The HealthTech Summit 2020 - Health Insurance Taken to the Next Level, held in the Hotel Catalonia Barcelona Plaza on 5th & 6th of March 2020, was the 4th annual edition of the event under the umbrella of EuroEvents Market Research institute, following Munich 2019, Vienna 2018 and Berlin 2017.
The HTS20/20 brought the industry leaders to take a look at the latest tech innovations which are reshaping the sector, learn how to better address the customer’s demands for more personalized offers and how to optimize the pricing and cost containment strategies for increased profitability.
Day 1, jam-packed with 11 speakers and one panel discussion, was opened with the presentation of Dr. Peter Mills (who coincidently was also our conference chairman for the day) who did an overview of the latest trends in health Insurance and boldly stated that medical consultations are stuck in the 20th century. According to Peter, health insurance has a tendency to be a disruptor of the healthcare industry, and its future is in collaborating with innovators.
Later we had Carlos De La Cruz Echániz who in a short segment of 30 minutes tried to explain why should innovation be the top priority for health insurers, something that he could have talked about, as he said, for days. The session ended with the presentation of Paul Triggs who expressed his point of view on selling health insurance in today’s world.
After getting a well-needed refreshment during the morning coffee break, and taking the opportunity to network, in the second session we had Jai Verma who elaborated more on the socio-economic factors and their impact on healthcare; Carlos Ordóñez who pointed out that insurers are using customers information and data to reduce loss ratios by promoting habits of prevention and healthy living; and Nikos Kouvaras with his presentation on the role of analytics in creating seamless user experience.
After the lunch break, our next presenter Pedro Diaz Yuste, kept the energy on a high level with a couple of “bear” exercises. He spoke of the effects of AI and IoT on Health Insurance and concluded that digital customers don’t go to the doctor, they don’t want to or don’t have time, but rather want an immediate solution.
Later that session Lukas Ammann presented the dacadoo’s app that can calculate risk with minimal input of information, and following him was Charlie Pearmund with an interesting presentation on how advanced virtual reality can benefit health insurers.
The final session of the day started with the video presentation of Marco Giacommeli who despite the ban of traveling abroad due to the coronavirus outbreak was eager to participate and add value to the event by presenting on the trends that are shaping health insurance industry.
He was followed by Emmanuel Djengue who answered the question how to make people healthier and live longer and we finished off with the panel discussion “Insurtechs - competitors or collaborators?”.
The second day saw a change in the role of chairman, with Charlie Pearmund stepping up to cover for Peter, who unfortunately had to travel back to the UK.
Session V started with another video presentation, this time by Deniz Yörük who pointed out that all customers should be treated as digital customers that want a platform they can buy and a service they will get in a minute. She stressed that telehealth and be used both as a preventive care and a longterm care management tool.
Later, Laurent Pochat Cottilloux discussed on the opportunities for health insurers deriving from the globalization of the healthcare, such as the possibility of medical tourism, product design based on the principles of cross-border health insurance and opportunities to partner up. Same as some of the speakers before, he also concluded that in order to be successful health insurers need to offer a platform which user can access easily.
The first session of day 2 ended with a panel discussion in which the panelists have tried to answer how to achieve increased profitability with cost-effective sales and distribution strategies.
After the morning break, we welcomed the great showman John Spears, all the way from Canada, who focused on the ways to reduce claims costs by modernizing claims processes.
He was followed by Angelica Khachaturova presenting a case study on the Tyto Care telemedicine solution, Andreas Bogusch speaking on a similar topic, trying to answer if telemedicine has become reality, and we finished the session, the day and the conference with Josep Carbo who, presenting on the ways that AI can improve access to healthcare, surprised us with the information that 160 million of Americans google their symptoms online every year, and 43% of employees prefer to find and online solution than seeing a doctor for a diagnose.
The conference was closed by the conference chairman Charlie Pearmund with the day’s summary and the closing remarks. As the previous 4 editions, the HTS20/20 turned out to be great success, developed and executed flawlessly by the EuroEvents team.
We would like to thank all of our speakers, panelists, partners, sponsors and delegates for their contribution. A special thanks goes to our two chairmen Dr. Peter Mills and Mr. Charlie Pearmund for their support and involvement in the project.
Hope to see you all, at the 5th Annual HealthTech Summit 2021.