Digital transformation: MedTechs need to break new ground to survive in the market.

Munich, May 13th 2020. During the corona crisis the digital transformation of healthcare has sharply gained in relevance - as an opportunity to reduce employee workload as well as to support social distancing measures in medical treatment.

In a recently published discussion paper, the management consultancy Digital Oxygen highlights resulting challenges and strategic approaches for established MedTechs. The expertise of industry leaders in medical and technological aspects of product development is undisputed and based on many years of experience. However, in a digital economy digital product design and management present unfamiliar challenges and require additional knowledge and solution strategies.

Digital solutions in diabetes care act as an illustrative example of the opportunities, pitfalls and status of digital transformation in the MedTech sector. Diabetes management processes and the interaction between doctors and patients have significantly changed with new diabetes care solutions. Data from connected insulin pumps and glucose sensors may now be continuously uploaded to cloud services for automated analysis. Patients will receive alerts in case of critical glucose events and data can be continuously shared with diabetologists for real-time therapy intervention.

These technological opportunities represent a fundamental change in the interaction between product, doctors, and patients. Correspondingly, the expectations users show towards applications and customer service change. The benchmark for service and operation of digital diabetes care products is determined by the digital economy's services and products. MedTechs need to meet these benchmarks. On their way they face challenges in digital product development and management that go far beyond their familiar comfort zone:

1. Customer experience and user journey design
What distinguishes MedTech from entertainment technology and daily used apps, is the lack of focus on customer experience and user journey design. However, to ensure user satisfaction, typical digital requirements must also be met.

2. Shorter innovation cycles required in digital economy
Short innovation cycles and early market launches are common in software development since updates enable continuous product improvement. MedTech product development and market approval take much longer. Therefore, the development of product hardware, software and accompanying services needs to be coordinated.

3. New in-house skill sets needed
First class software development and support require new skill sets. These skill sets must be available in-house in order to execute urgent adjustments in development and tailor software designs to medical use.

4. Lifecycle management for continuous customer satisfaction
Product digitalization necessitates end-to-end customer lifecycle management. Due to the complexity of digital health products and cloud services, close customer interaction in onboarding is required and consistent availability of cloud services and customer service support are essential.

5. IT backend resilience, security and scalability
The resilience, security, and scalability of IT backends are central to ensure reliability of cloud services. The introduction of digital services in treatment processes also requires the expansion of IT backends at the point-of-care.

While the list of challenges seems long, the success factors for the development and management of digital MedTech products are clear: Established MedTech companies need to develop their own digital strategy to assess their current state of digital integration and define digital goals and targeted market positioning. By developing, testing, and implementing lifecycle management processes and user journeys, MedTech companies will be able to continuously meet the needs of patients and points-of-care.

The full discussion paper is available at: www.digital-oxygen.com/publications.

Digital Oxygen GmbH
Weissenburger Strasse 25
81667 Munich
info@diox.de
www.digital-oxygen.de

Digital Oxygen is an owner-operated management consultancy focusing on the development and implementation of digital transformation and digital product strategies. The experienced team supports leaders of the TMT industry, medical technology companies and international start-ups on their way to a digital future. The joint success is based on a critical team and customers who see themselves as partners - who question and challenge and are open to breaking new ground.

This release was published on openPR.