Attempts to be ‘patient centric’ still elude many practitioners across Healthcare.

Ironically, it’s the new breed of health tech bellwethers that have grasped patient-centricity (PX) from the outset, and kept it core to every aspect of their mission.

One such exemplar is Happify Health, one of 6 companies I highlighted in my 2022 Trends report “The Year of Purpose-Led Convergence | Vendor Watch List”. From a range of backgrounds, these have been selected for their marked capability to lead and converge with purpose, beyond their core. They have not only recognised the cracks in the current system, but are moving to bridge these through novel approaches. Also recognising that rigid adherence to the status quo impacts on bottom line, relevance, and relationships, they are comfortable working across frontiers.

Here’s what I wrote:

“Happify Health: An evidence based DTx (digital therapeutics) specialist, which has gone from strength to strength within the mental health sector. Heavy investment over the years has enabled it to truly understand buying personas and channels, and to design a portfolio to meet these respective needs. Its platform now supports +50 medical devices and multiple apps.

But here’s the thing: not content with designing a broad portfolio to accommodate varied demand cases, it is now prepping to support acute chronic care instances which trigger mental health problems. There is a significant chasm to cross here, and what it’s proposing excites me.

Happify is also fluent in ‘Ecosystem 2.0’ thinking.” – as defined by Experiential HealthTech.

And so, I’m not surprised about the next chapter, marked by its transition to @Twill.

Simply Experiential™ | Twill in Motion

The birth of Twill consolidates its progress over the last 5 years – expanding from D2C to B2B, and the launch of its prescription DTx range – while signalling its ambitious next 5-year plan: to map deeper into an individual’s treatment cycle to offer as bespoke a range of interventions as possible.

Why is this important? Happify has, with scientific evidence, successfully brought together more service components than many of its peers. PX is its DNA: near real-time PROMS data moves with the patient to inform decisions – it has successfully proved that much of the time (but not all), it is possible to circumnavigate the EHR and still exploit new rich data. Individual service users gain directly through deeper engagement and informed choice.

Equally importantly, Twill’s leadership is demonstrating the balanced equation of outcomes-based adherence and lower cost to health systems, Pharma, and payers alike – KPIs with which all Healthcare stakeholders continue to grapple.

There are four new inter-related components which will uphold its future direction.

The launch of Sequences™ | One Step Closer to Personalised Care

The trust placed in Twill by the Healthcare, Life Sciences, and payor communities has resulted in Sequences™, its “end-to-end digital framework”. This translates as a range of modular service options, to reflect the many support contexts typically out of scope among these Healthcare stakeholders, since they’re not operationally geared to configure at this level: evidence-based DTx, well-being products, peer communities, a multi-disciplinary clinical team, and coaching; quick reference, initial diagnosis, short-term and/or longer-term support.

An additional attraction to the partners that have signed up to this is the strong collaborative and co-design foundations on which Sequences is built – providing them with a gateway to new receptive patients and citizens, which have already independently formed trusted relationships with Twill.

But Twill’s biggest differentiator is that it’s one of the few working at the intersection of mental health and acute comorbidity. This is so important, and it’s more than frustrating that more organisations aren’t acknowledging this as ‘the problem we need to solve, together”.

A Look At Twill’s Guiding Composable Principles

Delivery of this model isn’t easy. In my view, Twill has incrementally moved into this position of strength by operating as a composable organisation in all but name. These principals truly embody patient centricity and move way beyond lip service to PX, to deliver a radically improved experience for those living with a chronic condition which is also impacting their mental health.

There are 6 overarching components of composability, which define an organisation’s relationship with its clients and partners, and which form the foundations of the incremental steps they take towards Ecosystem 2.0.

The leadership culture driving composability is the realisation that we achieve more together. Twill is clear that it will not strive to design every solution inhouse, but will happily bring in third party expertise, either directly, or to accommodate third parties already deployed within its B2B client base.

But this will be no loose amalgamation of products. Twill’s portfolio is already of a high enough calibre today to attract complementary third parties, recognising not only the valuable network effect of its open (API-driven) platform, but also the potential of a more rewarding future: migrating away from point solutions to offer a model that not only resonates with service demand gaps, but also chimes with the new forms of clinical workflow and patient flow that we’re crying out for.

That is why Experiential HealthTech classes Twill as an Ecosystem 2.0 orchestrator.

Ecosystem 2.0 with Twill in Outline

The model outlined below reflects where Twill is today (Layers 1 &2), and how potentially it could start to orchestrate its ecosystem (Layer 3). What’s exciting is that new ecosystem members will also steer, contribute to, and govern this future cross-sector state.

Localised members will also respond to local need, and help to accelerate the rate at which Twill can scale, globally, as is clearly its intention.

Federations of secure data exchange

With the permission of its service users, Twill has already built up an enviable rich data set. As its ecosystem grows, the potential to incrementally enhance its clinical AI base is immense – evidence garnered from clinical trials alone, to steer prescription therapeutics, is exciting.

But this is a two-way street. All ecosystem members must commit to Twill’s federated data underpin. Outcomes data from referrals to third parties must be shared back with Twill – to monitor response rates to this intervention, but also to enable Twill to suggest alternative treatment if low outcomes are registered. All of this data creates a SVoT (single record) per service user, and bolsters Twill’s longitudinal system of insight. Population cohort support is also planned.

Below is a snapshot of some of the technology investment Twill has committed to. And of course this carries the potential to augment its reach. You can see how this lends itself to Ecosystem 2.0.

This is the future. Not for all of us. But for very many. Experiential HealthTech looks forward to seeing what emerges next from Twill.

Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) leaders have dug a lot of deep holes for themselves. Could Web3 yet prove their saviour, and diminish some of their self-inflicted and our real-world problems?

At this point in the ‘digital revolution’, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the many unresolved ‘bread and butter’ issues – taking the shine off what has been achieved. Too many remain unable or unwilling to get closer to the ‘what good looks like’ model we all keep talking about.

Pockets of pioneering HLS have over the last 7 years successfully notched up a range of use cases that exploit several of the core components of Web3, in all but name – the loose reference to it as the next evolution of the internet doesn’t do justice.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding Web3 at this point, with the wide range of accompanying definitions only adding to the confusion.

But this is far from a fad. And in my view, the HLS community is one of the verticals that can build a solid business case to embed many of its core concepts.

The Metaverse | So Near Yet So Far for HLS

The metaverse has already passed the ‘so what’ test among pioneering providers and life sciences organisations, with deployment in the field for some 7 years now.

Investment has been made across a range of hybrid novel settings: to explore; test & validate; benchmark; educate; and move beyond our legacy ‘one size fits all’ intervention model.

Yet today’s installed base is only really scratching the surface in terms of what could be delivered. Most likely is that exploration and uptake of these sub-components will continue to be incremental, while operational and clinical models continue to reconfigure, evolve, and mature. And let’s be clear, no-one is waiting for 5G to drop before they set out along this path.

The real sustainable benefit of Web3 will come from the bringing together of these ‘proven’ elements, along with others yet to be fully explored.

What Exactly is Web3

Web3 ultimately isn’t so much about the technology implemented, but the art of the possible. It provides a platform through which to pragmatically and simultaneously resolve many of today’s challenges – especially those cultural ‘brick walls’. To quote Sun Tzu from ‘The Art of War’: “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

Alongside the metaverse, blockchain and tokenisation has been making inroads within pockets of HLS – although at a comparatively slower rate. For good reason however, and my view is that the grounded pragmatic examples coming through here will help to convince other cautious or sceptical peers of its validity.

But to my mind the two greatest jewels in the Web3 treasure chest are DAOs and synthetic data. Hand in glove, they offer those within the HLS community the first real opportunity to get ahead of the innovation and discovery curve, instead of chasing their tails.

DAOs are the Wrap Around to Web3’s Success

With the interoperability war raging against many of you incumbents right now, and serious efforts to get more HLS stakeholders to collaborate, while pressure mounts to redesign the patient engagement model, Decentralised Autonomous Communities (DAOs) could really strike a chord.

I view DAOs as a more formalised type of the Trusted Research Environment model that’s being actively encouraged within some of the pioneering health systems. DAOs by nature will offer greater scope to integrate a broader range of stakeholders into a community of practice: removing so many of the barriers and uncertainties on how to progress together, within tightly governed parameters. DAOs will add to rather than derail effort to collaborate, and will help to see the wood from the trees in settling clear obtainable goals.

More meaningful relationships could also be nurtured with patients, who, encouraged by the open door a DAO membership offers, would be more likely to sign up and fully participate.

All you health tech incumbents should note that you too can play a meaningful role here. Those among you whose work straddles providers, medtech, and/or life sciences will have more options to consider over the longer-term.

Access to Real World Data is Limiting | Let’s Synchronize

Nearly every conversation across HLS these days involves data – what good data looks like; where to get hold of it; how to exploit it for insight; who owns it; how biased it is.

We’re all aware of the many contexts and settings across the HLS landscape where a data strategy is not a leadership priority or capability; where good data isn’t being captured; where good data is being hoarded; where analytics skills are poor.

The more HLS matures, the more leaders realise they need good data. We’ve now reached the tipping point on fit-for-purpose data. The outstanding challenges in basic data capture and accessibility leave us no nearer to population health.

Enter synthetic data.

And yet the proven benefits from the field in creating synthetic data, if more widely understood and deployed at-scale could be a seismic catalyst for positive change across so many fronts.

Already being used in pockets of life sciences to bolster trials, it’s gaining momentum as a safe accelerant for predictive care. It’s accredited with the same statistical and business value as data collected in the field, or to supplant when real data isn’t available, or when such data is scarce, yet it carries no risk of being traced back to the real source.

One of the most obvious and potentially far reaching use cases will be in the field of digital twins: creating synthetic (proximal) data to mimic certain characteristics of a person, and use this as a blueprint to create a generic model that can be applied in other context.

Web3 could help generate a completely new data continuum, a gift that would keep on giving, locally and internationally.

Health Tech Vendors Must Start Planning Now to Support Web3

Yes, Web3 is in its infancy, but it points to a solid opportunity for incumbent vendors and telcos to pursue beyond hyped ‘trends’. That’s why it makes sense for you to get involved in some way at this grass roots level, and identify your entry point.

I’d advise you start planning for this alongside your Business-as-Usual. Because not only will it determine some of your future customers; it will also clarify how you’ll need to upskill your teams; the new types of partnerships to invest in; the lines of business to add; new incentive programmes.

New Web3 competitor types are emerging, not necessarily familiar with HLS. Closer to home, those currently stealing a march are cloud leaders with an HLS footprint, biotechs, and the new breed of health tech bellwethers – culturally geared to operate in ‘future-ready’ mode.

But this is not a gold rush – your effort will deliver both short and intermediate wins while Web3’s infrastructure matures, and momentum builds.

There are also several weak aspects of the model that could dilute the core mission of Web3, to honour the voice of diversity – see below. In most of these areas, an answer lies in your hands.

And if you’re unsure or sceptical at this stage, check out below the growing list of names coming together to form Web3- and related standards consortiums.

The Bottom Line: Interoperability is all over the Web3 value proposition. If you’re not already making moves to at least commit to this in the day-to-day, then this ship will pass you by.

Month: July 2022

From Happify to Twill | A Masterclass in Patient-Centricity