Can You Follow the Money to Predict the Future of Healthcare?

Some for better, some for worse... healthcare has become big business.??While it often makes me uneasy as a clinician, I am hopeful that technology, applied well, can?shift the?trajectory?of health decline in the?U.S.???

There is no doubt the pandemic?supplied?an?ignition for?digital transformation, and thus new tech investments.??Annual investments in Digital Health Tech alone?rose from $7B in 2019 to $20B in 2020 and is projected to grow to $28B by the end of this year.??But the pandemic also highlighted gaps in?access to?care, revealing just how complicated it is to solve the?“health” problem.

We now have a QUINTUPLE?AIM?for Healthcare Reform

The complexity of reform has evolved from what the Institute for Healthcare Improvement originally coined as the Triple Aim in 2007 (Higher Quality, Lower Cost, Better Patient Experience) then to the Quadruple Aim (adding Clinician Experience), and now to the Quintuple Aim.????

Do investments align to these aims????

Digital health technologies can unlock new?data?for?population health strategies,?wellness and?preventive?care, and personalized treatment pathways.?

Are we seeing progress??

Jessica De Massa, Executive Producer and Host for?WTF?Health, and Greg Horne, Global Industry Principal for Health Care at?SAS?took a deep dive into?some of the investment trends in the?latest?Health Pulse podcast.??With #HIMSS21 kicking off, this?timely?episode sparked my interest.??My top 3 takeaways:

Takeaway One: Home is a legitimate site of care

One tectonic shift I am excited to see is the?legitimization of the home as a site of care.??This is most noteworthy in the acute care space, where hospital systems must rethink traditional?heads-in-beds strategies.??And research is showing this to meaningfully?affect?all five aims.??It’s?a beautiful?synergy?of care model redesign and digital technologies, accelerating?acceptance?and innovation related to?IoT?and remote patient monitoring… sensors, data, and?AI?oh my!?

Takeaway Two: Transparency is critical to AI acceptance

Speaking of AI, bias is a continued concern that is receiving appropriate attention.??And while nobody has solved for it yet, I think?it's?helpful to recognize that?bias?is?not a problem unique to the technology.??AI is just allowing us to see bias objectively, often for the first time.??A good?part?of investment?is?going toward advanced analytics.??Stumbles along the way are now prompting a fundamental question: Are these?tools enabling transparency and explain-ability????

Takeaway Three: Experience matters (but we're still getting it wrong)

The third reflection regards the most valuable part of healthcare, the provider-patient relationship. As it relates to AI,

AI is not going to replace your doctor anytime soon, but the doctor using AI is going to replace the doctor who doesn't very quickly.

There can be no doubt that the provider-patient relationship is changing.??My hope is that we find ways to keep it relational vs transactional, which is best for both the patient and clinician experience (though sometimes not the most “efficient”).??I'm?looking for companies to finally crack the patient experience code.??There has been so much focus on the "Digital Front Door" and honestly, I think?we're?missing the?mark here.??Patient journey mapping is critical, yet I see so few health systems taking it seriously.??Mapping these experiences can also help us make strides in the cost of healthcare, potentially enabling more asynchronous interactions and even fundamentally redesigning the?benefits?landscape.?

There are many nuggets of insight in this?short?podcast, so?I’ll?leave the others for you to discover.??After you listen, leave a?comment?and let me know what stood out to you most.?

The Health Pulse, part of the SAS Analytics Exchange podcast series, explores fresh perspectives on digital transformation in health care and life sciences. Subscribe on your favorite podcast channel. New episodes released bi-weekly. Have an idea for a topic or guest speaker? Email the series producers at [email protected].?