This whitepaper was written by DHR in conjunction with Ogilvy Consulting.
Technology is disrupting healthcare just as it has in so many other areas of life. New players andnew approaches are proliferating but while the changes may seem dazzlingly diverse there is a single, underlying driving force. Digital transformation in healthcare has many elements: health data privacy, ethical AI, IOT solutions, many brought to the market by new disruptors. These are all valuable elements of transformation, but ultimately they are steering to a single goal; empathetic care of the empowered patient. In this increasingly patient-centric future it is the empathetic care, not the technology itself, that will prove to be the outstanding feature. The market leaders in this landscape will be those who embrace and explore its possibilities.
Living in a hyper-connected world, patients have never been so well informed or had so much decision making power, at least when it comes to chronic diseases. Less dependent on their doctors for advice, increasingly able and willing to take greater control of their own health, they feel empowered by the vast amount of health information available online, on apps, and by the array of health and fitness wearables.
Such consumer digital empowerment is pushing rapid change in healthcare provision. Industry leaders across providers, insurers, medical technology and the pharmaceuticals industry, need to re-imagine the traditional spectrum of sales, marketing and commercialization processes by developing empathetic engagement tools to accompany and support the patient on their personal journey. This digital transformation imperative becomes a huge challenge because of the complexity of the industry ecosystem and the varying models in APAC.
With widely varying reimbursement and access challenges across APAC countries, coupled with diverse social and cultural norms, it is important for pharma, insurance, and healthcare providers to work together with partners who have local, real-world expertise when it comes to understanding patient behaviors. Together those partnerships can deliver solutions that will impact patient lives positively. Across APAC the opportunities are considerable with a huge growing market for medication and care, but there are also significant cultural and financial hurdles to the uptake of treatments.