The Debrief

As better patient outcomes are emerging with virtual care programs, there seems to be an opportunity for pharma to work in tandem with virtual care companies to drive better health outcomes. However, the business model is still not clear. On Wednesday, 26 April, our telemedicine and virtual care delivery community examined the potential opportunities for pharma within virtual care for cardiometabolic diseases.

What we found: one stumbling block could be the interesting differences in the attitude of physicians towards interventions based on lifestyle modification - a key aspect of virtual care. While some evidence from the US suggests that physicians were skeptical of how effective it can be or how well patients adhere to the guidance, in France physicians have a bias towards the use of 'day hospitals' for in person administration of lifestyle interventions leading to skepticism of virtual delivery. 

You can view the takeaways from that meeting here. 

On Wednesday, 20 April, members of our oncology community met to discuss the uses of digital health solutions in addressing comorbidities for oncology patients. 

What we found: The meeting noted that an oncology diagnosis represents a huge shift for a patient. Alongside treatment, there are often comorbidities to be addressed, such as mental health issues and pain. While digital solutions can help ease that burden in several ways, there needs to be a balance to ensure that they are integrated into a care plan gently, rather than adding additional complexity to an already difficult situation. For providers, this means considering how they can seamlessly integrate into a patient's broader care plan.

One takeaway was that a more open approach to integration and broad-based care could give clinicians more options to recommend to patients without adding any undue burden to either patient or doctor. 

In neurology, DTx can have many applications - from being used in pediatrics (ADHD) to geriatrics (Alzheimer's) and across use cases such as cognition, stroke rehabilitation, motor symptom, and pain management. However, healthcare professional and patient adoption rates seem to be lower when compared to other therapeutic areas - a key topic of discussion at our digital mental health and neurology community meeting on Tuesday, 19 April. 

What we found: One issue raised at that meeting was that payers don’t consider neurological diseases as a huge problem, so it is harder to get them to listen compared to other therapeutic areas such as cardiometabolic diseases. However, as neurological disease prevalence is increasing, it is only a matter of time before payers see an important cost to be addressed. More research in health economics is needed to show the financial value to payers and physicians.