Interoperability and the Future of Healthcare

What are the global impacts of Covid-19 and climate change?

How is it possible to create national policies that encourage broad investment in A.I. and digital health solutions around the world?

Are we prepared to analyze digital innovation in health care? What does the future look like, and how will research get us there?

These are some of the questions that we discussed early this month at the Global Summit Telemedicine & Digital Health in Brazil. There I had the pleasure and the honor to mediate one of the international panels, upon invitation of Dr. Antonio Carlos Endrigo , a seasoned Brazilian physician who knows the industry well, having worked more than 20 years as a surgeon, then as a medical auditor of health care insurance operators and later as an entrepreneur, founding Dativa, a health care BPO that was acquired by Cielo and became Orizon. Today he is Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of DTO (Data Opera), a start-up in Brazil in the business of healthcare interoperability.

During the panel I had the opportunity to debate those topics with phenomenal industry players, namely Dr. Darshak Sanghavi , (Chief Medical Officer at Babylon, USA based), Dr. Neville Young (Director of Enterprise & Innovation at Yorkshire and Humber, UK based) and Dr. Peter Yellowees (Chief Wellness Officer at UCD Health, and Allan Soudemire Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at University of California, Davis) who is also an entrepreneur in the US.

Digital health care has demonstrated significant development in the world and interoperability plays a central role in data connectivity and exchange, synchronizing different IT systems and connecting patients, care providers, insurance companies, regulators, and technology suppliers. It is gaining momentum in Brazil and has the potential to become a key data catalyzer in big data applied to health care.

Global standards are still being defined and discussed. Not different from other industries that deal with data, issues like governance, security, confidentiality, anonymity, and ethics are sensitive and entrepreneurs need to be careful with standards.

The creation of data lakes and monetization of data banks has been consistently discussed in the banking and insurance industries, leading to the boom of Fintech companies and the disintermediation of credit markets. The role of the Brazilian Central Bank in supporting the industry has been important, especially due to the concentration of the Brazilian banking industry. Health care will trail the same path and is moving towards the concepts of open health. It will not be an easy trail, but like other disruptive initiatives, it is already finding its way to address the major concerns of regulators and bridging the gaps between fragmented data pieces held by providers. The objective is to give patients access to the data that is ultimately theirs. Access to lab results, treatments, and medical outcomes will allow for better diagnostics, significantly more complete medical records, and improvement of life quality.

If done correctly, the system will possibly reduce costs in the value chain because better records statistically contribute to the prevention, reducing the present value of long-term streams of cash flows related to treatment. Also, structured data will have a significant contribution to telemedicine evolution.

In continental size countries like Brazil, where treatment access is not even, technology will play an important role with regard to social inclusion. This is a new frontier being opened in a market with over 216 million people. It is also a disruptive movement that will impact market participants. Worth staying tuned.