Bill Welch, Phillips-Medisize, a Molex company, shares his insights on the trends driving growth in connected health solutions.
Q. Why is there an increasing interest in investing in connected health solutions in the drug delivery market?
A. Integrating mobile and cloud technologies into drug delivery devices such as injectors and inhalers provides exciting opportunities for improving patient medication adherence, which has proven to be a persistent – and costly – challenge. A number of studies show that only half of the patients in the United States take their medication as prescribed, costing approximately $290 billion annually. Improving how people take their medicine offers powerful potential for better patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs.
Q. How do connected health solutions address the adherence challenge?
A. Utilising connectivity in drug delivery devices enables patients and healthcare professionals to track when patients take their medication and the dosage amount. A device design with the patient and disease in mind, coupled with an app, creates a stronger patient use experience. In addition, connectivity provides valuable opportunities to support patients through reminders, incentives and peer communities to improve adherence, disease management and, ideally, outcomes. For example, the third-generation connected health platform recently released by Phillips-Medisize makes it easy to do all this and more. It builds on the success of our earlier connected health solutions, including the first FDA-approved combination product for medication adherence.
Our advanced, cloud-based connected health platform is a secure, reliable and scalable medical device data system (MDDS). It combines a rich analytics tool with an industry-leading integration engine so that customers can integrate patient data with electronic medical records and other data from pharmacy and IoT devices. Analysing this data can provide valuable insights to help drive better medication adherence.
Q. What are the cornerstones of effective connected health solutions?
A. Connected health solutions should be developed around therapy-specific interfaces that create compelling user experiences. They must be sensible, scalable and cost-effective to meet industry, provider and patient needs. Based on more than a decade of experience developing connected health solutions, we recognise that successful ones are built on three essential foundations: robust technology, solid business planning and empathetic patient engagement. It is critical for developers to continually invest in new capabilities, technologies and human expertise to ensure they deliver high-value solutions that incorporate the best in innovative thinking. Developers need to work closely with customers to develop differentiated and drug-specific strategies that support connected health value propositions and deliver strong ROI.
As part of our commitment to this emerging market, we recently expanded our Little Rock Facility to include an FDA-registered manufacturing Center of Excellence for Connected Health and drug delivery devices. This enables us to combine the innovative solutions and knowledge of our existing electronics production operations with Phillips-Medisize’s drug delivery and medical device expertise to efficiently manufacture innovative connected health solutions.
Q. Why is patient-centered design important?
A. The ultimate goal of connected health solutions is to enable patients, supported by their caregivers, to improve medication adherence and take better care of themselves outside the hospital, with additional support and encouragement from healthcare providers as needed. That means connected health solutions should be simple to use and desirable from the patient’s perspective. Well-designed interfaces help patients remain engaged and motivated, provide a great user experience and streamline data collection and visualisation.
Q. What do you anticipate for the future of connected health?
A. We expect the market to grow globally, with the biggest initial growth in the United States and Europe, as connected health systems begin to demonstrate incremental improvements in adherence and patient outcomes. For us, connected health is not a buzz word – it’s a strategy for better serving our customers and their patients. Our connected health solution development is driven by our front-end innovation (FEI) team, which we recently expanded due to increased demand for device innovation and connected health services. The focus of our FEI team is to work with our clients to develop a connected health business case.
Our FEI team brings together more than eight decades of experience in all facets of connected health, from deep electronics and communications technology to the impact of digital for customers’ global sales strategies. To ensure customers around the globe have access to these game-changing connectivity technologies, our FEI team is supported by Global Innovation and Development centers in the United States and Europe, and a satellite center in China. Plus, we have targeted connected health and electronics production facilities in North American, Europe and Asia. Global innovation, development and manufacturing capabilities are key to creating end-to-end systems that can change lives.