Value is a concept that is increasingly embraced by providers and payers, as well as medtech manufacturers. Leading providers are organizing around value, changing their models and thereby inviting medtech manufacturers to adapt to the post fee-for-service era. Some, like Medtronic, are at the head of the game.

The leading medtechs are starting to develop models for providers that show how to implement successful digital strategies, a trend that is serving to put pressure on companies that are yet to make a commitment, says ZS Associates' Pete Masloski.

Johnson & Johnson's global CareAdvantage system, a tool to help hospital systems deliver quality care efficiently and affordably, was launched in spring 2017. Almost a year into the initiative, Hugo Breda, the group’s EMEA vice president, explains the role that J&J plays as it brings its unique care provision concept to clients.

The adoption of value-based health care concepts among US providers is happening, albeit slowly. In what is an unusual reversal of pioneering health care concepts, the pace is being set elsewhere – in Europe – rather than in the US, even if the direction of travel has been firmly established. Boston Consulting Group experts give In Vivo an interim update on the progress and outlook for VBHC.

2018 will be a time of transition in health care, when biopharma’s counterparts in adjacent industry segments scale up in a radical redesign of their traditional business models. Biopharma is not moving as quickly, and it confronts a strategic dilemma on how to address the prospect of a much more powerful set of rivals in the ongoing battle to own the patient experience in medicine.

2017 was a watershed year in many respects, politically, economically and commercially for many players in the medtech field. Where will the opportunities lie in 2018, will breakthrough medtech innovation still have a place among providers often riding on fumes when it comes to budgets, and is it all as bad as some would make out?