasingly, these super consumers will make similar demands about their health care, radically changing the health services landscape.

3. The Ubiquity of Data

As medical data are connected and combined with data from wearables and other sources, there is an opportunity to use analytics and deep learning algorithms to generate new insights about the nature of health and disease. Data portability, helped by pervasive mobile access, blockchain-enabled technologies and artificial intelligence, brings super consumers closer to their health data and empowers their choices.

Innovation and data will dictate the game. One area for new value creation will concentrate on facilitating data sharing through the formation of consumer-centric platforms that collect, combine and integrate data from a variety of sources to help better manage and prevent disease. Algorithms will be at the core of these new platforms, enabling the combination of scientific, behavioral, economic and financial insights. These algorithms will be able to provide personalized and actionable information that affects health outcomes in real time.  

New platforms will help consumers manage chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes. As the pace of change accelerates and consumer expectations increase, platforms will enable the delivery of proactive, predictive care via intelligent and agile systems. It won’t only be about managing disease. In the future, these platforms will help individuals maximize health across their lifespans.

Cornfield & Partners can help you with issues concerning the health technology. To find out more about potential business opportunities, contact info@cornfieldpartners.com or you can
call us on +44 (0) 20 7692 0873.

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