60 seconds with James Whitehouse, Joint Managing Director

Q. What does Lightning Health do?

A. Lightning Health is a strategic market access consultancy, but uniquely what sets us apart is how we integrate stakeholder insights into our project delivery. From my time within industry, consulting and healthcare services, I saw the importance of understanding the opinions and experiences of multiple stakeholders. Yes, strategic recommendation is important, but by ensuring this is tested and backed up by other stakeholders it means recommendations and outputs carry much more significance. Existing methods of gathering insights can be time consuming and in some cases, expensive.

The API platform is a digital resource that streamlines the process for market research and allow users to either field their own surveys or as part of a wider project, at the same time leveraging the support of an experienced team here at Lightning Health.

Q: What’s on the horizon for Lightning Health?

A: We are always innovating the platform. It’s really cool to have a half digital tech and half life-sciences mindset. I find the digital side fascinating and anything that can optimise workflows, especially in an industry as complex and regulated as ours, is really great to be part of.

In the future, we would like to widen the stakeholder set as much as possible, integrating other digital techniques such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to optimise research.

Right now, we are focussed on delivering the best possible experience and outputs for the users of the API platform and our services, especially supporting academic questions and provider institutions.

Building more of a thinktank mindset that can push the industry to be as efficient and fair as possible, ultimately maximising the health of patients in the process.

Q: Why did you become a health economist?

A: I had always been interested in economics at school so went on to study economics and politics as an undergraduate. At university, I learned about supply and demand but it’s interesting how trying to establish an equilibrium applies to healthcare rather than normal goods.

My mother is a mental health nurse and so would often talk about pressures on healthcare systems and the allocation of resources. This led me to start a career in the NHS, working in contracting and commissioning whilst studying at University. I gained a master’s in Health Economics and Health Policy and this naturally then led me into the Life Sciences sector.

Article published 27 September 2019.