Your Partner in the Future of Healthcare: Xerox

By Leon Wong, director, Market Strategy, PARC, a Xerox Company

I recently attended two buzz-worthy conferences for innovation in healthcare: Health 2.0 Conference and Strata Rx 2012.  Each focused on different parts of the ecosystem.  Health 2.0 was about direct interfaces (e.g. apps, online networks, fitness devices), to the consumer.  Payers and providers (e.g. Kaiser Permanente, Aetna) had a strong presence as sponsors and exhibitors.  On the other hand, Strata Rx was about actionable insight from health data.  Technology companies (e.g. EMC, IBM) had a strong presence.  Despite the differences, both promoted generating new sources of data and applying technologies to them to enable improved health outcomes and lower costs.

Big data, big expectations 

Over a year, the average patient spends little time interacting with the healthcare system.  As a result, much of the data captured – clinical analysis, patient-reports, claims, government survey-based databases – often provide a narrow and fragmented view of an individual.  Fortunately, additional sources of data are emerging.

Online interactions in blogs, forums and social networks.  Mobile phones as remote Swiss-army knives of sensors, apps and interactivity.   Wireless sensors for in-home monitoring.  Faster and lower cost DNA sequencing.   Integrating such genotype and phenotype data with current data sources and then mining and analyzing the full set promises to give a holistic understanding of large populations down to individuals.  Benefits abound, such as increased efficacy through truly personalized treatments, reduction in hospital re-admission rates through predictive and proactive interventions and improved health outcomes via timely and personalized behavioral nudges and incentives for adherence.

Ready to deliver

Conversations I had during the shows validated the long and proven track records of Xerox Services (formerly ACS) and PARC, a Xerox Company in healthcare and innovation, respectively.  Additionally, the spate of partnerships indicated industry players feel collaboration is needed in healthcare innovation.  However, many of the partnerships appear to address individual pain points – one for accessing data, one for analytics, one for modeling, one for regulation, and more.   Working with Xerox can give a customer a one-stop solution shop, a partner who has a long-term commitment to healthcare and a supporting stable business model, a collaborator who understands the nexus of big data and patient privacy and a partner with deep domain and technology expertise.

Leon Wong immerses himself in emerging technologies and innovative business models as a strategy, productization and commercialization expert for PARC’s healthcare, energy and digital design and manufacturing programs and as an active volunteer on Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Association’s deal screening committee.  He enjoys traveling to experience and compare different cultures.