By Annett Altvater, BaselArea.swiss

The Life Sciences Leader Forum #4 focused on the topic of the emerging digitalization in the health care system. The event that took place on November 8th in Basel provided a lot of interesting discussion points and insights from leaders in their respective fields. There is no doubt that the patient is in the focus of precision medicine: Patient convenience is on the rise, with better possibilities for the whole process from making appointments to transfer of knowledge and guidance.

Ernst Hafen, Director of Studies in the Department of Biology at ETH Zurich, is convinced that the patient should also be the owner of his or her data. In his keynote about the usage of personal health data for better treatment results, Hafen stressed the need for a neutral platform for data storage that provides the patients with the possibility to contribute their data with whom they choose. He also pointed out that to make precision medicine happen, genome data needs to be combined with shopping data and the data that is collected by health trackers.

Another trend in the area of patient experience is the topic of patient motivation. Gamification, motivating therapies and entertainment help patients to focus on their therapy. Andreas Filler, Doctoral Researcher and Developer at the Center for Digital Health Interventions explained how the app Mobile Coach motivates children to follow their therapy using the concept of gamification. At the same time the physician coached the children via Smartphone during the whole process – yielding far better success than without the app.

The ongoing transformation in healthcare leads to an imbalance, as Ben Bridgewater, Director Global Advisory Health Care and Life Sciences at DXC Technology put it. While the patient is used to digitalization, the healthcare system is still clinging to the status quo. He demands more platforms that allow the information to flow between the different providers leading to better treatment and more patient engagement.

[Picture] The speakers Prof. Dr. Ernst Hafen, Dr. Ben Bridgewater and Andreas Filler (from left to right)

The Life Sciences Leader Forum, was hosted by BaselArea.swiss and DXC Technology. The next event is scheduled for May 16th, 2018.

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www.lslf.ch

The Life Sciences Leader Forum is an executive community that aims to provide a platform for business and IT leaders to learn and collaborate. This is a place to share different perspectives on the new challenges faced by the industry. The community focuses on how digitization can enable, transform and enhance business initiatives.