Kodak is infamous for its failure to adapt to disruptive technology, despite the fact that it was a pioneer in research and development into digital photography. Even though it saw the fault lines in consumer behaviours – indeed, it helped develop them – it did nothing to adapt to far-off disruption, remaining resolutely wedded to its age-old business model as a photo-film, chemical and paper business.
Healthcare isn’t immune from disruptive technologies or models, and disruption is liable to come much faster than Kodak’s ‘moment’, which was, in reality, a decade-long train wreck in the making. In fact, the way healthcare is delivered has already seen dramatic changes, and it’s likely to keep evolving into a more targeted system that can deliver earlier interventions at lower cost. The concept of healthcare systems and remote clinical teams, as opposed to bricks-and-mortar clinics and hospitals, will become the norm, and travelling to a clinic or hospital could become as alien as driving to the video-rental shop to hire a movie. Patients will increasingly look for higher-quality and better-value virtual-care options.
But as the fate of the video-rental business, Blockbuster, warns us, any business that fails to reinvent itself or pivot can soon become obsolete.
As the Harvard Business Review notes, by the time businesses start to recognise obvious industry disruption, it’s often already too late to act.
Why the need for disruption?
Looking at Europe, there are certain healthcare models that are simply unsustainable. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is a clear case in point: it’s a black hole that consumes all money thrown at it but delivers little value. The UK spends more on its NHS than all but two European countries – around £1 in every £7 – but its users endure poorer health outcomes and higher mortality rates from avoidable causes, both for treatable and preventable disease, than almost any other nation in the OECD. Little, it seems, has changed since the UK’s Guardian newspaper ran a story over 10 years ago headlined, “NHS comes top in healthcare survey” that went on to note, with no apparent hint of irony, that “the only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive”.
It remains to be seen whether recent innovations in the NHS in the form of regional hubs or super clinics, will reduce hospital admissions. Their aim, at least, is to operate for longer hours and at weekends with full lab and radiology services available locally, as well as investigative facilities like endoscopy closer to patients’ homes. In theory, healthcare systems can make these super clinics successful if they combine rapidly growing technology to monitor a patient’s vital signs 24/7 and perform an intervention before problems develop.
The super-clinic concept was first mooted at Virgin Healthcare some 20 years ago, with a plan to leverage the Virgin brand to encourage screening, prevention and early intervention and bring it into the public consciousness with a more adult relationship with patients. What’s certain is that, for healthcare systems to deliver better quality and value while remaining sustainable, traditional clinics and hospitals will have to change inside and out. In future models, patients will enjoy higher digital engagement and remote monitoring, with increasing levels of care delivered in outpatient settings. We’re seeing a proliferation of hospital-at-home solutions, giving healthcare providers the opportunity to intervene earlier and at lower cost. As a result, we’re witnessing the concept of care shifting from 'buildings' to 'systems and remote teams'.
For too long now, traditional healthcare systems have been built around doctors’ visions of how they want to deliver care to the lucky few. The world is changing fast, and healthcare systems need to adapt with the times.
Where’s the disruption coming from?
As CEO of one of Dubai's finest hospitals, it’s clear to me how advances in technology are radically changing historic approaches to patient care. In many respects, the Blockbuster story is a good analogy for healthcare. The video-rental business didn’t need to change its core business, just the way its product was delivered to consumers. It might have thrived delivering film and TV home entertainment, but it failed to recognise the fault lines in consumer preferences for how they accessed and received Blockbuster’s product.
Consumer preferences in healthcare are shifting in similar ways, and technology is disrupting old models. Valeo Health in Dubai, for example, is transforming healthcare delivery by taking thousands of patients away from clinical settings to deliver care in the home. Its at-home solutions deliver remote care like tests, IV drips, screening, vaccine and flu shots, injection administration and support via an army of home nurses, and its tests cover everything from ECGs to cancer screening, and allergy and food intolerance to premarital health screening.
As a result, healthcare consumers get the targeted professional care they need in a home setting, with skilled, qualified nurses administering everything from vitamin B12 injections to specialist treatments, without patients having to travel to a clinic.
Advanced diagnostics are also transforming healthcare by radically improving the chance for earlier intervention. As a case in point, AI-enabled diagnostics and predictive technology are allowing clinicians to accurately forecast who might develop diabetes, hypertension or heart conditions. AI is constantly improving its ability to deliver better-targeted and more efficient care where quality and value are the watchwords. For example, AI has made rapid advances in ophthalmology, where it can replace labour-intensive screening and perform retinal-image scanning at scale. As a result of early diagnosis and intervention, it offers ophthalmologists the chance to reduce blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy by a staggering 95%.
Oculomics specialist Optain has developed rapid retinal-screening technology that allows clinicians to quickly capture and analyse high-quality retinal images for early signs of eye diseases as well as cardiovascular disease. By analysing over one million images, its AI-enabled oculomics can identify changing patterns in blood vessels at the back of the eye to predict conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and even early-stage heart conditions.
IO Health in Dubai is working with governments to manage and forecast population health. Its cognitive AI systems have already processed around 32 million patient records for early disease detection. As such, its AI-driven solutions are enabling healthcare systems to take a more proactive approach, making healthcare more predictive and more personalised by processing both historical and real-time health data. This offers valuable insights into the health of individuals and whole populations. Early intervention can help prevent the progression of disease with predictive AI systems, spotting people at risk of anything from hypertension and diabetes to chronic respiratory disease and ischemic heart disease.
Optain is confident that before long it will be able to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. As the UK’s Royal College of Ophthalmologists notes, “AI analysis of retinal scans enables identification of unique disease ‘fingerprints’, including for cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, making it an invaluable tool in the emerging field of oculomics”.
Recognising the fault lines
In many ways, healthcare systems have an advantage in the sense that we know where the disruption is coming from, and why. That is, the fault lines are clear to everybody who chooses to see them. As discussed, the business world gives us alarming examples of how perfectly good organisations can become obsolete through lack of intelligent business planning and a propensity to follow groupthink.
Healthcare providers are at risk of suffering a similar fate if they recognise too late the need to pivot or adjust their business models accordingly.
