Ten years from now, gastroenterology will be completely unrecognizable from what it is today.
NextServices President Praveen Suthrum published the book Scope Forward, offering insights on the structural shift in gastroenterology, private equity investment, colon cancer screening alternatives and several trends affecting the specialty in 2020. Mr. Suthrum conducted more than 30 interviews for the book and presented opinions from a number of leading experts on topics affecting the specialty.
"We'll look back at 2020 as the year that healthcare was compelled to shift gears. The industry adapted to telemedicine almost overnight. Restrictive laws changed in a matter of days. Cloud technology scaled up. Doctors and patients suddenly found themselves inside each other’s homes. More importantly, we could no longer look away from the mirror that the pandemic was showing us. With widespread infections and deaths, our healthcare system's failures have been
too hard to ignore. … The pandemic is creating a new void in gastroenterology, leaving us no choice but to think differently," Mr. Praveen said.
Here are some other excerpts from Scope Forward:
"Gastroenterology is in the midst of massive structural disruption. Stool DNA tests for colon cancer are disrupting screening colonoscopy. If that technology fails, then there are many companies working on liquid biopsy. These are blood tests that look for not one but many cancers at the same time. If that doesn’t disrupt, then there's artificial intelligence. AI has the potential to classify cancerous polyps and spot what endoscopists might miss."
"If companies like Exact Sciences collaborate with gastroenterologists to draw up a path to the future, there's an opportunity for a win-win. More patients can be screened quickly. We can get people earlier to the endoscopy room. With more meaningful collaboration between industry and
GI practitioners, could the field of gastroenterology progress to its next iteration?"
Scope Forward is now available here.