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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our team will be interviewing experts from across the ecosystem to bring the HLTH community timely facts and updates. Private Medical Founder &amp; Managing Partner <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjordanshlain/" target="_blank">Dr. Jordan Shlain</a> is a practicing primary care doctor, a digital health entrepreneur, a writer, and respected thought leader.

COVID-19 Discussion with Dr. Jordan Shlain

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Global Head of Impact

In recent years, the patient experience in healthcare has undergone significant transformation, fueled by technological advancements, policy reforms, and a shift towards patient-centric care. As we reflect on these changes and look out over the next three years, there is a broad range of opportunities across the healthcare delivery ecosystem for stakeholders, including payors, providers, innovators, and others, to further elevate the patient experience. Historical Evolution The last decade witnessed a paradigm shift from a provider-centric to a patient-centric model, emphasizing personalized care, shared decision-making, enhanced communication and the introduction of digital health and engagement. Key milestones include the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Telemedicine, which have bridged geographical barriers and fostered a culture of transparency and accessibility. The Digital Leap The healthcare sector embraced digital technology, propelling Telehealth and broader digital health to mainstream prominence. Patients now have better access to care, can manage their health through mobile applications, and benefit from virtual consultations, especially crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital tools have also facilitated real-time feedback, enabling providers to tweak their services promptly to meet patients&#39; needs. Policy Impetus Policy reforms have also played a crucial role in reshaping the patient&#39;s experience. Ensuring that patient input – inclusive of everything from experiences to perspective and priorities – are considered in the lifecycle of medical devices, technologies, and drugs has been a crucial in the evolution of policy to enable increased access and improved outcomes. Policymakers from Congress to those in regulatory agencies are increasingly facing a rapidly evolving landscape that challenges the status quo of healthcare policy. Laws such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the US have expanded access to healthcare, while regulatory bodies have pushed for more transparency, quality, and accountability from healthcare providers both in the United States and internationally. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic served as the catalyst for an unprecedented expansion of telehealth and virtual care that enabled patients to access care regardless of functional limitations, restrictions, or condition. As Congress considers the future of telehealth expansions, hundreds of patient organizations have voiced their support for permanent expansion given the transformational impact virtual care has had in improving care, enhancing the patient experience, and utilizing team-based care models. Looking Ahead: 2023 and Beyond As I look out over the balance of 2023 and beyond, I see four key areas of opportunity for the collective healthcare delivery system including:<ol><li>Integrated Care Solutions: The future points towards more integrated care solutions where digital health platforms will be seamlessly intertwined with traditional healthcare services. </li><li>Smart Healthcare Infrastructure: Investments in smart healthcare infrastructure, including AI and data analytics, will provide more personalized and predictive care, enhancing the patient experience. It is important to note that these solutions require digital literacy and access to digital tools such as internet and smart phones. A successful healthcare future must also address the range of patient access to digital solutions. </li><li>Community Engagement: Engaging community stakeholders, including patient and clinician advocacy organizations, local health authorities, and other diverse community partnerships in health initiatives can foster a supportive environment for health innovations and ensure that community needs are met.</li><li>Cross-Sector Collaboration: Establishing partnerships among patient advocates, clinical advocates, healthcare providers, tech companies, and policymakers can drive more holistic solutions for improving the patient experience by accounting for all kinds of patients and patient personas, needs, and conditions. </li></ol> Actionable Steps for Stakeholders To realize a more compelling future for patients, I see five opportunities for those of us who focus on, and look forward to, the day when we no longer talk about what is needed to fix the patient experience, but what is working for the patient journey. These are the steps that can help us bridge that gap:<ol><li>Community Outreach: Engage in equitable and diverse community outreach to understand the unique needs of different populations and tailor healthcare services accordingly. Important considerations in this practice include accessibility, different capabilities, and the needs of caregivers who are often providing day-to-day care. </li><li>Promote Technological Adoption: Encourage the adoption of digital tools which can offer a more personalized and convenient patient experience.</li><li>Invest in Education and Training: Investing in education and training for healthcare professionals can ensure they are equipped to meet the evolving expectations of patients.</li><li>Policy Advocacy: Advocate for policies that promote transparency, accessibility, and quality in healthcare, laying a solid foundation for an enhanced patient experience.</li><li>Tell Stories: Patient storytelling holds a pivotal role in transforming the patient experience by serving as a conduit for empathy, understanding, and actionable insight. It encapsulates the personal narratives of individuals as they navigate the healthcare system, offering a first-hand glimpse into their triumphs, challenges, and expectations. When these stories are shared, whether through social media, community forums, or institutional platforms, they foster understanding through a deeper human connection, transcending statistical data and resonating on a more personal level. This narrative exchange not only illuminates the patient journey but also empowers other patients, providing them with a sense of camaraderie and a platform to voice their experiences.</li><li>Leverage Stories: Patient storytelling becomes a catalyst for change within the healthcare ecosystem. Healthcare providers, administrators, and policymakers can garner invaluable insights from these real-world narratives, which often unearth systemic issues or areas of improvement that may not be apparent through quantitative data alone. By paying heed to patient stories, healthcare institutions can refine their practices, developing a more patient-centric approach that addresses the individual needs and concerns of their clientele. This dialogue, characterized by openness and active listening, fosters a culture of trust and engagement, which is fundamental in elevating the overall patient experience.</li><li>Transform through Stories: Storytelling facilitates a collaborative approach to healthcare. It encourages a two-way dialogue between patients and healthcare providers, nurturing a shared decision-making environment. Storytelling builds empathy. This participatory ethos not only enriches the patient-provider relationship but also propels the healthcare system towards more holistic and effective care. Additionally, as healthcare continues to evolve with the advent of digital technologies, patient storytelling can find new avenues and platforms, amplifying its impact and reach. The collective narrative, enriched by diverse patient stories, can guide healthcare innovations, policy reforms, and community engagement, ensuring that the evolving healthcare landscape remains firmly rooted in the lived experiences and aspirations of its beneficiaries. Through sharing a wide array of patient stories, the healthcare sector can foster a more inclusive, empathic, and responsive environment, cultivating a truly transformative patient experience.</li></ol> By taking a collaborative approach and leveraging the potential of digital technologies, stakeholders across the spectrum can contribute to a more positive, impactful patient experience in the years to come. Through continued efforts in these directions, the healthcare ecosystem can build a future where patient satisfaction and well-being are at the forefront of every healthcare moment.

7 Steps to Transforming the Patient Experience – A Collective Call to Action for the Healthcare Industry

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Partner, Healthcare & Life Sciences

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies in many industries, including healthcare. With the shift towards remote care, telemedicine, and virtual consultations, healthcare providers are increasingly relying on digital tools to improve patient outcomes and optimize operations. However, as a <a href="https://www.westmonroe.com/perspectives/report/adopting-digital-mindsets-healthcare-stakeholders" target="_blank">recent survey</a> by West Monroe and Healthcare Dive reveals, healthcare organizations face significant challenges when it comes to digital transformation—and we dug into the details of why and how. The survey, which polled healthcare executives from provider organizations across the US, saw nearly all respondents reporting that their organizations had either implemented a digital transformation strategy or were planning to do so within the next year. However, the definitions of “digital strategy” varied widely, suggesting what many of us know to be true: “digital” and “digital transformation” mean very different things to different people. This lack of alignment among healthcare stakeholders around what “digital” really means in healthcare and why it matters was one of our survey’s key findings, and it’s worth expanding upon. While most respondents agreed that “becoming digital” requires a combination of technical and cultural change, when participants were asked to elaborate on which specific changes were most in keeping with their definition of a digital operating model, they overwhelmingly chose technological ones. For example, 57% of respondents selected “leveraging data and analytics to drive better outcomes in clinical operations” and 50% selected “creating new digital products and services.” This focus on technology presents challenges to the realization of the cultural changes that are necessary for digital initiatives to have real impact. Many healthcare organizations struggle with change management, and our survey found that 55% of respondents cited increased administrative burden as a reason why digital initiatives fail to meet expectations. Misaligned value propositions and a lack of organizational commitment were also cited as stumbling blocks—some of the most common pitfalls of change management. Moreover, healthcare organizations struggle to measure progress and value within digital initiatives. While external care quality outcomes and outcome metrics were cited by most respondents, only 9% said they considered their organization’s revenues to be a meaningful indicator of their digital strategy’s effectiveness. This was one of several findings suggestive of the fact that healthcare providers need to find—and would very much welcome—better ways to measure the impact of digital initiatives on their bottom line. The survey also revealed changing stakeholder perceptions, with growing numbers becoming aware that leveraging evidence-based design within healthcare facilities has the potential to improve comfort, staff productivity, and physical and emotional well-being. By adopting agile processes that leverage data and stakeholder feedback, including patients, clinicians, and employees, healthcare providers can create a culture of innovation and continuous improvement that is essential for success in the digital age. In our view, moving to a digital operating model requires making digital a defining characteristic of the business. Becoming digital will affect everything from how a patient portal is set up to how recruitment and staffing are managed. To make this transition successful, organizations need to build foundational capabilities first. That means getting everyone on the same page around the baseline organizational, operational, and technological competencies that will support better experiences for patients and providers alike, increase revenues, lower costs and improve outcomes – all in measurable ways. “Digital” as a fundamental mode of operating is becoming a table stakes principle of our industry today and will only become more essential in the future. While healthcare organizations face significant challenges in realizing the cultural change that is necessary for digital initiatives, there are also significant opportunities for those who can navigate these challenges successfully. By focusing on building foundational capabilities and creating a culture of innovation, healthcare providers can improve patient outcomes, optimize operations, and position themselves for long-term success in the digital age – and do so without breaking the bank.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities

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General Manager

If health equity is our desired destination, then value-based care must be our vehicle. At its core, value-based care is all about improving the quality of care for patients. Rather than seeing more patients, conducting more procedures and ordering more tests, healthcare systems and providers are pivoting toward proactive, targeted care approaches that aim to identify and prevent health problems before they have a chance to worsen.  By investing in a deeper understanding of patients’ health and social risks, healthcare systems can better engage populations in upstream preventive care and social services, and providers are freed to dedicate more time and allied health services to patients with chronic conditions or comorbidities that require complex care. These actions can facilitate the identification and mitigation of the larger, more complex barriers known to directly impact patient outcomes, such as the social, behavioral and environmental determinants of health. In this way, value-based care acts as a pathway for pinpointing and addressing key barriers to equal health access, <a href="https://propellerhealth.com/press/clinical-blog/how-digital-health-can-support-underserved-populations/" target="_blank">especially among more vulnerable or underserved patient populations</a>.  With value-based care in mind, health equity can be addressed in a way that is both sustainable and scalable, delivering better outcomes to entire populations of patients who have faced unjust barriers to good health. We can accomplish this by using digital health to support patient behavior change, identify unique patient motivators and personalize approaches to chronic care management. Here’s why: Whether the stated goal is improving patient quality of life, promoting population health or reducing the cost of care, better outcomes are the foundation of the value-based care model and impact patients, providers and payers alike. Each wants patients to feel healthier and live better lives, while providers and payers also seek reduced hospitalizations and lower overall healthcare costs. Frameworks to implement value-based care typically include opportunities to intervene with each of the different stakeholders within the healthcare ecosystem, thus taking advantage of the natural alignment around improving outcomes. For digital health companies focused on promoting healthy behaviors, patients become the primary focus of intervention, reasoning that improved patient outcomes will in turn reduce care-related costs for healthcare systems and payers. So, how do we help patients achieve their healthcare goals through positive, sustainable behavior change? The answer is not simple. Every patient is unique – not only in their healthcare needs, but also in the context and environment in which they receive and manage their care. It’s difficult, for example, to expect patients to be successful with a digital health tool if the patient does not have reliable, affordable internet access or a smartphone that can support a self-management app. Consequently, understanding a patient’s unique motivations, goals, barriers, and social and economic environments in addition to their healthcare needs is essential to achieving desired behaviors and patient outcomes.   To illustrate this concept, let’s consider two hypothetical patients: Jayson, a 32-year old male with uncontrolled asthma, high symptom burden and commercial insurance, and Shirley, a 66-year old female with frequent COPD exacerbations and comorbidities, on Medicare. Jayson loves to play soccer with his friends, but recently stopped when his asthma symptoms started worsening. He felt ashamed when he became winded during games. Shirley, on the other hand, has lived with COPD for the last 9 years and following a recent layoff, she lives on a tight budget and is in constant fear of overspending on medications. Given their distinct personal and socioeconomic differences, Jayson and Shirley will likely not be encouraged to change their behaviors if we attempt to engage them with the same intervention. In these examples, a common delivery method may also not be feasible – Jason may have the latest smartphone and reliable internet access, while Shirley may be more cost-conscious. This holds true for all patients – we can’t expect that utilizing a single approach to promote patient outcomes will produce effective results for everyone. Tailored experiences are essential in motivating people to change behavior. Understanding key patient traits, current behaviors and environmental exposures can help create a more customizable experience and present opportunities to engage patients in ways not previously possible.    Digital health is an immensely powerful tool for enabling personalized care and optimizing the right intervention, at the right time. Thoughtfully-collected data may allow for a more holistic patient experience, while also providing important insights to providers and payers. With higher quality objective insights, providers will be empowered to make more informed treatment decisions with patients, and payers can effectively evaluate care outcomes and apply learnings more broadly to a variety of patient populations, from pediatric to geriatric to those historically underserved.  In fact, this is a principle already being explored in chronic respiratory condition management. Results from a study evaluating the effect of a comprehensive intervention that combined telehealth and digital technology in <a href="https://propellerhealth.com/press/clinical-blog/helping-students-with-asthma/" target="_blank">children with asthma showed improvement in controller medication adherence</a> – 8% on average, with about one-third of children experiencing greater than 20% increase in adherence. The children in this study were from minority, low-income families in inner-city areas, where traditional approaches of healthcare may not have been able to adequately address certain barriers or risk factors. Although future research needs to be done, this is a promising study that demonstrates the feasibility and need for comprehensive approaches to healthcare. Among a <a href="https://propellerhealth.com/outcomes/" target="_blank">growing body of research focused on the impact of digital health enabled clinical care</a> for underserved populations, this is one example that highlights the importance of addressing socioeconomic barriers to care, such as access to technology.  The road to health equity is a long one, but there is hope that it may not be as distant as we had initially envisioned. Value-based care is just one piece of the puzzle, and improved health outcomes will require systemic changes upstream in addition to quality care, such as safer living conditions or increased education and employment opportunities. However, as digital health adoption continues to grow among patients, providers and payers, there will be tremendous opportunity to deploy value-based approaches within patient care. If we can continue to approach chronic care management with a focus on quality outcomes and patient-centric interventions, particularly among those who have been historically left behind, we can inform healthcare stakeholders and policymakers to drive the systemic changes that will ensure health equity in access, affordability and health improvements at scale.  About Propeller Health At Propeller Health, our mission is to empower every person living with a chronic respiratory disease to take control of their health so they can live a better life. As a leader in digital health and therapeutics for asthma and COPD, we work to improve clinical outcomes, healthcare costs, and quality of life by supporting patients in managing their condition with their healthcare provider.   Propeller’s platform includes FDA-cleared medical devices, consumer apps and access to clinical data for provider monitoring throughout the care journey, to create value to all stakeholders. We enable a personalized digital experience with a human touch used by patients, caregivers, providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare organizations across the US, Europe and Asia. Propeller Health is a wholly owned subsidiary of ResMed. For more information, visit <a href="https://propellerhealth.com/" target="_blank">www.propellerhealth.com</a>.

Health equity through value-based care: wishful thinking or digital health future?

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