The Big Unlock

In this episode, Sylvia Romm discusses her role as the Chief Innovation Officer at Atlantic Health System and how her prior experience in pioneering telehealth adoption influences her views on digital transformation.

Most healthcare organizations are reactive today as opposed to being proactive. Digital transformation is off to a slow start but disruption will be here before we know it. According to Sylvia, innovation at Atlantic Health System starts with developing internal innovation and standardizing it across the health system. It also means developing external partnerships to build an innovation pipeline. However, she does not believe in investing in “shiny new things” that do not help their health system move forward.

Sylvia believes that digital transformation is not simply automating or digitizing all the current workflows. It has to go beyond replacing in-person visits with one-on-one virtual visits and look at reimagining patient and caregiver experiences.

In this episode, Karen Murphy discusses her role as the first Chief Innovation Officer and the Founding Director of the Steele Institute for Health Innovation at Geisinger, and how they are working towards lowering the costs and improving quality for the overall welfare of members and patients.

Innovation at Geisinger means taking a fundamentally different approach to solving a problem that has quantifiable outcomes. According to Karen, focusing on specific problems like price and quality will move the needle in a meaningful way. Currently, the innovation team at Geisinger is developing a new care model that leverages AI and machine learning, along with remote monitoring for a more holistic approach towards patients.

Karen also believes intelligent bots will help decrease overall cost of care as they are more efficient. However, while adopting new technologies we need to be careful and prevent increase in the total costs of care due to technology.

In this episode, Tom Grote discusses how Aetna and Banner Health’s relationship evolved from an ACO into a new commercial joint venture – Banner|Aetna – and how with a shared vision they are improving the primary care model to transform the healthcare market in Arizona.

The collaboration between a leading regional health and a national health insurer in a 50:50 joint venture helps develop and deploy new technology solutions to improve healthcare outcomes while focusing on keeping costs low. Tom believes that joint ventures such as Banner|Aetna can also accelerate the shift from the fee-for-service model to value-based care. He discusses the incremental benefits of Aetna merging with CVS, their approach to strategic technology partnerships, and sharing of best practices among JVs of Aetna with other health systems.

Tom advises ACO leaders and Chief Population Health Officers to focus on relationships and try to align with partners who share a common vision and believe there is a better way to transform the whole healthcare system.

In this episode, Aaron Martin discusses his role and responsibilities as the Chief Digital Officer of Providence St. Joseph Health, and covers a wide range of topics including patient engagement, the innovation model they follow, and the portfolio of digital health startups that he manages as the head of Providence Ventures.

For Providence St. Joseph Health, digital is all about moving consumers from an offline to an online relationship. The focus of digital health innovation is about prioritizing problems and identifying “needle-moving” solutions that can have a big impact. He believes that entities that deliver convenience, access, and personalization will win and keep patients in future.

He advises startups to have a “small story” which addresses the here and now of delivering returns to investors, as well as a “big story” which addresses the larger impact of the solution over time. More in the podcast.