The dichotomy of diagnostics: exploring the value for consumers, clinicians and care pathways

Abstract

Diagnostics play a crucial role in screening, detecting, and stratifying patients, yet can account for only 2–3% of healthcare spending. With advancements in wearable technology and direct-to-consumer testing, the market for consumer health continues to rise. The potential benefits of more holistic and continuous measurement offer a promising opportunity for earlier disease detection and proactive health management. Many health systems are in a parallel transition from legacy analogue approaches to digitally enabled infrastructures. The evolving role of the clinical workforce, including medical ethics, regulation, will be closely coupled and a critical lever in success. This includes on a patient and clinician level, balancing the benefits and risks of interventions, and care pathway level, promoting responsible data utilisation with greater contextualisation based on the latest evidence of clinical efficacy. Moving forward a balance may need to be struck between increased data capture, analysis and reuse, with proportionate ethics, regulation, trust and governance.