Is Digital Healthcare Advancing Faster Than EU Lawmakers Can Adapt and Regulate?

Industry experts have said the lack of standards of practice in Germany, Europe’s largest healthcare market, is hampering the growth of digital healthcare and causing HealthTech startups to miss out on setting trends and leveraging the pandemic-driven digital advancements made in the last few years.

Read more: Wellster CEO: Without Standards, Germany’s Digital Healthcare Transformation Will Stall

Kalle Conneryd-Lundgren, COO at Swedish HealthTech firm Kry, concurs.

In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Conneryd-Lundgren said the problem is much bigger and not limited to Germany alone. In fact, the regulatory frameworks and laws in Europe have struggled to adapt and keep up with the fast-developing digital healthcare market in the region, leaving HealthTech players with little guidance on how to navigate the complex, regulatory landscape.

Read also: Hybrid Care Model Can Fix Germany’s Access Problem, Ease Digital Transformation Pain Points

“It’s not so much that [there are] laws [holding us back]. It’s [rather a situation whereby] the laws may be from the 70s or 90s and the tools that we are utilizing today didn’t exist at that time” so guiding laws are “simply not mentioned in the regulatory frameworks,” he added.

While greater collaboration with legislators and the public sector can help move the needle in the right direction, he said one thing slowing it down is the perception that digital and traditional healthcare are separate entities.

“You don’t end up one day with a digital disease or a physical disease. You end up with a disease and certain aspects of that can be treated by digital services [while] some may need physical [care],” he remarked.

It’s the reason why legislation must treat all aspects of patient care, whether physical or digital, the same.

“It would not be very smart if we try to find one regulation for how to do digital visits, and then another for physical care. The only thing that’s going to happen is that a few years from now, we will be behind again with our regulatory frameworks,” Conneryd-Lundgren noted.

He acknowledged, however, that significant progress is being made at the regional level, erasing a lot of the resistance and skepticism that previously existed on the part of regulators.

Initiatives like the European Health Data Space (EHDS) are a prime example. The proposed regulatory framework by the European Commission, which is targeting a 2025 launch, will create an EU-level legal framework to streamline the electronic sharing of patient health data and medical records with multiple care providers and institutions, and across borders.

Balancing Tech And Human Touch

Last month, the Swedish digital health startup, one of Europe’s largest digital healthcare providers, announced a $160 million-plus raise in a Series D follow-on, a big win for the company given growing investor concerns and a dip in valuations of many global tech firms.

Related news: Swedish Telehealth Company Kry Raises $160M

Since its launch seven years ago, the firm — which operates under the brand name Kry in Sweden, Norway and Germany and is known as Livi in the UK and France — has delivered about 7 million patient appointments and counts and about 6,000 clinicians as employees across its markets.

Per Conneryd-Lundgren, the plan now is to move beyond solely providing digital consultations to helping patients navigate the healthcare process and take charge of their own healthcare, whether those needs are digital or physical.

This will also be focusing on women’s health, an often-overlooked aspect of healthcare provision. “For some [of the most prevalent health concerns impacting women], it can take years to get the correct diagnosis so you just end up in different places and no one can take care of you,” he pointed out, adding that they’ll be developing tools to ensure female patients can get a diagnosis in weeks.

Learn more: Wellster Unveils Integrated Women’s Health Platform

At the end of the day, as much as technology has expanded opportunities in healthcare delivery like never before, he said the digital aspect is a means to an end, not a goal. This means that striking the right balance between technology and human interaction will remain essential moving forward.

Related: Healthcare Performs Best When Tech and Human Touch Work Together

“Medicine is an art as much a science. There’s a human component to it. It’s moral, it’s ethics, it’s taking care of people as much as it is to prescribe the right drug. So, you would absolutely, in most instances also need a physical component and human to human [interactions],” Conneryd-Lundgren said.

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