ITIC Global 2025 | Humanising healthcare in the digital age – balancing AI and human interventions to improve value and patient care
In the sixth session of ITIC Global, Sandeep Sharma, CEO and Founder of Vmarsh Healthcare, discussed with Marc Banting, Chief Operating Officer at Voyageur Group, the importance of the patient’s perspective and health, and how the advances in technological development in healthcare must come secondary to that focus
The ITIJ team are reporting from ITIC Global in Venice this week (2–6 November 2025), sharing the discussions that take place at the conference. Read all reports
Sandeep Sharma began by summarising the areas that technology is used most prominently in healthcare, based on Vmarsh’s own research, highlighting the top 10 technological uses, from managing patient admissions through to monitoring business risks and better process reviews.
Sharma explained how the adoption of technology had developed and evolved over time, with analytics, business intelligence, and data management as the key sectors in healthcare, developing from the days of basic data collection to modern prescriptive and preventative applications. He then warned that the industry needed to embrace technology, but this should only be done in a way that improves the quality of care for patients and makes care more accessible to them. He explained some of the common pitfalls of adopting technology without the proper planning and preparation, such as breaches of protected information, altered or incorrect information, and integration issues.
Sharma encouraged the audience to try to understand the patient and how they think, especially their state of mind when requiring a medical intervention prior to committing to treatment. He said that the provider’s perspective was less helpful for patient care, adding that in order to bridge the gap between patient and provider, there needed to be an understanding of the rational and emotional thinking in consumer behaviour. “The most important thing is empathy,” he stated.
From a branding perspective, Sharma said that a healthcare provider’s vision, mission, values, strategy, and actions all needed to be patient-centric.
Ultimately, Sharma said that the healthcare sector was not about clients or customers as a source of income, but that helping people was the goal and nothing else mattered.
Sharma concluded that the humanisation of care required a holistic perspective of the humanisation of care, encompassing both patient-centred care (incorporating treating illnesses) and person-focused care (which prioritises preventative care), and that all stakeholders needed to be involved in the process of the care pathway.
Banting asked the audience for questions and queries, and an audience member asked about different patients from different backgrounds and origins all having different expectations, so how could hospitals accommodate and make all those patients happy. Sharma said that there was no way to please all demographics, and so they needed to identify and focus on the top five to 10 groups and make sure that they were looked after with good concierges and guides to make the healthcare process as smooth as possible.
Another audience member asked what the biggest threat to healthcare providers was in 2026 from artificial intelligence (AI) and technology. Sharma said that it was important to increase user awareness through safe and trustworthy promotion to help the patients make the right decisions.