Where o’ Where Did My Healthcare Go?

Move Over And Make Room…

It’s been an odd year for sure. While so many businesses are folding, or just trying to hang-on for dear life, the healthcare industry has seen an unusual acceleration into new models of care delivery.

For example, if you think about what Walmart, CVS and Google were doing say, three years ago, you’d think that they sold groceries, household goods and personal health and beauty supplies. Now, when you think of those companies, you also think about how they are almost, healthcare delivery organizations.

In just a few years Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Apple, Google (etcetera, etcetera…) have been re-routing the trajectory of health care delivery to be fixated on consumer engagement, satisfaction and making health care easy to use and accessible. These companies have been building a ‘Have it your way’ type of health care.

Over the same couple of years, what has traditional or ‘legacy healthcare,’ like doctor’s offices and hospitals been doing to become more patient-centric, more convenient, more accessible, affordable, friction-less? It seems that they’ve been (mostly) hoping things ‘go back to normal.’ If these ‘legacy healthcare’ organizations were my patient, I’d tell them their long-term prognosis for surviving didn’t look good unless they made some changes to their lifestyle!

Grocery List: Cheese, Fruit and A Check-Up

Walmart, for example, is just one of many retail companies that is building and expanding more and more medical clinics. And not only is Walmart successfully providing quality, preventative health services, it is doing so in a price transparent, affordable manner. So regardless of health insurance status, their doors are open.

They are ‘doubling-down’ by building many more locations. And they are partnering with a manufacturing company that standardizes medical modules so that all their clinics have the same ‘look and feel, (Ala Starbucks)’ and—most importantly—standardize the patient flow—thereby increasing efficiency so they can see more patients at a lower per-patient cost.

And they’ve added a drone delivery approach to transport health supplies to their patients. I mean, why not?  They might even be ahead of most doctor’s offices or hospitals by being able to treat patients efficiently, in local neighborhoods, at low prices, while delivering medications and other supplies right to a patient’s door. This is like the ‘In-n-Out’ medical care version of fast food!

Real-Life Care versus Virtual-Life Care

With all this convenience, who needs virtual care? I mean, if Walmart (and others in this same, and growing, space) can reduce or remove all the friction in the traditional doctor’s office visit, then perhaps this ‘In-n-Out medical model’ might even be more attractive to consumers than virtual care. (Although the pundits say (Doximity) that virtual care will continue to take a larger bite out of the healthcare market…)

Is Everyone Getting into Healthcare?

And while we are talking about ‘disruptive’ (or transformative?) approaches to healthcare, Walmart is not the only company to get into the healthcare game:

·        Apple announced recently that they have expanded their ‘suite’ of biosensors to include detecting blood oxygen levels (called a pulse oximteter), which can be of value if you’ve got some kind of circulatory concern, or if you are a pre-occupied weekend warrior-type.

·        Google’s Verily has pushed into the clinical trials industry.

·        And watch out for Amazon, which has a prescription medication service and now an online symptom-checker. They (Amazon) has partnered with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan to lower health care costs—and why would they do that if they were not planning a large-scale entrance to the retail healthcare industry?

·        And watch out for new models for providing primary care such as ‘direct primary care,’ which cuts out the insurer altogether by paying doctors directly for care…this model is sorta like a subscription model, similar to say, Netflix, where you pay a flat monthly amount in exchange for a broad array of care and services.

Dizzying isn’t it? All these ‘non-traditional’ businesses getting into healthcare (not to mention the thousands of smaller companies that are ‘seeing’ patients remotely and eating away at the consumer base for traditional doctors and payers).

More Things To Worry About

But special mention has to be applied to the larger companies since they’ve got heft and a large bank account to draw from to test, test, test, refine and scale before the competitors even see them launch.

If I were a health system or a large physician practice (or a small one), I’d be quivering in my boots/shoes or sandals and this re-routing of care is what would keep me up all night long.

And if all of this weren’t enough to make a doctor or hospital executive sweat, the other thing these non-traditional healthcare companies have is deep, deep experience with customer engagement, customer satisfaction and loyalty. They know just how to keep the consumer coming back for more (out-of-pocket) spending.

Wisdom Comes With Age

My heart goes out to traditional sites of care: they are bound by a doctrine that believes ‘slow is good,’ and ‘stead-on’ works. And in some regards, these doctrines are important to hold onto, since they represent ‘safe,’ ‘experienced,’ and ‘evidenced-based.’ Which is critical and foundational to quality care. And what the healthcare sector certainly does not need are half-baked ideas and non-scientific medical diagnoses and treatments entering into our very sacred institutions of Medicine.

But I worry nonetheless that the most evidenced, reasoned and sound care will remain the domain of the ‘traditionalists,’ and be undervalued and replaced by the ‘sexy,’ ‘easy’ model of healthcare—which might not be so good for the consumer if the same level of scrutiny is not applied to all of the above companies.

I mean, who cares if a drone delivers medicine if it’s the wrong medicine? And who cares if you can see a doctor from your living room if that doctor is as experienced as my 1 year old Lab? And who cares if you can get reasonable care at a reasonable price if the treatment is wrong? And who needs convenience if no one knows you when your disease progresses? Who will be your healthcare provider, not just for one visit, but over your entire lifetime?  

Perfect Marriage: Experienced and Innovative

That is the real question—how to marry the ‘new and improved’ healthcare with the ‘tried and true’ healthcare so that the consumer can have the best of all worlds? I have not seen a business model that yet gives me the best of both worlds…And I’m watching out for it.

 About the author: Julie Kliger is recognized by LinkedIn as a "Top Voice" in Health Care in 2015 & 2106, & 2107. She is a Healthcare ‘Strategic Realist’ who is passionate about improving health care and improving lives. She specializes in future-oriented healthcare redesign, translating bio/med-tech into legacy industries, implementing new care models and strategic change management. She is an adviser, clinician, health system board member, speaker and author. 

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