Healthcare's Digital Dawn

We are living through extraordinary times. Technological advancement and adoption are accelerating at a pace few anticipated. Take ChatGPT: launched in November 2022, it reached 1 million users in just five days, 100 million in two months, and now — according to several reports — engages over 500 million users weekly. That’s remarkable.

For context, consider Netflix or Spotify — both took more than four years to reach 100 million users. Or look at healthcare’s shift to e-prescribing in the U.S.: in 2008, just 7% of physicians were e-prescribing, and it took over a decade to surpass 90% adoption.

Digital progress is no longer linear — it's exponential. For healthcare, that means change is arriving at a speed many hoped for, but few truly expected. Consider that GPT-4o now scores ~90% or higher across the theoretical domains of the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam — well beyond the passing threshold for future MDs.

In this dynamic period, healthcare executives and innovators must rethink how we lead, adapt, and innovate. Healthcare innovators used to lead from the front – acting as visionaries, selling ideas, and role modeling courage to push technological advancement to its extremes in pursuit of improved patient outcomes. Clinical benefits needed to be formally demonstrated on a case-by-case basis to compel healthcare professionals and patients alike to adopt new digital solutions.

But today, the pace of progress is so fast that innovation roadmaps created just a year ago already feel out of date. Hundreds of millions of people — including healthcare professionals and patients — have embraced user-friendly tools like ChatGPT, applying them to create their own brilliant, unexpected use cases.

So what does this mean for us? Healthcare’s Digital Dawn is here. We’ve entered a new era of AI, real-time data, and care models that are beginning to reshape the system from within. Yet we’re still in Phase 1 of exploring digital’s full potential. We’re nowhere near the maximum tolerated dose of innovation — and it’s difficult to fathom just how much will change in the years ahead.

Healthcare leaders must learn to operate with confidence amid this velocity. The familiar rhythms of “business as usual” may no longer serve us. Perhaps the new normal is business unusual.

For healthcare executives and innovators alike, the therapeutic window of opportunity is wide open. This moment demands courage over comfort — and perhaps even a willingness to innovate on how we innovate.

>>>> Join the discussion -

• Do you have ideas on how healthcare executives & innovators should evolve to stay ahead given the pace at which technology is moving?

• Do you see new opportunities and / or new challenges that healthcare executives & innovators will need to have front of mind given the rapid advancement and adoption of Gen-AI?