The HLTH Conference for yet another year gathered the top senior leaders, promising to solve imposing challenges in front of the healthcare system today. The one-of-a-kind ecosystem had the healthcare community’s attention for four days straight, covering topics such as telehealth, health activism, pharmacy and digital health, as well as healthcare analytics.
Value-based care was a central topic in one panel, led by Physician Owner Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP, at Post Rock Family Medicine, Jennifer Bacani McKenney, MD, FAAFP, Owner and Manager of Bacani/McKenney Clinic, and Sarah Chouinard, MD and CEO at Main Street Health.
According to Bacani and her experience with providing value-based care whilst implementing and using analytics, there was a quick turnaround with a positive effect across multiple touchpoints with her patients.
- All care managers she had working in the facility started proactively following up with patients that have been discharged from the hospital.
- Started proactively reaching out to patients with preventative care incentive.
- The clinic quickly increased its staff with more doctors, nurse practitioners and other employees. The staff became more empowered and well-equipped to provide transformative patient experience without needing the resource of a direct supervisor in the administrative department.
Medicine and health are about relationships.
– Jennifer Bacani McKenney, MD, FAAFP
Healthcare analytics contribute to solving simple and obvious situations that improve people’s lives, improve patient outcomes and ultimately – save money.
Healthcare facilities and clinics across the US are rapidly digitising health record, exponentially increasing the quantity and availability of clinical data online. The ability to access remarkable amounts of such data offers a massive potential for reducing the cost of care.
Analytics models allow for improved allocation of billable services, hence improvement on the service itself because of financial growth, stimulated by the initial prioritisation and optimisation.
Healthcare analytics reflect on the strategic, long-term planning of patient care and monitoring when considering the variety of different healthcare widgets available. Removing or adding when the patient needs inevitably reduces the total cost of care.
In another panel on forecasting telehealth’s trajectory, healthcare leaders discoursed the future of telehealth and is it here to stay after COVID-19 changed the way we do simple things, like going to a doctor’s appointment.
Amy Perry, Senior VP Integrated Care Delivery and CEO at Atlantic Health’s hospital division thinks it’s all about creating infrastructure and environment, where clinicians can switch between in-person and virtual to better meet patients’ needs.
Fostering an environment where telehealth is not a convenient only in extreme situations such as global pandemic and local lockdowns is a challenge the entire industry must proactively work on solving through premium-based reimbursement systems and increased patient awareness.
Use the surrounding digital tools to create a far bigger bearhug and more personal, intimate and continuous experience – the kind of thing that only technology could unlock at scale.
– Megan Joyce, CEO at EVP of+Oscar, Oscar Health
Utilising data and technology will transform both current business models and the way clinicians provide care to patients, based on improved understanding of patient needs, and taking better, improved and data-driven actions.
Telehealth is no longer a consumer experience virtual extension of care, mostly adopted by digital millennials. According to Megan Joyce, it serves a true social and health justice cause. Telehealth is of vital importance for underserved communities to access culturally competent care, whilst reducing the total cost of care.
One of the wonderful bi-products of digital is being measurable.
– Owen Tripp, Co-Founder and CEO of Included Health
Seems like COVID-19 not only forced massive change in lifestyle and communication habits, but also in device development and production. Now that the priorities have shifted and being healthy is at utmost importance, the latest MedTech devices expand beyond data collection to subscription services. Diagnosis from a distance is now possible.
Old operational habits fall hard. According to the panel with the same name, about 88% of patients use phones to get access to medical care, when phone is not the best media to communicate health.
Health Tech’s Got Talent panel elaborated more on the technology aspect of telemedicine and the innovations we’re yet to experience as patients on the receiving end of care. Poor phone service increases the dissatisfaction in patients.
Ways to solve this challenge include:
- Better promotion of digital alternatives.
- Proactively encourage patients to use digital channels of communicating health data.
- Reduce the overwhelming of patients through way too many digital alternatives (chatbots, digital triage, etc.).
- Improve implementation of digital ecosystems to better meet patient needs.
Improving the overall patient experience and reducing the total cost of care can be done through reducing the waiting time for appointments.
Аbove all discoveries and innovations, the ones that stand out the most are Cellino’s focus on stem cell engineering. Personalising stem cells for patents with incurable conditions such as Diabetes and Parkinson’s can improve their overall treatment plans, allowing for custom cell-based therapies that hold the potential of changing the disease’s course, or even cure it.
The company focuses on a US clinical trial on age-related macular degeneration. So far, they have developed way to generate patient-specific stem and retinal cells that allow transportation into the back of the eye to change the course of vision loss.
In part two of the panel, TWIN Health aims to solve the root cause of chronic metabolic diseases. Their technology creates digital representation of the metabolic function, basing the diagram on thousands of health data points, biomarkers and activities, collected through IoT and wearables. The technology creates a predictive model of a metabolic system to personalise actionable recommendations on sleep, nutrition, physical activity and breathing.
The Blurring Lines of Health devices panel deep dive into the infrastructure, psychology and patient-centric side. The seamless integration within one ecosystem where devices and software are in sync provides for more patient-centric design and aids to the psychology side of things, reducing the anxiety and stress around health, and focusing on the conscious efforts towards improving the overall health and well-being of the population.
