As we recently published, 2014 was an active year of healthcare deal making and capital formation as consolidation occurred across the payer, provider and pharma landscapes.
For well over a decade, TripleTree has been actively advising and researching innovative companies in Connected Health where mobile, social and cloud delivery models are optimizing how and where care can be and is being delivered.
We have seen scores of interesting point solutions dot the Connected Health landscape, with most leaning heavily toward either hardware (sensor, device, phone) or software (app, workflow tool, portal) approaches. The progress has been terrific and today, some of these solutions are:
- Capturing reform-centric incentives
- Ensuring privacy
- Increasing quality
- Reducing costs
- Reducing medical errors
- Remaining compliant
- Satisfying members and patients
As we look ahead to 2015, demands on technology systems are increasing, and the focus of optimizing and personalizing the delivery of content is amplified by the dizzying expansion of healthcare data and the attempts to capture it.
The Shift to Services
For the past several quarters, we’ve been considering how the Connected Health market (and healthcare innovation in general) is looking toward services to more effectively enable the harnessing of healthcare data the reflects important business drivers like levels of care and consumer engagement.
Our colleague Rob McCray at the WLSA agrees, and opined that large health systems and payers are basically services businesses, and that they want to get out of buying components and worrying about how to ensure the interoperability of ‘best devices’. Smart, tailored services will likely become a predictable way for payers and providers to accelerate the ROI of their healthcare technology investments.
Going Beyond the Pill
2014 was a year that saw the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung pour billions of dollars into healthcare initiatives. For Google, it’s their ‘2.0’ in healthcare after the sunset of Google Health, and we are considering that the recent Google+Nest announcement could be their toe-in-the-water toward consumer-centric healthcare solutions in the home (powered by Google HelpOuts).
Last month from Novartis and Qualcomm, who announced a joint investment company focused on healthcare and a stated commitment to ‘go beyond the pill.’ Pharma companies like Sanofi and Merck are using their cash hoards to make bets on digital health and soon, they will need services partners to get their digital health solutions into the workflow of care providers (which will likely be the fastest path for earning consumer trust). Even device companies are partnering with service delivery companies to extend their offerings. One example is Coloplast Corporation, a maker of urological devices who recently partnered with Clear.MD to offer doctors and patients access to personalized videos.
Since 2009, TripleTree has annually recognized the best Connected Health companies across the sector via our iAward program, and the application process for the 2015 iAwards opened this week.
As shown below, we had a great group of innovators recognized as iAward Finalists in 2014, and are looking forward to a new crop of solutions…and likely a few with strong services features.
Even though healthcare’s focus on data is fueling a race to efficiency and empowerment via Connected Health platforms, there is still a lot of running room for new solutions.
Let us know what you think.