Legitimately, today’s pervasive presence of technology gets blamed for many of society’s troubles. Screen time is associated with robbing us of sleep, increased anxiety, developmental delays among children, the spreading of misinformation, and general social unrest and civil disobedience. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an ongoing debate about the utilization of digital technology for direct patient care had become a passionate argument that left many detractors wondering if healthcare truly benefited from technology’s ever-increasing role.

COVID-19, however, has brought a much more intimate use of technology that has expanded beyond convenience to outright necessity. With that, our collective relationship with technology has changed. Whether that will ultimately be for the greater good is up to us to decide. But the future of healthcare’s pairing with technology has been significantly altered during the past year. Professionals in the pharmaceutical industry are realizing that the so-called “new normal” that everyone is waiting on will not look like the world that we thought we were settling into pre-COVID-19.

Here, we present a few examples based on recent conversations and insights from our pharma industry leaders.

Men’s Health Meets Its Match

For decades, healthcare providers throughout the continuum have struggled with improving what many believe is inadequate delivery of healthcare for males due to everything from bravado to laziness. Has technology come to the rescue as a means of bringing these patients closer to their clinicians, even if they don’t realize it?

It’s easier to access healthcare today than ever before, primarily because telehealth has grown exponentially. Innovation is helping, but so too is the idea that men don’t have to “accept” that their healthcare will be undermined naturally due to aging. By not having to “go to the doctor,” they are seeing their doctors more.

For instance, a 2020 study on current and future trends in men’s health clinics found that as telemedicine continues to expand, its role in urology and men’s health continues to improve. Overall, the telemedicine industry is projected to be $48.8 billion by 2023, a trend that should also bring more patients closer to pharmaceutical products more quickly over time.

A Future Rooted in Heuristics or Analytics?

There isn’t anyone who’s completely immune to or sheltered from misinformation when considering how many news outlets exist today. As a result, even within the medical industry, decisions have the potential to be impacted by limited, imperfect information. Industry professionals must be self-aware to avoid relying on what behavioral economists might refer to as “heuristics,” or reliance on practical methods that are not guaranteed to be optimal. At the same time, the industry also remains focused on high-quality data and analytics as a basis for clinical decision-making and the writing of best practice protocols. Weighing what we think we know versus what the data tells us could be a constant balancing act for diagnosing the truth.

Industry professionals will be increasingly tasked with being sophisticated consumers of methodologies for business operations and strategy. True innovation will be defined by problem-solving, and as the magnitude of a problem is quantified, data will help to address solutions. From a business perspective, if a structured framework for data gathering and decision-making is designed to lead innovation, there will be no shortage of problems that can’t be realistically solved for any organization. A systematic approach will see overarching goals and objectives supporting data analysis. A problem-solving structure will be synonymous with effective innovation and value (i.e. quality) for the patient.

Omnichannel Care Through Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Despite telehealth’s ability to provide patients with access to providers, the opportunity for industry partners to get in front of customers continues to be challenging. Data’s value in relation to the patient becomes that much more meaningful, as does the way in which data is generated, namely through machine learning and artificial intelligence for purposes of better understanding the decision-making of customers based on patients’ metrics.

Moving forward, the reliance on analytics to predict the market at the physician level is likely to be more sophisticated as sales teams resort to reviewing the histories of practitioners and their prescribing patterns, decisions, and how that all correlates to tailoring messaging to the needs of doctors based on behaviors and patient segments.

Companies will need to be prepared to train staff appropriately and rely on agency partners to assist with this so that everyone understands the data they’re receiving, what it means, and how to apply it.

The building of partnerships with payer organizations prospectively through predictive analytics also has potential implications for the future. Will payers partner on evaluations on a go-forward basis? Should pharma build clinical trials with endpoints that are more meaningful to payers? If so, how will access to payers regularly happen to learn what those more meaningful endpoints are? The answers to these questions will define the approach to leveraging outcomes and understanding the economic impact of those outcomes with payers.

Ultimately, this will culminate in increasing emphasis being placed on the omnichannel approach to customer service, a sales mentality that seeks to provide a seamless shopping experience, regardless of product, via online, telephone, or brick-and-mortar access. Medical care and pharmacy truly being paired — that’s the future of patient care from an integrated perspective.