Description

A team of futurists, analysts, and consultants from the Global Transformational Health Research Team at Frost & Sullivan have come together to render a comprehensive analysis to predict the future of healthcare with COVID-19 disruption in perspective. This study provides actionable predictions and growth opportunities for major healthcare segments and markets during and after the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore several gaps in our understanding of health, wellness, and prevention. It has the potential to disrupt the standard norms of prevention and treatment. Even though world organizations thought they had conquered the infectious illnesses and started focusing on non-communicable illnesses, the COVID-19 outbreak reminds us to be constantly vigilant in identifying and preventing any communicable illnesses in the future, thereby opening up previously unknown growth opportunities for companies. This disruption has created multiple opportunities along the healthcare value chain for both incumbents and established market participants. This study captures opportunities in new technologies, new use cases, and new regulatory pathways. The research service covers Pharmaceuticals and biotech, in vitro diagnostics, medical technologies, medical imaging, and healthcare IT. The analysis captures and provides guidance on where to find the greatest opportunities for expansion. COVID-19 brings about short-term and long-term changes in the healthcare landscape. Short-term opportunities are due to responses that aim to cater to the current crisis but will revert to pre-crisis state once the pandemic is contained. Long-term opportunities arise from strong, long overdue, transformational drivers, and COVID is just a precipitating factor that will bring about a long-term and permanent shift. Virtual care has been around for a very long time but is not a significant part of mainstream healthcare delivery; however, the current pandemic will emphasize its clinical, operational, and financial value. Medtech and pharmaceutical supply chains are largely concentrated in a few countries, indicating a lack of resilience. The COVID -19 supply chain disruption in these verticals will drive the companies to further optimize their supply chains. The scope of this study is global, and it covers all 5 major healthcare sectors: pharmaceuticals, medical devices, patient monitoring, medical imaging, in vitro diagnostics, and healthcare IT. Technologies and markets covered: AI in healthcare, digital health, healthcare data analytics, telehealth, agile manufacturing, supply chain optimization, connected care, managed services, clinical trials, API supply chain, POCT diagnostic solutions, patient engagement, IMOT, BYOD, mHealth, virtual care, healthcare cloud, remote diagnostics, and XaaS business models. Virtual clinical trials supported by telemedicine can help address the access and adherence bottlenecks. Analytics can support prioritization, trial delays, and the initiation of new investigator sites. In addition, direct-to- and direct-from-patient trial supplies/sample logistics services might serve to address the current operational challenges. Pharmaceutical companies are feeling the pressure of supplying drugs and devices to support clinical trials. Lower patient participation and higher physician workload are leading to the de-prioritization of ongoing trials. Social isolation and quarantine have resulted in patients, especially chronic disease patients, being left in the lurch. Hospitals and medical device companies can focus on remote patient engagement strategies, including virtual rehabilitation, virtual assistants/chatbots/telehealth for the management of patient care. Providers will benefit from intelligent systems that can communicate with patients, triage, prioritize alerts, and seamlessly enter a physician’s clinical observations into the EHR.