Amy Oliver, Marketing Manager
This time of year, I always find myself reflecting – maybe it’s the variety of content I consume (Time’s top images of the year is always my favorite) that gets me thinking about the year, or just a natural process of turning the calendar into another year…. So much happened on the digital health front this year, and I thought it’d be interesting to get the perspective from my colleagues who eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. For Part 1 of this series, I asked them to share what they thought the most exciting thing was to happen in the digital health space this year. And, stay tuned for Part 2 next week where they, along with our Chief Strategy Officer, share 2023 predictions.
David Slifka, Senior Director, Commercial Enablement & Strategy
2022 was an exciting year for all of the health tech purchases that happened. The big ones like Oracle buying Cerner, Amazon buying One Medical, Amwell purchasing SilverCloud and Conversa, etc really seem to be signaling that big tech is figuring out how to get into the healthcare space. While some of these may work better than others, I think it shows that big-tech is in the consumer health space and will require a digital health focus by health systems to attract and retain patients in an ever competitive space.
David Claxton, Senior Director of Business Development and Strategic Accounts
In my opinion, one of the most exciting things happening in the digital health space is witnessing health systems reimagine their digital presence and focus on the patient experience. We’re seeing health systems realize that they own and produce a lot of content that historically hasn’t had a good way to get to their patients. But now, we are starting to see them focus their attention on making it easier for patients to consume these assets digitally — really meeting patients where they are. It’s great to see that the patient experience can be vastly improved just by putting it directly into their patient portal, making it easy for patients to consume and re-engage when needed. Materials that were printed ad-hoc or videos and information that lived on a separate website can now be accessed all in the portal, streamlining — and improving — the patient experience.
Mike Deegan, Director of Business Development
The challenges facing the healthcare industry in 2022 have been well documented and discussed at length. Staffing shortages, significant financial losses, and a growing demand for consumer driven healthcare and technology access. While all of these are pushing on an already overburdened delivery model, it creates an opportunity for digital health to drive significant value for systems, payers, and, most importantly, patients. Whether it’s increasing access to care teams via telehealth, expanding programs delivering preventative education, or more effectively managing chronic care patients from the comfort of their own homes, digital health tools and services are only going to grow in demand.
Joe Sedlak, Senior Vice President of Sales
2022 was such an important year for the evolution of digital health. Having demonstrated incredible tenacity in navigating their way through the Covid pandemic, health systems have emerged facing unprecedented external market pressures around the cost of care. While much of the pandemic was focused on making a rapid shift towards virtual models of care, the past year has allowed providers to re-evaluate their pandemic-driven technology investments, and focus more intently on building a longer term consumer centric digital health strategy with keen attention to the seamless exchange of data, deep clinical workflow integration, and improved patient access as foundational requirements. Additionally, the past year has shown that large technology providers are here to play and win. Amazon, CVS, Walmart, Salesforce, and other tech giants are making real progress in disrupting the traditional payer/provider landscape by offering technology enabled, low-cost and convenient models of care.