Story written by John Sculley and Bruce Broussard at Forbes
Numerous major players–from Silicon Valley innovators, to health care professionals, to government leaders–are looking to use technology to transform healthcare.
Silicon Valley is focused on harnessing technology through the power of entrepreneurship to disrupt an industry that’s one-sixth of the U.S. economy. According to Dow Jones VentureWire, “venture-capital funding in U.S. healthcare companies rose to a record $16.10 billion last year, a 34% jump from 2014.”
Health plans that cover tens of millions of Americans are using technology such as data analytics to help improve members’ health by identifying moments of influence in a person’s life. In a recent survey, 82% of healthcare decision-makers said they’re “experiencing clinical benefits (improved patient care)” through data analytics.
Momentum is Building
The government is a major advocate for technology. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell delivered the keynote at the HIMSS 2016 conference, where she touched on automation, data sharing and interoperability. Part of her keynote focused on how Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Medical Center, used electronic health records to compare blood test results from more than 700 children in the Flint, Michigan, area, enabling her to identify health problems related to tainted water much faster than through paper records.
The Secretary is also focused on overhauling the 100-year-old fee-for-service payment system. The goal is to tie 90% of all traditional Medicare payments to quality or value by 2018. In addition, both the Secretary and CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt have referenced the importance of interoperability, with the latter stating at HIMSS that interoperability “needs to open up a path to give physicians and patients what they want from their technology.”
While these are exciting times, solving our nation’s healthcare challenges won’t be easy. How do you innovate through technology in an industry where the majority of people are unhealthy, many by their own doing? If we want to address this question, it starts by solving the personal engagement problem through engaging, simple-to-use technology solutions that bring the doctor and patient closer together. It’s also important to note that without connectivity or data driven by interoperability, it will be difficult to bring the patient and physician closer together.
At the end of the day, we’re an unhealthy nation, and our unhealthy behaviors, sedentary lifestyles and poor dietary choices have led to the biggest healthcare challenge: chronic conditions. Preventable, chronic conditions are generally the result of poor lifestyles and behaviors, and they now account for 86% of our nation’s healthcare costs.
The Call to Action
Technology and innovation will increase our ability to personalize care and introduce new options for how care is delivered in the home, such as telemedicine and remote monitoring. These technologies can help personalize care by driving greater engagements in health, which will enable us to address the challenges we face today. The potential for these technologies is strong. According to one study, 19 million individuals could use remote monitoring by 2018.
If the healthcare industry wants to leverage the transformational power of technology that innovative thinkers in Silicon Valley used to usher in the digital age, we must realize that our nation’s health is a unifying principle that transcends regulation, financials and procedures.
For those who propose to solve the problems of healthcare using technology, a call to action is needed to create a health ecosystem guided by four overarching principles:
Good health must go beyond the doctor’s office by incorporating major daily influencers from outside the healthcare system.
As healthcare moves to reward physicians for the health of the populations they serve, technology must help physicians spend more time providing care to the individuals who need it most.
Technological advancements must be easily adaptable by doctors, patients and others involved at the point of care while also helping people make behavioral and lifestyle changes.
We need all of the information to be connected to create a holistic view of the patient’s health to improve care decisions.
We need an ecosystem that goes beyond healthcare. Technology companies, grocery stores, churches and even businesses that contribute to sedentary lifestyles need to have a bigger seat at the healthcare table. Health is local, social and connected. Today, almost 10% of Americans have diabetes. If people don’t have access to the low-priced, healthy foods their doctors want them to eat, what difference will a diabetes mobile app truly make? Integrating outside influencers and local communities into the health ecosystem is essential for making a difference.
The path to value must correct misaligned incentives. When physicians are tied to value, technology enables them to develop a greater and more holistic understanding of the patients they serve. Whether it’s through an electronic health record to ensure there are no conflicting medications or predictive modeling that enables them to identify patients at risk for diabetes, technology can help physicians focus their time on the patients who need the care most.
Technology must integrate into the healthcare ecosystem and help drive behavior change. Technological innovations start out as small fires, but they need to become big fires in the health ecosystem. If innovative ideas–a shirt that sends a person’s vitals to his or her physician in real time; affordable, easy-to-use glucometers; or using technology to track medication adherence by tracking open pill bottles–can’t be easily integrated into the system by health plans, providers or the companies that manufacture these devices, their impact is limited. Technology must be scalable and adoptable by people to support behavior and lifestyles changes, by physicians to support the most optimal care and by the ecosystem to support greater transparency and less friction.
Interoperability is essential in ensuring information is connected. When technology can begin to help support proactive prevention, behavior and lifestyle changes, a physician needs a real-time, holistic view of the patient to help she or he chart a course to better health. This holistic approach is achieved through interoperability, which harnesses data analytics, mobile devices and other technology to achieve a deeper level of personalization. This personalization is essential for ensuring the effectiveness of the holistic approach enabled by interoperability.
How We’ll Do It
While these are the key overarching principles that will guide us, there have been some specific, recommended actions we need to take. Here are some courses of action we recommend that can create this health ecosystem.
Interoperability: contemporary clinical platforms–for example, electronic medical record (EMR) systems used by physicians–are beginning to implement open, standards-based application programming interface (API) protocols such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to support healthcare alliance efforts such as CommonWell. In addition, payors and providers are actively communicating electronically, exchanging data, and using information that has been exchanged to improve consumer health–an example of this is electronic prescribing when it involves the delivery of real-time, proactive care alerts to the prescribing physician, addressing things such as drug-drug interactions.
Increase the use of value-based payments that are tied to using interoperable healthcare information systems. Providers and health plans set goals similar to CMS as a percentage of their total revenue. These goals will assist providers in measuring their progress more objectively, especially when considering the upcoming Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) implementation that will, in part, link Medicare payments to EHR use in day-to-day practice.
Health plans and providers partner and support emerging companies that use analytics and technology to simplify and personalize the consumer and provider experience, collaborate to ensure that solutions move beyond “walled gardens” and create visibility and access for patients, providers and health plans as well as others who are part of the care team.
All employers create a culture of improving the health and well-being of their employees through actionable and measurable plans. At least 55% of a working adult’s waking hours are spent working, providing employers a major impact on lifestyle habits and personal engagement that produce better health. Key elements are enterprise and unit-level goal setting, shared accountability for measurable action plans, digital and peer-based support, and senior-leader sponsorship that link a thriving, resilient workforce to sustainable business results.
Posted by: The Wealthy Doctor
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