There is no other industry that is challenged in similar ways by various global mega trends as the healthcare industry.
One of the most important drivers for change is the aging population. As life expectancy around the globe will rise due to better living standards the number of 65+ aged people that need more medical services will rise tremendously. On the other hand, healthcare is suffering from a shortage of skilled human resources (especially nurses and doctors) and health systems worldwide become increasingly costly to operate.
On top of that, chronic diseases continue to rise on a global scale because of the aging population and changes in societal behaviors. The WHO expects chronic disease prevalence to rise by 57% by 2020. Thus, the current system will be even more strained and it is very likely to see an increase in public-private partnerships in the industry.
Additionally, customers are getting more demanding and empowered. They use devices that let them examine their own health (such as fitness trackers) and are more aware of various treatment offerings. This changes the traditionally supply driven industry to a demand driven, patient centric industry. Traditional players in the healthcare industry have to listen more to their customers while this development gives room to startups and industry external players.
Finally, partly as a consequence of the above mentioned trends there is an increase in home therapy solutions supported by mobile devices referred to as mHealth (mobile health) and more data driven diagnostics. The idea is that patients can consult with doctors from home for instance via telemedicine and are able to treat their diseases partly themselves. As a result, the use of yet limited hospitals and treatment facilities would be optimized.
Thus, to my mind there is a lot of room for new entrants that offer a more customer focused experience and challenge traditional players especially in the digital field. Many external players are already entering this market, sometimes collaborating with traditional players. However, no other industry offers as many opportunities for new businesses, digital solutions and digital business models as the transforming healthcare industry.
Sources:
(1) https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/healthcare/emerging-trends-pwc-healthcare.html
Very interesting read! I completely agree that no other industry offers as much potential for disrupting technologies as the healthcare industry. If you compare the experience that a customer had years ago and has now, not much has radically changed. Of course there are new drugs and some machines that make the hospitals more efficient. Anyhow, the patient still needs to visit a medical facility and wait for quite some in order to receive a treatment. But this could soon change fundamentally. We have already heard the example of Philips’ digital twin – the identical digital copy of yourself. With the digital twin, doctors can assess the effect and outcome of treatments on individual patients. Moreover, AI and robots that are run by AI could soon take over the basic tasks of doctors and nurses, thereby making more capacity available for other more important tasks. In the far future, they could even diagnose and operate better than doctors – it will be an interesting change. Moreover, biosensors that measure all kinds of data in your body, will be able to constantly check your body on its well-being. The responsible medical facility could thus call the patient to the hospital if something is odd, instead of the patient regularly visiting medical facilities for check-ups. Maybe an interesting market for us to tap into after studying and doing something good for mankind.