Digital Health is the convergence of the digital and genetics revolutions within medicine and health. The goal of digital health is to ultimately improve the quality of our healthcare and our daily lives. By adopting new technologies such as wireless sensors and fitness trackers, healthcare can become more efficient, cheaper and more accessible.
Digital Health is big business and investment in 2016 has started strong with a record $1.8B in funding. According to Startup Health 2016 has already seen 4 deals over $100M, as compared to 7 in all of 2015. This trend is set to continue as industry players take an active role in piloting, investing in, and mentoring young digital-health companies helping to bring the innovations to market needed to sustain long-term health outcomes.
WHAT ARE THE EXPERTS SAYING?
We reached out to some of the top 20 influencers to ask them for their views on Digital Health. We spoke to Dr. Bertalan Mesko (#1), Paul Sonnier (#4), Bill Bunting (#5), Maneesh Juneja (#7), Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (#15), Arshya Vahabzadeh, MD (#17) and Sherry Pagoto, PhD (#20). Be sure to follow them to stay up to date on the best content and resources on Digital Health!
Dr. Bertalan Mesko – The Medical Futurist Author of My Health: Upgraded and The Guide to the Future of Medicine
“The near future of medicine and healthcare is dominated by digital health technologies that make care affordable, efficient and create an equal partnership between patients and their caregivers. The medical profession could be the most exciting job soon. But for all this, we, as individual stakeholders of healthcare, must prepare for the technological revolution. My role is facilitating this.”
Paul Sonnier – Founder, Digital Health group on LinkedIn, Creator, Story of Digital Health
“Concurrent with founding the Digital Health group on LinkedIn (now counting over 45,000 members), I have defined and promulgated the modern definition of ‘digital health’ around the globe. The reasons for my social entrepreneurship in these regards are simple: First, my desire is to coalesce the fragmented lexicon of terms used to describe the convergence of the digital and genomic revolutions with health, healthcare, living, and society. Second, the use of this standard and concise term has helped to catalyze the work of the global ecosystem of stakeholders driving the digital health revolution. With media, companies, policymakers, and organizations—including the FDA, FCC, NHS, and WEF—having now adopted the term, the state of digital health is on a much firmer footing. Consequently, we’re seeing solutions and platforms of all types benefiting billions of people, rapid industry adoption, disruption of the status quo, and convergence across sectors all happening under the banner of ‘digital health’. Ultimately—just like the digital revolution that spawned it—the digital health revolution is benefiting society in a myriad of ways and the future is both unpredictable and exciting.”
Bill Bunting – Director, Healthcare Solutions at EMC
“Patients are no longer passive receivers of a diagnosis—they are consumers and active participants in their own care. They demand access to their personal health information wherever they are. They want the ability to quickly and securely share their health records with other providers. They want this ability from any mobile device, right from their pocket, in a way that makes their information easily accessible, quickly transferable, and downloadable without a hitch. They also want to contribute to their own healthcare decisions as conveniently as possible, and talk about it freely across communities. Digital health has quickly filled this void, and we’ve seen no shortage of mHealth and connected tools. But the next evolution of digital health is going to be in social media. Social going to turn into a virus that healthcare (including pharma, insurers, and retail) will avoid finding an antidote for because it holds tremendous potential for connecting providers and patients on a level once never imagined—allowing for better engagement and a tailored patient experience. But it also holds value for patients to connect with other patients to tell their stories and share knowledge. And were going to start to see social change the big data game as it becomes integrated into digital health and clinical platforms across organizations.”
Maneesh Juneja – Digital Health Futurist
“There is a great deal of optimism in Digital Health, but also considerable uncertainty, confusion and suspicion with regard to if and when the convergence of emerging technologies will actually make a difference, not just for patients, but for everyone involved in improving human health. It’s important that we focus on science driven innovation, but we also need to rethink how we validate new products & services within Digital Health. Many leaders in health & social care desire innovation, but only on their terms and conditions, which is a mindset that could impact Digital Health initiatives. The next 10 years promises to be a time of transition, turmoil and turbulence where some of the innovators of today may become the dinosaurs of tomorrow. One of the signs of success for me in Digital Health, will be the growing emergence of patients as innovators. The pace of change will only quicken, and I’m excited to be part of a global community that wants to impact the lives of 7.4 billion people.”
Arshya Vahabzadeh, MD – Director of Digital Health at Brain Power, Innovation Officer at MGH Psychiatry Academy
“Clinical validation will be an increasingly important step for the digital health industry. The scientific evidence behind each technology should be proportional to the magnitude of potential risk to patients. Physicians will continue to be key players in helping to undertake and critically appraise such research.”
Sherry Pagoto, PhD – Co-Founder of the UMass Center for mHealth and Social Media
“I am most looking forward to deeper integration of behavioral science in digital health, specifically, creating real linkages between the field of behavioral medicine and the tech industry. I am also very excited to see how we can leverage digital health to improve patient engagement as it pertains to health behavior, patient data, health care providers, and peer-to-peer healthcare.”
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, MA (Econ.), MHSA – Health Economist/Advisor at THINK-Health and HealthPopuli
“Health is created and bolstered where we live, work, play and learn – not in doctors’ offices and hospital buildings. So-called ‘digital health’ today is really just ‘health’ delivered un-tethered from bricks-and-mortar healthcare institutions. Mobile platforms, wearable tech and clothing, and data analytics can all converge and conspire to inform both consumers/patients and clinicians for solving sickness and for making health. The challenge isn’t about the technologies, which are being developed at increasing speeds, with smaller footprints, and at lower costs. The challenges to deploying the vision of un-tethered, democratic health/care are aligning payment and incentives, acknowledging current workflow, and changing culture. Digital health is the enabler to getting us there.”
TOPIC ANALYSIS
We were interested in seeing which topics were most popular among the top digital marketing influencers, so we analysed their tweets and blogs from 1st January – 5th May 2016 and counted mentions of various topics associated with Digital Health which we then used to create a topic share of voice chart:
It’s interesting to note that the most popular topic among the digital health influencers is Data with a 25% share of voice, proving that clinical data and its consistent use is critical to the success of digital health. IoT was the 2nd most popular debate driver illustrating the importance of connectivity with digital heqalth devices. Mentions of Wearable Tech received a significant 16% share of voice highlighting the importance of self care among patients using wearable health devices. Other frequently mentioned topics among the top influencers included Apps, Cancer and Artificial Intelligence which all received a similar share of voice (ranging from 7-9%), followed by mentions of Cyber Security with 6%, and Telemedicine with 5%. Genome and Fitness both received a with 3% share of voice among the top digital health influencers and brands.
MAPPING THE COMMUNITY
We were very interested in seeing which Digital Health professionals and brands were leading the online discussion, so we analysed 113K+ tweets from January 19th – April 18th 2016 mentioning the keywords: “Digital Health” OR digitalhealth. We then identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter. What we discovered was a very engaged community, with much discussion between individuals and brands. Below you can see a network map of the online conversation with the number 2 brand Rock Health at the centre. This map was created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). Be sure to click on the map to enjoy the full size network diagram in greater detail.
Below you can see another network map created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM) showing the #2 influencer John Nosta the centre, and the conversations to and from the different influencers in his field. If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click here to get in touch!
TOP 100 INDIVIDUALS
We looked at all the individuals engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top influencers in Digital Health. Below is the top 50, if you want to see who ranks from 50-100 be sure to download the full report by clicking the button below.
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| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Company | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @Berci | Berci Meskó, MD, PhD | The Medical Futurist | 100 |
| 2 | @JohnNosta | JOHN NOSTA | NOSTALAB | 93.86 |
| 3 | @Alex__Butler | Alex Butler | The Earthworks | 78.53 |
| 4 | @Paul_Sonnier | Paul Sonnier | Story of Digital Health | 69.01 |
| 5 | @WTBunting | Bill Bunting | EMC | 33.68 |
| 6 | @evankirstel | Evan Kirstel | Penguin Strategies | 21.89 |
| 7 | @ManeeshJuneja | Maneesh Juneja | MJ Analytics | 17.27 |
| 8 | @HealthEugene | Eugene Borukhovich | SoftServe | 14.81 |
| 9 | @ahier | Brian Ahier | Medicity | 14.59 |
| 10 | @chrissyfarr | Christina Farr | Fast Company | 13.91 |
| 11 | @daniel_kraft | Daniel Kraft, MD | Aspen Institute | 11.93 |
| 12 | @adamfalat | Adam Falat | Walgreens | 10.64 |
| 13 | @BrennanSpiegel | Brennan Spiegel, MD | Cedars-Sinai | 10.1 |
| 14 | @Freeman_George | George Freeman | The Conservative Party | 9.39 |
| 15 | @healthythinker | Jane Sarasohn-Kahn | THINK-Health | 9.32 |
| 16 | @DrDave01 | David E. Albert, M.D | AliveCor | 9.28 |
| 17 | @VahabzadehMD | Arshya Vahabzadeh MD | Brain Power | 9.16 |
| 18 | @nickisnpdx | Nick Adkins | ReelDx | 8.13 |
| 19 | @ZGJR | R.Grossmann,MD, FACS | Singularity University | 7.63 |
| 20 | @DrSherryPagoto | Sherry Pagoto | University of Massachusetts | 7.47 |
| 21 | @jonmertz | Jon Mertz | Corepoint Health | 7.39 |
| 22 | @mikebiselli | Mike Biselli | Catalyst HTI | 7.24 |
| 23 | @Bob_Wachter | Bob Wachter | University of California | 7.02 |
| 24 | @frankkumli | Frank Kumli | EY | 6.78 |
| 25 | @SusannahFox | Susannah Fox | U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | 6.56 |
| 26 | @steube | Fred Steube | Cox Target Media | 6.47 |
| 27 | @jarrodsmagan | Jarrod Magan | Sedgwick | 6.26 |
| 28 | @kevinmd | Kevin Pho, M.D. | KevinMD.com | 6.22 |
| 29 | @drnic1 | Nick van Terheyden | Dell | 6.08 |
| 30 | @DrLeslieSaxon | Leslie Saxon, MD | University of Southern California | 5.73 |
| 31 | @jameyedwards | james edwards | Emergent Medical Associates | 5.69 |
| 32 | @dlschermd | David Lee Scher, MD | DLS Healthcare Consulting | 5.68 |
| 33 | @KMDvorak87 | Katie Dvorak | Fierce Health IT | 5.67 |
| 34 | @drewschiller | Drew Schiller | Validic | 5.63 |
| 35 | @pharmaphorum | Paul Tunnah | Pharmaphorum | 5.51 |
| 36 | @DrWeidner | Dr Greg Weidner | Carolinas Healthcare System | 5.4 |
| 37 | @Dan_Bowman | Dan Bowman | Fierce Health IT | 4.95 |
| 38 | @SkipFleshman | Skip Fleshman | Asset Management VC | 4.92 |
| 39 | @cwhogg | Chris Hogg | Propeller Health | 4.8 |
| 40 | @chasedave | Dave Chase | Rosetium | 4.79 |
| 41 | @mjseres | Michael Seres | 11Health | 4.49 |
| 42 | @HaririRobert | Robert Hariri MD PhD | Celgene | 4.4 |
| 43 | @performbetter | Mike Rucker | Active Wellness | 4.31 |
| 44 | @JoeBabaian | Joseph Babaian | HCLDR | 4.3 |
| 45 | @DHRebeccaMcB | Rebecca McBeth | digitalhealth.net | 4.22 |
| 46 | @JacobChristine | Christine K Jacob | Novartis | 4.12 |
| 47 | @crisdeluca | Cris De Luca | Johnson & Johnso | 4.01 |
| 48 | @HeuerM | Manuel Heuer | Dacadoo | 3.99 |
| 49 | @Maxi_Macki | Maxine Mackintosh | HealthTech Women | 3.91 |
| 50 | @peterohnemus | Peter Ohnemus | Dacadoo | 3.86 |
TOP 100 BRANDS
In the top 100 brands we can find a great selection of agencies, startups and and industry resources. Be sure to download the full analysis for free to get an idea of who are most influential brands in the Digital Health debate.
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| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @startuphealth | StartUp Health | 58.58 |
| 2 | @Rock_Health | Rock Health | 31.18 |
| 3 | @NuffieldTrust | Nuffield Trust | 18.64 |
| 4 | @hitconsultant | HIT Consultant Media | 15.96 |
| 5 | @HIMSS | HIMSS | 15.18 |
| 6 | @medcitynews | MedCity News | 13.32 |
| 7 | @digitalhealth2 | Digital Health | 13.09 |
| 8 | @digihealthhelp | DigiHealth Helper | 13 |
| 9 | @validic | Validic | 12.47 |
| 10 | @omadahealth | Omada Health | 10.08 |
| 11 | @FierceHealthIT | FierceHealthIT | 9.08 |
| 12 | @Health2eu | Health 2.0 Europe | 8.99 |
| 13 | @WearableGuru | The Wearable Guru | 8.83 |
| 14 | @AccentureHealth | Accenture Health | 8.53 |
| 15 | @goinvo | Involution Studios | 8.27 |
| 16 | @AliveCor | AliveCor | 8.17 |
| 17 | @grants4apps | Bayer Grants4Apps | 7.43 |
| 18 | @NHSEngland | NHS England | 7.13 |
| 19 | @ECHAlliance | ECHAlliance | 7.12 |
| 20 | @health_xl | HealthXL | 6.85 |
| 21 | @TheDukeDigital | Duke Digital Health | 6.63 |
| 22 | @athenahealth | athenahealth | 6.47 |
| 23 | @ChooseMuse | Muse | 6.46 |
| 24 | @doctorscompany | The Doctors Company | 6.36 |
| 25 | @mHealthGlobal | Mobile Health Global | 6.22 |
| 26 | @Infoway | Infoway | 6.18 |
| 27 | @Philips | Philips | 5.92 |
| 28 | @dacadoo | dacadoo | 5.75 |
| 29 | @MMMnews | MM&M Magazine | 5.58 |
| 30 | @PrimeHealthCO | Prime Health | 5.38 |
| 31 | @CatalystHTI | Catalyst HTI | 5.25 |
| 32 | @ProteusDH | ProteusDigitalHealth | 5.19 |
| 33 | @ticsalut | Fundació TicSalut | 5.13 |
| 34 | @health2con | Health 2.0 | 4.95 |
| 35 | @golantern | Lantern | 4.67 |
| 36 | @HIMSS_UK | HIMSS UK | 4.64 |
| 37 | @AccentureLifSci | AccentureLifeScience | 4.51 |
| 38 | @epharma | ePharma Summit | 4.42 |
| 39 | @JiffInc | Jiff | 4.14 |
| 40 | @AmericanWell | American Well | 4.07 |
| 41 | @sano_int | sano | 4.03 |
| 42 | @TMCxAccelerator | TMCx Accelerator | 4.02 |
| 43 | @HealthStandards | HL7 Standards | 4.02 |
| 44 | @CrowdMed | CrowdMed | 3.82 |
| 45 | @KPDigitalHealth | KP Digital Health | 3.78 |
| 46 | @phonak | Phonak – Life is On | 3.77 |
| 47 | @ExponentialMed | Exponential Medicine | 3.73 |
| 48 | @uclidh | UCL IDH | 3.73 |
| 49 | @RX4Group | RX4 Group | 3.65 |
| 50 | @WellDoc | WellDoc | 3.61 |
At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Machine to Machine, Wearable Tech, Internet of Things) be sure to have a gander on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on twitter? We also build some very cool software to manage all of these influencers. Get a free demo today by clicking the button below!
Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking is by no means a definitive measurement of influence, as there is no such thing. The brands and individuals listed are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion in the Digital Health debate.
The PageRank based methodology we use to extract influencers on a particular topic takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives. These calculations are independent of a user’s number of followers, but we do filter our lists based on how much a user is engaged in the conversation and the influence they drive through their networks.
Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com, licensed by CC 3.0 BY
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DIGITAL HEALTH 2016:
TOP 100 INFLUENCERS AND BRANDS
Download this free report which reveals the top 100 Digital Health 2016 influencers and brands