A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
It's the Year 2025—
Do You Know Where Your Customers Are?
Meet Jän Do, a typical citizen in the year 2025. Much has changed since the turn of the millennium. Some changes are rather trivial—such as a vogue for the phonetic spelling of names—but others have fundamentally altered the human condition. Medical technology, in particular, has attained monumental breakthroughs: Alzheimer's disease is on the verge of being eradicated, interspecies transplants are possible thanks to a new generation of antirejection drugs, and needleless blood tests are commonplace. The progress of medical technology happens to be on Do's mind this morning. A tingling in his rear molar reminds him that he can no longer put off going to the dentist.
At the dentist's office, the receptionist scans Do's privately branded health card, issued by the Alpha Health Information Network. Instantly, his complete medical history pops up on the computer screen along with links to the medical records of his immediate family. Armed with this knowledge, the dentist performs an x-ray of Do's teeth. Digitally displayed on a thin-screen monitor, the x-ray reveals a small cavity that requires immediate attention. Diagnostic algorithms analyze the precise location of the cavity as well as the surrounding tooth structure. By means of a feedback loop, the optimal drill tips and drill speed are transmitted to the computer-controlled drill, thereby almost eliminating patient discomfort. The availability of this technology is one of the reasons Do joined Alpha: the network's member practices currently are the only ones to have the smart dental system.
Thus began a scenario, presented at the recent Global Medical Devices Conference in Sydney, that sought to raise awareness among attendees of the types of changes that may rock the device industry in the years ahead. Martin Coyne, vice president of Eastman Kodak (Rochester, NY, USA) and president of the company's Health Imaging Division, went as far as to predict the advent of a "new business paradigm," one in which "revenues are linked to equipment usage patterns and patient outcomes rather than unit sales."
Health information network enterprises will evolve in a highly competitive business environment, according to Coyne. "They will carefully scrutinize local market demographics to form exclusive relationships with large patient bases to maximize fee income," he said. Furthermore, these companies will seek to construct barriers of entry by creating proprietary expert systems. Suppose that the manufacturer of the smart dental system has negotiated an exclusive agreement to place its product only in Alpha network member practices for a predetermined period of time, said Coyne. For the sake of argument, he continued, let's say that having a cavity filled with the smart drill is part of a premium service package for which Do pays an additional fee. The equipment supplier might participate in fee distributions to compensate for the concessions that were made in the purchase price, Coyne suggested, or in exchange for contractual limitations on the company's ability to market the device to competing networks.
This fundamental shift in the business paradigm is one example of what Coyne calls science friction. "Science friction will reshape the way in which device manufacturers go to market, substituting licensing arrangements and usage fees for traditional purchase agreements," he said. "Science friction will be accompanied by an increased emphasis on strategic alliances between hardware suppliers and software vendors to develop smart devices linked to massive, value-added clinical information and patient records databases."
As delegates mulled over the implications of this brave new world, they may have found some reassurance in the comments of another speaker who chose to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln. "The best thing about the future," said Steven Goe of HDT Consulting (Omaha, NE, USA), "is that it only comes one day at a time."
Regardless of the pace at which the future unfolds, it's clear that companies would be wise to engage in some crystal-ball gazing from time to time. My guess is that in the coming millennium, forward-thinking businesses will thrive just as they do today, while those that cling to a business-as-usual strategy may suddenly wake up one day to find that the new paradigm doesn't include them.
As a matter of fact, they have a saying for it in 2025: yü snüz, yü lüz.
