Analytics expert Shashank Agarwal presents new age patient-centric strategy
Over the recent years, Dubai has emerged as the health-tech hub of the Arab world by adopting and implementing advanced healthcare technologies
Digital transformation refers to the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, resulting in fundamental changes to how the business operates and delivers value to customers. In the healthcare industry, digital transformation has the potential to improve patient care and outcomes, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.
Patients dropping off therapy and discontinuing medication in the middle of their treatment is a major challenge within the healthcare industry. One of the main reasons why patients don't experience the desired effects of their treatment is that they don't follow their prescribed medication schedules. For quite some time now, organisations in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries have made overcoming this obstacle a top priority. According to a study by World Health Organisation, annual medication non-adherence leads to an estimated loss of 125,000 lives in the US with healthcare expenditures rising to billions of US dollars. Beyond the primary goal of healthier and longer lives for patients, improved medication adherence also has a direct impact on pharmaceutical-industry revenues.
Medication adherence technologies refer to the use of various tools and techniques to help individuals take their medications as prescribed by their healthcare provider. These technologies can help improve patient outcomes and reduce the costs associated with non-adherence. Some examples of medication adherence technologies include:
Pill bottles with electronic reminders: These pill bottles have built-in sensors that track when the bottle is opened and closed. When it's time for the patient to take their medication, the bottle sends a reminder to the patient's phone or tablet.
Wearable devices: Some wearable devices, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, can also be used to remind patients to take their medications. These devices can also track the patient's activity levels and provide other health-related information.
Automatic pill dispensers: These devices dispense pills at the prescribed time and can be programmed to dispense the correct dosage.
Shashank Agarwal has taken a very unique approach to solving this problem. To combat this issue, he suggests taking a detailed preview of individual patients’ prescription journeys by leveraging the myriad of healthcare data generated today and developing a customised plan to prevent discontinuation leveraging data science. By combining patient-level data generated across various sources (such as smartwatches, prescription fills, surveys, etc.), he has then developed sophisticated data mining algorithms to predict each patient’s propensity to discontinue medication and in response, develop a customised plan to prevent discontinuation based on specific patient demographics.
An excellent example of one such programme he has developed includes sending multiple digital refill reminders at appropriate times to patients who are likely to discontinue therapy. A staunch believer in Artificial Intelligence, digital transformation, and workflow automation, Agarwal suggests that pharmaceutical companies need to change the way they approach their business. He says, “Today we live in the era of extremely fast-evolving technology. The advent of devices such as smartwatches, sensors, etc., the generation of millions of records of data per hour, the use of the cloud for seamless storage of data, and the use of AI to discover meaningful patterns from zettabytes of data has fundamentally disrupted the healthcare ecosystem”. To remain competitive, healthcare companies need to rethink their business and operating models, transform their cultures and capabilities, and adopt a new, long-term data-driven mindset that fosters innovation and bold strategic moves.
Such a data-driven approach is one of a kind since traditionally the pharmaceutical industry has used a narrow range of interventions to encourage medication adherence by warning patients of the consequences of deviating from treatment and scheduling a standard set of follow-up consultations across the entire patient population. Agarwal’s work has not only saved millions of dollars for the organisations he has worked at, but also sparked debate further about the impact of technology, in an industry that is very averse to change.
Over the recent years, Dubai has emerged as the health-tech hub of the Arab world by adopting and implementing advanced healthcare technologies. The government of Dubai has made significant investments in healthcare infrastructure and innovation to provide world-class healthcare services to its residents and visitors. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT have transformed the human society and are impacting all areas of our lives at an incredible pace. In order to remain competitive and cement its position as a leader in healthcare industry it is critical, we quickly adopt fast evolving Artificial Intelligence approaches in healthcare.