Value-based Healthcare in a Digital World 2020

Accelerated use of digital technology challenges pharma to rethink its approach

COVID-19 has radically increased the use of digital technology by patients and HCPs but how does that play into the trend to value-based healthcare (VBHC)? Establishing appropriate VBHC metrics that provide evidence and prove value has proved challenging, but the answers may be in the wealth of patient data in institutional databases and data generated from connected devices and health apps. AI driven insights from big data from multiple sources can influence treatment, drive behavioral change and demonstrably deliver better patient outcomes. But how can pharma harness digital technology to inform its VBHC strategy, what are the long term benefits and what practical real-world initiatives can pharma put in place to really influence the VBHC agenda?

To explore how digital technology is transforming the delivery of healthcare and the implications for pharma's business we interviewed, in July 2020, digital health experts from leading pharma and healthcare companies. In ‘Value-based Healthcare in a Digital World ’ they examine the latest digital health applications and examine the wider challenges around key areas such as data security, regulatory guidance and successful tech partnering, which are shaping their approach to VBHC.

Digital experts explore key questions such as:

• In what ways are pharma companies utilizing digital technologies to transform their healthcare service offerings and improve health outcomes?

• What are the main cultural and operational challenges that pharma needs to address to improve the implementation of digital solutions?

• What approaches are companies adopting to work with different stakeholders to identify unmet needs and establish quality metrics that allow patients to make better-informed decisions?

• Pharma/Tech partnerships are essential, but what factors should govern the choice of partner?

• In what ways are predictive analytics technologies informing VBHC?

• Is pharma recognizing that in future the value will be in the data and not the drug?

What industry experts say:

"We need to recognise the value isn't necessarily in the drug, it's in the data and pharma really struggle with this concept. The future healthcare's all going to be data driven, we need to start thinking about introducing diagnostic tools on other medical devices that capture data, and then validating it to develop physician support tools and personal life care tools. We can think about integrating the data within healthcare systems itself and analysing it for patterns to reduce exacerbations, or, the number of inhaler uses. That's valuable data but then how do you reimburse that? These are all of the challenges that we're facing at the moment but very much the future of where we are all trying to move towards. It's all value based. The biggest challenge pharma will find is how are they going to get reimbursement for that? How are they going to demonstrate the value and reduction in hospital admissions? Who's going to pay for that? Is it insurance based? It's an interesting area at the moment that everyone's exploring." European Expert Leading Pharma Company.

"The adoption of value-based healthcare in the U.S. is low, but gradually we're migrating towards it. Right now, we are putting processes in place so that we can migrate towards value-based care. Given the whole situation with COVID I think you will see a rapid adoption. When we talk about value-based care, you have to say, "my product's going to deliver on these particular agreed outcomes". That puts quite a lot of onus on the pharma companies to have systems in place that they can actually monitor all these outcomes effectively. Payers like the concept but if they impose all these systems to monitor outcomes it's very onerous. That is something pharma has to consider if and when they implement value-based care. There are a lot of other challenges, firstly creating the tools that will be able to actually monitor results and provide a quick picture of what you're offering, selecting the KPIs that you want to measure. If it's evidenced-based you must be able to clearly show the value that your technologies bring. One of the major pushbacks has been the quality of the data, a lot of companies will tell you that it's evidence-based but so far most of the data is used in marketing. We need to see indicators that ensure a digital solution is evidence based and that's a huge challenge." Innocent Clement Digital Therapeutic Company.

"In pharma specifically, we need to move away from being a drug provider to being a service provider. To do much more than just monitoring a patient at certain times in their therapy, but making it much broader and providing a service because that seems to be the model that tech are taking. If you look at Amazon Care and Apple Health, these are all service providers with user-friendly platforms that patients can go on, making it more convenient for the customer to navigate, and giving them control and insights, enabling them to prevent and predict. That's where it's going to go and if we don't start thinking like that, then they are going to take a chunk of the market, and rightly so." European Expert Leading Pharma Company.

What to expect

A detailed report exploring, through digital health experts' insights, how digital technology is driving new thinking and solutions for the delivery of VBHC:

• An examination of 4 key issues that are shaping approaches to the employment of digital technology in value-based healthcare

• 30 targeted questions put to digital health experts

• Their responses which provided 22 insights supported by 94 directly quoted comments

Deliverables: Includes PDF report and PowerPoint slide deck

Value-based Healthcare in a Digital World is delivered as:

• A detailed PDF report including all insights, quotes and intelligence exhibits

• A useful PowerPoint slide deck providing a summary of the report's key findings to use in your presentations and for sharing with colleagues.

Expert contributors

To ensure the full and frank expression of opinions we have agreed to keep some of the contributors to this report anonymous.

• Innocent Clement, CEO and Founder EVOLVD Health , which has developed a multidisciplinary digital healthcare platform integrating AI to deliver personalised care and predictive analytics focused on lifestyle, sexual and mental health for men and women. Previously, he was the CEO of Kaia Health Inc., a digital therapeutic company where he led Kaia Health initiatives, including partnerships, clinical trials, regulatory submissions and expansion across North America. Innocent is a trained physician from both Columbia and Harvard University.

• Richard Tarvin began his professional career in finance in the early 1990s and has designed, built and successfully managed multi-billion dollar investments pools for some of the largest and most respected wealth management firms, private banks, family offices and pension funds in the world. Richard co-founded Genutex which uses Artificial Intelligence software to evaluate biometric data against pharmaceutical product use. The AI module "AIDA" allows the company to detect multi-dimensional linear and/or non-linear relationships between bio-data and pharmaceutical use which aims to bridge the gap between healthcare data currently obtained for pharmaceutical research and data obtained via the rapidly-growing online sales of pharmaceuticals.

• European Expert, Leading Healthcare Provider , is a digital health head responsible for the development of Global Digital Health strategy across all business units within the company including managing the development process for new products from early design through clinical trials to commercial deployment.

• European Expert, Leading Pharma Company is a digital health expert involved in establishing partnerships in the healthcare arena.

• European Expert, Leading Pharma Company involved in value-based healthcare and digital transformation.

• US Expert, Leading Pharma Company is a senior manager and head of device functionality, safety and digital connectivity group.

• US Expert , In Silico Technologies for Drug Development for US Biopharmaceutical Company US Expert, Leading Pharma and Diagnostic Company is head of smart devices with a wide-range of commercial experience in multinational companies, healthcare technology start-ups, and healthcare delivery systems.

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• Are based on primary research with experts whose knowledge and current experience is proven

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