| This week, experts discuss how the novel coronavirus is changing healthcare through innovation. Plus, Mark Thompson of the New York Times Company on a record-smashing digital strategy, and a dive into whether banking systems are up to the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. |
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| Healthy choices. Last month, we focused on how prioritizing health could accelerate global growth for decades. This week, we look at health from a different angle: how the fight to stop the COVID-19 pandemic is driving changes in consumer behavior, speeding adoption of digital health services, and propelling other trends that could potentially change the face of healthcare for the better. |
| Start with a view of healthcare that encompasses far more than checkups and hospital visits. As Lloyd Minor, dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, told McKinsey in a recent interview, inequalities—in access to fresh food and safe neighborhoods, for example—demand attention. “It’s a sad fact in America today that the zip code in which a person lives is a more accurate predictor of that person’s life expectancy than their genetic code,” he said. If a fundamental part of racial justice includes the opportunity to live healthy lives, we have to do better. Understanding the data is a start. |
| Ramping up digital health. The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up adoption of digital health services. Healthcare teams are leaning hard on telehealth to provide medical care safely and efficiently—to the tune of 5,000 virtual visits a week, according to Michael Fisher, CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. McKinsey analysis indicates that there’s around $250 billion worth of US medical services that could be digitized. |
| Knowledge is power. As doctors, scientists, and researchers seek to unlock the mysteries of the novel coronavirus and race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, we’re once more reminded how crucial it is for decision makers to have the right kind of information. |
| An Rx from doctors. In healthcare, knowing a single, relevant fact about a patient could save that person’s life. McKinsey’s work in that area includes surveying physicians on the types of information they require when making decisions about patient care. Unfortunately, all the doctors who answered our 2019 survey indicated that they did not have the necessary information to personalize medical care optimally. For instance, while roughly 50 percent of doctors said they wished to understand a patient’s out-of-pocket costs, less than 10 percent said they had that information available. |
| More data, please. On the other side of the waiting room, consumers are frustrated by a lack of transparency. According to a different study on consumers’ healthcare decisions, 45 percent of respondents reported dissatisfaction with how difficult it was to figure out the cost of a medical service. |
| Let’s end on a bright spot. The promise of artificial intelligence in healthcare is another area where the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing the boundaries. Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott recently spoke to us about the remarkable ability of machine learning to help develop disease treatments, including vaccines, at a faster pace than we’ve ever seen. |
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| OFF THE CHARTS |
| The leap: Ten years in three months |
| How fast is the world moving around us? Faced with a sudden shift in market conditions and consumer behaviors, including a mass move to virtual channels, companies are rewiring for speed and agility. The major changes they’re implementing might have taken them months or years prior to the crisis. Check out how quickly e-commerce replaced physical channels in just three months in the US. |
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| INTERVIEW |
| All the news that’s fit to click |
| Mark Thompson, who recently stepped down as president and CEO of the New York Times Company, looks back on an eight-year tenure that transformed a 170-year-old news brand into a global, digital-subscription-first powerhouse. Under his watch, the New York Times’ digital readership jumped to nearly 5.7 million subscribers, from half a million. |
| “The psychology inside the Times and other newspapers was that all you had to do was get a bigger audience and transfer the wonderful economics of print advertising to digital. I didn’t buy that,” he told McKinsey. “I think digital can be useful. I think it’s an important adjunct source of revenue. But I never thought it would save the Times. It had to be subscriptions.” |
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| MORE ON MCKINSEY.COM |
| Banking system resilience in the time of COVID-19 | Capital cushions at European, UK, and US banks look adequate in most scenarios—and challenged in others. In either case, they must be rebuilt, and that will require some difficult decisions. |
| Ten ‘antipatterns’ that derail tech transformations | One of the main impediments to a successful transformation is when IT leaders have a hard time communicating about technology in a way that engages nonexperts. Here’s how to recognize such problems in your organization. |
| Are you building a digital ecosystem? | Ecosystem strategies can generate significant value both by growing the core business and by expanding the portfolio into new products and services. Here’s how to define an ecosystem strategy that fits your needs. |
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| WHAT WE’RE READING |
| Find yourself a comfy chair |
| Reading lists. Some people love them, while some see them as yet another chore to stay current. We can’t help you with that, but what we can say is that McKinsey’s summer reading list is packed with picks from interesting folks from all walks of business, media, philanthropy, and other areas. |
| This year, we have consciously broadened our horizons to ask leaders to talk about the books that have inspired them or, in many cases, provided a much-needed respite from their daily, often virtual, realities. We hope you will be as intrigued as we were when these 60 leaders shared their recommendations with McKinsey Global Publishing’s Raju Narisetti. Here’s a small sampling. |
| Oscar Munoz, executive chairman, United Airlines Holdings |
| If ever there was a book that captures the moral and political crossroads that confront America—what it promises and what imperils that promise—then it is Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by Jacob Soboroff. At turns harrowing and hopeful, it tells a powerfully urgent story of both immigration policy and the Latinx people who live it, one that should be read by everyone. |
| Gillian Tett, chair, editorial board, editor at large, US, Financial Times |
| I am reading a brilliant book called Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, which should be required reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the Black Lives Matter movement and challenge themselves (and their own organization) to respond appropriately. It argues that caste—not skin color—is the best way to make sense of the horrors of racism in America, since even well-meaning people accept caste structures implicitly in their lives, unless challenged. |
| Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor, Columbia Business School; 2001 recipient, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences |
| The Mapmaker’s Wife by Robert Whittaker is about a French scientific expedition to Peru in the 18th century and the life of cartographer Jean Godin, who marries a Peruvian woman and is separated from her for 20 years. A gripping read that has it all: science, adventure, fascinating glimpses of daily life in Peru as well as the wilderness. |
| Everyone seems to be reading at least one book about the 1918 flu. I like The Great Influenza by John M. Barry because it has a lot of science in it and talks about how the medical discoveries were made and about the lives of the great researchers. With the exception of Johns Hopkins’s medical school, US medical schools were well behind those in Germany for much of US history. Depressing to note that denial, politicking, and belief in quackery stymied the public and government response in 1918 just as it has today.
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| Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general, World Health Organization |
| Inside Change: Transforming Your Organization with Emotional Intelligence, Joshua Freedman and Massimiliano Ghini, MBA |
| The only k (constant) is change, and I believe that instead of waiting for things to change, one should be proactive and give fuel and energy to change, so that it helps you drive your agenda and achieve your goals. |
| A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions, Muhammad Yunus |
| I was honored to receive a copy of the book from Dr. Yunus himself, along with a personal inscription. The topics here are near and dear to my heart and to the WHO as well, and I am looking forward to reading this. |
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| PARTING THOUGHT |
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| — Edited by Belinda Yu |
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| BACKTALK |
| Have feedback or other ideas? We’d love to hear from you. |
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Copyright © 2020 | McKinsey & Company, 3 World Trade Center, 175 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007
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