Telehealth innovation is booming as demand for virtual services skyrockets amidst a pandemic. What will happen next, and what kinds of digital health innovations may be around the corner?

In this episode of the Oliver Wyman Health Podcast, Sean Duffy, Co-Founder and CEO of the digital care company Omada Health and a member of the Oliver Wyman Health Innovation Center Leaders Alliance, joins Dan Rubenstein, Co-Founder and CEO of the musculoskeletal care company Physera, and Aditya Lingampally, Principal in Oliver Wyman's Health and Life Sciences practice, to discuss how and why Omada acquired Physera in the midst of a pandemic and how they envision their new collaboration unfolding in time. They also discuss the future of remote care and digital health services, predict the state of the future industry, and share why just providing a physician with Zoom capabilities is merely the beginning of transformations to come.

Memorable Moments From This Episode:

• Dan: "There is going to be a lot of consolidation coming in the next few years as healthcare catches up with the capabilities. If you look at where technology is and what we’re able to do in with technology across different industries, healthcare is years, if not decades, behind where it should be. A crisis like COVID-19 has really exacerbated the adoption of better ways of doing healthcare." 

• Sean: "The market thesis that led us to this expansion [with Physera] is it's really hard if you're an employer or plan to have a contract across every single area. And then, over in the aggregation world, it's hard to piece together disparate offerings, to create actual rhyme and reason to why the sum of the parts is more than them individually. So, we aim with the thesis behind this to do both."

• Dan: "I was seeing vendor fatigue from payers and employers. They were tired of being approached by multiple point solutions. The future is having companies offer a wide portfolio of solutions under a single contract. I think that will provide efficiencies in the marketplace in terms of sales and contracting. A lot of customers are interested in having resources across their portfolio."

• Sean: "So many critical issues the country is grappling with could be addressed from afar. Ahead of COVID-19, I thought it was a ten- or fifteen-year journey to get there, and it's now being pulled in quickly."

• Dan: "I think in the next five to ten years, there will be some sort of movement to a more basic universal. healthcare coverage in this country. I'm not saying that private insurance won't have a place. It might be in supplementary insurance. If that happens, that would be very meaningful. It will allow a lot of innovation. It will allow us to address the basic healthcare needs people have, and then we can develop more specialized solutions and care pathways for those that need them."