With the world once again grappling with the explosion of Covid cases, the digital health segment will witness colossal growth in 2022 as well, with experts predicting interoperability and increased reimbursement choices as the major trend drivers.
- Big growth: In 2021, the telehealth industry enjoyed a massive gain as the funding surged to $21.3 billion across 541 deals, outshining the entire funding after the second quarter in 2020.
- Going forward: The increased reimbursement choices – both from private and public payers – motivated investors. Russ Johannesson, CEO of diabetes and chronic condition management company Glooko, said: “We definitely saw an increase in reimbursement support for digital health solutions – not just remote monitoring, but deeper digital health solutions as well – in many markets around the world.” “Not just the US, but Germany, France, Belgium [and] others. And I think we’ll continue to see that going forward,” he added.
- Hot areas: Johannesson prognosticates that funding will increase in 2022 too and areas of significant activities will be mental health, therapeutics, and women’s health. “It is the kind of market that is getting quite competitive from a solutions perspective. I think the capital is chasing those opportunities where they think there’s real growth, market growth opportunities,” he said.“And that’s to the benefit overall of the health industry. But certainly, there’s a lot of opportunity in digital health to find the right kind of funding, the right kind of partners and really have an impact in the space.”
- Key trend: Johannesson said interoperability, the ability of computer systems to exchange and make use of information, will be a key trend this year since data sharing will make tools more expensive.
- Better communication: Interoperability will enable the usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning besides boosting communication between patients and providers. “The need for both standards and interoperability to be able to share that data effectively and easily is just critically important,” Johannesson said. “And that will really fuel the value proposition under a lot of the digital health solutions.”
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