Tips to Prepare for Massive Growth in Connected Healthcare

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Today, many individuals and business leaders in the healthcare space are unaware of the massive a shift that is underway in how healthcare services are offered. From medical wearables to more advanced patient record technologies, the emerging field of connected healthcare is today valued at 55.2 Million USD, however, is projected to grow and completely change how the healthcare industry operates and healthcare application development operates.

Built on the increasing proliferation of the internet around the world, advances in medical technology, and adoption of medical wearables and remote-medical devices, the global connected healthcare market is projected to grow to a whopping market valuation of 420.8 billion dollars by 2027. So, with connected healthcare on the precipice of explosive growth over the next 5 years how can organizations prepare? In this brief write up we’ll provide some helpful tips and considerations that can be used to better prepare for this incredible shift in healthcare over the next five years, allowing organizations to be proactive rather than reactive in the face of this major change.

Connected Healthcare Essentials

Before we offer some tips and considerations around connected healthcare, we should dig into what exactly connected healthcare is and how it provides value to patients and organizations within the healthcare space. Connected healthcare is an emerging field within the healthcare space that leverages technology to enhance healthcare management and delivery of healthcare-related services remotely. Connected healthcare aims to remove boundaries in how people get access to healthcare. From home-based remote healthcare to bringing healthcare around the world, organizations are re-imagining their approach to products and services that focus on the remote, patient-centric model.

Play Offense Over Defense

One of the most important tips or considerations we’d like to share around preparing for this shift in connected healthcare is to act proactively rather than reactively. As major healthcare organizations such as UnitedHealth Group, Cigna Corp and San Francisco-based McKesson Corp Consider this major shift in healthcare as an opportunity to bring new products and services into the healthcare marketplace. By moving ahead of the curve, organizations can capture market share as more and more people around the world begin to adopt remote healthcare services. 

Also, activating proactively in this market shift not only allows you to capture market share but also keeps you protected through innovation. Imagine the alternative of neglecting to innovate, while other competitors in the space chose to move with this rising tide in healthcare. What would happen? Well, inevitably that competitor would capture market share and grow to add risk to your existing organization. Truly, our approach is to stay ahead of the competition, innovate and benefit from this massive change in healthcare, rather than allow others to capitalize on it. 

Invest in Market Research

If innovation and staying ahead of the curve makes sense, market research should follow. Investing in market research will allow your organization to assess how your unique product offering can evolve to meet some of the opportunities presented in this new connected healthcare space. It’s important to emphasize here that we see a lot of success in taking what you’re doing well today and innovating that solution to fit in tomorrow’s market. The point is, you may not have to reinvent the wheel to be aligned with the massive changes in connected health that are around the corner. 

Now, the last point we’ll make here is there can be great opportunity to take your existing product or service and look at parallel channels of opportunity in the growing connected healthcare space. What we mean here is again, not to reinvent the wheel, but to look for synergistic growth opportunities that bridge from your current solution offering into new areas of value in the coming connected healthcare market.

Invest in Innovation

This of course all points to investment in innovation. If you’re looking to capitalize on tomorrow’s connected healthcare market, it’s going to require investing early in your solution and in your people to be ready for this change. Of course this first requires making the decision to act proactively and to invest in the appropriate market research to ensure your investment makes sense. From here, the question comes down to resources.

Often, organizations run into a challenge here as they don’t have the needed internal resources to work on both critical day-to-day development projects as well as future-state innovation. Of course, left with this challenge, often organizations opt to stick with the status quo and focus on critical projects related to the needs of the immediate future. This is where working with a trusted partner can be very useful.

Work with a Trusted Partner

If you’re looking to join in this massive adoption of connected healthcare working with a trusted development partner who has years of experience in the healthcare development space may be an effective strategy. By partnering with a development partner, you not only gain the value of having a dedicated development team take an idea from concept to implementation, but you can also lean on the immense expertise and insight that the organization has built by solely focusing on development in the healthcare space.

The resounding feedback here is that by working with a trusted partner, organizations are gaining access to higher-quality deployments that meet market opportunity, without needing to engage internal resources. Counterintuitively, this process can actually save organizations money as they don’t have to skill-up or onboard more developers to complete this product deployment, creating a win-win for both organizations.

Are you looking to capture the value in the oncoming shift to connected healthcare? With nearly 10 years of healthcare development expertise, and over 250 mobile products brought to market, we’re confident we can help you with that connected healthcare solution and add value to the growing connected healthcare marketplace.