A recent Ernst & Young study explored how large number of available data on human body is helping the healthcare industry to provide more effective and personalized patient care. According to the study, technology is changing the operating model and practices of existing industry players, creating new opportunities for non-traditional players, and redefining the role of the patient.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a big role in healthcare as well. AI is speeding up the process of diagnosis and cure of illnesses and improving the pharmaceutical industry’s failing rate in research and development, reports EY.
“I have spent the bulk of my career in the pharmaceutical industry, and when I left the company I work for, I realized that actually we had to do things differently, Professor Jackie Hunter, Director, BenevolentAI, which pioneers the use of artificial intelligence to research new medicines and develop blueprints to cure sicknesses, said in a podcast. “The pharmaceutical industry is actually failing to innovate consistently and the exciting thing for me about joining BenevolentAI is that we had a real opportunity to do things differently, be totally disruptive and just reengineer the whole model.”
To create value in the industry, organizations really need to focus on unlocking the power of data to fuel innovation. So, looking at how you can connect data, combine data and share data better to fuel innovation, to deliver better health outcome, but in a very personalized way, according to the study.
“As we discover more and more about human body, there are so many data processes that lie within it that we have yet to understand fully. So, if you link that with the pace of change and the technology development, the data collection through sensors that we’re beginning to see emerge, said Pamela Spence, who leads EY’s Global Health Sciences and Wellness practice. “I do believe that human body is going to be one of the biggest sources of data in the future, so understanding the data within the platform of the human body will really bring great dividends to the wider healthcare industry in the future.”
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Spence believes small innovations, like wearable devices can pay massive dividends to the healthcare industry. Vital signs that are normally measured in the primary care or the secondary care environment, now can be done by the patients themselves. “And I do believe, you know, we’ll be able to have blood tests at home. So, then we’ve got full vital sign capture, we’ve got full blood capture and we don’t need to go to the actual facility for our health care per se. And I think that makes us more empowered because we get access to more and we become more responsible, linked with all the behavioral nudges. I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for us to have better access to health care because the health care industry starts to revolve around us as patients, rather than we having to, at some personal cost to ourselves, try to fit into a clunky and very antiquated system,” she said.
