Digital Therapeutics (more than any other therapy class), Deliver Patient Understanding and Engagement
The DTxDM Conference – now twice yearly – is the premiere conference for Digital Therapeutics innovators. This rapidly coalescing industry is built on the commitment that digital solutions can deliver meaningful and proven outcomes. The conference highlighted the continued research and growing evidence, presented the emerging business models and dealt honestly with the opportunities and challenges. It also highlighted just how unique digital therapeutics are in their deep connection to and ongoing engagement with patients. For example, quite often, pharmaceutical companies have little knowledge of how their drugs are actually taken and the broader “real-world” impact.
Integral to digital therapeutics is the direct and ongoing relationship with the participant. Often these programs collect many datapoints in a single day – and develop a deeper picture of the patient than their clinicians. Participants are logging into the apps, accessing the websites, interacting with the devices on a regular and ongoing basis, and the stories and examples from DTxDM were varied and impressive. AppliedVR (must say an LA company) shared stories of their VR solution for pain and how it prevented a major surgery in the ER. Dthera, shared the impact on patients with Alzheimer’s from its innovative Reminx tablet and service. And Palo Alto Health Sciences described the lives they’ve so dramatically improved by preventing panic attacks.
Digital Therapeutics are unique in that these companies, Canary Health® included, have an imperative design requirement to understand and engage the end user. We must understand their journey and ensure our solutions not only impact the therapeutic mechanism of action, but engage and keep the participant coming back. At Canary Health, and I am sure all successful digital therapeutic companies, this requires a unique combination of clinical, design and tech expertise, and constant feedback loops with participants. We are all driven by the stories of impact but fortunately for us, we hear all of them, and that feedback and those stories are baked into how we produce our solutions.
I am always inspired by companies in the space, their innovation and their impact; I am always reminded how everything we do starts and ends with the participants – the stories of their lives now, and the stories of the impact we can make.
