Digital Content

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. We’ll assume you’re ok with this, but you can opt out if you wish. See our 

Footer

Column Name Goes Here

Footer V2

2024 Event

Event Global

New HLTH Insights Programs

Become a Hosted Buyer

Become a Sponsor/Exhibitor

Apply for Media Pass

Promote Your Presence

2023 Event

Event Global Footer

Startup Opportunities

Hotel

2022 Event

LLC Global

2021 Event

LLC Menu

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. About Mario Schlosser:  Mario Schlosser is the CEO and co-founder of Oscar, a health-insurance start-up that is using technology, design, and data to help humanize and simplify healthcare. Previously, he co-founded the largest social gaming company in Latin America, where he led the company’s analytics and game design practices. At Bridgewater Associates, Mario developed analytical trading models as a Senior Investment Associate. Prior to Bridgewater, he worked as a consultant for McKinsey &amp; Company in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil. As a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Mario wrote and co-authored 10 computer science publications, including one of the most-cited computer science papers published in the past decade, in which he developed an algorithm to securely compute trust in randomized networks.

COVID-19 Discussion with Mario Schlosser

Blog - 0033

President and CEO of the Clinical Effectiveness Business

The massive pivot to virtual care during the pandemic not only showed the potential for disruption, but it also served as a dry run for widespread adoption of new modes of care delivery and enabling technologies.  According to a recent AMA report, <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/ama-return-on-health-report.pdf" target="_blank">Return on Health: Moving Beyond Dollars and Cents in Realizing the Value of Virtual Care,</a> “This evolution to digitally enabled care will fundamentally transform the value equation for health care professionals and payers…the attention will shift to how we can use innovative technologies to enhance overall episodes of care, blending a virtual and in-person experience in ways that improve access and experience for some patients while maintaining or improving quality and reducing long-term costs.” Virtual care affects consumers whether they’re engaging with their PCP over video or with their insurer. Regardless of who initiates the engagement, providers, payers, regulators, and other stakeholders must ensure a strong supporting infrastructure exists. The stakes, from the impacts on consumer health to safety, satisfaction, and cost, are too high to ignore.  For its part, my organization, Wolters Kluwer is providing valuable access to trusted clinically valid, expert-vetted content and tools to those driving this massive shift in care, both providers and payers. For more than 30 years, through UpToDate and other deeply entrenched healthcare platforms, we have provided healthcare professionals in traditional settings with evidence-based technologies to ensure they can confidently treat patients and answer even the most complex clinical questions.  Moving forward, all members of the healthcare ecosystem might reasonably expect that care, whether onsite, virtual, or preventative, is guided by the same evidence. With a validated base of evidence – one that is organized and accessible – we can eliminate variability across a consumer’s health journey, reduce diagnostic and treatment errors, create alignment with preventative care, and lower costs.  This is why Wolters Kluwer is expanding access to our trusted content and tools beyond traditional care settings, where its benefits are already proven. We now provide unprecedented access to these resources through two new solutions: one for virtual care vendors who are developing tools for providers and patients and one for payers who seek to engage more frequently and effectively with their members. Opportunity and Support for Virtual Care Vendors Virtual care is a rapidly evolving, quarter trillion-dollar market, and players must move quickly to meet consumer demand. A <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221101005204/en/Nearly-Four-in-Five-Americans-Who-Have-Used-Virtual-Primary-Care-Say-It-Helped-Them-Take-Charge-of-Their-Health" target="_blank">recent Harris poll </a>of 5,000 consumers, commissioned by Elevance Health, found that more than half of respondents (52%) say they would use virtual primary care in addition to the care they receive from their current primary healthcare provider within the next year.  Our Digital Health Architect platform is a content-as-a-service solution that lets virtual care vendors build, customize, and deliver their own digital health solutions. Our first suite of content, aimed at Consumer Education, includes hundreds of multimedia programs, drug information, and articles.  Virtual care vendors will rely on more than technology and usability alone. New applications must link to dynamic content and tools that have measurable impact on health, are safe for consumers, and reduce costs. Starting from scratch is costly, time-consuming, and likely to introduce more variability in care, which negatively impacts patient outcomes. We’ve created a solution for perhaps the most time-consuming and costly aspect of delivering virtual care at scale, reliably and without compromise: API-enabled access to dynamic expert healthcare content that already guides patient encounters across more than two thirds of U.S. hospital systems. Saving time and costs for virtual care developers while ensuring content is always reliable is good for them and fulfills our mission to help ensure best care everywhere. Helping Payers Increase Engagement and Improve Outcomes For insurers, engagement is critical to financial success and, more important, a driver of better health outcomes. In <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/supercharging-the-roi-of-your-care-management-programs" target="_blank">“Supercharging the ROI of your care management programs,”</a> McKinsey authors estimated that “payer care management can leave 90% or more of potential value ‘on the table’ because payers are not able to engage the vast majority of members they identify for care management.” EmmiGuide is a member engagement solution that helps payers improve outcomes by influencing positive health behaviors through compelling content and guidance based on sound behavior science. By sharing accurate, evidence–based content that is already widely used, plans not only build trust with members, but also help them gain confidence managing their health.  EmmiGuide provides access to disease treatment plans, drug information, and industry-leading patient engagement, communication, and education materials. It’s fully configurable for diverse populations and rapidly scalable across platforms – email, portal, or interactive voice response. Studies show that Emmi, the foundation for EmmiGuide, works: 83% of individuals using Emmi through their provider say it motivated them to take new actions to improve health. For payers, this is strong evidence for future ROI. <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/the-untapped-potential-of-payer-care-management" target="_blank">McKinsey advocates</a> for payer care management as well, estimating that “payers may be able to generate more than two-to-one (2:1+) ROI, meaning that for every $1 invested there may be a $2 return, while also ensuring a better, healthier experience for members.” Conclusion: Go Virtual, Stay Grounded Virtual care will continue to evolve and improve. We know now that healthcare is about more than inpatient visits; it involves a constellation of smaller interactions away from a physician’s office or hospital. These interactions will increasingly be initiated by payers as well, with members receiving targeted support to improve adherence to everything from medications to diet and exercise.  Virtual care, including prevention through care management by payers, has an important place in our healthcare and wellness futures, but the evidence and insights that have sustained us for centuries at physical points of care must guide virtual engagement too. By expanding access to our trusted, clinically valid, expert vetted content and tools beyond traditional care settings, we can be the same catalyst for best care everywhere in the virtual world as we’ve been at traditional points of care for decades.

All Virtual Care and Care Management Must be Grounded in Evidence

Blog - 0149

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. Nancy Brown is Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Association. Serving as CEO since 2008, Nancy has elevated the AHA as a global leader in heart disease and stroke science innovation. Robert Harrington, MD, is President of the American Heart Association and chairman of the department of medicine at Stanford University.

COVID-19 Discussion with The American Heart Association

Blog - 0025

Managing Director

One hundred million dollars. That’s the price tag on just one healthcare “cybersecurity incident” this year.  In April 2022, one of the largest hospital companies in the United States announced it had <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/tenet-says-cybersecurity-incident-disrupted-hospital-operations" target="_blank">suffered a cyberattack</a>. Tenet Healthcare Corporation operates 620 healthcare facilities in 34 states including 60 acute care hospitals. The attack on its systems caused weeks of service delays and downtime at various facilities, and impacted over a million patients. By the time the company released its Q2 earnings in July, <a href="https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/incident-response/tenet-health-cyberattack-monthlong-outage-led-to-100m-in-unfavorable-impact" target="_blank">it was reporting</a> “significant adverse EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization]” due to the incident and “$100M in unfavorable impact…brought on by lost revenues from interruptions to business operations and remediation.” According to <a href="https://healthitsecurity.com/news/tenet-healthcare-baptist-health-face-healthcare-data-breach-lawsuit" target="_blank">HealthITSecurity</a>, “An investigation revealed that an unauthorized party potentially infected the hospital network with malicious code and was able to remove some data from the network between March 3 and April 24. The information involved in the incident included names, Social Security numbers, health insurance information, medical record numbers, dates of service, provider and facility names, addresses, birth dates, reason for visit, procedure information, account or claim status, and billing and diagnostic codes.” The company is also facing at least one class action lawsuit <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2022/07/12/tenet-healthcare-faces-lawsuit-after-data-breach-affects-12-million-patients/" target="_blank">alleging</a> Tenet and its affiliates “failed to follow industry standards to protect patients’ data, including providing sufficient employee education, implementing multilayer security systems and installing malware detection software common among health care providers…[and] also failed to meet minimum cybersecurity standards set by multiple organizations and did not have data security practices that aligned with Federal Trade Commission guidelines.” Sad status quoThe repercussions of this attack are staggering — but hardly anomalous. Last year, it was Scripps Health suffering to the tune of $112.7 million. A May 1, 2021, cyberattack on its systems led to a month of serious disruptions to patient care and organizational function, as well as the theft of sensitive data from nearly 150,000 patients. The incident was directly reflected as lost dollars in the company’s quarterly <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/may-cyber-attack-cost-scripps-nearly-113m-lost-revenue-more-costs#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAs%20of%20June%2030th%2C%20we,%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20earnings%20report%20said." target="_blank">earnings report</a> just 60 days later: “As of June 30th, we estimate total lost revenues to be $91.6 million and incremental costs incurred to address the cyber security incident and recovery were estimated at $21.1 million.” And the year before that, it was Universal Health Services <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/cyberattack-cost-uhs-67m-in-back-half-of-2020/595799/" target="_blank">getting hit</a> by a September 2020 cyberattack that cost the company $67 million according to its year-end 10-K. These are shocking numbers, but cybersecurity issues have become so pervasive in healthcare that they rarely seem to generate the kind of alarm they should. In October alone this year, there were <a href="https://healthitsecurity.com/topic/latest-health-data-breaches" target="_blank">breach reports</a> issued by Michigan Medicine, Ascension St. Vincent’s Coastal Cardiology, Radiology Associates of Albuquerque, CommonSpirit Health, Anesthesia Associates of El Paso, Providence WA Anesthesia Services, Keystone Health, Aesthetic Dermatology Associates, CSI Laboratories, Zomo Health, Anthem MaineHealth...the list goes on. The US Department of Health and Human Services maintains a maddeningly long <a href="https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf" target="_blank">catalog</a> of cases currently under investigation involving breaches of protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. It contains over 500 active cases for 2022 alone.  And it’s not just ransomware gangs and anonymous criminal hackers that healthcare organizations have to worry about. Poor implementation of new tools also poses a serious threat. It now appears <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/advocate-aurora-health-data-breach-revealed-pixels-protected-health-information-3" target="_blank">tracking technologies</a> “from companies like Google and Facebook’s parent company Meta” may have been collecting sensitive information, including protected health information (PHI), on up to 3 million patients at Advocate Aurora Health. Similar technologies were <a href="https://www.wakemed.org/about-us/news-and-medi" target="_blank">deployed</a> by WakeMed, potentially feeding Facebook “information such as: email address, phone number, and other contact information; computer IP address; emergency contact information; information provided during online check-in, such as allergy or medication information; COVID vaccine status; and information about an upcoming appointment, such as appointment type and date, physician selected, and button/menu selections.” <a href="https://www.novanthealth.org/home/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/newsid33987/2672/novant-health-notifies-patients-of-potential-data-privacy-incident-.aspx" target="_blank">Same</a> with Novant Health, and who knows how many others. Naturally, lawsuits <a href="https://www.classaction.org/media/smidga-v-meta-platforms-inc-et-al.pdf" target="_blank">have</a> <a href="https://www.classaction.org/news/northwestern-memorial-hospital-secretly-disclosed-patients-medical-info-to-meta-class-action-alleges" target="_blank">already</a> been filed. Leave aside the ethical issues concerning potential impact on millions of individuals whose very private health information is no longer private, or those surrounding proliferating incidents of inability to deliver essential care. In a purely commercial sense, cybersecurity weakness is rapidly becoming an existential threat to financial solvency in healthcare. The number, scale, and costs of breaches and cyberattacks <a href="https://www.hipaajournal.com/ibm-2022-cost-of-a-data-breach-healthcare-10-million/" target="_blank">keep growing.</a> Sure, organizations can now purchase cybersecurity insurance as a contingency. Tenet <a href="https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/98089-tenet-healthcare-cyberattack-cost-100-million" target="_blank">has</a> “recouped $5 million from its cybersecurity insurance” to help offset that $100m loss. I sympathize with Tenet and all the other victims of cyberattacks and breaches. Healthcare organizations didn’t cause this scourge. The complexities of adapting to data-driven and digitized healthcare innovation while upholding privacy and security responsibilities and maintaining a patchwork of systems that are constantly under threat are, to say the least, daunting.  But technological evolution has produced an urgent need to recalibrate how risk is assessed and mitigated, as well as how infrastructure is monitored and adapted. The sector needs a shift in mindset. Cybersecurity is not some ancillary function of an IT department. It’s now a core competency essential to operating any healthcare business and should be addressed by leadership with actionable intelligence and insight.  Facing that truth requires effort — and investment. Continuous attention to how we collect, store, move, and utilize health information is the new cost of doing business. We already have excellent best practices, but healthcare fails to implement them consistently. We already have myriad streams of vital information on relevant cybersecurity threats and risks, but healthcare fails to use them strategically. Healthcare organizations need to establish a new kind of cybersecurity situational awareness if they hope to survive.  New and formidable cyber threats arise daily. Thwarting them requires decisive leadership and serious commitment. Healthcare cybersecurity is a challenge we must face now.

Healthcare Cybersecurity is a Challenge We Must Meet Now

Blog - 0138