The fee-for-service model of healthcare has been reexamined over the past few years, with alternative models increasingly gaining traction. Zak Holdsworth, CEO and co-founder of Hint Health, tells Healthcare Finance News Executive Editor Susan Morse he believes the status quo payment models are on their way out – and the question isn't "if," but "when."

Talking points:
-How Hint Health got started
-How the direct primary care model works
-The benefit for health systems
-What about specialty care?
-Employers are starting to explore new options 
-Should insurers be scared?
-The difference between this model and the ACO REACH model
-The future for Hint Health

More about this episode:

Employees want direct primary care from their employer plans

Flat-fee primary care model helping fill a niche in Texas, but it isn't insurance

Fueled by health law, 'Concierge Medicine' reaches new markets

Hint Health rolls out value-based primary care direct contracting network

How a direct primary care model provider benefits from an easy-to-use EHR

Physician Partners of America has agreed to pay $24.5 million for allegedly billing for unnecessary services, while the American Hospital Association says CMS’ proposed rule doesn’t increase payments enough.

(Sponsored) Building an agile, resilient and scalable infrastructure  

This week: The end of the public health emergency is nearing; Federal agencies hit with EHR outage. Plus: Akili's video game-like intervention improved users' cognitive functioning.

Links to the stories:

HHS is giving clear signals of wind down of public health emergency

EHR outage takes down federal Cerner systems

Akili Interactive's DTx improves cognitive function in adults with MDD

Artificial intelligence tools in healthcare, as with any other software, are not immune to bias – especially if they have been trained on data sets that do not accurately reflect the global population.

Last year, VisualDx, which provides diagnostic support software, launched Project IMPACT, a global effort to reduce disparities in medicine and highlight ways to bridge gaps of knowledge and improve healthcare outcomes for patients of color.

VisualDx Director of Clinical Impact Dr. Nada Elbuluk joined Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich to discuss the project and the roles individuals and clinicians can play in working toward health equity. 

Talking points:

• Why it's so important to have a broad range of images across different skin types
• Achieving health equity is a complicated problem
• How individuals can contribute to reducing health inequity
• The effect of providers' knowledge gaps on patient care
• How technology can address some of those gaps
• The role AI and ML tools can play in reducing bias – or worsening it
• What's missing from the wider conversation about health outcomes
• Real action is needed to promote health equity

More about this episode:

VisualDx to unveil vastly expanded clinical decision support system at HIMSS16

Even innocuous-seeming data can reproduce bias in AI

FDA highlights the need to address bias in AI

How an AI-powered tool could help diagnose skin cancer in veterans

How augmented intelligence can promote health equity

(Sponsored) Jennifer Jones, CNIO at Integris Health, explains how standardizing and optimizing their care communications technology may help lead to better and safer workflows for their caregivers and ultimately stronger outcomes for patients.

The world has gone digital. How are you adapting? In this episode, we are sitting down with Julie Campbell, VP of Healthbox to talk about digital strategy. Healthbox, a HIMSS solution, supports and advises orgs that are developing, adopting, and investing in the digital solutions that will transform healthcare. How do our preconceptions about seniors, Medicaid, cybersecurity, EMR/EHRs, and digital strategy influence our progress towards the ideal digital health ecosystem? Join us as we walk through the myths holding back digital transformation and how we can use the Digital Health Indicator (DHI) to build a plan to overcome them in the post-COVID world.

From registration to imaging, smart hospitals deploy AI, IoT, 5G networks, and other technologies from edge to cloud for improved connectivity and secure data sharing to deliver better patient experiences, streamline workflows, and reduce costs. On this podcast, we’ll be focused on how virtual care is being reimagined; transforming patient rooms and critical care environments to streamline operations and improve patient care. Chris Gough, General Manager of the Health and Life Sciences at Intel, works with partners and hospital systems of all sizes to solve complex challenges related to the future of care. In-patient virtual care solutions that utilize predictive analytics, machine learning, and computer vision technologies are becoming more prevalent and have expanded. We’re seeing applications expand into remote patient observation, virtual ICUs, and many more. The benefits of these virtual care solutions include improved patient outcomes, increased operational efficiency, and reduced COVID-19 exposure for both patients and healthcare staff

Healthcare IT News Executive Editor Mike Miliard sat down at HIMSS22 with Google Cloud Director of Global Healthcare Strategy and Solutions Aashima Gupta and Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries Managing Director Joe Miles to discuss the future of hybrid care, what COVID-19 revealed about information silos and how technology can strengthen human-to-human connections.

Talking points:

-How interoperable data is driving strategy and insights
-COVID-19 shined a bright light on the siloed information in the industry
-What Google Cloud is hearing from customers
-Helping providers and payers have better visibility into problem areas
-Is hybrid care the new future?
-Seamless data exchange is necessary for patient experience
-How to make sense of unstructured data
-AI helping to reduce costs and make the system more intuitive
-"Big AI" versus "small AI"?
-Lowering the barriers to AI adoption
-The acquisition of Mandiant
-How healthcare rose to the challenge of the pandemic

More about this episode:

Google Cloud, Amwell foresee a 'new narrative' of virtual care

Google Cloud Healthcare API focused on interoperability, during pandemic and beyond

Google Cloud unveils AI tools to help healthcare analyze unstructured medical text

Google Cloud intros new interoperability platform

AI can play a key role in turning unstructured data into actionable insights

Google to acquire Mandiant for $5.4B

Hi from HIMSS22! We're on the ground in sunny Orlando, Florida, for Global Conference.

In this episode, Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich is joined by Executive Editor Mike Miliard and Executive Editor Susan Morse to talk about what they've seen at the conference and any predictions for next year.

Talking points:

-Using the hard lessons of COVID-19 as inspiration moving forward
-The importance of using data to address inequities
-Data cleanliness and governance as AI takes a larger role in healthcare
-How clinicians can be supported in times of increasing stress and burnout
-What cybersecurity experts have to say about ransomware 
-How the pandemic has accelerated change
-Any predictions for next year?

More about this episode:

HIMSS22 opening keynote: 'What will we do to reimagine health together?'

'Recognize it, monitor it, audit it': Taking action to avoid biased healthcare AI

Health inequity solutions require data, analytics and awareness turned into action

To work toward health equity, 'be a data detective'

National Coordinator: TEFCA will enable 'North Star' architecture for public health

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley addresses workforce challenges at HIMSS22