Reconfiguring the Healthcare Landscape

The need to provide high-quality, personalized care in the U.S. has never been greater due to an aging population with changing needs, the increasingly common occurrence of chronic disorders and digitization. All of these things amid the further stressing of the healthcare system caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are reconfiguring the way services are delivered.

Precision medicine, also known as personalized healthcare, dates back to 2004 with the launch of the Personalized Medicine Coalition that brought together innovators, scientists, patients, providers and payers to promote “the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts, services and products to benefit patients and health systems.” Today, many milestones have been achieved in the field of personalized medicine. We provide an overview of these in our article “Personalized Healthcare” (p.24), including the human genome research programs developed by the National Institutes of Health and genetic tests developed by researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Yet, while the role of personalized medicine is still relatively limited, it is hoped that it will soon expand to achieve the goal of matching the right treatments at the right dosages for individual patients at the right time.

What could possibly be considered a form of personalized healthcare is the growing field of digital technology, specifically digital therapeutics (DTx), which are evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by software to prevent, manage or treat medical disorders or diseases. As we explain in our article “Digital Therapeutics: The Next Frontier” (p.30), while DTx don’t replace healthcare providers, these prescription-based products and services encourage collaboration between providers and patients, allowing providers to adjust patient treatments, medication doses and other needs according to the information gathered from the DTx, and providing patients more control over their care. As the field of DTx continues to grow, they will provide doctors more information, efficiency and efficacy, and patients with more independence, privacy and comfort.

Still, even with better testing and technologies, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have left a heavy strain on the healthcare industry with rising costs, provider burnout and increased patient expectations. One result of this has been healthcare consolidation, with a surge in mergers this year alone. But, whether consolidation is good or bad for the healthcare industry is a matter of debate, as we highlight in our article “Pros and Cons of Healthcare Consolidation” (p.34). Proponents claim consolidation provides access to quality patient care at an affordable price with more efficient, reliable organizations. Opponents, however, claim it hurts patients because of decreased competition that raises the cost of care, decreased access to and quality of care, workforce inefficiencies and movement away from facilities’ missions. Which side is correct remains to be seen.

As always, we hope you enjoy the additional articles in this issue of BioSupply Trends Quarterly, and find them both relevant and helpful to your practice.

Helping Healthcare Care,

Patrick M. Schmidt
Publisher