Digital Technologies Redefine Healthcare Boundaries: Insights from 27 Industry Experts on the Future of Digital Health

“2020: Healthcare Embarks on a New Digital Journey”。”

——Yang Ruirong, Partner at MARATHON VENTURE PARTNERS

Digital Technology Is Reshaping the Future of the Healthcare Industry. In 2020, driven by multiple factors including policy reforms, technological advancements, market evolution, and the impact of the pandemic, the healthcare industry is embracing the digital world with unprecedented momentum.

On one hand, an increasing number of cross-industry collaborations are emerging: pharmaceutical and medical device companies, in vitro diagnostic (IVD) manufacturers, digital health technology firms, and insurance companies are joining forces. Leveraging digitalization, they provide integrated, end-to-end services to physicians and patients in specialized disease areas, thereby enhancing the lifetime value of patients.

On the other hand, driven by new-generation digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and robotics, an increasing number of innovative models are continuously emerging. The accelerated implementation of these innovations is expanding the capabilities of healthcare providers and delivering personalized, high-quality medical solutions to patients.

On November 27, the “Redefining the Boundaries of Healthcare—2020 Yuan·Vision Digital Health Summit,” hosted by MARATHON VENTURE PARTNERS, was successfully held in Shanghai. The summit shared insights on digital collaboration within the healthcare industry from multiple perspectives, including industry, policy, technology, and capital, and explored new trends and opportunities in the digital healthcare sector for the next decade.

The 2003 SARS outbreak, with its physical isolation measures, prompted entrepreneurs to rethink the future of the consumer industry, giving rise to the e-commerce businesses of Taobao and JD.com, which ultimately disrupted the consumer market. In 2020, the mandatory physical isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly educated stakeholders in the healthcare industry, as digitalization began to truly impact the core segments of the healthcare sector.

Yang Ruirong stated, “Against the backdrop of the growing integration of next-generation digital technologies—such as social networking, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics, 3D printing, and synthetic biology—into healthcare scenarios, diverse digital technologies will be interconnected and fused to create a closed-loop data application ecosystem, thereby reshaping traditional healthcare models.”

(Yang Ruirong, MARATHON VENTURE PARTNERS)

According to MARATHON VENTURE PARTNERS, the traditional boundaries of the healthcare industry—segmented into pharmaceuticals, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), healthcare services, and healthcare informatics—are disappearing, with increasing cross-sector integration taking place. “We are observing a growing number of pharmaceutical companies expanding into IVD, informatics firms venturing into service provision, and device manufacturers launching informatics-based services… Traditional boundaries are dissolving, driven primarily by digitalization. This shift is reshaping competitive landscapes and industry structures, giving rise to opportunities for platform-based models and strategic entry points.”

“We are in an era of profound industry transformation, facing many unstable variables, and need to identify structural opportunities that can withstand economic cycles,” introduced Yang Ruirong. “MARATHON VENTURE PARTNERS will analyze future opportunities in the healthcare industry from the perspective of the value brought by digitalization, ultimately summarizing them into three key areas: access, efficiency, and payment.”

Digitalization is accelerating the advent of the “patient-centric” era. A robust digital network is continuously empowering doctors and patients in China, transforming “doctor-patient interaction,” a core component of healthcare. Guided by clinical pathways, more industry practitioners are making comprehensive efforts to build a new generation of digital healthcare value models characterized by “greater breadth—covering more value chain segments” and “greater depth—breakthroughs in practice models for specific segments.”

For example, the traditional point-based, fragmented “light consultation” is evolving towardFull-Course Management Throughout the Patient's Entire Life CycleOn one hand, every stage of the patient lifecycle is strengthened, enhancing service depth and the efficacy of specific segments; on the other hand, the entire patient diagnosis and treatment chain operates in a coherent and coordinated manner, with digital healthcare practices beginning to encompass more value-added segments.

Physicians, executives of multinational pharmaceutical companies, senior management of medical big data enterprises, and founders of startups shared their insights on existing digital practices and future perspectives, engaging in a dynamic exchange. They reached a consensus that the digitalization of the healthcare industry will be patient-centric, evolving from “single-point services and isolated steps” toward “whole-process, full-course disease management.”

Bain & Company Managing Director Chen Baiping cited an example: “Our research found that patients engaged in disease management expect medication purchasing platforms to provide initial consultation services, consultation platforms to offer prescription issuance, and disease management platforms to handle medication delivery. In summary, more than one-quarter of patients desire comprehensive, integrated end-to-end services.”

Therefore, new technologies and models are accelerating the development of patient-centered service systems, transforming patients’ clinical outcomes and experiences, and delivering entirely new patient value.

New-generation digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things, have gradually accumulated commercial translation in the healthcare sector to a critical tipping point, with an increasing number of clinical applications rapidly emerging and being implemented.New products and technologies are continuously expanding the boundaries of physicians’ clinical capabilities, empowering the entire diagnosis and treatment workflow.—Supporting more precise diagnostics and more efficient treatments, reshaping traditional diagnostic and treatment workflows.

Dr. Tao Yong, Chief Physician at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, stated: “The prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in China ranges from 24% to 37%, with an estimated 20 to 40 million patients nationwide. However, there are only 48,000 ophthalmologists across the country, and it takes many years of training for them to become highly skilled and experienced specialists. This scarcity of resources has led to an imbalance between medical supply and demand.”

In fact, apart from ophthalmology, other medical specialties are likewise grappling with shortages of healthcare resources. Experts attending the conference noted that the application of digital technologies will significantly enhance efficiency, address the imbalance between medical supply and demand, and enable patients to access high-quality healthcare resources.

For example, AI- and cloud computing-based automated screening software can assist physicians in reducing screening time to a certain extent; 3D printing-based dental consumables can improve diagnostic and treatment efficiency; and AI-assisted diagnostic software can help physicians shorten the time required for image interpretation. As clinicians’ efficiency improves and the time spent on diagnosis and screening decreases, physicians can devote more time to patient care or skills enhancement.

Currently, the global market has seen the emergence of various digital technology products, including AI-assisted diagnostic tools and 3D-printed medical devices. These emerging digital technologies are empowering the entire clinical workflow, enabling efficient and widespread screening, precise diagnosis, and personalized, intelligent treatment.

Digital technology expands the boundaries of physicians’ capabilities, creates entirely new value for patients, and breaks down the structural imbalance between healthcare supply and demand.

As healthcare reform advances further, multi-tiered coverage models and diagnosis-related group (DRG)-based payment methods are emerging as new trends and focal points, driving growing demand for commercial health insurance. Industry practitioners are leveraging digital tools to conduct in-depth analysis of disease data, facilitating collaboration among diverse stakeholders—including healthcare providers, payers, and pharmaceutical and medical device companies—to support the implementation of new payment systems and provide patients with lifelong coverage.

Scholars, insurance executives, and founders of innovative healthcare payment companies shared their insights and practices in the field of healthcare payments. The view that “commercial health insurance will become an important supplement to healthcare payments” has reached a consensus. However, insurers are currently exploring how to penetrate the healthcare sector, how to design commercial health insurance products, and how to enhance customers’ sense of value and satisfaction.

It is foreseeable that reforms to the hospital payment system based on Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs) are being rapidly advanced across multiple provinces and municipalities, creating development opportunities for commercial health insurance. A multi-payer system will serve as a robust supplement to the national basic medical insurance payment framework, providing patients with diversified and multi-tiered coverage. Furthermore, the insurance industry is shifting from “paying for disease treatment” to “paying for disease prevention,” leveraging digital technologies to deliver full-lifecycle health management.

Amidst profound industry transformation, entrepreneurial opportunities are subtly shifting. The former dominant theme of import substitution is giving way to a dual-engine drive of technological innovation and business model innovation, presenting new challenges for investors in selecting their strategic directions. In 2020, global digital health financing and investment reached a historical peak, with numerous digital health companies listing on secondary markets, ushering the industry into a new era.

Investors from diverse backgrounds, including strategic investment arms of the insurance industry and pharmaceutical/medical device companies, as well as TMT and healthcare funds, engaged in in-depth discussions. Amidst shifting multifactorial dynamics, investment opportunities in digital health are rapidly emerging, simultaneously delivering strategic value to strategic investors.

Today’s healthcare sector is embracing digital technologies, yet beneath the technological veneer, the industry’s enduring pursuit of patient value remains unchanged. Whether entrepreneurs, investors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, insurers, or tech giants, all share the ultimate goal of creating greater and more sustainable value for patients. This commitment will not be diverted by the process of digitalization; on the contrary, it will become even more resolute.