In recent years, public health deterioration is a growing concern worldwide driven by factors such as lifestyle changes, environmental degradation, and unequal access to healthcare. In-creasing rates of chronic diseases, mental health disorders, and the global spread of infectious diseases have highlight the urgent attention to these problems. Consequently, the mounting pressure on global health infrastructures reinforces the need for innovative solutions, such as digital health technologies, to improve healthcare access and overall well-being. In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital healthcare, digital health startups are at the forefront of innovation, harnessing cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and mobile health applications to transform patient care, diagnosis, and treatment. Despite their in-creasing prominence, a significant knowledge gap remains in understanding how these digital health startups effectively create, capture, and deliver value, particularly within the intricate regulatory framework of the Dutch healthcare system.
This research directly addresses this gap by exploring the key elements of value creation, capture, and delivery specific to the digital health sector in The Netherlands to conceptually understand the core of the digital health startups. These elements—value creation, capture, and delivery-are fundamental components of any business model, as highlighted by researcher Alexander Osterwalder, as represent how a company creates value for customers, captures a part of this created value, and efficiently delivers its offerings, all of which are crucial for the success of digital health startups. Building on this, through a comprehensive analysis of existing business model frameworks, this study evaluates their applicability, points of alignment and misalignment with the current research’s aim, ultimately leading to the development of a conceptual value framework. This framework is crafted to provide a holistic and conceptual understanding to business modeling, equipping Dutch digital health startups with better under-standing, structured thinking and a birds-eye view of the processes necessary to successfully navigate the complexities involved in digital healthcare innovation. This research is only a preliminary step towards developing a tool, that can be practically used by the entrepreneurs for hands-on inputs and formulation of business strategies, through further research.
he findings of this research emphasize the critical importance of a well-structured business model that balances the demands of innovation, regulatory compliance, and patient safety. The practical implications of the framework include, offering a structured methodology that benefits entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors alike. This would especially be beneficial for first time entrepreneurs in the digital health field, guiding them through the complex processes with multiple stakeholders including the inherent complexities of the digital health field.
In terms of academic contributions, this conceptual value framework is first of a kind for the digital health startups, giving an overarching and holistic view of value creation, capture and delivery for Dutch digital health startups. As touched upon previously, this has also opened a new avenue to research further and build an easy to use tool for entrepreneurs to give them actionable insights. So in that view, conceptual value framework presented in this report is really just a starting point for the further nuanced research in the topic. Similar to how the existing tools, say Business Model Canvas is widely utilized to guide startups across various sectors, this research initiates the development of a specialized tool tailored specifically for digital health startups. The conceptual value framework proposed in this study serves as an essential first step toward creating such a tool. Given that digital health startups operate within a unique regulatory and environmental landscape, this holistic framework is designed to address the specific complexities of the digital health domain, providing a comprehensive tool that en-compasses its intricate requirements. In essence, the conceptual value framework presented in this study is just the beginning—a starting point for deeper, more nuanced exploration in this evolving field.
This research not only fills a crucial gap in the literature but also lays basis for further research that can serve as a detailed road map for digital health entrepreneurs, helping them to effectively align their business models with the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the Dutch healthcare system.