Previously, we discussed how medtech companies can prepare for the transition to value-based care. Specifically, these organizations need to start going beyond just providing medical devices and products to their customers and focus more on providing comprehensive and connected systems that help deliver integrated care. This, however, needs common collaboration between vendors, which are too often direct competitors and therefor pushing for their own more expensive complete solutions.

Interoperability and health data exchange have become a top priority for providers. Along with EMRs, all machines being utilized at a hospital or health system need to be able to talk to one another. With increasing complexity of care, collecting complete information around the same patients becomes a difficult task. Overall, clinicians must think more broadly about how connecting pieces of healthcare impacts a patient to be able to continue complete care and avoid errors and toxicity of double actions.

The healthcare business model is changing, and providers need to implement the right tools for patient-centric care with access to the right information. Medtech companies must be mindful of this shift and become cost-aware in their approach to existing and potential customers creating innovative data-streams, facilitating exchange passing through competitive providers.

Reducing the cost of care

The next evolution in healthcare cost is to think beyond the hospital walls and look at the total cost of delivering care for a given condition, said Gil Rabbie Senior Manager, Global Healthcare Solutions at Boston Scientific. There must be a pathway that reduces the total cost of care.

“If we can reduce the total cost of caring for a patient, that’s ideal. Consider a heart failure patient that a hospital has discharged too early, freeing up a bed. The cost of that patient to the hospital, goes down – skyrockets back in the community, not to mention if the patient then re-admits back at the hospital. There has to be a move away from just shifting costs, to making real savings across the full care pathway,” Rabbie explained.

“There is a migration is toward total cost of care recognition,” he added. “Some systems including Nordics, Netherlands and UK, clearly get it and are making that a strategic objective. I’d like to see that evolving at a more practical level over the next few years.”

Boston Scientific is looking toward joint accountability for outcomes, including financial risk sharing on a case by case basis.

“We’ve got solutions out there that have risk share elements and joint accountability or accountability for results, payment by results, etc.,” he said. “At the end of the day, our approach targets customers we would like to help the most. We focus on these strategic accounts. It’s not a boxed solution – it’s a tailored solution.”

Overall, Rabbie said there is a readiness to go to solutions that are more results oriented.

Patient centricity requires understanding the medtech market

“Patients will continue to be at the center of healthcare, and technology will likely disrupt the industry as well,” said Sarah Fisher, Senior Director, Global External Innovation, Johnson & Johnson. Additionally, regulatory hurdles can pose challenges to companies across the sector.

However, technology is not the issue, she added. Technology is an enabler and will help MedTech companies to provide more value. It’s the markets themselves that will continue to be the unpredictable piece of the story.

“Welcoming technological advancement is a good thing,” Fisher said. “But the thing that will be at the heart of success is understanding the market itself, understanding market readiness, and not forgetting that you are part of that market.”

Far too often, provider teams get sold on a technology, a product, or a service offering, she stated. If medtech companies can put themselves on the other side of the table, it’s important to ask if they would feel ready to use that offering.

“Is the average person ready to accept this as part of their care pathway?” Fisher posited. “If the answer is no, then the answer should be ‘No’ when we go to market with it.”

A seamless pathway for patient-centric care

Healthcare reform and the transition toward value-based care has definitely had an impact on clinical workflows, explained Charlotte Moser, VP Clinical Pathways at Elekta.

“You want to try to make the software self-learning and capable of learning so you can do value-based analysis within a clinic,” Moser said. “You want to at least make it transparent where the costs are, what the waiting times are.”

Elekta provides solutions for radiation therapy, radiosurgery, and clinical management for cancer and brain disorder treatment. Moser stated that Elekta systems can be used in hospital systems, with data being used for analysis and efficiency monitoring.

“The question is: what can we make more efficient? How can we make systems more comprehensive?” Moser said. “It goes back to software architecture. We want to make that integration better, and there are steps we can and must automate.”

“For example, doctors can prescribe radiation or chemotherapy, this should initiate different task lists automatically,” she continued. “The paperwork and scheduling can be forgotten for the next steps, however, final checks and adaptation to clinical symptoms is still a human and essential task, which makes automation tricky.”

Cutting down on administrative burden is also a key issue. The right technology and automation can help cut down on administrative burden.

“In oncology, for example, safety controls and checklists avoid errors,” Moser said. “Now there’s a backswing – do we all need that? Aging users don’t see the reason behind it and are under pressure to go faster and skip steps. We need to ask: how do you stay safe and reduce those quality checks?”

“In both care coordination and symptom management, automation and remote tools can help us. The key point is, however, to keep strict control points by humans to keep the overall process safe,” she added. “Bringing in more patient engagement can help to control the overall system, because the end-users are the ones giving the reasons to adapt.”

The patient experience is truly at the center of healthcare right now, added Michael Brown, VP National Healthcare Systems at Agfa HealthCare. Additionally, patient experience companies will continue to be created out of that need for patient-centric care.

Hospitals are still very fragmented though when it comes to the patient care process, Brown added.

“If you’re a patient you could have records on X-rays, prescriptions, surgery, outpatient care,” he said. “Those experiences don’t talk to one another. Patient information is not in one common area. But having any caregiver see what’s happening to you is necessary to view the patient holistically. That’s radically been a change.”

When healthcare providers are able to find a way to create a seamless and secure patient pathway experience, it will help them keep pace with the evolving industry. Providers need a dashboard so that a case manager can manage a patient from beginning to end.

The right partnerships can aid medtech market

Medtronic is one company that will likely keep acquiring companies that will give them the ability to sell and be successful in the entire patient experience, Brown stated. Healthcare systems are going to keep growing and the speed of discovery, accuracy, and ability for networking between physicians and between institutions will also be necessary.

“The hospitals and systems want to own and be in control of that entire experience.”

In general, it’s really crucial for each medtech company to have a solid transformation agenda, said Sebastian Dahlem, Johnson & Johnson Project Manager. The internal and external visibility must be there.

“We’re not at the end of the journey,” he said. “There are lots of thoughts of how to commercialize different types of models. There will be a lot of individual models for how to get the right reimbursement. For example, the patient-centric model could become an outcomes-based model.”

When organizations are trying to become strategic partners, and create long-term partnerships, it is necessary to equip and manage operational services, with service level-based agreements and outcome-based agreements. Moreover, integration effort in making data communication flawless is key here.

“We want long term partnerships where the future is flexible but we’re ready,” he said.

Previously, the whole healthcare delivery system was more provider centric, but that expectation is changing rapidly. The healthcare system needs to create a better patient experience, and having the right patient pathway tool can help in that transition toward value-based care.