In this videocast we had the pleasure of speaking with Ritesh Patel, Chief Digital Officer at Ogilvy Consulting (and part time DJ on Sundays!).
Originally from Kenya, Ritesh grew up in East London. His career initially followed a path within the tourism/travel sector, involving jobs such as working in hotels, travel agencies and the finance world. It was within a travel agency where his interest in digital was sparked and he could see the potential it had to change any industry. With no experience in health, but a wealth of knowledge in digital, Ritesh entered the health arena in 2009. He was offered his first role in health as Head of Digital for a subsidiary of inVentiv Health (now Syneos Health) where he quickly learned how transferable his digital skills were. Ritesh has had an extremely successful career in digital health to date, and his insights and knowledge make for a very interesting listen!
In this episode, Ritesh discusses the use of social media and digital to connect with patients. Considering the current healthcare landscape in Covid-19, Ritesh describes how health organisations are starting to ‘move the health system from the hospital to the home’. He describes how social networks, along with solutions such as telemedicine, are changing the delivery of care today. This can be clearly seen in the so-called low-medium income countries where
significant progress has been made to enable ‘consumers’ of health technology - Ritesh gives plenty of examples from Brazil to India. Although much of the adoption of digital health has been forced due to the pandemic, it has simply accelerated the industry in a direction which it was already going. From tech giants to pharma companies, Ritesh discusses both the opportunities and threats which are being faced by digital health across the globe.
To finish up, Ritesh provides an interesting opinion on one of the key questions asked today, ‘Which tech giant will be the first to take over the health industry?’. Listen in to find out more!
Also catch Ritesh at our upcoming event, HealthXL Interactive, not only as a key contributor from the digital health world, but also as the entertainment for the networking session. A big thank you to DJ Ritesh! To find out more on this event click here.