The future awakens

In 2022, individuals are better informed about their genetic profile, the diseases they have or might develop, and the effectiveness of health interventions. The ‘quantified self’ has embraced prevention and is devoting time, energy and money to staying healthy, including using regulated and validated health apps and wearables. Patients are true consumers; they understand they have options and use information and data about themselves and providers to get the best treatment at a time, place and cost convenient to them.

By 2022, demographic and economic changes, increased patient expectations and advanced digital and cognitive technologies have disrupted health care worldwide. Clinical roles have been optimised, and staff use cognitive technologies to deliver more seamless, integrated care designed around patient needs and patients control access to their health data. The digital hospital leverages technologies to optimise care delivery, patient experience, staff deployment and the management of back-office services, reducing costs and improving outcomes.

In 2022, pharma uses a lean operating model to generate funding for R&D and deliver more cost-effective medical innovations. The ’industrialisation’ of pharma has led to predictable productivity increases across its functions and geographies. Companies have moved through three phases of evolution and are now deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase the pace and productivity further still. The traditional focus of industrialising finance and operations has been extended to compliance, commercial, development and discovery.

In 2022, health care data is a national infrastructure priority and critical business asset, attracting significant funding. Real-world data (RWD) is providing the information needed to enable researchers to develop more precision medicine and clinicians to predict patients’ response to treatments, improving outcomes and health care productivity. Pharmaceutical companies collaborate fully with patients and health care systems, using data to develop better treatments, launch them faster and price them according to improvement in health outcomes.

By 2022, medicine is fully Predictive, Preventative (based on predictive risk), Personalised and Participatory (P4 Medicine). Insights from human genetics, precision and personalised medicine has transformed health care, bringing value through innovative biotechnology. Artificial intelligence has revolutionised health care through mining medical records, designing treatment plans, speeding up medical imaging and drug creation.

In 2022, the health care landscape has changed significantly, with non-traditional health care players using their brand, engineering expertise and knowledge of customers to disrupt the health care landscape. These new entrants have partnered with traditional providers to deliver a more customer focussed, experience of health care. New partnerships and collaborations at both global and local level have blurred the boundaries between providers and new entrants, including supermarket chains, technology giants and life sciences companies.