DOTmed HCB News sat down with Dr. Sanjaya Kumar, the Managing Director of Corporate Governance and Product Strategy for Synepta, a business accelerator and advisory consulting firm focused on providing industry leadership and guidance for healthcare IT companies.

We talked with Dr. Kumar about what he believes are emerging growth opportunities in today’s health care environment as well as some of the challenges that companies face as they grow from incubation through commercialization.

HCB News: What do you see as the major areas for growth opportunity within the healthcare sector today?

Sanjaya Kumar: I think there are five areas that are pushing the envelope in terms of high interest and need. The first area is security compliance and risk surrounding personal health information data. Not a day goes by that you don’t hear about a security breach within the health care arena, so this is clearly an area for rapid growth and adoption of technology.

The second area is integration across data systems. There are a lot of systems within the hospital, the EHR, wearable technologies, etc. How do we bring it together? Physicians are asking themselves, “How do I integrate the additional information into the patient EMR so that when others are looking at this patient they can access the information from this other data silo?” We need to break down those silos. The third is big data analytics—after we have broken down those silos, can we use that new data to make better informed decisions? Can we create more cost-effective care for the patient? And then — can we change patient behaviors?

HCB News: That’s interesting—you’re saying that one of the biggest growth opportunities is in changing how individuals treat their own health?

SK: Yes, that’s really the fourth area exactly: patient engagement. Everybody understands that health care consumers are becoming better advocates for themselves. If you look at the Baby Boomer population — they are computer, smartphone, and data savvy. They are asking more informed questions, and they demand to be engaged at a high level and with specificity.

In keeping with the concept of tailored health care, the fifth emerging area is personal diagnostics, or tests that you can do at home. The diagnostics area is also poised to grow as genomics gains ground, a development that will continue over the next decade.

More Voices