Health - Four Points Consulting

Health care systems around the world
are in need of change

The history of medicine has been a game-changer with germ theory revolutionising the way illness was perceived and in turn transformed the way medicine was practiced. As a result, throughout the 20th century everything changed – medical training, surgical techniques, standards of sanitation and public health – a whole new pharmaceutical industry arose with a steady stream of vaccines for immunisation, antibiotics for every infection, and practically a pill for every ill.

However, whilst this moved us forward, in other areas we moved backwards.
Changes in our environment and daily habits have given rise to a family of illnesses, growing in impact and importance: chronic diseases – putting pressure on healthcare resources and challenging the effectiveness of traditional healthcare protocols.

Chronic diseases kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally and yet chronic diseases are largely preventable.

Chronic diseases are long term in nature; those affected in addition to medical treatment can adopt self-care approaches to help manage the condition and improve on quality of life. Those not already affected can engage in behaviours and lifestyle changes to prevent chronic illness in the first place. However, as a society we are not particularly well equipped for a ‘self-care’, ‘personalised’ or ‘preventative’ approach to healthcare.

Technology is changing the art of what is possible and responsible use of this technology is an enabler and expansion of how we define and deliver health care. Tech is solving for problems such as: access to care, health education, self-help approaches, treatment outcomes, management of disease progression, patient experience and quality of life.

Tech can make our healthcare systems more efficient and effective. However, all of this requires healthcare systems to change – our current medical model; our stakeholders; our individual behaviours; our clinical protocols, regulations and pathways – all needs to be challenged. We have seen the promise of tech, we now need to manifest this for the sake of global health.

The startup sector is brimming with purpose-driven, disruptive companies whose innovations can change the way healthcare is delivered.

Implementing sustainable change in healthcare requires unbundling existing systems and structures and forging new models and paths. It requires an understanding of, and satisfying multiple stakeholders: those who pay, provide, use and who enable healthcare. This makes the startup environment for the health-tech sector even more challenging.

Technical and operational problems are rarely the cause. The biggest cause of failure is linked to commercial challenges and failure to understand the need for cultural transformation.

Aahuti Rai

Aahuti Rai Follow me on Twitter

Strategic Advisor | Health-tech Innovation

For 25+ years I have worked with 60+ large organisations across 13 industry sectors. I have partnered with Boards & Executive teams to define disruptive business strategies and to deliver transformation in their respective sectors. In parallel, over this time, my passion for health and healthcare has deepened. In 2018 I made a conscious decision to enter the health-tech sector and to support startups.

Why? I love tech – that is where my career started but that is not why I am here today. The euphoria and excitement of the promise of health-tech makes me giddy – but that is not the reason why I am here. I am here because I know that delivering change is difficult – personal change | business change | systemic change – is difficult. I am here because I have experience in making change happen and healthcare is an industry that is in need of change.

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I work with partner organisations

Healthcare is complex and fragmented; the sector just as broad as it is deep. Delivering change in this sector requires expertise in many niche areas. It is not enough to have a great innovation and startups often don’t have all the skills in-house to deliver what they need to. That is why I choose to work with a network of organisations who provide different niche, expert services. Together we help our clients successfully drive change with their innovation.

Main organisations I do my work with

Specialist service providers I work with

Communities I am an active part of

Companies we’ve worked with

We work have worked with a cross-section of public and private healthcare organisations,
ranging from young innovation ventures through to large life sciences organisations.

“As a repeat client, what I have always enjoyed about working with Aahuti is her focus on getting to the root of an issue, her frank advice and her determination to make things better. Her interpersonal style lends itself to rapidly building trust, inviting people to open up and engage constructively in problem-solving. She brings structure and method to conversations that can easily get derailed by emotion or politics. I’d work with Aahuti in a heartbeat and I hope our careers cross paths again.”
Rafael O, CEO

“I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Aahuti to assist a number of start-up companies in the med-tech space. She has a remarkable ability to bring clarity to complex problems, greatly simplifying the preparation of easily understood and impactful plans. For Aahuti, ‘purposeful business’ is not just consultant-speak she helps her clients adopt a human-centric approach to all aspects of their business activity.”
Chris J, Investor, Board Advisor & Leadership Coach

“Aahuti’s leadership, insights and structure proved invaluable as we navigated our way through a complex set of objectives to reshape our business and our delivery model. Her ability to understand our business within a short space of time; her ability to break down complexity and challenge the management team led to improved decision making and outcomes for the execution of our strategy. ”
Rory Passmore, MD Optegra Healthcare

We believe that responsible use of technology is a catalyst for healthcare transformation.

Health care systems around the world
are in need of change

Aahuti Rai Follow me on Twitter