As further evidence of digital health’s influence on senior living and the healthcare landscape at large, more pharma companies are getting involved in the space. The latest digital health initiative comes from Bayer, which recently launched a business unit to develop consumer precision health products.
The company’s new initiative will focus on tools to provide patients and caregivers with more personal health information in order to help them better manage diseases and improve care. The pharma giant is working with startups and other companies in the digital health space to expand its offerings in the sector. Other pharma companies such as Sanofi have partnered with digital therapeutics companies on similar initiatives.
For senior living operators, expansion in digital health initiatives and technologies is growing evidence of the importance of these tools in improving care, observers say. For instance, Bayer’s other digital health tools, including one it developed last year to measure cardiovascular risk factors, can be used to help those with heart problems.
Investment in digital health rose after the pandemic’s onset and then dropped last year, but was steady over the first quarter of 2023 at $3.4 billion, according to CB Insights. Global digital health funding and deals have stabilized after last year’s decline, with the US seeing 68% of global digital health funding.
The overall drop for digital health funding 2023 means that the environment for startups and the potential for new technologies has never been better, healthcare leaders have said. This is potentially good news for long-term care providers looking to use that technology to ease staffing challenges and streamline operations. Eight in 10 nursing homes experienced staffing shortages at the beginning of this year, and assisted living is counted among the professions with the highest work-related injury and illness.
New areas of focus for digital health funding include AI offerings and technologies aimed at seniors, as well as workforce improvements.
