Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals

The Pharmaceutical sector used to be seen as a purveyor of pills to the medical industry and not one that looked to engage with stakeholders to utilise the latest technologies with end consumers. This is all changing due to the behaviours in the way people view their own health needs and an explosion of new affordable products that support a more proactive approach to individuals health and well-being.

Where previously the industry focused more on its marketing engagement with doctors and medical teams and less on the end consumers, current trends show a demand for more patient centric care and seek to be better information about how preventative action can help them change their lifestyle for a healthier future.

It is widely reported that the new global health economy is worth over $3trillion and globally consumers will collectively spend more than $14billion annually on medical products which will only grow as we see greater embracing of how and what technology can bring to world health.

The industry does recognize the challenges they face and many are already investing in areas such as big data, data analytics combined with Digital technologies such as the growth in consumer spend on wearable devices.

Pharmaceutical & Healthcare companies are seeing huge benefits with IT innovation and maximising current more affordable technologies, for example some industry leaders are using social media as a way of engaging end consumers to see what kind of patient centric care they want. Several have been and continue to increase their annual spend on Big Data & Analytics gathered through a number of Digital channels such as wearable devices as they see how people are more accepting of using wearable devices in their daily life. This means vast amounts of quality data is readily available to all stakeholders with more joined up data being translated quicker that benefits all stakeholder groups whether the Pharmaceutical companies having more data around clinical trials helping them develop medicine of the future or being able to prevent patient problems earlier with existing drugs.

With Healthcare organisations being able to tailor medicines with individual patients and monitor the effect on these patients much more closely, ultimately this benefits the end patient receiving more personalized patient centric care helping them understand more about their own health and how their bodies are reacting to treatment. As the Health industry embraces technology more and maximizes the information it can collate perhaps one day it will lead to every patient someday having personalised healthcare.