Health Care Landscape: A Pandemic Pivot Leading to Design for Future Generations 

In the face of a challenging past few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world went off track on health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Almost through one-third of SDG’s pathway, COVID-19 hampered global efforts to achieve the 2030 agenda of ensuring a healthy life and promoting well-being for all. Unprecedented disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by social, economic, geopolitical and environmental challenges, placed and continue to place complex and interconnected threats on population health and increased strains on health care systems.  

The pandemic tested the resilience of health care systems and exposed disparities in global coverage of essential health interventions and health care services, including cancer screening, prenatal care, family planning, and reversed part of the progress achieved in the treatment of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and malaria globally by placing a heavy burden on health systems across the world.  An important aim under the health care SDGs is to provide access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines to all. However, in many countries, routine childhood vaccination rates fell during the pandemic because of overburdened medical systems, lockdowns and fear of COVID-19. These obstacles led to disruptions of important childhood immunization programs such as measles, hepatitis B, and DPT (diphtheria, pertussis/whooping cough, and tetanus). Globally, 23 million children missed basic vaccines through routine immunization services in 2020 and most who missed their DPT vaccines lived in remote communities with high levels of poverty in low-and middle-income countries. 

Millions of people died of COVID-19. However, deaths from other causes also increased during the pandemic because of barriers to health care access. Forgone or delayed care due to health system disruptions as well as reduced household incomes contributed to this burden. Financial constraints and barriers were one of the major reasons for lack of access to health services during the pandemic, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Disruption to health care services was also the greatest in low- and middle-income countries and it was these countries that witnessed the most bottlenecks in accessing diagnostics, therapeutics, personal protective equipment and vaccines. 

COVID-19: The Trigger for Digital Transformation

COVID-19 is incontestably the greatest challenge health care systems across the globe have faced in recent history. However, it has proven to be a turning point for digital transformation in health care, becoming a catalyst for change: a defining junction for the world to reimagine health care the way it should be. 

The pandemic triggered growth and innovation in health and health care,health care buoyed by the broader adoption of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that helped to offset some of the challenges and issues by streamlining administration, diagnosis, treatment and patient care. Use of remote technologies and telemedicine experienced unprecedented growth during the pandemic which helped to define not just the delivery of care, but also the nature of it. The pandemic drove an increased focus on telemedicine and online portals for acute and wellness care and led to an increasing recognition that treating patients in lower-acuity settings is less costly, which accelerated an increasing focus on home diagnostics, home administered drug delivery systems and patient monitoring devices.   

COVID-19 also triggered advances in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and improved connectivity, providing several potential applications in health care, such as the delivery of telemedicine in a more immersive and interactive environment that can track the patient’s response to treatment or in the formation of digital twins that can create a simulation using real-world data and virtually model how the patient responds to a given procedure. 

During the pandemic, investors poured $31.5 billion in equity funding into health care AI and emerging technologies, and the health care industry has consistently been a leader in AI mergers and acquisitions. Digital investments nearly doubled to $57 billion in 2021, particularly in telehealth and mental health, and the number of digital health start-ups increased, with expansion of many tech companies into health care. COVID-19 also saw continued digital innovation with data aggregation technologies in clinical and commercial settings maturing with a growing collection of companies providing solutions and enabling pharma to gain better insights. Health care investments reached record highs in total funding in 2021 with a surge in venture investment and fundraising into pharmaceuticals and a record $23.1 billion was raised by 128 therapeutic-focused biopharma companies that went public globally in the areas of innovative therapies namely gene, cell/immunotherapy and tissue engineering. Precision medicine also witnessed growth with biomarker strategies for screening, diagnosis and treatment selection and response monitoring becoming increasingly critical components of drug launches during the pandemic. 

Many health care systems globally are still struggling with the lingering effects of COVID-19. The need to improve access to care—while still confronting various challenges is still driving many stakeholders to adopt new strategies and dynamic business models.  

COVID-19 has triggered a sprint towards smarter health care with the use of emerging technologies to fill the gaps and take pressures off the health care system by providing care through the harnessing of data to improve health delivery. The rapid adoption of data and advanced analytics and software is spurring innovation in areas such as population health management, revenue cycle management and patient engagement. Furthermore, virtual health—take-up of which increased substantially during the pandemic but since stabilized—is accelerating care-model innovation and technology solutions and leading to a shift in health care delivery.  

The pandemic had a profound impact on the pharmaceutical sector, prompting new ways of thinking about the industry and triggering an increased focus on personalization and a shift from a one-size-fits-all model of care to tailored interventions. The pandemic also provided the platform for transformation of the biopharma industry to re-evaluate its operating and business models and adapt them to the changing needs and expectations of their key customers especially through the development of personalized products, services, and end-to-end solutions. 

Confronted with the advance of the pandemic, the medical devices industry was instrumental in defusing the crisis. From mass-producing ventilators, sterilizing equipment, face masks and other protective personal equipment, to inventing and distributing new range of diagnostic tests, the sector saved lives across the world, allowed medical facilities to keep running and enabled patients to be treated in hospitals or at home to wage a global health battle on a scale not previously seen. The sector is also witnessing a rise in smart devices and sophisticated AI-based algorithms, making it possible to remotely diagnose, monitor and treat diseases, leading to a major evolution in the traditional model of health across the world from hospitals and clinics to patients’ homes.  

People are now getting comfortable using wearables and sensors to track their health and fitness, empowering them to make their own health choices and fueling a shift from disease treatment to better management, and ultimately disease prevention. This rise of connected devices is drawing the medical devices industry into the internet of things (IoT), opening new opportunities for data-driven improvements in clinical outcomes, and is leading to increasing demands for a more customer-centered health care experience.  

New Models in Health Care: Understanding the Future

The pandemic prompted the health care industry to rethink its business models and adopt new perspectives to better position itself to thrive going forward. The industry realized that paying attention to the customer makes sound clinical and commercial sense and that they need to invest in improving the end-to-end consumer experience for a holistic health care journey.  

To better equip for a future beyond the pandemic, health care players are reviewing the scope and scale of their business lines and expanding their scope of services to adjacent segments as well as building businesses to monetize capabilities. Hospital systems have been expanding across the care continuum, accumulating assets in ambulatory sites, virtual and digital health, primary care and post-acute care. Similarly, health companies are expanding into more sophisticated care delivery like hospital-at-home and pharmacy players are scaling their primary-care businesses with acquisitions of physician and clinic assets to deliver care via different mediums and platforms. 

Health care players are now pivoting their business models to create an ecosystem that can integrate all stakeholders to enable an end-to-end customer journey and deliver holistic care and well-being.  

COVID-19 took the entire world by surprise, but one silver lining of the pandemic is that health care systems were nudged to deliver a more integrated, seamless and smarter experience. They are now challenging preconceived notions of how health care needs to be delivered and have eliminated existing barriers to digital health adoption. Health systems and physicians learned how to successfully deliver remote care, and also intend to do it in the future as an integral part of their service mix. Consumers have seen how health technologies can simplify, enhance and personalize their care experiences, and are continuing to demand such care in the future. 

COVID-19 has underscored the need for the health care industry to not only build upon its existing strengths but also to embrace bold innovation to sustain future growth. Central to this transformation is the integration of technology-enabled health care, wherein patient centricity, supported by a focus on the human quotient, will be the cornerstone for the health care system of tomorrow. By keeping human needs at the forefront of technological advancement, the sector can evolve to meet the demands of future generations and create a truly patient-centered ecosystem.