Healthcare & The Sharing Economy

The sharing economy, collaborative consumption, both are classifications of the new economic model that is redefining the traditional conceptions of supply and demand. It’s a model focused on minimizing excess or latent capacity in assets that can be consumed. In essence, it accelerates the consumption frequency and return on investment for the owner. I am not referring to a third party rental company, like Hertz, who owns a large quantity of the same assets. That is a very different model.

[bra_blockquote align=’right’]We find this fascinating and see boundless opportunity. The economies of scale and scope become astounding.[/bra_blockquote]I am referring to peer-to-peer consumption, meaning that one hospital owns a $300,000 medical device that is only used once a week and a hospital down the road has a need for it as well. The current economic model of hyper-consumerism encourages each of those hospitals to spend $300,000 on a device that they only use a small fraction of the time. A collaborative consumption market would enable Hospital A to monetize the time their medical device is not actively being used by their physicians, its latent capacity. Hospital B would pay a per usage sum to Hospital A to get access to their device without having to layout the exorbitant $300,000 to purchase it outright. To take it a step further, Hospital B has a different medical device Hospital A needs. The relationship is reciprocal. This is an example of an enterprise level peer-to-peer network.

This model has created a new source of supply for the consumption of medical devices. It has turned every node (hospital) in a healthcare network into a marketplace, essentially a producer and consumer at the same time. Hospitals end up supplying other hospitals. It is really a connection of many marketplaces, creating an interconnected mass-network of access and consumption that was never imaginable before. Previously neglected or over-capitalized demand can now be satisfied for a micro-fraction of the old hyper-consumption model.

At Cohealo, we find this fascinating and see boundless opportunity. Imagine a whole city of hospitals like New York or London having all of their consumption and purchasing habits aggregated and interconnected with one another. The economies of scale and scope become astounding. It’s a 21st century supply chain.

That’s exactly our mission here at Cohealo, to make the latest medical technology affordable and accessible. By removing billions of dollars in redundant waste each year, it will enable the purchasers of this technology to pay it off faster and redeploy capital quicker into new technology. We believe this will in turn speed up the innovation cycles at device manufactures and enable them to bring newer technology to all of us faster. The removal of waste from the entire value chain enables a more effective flow of capital across the entirety of the market landscape.

We think that our model is one of the ways to modernize the hospital supply chain and build more a financially sound healthcare market. Reach out to us to learn more about what we are doing.