Over the past few years, many industries have felt pressure to improve their competitive advantage and increase customer satisfaction. These notions are especially true in the Healthcare and Life Sciences sector, where technology adoption has accelerated digital transformation to tackle the industry’s biggest challenges.
Trends and buzzwords don’t quite capture the true meaning of why technology use in this industry is critical for companies and patients alike. The bottom line is that technology increases positive patient outcomes. Better patient outcomes reduce the risk of lawsuits and increase loyalty, decreasing the cost of and accelerating Research & Development (R&D), resulting in better treatments for a wider variety of patients while allowing companies to move products to market faster. And increasing the amount organizations can invest in R&D and cybersecurity ensures all of these facets are conducted in a safe, secure environment.
In this blog, we’ll explore three of the many ways technology adoption can increase revenue for Healthcare and Life Sciences organizations. Read on to learn more!
Reduce Adverse Events & Deliver Personalized Treatment Plans
Preventing adverse events is paramount to company and patient success; the current estimated impact of adverse drug interaction is estimated at $30.1- $130B annually. With Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), companies can quickly and accurately analyze patient data to design more personalized treatment plans, resulting in fewer side effects and better outcomes.
Furthermore, shared Electronic Medical Records (EMR) can help physicians, healthcare systems, and pharmacies reduce overdose risk or negative drug interactions; with patient permission, researchers can use data to help produce new treatments and medications. Also, EMRs reduce prescribing and treatment errors, making records easily accessible, especially if a long-term health crisis involves multiple treatment teams, allowing them to share real-time test results, recommendations, and treatment plans. Ask anyone who has had a health crisis how critical this is to a successful outcome.
Overcome Patient Compliance Challenges
The use of technology also improves patient compliance, and for any healthcare or life sciences company, this can have a significant impact on revenue. It is estimated by the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation that medication non-adherence is responsible for $290B in otherwise avoidable medical spending annually in the US healthcare system. Also, it is estimated that the pharmaceutical industry is missing $637B in potential revenue due to medication non-adherence.
Patient compliance is one of the main reasons treatments fail. However, connecting through technology can allow physicians to ensure prescriptions are picked up on time and monitor vitals through wearables remotely. All of these practices can increase success. Enabling the physicians, pharmacies, life sciences companies, and hospitals to stay connected can help move patients more quickly into support programs and personalize the entire patient journey.
Decrease Research & Development Costs
Due to increasing costs, R&D is quickly becoming the leading focus for life sciences companies. Depending on how the data is analyzed, there are varying statistics on the exact cost. Still, the estimated range is $1-2B per product, and it’s mainly driven by the sample size of drugs studied and the success rates of R&D processes.
Clinical trials, which evaluate the safety and efficacy of drug therapies on humans, protect the volunteer patients from risk. Some of today’s researchers still rely on outdated, manual processes, slowing development and increasing costs. Utilizing AI/ML could lead to more efficiency, frequency, and accuracy in analyzing clinical trial data and allow researchers to present findings to large-scale, remote teams faster.
Also, utilizing wearables would enable researchers to measure continuous health data of clinical trial patients during their everyday lives without constant manual testing. Add advanced data analytics, which can interpret results better and more quickly than humans, and companies could bring more efficacious therapies to more patients faster.
Putting It All Together
The use cases above prove the benefits and revenue generation potential of utilizing technology in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry. To date, the use of AI/ML, cloud migration, modern application development, and data engineering and science have facilitated better communication and collaboration between all parties in Healthcare and Life Sciences organizations, accelerated drug discovery, and created a vastly improved patient experience, which benefits everyone.
At Wizeline, we’re passionate about helping Healthcare and Life Sciences organizations develop cutting-edge technology products and solutions. Our teams have collaborated with various companies in this space to deliver everything from intelligent apps to telehealth solutions. To learn more about how Wizeline can be your company’s strategic partner in digital transformation, connect with us today at consulting@wizeline.com.
