Telehealth and virtual care have advanced leaps and bounds in 2020 and 2021, but there are still many ways in which the technology is inefficient or inaccessible, at least compared to what it could be. Host Jonah Comstock welcomes Dr. Daniel Kraft, founder and chair of Exponential Medicine, to talk about what the future might hold for telehealth and virtual care.

This is the latest episode in our Workforce Re-Entry series sponsored by Zoom.

Talking points

• Where are we now with virtual care?
• Data integration, triage chatbots, and other hallmarks of the future
• Aligning incentives to end data siloes
• Imagining a Google Maps/Waze for healthcare
• The blurring boundaries between health and wellness
• How do we handle privacy while unlocking novel biomarkers?
• Big Brother is watching… your health?
• Sorting out the advantages of physical vs virtual in the future
• Using technology to enhance clinicians
• Coordinating and integrating technologies we already have
• What’s on the horizon for health tech?

More about this episode

The Virtual Care Paradigm: Going beyond telehealth for the future – and present – of care

Doctors look to tech for the future but need assurance it will work

HIMSSCast: Peeking into the future of healthcare

The future of the waiting room, and how telemedicine and mobile health could change it

Zoom's head of healthcare talks the future of telemedicine

Kraft: Healthcare data-flow of the future will be fluid, proactive, and personalized

While the world has been glued to Elizabeth Holmes' trial, the digital health startup world hasn't given up on the original dream of Theranos: convenient, accessible, low-cost blood testing available at retail locations in the community. In today's HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock checks in with David Stein, CEO of Babson Diagnostics. The company has developed a low-volume blood test that can be operated without a phlebotomist and can perform a large panel of often-requested diagnostics. Jonah and David discuss why this technology is important, how it works, and what it's like to operate in this space when the wounds from the Theranos scandal are still fresh.

Talking points:

• Babson’s pitch (and the elephant in the room)
• Doing accessible blood testing “without cheats”
• Partnering with retailers, Siemens, and BD
• Innovating the blood draw itself, and why its important
• Innovating the logistics of the testing industry
• A win-win for consumers, payers, providers, and retailers
• How easy consumer blood testing can fit into other virtual care trends
• The impact of the Theranos scandal on the blood testing industry
• How Babson approaches innovation at scale
• Consumer blood testing and health equity
• Helping people take control of their own health
• Integrating point solutions into one healthcare ecosystem

More about this episode:

Theranos whistleblower talks ethics in health tech startups

Time for Innovation in Blood Testing Technology (from Babson's website)

'Omnichannel' is the new watchword as big tech, retail get serious about healthcare

Blood testing startup partners with Israel’s Sheba Medical Center to support COVID-19 quarantine measures

In the second episode of "Industry Voices", we talk to a range of healthcare changemakers encountered at HLTH in Boston last month about health equity. Is the industry's attitude toward this important topic changing? Is it changing fast enough? And what steps and attitudes will be necessary to make the future of healthcare an inherently equitable one?

This episode features the voices of Cityblock Health President Toyin Ajayi, UC Davis Chief Information and Digital Health Officer Ashish Atreja, Digital Medicine Society CEO Jennifer Goldsack, Deloitte Partner Peter Micca, and Uber Global Head of Health Caitlin Donovan.

More about this episode:

Cityblock rakes in $400M for platform focused on Medicaid and low-income populations and other digital health fundings

Modernizing Medicare and Medicaid means addressing the affordability crisis

Deloitte's Gebreyes: 'Health equity is a moral imperative that requires a business solution'

Leveraging technology to achieve health equity

Addressing health inequities upstream can curb later health disparities

Health equity, SDOH key priorities for ONC, says deputy national coordinator

Health IT and racial justice: Expanding access, ending disparities, empowering communities (Healthcare  IT News Special Collection)

HFMA's first Black chair tells finance leaders to focus on diversity, inclusion and health equity

To give patients the healthcare experience they expect, providers and payers must first free themselves from rigid data architectures, legacy hardware, and monolithic patient record and care applications. Hear how Humana is using FHIR to address these challenges and build the future of connected healthcare.

In a field as quickly changing as healthcare, ongoing training and education are essential. And just as it did with telehealth and physician collaboration, COVID has helped to accelerate work that was already going on in remote medical education. In today's episode of HIMSSCast, we will talk to two startup founders working on remote workforce training from different angles. First, host Jonah Comstock chats with Osso VR CEO and cofounder Dr. Justin Barad, then Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich talks to Jennifer Fried, CEO and cofounder of ExplORer Surgical.

This podcast is part of our Workforce Re-entry Series, brought to you by Zoom.

Talking points:

• Justin's background in video games and surgery
• Issues with healthcare workforce training: a lot to learn, complex procedures, no way to assess
• What’s the role of VR and what it can do
• How did we teach and practice surgery before VR?
• What it takes to become proficient in a surgical procedure
• How medical education broadly is changing
• VR fidelity — how it’s changing and why it is (and isn’t) important
• How ExplORer Surgical helps to make surgeries accessible remotely for teachers and students
• Disadvantages to physically observing surgeries
• Advantages to remote observation
• Dealing with connectivity issues in hospitals
• How to maintain a secure environment with remote training
• What’s coming up in technology and regulation

More about this episode:

At ortho meeting, VR companies announce industry-advancing partnerships

Surgeon training company Osso VR closes $27M Series B

Surgical training tool Osso VR adds assessment, more language support

Intraoperative support platform ExplORer Surgical collects $2.5M in new funding

Surgical support software maker ExplORer raises $5M

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have widespread potential in healthcare, from diagnostic analysis and clinical decision support to data management and patient engagement. On today's episode, GSR Ventures partners Sunny Kumar and Justin Norden join host Laura Lovett for a far-reaching discussion of what they're seeing in the world of healthcare AI.

Talking points:

• What investors are looking at/for in AI
• Low hanging fruits and hard problems
• AI is not currently about replacing doctors
• AI’s potential for mental health
• How AI can make medicine more, not less personal
• The lack of innovation in clinical trials and how it’s changing
• Culture clash in healthcare and startups
• Regulatory updates and reimbursement challenges
• The present and future of digital therapeutics
• Health equity and value-based care
• Driving efficiencies in care and looking for the next telemedicine

More about this episode:

Healthcare innovation, digital health rake in big investment dollars in Q3

Q&A: Deloitte's Peter Micca on the digital health investment boom, going public and value-based care

AI development must be guided by ethics, human wellbeing and responsible innovation

How CIOs are prioritizing AI investments for the next 5 years

AI and the tradeoff between fairness and efficacy: 'You actually can get both'

The American Telemedicine Association and other business groups want Congress to continue allowing telehealth services to be treated as an excepted benefit, and senior assistance company Papa raises $150 million in Series D funding.

Health care employee well-being is often touted as a business necessity, and strong evidence confirms that it’s smart business. Accenture’s multi-industry “Care to do Better” study shows how it unlocks workers’ full potential, with significant positive business impact. The study references the Accenture “Net Better Off” framework, which quantifies human well-being in terms of six dimensions. Learn how human pressures affect your health workforce and uncover our four suggestions to leave your staff (and business) better off.

After its rapid adoption during the pandemic, virtual care is here to stay. Going forward, providers must balance in-person and virtual care to provide a seamless experience for patients along every step of the care journey.

Lisa Johnson, managing director, Tegria, and Srini Surendranath, Chief Product & Strategy Officer, Andor Health, discuss how understanding the patient journey is vital for developing workflows that incorporate both virtual and in-person care.

Recently, the HIMSSCast team had a chance to sit down with a wide range of healthcare innovators at HLTH in Boston to discuss what they saw as the major trends shaping the evolution of heathcare. One that came up over and over again was value-based care. We talked to notables including Jonathan Bush, Glenn Tullman, Toyin Ajayi and many more about how changing how we pay for healthcare is opening the door to radically re-imagine how we provide it.

This is the first in a series of "Industry Voices" episodes where we'll feature a wide range of guests speaking on a single theme.

More about this episode:

'You can’t navigate your way through a broken system': Transcarent's Glen Tullman on healthcare cost, quality

'Omnichannel' is the new watchword as big tech, retail get serious about healthcare

How retail giant Walmart plans to disrupt the healthcare industry

Retail giant Best Buy snaps up remote monitoring company Current Health

Innovation can increase the value of employer-sponsored care

Firefly Health launches virtual-first health plan for small and mid-sized employers

Cityblock rakes in $400M for platform focused on Medicaid and low-income populations and other digital health fundings

Modernizing Medicare and Medicaid means addressing the affordability crisis