Digital health adoption reaches a tipping point

Provider adoption of interoperable digital health platforms has crossed the threshold where integration capability, rather than clinical evidence, becomes the primary procurement criterion.

For medtech companies planning regional entry, this is a meaningful shift. A product that cannot exchange data with an incumbent record system is now filtered out earlier in procurement than one with a thinner evidence base but working integration.

What changes for market entry

• Integration capability becomes a gating requirement, not a differentiator
• Reference deployments matter more than trial data in procurement scoring
• Data-residency compliance is assessed per jurisdiction, early
• Partnership with an incumbent platform is often faster than displacing one

The practical implication is that integration work belongs in the market-entry budget rather than the post-sale implementation budget — a reordering that several of our clients have found uncomfortable and necessary.