Digital Health 2016: Welcome to the Age of Implementation

Digital health is entering a new era: The Age of Implementation. Innovators will need unique tools, techniques and data to succeed during this challenging period during which health organizations will make many difficult decisions about what they can realistically achieve using digital technologies.

However, innovators are at a disadvantage. They’re missing vital digital health innovation data that could be used to accurately evaluate progress, avoid mistakes, benchmark success and more. To close this data gap I launched a unique research initiative, The State of Digital Health Innovation 2016, this month.

Update: Recently, I held a Webinar designed to provide skills, strategies, tools and resources that will help you succeed during the Age of Implementation. Click here to access this Webinar (and related content).

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” -Governor Mario Cuomo

The spirit of this quote is very relevant to digital health.

For more than a decade, the digital health world has been dominated by a focus on the possible rather than probable.

We highlighted the potential for digital-focused patient-driven research to upend traditional clinical trials. We speculated about the power of the Internet to bring patients together in transformational ways.

This has certainly happened, but not as fast or powerfully as we once thought. As studies like this one demonstrate patients in the United States (and other parts of the world) are still living in a very analog world.

I’m often asked: “Why it is taking so long for health organizations to adopt digital technologies?” Here’s the answer I generally give, which was published in an interview with me recently in HIT Consultant:

“There’s an ongoing tension between the need to move quickly in terms of evaluating and integrating new solutions and the financial, legal and medical incentives (or disincentives) that shape how rapidly technologies are adopted [in health] … [T]here’s always a time lag between when patients adopt a technology and organizations understand how they can be integrated into existing environments and workflows.”

This is a major reason why patients, caregivers, physicians and others are still not seeing the fruits of the digital health revolution in visible and powerful ways.

But, this is no reason to be discouraged. We have much to look forward to.

Understanding why this is the case requires taking a step back to look at digital health’s global evolution. Recently, I’ve begun to describe this process as a series of “ages” defined by certain types of perceptions and activities, which is outlined in an infographic I developed (see below).

As you can see we’re just entering a period I call the “Age of Implementation.” This will be a challenging time dominated by a single question: What’s the best way to implement digital solutions so that they truly have an impact on the quadruple aim: improved health outcomes, lower costs, better patient experiences and boosted clinician satisfaction? [The quadruple aim is a term used frequently by Dave Chase.]

New Era, New Solutions

New eras require new data, frameworks and approaches. To help meet this need, I’ve been hard at work on an initiative called The Digital Health Maven Project since mid-2014. The project, sponsored in part by Validic and Evolution Road, is designed to provide innovators from startups, organizations and other parts of the global health ecosystem with knowledge, skills, research and education they need to implement digital successfully.

The latest project-related offering is a new study called the State of Digital Health Innovation 2016. It designed to answer the following two vital questions:

1. How are health organizations doing when it comes to integrating digital solutions (such as wearables, mobile and Big Data) into their products, services and operations?
2. Are the innovation expectations of startups, investors, health tech firms and others aligned with the reality of how health organizations are progressing in digital health?

I believe gathering this type of data (and making it available free of charge) will:

• Help companies, government, non-profits and others maximize the impact of their innovation activities because they’ll have a better understanding of best practices and how they compare with peers
• Enable startups and other firms to realize their full potential because they will have a better sense of organizational appetite for their innovations (and posses vital information about their chances for success — or failure)

How You Can Help

Share your digital health innovation perceptions and experiences by completing a 5–10 minute online survey.

You’ll benefit from taking part in many ways. Most importantly you’ll immediately receive a personalized 7+ page report. This powerful resource is packed with actionable insights that will help you assess your innovation activities, identify strengths and weaknesses and more.

Partners (such as startups and health tech firms) can use this customized report to engage clients and others in productive conversations that can highlight areas of potential collaboration or even uncover new opportunities.

Please help accelerate digital health innovation by participating in this important research. Click here to get started.

Spread the word about digital health’s Age of Innovation and this important research initiative by sharing it with your network using the links below.

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Fard Johnmar is a digital health futurist, researcher, strategist and co-author of the #1 bestselling book, ePatient 2015: 15 Surprising Trends Changing Health Care.

Originally published at www.linkedin.com.