In September, VERTESS Managing Directors, joined by members of the business development team, attended three national conferences: Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders, The National Association for Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting, and The Home Care Association of America Annual Leadership Conference. Dominating the tradeshow floors were exhibitors in the healthcare technology space. We estimated that these companies accounted for 40-60% of the exhibitors — a common thread intersecting the three different verticals represented at the meetings.

The pandemic brought rapid and tremendous disruption to the healthcare industry, forcing the healthcare ecosystem to account for new pressures and challenges. The disruption also compelled many companies to halt or slow their short- and long-term plans and evaluate what they could do better and how they could achieve the improvements needed to support a struggling healthcare system. 

As we transition out of the pandemic or continue to learn how to live with COVID-19, now is the time for healthcare providers and medical device companies to shift from responding to the pandemic to recovering from it. Organizations and companies that understand this evolving demand curve will need to substantially change the way they plan strategically, and that includes incorporating virtual components or expanding their usage of these solutions. What is apparent is that the recovery from the pandemic will be partly — if not heavily — fueled by the development and integration of new technologies, particularly those powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.