Innovation isn't enough. Healthcare startups are disappearing due to numerous legal requirements.

The guest of the twelfth episode of the Health Market podcast "Stechtoskop" was Marcin Romanowski , President of the Management Board of Comarch Healthcare, Director of the e-Health Sector of Comarch SA and Vice President of the Cracovia Sports Club.

We quoted the words of Krzysztof Groyecki, Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco, during one of the conferences, that IT companies in the healthcare sector are not innovative because they are constantly chasing deadlines resulting from the implementation of new legal acts.

"I agree with this statement. We put a lot of work into adapting our systems to current legal requirements, as defined by the Ministry of Health and the e-Health Center. Sometimes, the time from announcing a change to its implementation is a few days, and sometimes even a weekend," admitted Marcin Romanowski.

He added that companies must constantly comply with requirements stemming from major EU regulations, such as GDPR, NIS2, and MDR. This significantly slows down the development of innovative functionalities and products.

Maintaining separate teams solely dedicated to regulatory oversight and R&D would generate high costs that would ultimately have to be passed on to the customer. This, especially when public sector funding is involved, would be controversial.

Marcin Romanowski pointed out that sometimes it becomes a challenge to compete with start-ups, which are sometimes characterized by great flexibility and a more personalized approach to the customer than large companies.

On the other hand, he pointed out that when start-ups start to face regulatory requirements, at some point many of them "fall out" and eventually disappear from the market.

- Large companies are able to keep up with regulatory requirements, but this certainly happens at the expense of development and innovation - concluded our guest.

The entire interview with Marcin Romanowski can be viewed at Rynek Zdrowia.

All episodes of the "Stechtoskop" podcast are available for listening on Spotify.

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