Article
Winning in the future of medtech
Novel partnerships with consumer tech to transform care delivery
As many of the technologies we once dreamed of are being explored, we do expect medical devices of the future to look significantly different than they do today. In this report, we explored what would the future medtech company look like in the changing landscape.
Key findings
While many medtech companies are well-positioned to drive the future of health, they likely won’t be able to do it alone. Our view is that they will likely be able to do this best by partnering with consumer focused technology and specialized digital health companies:
- The future medtech company: Twenty years from now, medtech companies’ business models are likely to change dramatically, and multiple organizations might have to collaborate with each other to address the increasingly complex health needs of consumers. We foresee an omnipresent, proactive, and integrated system of health and well-being completely replacing our current illness-focused system by 2040.
- Innovation is the way forward for both medtech and consumer technology companies, as they will face a rapidly shifting health care landscape due to digital technology, competition from consumer technology companies, and new care models.
- Service and analytics focus: Beyond product offerings, medtech companies are also positioned to help hospitals and health systems reduce medical costs, optimize surgeon performance and improve patient outcomes through services in the near term. The top three services that they should offer to maximize their impact were:
- Remote patient monitoring
- Data storage and integration
- Improving clinical efficiency
- Shifting payment and business models: A meaningful give-and-take of expertise between medtech and consumer tech companies could well be an answer to the change. Consumer technology companies’ data science and AI expertise, combined with medtech’s ability to develop meaningful medical applications and algorithms, can create powerful offerings that will improve patient health and the health care ecosystem.
- Consumer-centricity can be essential to success: The customers of the medtech industry are evolving from being mostly clinicians and health systems to also include the consumer/patient. Medtech companies could benefit working with consumer technology companies by pairing data with their own to improve their understanding of the patient journey. But they both should build consumer trust with data and privacy concerns.
- Leveraging technology and partnerships to improve operation: Advances in technology can help medtech companies improve operational efficiency across the value chain in the near term. Costs could go down and productivity could go up, leading to improved return on investment (ROI) and profitability, freeing up capital to invest in platforms for future growth.
- New capabilities are required to win in the future of health. Medtech companies should consider what role they would like to play in the future ecosystem, and identify their relative strengths and invest or partner to fill the gaps.
- Invest in data and technology infrastructure
- Build analytics and AI capabilities
- Develop digital well-being and remote monitoring solutions
- Strategically partner or integrate with providers
- Get closer to the consumer
It's imperative for medtech companies to tap into this partnership model. It might very well be too late for some, but complacency and the old speed is unlikely to be sufficient in this race to leverage omnipresent data in the future of health.
