4 digital health trends for 2022

What would you like to know

  • Businesses can focus less on selling to employers and more on selling to consumers.
  • Efforts to monitor vital signs from a distance could increase.
  • Digital health connector services are starting to gain attention.

We are at a strange crossroads. On the one hand, it feels like the world has stopped calculating the passing time from March 2020. On the other hand, in the healthcare industry, it feels like we have accelerated decades, with the normally slow pace of innovation breaking all kinds of records and expectations.

The sink-or-swim mentality brought on by the COVID pandemic has accelerated innovation in all aspects of healthcare. Now, as the dust settles, many stakeholders are realizing that the reasons for their resistance to disruptive technologies were unfounded, and they are looking for ways to maximize the opportunities that COVID has opened up.

Funding for digital health is exploding and the sky is the limit for a healthcare world that is suddenly and firmly engaged in technological innovation.

Here’s what we can expect to see more of in the coming year.

1. The rise of direct-to-consumer health care

Once relegated to niche silos, direct-to-consumer technology, or the janitorial approach, has gained ground this year as the employer market becomes increasingly saturated. The high user quality of technology offerings such as GoodRx, Hims & Hers, Ro and Curology have contributed to their success.

These companies can’t afford to skimp on user experience – because users pay out-of-pocket, there’s a bigger barrier to adoption. On the other hand, the lack of a guaranteed customer base as well as reduced access to consumer data with the new ability to turn off in-app data sharing on the latest Apple iOS means that these companies are falling apart. mobilize with regard to the user. acquisition.

2. Mental health is a priority

The stigma surrounding mental health issues has slowly faded over the past decade, but like so many things, COVID has accelerated exposure to the problem and made the search for solutions urgent, and with prominent celebrities like With Olympic gymnast Simone Biles sharing their stories about mental health health issues, the market has never been ripe for solutions.

But as the market has been inundated with text therapy apps and other meditation and mindfulness tools meant to promote better mental health, questions of effectiveness and results are hampering their progress.

We can expect to see a continued demand for solutions, but innovators will need to address issues of scale and advocate for the adequacy of digital media to address issues such as trauma.

3. Beyond telemedicine

In the frenzied first months of the pandemic, healthcare systems rushed to offer “telemedicine” to their patients – in many cases this simply meant that a patient had the option of seeing a provider via video.

Although in-person visits have returned, many patients have become accustomed to the convenience of virtual care and expect it to be optional, but are concerned about the quality of care and the limits of the type of care that can be provided. by video (hint: that’s not much) have led to the use of remote patient monitoring (or RPM) as an additional tool.

Maria J. Book