
Johan Frishammar, Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Luleå University of Technology. Photo: Johan Baggström.
15 March 2024
Digital health care platforms need a different approach to succeed
New research published in MIT Sloan Management Review reveals that the general best practices that have proven successful for digital platforms in other business contexts are less useful in the context of health care. The study sheds light on how platform strategy must evolve as it is applied to solve new problems in new markets.
Access to high-quality healthcare is a major problem in many countries. Digital platforms can be part of the solution to make healthcare accessible, while many of today's digital healthcare platforms have difficulty succeeding. The study focuses on just that, to identify the unique challenges that digital healthcare platforms face and how platform strategy should be designed considering these.
For four years, Johan Frishammar at Luleå University of Technology, in collaboration with researchers Marcus Holgersson and Joakim Björkdahl at Chalmers University of Technology and Anna Essén from the Stockholm School of Economics, has been working on the study.
“Digital healthcare platforms, if done right and implemented well, can contribute to solving the productivity crisis in healthcare,” says Johan Frishammar, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Luleå University of Technology.
"There is still a lot to explore about what these platforms can and should do, but there is a good chance that they can contribute to making healthcare better, cheaper and more accessible. And this applies to healthcare platforms in both the public and private sectors. We do not take a position on the question of who should own and operate these platforms but note that they must become better at designing strategies regardless of ownership," says Johan Frishammar.
Three areas of development
Recently published in the MIT Sloan Management Review published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the study "Health Care Platforms Need a Strategy Overhaul" describes how platform strategy needs to be adapted in three areas to better match the digital healthcare perspective:
- Market Entry– unlike digital platforms such as Airbnb and Amazon, healthcare platforms are not substitutes, but rather complements to established services. Digital healthcare platforms should initially focus on a well-defined and delineated area and integrate with established ecosystem actors in healthcare.
- Scaling the Business– the concept of network effects is central to traditional platform strategies. Having a larger base of users is important for platforms such as Facebook, as new users increase the value for existing users as well. But for healthcare platforms, the use of and learning from data from users is more important, so-called "learning effects". Digital healthcare platforms should use data to develop operational excellence and for business model development.
- Ecosystem Governance—Organizations like Apple centralize governance of their ecosystems of apps, users, and developers, but healthcare platforms need to work with a broad network of physicians, healthcare organizations, government agencies, insurance companies, and others. Digital health platforms should build sociopolitical legitimacy and actively participate in regulatory development.
“Leaders and managers of digital health platforms who focus on leveraging organizational learning effects, systematically integrating with the incumbent ecosystem, and using a distributed mode for ecosystem orchestration will be better positioned to manage, scale, and tailor their operations,” says Marcus Holgersson, professor of industrial management and economics at Chalmers.
“Such changes in digital platform strategy in the health care sector will contribute to higher-quality and more innovative health services globally.”
Between 2018 and 2022, the researchers studied digital healthcare platforms in Sweden, with a focus on platform strategy, ecosystem governance and user behaviour. The study is based on over 100 qualitative interviews in 14 different organizations – four major digital primary care platforms, two platform technology developers, five established public and private health care providers, two health care agencies, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions — and with individual users of digital health platforms. They have also performed extensive analysis of quantitative platform data.
Read the article at MIT Sloan Management Review External link, opens in new window.
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