Earlier than HLTH 2022 kicks off subsequent week in Las Vegas, we requested 17 digital well being executives for his or her predictions and main themes to anticipate at HLTH.
1. Keith Reynolds, Chief Working Officer at Welldoc
Entry to care is a central focus for healthcare given a number of components: a rising inhabitants being impacted with persistent circumstances, elevated resourcing constraints, and rising fatigue and workload amongst suppliers. A latest examine indicated that it will require a PCP 26.7 hours/ day to serve their sufferers in the event that they adopted the nationwide beneficial pointers for preventive and persistent care.
Large tech and healthcare firms are paying consideration, as indicated by the latest strikes of Amazon, CVS and Walgreens. They’re all attempting to deal with this problem of broader entry by launching new main care fashions and digital companies.
Digital health is a essential enabler as we take into consideration the brand new fashions of healthcare rising to deal with entry points. The shift from digital well being being siloed from care to being a central connector between people and their care groups ought to now be the usual, in order that helpful insights into vitals, signs and repair wants will be managed and addressed past the everyday workplace go to.
2. Emily Goetz, VP of Industrial at Bright.md
I anticipate workforce shortages and burnout shall be main themes at HLTH, in addition to the digital entrance door. The staffing disaster continues, however I’ve lately seen a shift from implementing short-term “fixes” in direction of figuring out sustainable options. I’ve additionally observed the resurgence of the time period “digital entrance door” these days with well being methods rethinking their entry factors to care. As direct-to-consumer care firms shift client preferences, well being methods are searching for solutions round how one can ship handy care at decrease prices that meets these rising expectations. I’m wanting ahead to listening to what’s working and what we’re studying with automation to navigate sufferers by way of the healthcare journey.
I’m additionally beginning to see discuss round “telehealth 2.0” – shifting from merely replicating the in-person expertise to truly rethinking care supply. Digital visits that don’t clear up capability challenges or combine into present workflows want to vary. It’s encouraging to see extra leaders speaking about asynchronous, distant affected person monitoring, rethinking persistent illness administration, and different methods to foster longer-term strategic progress, and I’m actually wanting ahead to conversations that middle affected person wants and artistic options at HLTH.
3. Mark Engelen, CEO of RXLive
Because the healthcare world continues to quickly undertake telemedicine, transfer towards value-based care, and fight rising pharmacy prices, HLTH 2022 will showcase digital well being firms that embrace these tendencies: treatment administration options, telemedicine companies, and inhabitants well being analytics. One-on-one consideration helps sufferers enhance their high quality of life and healthcare organizations enhance care outcomes, and know-how ought to empower physicians and pharmacists to ship that personalised care at scale. By higher connecting total healthcare groups, leveraging inhabitants well being knowledge, and delivering clear, actionable data to sufferers about their therapy plans, we’ll see higher adherence and a diminished burden on total healthcare methods.
4. Robin Shah, Thyme Care CEO and Co-Founder
We anticipate a continued shift within the digital well being ecosystem in direction of personalised, disease-specific care that prioritizes help all through all sides of therapy. The development is evident: persistent care sufferers and their households desire a care crew that helps them by way of each step of the method, together with sourcing and explaining viable choices, in addition to a constant care crew well-versed on a affected person’s given case. The digital well being business is rising to the event, with value-based most cancers care on the forefront, as we are going to see at HLTH 2022. As this development continues, firms will face the problem of making complete help by way of all sides of the sufferers’ journey to well being and doing so in a cheap method.
5. Dr. Lissy Hu, President, Linked Networks, at WellSky
The pandemic confirmed us that the affected person overwhelmingly wish to obtain their care at dwelling. Now comes the problem of delivering it at scale. What works on a subscale stage usually breaks down when prolonged to a regional or nationwide stage. That shall be a serious theme of this convention – enabling new fashions of care supply at scale.
6. Megan Callahan, COO at Twill
I’m anticipating to see three interconnected themes come up repeatedly this 12 months at HLTH. First, psychological well being shouldn’t be seen as some adjunctive drawback to unravel. It’s integral to bodily well being and must be handled as such. Behavioral healthcare can enhance every part from despair and anxiousness, to emphasize administration, food plan, bodily exercise, sleep, therapy adherence, and the listing goes on. Medical-behavioral integration, or behavioral drugs, is important to drive true well being outcomes.
Second, the one-size-fits-all strategy to healthcare will more and more really feel like a factor of the previous. Precision Care, the place an individual’s wants, particular person traits, and preferences are factored into the tailor-made care they obtain will finally prevail. Many firms, each digital and brick- and-mortar, are remodeling to allow a way forward for Precision Care. We really feel properly positioned at Twill to play a number one position in establishing this future.
And eventually, well being fairness and social determinants of well being will proceed to be essential discussions. Shifting care digital actually improved entry, however there are nonetheless so many extra issues on this area to unravel. This theme relates again to my second level that whereas entry is essential, tailoring care to the person shall be key going ahead.
7. Dr. Peggy Chou, Chief Medical Officer at Stability Health
Digital well being and its transformational guarantees are not an summary idea to healthcare methods and practices. Nonetheless, organizations at the moment are greater than ever searching for confirmed options which tackle their most urgent challenges – workers turnover, morale, and profitability amongst them – and whereas these are massive challenges, healthcare organizations that take a extra transformative mindset can leverage one of the best options to their full potential.
8. Brian Whorley, CEO of Paytient
I anticipate reflection on immediately’s realities — diminished capability at suppliers, a down market, rising inflation, and so on. — and quick ahead to how sufferers and suppliers can have a more in-depth and extra direct relationship within the years to return. As we speak’s headlines trace that it’s changing into ever extra doable as value transparency rolls out and customers really feel an erosion of belief in establishments. I’m notably eager about how people and employers are addressing skyrocketing healthcare prices and entry to essential care.
The pandemic not solely harmed folks on a biblical scale, however it additionally harmed the well being system’s operational capability to supply care. Caregivers left the workforce, reduction {dollars} have been consumed by spikes in prices, and now we’re staring down a recession. One constructive facet impact of previous market downturns was healthcare practitioners returning to hospital networks and the healthcare workforce. At HLTH 2022, I’m eager about listening to how healthcare leaders and innovators are working to manage prices in 2023 and 2024 whereas delivering accessible and inexpensive care to sufferers who want it.
9. Nicole Rogas, President at symplr
Monetary pressures are precedence primary for hospitals and well being methods and would be the main focus of HLTH. This could shock nobody, as a Kaufman Corridor Report predicts that 53% of hospitals are projected to have adverse margins all through 2022. Moreover, primarily based on our personal analysis, we all know that the pandemic prompted hospitals and well being methods to speculate closely in workforce and expertise administration options, in addition to clinician scheduling options and compliance, high quality, and security options. That is indicative of how essential – although traditionally not prioritized – healthcare operations actually are. With narrowing margins and continued workforce shortages forward, optimization and automation of operations are formally mission-critical, and because of this, these matters will function prominently at HLTH.
10. Matt Dickson, Senior Vice President of Stericycle Communication Solutions
Like the remainder of the US economic system digital well being firms won’t be immune from sturdy monetary headwinds being forecasted over the subsequent 12 months. Digital well being firms have to concentrate on constructing a demonstrable ROI case that doubtless requires deeper and higher integrations into well being methods that transcend what’s required to supply their particular service. Monetary methods integrations that draw a transparent line as to how you might be driving high line progress or bottom-line financial savings, medical methods that present you might be producing higher outcomes resembling diminished size of stays or diminished readmissions, CRM methods that present elevated engagement, and so on.
An emphasis have to be positioned on aggregating that data into dashboards that permit stakeholders at well being methods to simply digest, analyze and disseminate that data to everything of their numerous inner companions in advertising, IT, operations, and so on.
11. Ramakant Vempati, Co-founder and President, Wysa
In 2022, psychological well being was top-of-mind at each healthcare occasion, with even the Surgeon Basic figuring out it as the highest well being precedence for the nation. HLTH 2022 offers us an opportunity to increase on this dialog and think about how digital psychological well being options can increase entry to psychological well being help, the impression they’ll have on the folks and organizations that use them, and the position applied sciences like AI will play in its future. The promise of digital psychological well being has at all times been accessibility, and we now have to go in direction of displaying efficacy. With this, 2023 may very well be the 12 months the place we will present psychological well being help for everybody, anyplace, on a regular basis.
12. Jay Goss, Basic Associate, Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health (Wavemaker 360)
There isn’t any healthcare group within the U.S. that’s not consumed with the clinician scarcity drawback. Wavemaker 360 is aware of this as a result of we’re in fixed dialog with the nation’s main healthcare establishments, because of our 300+ sturdy LP base. This 12 months’s HLTH occasion is destined to have loads of dialogue round how healthcare organizations (of all sizes and styles) can overcome this problem. On the one hand, being smarter with staffing is a superb reply, and corporations like Trusted Well being are doing precisely this. Then again, firms which have options that improve the productiveness of clinicians (medical doctors, nurses and different allied healthcare professionals) and allow them to follow on the high of their license is the opposite approach of tackling this problem. In so doing, the U.S. healthcare system (as a complete) can do extra with much less. Corporations like Luna, DeepScribe, Luminate Well being and Ufonia are bringing options to the healthcare business that do precisely this.
13. Shireen Abdullah, CEO of Yumlish
One overarching theme we anticipate to see is a concentrate on equitable entry to assets and well being interventions. Greater than that although, and on the coronary heart of what we’re carrying out at Yumlish, is a dedication to truly assembly underserved communities the place they’re and tailoring options to cultural contexts to drive higher outcomes. Underpinning all of this, and all conversations at HLTH, are the implications of inflation, an ongoing pandemic, and an ever- growing older inhabitants.
The digital well being ecosystem is experiencing a change from one targeted on person acquisition to at least one set on demonstrating efficiency by way of sustainable margins. That can present up in how digital well being patrons speak about their methods notably with respect to outcomes and affected person expertise. Moreover, the digital well being revolution continues to present sufferers larger company in their very own wellness regimens.
We suspect that many enterprise fashions that discovered traction within the earlier days of the pandemic shall be examined now that customers have pocketbook stress and extra choices on the desk.
A few of these firms could have a troublesome time. The problem for the business is guaranteeing that we don’t endure an excessive amount of collateral injury and lose progress by actually good firms benefiting underserved communities that simply want time to ascertain.
14. Mustafa Shabib, Co-Founding father of Season
Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) will proceed to be an essential a part of the business dialog as well being methods and payers start to stress take a look at which options merely examine advertising containers, versus these which can be driving engagement and enhancing outcomes. It’s heartening to see the rising understanding that the foundation explanation for a lot of the nation’s well being points stem from society’s systemic issues and that healthcare should shift to prevention.
Equally, the dearth of psychological well being suppliers is a urgent matter of concern and will take middle stage at HLTH. To handle this scarcity, we’re in dire want of cross useful help groups that present early entry to care and transfer care upstream in direction of a extra holistic prevention targeted strategy. Doing so would alleviate pent up stress on the well being system and allow present suppliers to deal with probably the most acute affected person wants.
15. Rex Chekal, Principal Product Designer at TXI
At HLTH 2022, we’ll see digital well being corporations will proceed to stretch innovation past the affected person. The healthtech area is an more and more two-sided market: sufferers and practitioners are equal elements of the equation. By figuring out the overlap in affected person and practitioner wants, we will enhance outcomes for sufferers and empower practitioners to enhance care over time. Physicians have to know why a particular resolution is the right device to unlock improved affected person outcomes, and sufferers should perceive its operate so that they’ll decide to utilizing it. The successful medtech corporations of the long run will make investments equally in each affected person and doctor ache factors throughout the discovery course of and ease these areas of friction with considerate product design.
16. Neal Stine, Basic Supervisor at uMed Technologies
I feel the primary era of “digital” was extra about supplier effectivity, or put one other approach, shifting duty/burden from the supplier onto the affected person. I don’t know what number of sufferers discover filling out varieties and printing them at dwelling earlier than a supplier go to “empowering” As a degree of comparability, do we actually really feel “empowered” utilizing self-checkout on the grocery retailer? Or simply one thing else we’ve come to just accept.
The brand new wave of digital is about bringing collectively efficiency-focused initiatives with those who truly empower the affected person. At uMed, we attain out on to sufferers – on behalf of their acknowledged suppliers – to convey them the chance to take part in medical research. It really works for the affected person as a result of they don’t at all times know the place to look / how one can discover research. It’s a win for the supplier as a result of the executive and IT burdens related to recruitment are eliminated.
I imagine that the subsequent wave of digital innovation shall be comparable – Approaches that make the affected person an lively a part of the care dialogue, and outcomes targeted on what’s essential to the affected person versus statistical significance that has little bearing on their lives. Digital well being is uniquely poised to fill many of those gaps, and the choices which can be rigorously examined with important outcomes would be the clear winners within the coming 12 months.
17. Kristin Russel, Chief Advertising Officer at symplr
Hospitals and well being methods are going through challenges from all sides—inflation is squeezing already tight margins, their workforce continues to burn out and resign at staggering charges, and affected person volumes are on the rise as COVID instances collide with an early chilly and flu season. The instruments that bought us by way of the final two years are insufficient to unravel for this triple menace, as new symplr knowledge exhibits, executives at supplier organizations imagine their well being system’s administration of supplier knowledge is ineffective. HLTH shall be an setting for frank conversations between key stakeholders about how one can streamline know-how belongings, synchronize know-how for an enterprise-level strategy, and finally facilitate higher take care of sufferers and a greater work setting for medical and administrative workers at hospitals.
