Prior to the 5th-annual Connected Health Summit, hosted by Parks Associates, Andy Maloy, VP of Connected Health and VP of Business Development, Integron sat down with the firm's analyst team to discuss the future of the connected health market.

Andy will participate on the Selling Connected Health: Channel Strategies panel on Wednesday, August 29, at 1:15 PM. Panelists who joined him on this session include:

Christopher Bui, MD, MBA, Executive Medical Director, Humana, Inc.
Angie Kalousek Ebrahimi, Director of Markets, Lifestyle Medicine, Blue Shield of California

What is new in 2018 that keeps you upbeat/optimistic about the connected health market?
I’m particularly excited about the technologies that are coming to market that allow interoperability between connected health solutions. In prior years, the conversation in the connected health market has revolved around data collection. We all know that data is the foundation of success in this space, but the real value comes as that data becomes actual intelligence. The difference between the two is that context is present with intelligence. I’m seeing a lot of innovations on the side of contextualized and harmonized data. The increased value of the data, or intelligence is what keeps me very bullish on the space.

What is the most effective strategy/approach you have seen that engages consumers for health & wellness behavioral changes?
It has to be the removal of complexity. There are phenomenal tools and technologies that facilitate behaviors that lead to better health and wellness results, but the challenge, in many cases, comes about when those tools and technologies are deployed. For example, if you supply a cardiac monitoring device to a remote patient, you cannot expect that patient to receive the device and configure it. It has to work right out of the box. When that seamlessness is present, compliance is present, and changes can occur.

What do you anticipate to happen in 2018 that would have the biggest impact on the connected health market?
As I mentioned, I think there are some phenomenal technologies that are allowing companies to deploy connected health solutions in a more efficient way, and retrieve the collected data in context. Additionally, industry regulation has always been a factor to the growth of this space. I think that we see those regulations opening up a lot more in the United States, while tightening up in Europe. For example, shortly, the EU is moving towards a requirement that each kit configuration of a connected health product have a CE approval and marking. This complicates the deployment of many integrated solutions.

How is AI in health helping to improve the care experience?
Again, it goes back to data in context. With the massive amounts of diverse information, data is becoming more intelligent and using multi-variate data sources to predict and alter patterns, improving patient outcomes. AI is truly based upon the snowball effect, as more and more data comes into and out of integrated sources that “ball” becomes bigger and more impactful. We are getting there at an accelerated rate!

How will innovations in connectivity, such as the emergence of 5G, impact the health market?
With every new wave of connectivity technology, we see new applications come out. What those are is everyone’s’ question at this point. 5G in particular has unique properties that allow for extremely low latency. As it pertains to healthcare, it is not hard to imagine how that network could be used by surgeons to remotely perform procedures on patients. Coupled with advancements in robotics, 5G becomes quite powerful. While quite futuristic, the reality of surgeons remotely performing surgery is not far off. At more of a macro-level, ubiquity in coverage, and particularly in low-cost coverage, allows far more data to be collected and analyzed. This will continue to feed the snowball of intelligence in this space.

For more information on Connected Health Summit, visit: www.connectedhealthsummit.com.