Covid-19 Accelerating Innovation Opportunities in Healthcare 

The ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak has put an enormous strain on global healthcare and has disrupted businesses around the world. The pandemic is already sending people all over the world to shelter in place to prevent the spread of the virus. As over millions of lives have been affected due to the Covid-19, it has urged governments worldwide to vigorously take proactive actions and is forcing healthcare to develop vaccines as much soon as possible.

The Covid-19 pandemic is also driving innovation opportunities within the healthcare industry, as Frost & Sullivan has divulged 10 growth opportunities in healthcare in its recent analysis, 'Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 on the Healthcare Industry'. The report unveiled, growth opportunities in healthcare, including:

Life Sciences: In vitro diagnostic (IVD) testing services at retail clinics, malls and airports will be the new normal post-pandemic. The demand for testing has exceeded the traditional avenues of availability, and patients are avoiding healthcare facilities unless they are experiencing a medical emergency.

Digital Health: Advanced data analytics will be required to support the need for immediate patient data. Frost & Sullivan anticipated that the pre-COVID-19 digital healthcare startup investment environment would become increasingly conservative, with enhanced diligence and a narrowed focus on solutions that are easily scalable, readily deployable and leverage patient data interoperability as a foundation.

Advanced Medical Technology: Hospitals and medical device companies can focus on remote patient engagement strategies, including virtual rehabilitation, virtual assistants, chatbots, and telehealth for isolated patients' care management.

Medical Imaging: Post-COVID-19, the demand for imaging will be overwhelming across most hospitals. Teleradiology solutions will witness higher demand as they can distribute the requests over a larger set of radiologists efficiently.

Transformational Health Senior Vice President and Partner, Frost & Sullivan, Reenita Das said, "It took COVID-19 to reaffirm and reassess the value of TELEMEDICINE and its boon to the healthcare system globally. Today, telemedicine has become the standard of care, driving a rise in service providers and the need for service standardization across the continuum of care." She further said, "While we recognize the tragedy that COVID-19 has caused the world, we also realize that it has opened many opportunities for companies to rejuvenate in this 'new normal ecosystem. Our team has been tracking the potential opportunities in all sectors of healthcare. For instance, the increasing workload for radiologists in a post-COVID scenario will expand the demand for teleradiology infrastructure and services, enhanced use of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) to pre-read and decrease backlog."

The Frost & Sullivan report also makes predictions for healthcare, including MedTech manufacturers adopt patient engagement, virtual, innovative health management tools and techniques to support non-COVID-19 patients at home. Clearing the procedure backlog will be crucial; Hospital capacity for critical care to be designed based on principles of agility, with ease of switching between modes akin to hybrid Ors; Telemedicine becomes new standard of care to remotely assess populations of patients, driving a large increase of service providers and need for service standardization across the continuum of care.

The report further includes the interoperability and resulting analytics jumps to critical in clinical decision support, predicting hot spots and providing timely interventions to reduce population impacts; Increasing workload for radiologists in a post-COVID scenario will increase the demand for Teleradiology infrastructure and services, enhanced used of AI to pre-read and decrease backlog; the black hole in provider budgets will lead to the acceleration of new customer engagement models across MedTech, to XaaS and innovative funding methods; Biopharma manufacturing pivots to become more resilient, driving new investments in twin supply chain features: transparency and flexibility; and Rise of diagnostic testing at retail clinics will persist post-pandemic to triage low to moderate risk patients.