EP258: Areas of Promise, With Seven Health Care Thought Leaders

In this health care podcast, seven thought leaders talk about the areas of promise they see in health care in 2020. Seven thought leaders include:

Kimberly Noel, MD, from Stony Brook Medicine Eric Weaver, from Innovista Health Solutions Suzanne Delbanco, from Catalyst for Payment Reform Sue Schade, from StarBridge Advisors Naomi Fried, from Health Innovation Strategies Joe Grundy, from Grundy Consulting Adrian Rubstein, from Merck

Just a couple of comments up front here. I don’t want to further my reputation for dropping major spoilers, however, so I’ll keep this short. Many of the thought leaders today talk about AI in various contexts. Are you rolling your eyes right now? If so, let me remind everyone about the Gartner Hype Cycle. The first step is wild-eyed enthusiasm. The next step in the hype cycle is anger, the old trough of disillusionment. I’d suggest that as far as AI is concerned, we are coming out of that trough and AI—be it artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence or machine learning or deep learning or whatever you choose to call it—it is being used, for reals, for various applications.

Other corroborations among our thought leaders include the importance of exalting primary care, in the form of what some may call direct primary care and Zeev Neuwirth calls complex-condition care or condition-specific care—a relationship model, if you will.

Another idea that comes up in various ways is the idea of breaking down silos and getting everyone with a stake in patient health to the table and focused on achieving better patient outcomes using all the technology and wherewithal available to us in 2020. By all the stakeholders, I mean going beyond the usual suspects of providers and insurance carriers—meaning employers. Also meaning Pharma, in the sense of Pharma taking the opportunity to collaborate more deeply toward outcomes their medications can potentially confer … IRL with RWE.

Today’s episode features the following guests:

Kimberly Noel, MD, MPH, is a board-certified, preventive medicine physician. She serves as the telehealth director and deputy chief medical information officer of Stony Brook Medicine, where she provides leadership to all telehealth activities of the health system. Dr. Noel is also the chief quality officer of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) for the family medicine department, working on quality improvement and population health management for National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) designation. She practices occupational medicine clinically and provides digital solutions for employee wellness programs. She is an appointee the New York State Department of Health Regulatory Modernization Initiative Telehealth Advisory Committee and has won many service and innovation awards for health care. In academia, her research areas are in machine learning, risk models, and remote patient monitoring. Dr. Noel has developed several educational curriculums, including a 40-hour telehealth curriculum for the School of Medicine, as well as interprofessional educational curriculums with the School of Health Technology and Management, Nursing, Dentistry, and Social Work. Dr. Noel is a graduate of Duke, George Washington, and Johns Hopkins Universities. She is a proud graduate of the Stony Brook Preventive Medicine program, whereby she is now working collaboratively with the residency program leadership on development of a telehealth preventive medicine service.

Eric Weaver, DHA, MHA, is nationally recognized for his work in primary care transformation and value-based care. As a corporate vice president for Innovista Health Solutions, he oversees enterprise strategy and technology adoption for a fast-growing population health management services organization. Dr. Weaver has been recognized for his contribution to the health care industry by receiving the ACHE Robert S. Hudgens Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year and the Modern Healthcare “Up & Comers” Award in 2016. Prior to joining the Innovista leadership team in 2015, he was the president and CEO of Austin, Texas–based Integrated ACO—one of the more successful physician-led accountable care organizations in the country.

Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, is the executive director of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), an independent, nonprofit corporation working to catalyze employers, public purchasers, and others to implement strategies that produce higher-value health care and improve the functioning of the health care marketplace. In addition to her duties at CPR, Suzanne serves on the advisory board of The Source on Healthcare Price & Competition at the University of California–Hastings and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute. Previously, she was the founding CEO of The Leapfrog Group. Suzanne holds a PhD in public policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy and an MPH from the School of Public Health at the University of California–Berkeley.

Sue Schade, MBA, is a nationally recognized health IT leader and Principal at StarBridge Advisors providing consulting, coaching, and interim management services. She recently served as the interim chief information officer (CIO) at Stony Brook Medicine in New York. She was a founding advisor at Next Wave Health Advisors and in 2016 served as the interim CIO at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio.

Sue previously served as CIO for the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers and, prior to that, as CIO for Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Her previous experience includes leadership roles at Advocate Health Care in Chicago, Ernst & Young, and a software/outsourcing vendor.

Naomi Fried, PhD, is an innovative and digital health thought leader and founder and CEO of the boutique advisory firm, Health Innovation Strategies, which focuses on innovation program design and digital health strategy. Naomi was the first vice president of innovation and external partnerships at Biogen, the first chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, and vice president of innovation and advanced technology at Kaiser Permanente. She served on the board of directors of the American Telemedicine Association and the Governor of Massachusetts’ Innovation Council.

Joe Grundy has firsthand experience with nearly every aspect of primary care transformation. He has led policy and product development for the American Academy of Family Physicians, led in-the-trenches transformation of a primary care group, and served as national faculty for Medicare’s Comprehensive Primary Care Plus transformation project. He cofounded Grundy Consulting to work with stakeholders across the industry in order to accelerate the rate of effective transformation in primary care.

Adrian Rubstein is a medical adviser and innovation manager at Merck KGaA, where he works to bring cutting-edge technologies to improve patients’ lives. He also helps new biotech companies in strategy development, investment, and business analysis.

 

02:41 Dr. Kimberly Noel and her thoughts on areas of promise. 02:53 Advocacy for inclusive innovation. 04:01 Why inclusive innovation is an area of promise in the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). 04:52 “Who is most likely to be disadvantaged?” 05:27 Eric Weaver’s thoughts on areas of promise. 05:42 Relationship-driven, team-based primary care. 07:14 What investors are focused on right now. 07:34 Where the tipping point is in value-based care. 08:03 AI as another trend that will help improve health care. 08:48 Incorporating social determinants into primary care and the transformative potential of AI. 11:07 Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform and her thoughts on areas of promise. 11:26 Employers making the health care space work better for them as an area of promise. 11:52 Employers seeking out high-value health care in nontraditional ways. 13:10 Where to look to seek high-value health care. 14:37 Employers bringing in really good data. 16:15 Sue Schade’s thoughts on areas of promise. 16:32 How leveraging electronic health records is an area of promise. 16:58 Why eliminating clinician burnout is also part of this area of promise. 17:26 Patient engagement and the patient journey as another area of promise. 18:08 “You have to approach all of these from a partnership between digital, IT, and operations.” 18:30 Enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a third area of focus/promise. 19:01 AI as an area of promise and an area of hype. 19:48 Naomi Fried’s thoughts on areas of promise in health care. 20:02 Digital health developments from the pharma perspective. 22:15 The digital health start-up world as another area of interest and promise. 22:37 The importance of data and the importance of validating those data for digital health solutions. 23:02 Personalized medicine and digital health. 24:32 More jobs in digital health within clinical-grade solutions. 25:01 Joe Grundy’s thoughts on areas of promise in health care. 25:06 The direct primary care model as an area of promise. 26:08 “Questioning the very validity of our understanding of ‘quality’ in health care.” 28:01 Adrian Rubstein’s thoughts on areas of promise in health care. 28:08 AI in emergency medicine as an area of promise. 28:53 CRISPR gene editing as an area of promise. 29:59 Virtual reality/augmented reality as another area of promise in health care.