How to Develop and
Commercialize Digital Health
Solutions

After the COVID-19 crisis, we have witnessed a never-before-seen spark in the adoption of digital health solutions by healthcare providers. But investors’ enthusiasm for digital health seems to be waning these days ⁽¹⁾. The reason for this is not the lack of genuinely valuable digital tools but quite the opposite. The market is actually littered with quality digital health applications that have failed to scale or commercialize.

Developing a valuable digital health tool is like reaching only halfway. Arguably, the most challenging part is how companies commercialize their products. This is mainly a sales and marketing problem, and the answer lies in finding the right commercial approach. Industry experts, however, also blame the lack of true digital health ecosystems—that bring all the stakeholders under one umbrella—as a roadblock to commercialization ⁽²⁾⁽³⁾.

In this article, we will explore how to successfully develop and commercialize digital health solutions, focusing on building an effective ecosystem that maximizes value for all involved.

Understanding the Digital Healthcare Ecosystem

What Is an Ecosystem in Healthcare?

A healthcare ecosystem is a complex network of all the stakeholders that work together to deliver patient care. This includes patients, providers, investors, regulatory authorities, and vendors. In a truly functional ecosystem, all the players support each other and work in unison to provide better healthcare, creating a synergistic environment ⁽¹⁾.

In the context of digital technology, a digital healthcare ecosystem is an infrastructure that connects resources, technologies, applications, devices, and stakeholders—working together to unify different types of data, such as administrative records and test reports ⁽⁴⁾.

What Are the 4 Essential Elements of a Digital Ecosystem?

1. Technology: This includes digital health solutions as well as the infrastructure to run them.
2. People: The patients, healthcare providers, investors, and other stakeholders who interact with the digital health applications in any capacity.
3. Processes: The workflows and practices that incorporate the digital health solution into everyday healthcare operations.

Regulations: The legal and ethical frameworks governing the use of digital healthcare technologies.

Developing Genuinely Valuable Digital Health Solutions

There’s no single roadmap to develop a digital health solution that truly brings value for both patients and providers. However, we can broadly categorize the developmental phase into 3 steps:

1. Identifying the Unmet Needs of Target Users

This is the first issue that companies need to address. What type of solution do the investors want to develop? Can it meet the unmet needs of patients, health professionals, and other stakeholders? To answer these two main questions, companies should conduct a thorough market research and engage with all the stakeholders. The goal should be to develop a solution that improves users’ lives and has a sustainable business impact ⁽³⁾.

2. Determining Whether to Develop Regulated or Unregulated Solutions

Another major step is deciding whether the digital health solution will have regulated features. Regulated solutions can claim medical benefits, which unregulated ones can’t. At best, unregulated tools can help to educate patients, support prescription adherence, or connect them with healthcare providers ⁽⁵⁾.

However, developing a regulated solution means it will fall under the oversight of respective regulatory agencies. It must meet their stringent requirements and prove its safety and efficacy before commercialization. This may increase development costs. Even so, having regulated features in a digital health tool can increase public trust and support universal health coverage ⁽²⁾⁽⁵⁾.

3. Ensuring the Solutions Connect to the Digital Health Ecosystem

Companies developing a solution should ensure all four elements synchronize in harmony within the digital health ecosystem. The technology must be designed to meet the specific needs and behaviors of target users and other stakeholders. To ensure this, it should undergo continuous testing and feedback loops ⁽⁶⁾.

Technologically, these solutions should seamlessly integrate into the existing workflows of healthcare providers, allowing smooth data sharing between systems and devices. The infrastructure must support data storage, cybersecurity, and interoperability. They should also ensure compliance with respective regulations ^(1)(3)(6).

The Challenges to Commercialize Digital Health Solutions

Unlike medical devices or healthcare products, companies developing digital health solutions don’t have a single marketplace to reach buyers. As such, there’s no fixed path to commercialize these digital tools. Companies should thus target all stakeholders. This requires a tailored approach for each potential market ⁽⁶⁾⁽⁷⁾.

Strategies for Successful Commercialization

Effective strategies often involve:

1. Identifying the different players within the digital healthcare ecosystem that could benefit from the solution
2. Partnering with established players in the healthcare industry
3. Ensuring compliance with the regulatory requirements
4. Demonstration of clear value to the target users

Regardless of the commercial approach taken, customers usually like to see evidence of either clinical or economic benefit before buying. Hence, clinical studies and real-world data are critically important to convince potential buyers of the value of a digital health solution ⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾.

Scale Your Digital Health Technology with IT Medical

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Don’t let developmental challenges hold you back. Our dedicated smart teams will guide you through every step, from development to regulatory compliance, ensuring your solutions resonate with healthcare providers and patients alike.

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References

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2. Schlieter, H., Marsch, L. A., Whitehouse, D., Otto, L., Londral, A. R., Teepe, G. W., … & Kowatsch, T. (2022). Scale-up of digital innovations in health care: expert commentary on enablers and barriers. Journal of medical Internet research, 24(3), e24582. doi: 10.2196/24582.

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