SPI Digital Health: Inflation and Staffing Crisis Still Dominate Narrative but Vendors Responding

After the relative lull of summer, activity in digital health markets is once again picking up pace. Having navigated, with mixed success, the headwinds of the first half of the year – when care providers on both sides of the Atlantic battled soaring operating costs, severe staff shortages and myriad other IT pain points – healthcare strategists must now plot a path forward in a second half which promises little respite from the storm. 

If anything, the economic outlook looks even more volatile, and there are few signs that the manpower crisis that took root during COVID is easing. Inflation and staffing will continue to cast their long shadows over digital health into the remainder of 2023, and probably beyond. 

Inevitably, addressing provider pain points in this environment is a pre-occupation for health IT vendors, and in hospital and health systems’ ‘adversity’ lies opportunity for many. As are large-scale digital health investment programmes in US and EMEA, some of the seeds of which were planted in early 2023 and which will, in Germany and Italy in particular, begin to bear fruit in earnest in H2. 

This Insight explores how the remainder of 2023 will pan out for providers and vendors, and the forces that will influence their strategies.