From left: (Moderator) Chitra Nawbatt, Global Head, Health Care Partnerships, General Catalyst; Aaron Martin, Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer, Providence; Snezana Mahon, Chief Operating Officer, Transcarent; Neal Patel, Chief Information Officer, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Officer; Tressa Springmann, Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer, LifeBridge Health
This article is part of a series powered by HLTH and CHIME to highlight key insights and perspectives from leading executives speaking at ViVE.
first day of inauguration ViVE Conference At the Miami Beach Convention Center, offers multiple perspectives on how to balance risk and reward through the prism of strategic investors and health systems partnering with startups, ROI, and improving health equity. Micky Tripathi, head of the Office of the National Health IT Coordinator, highlighted new advances in improving EHR interoperability and functionality.
Entrepreneurial Tourism
A bittersweet observation from a panel discussion on strategic partnerships, Buy, build or collaborate?It’s a matter of strategy, is that hospitals and health systems love to learn about new technology and how different companies approach it, but that interest can be misinterpreted by startups as a sign that they are particularly interested in their company.Founder and CEO of Hash Health John Bass warned half-jokingly, “Selling to the hospital will cost you many years.”
Aimee Quirk, CEO of Oschner Ventures, observes that it is crucial for startups to have a clear understanding of their business and the “give” of the investment firm they are pitching. The panel also included McKesson Ventures partner Michelle Snyder and KP Ventures managing director Liz Rockett, who shared that there needs to be alignment between startups and investors on business goals.
Hospitals need to get better at assessing business model risks
Aaron, Executive Vice President and Digital Officer, Providence Martin Noting that hospitals need to get better at business model risks as part of the panel discussion, Forget money, tell me ROI!.
“They assess risk in terms of technical or operational risk, but they don’t really do a good job in terms of business model risk. So I’ve been in this situation more than I can count, where we brought in a company from a partner A company that does some kind of change from a relationship perspective. The organization will say ‘Okay, that’s cannibalism; this may compete with our existing business. My response is, ‘Okay, great. Show me that with Well-funded plans for the competition. It’s crickets. They’re like, ‘Okay, what do you mean? We did our job, and we said no, right?’
“I said, ‘Okay, you’re going to compete because they’re going to work with the whole health system and you’re going to compete with them. They have a better model than you. So what are you going to do against them? Tell me to accept their budget Because we have the budget to do this. As you might imagine, this is a very controversial discussion. Not very fun. I don’t think the health system has done a good job of comprehensively assessing the 360 [degree] “What if I don’t do this?” Risk
Pregnancy is not a disease
Maternal health came up several times at conferences, especially in the context of health equity, but also in panel discussions on achieving ROI in healthcare.
In a fireside chat, Dr. Margaret-Mary Wilson, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President, UnitedHealth Group, discusses how payers are struggling to address the social determinants of health, especially for African American women. To address the relatively high mortality rate of pregnant black women, the death toll is 4 times that of women in other demographics. Payers are building maternity care infrastructure, including training doulas, who provide emotional and physical support to pregnant women.
“Women should not die of pregnancy,” Wilson said. “It’s not a disease.”
During the panel discussion, Martin also talked about how health systems are working with startups to improve pregnancy outcomes through a partnership with health tech company Wildflower.
“We built a platform that did a great job of engaging with patients during pregnancy and then, you know, t+ three years postpartum into paediatrics. If you get such a high level of engagement, then you can build a risk around it model and start really reducing costs. That’s the next phase for Wildflower. We’re very excited about businesses that help us create new businesses or help us transform. Those tend to be very, very high ROI.”
Apply real-world evidence to support patients
Discuss the application of real-world evidence gathered through wearables and devices used by patients to generate meaningful insights into their condition, Data Relationships: Unraveling Real-World Evidencegained compelling insights from panelists, especially in Parkinson’s disease.
“We have a research program at AbbVie on Parkinson’s disease, and its wearables are part of that research,” said Michael Eaddy, vice president of AbbVie’s Center for Real-World Evidence Specialty Dr. said. “It’s very important because a lot of the time these patients are tracking it based on what the patient is stressing to the doctor. So doctors are now trying to change the dose based on maximizing the amount of time the patient isn’t walking around, but now You have a wearable that specifically tracks that information and what’s important to the patient.”
Exponent Group Vice President and Chief Scientist John Doyle also shared his experience working with Parkinson’s patients: “Parkinson’s patients have a lot of unmet clinical needs and I’m just reflecting on the work I do for Michael J. Fox At one point, we tried to capture the patient experience in a way that insurers, payers, and PBMs valued. But that was difficult. It was almost like a bridge that couldn’t be measured by some type of walking test or some type of patient-reported outcome A real world experience. But right now, connecting all of your responses about passive and creating metrics around the patient with the right sensors and wearables to really capture what makes sense for the patient’s movement should be appreciated by all stakeholders a major breakthrough.”
Improve access to health records with cross-EHR enforcement and API capabilities
In Tripathi’s keynote, he highlighted some of the provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act, which went into effect this year, including “information blocking” rules and the enforcement structure of API functions.
“The law expressly states that information holders and entities working with suppliers, technology developers, and public information networks must not interfere with the exchange of information because information authorized by state and federal law may be used for authorized purposes.”
He noted that the rule is in addition to HIPAA, which allows organizations to share treatment and payment information but does not require them to do so. HIPAA-regulated organizations are effectively obligated to do so to avoid fines, the information blocking clause says.
Tripathi said it recently started sharing data on the types of complaints it received about information blocking. He noted that it has received an average of one complaint a day since last year, with 75 percent of those complaints coming from patients, most of them allegations against providers and provider organizations that they claim prevent them from accessing their own information.
He added that this is the first year that the ONC will need technical specifications to allow APIs to scale across EHR platforms by the end of the year as part of the 21st Century Cures Act. According to Tripathi, developers don’t have to deal with proprietary APIs, which adds cost and creates friction.
