The Big Unlock

In this episode, Pamela Landis discusses how they brought together a ‘digital ecosystem,’ a.k.a. a digital front door strategy. She also talks about how they engage patients at every major touchpoint of their journey by providing a seamless digital experience that is intuitive, consumer-friendly, and easy to use.

Healthcare is changing fast and patient needs must be addressed in a more front-facing way. While it is easy to look at best-in-class tools, financially they may not always make sense. At Hackensack Meridian, they first look at their legacy systems and tools to check for available core solutions to handle the digital patient engagement journey from a technology standpoint.

Hackensack Meridian plans to invest more in transforming themselves into a digitally-enabled organization and serve the patients in a digitally-enabled way that is consumer-friendly, like Amazon. Take a listen.

In this episode, Ray Lowe discusses the multi-year digital “overhaul” at AltaMed and the challenges they faced while driving adoption of digital solutions in the organization.

AltaMed predominantly serves a low-income population and underserved communities. There is a digital divide that exists out there. AltaMed strives to address those challenges while connecting with their patient populations electronically.

Ray also discusses the drivers of technology selection at AltaMed for building digital front door tools and mobile apps, and engaging with their patient populations. Take a listen.

In this episode, Dr. Lee shares some examples of how the intersection between traditional healthcare and technology can be beneficial to improve healthcare outcomes and reduce costs of care.

The relationship between a healthcare provider and a tech provider is more about co-producing, co-designing, and working together for better health outcomes. To accelerate the pace of change in healthcare, technology firms must earn and maintain the trust of people. At the same time, digital health innovators must transform care and the way we pay for it. Dr. Lee also discusses her book The Long Fix , and how employers, who cover healthcare for half of the population in the U.S., will play a significant role in transforming the healthcare system. Take a listen.

In this episode, Daniel Nigrin discusses how digital at Boston Children’s Hospital is about transforming healthcare by improving the care experience for consumers, patients, families, and clinicians and their interaction with the health system.

Digital transformations are disruptive for healthcare organizations. It leads to new ways of doing things and enables healthcare providers to care for patients in ways they have not done before. Being a children’s hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital has to deal with the unique scenario of dealing with two sets of patient populations: the child and the parent or the caregiver. This necessitates the need to have a multidisciplinary approach to assessing any new technology.

Daniel talks about digital program governance at Boston Children’s and has some practical advice for startups looking to partner on innovative approaches to digital health. Daniel also discusses emerging technologies, such as voice, that will play an essential role in healthcare, both in inpatient and home settings. Take a listen.

In this episode, Craig Richardville discusses how they have created an organization within SCL Health to design digital programs for building new levels of engagements keeping the future in mind. He also points to the need to empower patients, one of the most underutilized resources in the healthcare industry, and how one can be part of SCL Health’s digital journey.

At SCL Health, digital is not only about transforming patient experience but also about consumers – those who are not yet patients. One of the key themes for digital programs at SCL Health are the digital front doors. Digital front doors are the entry points for potential patients and consumers into SCL Health’s environment.

According to Craig, it is time to start shifting mindsets from telehealth or virtual care to providing online care, just the way we access other services in our life. The movement for virtual encounters or relationships will certainly continue to accelerate. Digital health startups, therefore, must offer a strategy of ‘low calculated risk with the potential for huge returns’ for healthcare systems.

In this episode, Anshul Pande, VP and Chief Technology Officer at Stanford Children’s Health discusses their digital journey and covers digital programs such as remote monitoring, telehealth, and how to make data useful and readily available to the clinicians.

Anshul states that for a seamless digital front-end experience, back-end IT infrastructure must be in place, and it is important to understand how the software layers are designed. Both of these helps deliver a better experience for the provider and patient.

COVID-19 has led the healthcare industry towards ‘fail fast and get comfortable with the experimentation’ approach. Anshul advises health systems to engage with different stakeholders within the organization and focus on a single mission. Take a listen.

In this episode, Pamela Arora, SVP and CIO of Children’s Health discusses how their holistic approach towards digital health is transforming the experience of their team members, providers, patients, and the whole continuum of care. At Children’s Health, digital health is about effectively applying digital capabilities across the continuum of care to maximize efficiency, effectiveness, and experience.

According to Pamela, by increasing the touchpoints and simplifying data across the care continuum healthcare organizations can deliver the three E’s: efficiency, effectiveness, and experience. However, one of the challenges in achieving this digital engagement in healthcare involves the data itself. If an organization is taking a patient-centric approach, continuity of data is critical. To ensure data flows easily across the continuum of care, it is important to promote interoperability initiatives across the healthcare organizations.

Technology is the key element in any digital program of an organization. Assessing the right technology at the right time is crucial to enhance patient as well as provider experience. Other aspects while evaluating technology is to consider its ease of adaptability and reliability among providers so that they can deliver a seamless patient experience. Pamela suggests health systems to keep advancing with new technologies and start with pilot first approach and then scale up the process.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Lahr, CIO and CMIO of Monument Health, discusses how as a community-based health system, they transformed their healthcare delivery in a short time during the pandemic. With the knowledge of technology and informatics, Dr. Lahr’s clinical background is helping the health system choose the right tools at the right time to solve the right problems.

Monument Health is part of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. They are based in South Dakota, where the rural population accounts for fifty percent of the total population. Before the pandemic hit, the health system was already using several antiquated tools such as telephones, paper fliers, questionnaires, etc., to cater to the population spread apart by miles. However, as the pandemic hit, Monument Health rapidly evolved its technology environment in just two weeks. They started using tools like COVID-19 nurse triage, RPM, online testing, and more to manage their patients.

Dr. Lahr also states that healthcare systems can improve their quality and efficiency by having a strong foundation in data and analytics. Data is the language of transparency; access to it can help patients know more about their health information. In terms of digital patient engagement, using a combination of automated tools to maintain a personalized care experience is the key to improve care delivery.

In this episode, Dr. Nick Patel, Chief Digital Officer of Prisma Health discusses his role and how the pandemic has transformed the healthcare industry with emerging technologies like online scheduling, virtual visits, chatbots, remote patient monitoring, and AI.

Since March 2020, Prisma health has completed 360,000 virtual visits. Nick says that implementing digital health will eliminate the mindset that care can be provided only in an office setting. He believes that introducing automation in healthcare processes and digital front doors is important to improve care delivery. In the post-COVID-19 world, around 20 to 30 percent of all ambulatory visits will convert to virtual visits. However, social determinants of health also need to be considered such as lack of broadband access and technology challenges in older and high-risk patients.

Patients today expect a retail experience from healthcare throughout their journey. Nick advises health systems to prioritize on solving the problems and focus on patient needs rather than starting with technology. Healthcare technologies must be an interconnected ecosystem that is efficient, intuitive, and can take advantage of automation driven by data.

In this episode, Drew Schiller, Founder and CEO of Validic discusses how COVID-19 has impacted and accelerated the demand environment for remote patient monitoring and other virtual care technologies.

Validic is one of the pioneers in the remote patient monitoring space. Drew states that COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of remote patient monitoring technologies. Due to the pandemic, health systems have realized that virtual care technologies can reduce the cost and burden of care, especially for at-risk populations.

According to Drew, big tech firms entering healthcare is both a challenge and an opportunity from a digital health startup’s perspective. He believes that the VC funding environment is strong but cautions that much of the funding is targeted at late-stage firms that have demonstrated significant traction. He advises the startups to think more creatively and develop unique approaches to the market that focuses on areas not adequately addressed by big tech firms. Take a listen