Innovation that matters to you
Preventing illness, prolonging health
How personalized solutions can reengineer the model of care
So where does that leave the business models of yesterday? New Times, New Models These are wildly different times. We are now watching the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a topic we heard much about at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, and it is changing business models in a dynamic way.
A survey by analysts Gartner found that 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36% four years ago. The ‘big shift’ in the consumer industries will see businesses move from traditional centralized organizations – which drove scale and efficiency to reach a mass audience – to technology-enabled flexible, modular corporate entities. This large-scale movement away from mass production to personalized solutions demands a similarly dramatic change in traditional operating models. But I think we are starting to understand this tectonic shift and the strategic opportunity that has emerged for consumer industries to innovate and collaborate by testing new and transformative business models. In this blog I wrote for WEF as Chairman of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Consumer Industries, I cover some of the solutions. Patient Power In the healthcare sector, a traditional industry, the model of care designates treating patients when they get sick rather than taking a more preventative approach. Until recently, the power in healthcare has been held by the medical professional, and the current approach to diagnosis and treatment is based on the training and experience of clinicians. What has changed is that patients are now information-hungry consumers: a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) last year called ‘Power to the Patient’ found 64% of healthcare executives believed mobile health could dramatically improve outcomes by giving people greater access to medical information.
The role of big data, wearable technologies and analytics is driving improvements across the healthcare landscape as patients become more involved in their own health needs. Patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, COPD and asthma can detect and manage their condition, along with specialist help, in the way they choose. That means reverting to the comfort of their own homes, with their families around them, rather than being in a hospital. This is how the Fourth Industrial Revolution is creating more empowerment for patients. Collaborative Healthcare Around half of those health executives polled by the EIU predicted that mobile health will enable patients to participate more proactively in their own care in five years’ time. But I would argue that we are reaching that 5-year milestone even faster as traditional healthcare models adjust to new methods of patient care delivery.
Our vision is of a convergence in the healthcare and consumer worlds, integrated and designed around people: a holistic system supports people’s health by monitoring and motivating them to take action when needed.
Innovations such as our HealthSuite Digital Platform, a platform that collects, compiles and analyzes clinical and other data from multiple devices and sources, bring together patients, families, medical professionals and care providers in real time, enabling more effective, faster decision making. But let me stress this: our goal isn’t defined by one platform alone but by the greater incentive of making peoples’ lives healthier. To achieve that means we must reengineer a model of care that has only treated sickness and managed diseases once they’ve taken hold to focusing more on preventing illness by prolonging health.
