A recent report from Accenture shows that Health IT solutions, will save the American health system as much as 100 billion dollars, over the next 100 years. The report also shows that the number of FDA approvals is expected to triple. There are clearly high expectations on these providers of new solutions, but what do the players see as potential opportunities and threats?
Navin Govind, founder and CEO of Aventyn a company that has developed chronic disease management system, Vitalbeat™ mentions 3 paradigm shifts that have influenced the rise of health IT solutions and in particular self monitoring solutions.
- The shortage of nurses and doctors on a global scale requires a solution
- Access to smartphones (the number of smart phones actually exceeds the number of hospital beds in the world/US).
- An aging population worldwide, resulting in a rapid increase of chronic diseases
Vitalbeat is a clinical, evidence based chronic disease management system with the goal of improving patient engagement, thus improving the outcome for patients and, in the end, lowering costs for the health system. Navin Govind sees immense possibilities in the future for his field.
– Right now we’re cooperating with 6 hospitals and in total 50,000 patients mainly in the field of chronic diseases such as diabetes and complex heart conditions. But this is a very scalable solution. In the coming years I expect us to expand our clinical studies to include more diseases and conditions, to expand more hospitals and gain millions of users, which in turn can save money for the system, he says.
Not only are solutions like these perfect for driving costs of healthcare down, making patients more engaged but they are also tailored to make health and clinicians increasingly accessible to more people. Govind predicts Vitalbeat will be of great importance in third world countries in the future and serve isolated rural areas well.
– This solution prevents 30 days re-admissions, but for us 30 days is just the start. Patient engagement is crucial on the path to sustainable health for these patients.
What barriers do you see in the future of these new digital health wearables?
– Economic incentives play a big role in it. There has to be some level of support system for the clinicians that actually participate in this. This is supposed to be something that makes their jobs easier and it’s important they don’t get burdened with extra work because of this. Secondly there’s a barrier when it comes to some parts of the pharmaceutical industry. Some of them seem to be waiting on the sidelines for a better day. There’s also a of lot examples of companies that are doing an excellent job in proactively helping with patient engagement such as Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Glaxo Smith, Astra Zeneca to name a few.
The field of health IT, wearables and medical devices is expanding rapidly. How do you distinguish yourself from competitors and make sure you stand out?
– The key is to focus on gaps in addressing consumer health and wellness needs, clinical efficacy and considerations on personal data security. Aventyn has established and validated a digital health framework with Vitalbeat to address these gaps as evidenced by Remote-HF-1 clinical study outcomes validated and published by the American Heart Association and patented security technology.
What do you see as important development when it comes to marketing and promoting these types of wearables?
– Cross domain collaboration across consumer, provider, payer and big pharma is a critical aspect of the digital health ecosystem. In particular gaining consumer trust, ensuring literacy and efficacy of the technology is absolutely essential for global adoption.
Do you see any hindrances/challenges or possibilities when it comes to medical device marketing?
– Access to capital investment, lab to market commercialization models and in general digital health knowledge sharing is helping this industry grow which also opens more possibilities for innovation where start ups can focus on product and solution creation.
Read more about Vitalbeat™ and Aventyn here.
