When it comes to digital health, I see two critical realities.  The first is around the amazing opportunities in technology and health that will change the face of medicine.  The second is the marketing opportunity—no, marketing imperative to empower innovation with communication.  Yet my concern is that many innovators rely on the “power of the device” to drive adoption.  The strategy is simple—build it and they will come.  The problem starts with “it”.  Defining a digital health device beyond a sensor requires a solid understanding of the market.  And translating a core feature to a higher order benefit and/or value can be tricky. And this becomes even more complicated when parity devices fight for market share on based less on technology and more on brand position and personality. 

“A great product without great marketing is like winking at someone in the dark.  You known what you’re doing it, but no one else does!”

The other part of this simple statement is the “they”.  After you build it, just who is “they”?  The simple answer in digital health is often the patient—or consumer.  After all, it’s the era of patient empowerment where the individual stands up for their health and takes control.  Right?  Nope.  Many devices and newborn brands rely on this assumption and move to market with a single-minded strategy that doesn’t take into consideration the complicated buying process that engages both the rational and emotional decision-makers.  Simply put, the audience for digital health is a complex array of stakeholders—from the patient and caregiver to the physician and payor.  And one of the biggest challenges can be audience stratification and resource allocation. 

“To simple avoid the health care provider and expect the patient to drive adoption is risky.”

One thing is for sure.  Like a device itself, one size doesn’t fit all.  The role of the healthcare provider can be a critical path to driving adoption and long-term use.  Yet, in other instances, the validation by parents can be equally as powerful. The key is to leverage key influencers in a meaningful way.

“Products live on shelves and brands live in our minds–mindshare always precedes market share.”

The power of innovation, medicine and the entire digital health movement is a function of the story we all craft. And that story can be as simple or complex as we want.  Certainly, the technology exists to manufacture many interesting and important devices. But these devices will always live on a shelf.  It’s the brands that will live in the minds of our customers.  Let’s make sure that we empower digital health with the resonant communication it deserves.

The post The Dangerous Myth of Digital Health Innovation: Build It And They Will Come appeared first on Medika Life.

From evolution to the industrial revolution, this is a recurrent theme for humanity and all life on earth. We receive a kick in the ass and move (sometimes crying and screaming) into the future. Sometimes, it’s a singular event that drives a profound transformation—remember those dinosaurs and that asteroid?  And if you use your imagination, you might even see that horrific sphere in the sky and conger some images of the COVID-19 virus. Sometimes it’s a cluster catastrophic events or a confluence of magical things. 

Change is disruptive.  But adoption is gradual.  And that where people get confused.

The year 2021 was certainly disruptive.  And it was defined by COVID-19 and void of innovation that perfectly reflected the difference between disruption and adoption. Certainly, there were important breakthroughs including therapeutics and vaccinations.  But failure was also a defining aspect of a tumultuous year. Adoption can drag its feet…

Clinical uncertainty was met with the demands of rapid action and resulted in the complexities of innovation, confusion, and adoption. COVID-19 compressed years of science, pharmaceutical development, technological advances and clinical practice into just months—sometimes even days. And then, layered moral imperative of action into this equation. The lessons learned from 2021 are vast. But, in many instances, these lessons were driven by events, or, if I may, singularities that helped shape and drive action.

It seemed that almost every day in the past year provided new data, insights, and guidelines that helped informed clinical practice. Yet, this pushed clinicians away from the “clinical comfort zone” into more a “risk/reward” posture where conformation was either antidotal, pre-published, or driven by societal and political pressures. Consensus—from patient to clinician—was sometimes difficult to find. But bravery, from thought to deed, was frequently at hand.

Today, we are around the corner from another asteroid or spike protein.  But we are also at the center of another confluence that offers the potential to transform and protect humanity from those fireballs in the sky.

Social need, technology, genomics, artificial intelligence and a host of factors are aligned for more than a change, but a tectonic shift of unimaginable proportions. These are coming at us with the jolt of disruptive transformative that can make us cling to a safer and more predictable past. But that’s the nature of transformation.  It’s sudden and shocking.  But the human side of that journey may not always align. 

The traditional vision of our future and of transformation is our desire for  “the same but better.”  From the emergence of the electric car (a transition) to the introduction of a new beta-lactam antibiotic with better tolerability and spectrum of coverage (another transition), we adopt in baby steps.  But technology can often loom larger and step more broadly. 

That’s where we are today.  Look up and you’ll see it.  We are just heartbeats from our next inflection point. The question isn’t only about the wonder of technology to help solve these conflicts, but the bravery of humanity to move forward.

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