Five things I learned last week about the digital future of healthcare

May 25, 2020 — Welcome to the start of the final week of the Lusty Month of May, CurveFlattners. It's Mitch Shannon, back at the keyboard again. In fact, I drew two separate typing assignments this week, which just proves the point that you should never make an enemy out of your duty sergeant. Today's edition, Number 39, will be a little different from the previous 38, as we tend to some unfinished business.

So, who participated in the first-ever National Pharmaceutical Congress (NPC) webinar last week? I did. And after an extended period of helping to organize the bricks-and-mortar event —14 years, but who's counting? — I observed some unexpected occurrences during the inaugural digital conference, which I'll share here. These observations were made in the context of the meeting but could be extrapolated to other emerging healthcare situations.

1. Enthusiasm is everything. You could substitute the term "engagement" for enthusiasm, but I think the -ism word is more applicable. The lesson being, if you provide people with the opportunity to lend a hand in developing something truly new, many will jump at the chance.
2. Individuals' opinions do count. During the previous "physical" NPC events, it was typical to call for questions and hear the sound of chirping crickets. At the digital NPC, participants peppered panellists with plenty of thoughtful, well-formulated questions: far too many to respond to, as it happened. (I'll return to that quandary in a few minutes.)
3. Ease of access does matter. The traditional demographic apparent at many Life Sci conferences have been described, not always respectfully, as predominantly "pale, stale, and male." (I'm allowed to use that term because I happen to check all three boxes.) Last week's meeting was attended by a more diverse crowd of professionals, one that was gender-balanced equally. We can speculate on why that was the case, but my suspicion is that when barriers fall down, it signals that all might feel welcome.
4. Every voice can be heard. Technology makes it possible for more of us in the Life Sciences community to attend industry events such as the Spring NPC. But this is only the beginning of what is becoming possible. AI capabilities are currently in beta testing that will allow features such as real-time machine-generated translation during conferences from English to French, or Spanish, or Mandarin -- and spontaneous captioning for the hearing-impaired. Next up: on-demand AI tools offering remedial explanations intended to make complex health concepts and terminology more understandable and less intimidating to patients, caregivers and the lay public.
5. Look who's the lab-rat now. As marketers, we understood from the cradle that being active in the digital world would mean having your actions enumerated, analyzed and organized into patterns. And as marketers, we assumed that would mean we would always be on our accustomed side of the looking-glass watching focus-group behavior, and left alone to form our astute conclusions. That's not how things work anymore. Under the unblinking assessment of HAL-9000, each of us is just another data-provider, generating bytes to be digested by one algorithm or another. That's a humbling realization for anyone whose job title includes the term "manager" or "officer." And even more unsettling is the forced awareness that this will be far from the last opportunity for experienced businessfolk to drop their jaws and wonder what the hell just happened, while forming guesses (gulp!) about what will occur next. 

In that spirit, I'd now like to ask for your help on two things.

We're trying to nail down a date in June for the next one-hour NPC webinar, before the Fête nationale du Québec. Two choices seem to be Thursday, June 18th at 11:00 am (EDT) or Tuesday, June 23, also at 11:00 am (EDT.) Which do you prefer? It would be a big help if you let us know by voting here.

As I mentioned, there were at least 15 excellent questions that we were unable to send to our panel last week. We've organized the questions into a poll, and I'd like to know which ones you think should be discussed by our next group of experts. The questions you deem important are the ones that will be put forward. Please have a look at this selection and send us your feedback here. 

We should have the results of these polls within the next 48 hours, and we'll soon share the date you've determined. If you attended the last NPC webinar, please join us again. If you didn't, you're invited to register and participate. The meeting is open to all, and there's no charge.

As for the Daily CurveFlattener, we'll return tomorrow to our regularly scheduled content, with Dhiren Mahiban reporting. Tag, Dhiren. You're It.