Over the past couple of decades, we’ve seen the slow, incremental incursion of computers (and the web) into the daily lives & workflows of both patients and healthcare providers. And drug companies. And everyone else.
Computers (and the Internet) are now ubiquitous. Just try to imagine life, and work, without them.
Watching the evolution of processor speed, interface design, enterprise apps, web technology, wireless access, and ever-shrinking form factors has been fascinating, perhaps even painful at times. Then the iPad showed up.
Two and a half years ago, when the first-generation iPad showed up, I predicted it would be a game-changer for healthcare; but frankly, the rapid adoption rate by doctors, patients, and provider companies (including pharma) has taken even me by surprise. The uptake, even in regulated industries, has been phenomenal.
Which means we now need to step back and ask a very important question: Is the mobile computing device destined to be the new (inter)face of healthcare?
My answer is a resounding “Yes” for one simple reason: smartphones and tablets are rapidly becoming the new interface of life and business. Period. End of story.
Within 2 years, portable devices will take on the mantle of “first-screen” status – that is, more people will be accessing digital-everything through mobile devices rather than through desktops. And that trend is accelerating, not slowing down. Already, about 62% of U.S. physicians are using tablets (mostly iPads, currently).
Quibble with me if you wish (you do have every right to be incorrect, after all!), but let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that personalized mobile computing devices will be the interface of life, business, and (therefore) healthcare.
If that is so – and I’m now turning to address my friends in pharma/biotech/med device companies – who is redesigning your entire business infrastructure and customer experience to reflect this inevitability? Anyone?
The “face” of your company to patients and doctors has traditionally been a human face (sales reps, for instance) – but we know where the field sales model is heading. The digital noise of broadcast TV and websites and banner ads – these models are all based on non-mobile computing approaches. The new channel is in the pockets of our customers – all of our customers.
This transcends being merely a training, or sales, or marketing, or technology issue. This is much bigger. It is fundamentally an interface issue. The entire healthcare information and delivery cycle will become “mobilized.” For the smart life sciences companies, that means at least one sure-bet avenue for competitive advantage – get ahead of this trend. Even if you have to take a go-slow approach to social media, the mobile interface is not going to be optional or off-label. It’ll be first-line.
And don’t get hung up on Apple vs Android, etc., etc. Flavors and versions are secondary. The inexorable mobile trend is primary.
Person-to-person contact will never lose its importance in healthcare (or life, or business). But when you look at how patients and doctors and administrators and caregivers and news outlets and everyone else is interfacing with information and with each other, the writing is on the wall. Or, more accurately, on the tablet. And the new “writing” is digital, multimedia, personalized, real-time, geographically aware, and mobile. It’s the new normal. Today.
As the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky put it, you need to “go to where the puck is going to be.” That place is in customers’ pockets. If you’re not in the process of thoroughly mobilizing your business, you’re already behind.
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Impactiviti is the Pharmaceutical Connection Agency. As the eHarmony of sales/training/marketing, we help our pharma/biotech clients find optimal outsource vendors through our unique trusted referral network. Need something? Ask Steve.
Learn more about us here.
Nice post, i really found it interesting to read and i hope you will write more on this subject in the future.
Great article Steve, I think you are right on. Here is our take….
We operate in the virtual training and meeting space, and recognize the astounding impact of mobile on how we humans are interacting and modifying our behaviors around content and each other in the real time, and near real time environment of mobile.
Based in that, we are strategically aligning our core business capability with mobile, and specifically tablet (always on, and always present and something you can actually work on as opposed to a smart phone).
Our thought is that for live interaction and content interaction you can’t replicate the desktop experience on a tablet and shouldn’t try. Accepting tablets as the primary interface for human computing interaction necessitates an overhaul of how we think about both user/device interaction and at the center of it all the human business process.
We are seeing that with the exception of the gaming and entertainment industries, conpanies are not really thinking in depth about this change. And specificatlly that business applications on the tablet are not taking that fundamental shift into consideration when they create their tablet software. By and large business applications are simple ports of existing desktop software.
The companies that really understand this profound change in user behavior and create business processes and software that leverages that will have a significant leg up.
Braydon, you said it far better than I could! Thanks for stopping by :>}
“The inexorable mobile trend is primary” … yup, that says it all, Steve. We, too, have clients in the healthcare space and our main focus strategically is on the mobile space.
However for every one forward thinking client, there are nine who just don’t get it. We are seeing that there are few companies, large or small, who are thinking about the mobile space, how it is and will continue to impact them, no matter what their business or customer base.
We think it’s pretty simple: adapt or die. And those who get it the quickest, and adapt not only the quickest but the most intelligently (and take the customer user experience into consideration as they are developing mobile solutions) … well, those are the companies who will win.
Love this post, my friend. But then, you knew I would.
Shelly
@shellykramer
I’ve always felt that it will be the small and nimble life sciences/healthcare companies that will be first to truly “get” social business and mobile-centricity – much less legacy baggage and inertia to move. And the whole user experience thing you mentioned – gah, don’t get me started…!
Steve,
Great post…what we have noticed when we service the Healthcare space is the often overlooked component of “redesigning the business infrastructure” includes making sure that the right and correctly trained people are on the bus.
Healthcare needs to take a good hard look on how they take a sales force that was once left to merely a bow and arrow, and now find themselves empowered with a a interactive fighter jet. They must take this disconnection seriously and make them ready for the new field of battle…before one boot hits the dirt. This engagement weapon in worth little to the force that is trained in using lesser tools and some may be quite unfamiliar with the nuances of touchscreen interaction, which regardless of the strategist of the relationship, can turn a respected sales professional into clumsy juggler of gorilla glass. Its not as easy as having an iPad at home. Kids today expect these interactions as if commonplace to their environment, their brains are wired for it because they know nothing else. This is illustrated in this humorous video found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk
It is especially hard when the challenge is the re-engineering of what I would call Flip Chart DNA in established career sales forces who were not born with these tools commonplace.
So beware those who are quick to adopt the platform without taking the time to teach the archer to fly the jet.
Best,
DJ Edgerton
CEO
Zemoga.com
http://www.pixelsandpills.com
“The right people on the bus” for a digital/mobile/social transformation – that sounds like a bunch of blog posts to me! Maybe even an e-book!
Can’t take credit for the metaphor…I think it’s from the book….”From Good to Great” … a great book BTW.