Digital health innovators share 2021 predictions

Roberto Ascione, group CEO and founder of global digital health company, Healthware Group

“The inevitable invisibility of digital health, and by that I mean, as with other industries, when technology starts to dematerialise. Digital health will start to be woven into everyday objects more and more. We’re starting to see this happen through the emergence of smart homes and smart cars (i.e. the steering wheel measuring the heart rate). As more data is collected passively, there will be greater opportunities for integration.

“Ageing in place will become more common as baby boomers age and feel more comfortable leveraging tools like remote monitoring, telehealth and disease management platforms. Living independently will be critical to this age group and digital health tools will help support them in that endeavor leading to an explosion of adoption and growth in the overall industry as a result. This is evident in the amount of investment in the category.

“We expect to see what we call, “Health Data as a Service” (HDaS). As an increasing number of solutions and devices generate increasing amounts of health data, there is a greater need for aggregators of that data in a useful way for consumers. Consumers want and need tools to make sense of all that data. They also want to ensure they know who has access to that data, and control over where that data can flow. So, we expect to see more tools supporting consumers in this way.”