The HealthXL Sprint 2-part meeting series connects senior leaders across our community to solve the latest health challenges. In our most recent sprint we discussed “How to Overcome the Blockers to DTx Adoption and Measure Success.”  In this blog we’ve pulled out the top takeaways from this series.

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5 key recommendations:

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#1 Have a clear value proposition of the solution: To ensure adoption of a DTx product, the solution needs to provide health benefits to the patient. Demonstrating health benefits will drive adoption across patients, HCPs and providers alike. Clinical evidence and regulatory clearance are important in ensuring trust and demonstrating health benefits of a DTx solution. This will also encourage early adopters to implement the DTx solution. If the value proposition, particularly the product’s ability to drive revenue is clear, providers are more likely to use their own resources to promote the product, including facilitating clinical research and obtaining regulatory approval, thus increasing adoption.

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#2 Providing a method of time-reduction for HCPs is critical for success: There are several factors that will encourage HCPs use of a DTx product. As achieving patient outcomes is critical, social incentives should be focused on improving patient care and treatment. However, the ultimate factor that is required to ensure HCP adoption is to provide a means to enhance time management. Solutions which aid time management should focus not just on reducing time spent with patients, but rather on the ability to provide clinical leverage through enhanced clinical decision making, greater efficiency in the clinical delivery workflow, improving patient outcomes, and enabling high-quality time spent with patients and families.

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#3 Providing facilitators of adherence will promote patient engagement: To ensure patient adoption, the products need to be engaging and interactive. Some such methods of engagement include personalisation, gamification, human interaction and an emotional attachment to the product. ‘Freemium’ D2C solutions offer higher levels of flexibility than regulatory approved solutions, and can demonstrate high levels of adoption in the short term. However, maintaining patient engagement for these solutions is difficult, even if facilitators of adherence are incorporated into the solution. Thus, although regulatory approval may reduce flexibility, it may be required for DTx solutions to maintain high levels of patient engagement, as well as increasing the likelihood of funding.

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#4 Increasing awareness around the pivotal influence that DTx can play in sustainable healthcare models may increase adoption: Traditional healthcare systems are reactive. As average life expectancy soars and prevalence of debilitating diseases grow, global health expenditure is increasing in parallel. The long term sustainability of these reactive systems are under question, and models which are instead holistic and preventive may be imperative in the future of healthcare. DTx can play a key role in these systems, particularly in the P4 (Predictive, Preventative, Personalized and Participatory) model. Currently, there is little consideration given to the long-term cost effectiveness of adopting DTx solutions. As healthcare systems evolve, demonstrating the long-term efficacy that DTx can offer may ameliorate adoption.

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#5 Digital solution providers need to work backwards from reimbursement

Typically, DTx companies will only focus on the reimbursement pathway after their DTx solutions have been validated. In this sense, the companies commit to achieving clinical efficiency and outcomes, but then struggle to achieve a suitable pathway for reimbursement. As the current reimbursement incentives, such as DiGA, are negligible for HCPs, adoption continues to be a challenge. However, as DiGA and other reimbursement pathways are optimised, HCPs may favour reimbursable DTx solutions. Therefore, achieving reimbursement will be an important component of the DTx to raise HCP adoption rates. To achieve reimbursement and overcome barriers to adoption, DTx companies should consider the pathway to reimbursement concurrently with clinical and regulatory pathways.

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Experts Included:

Adriano Garcez (Director, Outcomes Research, ZS), Hannes Klopper (CEO, HelloBetter), Katerina Gaitani (Global Brand Leader, Bayer), Mette Dyhrberg (Founder & CEO, Mymee), Nemanja Kovacev, MD, PhD (MedTech Expert, HTEC Group), Ricardo Berrios (Executive Founder, Adhera Health), Richard DeNunzio (Chief Commercial Officer, Click Therapeutics), Richie Bavasso (CEO, nQ Medical)

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*All opinions are the participants’ own and do not necessarily reflect the stance of their respective employers.

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