Are we at an inflection point? The Healthcare Ecosystem of the Future

Have been catching up on the recent Digital Health Summit inside CES. There have been some very interesting discussions on the direction of travel of healthcare and its lagging position behind many other industries.

In this post I will be commenting on the interview between Dr. Nick Van Terheyden (Incremental Healthcare) and Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (Health Populi) with a theme around the inflection point from merely IoT to Intelligence of Things.

At Microsoft we have been discussing the use of assistive AI as applied to health, the notion of Ambient Clinical Intelligence. This takes us way beyond the integration of wearables into clinical practice and really starts to make use of power of cognitive capabilities to work alongside care teams. Eric Topol provides some powerful ideas in his book "Deep Medicine" and how this kind of innovation can augment and support clinicians with and without patterns as we move into a phase where the promise of medical assistants can start to be truly realised.

Like most industries digital transformation and disruption gains momentum when externalities start to impose on the system. In the US one of the sources of stimulation for change has been the 21st Century Cures Act and the focus on promoting interoperability and the impedance caused by information blocking.

At the heart of this movement is the role that stakeholders will take as an enabler and beneficiary of data wave in health. In recent months we have seen a round of announcements between health systems and technology vendors. It's interesting to hear Jane talk about the rising voice of consumers as they begin to understand the value of their personal data assets, and how they are actively seeking for a better exchange of value. How will this be carried into the patient voice?

Our health, and the information related to it is one of our basic parts of our self. Yet when we interact with health providers we are generally at our weakest and most vulnerable. What responsibilities should be placed on data stewards around Trust, Privacy and Data Security? does HIPAA go far enough or do we need widespread adoption of other rigorous legislation like GDPR as a common standard across the entire health care ecosystem.

And that is the key learning for me from the discussion. In order to allow health systems to truly realise the value of data and digital transformation we need a holistic approach to care delivery. An ecosystem of connected stakeholders across patients, MedTech, providers, payors and pharmaceuticals. This ecosystem has to be open to all needed participants and underpinned by robust rules around trusted data exchange, patient controlled privacy that gives them equivalent status in the exchange of information and value, and data privacy that ensures appropriate and authorised access.

As an organization we were early in sharing our AI Manifesto (see the Future Computed) where we detail basic rights around some of these issues, and the ethical and responsible use of data in service provision. Brad Smith has further expanded on some of these themes in Tools and Weapons. Both provide an interesting basis for a collaborative discussion between Big Tech and Health Systems so together we can move forward on the quadruple aim.

It is going to be an interesting year ahead, looking forward to the ride.