Have you ever had a telehealth video session with a clinician?

My hospital, Evergreen Hospital (Kirkland, WA), was the first in the United States to identify the infection on 20 February 2020.

Telehealth video medicine became popular in my oncology clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A substantial minority of patients still prefer the approach.

Telehealth Benefits for Physical Conditions

Studies suggest telehealth can:

• Reduce opioid overdose deaths
• Improve patient satisfaction for rheumatologic conditions
• Provide valuable care for those with cardiovascular disease
• Help manage movement disorders (such as Parkinson’s disease)

However, there’s a wrinkle.

While telehealth has benefits, some of my colleagues in healthcare are unsure about its effectiveness and safety for treating depression and other behavioral health issues.

My Goals

You just read about some conditions for which telemedicine provides benefits.

But what about mental health issues?

Are telehealth practices efficacious?

We’ll examine the potential advantages of telehealth for depression treatment and the concerns raised by some practitioners.

First, let’s look at the depression statistics.

Depression: The Numbers

Here’s a breakdown of depression prevalence according to recent estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control:

• Overall: Nearly four percent of the global population experiences depression.
• Adults: Depression affects 5 percent of adults, with a slightly higher rate among women (6 percent) compared to men (4 percent). Age matters a bit, as seen in the chart above.

• Age: The rates of depression were 21, 18, 18, and 17 percent for those ages 18 to 29, 45 to 64, and over 65, respectively.
• Global Impact: An estimated 280 million people worldwide struggle with depression.
• Pregnancy & Postpartum: More than 10 percent of pregnant women and new mothers experience depression.

Other Factors Influence Depression Risk

Some factors can increase the risk, such as:

• Life Experiences: People who have faced abuse, significant losses, or ongoing stress are more likely to develop depression.
• Gender: Women are statistically more prone to experience mild, moderate, or severe depression than men.
• Race: Non-Hispanic Asian adults are least likely to experience depression compared with Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and non-Hispanic black adults.

One in Five Actively Experience Depression

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), nearly one in five adults in the United States reported experiencing some symptoms of depression within the past two weeks.

These problems ranged from mild feelings of sadness to more severe symptoms.

The good news is that depression is treatable.

Approximately 70 to 80 percent of people with major depression can significantly improve with proper treatment.

The Devastating Impact of Suicide

Sadly, depression is linked to a significant number of suicides each year.

Over 700,000 people die by suicide globally, making it the fourth leading cause of death among young adults aged 15 to 29.

Remember: Depression is a treatable condition. If you or someone you know is struggling, please ask for help. There are resources available to support you on the road to recovery.

Telehealth

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how we access healthcare, and mental health services are no exception.

Telehealth, which uses technology like video conferencing and secure messaging, has become increasingly popular for delivering therapy sessions.

This virtual approach lets patients connect with mental health professionals remotely, offering convenient access to consultations, interventions, and secure information exchange.

Telehealth for Depression Management

Researchers analyzed a collection of studies (meta-analysis) to see if online therapy (telemedicine) could help people with mild to moderate depression.

They found strong evidence that telemedicine improved the following:

• Depression symptoms: People felt better overall.
• Quality of life: Daily life felt more manageable.

There wasn’t enough data to definitively say how telemedicine impacts work and social functioning, but at least one study showed promising results — people also experienced significant improvements in these areas.

Overall, this research suggests that online therapy can be an effective tool for managing depression and improving well-being.

Telemedicine versus Face-to-Face

Researchers compared studies on depression treatments, both in-person and online (telehealth), that involved cognitive therapy (talk therapy).

They found some interesting things about the people who participated in these studies:

• Telehealth Patients: People who used telehealth tended to have had depression symptoms for a longer time compared to those in in-person therapy studies. However, a smaller percentage of them had received treatment before. This finding suggests that telehealth attracts people who haven’t sought help earlier.
• Severity of Symptoms: Despite the longer duration of symptoms, the telehealth group didn’t experience worse depression compared to the in-person group. This observation was surprising, as researchers initially thought patients with more severe (untreated) depression might be more likely to choose telehealth.
• Age: There wasn’t a significant difference in age between the groups using telehealth and in-person therapy.

These findings suggest that people who haven’t received prior treatment for depression might be more open to trying telehealth. More research is needed to understand these trends fully.

Non-Westerners May Benefit Most

A recent study published in JAMA looked at the effectiveness of mental health apps for people with moderate to severe depression.

People from non-Western ethnicities seemed to benefit more from these apps than those from Western backgrounds.

The researchers suggest this difference might be linked to the stigma surrounding mental health in some cultures.

People from non-Western cultures might feel more comfortable using an anonymous app to access treatment.

This fascinating finding highlights the potential of mobile apps for making mental healthcare more accessible, especially for those who might face social barriers.

Good News All Around

The study also found some positive things about how well the app worked:

• Reduced Depression: People who used the app, regardless of whether they were already getting therapy or medication, experienced a decrease in depression symptoms.
• Boost from Combo Treatment: Those who used the app alongside therapy or medication saw the most significant improvement in their depression.

These findings suggest that mobile apps could be a valuable tool or an extra support system for traditional treatments.

Apps May Work for Both Diagnosed and Self-Reported Depression

The study also found that the app seemed to be equally helpful for people with a formal diagnosis of depression and those who self-reported symptoms.

These results suggest that mobile app interventions could be useful for a wider range of people seeking help with depression.

Important Note: While the app showed promise, it’s crucial to remember that it shouldn’t replace professional mental healthcare.

If you’re struggling with depression, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional for proper diagnosis and treatment.

My Thoughts: Is Telehealth A Solution?

The rise of telehealth offers a convenient and potentially effective approach to managing depression.

Research shows that online therapy can significantly improve many individuals’ symptoms and quality of life.

While some uncertainties remain regarding its effectiveness for specific patient groups, telehealth has the potential to expand access to mental healthcare, particularly for those who may face social barriers or have had difficulty seeking help in the past.

Mobile apps also show promise as supplementary tools, offering additional support and potentially reducing stigma for those in cultures where mental health issues carry a heavy social burden.

Remember, depression is a treatable condition. If you’re struggling, don’t hesitate to reach out for help.

Whether you choose traditional in-person therapy, explore telehealth options, or utilize a mental health app, resources are available to support your recovery journey.

The post Feeling Blue? Maybe There’s an App for That: Exploring Telehealth for Depression appeared first on Medika Life.

Medika Life published a piece titled The Top 20 AI Voices to Watch some months ago, and most of the thought leaders, influencers, and theorists featured have continued to demonstrate why they lead the AI conversation.

But AI isn’t the only significant advancement, problem, or concern clouding the future of innovation and patient care. We can’t allow the AI boom to distract from the other issues that should be on sector leaders’ radar screens while we read about the hot trends and people to follow in 2024.

[Hear first hand Michael C. Mann, host of Planetary Health First, Mars Next, and Gil Bashe discuss the importance of this Top 10 Health Issues list.}

It All Ties Back to the Cost of Health – Election Year 2024

Get ready for the 2024 election cycle!  Presidential and down-ballot candidates will be the loudest voices trying to appeal to public sentiment and pinging voter pain points.

Congress has several health issues influencing drug innovation and affordability on its radar screen. There is little doubt that Congressional staffers from both parties have made the cost of prescription drugs a front-and-center policy focus so that medications are more affordable for constituents. Measures that empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices and increase transparency make good press. But in the US health system, when you fix one thing, you will break another. Our system is fragmented.  One sector executive has little idea of how another’s business model works.

Drugs are a relatively small piece of the overall health puzzle that hit employees and consumers. Still, they’re apparent pocketbook issues and popular targets for elected officials seeking simple solutions to complex health cost problems. Take, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. The IRA is the significant legislative effort that connects drug pricing to Medicare reimbursement. This piece of pivotal legislation has industry executives and investors up at night considering the law’s provisions on direct negotiation, Part D coverage and the inflation price cap.

Utilization Offsets Price Reductions – We Hope

As industry champions navigate (or confront) legislative issues, those same stakeholders must collaborate with payers, policymakers, providers, and patient communities to ensure that future policies result in a health system that supports innovation and provides greater access. That was a core reason pharma companies came to the Obamacare table enthusiastically.  Greater access translates into more utilization, which offsets price reductions.

Biopharma industry advocates’ biggest fear is that pricing flexibility and profitability loss will negatively affect drug discovery and development investment. Policymakers hopefully recognize that there’s some truth in this pushback. Lawmakers must explore ways to incentivize drug innovation, such as tax credits and grants for research and development in critical areas while promoting cost-cutting and affordability measures.

Top 10 2024 Public Health and Legislative Issues to Watch

• Access

Policies to reduce healthcare disparities and improve affordability expand access to care for underserved populations, while initiatives to incentivize healthcare workers to serve in underserved communities improve access. While addressing cost, drug pricing reforms impact pharmaceutical companies’ ability to invest in research and development, potentially affecting the availability of new treatments.

There can be no “villains” in fixing the access conundrum. Collaboration is a must! No one can debate in good faith that a healthier population reduces overall health costs.  But does anyone care enough to act? The US health GDP is unsustainable as it nears 20%. That does not mean we should turn away from expanding access. It requires Congress to finally accept that the Affordable Care Act isn’t going anywhere and look to refine it, making timely access that keeps disease at bay a bipartisan ideal.

While the IRA will reduce the burden of cost around insulin and other medications for seniors, it does not resolve the access to care challenge for millions of Americans. Payers must consider their role in helping people with chronic conditions and reduce the chaos resulting from non-medical switching.

• Affordability

Affordability remains the chief concern of the public, legislators, and the health industry. Rising health costs put immense pressure on patients, payers, and providers. Public policies are expected to address this issue through price transparency, cost-control mechanisms, and expanded access to affordable health options. The heat on biopharma companies will continue to increase. 

• Climate Change and Health

The intersection of climate change and public health is inescapable. Policies addressing climate change and its health impact will lead to peer-review research and climate technology approaches in health, such as adapting infrastructure to deal with extreme weather, air-quality warnings, and debunking myths that climate change has no human health impact. Bottomline, the planet doesn’t need people!  People need the planet.  Keep planet earth healthy!

• Data Security

Health data is going digital – all the way. With the increasing digitization, protecting people’s data is paramount. Stricter data privacy and security regulations require companies to invest in advanced cybersecurity measures, pumping the brakes on some innovations due to compliance needs. Prioritizing cybersecurity requires technology, training, and investment. How can hospitals keep pace with digital health innovation and meet their skilled staff and resourcing needs? Federal policy leaders will need to consider special appropriations to make that feasible. Otherwise, more community-based hospital systems will go broke.

• Drug Access and Equity

Ensuring equitable access to medications is pressing. Policymakers must focus on reducing disparities in drug access, potentially through IRA-like pricing reforms, which will negatively impact the pharmaceutical industry’s profit margins. We must also closely examine how pharmacists can play a more significant role in dispensing medications for specific medical conditions. Pharmacists are in almost every community – hospitals can be hours away.

Addressing healthcare disparities, particularly in underserved and rural communities, cannot be lip service. Rural communities have higher burdens of preventable conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and injury compared to urban populations. Public health policies must prioritize improving women’s health, preventive education and health access and increasing representation in clinical trials. This requires mobilization from varied government agencies working with the private and nonprofit sectors to deploy resources to hotspots suffering from limited access to health care providers and social services.

• Health Worker Burnout

The healthcare workforce is strained due to an aging population and increased service demand. According to one recent survey, one in three workers planned to leave their position, with 14 percent of respondents saying they were prepared to go the discipline entirely in 2024. Public health policies must address workforce shortages and pilot innovative training, telemedicine, and technology approaches to support the physician/patient relationship beyond simply pressuring doctors by increasing workflow to see more patients daily.

• Innovation Vulnerabilities

Lawmakers are looking closely at reforming the patent system to prevent abuses that stymie generic drug competition. Stricter regulations on patent extensions and exclusivity periods encourage competition and lower drug prices. However, the problem has been that the largest generic drug companies deploy vast legal teams, challenging innovator patents and using these suits as “blackmail” to secure deals, positioning early market generic entry. “Pay for delay” is a double-edged sword. Congress must strengthen patent protection if it elects to lower the bar for generic companies to compete.

• Mental Health

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the mental health crisis to the front pages. It took a taboo topic and gave families permission to go public with their burden.  Mental health stigma is an obstacle to treatment.  Schools and employers must champion public health policies that continue prioritizing mental health services. Likewise, policymakers must push for long-needed action in higher and primary education settings, digital mental health platforms and through increased accessibility to mental health care.

• Pandemic Readiness

We failed! Communication is always part of the health delivery and access process! The shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a systemic lack of preparedness, underscoring the need for better response strategies based on the learnings from acknowledged failures. Public health policies in 2024 are likely to prioritize investments in research, vaccine distribution, and infrastructure to ensure readiness for what is almost certain a stream of future pandemics. This will drive innovation in vaccine development, distribution systems, and, yes, the need to add public health communication expertise.

• Telehealth

Telehealth has seen explosive growth in recent years, driven by the pandemic, patient-care convenience, and a need to reduce carbon impact. Policymakers must balance the accessibility and convenience of telehealth with ensuring quality of care and data security. Stricter regulations impact the telehealth and digital health industry, and watchdog groups must prioritize access, avoiding the quicksand of reimbursement disadvantages and physician styles. Telehealth must be prioritized to ensure it’s not just about urgent access but also about making care easier for the consumer. Face it, the consumer – while certainly core to all the top issues – is rarely the center of attention of the system.  That must change and telehealth is a clear benefit for patients.

Election 2024 Will Place Health and Cost In the Spotlight

These health issues ought to be at the forefront of Congress’s agenda to strike a balance between fostering continued waves of drug innovation and ensuring Americans can access medications at affordable prices. 2024 promises to be transformative for the health industry, driven by public health policy issues and filtered through the distorting lens of an election year. Innovation is about more than discovering and developing new products. It translates into access to care with policies targeting affordability, tackling health disparities, and increasing mental health services.

Driven by technological and health information advancements, changing demographics, and shifts in public health priorities, the life science industry is constantly evolving. Public policy makes Presidential and state candidate debates entertaining – and worrisome. Suggested policies that shape the operating landscape for hospitals, biopharma companies, and digital health companies are designed to protect the public interest. But the public’s needs and business must not conflict.

What can we expect will happen? Check your crystal ball!

The post The Top 10 Public Health Policy Issues for Election Year 2024 appeared first on Medika Life.

While American balladeer Woody Guthrie called out, “The Land Was Made for You and Me,” Rural Americans increasingly find themselves left out of possibilities for future prosperity. While more than 46 million Americans live in rural communities, rural locales lag behind non-rural communities in almost every measure of prosperity, from poverty rates to employment opportunities.

Though Guthrie’s famed lyrics, amber grain and spacious skies suggested unlimited possibilities, rural Americans often live hours away from primary medical care, emergency services, and specialist care providers. Their well-being — indeed, their survival — often relies on a tenuous broadband connection. What’s more, the systems put in place that are intended to address their needs are usually based on urban and suburban expectations.

Recently, more than 20 top leaders from academia, associations, corporations, and government met in Washington, DC, in a candid conversation to discuss these challenges — but more importantly — the solutions they both believe and know firsthand can make a difference in the lives of rural Americans. What made these conversations compelling was that they sat around the table — without slides or prepared statements — and talked about what they were doing and what was working. They united around a shared commitment to champion solutions. [Read the eBook Heartbreak in the Heartland here.]

According to one of the gathering’s moderators, Sarah Dash, CEO of the Alliance for Health Policy: “We must continue to change the narrative about how rural America is viewed and overcome the stereotypes that continue to perpetuate. Rural communities are far more diverse, innovative, and vibrant than they’re given credit for. We must educate ourselves about the people we seek to serve and work with them to create the kind of programs that will move the needle in a meaningful way.”

Expanding Broadband to Connect the Nation

One of rural communities’ more significant challenges is high-speed internet access. The digital divide hinders education, economic growth, and access to vital health services. To address this issue, initiatives like the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund have been launched to provide funds for broadband infrastructure in underserved areas. Public-private partnerships are also crucial in expanding broadband access, with companies collaborating to build networks in rural regions.

“Poverty rates in rural communities are higher than those in urban areas, and the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) helps ensure rural residents can afford the broadband they need for work, education, and healthcare,” shared Gary Lynch, a Global Practice Leader at Verizon. “At Verizon, we have health equity programs on top of the ACP that help those individuals get devices to manage their health. What will happen to the 20 million Americans using the program when federal funding runs out in mid-2024?”

Virtual Learning as a Path to Progress

Rural students often need equal access to quality education. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift toward online learning, highlighting the need for virtual education solutions. Schools and organizations have invested in virtual learning platforms and distance education programs to address this challenge. Mobile learning centers and Wi-Fi-equipped school buses have also been deployed to ensure that students in remote areas can access educational resources, but more investment is needed.

Agricultural Innovation Tapping the Great Potential of the Heartland

Farming communities are the heart of rural America. They face unique challenges, including fluctuating markets and climate change. To support rural farmers, varied solutions are underway, including training in sustainable farming practices, affordable loans and grants and promoting local food markets. Government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and agricultural extension services are working to support farmers in a changing world. But now all regions and farms are the same.

“The narrative around how rural areas are stereotyped as older, poorer, sicker, uneducated, and white must change, says Amy Elizondo, Chief Strategy Officer of the National Rural Health Association. ”If you look at one rural community, you have seen one rural community — it’s not representative of the entire spectrum of rural America. Rural communities possess a vast depth of innovation, as they often must use what little resources they have for the incredibly diverse communities they serve.”

Native American Empowerment

Native American communities face disparities across the board — in health, education, and economic opportunities. Solutions must be rooted in respecting tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Collaboration between tribal governments, Federal agencies, and nonprofits is critical to addressing these inequities. Initiatives that support tribal entrepreneurship, cultural preservation, and access to quality health are making a difference. Expanding educational opportunities for Native American youth, including scholarships and culturally sensitive curricula, is also a focus.

The Washington, D.C., gathering included one of the nation’s leading public health advocates for Native Americans — Rear Admiral (ret.) James Galloway, MD, formerly part of the Surgeon General’s leadership team and now chief medical and partnership officer at Arc Health, has dedicated most of his career as a physician and public health expert to rallying this community. According to Rear Admiral (ret.) Dr. Galloway:

“Particularly in light of the health care provider shortages, as well as for the overall improvement of patient care, the proposed and highly supported concept of the team approach to health care to include Community Health Representatives as an approach to rural health is an essential component of quality health care, especially in rural communities.”

Telehealth Brings Access to Care Closer to Home

Access to health services in rural areas has long been a concern. Telemedicine is a game-changer, enabling health professionals to diagnose and treat patients remotely. Expanding telehealth services has made it easier for rural Americans to access medical care, especially during emergencies and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Again, broadband technology has been vital to accessing this life-sustaining need and policies and companies are working to meet the challenge.

Rural healthcare professionals are using telehealth and tapping into electronic medical records to improve quality care delivery. At the same time, there is ample support for remote patient monitoring and digital health technologies as tools to bring physicians’ offices closer to peoples’ homes. The biggest concern among physicians on the frontlines of addressing patient needs is clinical training and financial assistance to keep community hospitals operating.

Rural Infrastructure and Remote Care

To boost economic opportunities in rural America, infrastructure investments are crucial. Initiatives like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocate significant funding to improve roads, bridges, and public transportation in rural areas. These improvements enhance connectivity, create jobs, and stimulate economic growth.

The rise of remote work has opened up new possibilities for rural Americans. Rural communities can retain residents and attract talent while diversifying their economies by encouraging employers to offer remote work options and training programs to develop remote-friendly skills.

John Whyte, MD, chief medical officer of WebMD, has been partnering with companies like Walmart to improve quality care and make rural life sustainable: “We conducted a research survey with Walmart last year, and we surveyed actual rural physicians and compared their assessments of the quality of care for their rural patients versus urban physicians… We saw that physicians in rural communities rated the quality of care they provide lower quality than in urban communities. That really should be a wake-up call.”

Conversation and Collaboration Are Key to Making Progress

Companies like Arc Health, Exact Sciences, FINN Partners, GSK, Huma, LifePoint Health, Molecular Biologicals & PS Fertility, OffScrip Health, Verizon, Walgreens, Walmart, WebMD; and leaders from associations like AARP, Alliance for Health Policy, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), CPSI; government agencies such as Health and Human Services and National Health Institute, and Academic institutions including Ohio State University and West Virginia University, have essential roles at the table. All are in conversation and addressing rural America’s challenges. They are doing everything from expanding broadband infrastructure, investing in rural job creation, supporting local farmers, and providing affordable goods and services to underserved areas.

“Rural America knows what is best for rural America. We need to build programs and initiatives that empower individuals and their families. That leads to a sense of purpose in the community, which can stem the tide of many adverse health and social implications. Marrying purpose with economic empowerment is the real game-changer,” reflects Pritesh Gandhi, MD, Chief Community Health Officer at Walmart.

Walgreens has improved health access by expanding telemedicine, providing pharmacy services in rural communities, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with local health providers. WebMD has moved to upskill physicians and ensure they have access to breaking medical information. The private sector has the skill and scale to advance rural America’s technology, economic, and health challenges, contributing to the overall well-being of these communities.

In sharing ideas and possibilities, attendees show how to bridge the divide and ensure that rural Americans have the tools and resources to thrive. These practical solutions address problems and build a brighter future for rural America, where opportunities are abundant and quality of life is improved for all.

The post Bridging the Divide: Partnership Among Public and Private Sectors Rally to Rural America Needs appeared first on Medika Life.

Along that difficult road is support – a place of respite from the complex environment innovators face – the community of HITLAB, the Health Innovation Technology Lab.  HITLAB is a leading academic research institution focused on improving global healthcare through innovation and technology and housed within Columbia University in New York City and Chaired by Stan Kachnowski, Ph.D. MPA, HITLAB has become a haven for health, technology, and design champions to find common ground.

“The HITLAB Innovation Summit is a dynamic platform where healthcare leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators come together to forge groundbreaking solutions,” reflects Dr. Kachnowski.  “It fosters collaboration, sparks creativity, and drives healthcare transformation through the power of technology and innovation.”

HITLAB academic roots at Columbia set a tone for research and training.  New York City has emerged as a hub for digital health innovation. It is home to more and more startups drawing on the resources of the nation’s financial capital, a close connection to academic medical centers and talent. The Big Apple – like Bean Town Boston – is a strategic epicenter to explore how emerging technologies such as augmented intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) find a meeting point with telehealth and remote patient monitoring through rigorous research, analysis, and design thinking.

Centered Around Cutting-Edge Solutions

At its annual HITLAB Innovators Summit 2023, conversations center around cutting-edge solutions for the digital health community to overcome social determinants of health and unite disparate hospitals’ information systems. The gathering is a digital health sector roadmap to advance health access, address challenges, and improve patient outcomes.

Attendees of this intimate Summit that combines keynotes, panel conversations and scheduling networking are fans!

“The HITLAB Innovation Summit is a game-changer for the healthcare industry. The convergence of technology, innovation, and expertise creates an electric environment that fuels groundbreaking ideas and fosters meaningful collaborations,” says John Anderson, chief technology officer HealthTech Innovations.

While other like-forums have evolved into co-counseling sessions on how to survive EHRs and the heavy life to onboard the 500-pound EPIC gorilla, attendees at HITLAB also learn about “EPIC envy” – where small and community health centers that don’t have the resources to afford this state-of-the-art software find alternative paths tapping into technologies to piece together other ways to track patient care and outcomes.

Also, in hearing from major biopharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Novo Nordisk, and others, digital health innovators can reflect on the importance of ample science to shift the conversation from hype to hope and fact-based cautious optimism.  In turn, big pharma share openly on the main stage how science alone – absent of technology – can fall short in meeting patient information, adherence and care needs. 

As in previous years, the HITLAB Innovation Summit 2023 brings together experts across the health innovation ecosystem, including clinical trials, pharma, private equity, public health, engineering, design, and data science. The diverse community is seeking solutions that integrate health tech – digital therapeutics, health information, and smart devices meaningfully. The gathering’s success lies in bridging the gap between patients, payers, product innovators, policymakers and providers. It enables these communities to connect and accelerate practical solutions that can be implemented in real-world settings.

Presenters are Category Leaders

Presenters are bold and blunt. From Bill Taranto, President, Merck Global Health Initiative Fund, to Dr. David Berger, CEO, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, to David Klein, CEO and Co-founder, Click Therapeutics, to Tim McCarthy, Head of Digital Sciences & Translational Imaging, Pfizer and representatives from public health, venture capital finance, legal and regulatory; the three-day gathering offers a bolus of category knowledge.

“The time is now for this space – a revolution in medicine is about to happen that will shift care to center around patients,” emphasizes Click Founder and CEO David Klein. 

Klein was among the key voices discussing integrating therapeutic choices and that physicians would look more holistically in treating patients with drugs, digital therapeutics and behavioral guidance – focusing on people care satisfaction.  Digital therapeutics must model its efforts akin to biotechnology driven by evidence-based clinical outcomes looking beyond the 510K regulatory milestone for approval.

Actionable Insights

The insights shared will guide business planning decisions among newcomers and veterans to the category.  Among the noted attendees at this year’s HITLAB Innovation Summit is Amir Kishon, Ph.D., CEO of Twig Health. Kishon was among the early pioneers in the sector.

“Healthcare as a regulated industry is somewhat apprehensive about innovation. It is in its DNA. Digital health is challenging this predisposition and the question I ask myself is when this industry will tip to appreciate that innovation is a friend. We are getting there,” notes Kishon.

The program conducts studies and clinical trials that set out the scientific methodology to assess digital health interventions’ efficacy, usability, and safety.  It’s now acknowledged that Food and Drug Administration 510K approval to market for digital applications and therapies is a necessary regulatory threshold; the barrier to success is convincing science as a solid foundation for access that requires payer and provider support and a clear pathway to reimbursement.

Bottomline – it’s about reimbursement and ease of use. In the session What’s Needed for Sustainable Adoption of Digital Health American Medical Association Vice President for Digital Health Strategy, Meg Baron, offered very clear insight into how digital health enterprises can better integrate into the physician’s workflow – the “return on health” to show value.

Beyond the Summit, HITLAB promotes entrepreneurship and innovation in the digital health space. HITLAB is multi-faceted – professional development, accelerator and crowd-sources community for startups and early-stage companies, helping them navigate the complex healthcare landscape, access funding opportunities, and refine their product or service offerings.

In incubating promising ideas, HITLAB fuels the growth of the digital health ecosystem, fostering the development of transformative solutions that address unmet needs and drive positive change. Put the fall meeting on your calendars!

The post HITLAB Innovation June Summit is a Power Hit for Digital Health Change Agents appeared first on Medika Life.

The sessions (and meals) – positioned around the exhibit floor were meaty – and welcomely unscripted, offering plenty of time for real-world reflections on the state of health delivery.  Afterward, speakers would mingle on the exhibit floor to answer questions and continue the conversation.  Whether an intended benefit for attendees or not, the meeting structure was a great hit and strengthened ViVE as a go-to community where people can interact and discuss challenges and possibilities. 

The number of attendees was right-sized, where meeting and exchanging thoughts is a priority and at a time when the economy and health system are under a magnifying glass.  The system is broken. That’s a collective given. However, where we go next remains a mystery.

Some 6,000 people were in Nashville for this four-day CHIME intensive, and the schedule of events – official and unofficial – offered plenty of opportunity – need – to catch up.  There were specialty Start-Up, Interop Now, and Cybersecurity Pavilions for the ever-curious and Speed-Connection Forum for deal makers and plenty of action on the exhibit floor.

Some of the add-on gatherings included: the Start-Up Health Transformers Session, UC Davis and FINN Partners Summit on Innovation and the timed release of the Galen Growth Digital Health Report on US Health Provider Systems, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center Evening Meet-Up, and the always fun and welcome Pinksocks Get-Together at the famed Springwater.

MAGIC AROUND THE EXHIBIT HALL

The everyday magic centered around the exhibit hall – home to the mainstage presentations, provided meals, pop-up post-5 PM receptions, and varied entrepreneurial hubs.  That offered plenty of opportunities to connect with innovators who reserved exhibitor space. 

The themed location of exhibits also supported a deep dive for conversation with people looking to improve the flow of information within health systems, better utilize information for preventive care or harness the power of smart tech and wearables.  Most importantly, there was a general acknowledgment from the speakers and vibe that our health system doesn’t lack innovation – it is sorely in need of structural healing. 

ADDRESSING HEALTH ECOSYSTEM PAIN POINTS

In this way, the range of companies appearing on and wandering the exhibit floor made the meeting well worth the time investment.  Many of the companies present at ViVE are worth following (those here are in alphabetical order).  These are among the enterprises that are addressing pain points of the health ecosystem and rallying to pressing patient needs:

• AssureCare, a population-health company connecting payers, providers, pharmacies, and government-sponsored healthcare programs across the US, is taking the long-awaited patient-centric approach using technology to generate better insight through health information. This company is working to converge pharmacists’ and pharmacy data into a bigger population health picture. AssureCare hopes to break down silos in healthcare data sharing from specialty pharmacies to national chains.

• Babson Diagnostics is doing what over-promoted Theranos failed to deliver. Babson is reimagining the diagnostic blood testing experience making routine blood testing less invasive, more convenient, affordable, and empowering people to take charge of their health. The holy grail of patient testing has been to bring it into the retail pharmacy setting using technologies that require one-tenth the sample blood volume of traditional venipuncture methods without sacrificing quality, accuracy, or menu breadth and pushing these diagnostic tests into a well-known setting where convenience corresponds to patients’ upcoming physician visit is in itself a big step in the right direction.

• CereCore® is elevating hospital operational effectiveness.  Its systems are already based in top-performing US hospitals, enabling this health IT enterprise to improve processes, data security and clinical applications. Hospitals remain the most expensive points of care within the US health ecosystem.  Generating insights and learning to mine and apply data earlier in the patient engagement process is key to improving care and reducing costs.  Hospitals cannot go it alone; tapping into a well-proven system is a smart starting point.

• CPSI has combined several companies under its corporate umbrella focusing on health solutions and services for community hospitals, clinics, and post-acute care facilities. These are the health systems that are known to struggle as more and more systems look to align with other, larger entities. The path to system-wide health has been to ensure a better patient care experience, improve financial operations and offer community hospitals and affiliated clinics EHR solutions that can accurately code assignments for reimbursement. While many companies in the field are looking to “innovate,” sometimes the greatest care advances are in strengthening the care system’s capacity to be economically viable.

• eVideon uses smart-room technology to streamline clinical workflow and transform the patient room into an immersive environment. This company enables hospitals and long-term care clinics to integrate EMR and other installed technologies to display real-time information through the in-room Smart TV, digital whiteboard, digital door sign and bedside tablet. The platform is streamlining clinical workflow and reducing the technology burden on clinicians. This system even features in-room surveys and video chat so the patient has a greater real-time voice.

• Harmony Healthcare IT is the data management firm that moves and stores health organizations’ patient, employee and business records. Among the category of veteran players, it continues to pioneer health IT tech in many ways.  Founded in 2006, this company works with more than 550 clinical, financial, and administrative software in the US and Canada.

• HCTec provides services to more than 1,500 academic medical centers, health systems, community hospitals, critical access hospitals, and healthcare provider organizations. While patients are supposedly the health system’s priority, it’s vital to remember that if the care locations are poorly staffed and lack infrastructure, their mission will be severely hampered.  At a time when hospital systems are integrating, getting their staff and EMR systems connected is a mega – even life-saving priority. 

• Interwell Health is a kidney-care management platform in a field that has become one of the most pressing health sector needs.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 37 million Americans are affected by kidney disease, and most are unaware of their progressive condition.  With kidney disease reaching near-epidemic levels, how physicians care for patients and help them navigate a fragmented reimbursement environment is a monumental task. The cascade of care – from diagnosis to dialysis – requires access to practice knowledge and reimbursement.  Learning about an illness is the start of a process and getting the care essential to keeping people on track to prevent additional medical risks is where medical outcomes are judged.

• ixlayer is partnering with payors, retail pharmacies, direct-to-consumer brands, biopharma, health systems, and telehealth providers to create quick and easy diagnostics for common conditions where reducing cost is possible – before an illness is much more severe. This platform “white labels” its tests for major customers with direct patient access and enables numerous testing options and seamless integration with its customers and lab partners. Like many innovation leaders, its goal is to shift engagement to earlier stages when a disease presents and its management has far more cost-effective treatment options.

• Juli was front-and-center at the American Telemedicine Association meeting in San Antonio earlier this year. The consumer-direct platform – available through a convenient app – supports people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, migraine, depression, bipolar disorder, hypertension or chronic pain through several evidence-based approaches. This consumer health empowerment tool integrates information that impacts health and awareness by tracking health responses to environmental data (e.g., weather, air pollution, pollen) through smartphones or popular wearables and aligning health.  The information can help shift the sick-care reactive system to a self-care preventive care approach.

• Lifepoint Health, the Nashville-headquartered provider, has, since its founding, become a national health system serving patients, clinicians, communities and partner organizations across the healthcare continuum.  A spin-out of the pioneering HCA, this system now includes more than 50,000 employees, 62 community hospital campuses, 50 rehabilitation and behavioral health hospitals – plus 200 additional care sites, including managed acute rehabilitation units, outpatient centers, and post-acute care facilities.  It was no surprise that Lifepoint Health was present at ViVE.

• Loyal is among the first companies to offer end-to-end digital and AI-powered solutions tracking the patient journey; its software solutions for improved care utilization can be found within the nation’s top health systems and hospitals. From selecting a provider best suited for treating a specific condition to closing a feedback loop on patient experience, they have demonstrated that feedback is desired and that people who engage their health networks tend to show greater loyalty.

• Sheba Medical Center was part of the expert conversation at ViVE – a surprise for some as Newsweek World’s Best Hospitals five years straight – this medical system sent representatives from more than 6,000 miles away to share insights on how it maximizes technology across its care systems.  Its acute-care hospital, rehabilitation center, research and training programs, medical simulation center, center for disaster response, and the ARC Innovation Center for redesigning global healthcare all tap into the full range of digital and health technologies. At ViVE, its head of innovation spoke about the importance of looking for innovation from within its walls and the benefits of sharing best practices around the globe.  

• Teladoc Health appears to be about accessing care from many locations, but the pandemic demonstrated that the platform could provide much more to improve people’s well-being.  Now, telemedicine has become a given and has shown its value in patient adherence, management of chronic conditions such as diabetes, checking in with people enrolled in clinical trials and dealing with senior care needs.  In post-acute hospital care, telemedicine can support the outpatient process and keep people healing at home.  This global leader in delivering whole-person virtual care – including primary care, mental health, chronic condition management, and more – is the category must-watch innovator.

WHAT’S UP NEXT FOR HEALTH INNOVATORS?

The success of ViVE had many looking forward to April and HIMSS in Chicago, and CNS Summit in Boston this November.  For health innovators planning for 2024, mark your calendars for ViVE February 25 – 28, 2024, in Los Angeles.  If you have already marked your calendar for those dates, it’s a sure sign that #ViVE2023 was a hit!

The post ViVE Was an Out-of-the-Box Hit Among the Digital Health and Health Innovation Tribe appeared first on Medika Life.

Many opinions have been swirling about this technology for the past several weeks, but whether we like or dislike the idea of this technology may be immaterial. The fact is if technology is easy to use and improves our lives – like the iPhone appears to – then it is here to stay. Electronic health record (EHR) systems are like ChatGPT; we can see their utility and imagine how they will facilitate care that saves and improves patients’ lives, but they’re not all the way there, not yet.  But we need to get them there – and quickly. We can.

Information is not only today’s currency; access to it is also often the difference between life and death in medicine. We have all seen firsthand how fragmentation in the health ecosystem overwhelms professionals at the front lines of patient care. Unable to access siloed information, providers often lack the background to make timely, life-sustaining decisions. This leads to poorer patient outcomes, added costs, and health professional burnout.  It results in health disparities unaddressed and the inability to engage effectively in treatable noncommunicable illnesses.

Providers and payers operate within silos, with little economic incentive to collaborate. The resulting fragmentation means that patients often fall through gaps in care as their cases are handed off from one team to another. The need to foster coordination between health stakeholders and technology has great potential, but culture and old habits can crush change.

Too Busy to Read Patient Records

As hospital floor shifts change, health professionals have little time to “get up to speed” on their patient responsibilities – and nurses are often assigned to different floors on successive shifts, making it difficult for them to gain experiential knowledge of a patient’s needs. This makes the EHR the only way to learn about their charges, which is a tenuous situation.

I know this too well. During the last 12 days of my physician father-in-law’s life, a nurse at a leading hospital replied to my questions about his care with a worrying admission: “I don’t have time to read patient records.” That admission is symptomatic of systemic failures. EHRs are not standardized; patient data cannot easily be shared between providers or accessed by patients visiting multiple hospitals. This leads to duplicative tests and procedures and can lead to medical errors and misdiagnoses, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

For the sake of patient’s lives and health, that technology needs to be easier to use and needs to improve patients’ lives.  There must be interoperability between health systems and technology platforms.

Solutions from Government and the Private Sector

Thomas Mason, MD, Chief Medical Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, a long-time public health advocate, is among the nation’s leading experts addressing the challenges of patient care, technology, and information. Dr. Mason believes that interoperability is crucial for delivering quality care to patients. He’ll share his thoughts at the upcoming American Telemedicine Association meeting in San Antonio about The State of Interoperability in Transforming Healthcare with fellow industry expert Ardy Arianpour, a passionate entrepreneur and CEO of Seqster, a healthcare data management platform.

“Interoperability is essential for improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs,” says Dr. Mason. “When providers can access complete and accurate patient information, they can make better-informed decisions about their care.”

Arianpour agrees. “The lack of interoperability between healthcare systems remains a major challenge. Electronic health records are not standardized, making it difficult for healthcare providers to exchange patient data.” To overcome this challenge, Arianpour believes telemedicine and remote patient care are essential tools. “Telemedicine can help to bridge the gap between patients and providers by allowing them to communicate remotely. This improves patient access to care and makes it easier for providers to monitor their patient’s health and deliver timely interventions.”

However, telemedicine and remote patient care are only part of the solution. Too often, the patient clinical data needed for prior authorization for payer approvals operate across different data systems with different electronic standards for storing the information. That adds to the physicians’ workflow and delays patient care. True interoperability – meaning seamless data exchange between health systems – is the key to curing fragmentation in the health ecosystem and providing genuine, patient-centered care.

In short, the system has to revolve around the patient, not the platform.  Right now, it just…doesn’t.

Patients are not empowered to take control of their medical destiny. Many lack access to reliable health information, and those with chronic conditions often struggle to manage their records. Instead of being at the center of care, they are often on the outside, looking in.

So, what can be done to address this isolation? Can it be solved by better coding and coordination of technology by technologists? Or must there be more to it?

Taking Action, Making Changes

To bring existing technology forward to the point where it breaks information logjams, heals fragmentation, and puts patients back at the center of care, five solutions need to be prioritized:

1. We need to break down the silos within the health provider community, improving and leveraging technology so that it supports collaboration between providers and payers to ensure patients receive seamless, coordinated care that keeps them healthier.

• We have to remember that hospital staff are often overworked and sometimes, managed less than optimally.  As we’ve seen, they may lack time to read patient histories.  Perhaps using AI developments that can provide concise patient histories with prioritized care notes – programs like Chat GPT, for instance – can help convey what is critical for providers to know.

• We need to harmonize clinical and administrative data systems to improve workflow and eliminate time-consuming, payer-specific requirements that providers often must address before delivering efficient care.

• We need to invest in interoperable technology that allows for the seamless exchange of patient data between providers. This will improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs by eliminating duplicative tests and procedures.

• Finally, patients also need to be empowered to take control of their health. This means providing user-friendly interfaces that give patients access to reliable health information and the tools to manage their care, which connect to EMRs and patient portals. This is particularly important for people living with the challenges of chronic conditions.

Our healthcare system needs to be more cohesive, efficient, and cost-effective. While we have spent billions developing the technological tools we are confident can help drive this system-wide improvement, we must face the reality that the situation is worsening. We are spending more and seeing patient outcomes decline. 

Riffing on iconic advertising giant David Ogilvy, innovation theorist John Nosta writes, “GPT is like a lamp post to an intoxicated person at night. It provides support but not illumination.” Interoperability is designed to lift up health professionals and patients – healers and those seeking to be healed.  If so, it will soon illuminate the best path to care once we harken to the words of Dr. Thomas Mason and Ardy Arianpour.

Maybe it’s time we start with this simple idea; if the technological solutions we develop don’t make patients’ and health professionals’ lives easier, it’s as though they were never created.

[Special thanks to authors John Bianchi and Cullen Burnell for their review of this article.]

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The digital health sector has grown significantly during the past decade, primarily mobilized to address unmet health-system and care needs. From $2 billion invested in 2011, that figure morphed 28-fold to $56 billion in 2021. In the shadow of the COVID pandemic, unprecedented investment poured into digital health during this two-year window, accelerating the adoption of AI, remote patient monitoring, telehealth, digital therapeutics, wearables, VR and more.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

Galen Growth and FINN Partners have collaborated – for a second time – to offer the entrepreneurial invention and investment industry a wealth of data that can guide financing life-sustain – perhaps saving – enterprises.  With this detailed report, data is shared not as “one-off” ideas but as puzzle pieces assembled to provide actional insight into a dynamic and evolving digital innovation sector that offers the transformative power to find effective detours around health ecosystem fragmentation.

The Damocles Sword of Access and Outcomes

The two companies avoided hype and biases to create this analysis enabling investors or potential business partners to weigh subjective decisions alongside objective facts in recognizing that the fragmented health ecosystem centers around preserving the system itself are vital to helping product innovators and patients navigate the healthcare labyrinth. That economic return on investment is weighted along with patient experience and outcomes.  This is the Damocles sword that inventors and investors must always consider – reimbursement that ensures access to care and meaningful and measurable outcomes.

While digital health venture capital fell short of the exorbitant funding of 2021, it closed ahead of 2020 levels. A closer look at the year-on-year development of funding value by funding stages shows that funding in 2022 nearly maintained the level of 2021 for the Early Stage and Series A funding rounds. However, it lagged behind the 2021 values across late-stage enterprise funding.

Investors learned and began to put their due diligence into action – targeting their energies toward specific geographies, sectors and needs (e.g., clinical trials).  They looked for therapeutic categories receptive to digital health innovation.  Within the disease-specific investments, oncology saw the highest participation of investors (9%), followed by mental health (7%) and women’s health (7%).  C-Suite leaders and their funders will do well to study the report data and to determine next steps.

Just Facts – 250+ Million Data Points Analyzed

While other studies highlight “media grabbers” and numbers disconnected from insight into where the money is going — from the investment stage to disease states— The Global State of Digital Health connected more than 250 million critical analytic dots. This report will guide C-Suite leaders, business development and therapeutic area heads, private equity funds, and financial analysts to make savvy decisions that drive return on investment—whether the goals be financial or patient care.

After an extraordinary two-year pandemic funding spree, there are apparent shifts in how investors place their economic bets. In this year of geopolitical turmoil and uncertain financial performance, digital health remains vital to the future of the health economy and in addressing public health press points. However, the development stages in which funds are directed, therapeutic categories selected, provider systems that demand transformation, and the regions where innovators establish headquarters are now investment factors.

Bottomline, funding levels exceed the pre-pandemic values. Digital health ventures are busy – submitting more than double the number of regulatory filings in 2021 than before the COVID era. There is a dramatic increase in partnering activity over 2021. If dollars and Euros are the only indicators of energy and commitment, it is easy to see why hand-wringing news stories prevail. Look at all the metrics that determine a vibrant sector.

In combining investment, regulatory filings for new product introductions, and partnerships, it is apparent that 2022 has been a formative period. Investors and innovators are putting in place the processes and systems – the people and science – that drive adoption and market traction. Investors are no longer looking at the sector as monolithic.

Putting the Right People and Processes on the Innovation Bus

If 2021 was the year of exuberance, 2022 was, as Jim Collins, author of the classic business bestseller “Good to Great,” dedicated to putting the right people – leaders and digital health sectors – on the bus. For example, medical diagnostics ventures had an exceptional year by representing 12 percent of regulatory filings of Digital Health ventures across the globe, taking the top spot for ventures with significant Clinical Evidence (Evidence Signal >40), and capturing the highest investment volume share (17%), with the total cluster funding value falling short of 2021 by 16 percent.

As the report suggests, 2022 is a turning point for digital health – a shift from Digital Health 1.0 to the 2.0 era, with Digital Health evolving into a more mature ecosystem. The recent data reaffirm that perspective and a fast-paced realignment occurring within the sector.

Looking at the past year, it is evident that investor mindsets matured in 2022, and lessons learned were applied. Obstacles – from regulatory hurdles to payer pushback – made incubators, accelerators and private equity groups much more selective in their investment and partnership decisions. They looked beyond “invention” to innovation – where the market seeks to embrace a new product and rally to Foreword its access within the health ecosystem.

The 2022 “Global State of Digital Health Report” does far more than examine monies invested in the broad digital health category — it offers a guide for decision-makers on how multiple data points translate into market shifts and how to pinpoint trends that provide predictive insight and best practices in investment strategies, across regions, Digital Health categories, therapeutic areas and technologies.

Decisions will be made based on this collaborative effort. This report offers a new perspective – the data this report provides – finding the balance between hype and hope to offer balanced optimism is a guide.

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Significant change is needed. But what change? Lowering drug costs will not lower total spending on health so long as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) continue to profit from the “spread.” Access to care will not improve so long as we ponder the future of essential telehealth services. Patient adherence will not be supported if formularies can call upon “non-medical switching” as a go-to negotiating tool. The US percentage of GDP will not align with other developed nations’ investments in health if we don’t redirect effort to emotional and physical preventive and value-based care. Fixing one piece of the healthcare puzzle is helpful – but is it transformational?

There are changes afoot that we need to make happen sooner rather than later by moving minds, systems and behaviors so that life-sustaining and life-saving approaches to patient care may eventually tip the scale of human survival toward health and wellness. However, we see data through the lens of a human perspective – sometimes self-interests or emotional needs for control.

Here are 10 possibilities that are not dreams – they can happen – if the health ecosystem leaders think beyond cost, reimbursement or authoritative voice and focus on people’s healthy longevity:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) — A future of engagement and collaboration:

AI has been around since the Gutenberg Bible! In 1899, medicine made a giant leap into AI by publishing the Merck Manual — a handbook that collected all known medical advice and gave physicians a compendium of diagnoses and treatments. No expert can remember the vast canon of medical information within their specialty, and books became a source of “augmented knowledge.”

Too many health systems and physicians view AI as “novel.” Addressing the obstacles to implementation within their health systems is critical to enhanced decision-making benefits offered by AI. Concerns about cybersecurity and training are valid! However, the value of implementing artificial intelligence is not about embracing technology — it’s about amplifying human wisdom to address patient urgencies effectively.

Human intelligence can be augmented by uniting data, patient files and other health professionals’ patient-care experiences, channeled through this technology platform. We must now rally to address questions about data quality, emotional resistance to change and cybersecurity. As innovation theorist, John Nosta writes about the emerging importance of aligning IQ and EQ with TQ (technology quotient).

“The battle of man versus machine might be ending where cooperative engagement provides transformative solutions to a wide variety of problems and opportunities.”

2. Behavioral Health — America does not lack a supply chain to manufacture chronically ill citizens:

We are killing ourselves slowly…with poor nutrition. We continue to add belt notches to our waistlines. The added weight also increases risks for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental health stressors, and more. Who pays those sickness bills? Employers foot a large percentage of the nation’s workforce health insurance. It’s time to look beyond providing an expected workplace benefit. Physicians, employers, payers and the people they seek to help must reduce the waistlines of people tipping toward the obesity border! Helping consumers shed unnecessary pounds and meeting their corresponding medical priorities offers immediate life-saving and personalized health benefits.

The best option for corporations footing a large part of the health bill is to intervene with payers and recognize benign neglect in tackling the obesity epidemic only adds to suffering and expense. Louis J. Aronne, M.D., who founded the breakthrough patient-centered health-tech Intellihealth along with Weill Cornell Medicine physician colleague Katherine Saunders, MD, notes:

“Obesity is a very complex chronic disease with a number of causes from diet to underlying medical conditions, medications and genetics. “Through our extensive research and applied medical model, we have incorporated all of our practice methodologies into a single software platform, which delivers a blueprint for treating obesity with supervision and continued oversight. Evaluation of our approach demonstrates 3x the number of patients reaching the key outcome measure of 5% or greater weight loss compared to programs that incorporate behavioral interventions alone.”

3. Decentralized Clinical Trials — Democratize drug development:

Even before COVID-19 appeared, traditional clinical trial recruitment models were being reconsidered. Drug development was almost sidelined during the pandemic, and clinical research organizations (CROs) recognized that they needed to reinvent patient recruitment. Operation Warp Speed showed how to put the pedal to the metal for COVID-19 vaccines; systems developed now can be applied to other high-priority, clinical urgencies such as treatments for rare diseases and often-fatal cancers.

Collaboration to advance the process is working. Science and research pioneers such as Amir Kalali, MD, and Craig Lipset, who co-lead the industry-wide DTRA.org group, show the sector’s readiness to change direction collectively. Innovators like Michelle Longmire, MD, CEO of Medable, and Irfan Khan, MD, CEO of Circuit Clinical, demonstrate that an industry known to advance new medications from bench to bedside can innovate how and where patients are invited to participate in urgently needed therapeutic discoveries. Innovation is based on finding new paths to address unmet needs.

To accelerate drug discovery and development possibilities, biopharma and medical device companies need to find a new set of allies – patient advocacy organizations and their communities; primary care centers with access to people in rural and inner-city communities. They must recognize that in working with government, sector companies, and those that seek to serve – people with health needs – they can go farther, faster.

4. Digital Health — Physicians and patients need coverage clarity:

Food and Drug Administration approval for life-sustaining innovations does not necessarily sway payer access decisions. “Claim denied” is the all-to-often refrain when physicians and their patients seek access to a 510 K-approved medical device or digital therapeutic.

Payers may have sufficient justification to deny coverage. But what are the criteria for those “dead-on-arrival” reimbursement decisions? What are the guidelines to secure formulary approval? If more data are needed to ensure access for patients — insurance customers — payers must become partners in the sector’s and patient-care success. Adding bricks to the walls patients must circumvent to secure care for themselves and their families does little to improve care or customer relationships.

Digital health analyst and author Artur Olesch outlines a challenge for the coming year in a question many more should be asking:

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the implementation of telecare and telemedicine. Individuals are increasingly using mobile health apps. What can be done not to waste this potential?

5. Ecohealth — We need a healthy planet or else:

Where you live impacts how long and how well you live. Thousands of U.S. communities are ticking time bombs. The harsh reality is that 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans live within three miles of a toxic landfill site, exposing these communities of color to dangerous levels of lead and other heavy metals and chemicals. We must face the harsh reality that while planet earth can do just fine without humanity; humanity needs a healthy planet. This was the striking call-to-action by Meharry Medical College President and CEO Dr. James E.K. Hildreth.

The longer we wait, the harder it will be to course-correct. The shift to a healthier world requires other innovative superpowers — courage and collaboration. According to Bob Martineau, senior partner FINN Partners, a former Federal and State government official focusing on environment issues: 

Though we breathe, eat and live in the environment, we often forget just how interconnected all aspects of our health are with the world around us. Exposure to dangerous levels of air, soil and groundwater pollution is proven to cause a cascade of life-threatening woes that include cancers, nervous system disorders, respiratory diseases, and premature births.

6. Tackle older patients’ care and adherence challenges:

When people are diagnosed with a chronic or severe medical condition, we must ensure that the patient-physician relationship guides care and that the medical ecosystem prioritizes medication adherence. The National Health Institute reports that 40% of patients sustain significant risks by misunderstanding, forgetting, or ignoring healthcare advice. We don’t need to invent or create new care challenges. Let physicians already seeking to do good oversee clinical-care decisions.

Age discrimination and comfort with using technology to access the health system are barriers to access and understanding medication use and adherence. Age bias is often attached to health conditions often experienced in older persons. While older Americans often are the health system’s most significant customers, they face continued discrimination. We must see continued innovation in earlier detection of illnesses that impact seniors, such as loneliness, Alzheimer’s and even sexually transmitted diseases.

7. Health disparities — The most vulnerable need access to care now:

Decades of racism place people of color in harm’s way from COVID-19 more than any other community. Blacks are dying at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 people, compared with 20.7 for whites. In New York City, the most densely populated place in America, 19% of residents, many people of color, live in poverty, while 17% live in overcrowded conditions. We seem unable to come to grips with the reality that health disparities cause multiple public health disasters and cost lives and dollars.

We must reach the communities that seek information in ways that speak to their interests and needs. What groups such as Hip Hop Public Health creatively use the power of music with health-specific messages to mobilize and change mindsets.

America is among the few developed nations that deny good healthcare services to those most in need. Neglect and racism are morally counter to the health mission of medical leaders. The changes of senior citizens to access health networks easily must be addressed. Policymakers, corporate leaders and citizens must raise their voices to enact change. A cultural shift is needed to rally communities for awareness and education. According to Yele Aluko, MD, MBA, chief medical officer at EY:

The current conversation going on nationally about societal justice, about health equity, drives a moral imperative. This conversation is going on across health systems, big business, government, and philanthropic organizations. Everybody’s talking about how we need to fix this wrong, so the time is now. We have a convergence of goodwill that drives my optimism. But we must seize the moment and translate it into actionable solutions.

8. Metaverse — Smart technologies channel our imagination toward curative possibilities:

Do you have an imagination? Put it to work to heal. After all, medical engineering is a pioneering effort that connects people’s ideas with human biology to overcome sickness. We entered the “Matrix” the first time we imaged a therapeutic stent, LVAD and 3D-printed artificial limb; complex operations became possible when expert hands drew upon technology to realize new concepts.

Rafael Grossman, MD, FACS, has been tapping technology to improve patient-centered medical care. Always ready to explore the disruptive power of technology in medicine, Dr. Grossman has been at the forefront of using smart glasses, augmented, virtual and mixed reality to change the way we practice and teach medicine.

Grossman and medical compatriots such as Daniel Kraft, MD, don’t see the metaverse as sci-fi. Artificial reality, virtual reality and wearables are used by leading-edge practitioners to advance patient outcomes.

9. Remote Patient Monitoring and Telehealth — Remote care after COVID-19:

Digital systems are built into beds, furniture and watches. Medical wearables make hospital stays more customer-friendly by delivering patient information straight to providers’ smartphones and central monitoring stations. At the height of the pandemic, there was a dramatic uptick in telehealth and remote care. As reimbursement rates shift, patients worry they will lose the benefits of remote care.

Ever so often, Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and private payers pump the brakes on continued remote access with life-saving services such as telemedicine. We need to change the culture of conservatism when it comes to remote advancements and access. Groups like the American Telemedicine Association are essential voices for access and a sensible hybrid approach to care.

Medicine is a culture where patients are not yet seen as customers. Cancer survivor, caregiver and health professional Stacy Hurt, a HIMSS Digital Health Influencer and recent participant in a VyTrac-sponsored webinar on remote patient monitoring, writes on the importance of a hybrid approach:

Patients ultimately want two things: hope and options. We’re finally to a point where telemedicine is an option. It for sure shouldn’t replace the in-person encounter and relationship between the healthcare provider and patient, but it is an option we need to preserve.

10. Self-Care — Our health system keeps us alive — it doesn’t keep us well:

Our health system is not built around sustaining “health.” We have invested mightily in national illness management, a sick-care structure that offers no return on investment regarding a better path to healthy longevity. Value-based and preventive care to keep the illness at bay is a big win-win-win for households, companies and governments that now foot the nation’s health insurance bill. Employers and payers will find that incentivizing self-care and illness prevention is a more innovative business model.

WebMD Chief Medical Officer John Whyte, MD, an author on bestsellers with life-saving tips to reduce cancer and diabetes risks, writes:

The biggest myth has been that (cancer) is primarily caused by genetics or just bad luck and there is nothing that you can do about it. The reality is only about 30% of cancer is caused by what we would say are inherited mutations or family history. The rest is primarily influenced by lifestyle. I know, although nothing is 100% preventable, we have learned through science that you can reduce your risk by deciding what you eat, how much you exercise, your level of stress, the quality of your sleep. These are all things you have control over.

If this roster of innovations in hand tells us anything, it’s time we put health-system mindset change front and center. There are plenty of great reasons to say, “this won’t work” or “let’s not do it; it adds to costs.” It is understandable that new products, services and approaches take time to implement and cost money. But when we look at people’s well-being, adding complexity to people’s lives that separates them from access to the best quality of care has never been medicine’s intended mission.

We look to changes such as Amazon purchasing One Medical as a pathway to fix that which is broken. We have an abundance of innovative, readily and inexpensive (often generic) medicines. We often can speak with a skilled health professional through our smartphones and tablets. Perhaps the change so sorely needed isn’t another billion-dollar acquisition and “roll-up,” it’s addressing the challenges of collaboration and transparency?

Health providers are at the forefront of confronting our significant societal challenges. They have risen to the task heroically. Health disparities between the haves and have-nots and developed and developing nations have opened our eyes and hearts. Innovation combined with our determination must open the door to fundamental system change.

The post Health Possibilities We Can’t Afford to Block appeared first on Medika Life.

People pay attention when Amazon – a power brand – makes a move, and since the release crossed the wires, business journalists and analysts have been reporting and posting on their social platforms that this acquisition will transform the US healthcare scene and disrupt the status quo.

Everyone seems to be making money in the health sector, why not Amazon?

The purchase certainly enables Amazon to leverage its logistics expertise and cloud-based information-storage savvy to reduce friction points in accessing care and, simultaneously, add to its burgeoning health-revenue-based business.

But will the purchase of One Medical transform the vast and fragmented US health system? Let’s not jump to that conclusion just yet.

The US Health System Swamp

This is not Amazon’s first time dipping its big toe into the murky waters of the US health system, yet many observers rate this move as more significant than the company’s previous ventures.

Considering Amazon’s past track record in working to transform healthcare, it’s best to view the company’s aspirations to improve the care experience with a healthy dose of skepticism.

This is because the US health system is too big and pasted together for any single effort to have an effect.

Created slapdash in the decades since World War II, today, the US system is so fragmented that business leaders outside health care cannot fathom how companies in the health ecosystem operate or make money.

It’s hard for them to imagine how pharmacy benefit management companies make money, or how payers both encourage preventive care and, at the same time, reject physician requests for diagnostic procedures.

Amazon knows there is plenty of money to go around, and they want in, but it’s not easy to figure out how.

But, Amazon understands consumer experience better than any other company, and this time they are sticking to their knitting by tracking the access to care supply chain.

Stumbles Are a Learning Opportunity

It’s a wise move considering past efforts. Remember the Amazon partnership with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway?

These three amigos were bullish on how their economic power and influence would transform healthcare, but in the end, their joint project Haven faced more significant problems than money, data or supply chain expertise could solve.

Haven’s death underlined just how increasingly fragmented the US health system is. Perhaps the three leaders at the top could never completely define the challenge Haven was created to address?

Ultimately, their desire to reduce healthcare costs and improve the consumer experience – which were goals Haven had in common with Amazon’s aspirations for One Medical – was emblematic of focusing on symptoms, not the underlying disease.

And while the Haven shutdown may have been accelerated by a lack of collaborative mindset, unwieldy structure or even a lack of unifying strategic priorities, it’s likely that the stake in the heart for Haven was the same specter confronting the authors of Medicare in 1964: fear of change and protectionism.

It is almost certain that Amazon will accelerate One Medical’s pursuit of profitability and debt reduction, but HIPAA requirements will block Amazon from accessing One Medical patient data.

So, rather than being a transformative moment, this may well be a $4 billion investment for Amazon’s leaders to learn more about just how the US healthcare system is broken.

It also hopefully will allow Amazon to apply these lessons and use its expertise to make a little piece of the puzzle operate better.

Where Amazon Has an Edge

There are four decision-making health sectors: payers, policymakers, product innovators, and providers.

But the fifth sector, made up of patients – which everyone is putatively focused on helping, does not even have a seat at the decision-making table.

Amazon has an edge in that they understand the customer experience better than any other player – and they know how to establish and keep consumers’ trust.

While patients undoubtedly have the most skin in the access-to-care game, their interests and voice often go unheard outside corporate conference rooms.

But Amazon has consistently fostered consumer confidence by reducing friction points, a patient-centric service orientation very much missing from the health system.

Building on the notion that consumer experience must be prioritised is a great differentiator, but it will not help when cutting deals with payers or providers.

Amazon is now pitted against mega-players such as UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, CVS Health’s Aetna and hospital systems that are transforming into massive physician networks.

Amazon’s acquisition now invites other players to snatch-up companies like One Medical striving to turn a profit.

Amazon’s next steps are what observers should be watching closely.

How does this acquisition connect to its other purchases and partnerships, such as Amazon Care, the employee-specific telemedicine and in-person primary care service company launched three years ago?

Amazon Care operates at locations in Seattle, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C, Austin, Texas, and Arlington, Virginia. Will Amazon Care and One Medical merge?

Will it impact their online pharmacy business? Amazon bought PillPack two years ago for $1 billion, yet despite its unparalleled delivery expertise, the company has still to gain traction in the pharmacy sector.

Plus, remember the smart collaboration that Amazon struck with telehealth giant Teladoc giving the latter broader consumer access to “I want a doctor” using Alexa as a virtual-care tech platform.

Leading economist and authority on integrated delivery systems, Dr. Alain C. Enthoven, wrote more than a decade ago that the “healthcare system is fragmented, with a misalignment of incentives, or lack of coordination, that spawns inefficient allocation of resources. Fragmentation adversely impacts quality, cost, and outcomes.”

Not much has changed since Dr. Enthoven penned those words; fragmentation complicates every aspect of care.

Amazon may be a supply-chain management behemoth, but can they transform or disrupt the system so that care becomes less expensive? Will people with pressing health concerns have greater access to care? Maybe.

Amazon has joined the club of mega players committed to making waves within the health ecosystem – Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Teladoc and others.

Combined, these players add more complexity to a non-integrated system that generates more and more layers – each with its own economic model and an invoice to be paid by some part of the ailing health system.

At the bottom of this system, supporting it, hopefully benefitting from it but just as often held captive by it, is the patient-consumer. This is where Amazon is likely to focus, but will that focus result in transformation?

Reflecting on the Amazon acquisition, innovation theorist John Nosta wrote that an “essential component to this discussion is time. The imposition of social imperatives like equity in the context of the early stages of technological development crush innovation at its very core.”

The United States health ecosystem is a modern-day version of the mythological Labyrinth.

Like the Cretan maze, it is almost impossible to navigate, but Amazon certainly has the resources, patience and self-interest to explore and try to solve the puzzle.

While success will not come easily or quickly, expect this e-commerce giant to continue to press forward with its headline-grabbing investments, learning until it gets it right. Improving our lot is not Amazon’s business objective, but we may benefit as an outcome.

The post The Health System Will Not Be Transformed by Amazon – But It Will Improve appeared first on Medika Life.

Every step of the patient journey can have a profound impact on the way in which your patients experience their time in your care, from their check-in to the day of their discharge.

A 2016 report found that hospitals that provide a superior patient experience generate a 50% higher financial performance than average providers[1].

We see every day that higher patient experience ratings are consistently linked to higher hospital profitability. What’s more, your customers are more loyal and your hospital reputation is enhanced, with an increase in referrals.

The patient experience is often overlooked in healthcare.

We developed four holistic assessments which evaluate what is actually happening in your hospital in the following key areas. When looking at your hospital’s patient experience, you could conduct something very similar.

People: Beginning at 4 am until the end of the day, carry out a deep-dive assessment of your patients’ experiences and staff procedures.

Technology: Take a comprehensive review of the current state of technology at your hospital is undertaken. This includes telehealth and telemedicine which are becoming increasingly vital for patients in rural areas to enable them to access care.

Processes: Map out how you will evaluate individual staff roles, treatment procedures, and department practices

Data: Conduct an analysis of disparate, complex data that is carried out to identify the gaps in critical data collection and opportunities for improvement.

These assessments cover the OR, the ER, surgical services, supply chain management, and patient flow, involving your staff and patients at every stage to gain invaluable insight into your patients’ perspectives.

But the patient experience doesn’t end when they leave your hospital.

Continuum of Care Strategies for Hospital Operational Performance

With changes to regulations and reimbursement plans, quality patient care requires strong collaboration across all care settings. A key element of achieving a superior patient experience and improved profitability is an integrated continuum of care strategy.

HIMSS defines Continuum of Care as:
‘A concept involving a system that guides and tracks patients over time through a comprehensive array of health services spanning all levels and intensity of care.’

That can extend from birth to the end of life. HIMSS breaks the care continuum down into seven categories, including wellness, acute hospital care and ambulatory care. As the US population ages, continuum of care will become more critical to ensure no patients are overlooked.

This new reality is a challenge for healthcare organizations as what begins in your hospital no longer ends there. In many cases, pre-hospital care such as blood pressure management is also a critical part of the continuum.

As hospital margins are squeezed, the patient experience and continuum care will become critical strategies to improve your profitability.

The post How To Ensure a Superior Patient Experience and Continuum of Care appeared first on Medika Life.