Healthcare executives are looking for technology and ideas that promote connected care, but to make those connections they need to know how to handle data
AI may have ruled the roost at last week's ViVE conference, but the underlying theme to both that event and the upcoming HIMSS conference will be data management.
Simply put, AI won't work unless you know what to do with the data.
Healthcare's decision-makers are focused on information, as both a tool to improve clinical care and a means of defining and extracting value. But as new strategies and technology give hospitals, health systems, payers, and others access to more and more data, there are growing problems with how to analyze and store data, how to push the right data to providers and payers, how to move it from one entity to another, and how to secure it.
Andrew Trister, MD, PhD, chief medical and scientific officer at Verily, Alphabet's research arm, says many healthcare organizations are actually putting the cart before the horse on innovation. They're moving quickly with new programs that use AI tools without taking the time to make sure they have a handle on data storage and analysis.
"The decision-makers aren't thinking ahead," he said. "You have to be very deliberate in how AI is going out."
That's going to be crucial, he says, as healthcare organizations pivot from using AI for back office and administrative tasks to focus on clinical programs that affect patient outcomes.
Data is also the catalyst for the growing number of collaborations between health systems and large tech companies, as hospital executives are quickly realizing they don't have the resources or the expertise to handle what's coming into the enterprise. Whereas Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others were initially seen as disruptors in the healthcare space, they're now becoming valued partners and collaborators.
Highmark Health, for example, announced a partnership with Google Cloud and Epic to extract and analyze data from its payer and provider platforms to improve care management.
"We're data rich but insight poor," said Richard Clarke, the Pennsylvania-based health system's chief technology officer, echoing a lament that many health system executives are saying. By leveraging the resources of Google, he said, Highmark can pull out and sort the data it needs to put before its care providers, giving them actionable information when they need it.
"They're going to get information that they've never had before," he added, referencing the health system's strategies for addressing social determinants of health and creating virtual care platforms that target health as well as care.
Understanding innovation
Data is both a curse and a cure in healthcare. At ViVE, health systems and vendors touted programs and strategies aimed at reducing the workload for doctors and nurses—a workload that has been built up over the years by new technologies that bring more data into the industry. In a sense, the industry has come full circle, embracing technology to improve healthcare and now looking for ways to clean up the problems caused by technology.
In one sense, the industry's biggest problem has been embracing and adapting to change. EHRs were originally viewed as an important platform for gathering and managing data, but providers weren't ready for the technology, and we all know what happened. At a ViVE panel on innovation, executives from four large and forward-thinking health systems said change management is the first and most important step in introducing new technologies and strategies. The soil has to be tilled and fertilized before new ideas can grow.
That may be why concepts like telehealth and virtual care have taken so long to sprout. Health systems and hospitals saw single-digit adoption until the pandemic, when everyone jumped on the bandwagon out of necessity and adoption surged to roughly 75%. While the pendulum has swung back since then as patients look to restore that in-person connection, both they and their doctors have seen enough data to understand the value of both telehealth and virtual care.
Likewise the acute care at home movement and remote patient monitoring, the subject of more than a few conversations on the ViVE floor. Healthcare providers are intrigued by the data they can get from their patients outside the hospital setting, especially at home, and how that data can be used to improve care management and outcomes.
Those strategies are part of a much larger effort to move healthcare away from periodic, or fee-for-service, care. Harnessing data from outside the traditional healthcare site gives providers and payers more insight into how care can be delivered more effectively.
Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), says the healthcare industry is coming around to the idea of using technology—specifically, digital health technology—to care for the whole patient, not just the sick or injured patient. She feels healthcare organizations are adopting digital health at a faster pace than expected.
Giving Value to Data
Which brings us back to data, and where events like ViVE, HIMSS and HLTH will go. Interoperability is an important topic because health systems, payers, and others in the industry need to be able to exchange data without barriers or hiccups. Hence the federal push for TEFCA and FHIR. Data that can only live in one place loses a lot of its value.
And data gains value in how it is shared and used. That's why connected care is a buzzword. Some have suggested a connected care showcase, much like the interoperability showcases at ViVE and HIMSS, where attendees can see how data is collected and used to connect disparate elements of the healthcare ecosystem, from providers and payers to social services, housing and food services, employers and retail services, schools and senior care facilities.
Today's healthcare executives are looking for these connections. They want to see technologies like AI and digital health that can collect and use data to connect the dots. And they want those tools and programs to make seamless connections, so that doctors and nurses are spending less time working with the technology and more time working with patients.
“HHS is in regular contact with [UnitedHealth Group] leadership, state partners, and with numerous external stakeholders to better understand the nature of the impacts and to ensure the effectiveness of UHG’s response,” the statement reads. “HHS has made clear its expectation that UHG does everything in its power to ensure continuity of operations for all healthcare providers impacted and HHS appreciates UHG’s continuous efforts to do so.”
“HHS is also leading interagency coordination of the federal government’s related activities, including working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the White House, and other agencies to provide credible, actionable threat intelligence to industry wherever possible,” the agency continued.
For providers affected by the attack, which has all but shut down UHG’s nationwide network for more than two weeks, HHS outlined five steps being coordinated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):
Medicare providers needing to change clearinghouses that they use for claims processing during these outages should contact their Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) to request a new electronic data interchange (EDI) enrollment for the switch. The MAC will provide instructions based on the specific request to expedite the new EDI enrollment. CMS has instructed the MACs to expedite this process and move all provider and facility requests into production and ready to bill claims quickly. CMS is strongly encouraging other payers, including state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) agencies and Medicaid and CHIP managed care plans, to waive or expedite solutions for this requirement.
CMS will issue guidance to Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations and Part D sponsors encouraging them to remove or relax prior authorization, other utilization management, and timely filing requirements during these system outages. CMS is also encouraging MA plans to offer advance funding to providers most affected by this cyberattack.
CMS strongly encourages Medicaid and CHIP managed care plans to adopt the same strategies of removing or relaxing prior authorization and utilization management requirements, and consider offering advance funding to providers, on behalf of Medicaid and CHIP managed care enrollees to the extent permitted by the State.
If Medicare providers are having trouble filing claims or other necessary notices or other submissions, they should contact their MAC for details on exceptions, waivers, or extensions, or contact CMS regarding quality reporting programs.
CMS has contacted all of the MACs to make sure they are prepared to accept paper claims from providers who need to file them. While we recognize that electronic billing is preferable for everyone, the MACs must accept paper submissions if a provider needs to file claims in that method.
The agency also announced that it is working with MACs to address requests from providers seeking accelerated payments, similar to those issued during the pandemic.
Finally, HHS said the incident should spur the healthcare industry to take a serious look at its cybersecurity practices. The agency pointed out that it released a concept paper late last year outlining cybersecurity strategies, and that followed a National Cybersecurity Strategy unveiled a few months prior by the Biden Administration.
“HHS will continue to communicate with the healthcare sector and encourage continued dialogue among affected parties,” the agency concluded. “We will continue to communicate with UHG, closely monitor their ongoing response to this cyberattack, and promote transparent, robust response while working with the industry to close any gaps that remain.”
Both the AHA and AMA have called on federal officials to take action on the two-week old cyberattack, including asking United HealthGroup to be more transparent on its actions to resolve the issue
The American Hospital Association has added its voice to growing calls for federal intervention in the Change Healthcare cyberattack.
In a March 4 letter to Congressional leaders, AHA President and CEO Richard Pollack said the “unprecedented attack,” now more than two weeks old, has severely affected the nation’s healthcare industry. He said the organization has been in touch with UnitedHealth Group officials regarding the outage, asking for more transparency about what happened, a timeline on when the issue would be resolved, and temporary access to advance payments to help providers during the down-time.
“Unfortunately, UnitedHealth Group’s efforts to date have not been able to meaningfully mitigate the impact to our field,” Pollack said in the letter. “Workarounds to address prior authorization, as well as claims processing and payment are not universally available and, when they are, can be expensive, time consuming and inefficient to implement. For example, manually typing claims into unique payer portals or sending by fax machine requires additional hours and labor costs, and switching revenue cycle vendors requires hospitals and health systems to pay new vendor fees and can take months to implement properly.”
In addition, UnitedHealth Group’s “Temporary Funding Assistance Program” that it stood up as part of its response on March 1 will not come close to meeting the needs of our members as they struggle to meet the financial demands of payroll, supplies and bond covenant requirements, among others,” he added. “We will continue to work with UnitedHealth Group as this situation evolves to communicate the state of the field and ensure support for our members and the patients they serve.”
Pollack said the AHA had sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra on February 26 asking HHS to step in and take action. Specifically, they asked Becerra to:
Direct Medicare Administrative Contractors to prioritize and expedite review and approval of hospital requests for Medicare advanced payments.
Issue guidance to payers on how they should be handling payments during this time.
Pressure UnitedHealth Group officials to make sure they’re taking all the necessary steps to remedy the situation, including “implementing a meaningful financial assistance program and engaging in frequent and forthright communication with providers.”
“This incident demands a whole of government response,” Pollack added. “We therefore urge Congress to consider any statutory limitations that may exist for any federal agencies that can assist hospitals at this critical moment. If such limitations exist, the Executive Branch may be unable to provide solutions to ensure our nation’s provider network remains solvent and serves patients.”
Both the AHA and American Medical Association have asked the federal government to take action on what may be the largest and most damaging cyberattack in healthcare to date.
The cyberattack on the IT business of UnitedHealth, which came to light roughly two weeks ago, has crippled operations at thousands of pharmacies across the country, and in doing so affected many more providers. Experts estimate the industry is losing more than $100 million a day due to the outage, which is rumored to have been a ransomware attack.
“Change Healthcare is the predominant source of more than 100 critical functions that keep the healthcare system operating,” Pollack noted in his letter. “Among them, Change Healthcare manages the clinical criteria used to authorize a substantial portion of patient care and coverage, processes billions of claims, supports clinical information exchange, and processes drug prescriptions. Significant portions of Change Healthcare’s functionality have been crippled. As a result, patients have struggled to get timely access to care and billions of dollars have stopped flowing to providers, thereby threatening the financial viability of hospitals, health systems, physician offices and other providers.”
The American Medical Association is urging the Health and Human Services Department to address the outage, including making money and resources available to affected providers
“As the situation continues to deteriorate and physicians await further guidance from Change Healthcare, we ask the Department to use all its available authorities to ensure that physician practices can continue to function, and patients can continue to receive the care that they need,” AMA CEO and EVP James Madara, MD, wrote.
The cyberattack on the IT business of UnitedHealth, which came to light roughly two weeks ago, has crippled operations at thousands of pharmacies across the country, and in doing so affected many more providers. Experts estimate the industry is losing more than $100 million a day due to the outage, which is rumored to have been a ransomware attack.
According to CNN, the affected network was still offline, though a Change Healthcare spokesman said many affected providers are using “alternative clearing houses” to submit claims.
“Since identifying the cyber incident, we have worked closely with customers and clients to ensure people have access to the medications and the care they need,” Company Spokesman Tyler Mason said in an email to the network. “As we remediate, the most impacted partners are those who have disconnected from our systems and/or have not chosen to execute workarounds.”
Nevertheless, many healthcare organizations are still struggling. According to the AMA, physician practices are dealing with five major concerns:
Interruption of administrative and billing processes. Because of the attack, providers are unable to send claims, verify eligibility to confirm insurance coverage and benefit specifications, obtain prior authorization approvals, or receive electronic remittance advice. “A considerable proportion of revenue cycle processes have ground to a halt across practices,” Madara wrote. “Are there flexibilities that HHS can encourage health plans to provide to physician practices on meeting timely claim submission requirements?”
Administrative burdens shifted to practices. Because of the outage, providers are taking on more data-entry tasks to submit claims through other portals and dealing with insurance carriers who might not accept paper claims. These workarounds are adding new burdens and costs onto already-pressured providers.
“Significant” concerns over data privacy and security. The size and severity of the attack is leaving many in the healthcare industry worried about whether their cybersecurity measures would hold up to a similar attack.
Uncertainly over when and how to re-establish connectivity to Change Healthcare. Many are also wondering how to determine whether Change Healthcare will be able to go back to business as usual. They’ll need assurances that this type of attack can’t happen again.
Concerns over sustainability. Many providers affected by the outage haven’t been able to submit claims since February 21. Not everyone has found an effective workaround, and some may be in danger of shutting down operations.
In his letter, Madara urged HHS to use emergency funds and any other financial resources to help affected providers stay afloat.
“Given the severe impact of this cybersecurity incident thus far and the significant and continuing erosion of Medicare payment to physicians, the AMA is concerned about the undue financial hardships facing physician practices if this incident is not resolved quickly,” he said. “It is especially challenging financially at the beginning of the year since many practices do not carry over reserves. We are particularly concerned about small, safety net, rural, and other less-resourced practices that often serve underserved patient communities.”
Executives from three companies took to the stage this week in Los Angeles and said they're working hard to make their platforms more intuitive and convenient for both providers and consumers
AI and VR may be the cool new tech that everyone's talking about, but don't forget the EHR.
Executives from three of the nation's top EHR companies shared a stage at ViVE this week to tell an overflow audience that the medical record platform is chugging right along. And they emphasized that innovation is very much a part of their future.
"Our job is not done yet," Helen Waters, executive vice president and chief operating officer at MEDITECH, pointed out.
EHRs have had a rocky history in healthcare, with one popular opinion that they were forced on doctors and nurses before the industry was really ready to embrace them. But the benefits have grown right alongside the challenges, and like any other technology it's taken time to smooth out the rough edges. The latest surveys indicate only 4% to 6% of the nation's hospitals haven't adopted EHRs.
And as healthcare shifts to value-based care models and embraces new tools to improve clinical outcomes and provider workloads, a lot of that progress will pass through the foundation laid out by the EHR. Waters noted that some of the biggest disruptors in the space are working with both EHR companies and health systems to develop AI programs.
Mike Sicilia, Oracle's executive vice president, said his company and others in the space have to keep up with the concept of value-based care, embracing avenues that enable the consumer to take more control of his or her data and give providers the tools they need to address health and wellness and social determinants of health.
"Systems of record are very good at telling you what happened," he noted, "but not as good at telling you what may happen."
Part of that is developing tools to sift through the incredible amounts of data coming in, finding value to providers and giving them what they need. Doctors and nurses don't necessarily want to see more data, but they do want to see the right information.
Trevor Berceau, Epic's director of research and development, said EHR integration is a key element to the success of any new technology in healthcare, and companies should be working to make sure the platform is as easy and intuitive for physicians as the healthcare experience should be for consumers. With provider stress and burnout one of the biggest pain points in healthcare, much of the innovation now taking place is focused on improving workflows and helping doctors and nurses to use the EHR more efficiently.
But Berceau said EHR companies sometimes shoulder too much of the blame. For example, he said, federal guidelines around documentation are complex and cumbersome, and medical notes in the U.S. tend to be four times longer than notes taken by providers in other countries. There needs to be a balance between how much is required of providers using the EHR and how that affects their workflows.
The conversation naturally turned to interoperability, a key buzzword and the focus of a federal effort to create a nationwide framework for data exchange. All agreed that TEFCA and FHIR are good concepts, and that the interoperability train will continue to chug along, running through crowded stations where a wide variety of passengers—health systems, vendors, HIE networks, and other providers—try to get on.
"I wouldn't say it's great; I wouldn't even say it's good enough," said Sicilia, adding that "data interoperability for providers and patients is a basic right."
"We've come a long way [and] there's still a long ways to go," added Berceau. "I don't think that we'll ever be done with interoperability."
That said, there is a consensus that hard lessons have been learned from the legacy era of EHRs, and today's platforms are more malleable. Waters said the industry is moving forward with the goal of "making information easier to find … and more intelligent." And innovation is just as much a goal of the vendors in the space as it is of the providers looking to get more out of their technology.
Innovation execs from four top health systems shared a stage at ViVE to discuss how they want to change healthcare.
The key to a successful innovation strategy in healthcare is understanding and handling change management.
Executives from four of the most innovative health systems in the country shared the stage at ViVE 2024 Tuesday for a discussion on why they do what they’re doing. And while technology like AI and digital health are on everyone’s agenda, they all noted that nothing new will ever get done unless and until clinicians are ready for it.
“Innovation isn’t about creating or building,” Sara Vaezy, EVP and chief strategy and digital officer at Providence, pointed out. “It’s about a creative way to solve a problem.”
In an industry that has been traditionally reluctant to change, it’s not surprising that innovators face strong headwinds. The ability to clearly define a pain point or problem is vital, as is the ability to explain how one plans on fixing it.
“[Putting] good technology into a bad process is going to fail,” said Rebecca Kaul, PhD, MBA, SVP and chief digital and transformation officer at Northwell Health.
Vaezy and Kaul were joined on the stage by Chris Waugh, Sutter Health’s vice president and chief design and innovation officer, and Michelle Stansbury, vice president of innovation and IT applications at Houston Methodist. And while each has a unique way of approaching innovation, they all share the same understanding that the healthcare industry is in dire need of change. Healthcare organizations are facing workforce shortages across the board, alongside high rates of stress and burnout, cost and reimbursement issues, increasing competition from new entries, and a consumer population unhappy with the status quo and looking for new ways to access the care they want.
And while AI and other tools might eventually address those challenges, the biggest need right now is to, as Kaul said, “put people back in front of people.” In other words, eliminating all the barriers that have cropped up between the patient and the provider, including paperwork, technology, and processes.
Stansbury spoke of the desire to create the smart hospital of the future, and of a system that will deliver as much care outside the hospital as within. Vaezy talked of putting an emphasis on navigation, and creating more convenient pathways for consumers to get to care. And Waugh talked of redefining healthcare to focus more on health.
“We’re going to go to all the places where care doesn’t exist, where actual health is happening,” he said.
To do that, physicians, nurses and others within the industry need to be prepared to embrace change. And healthcare’s decision-makers need to know how to nudge everyone in that direction.
With ViVE 2024 picking up steam this week in Los Angeles, here's what attendees are talking about
A few trends picked up during the first two days at ViVE 2024:
Telehealth isn't dead. Despite the recent struggles of Amwell and Teladoc, two of the biggest kids in the sandbox, telehealth is as popular as ever. The growth is being driven by disruptors, non-traditional providers and others who want a quick and seamless path to connect their patient/customer to a clinician.
Sheeza Hussein, chief growth officer at Steady MD, says the industry is swamped with small companies offering personal treatments for a wide variety of issues, like women's health, weight loss, behavioral health, and even pediatric care. There are also companies offering functional medicine, or testing and diagnostic services that provide a more detailed look at a chronic condition. On top of that, pharma companies are looking for telehealth platforms for consumers involved in studies, and pharmacies are looking to expand their base of services.
The end result is a market flooded with telehealth opportunities, and a challenge for health systems and hospitals trying to keep their place in the market. Jen Goldsack, CEO of the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), says Amazon's recent launch of its chronic care platform (with Omada as its first partner) offered a clear warning sign to healthcare executives that they have to keep up—and rather than think about the disruptors as competitors, look instead for ways to collaborate.
Amwell President and CEO Roy Schoenberg, MD, MPH, moderating a panel session on the intersection of old and new ideas in healthcare, noted research that says one-quarter of all healthcare experiences will be digital by 2030.
Nurses need help. No segment of the healthcare ecosystem is more in need of new ideas and technology than nurses, who are facing the brunt of workforce shortage and stress/burnout issues. The American Telemedicine Association convened a special summit late last year on Virtual Nursing, and ViVE has its own special track this week.
The challenges are many. Nurses are retiring young or quitting. Having lived through the chaos of COVID, they're suffering from stress, and they're often at the center of competing priorities and philosophies within the hospital. New strategies for teaching the nurses of tomorrow and building the workforce are great, but unless hospitals and health systems change the environment by giving them tools to improve their workload, it won't make much of a difference.
More and more care will be in the home. The Acute Hospital Care at Home program, supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), took off during the pandemic and is now in place in more than 300 health systems across the country. The CMS waiver that enables organizations to get Medicare reimbursement for the program is due to expire at the end of the year, but the talk here is that CMS will extend that waiver as it seeks more data on the program's overall costs and value, especially in clinical outcomes.
That being said, the strategy won't go away. Healthcare executives are embracing remote patient monitoring (RPM) as a means of connecting with patients at home, reducing return and emergency visits, and improving chronic care management. Patient engagement and satisfaction are growing in importance as benchmarks, and patients would much prefer to stay at home, where studies have shown they tend to heal faster.
The acute care at home concept, which combines aspects of RPM and telemedicine with in-person care, will likely evolve far beyond the model being used now, regardless of reimbursement. Some health systems have already stood up their own programs independent of the CMS model and are working toward sustainability. Others are working with payers to support the program. In short, the value of the home in managing and improving care is significant.
AI moves beyond potential. This has already been said, but ViVE is proving the point. For the past year everyone has talked about the promise of AI to address and maybe even solve healthcare's biggest problems. It's time to prove that point. Many health systems have multiple AI projects up and running (some with more than 100 separate programs or uses). And they're starting to see the data that proves value. While the technology is still relatively young and there are a lot of questions to be answered around data gathering, monitoring, and especially governance, healthcare executives want to see the ROI of specific applications now.
Cybersecurity is back on the agenda. With the Optum news hanging over the convention center this week and recent studies indicating a 140% increase in data breaches over the past year, healthcare executives are once again talking about security and privacy. AI certainly plays a part in that conversation, but what's more important is the need for an industry-wide approach, supported by federal policy. The Biden administration has taken some steps to create a national framework of best practice, but the talk here is that some, if not all, of those recommendations should be mandatory.
Everyone's talking about gen AI, but how is it actually being used?
While Hollywood may be all abuzz at the quickly rising fortunes of Barry Keoghan, generative Ai is seeing a similar ascendancy in healthcare. But will both avoid the bombs and tabloid headlines and fulfill their potential?
As ViVE 2024 kicks into gear today at the Los Angeles Convention Center, AI is on everyone’s minds. And while the past year has seen stories ad infinitum on the promise for large language models and gen AI to rid healthcare of its biggest headaches, the talk on the floor is that it’s time to show everyone what it really does.
“Every health system is investing a great deal in AI solutions,” says Harjinder Sandhu, chief technology officer for Microsoft’s Health and Life Sciences Platforms and Solutions, a partner for many health systems putting AI to the test. “You have to. There’s really no choice. But readiness really depends on the complexity of the use case and the risk of the use case.”
“What I see is a lot of caution,” he adds. “[Health systems] are being very tentative in thinking about these use cases. I see a lot more confusion than I see jumping too fast right now.”
Sandhu, who will be part of a ViVE panel this week discussing AI readiness, says healthcare leadership is understandably cautious in moving forward with projects that carry a lot of risk, especially as the industry is still trying to figure out governance. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t come up with plenty of ideas.
“I’ve literally been in sessions where, over a four-hour period, you’ll have a group that puts Post-It notes on a board with, like, 300 use cases,” he says. “And [they’ll] say ‘Here’s all the different areas we want to be able to impact.’”
Some of the biggest, brightest Post-It notes are focused on using gen AI to capture conversations and turn them into valuable clinical information in the EHR. At a time where every healthcare organization is dealing with a shortage of clinicians and a surge in stress and burnout, it’s those tasks that are causing the most conflict. Those in the know call it “pajama time,” as in the time spent by clinicians each evening at home going over their notes from the day’s patient encounters and translating them into information they can use for care management.
Microsoft and Nuance recently rolled out DAX Copilot, which integrates directly into the Epic EHR. It’s one of several tools from a number of AI vendors aimed at that particular pai n point.
“It’s probably one of the fastest growing products that we have witnessed in terms of how quickly physicians are taking to it and adopting it,” Sandhu says of the market in general. “It is starting to make an enormous difference in how physicians view their work and their work-life balance.”
This particular tool captures the conversation right after it has taken place, giving clinicians their notes immediately after the patient encounter, while the conversations are still fresh. They can review those notes for accuracy, then submit them into the EHR.
That review process is crucial. The technology is still relatively new, and still liable to make mistakes. That’s why practically any use of AI in healthcare at this time needs a “human in the loop” to review and sign off on the final product.
“You have to approach [AI tools] always with a hint of skepticism,” Sandhu points out. “Be a little bit skeptical about what they produce and double-check and triple-check.”
But the benefits are significant. Any tool that can integrate easily into a clinician’s workflow and reduce translational tasks—especially during nights and weekends—pulls time away from the computer and puts it back where it should be: In front of the patient or the family. Sandhu says those tools should see the lion’s share of adoption over the next year or two, especially as clinicians test them out and vendors work to fine-tune the process. It’s worth noting that gen AI is designed to learn as it goes along, so that a tool will learn a clinician’s habits and language and become better at transcribing.
Beyond that, Sandhu says healthcare decision-makers are keen to apply gen AI to another crucial pain point: Nursing workflows. Nurses are struggling just as much, if not more than, any other healthcare provider, and they need AI to reduce that overload and put them back in front of patients. But they also need technology that is designed for them.
Even farther out, Sandhu sees an expanding market for gen AI technology that can capture and, more importantly, analyze conversations. Consider a tool that that study the patient encounter for signs of mental health distress, enabling specialists or even primary care providers to identify patients in need of help just by how they talk to someone.
“We’re kind of in this new age of literacy with AI,” he says.
So at this point, as the attendees at ViVE settle in under a crisp California sun, a lot of talk will be about what’s on stage now, and how it’s playing in the market, and not so much about that next big thing or the future blockbuster. It’s nice to see where this will all go, but there’s a view among the executives that new ideas have to show ROI now, not later. Healthcare needs help now.
Probably not, but next week’s conference will bring together an impressive list of C-Suite decision-makers to discuss how some of the newest and most innovative strategies and technologies are being put to use
From overstressed nurses to overeager AI enthusiasts, next week’s ViVE 2024 conference in Los Angeles aims to take on some of the biggest issues in healthcare innovation.
The annual event, co-produced by HLTH and the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME), targets the healthcare industry C-suite in innovation and technology with an agenda that’s heavy on panels and presentations. Topics of discussion will include disruptors in the healthcare space, AI, data management and interoperability, policy, sustainability, and digital health.
In keeping with a growing theme in healthcare conferences this year, ViVE has created a special program for nursing leaders. Faced with high rates of stress and burnout, nursing execs are looking for strategies and technologies that not only improve workflows and wellness, but also take advantage of the nurse’s unique skills and front-line care duties. This includes everything from new ideas for nurse education and training to the adoption of Virtual Nursing programs.
The conference comes at a crucial time for the industry. With tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft and retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Walgreens applying new ideas to the healthcare space and a current economy that puts a premium of reducing costs and finding an immediate ROI, health systems and hospitals are under a lot of pressure to do better. That may be why the agenda features an impressive number of healthcare executives, including panels with as many as three execs from different health networks.
Specifically, they’ll be talking about topics like the rapid rise of Generative AI, VC investment in health system ownership, consumer-facing and retail strategies in care delivery, remote patient monitoring and home-based care, challenges with scaling and sustaining telehealth and virtual care platforms, and data management and analysis (a wide-ranging topic that includes interoperability, cybersecurity, and patient access to data).
As with many conferences, the value to C-suite executives will be in seeing where these concepts are already being put to use, and whether they’ve proven their value. Decision-makers want to see that value now, rather than in a few years, and they’ll be looking for programs already in place, with clear benchmarks and outcomes.
And while any event like this shines the spotlight on new technology, like AI and VR, the industry is shifting its perspective to look for value not in point or niche solutions, but tools and platforms that can be integrated into larger, enterprise-wide programs. Returning attendees often make it a point to see which vendors from previous conferences are still exhibiting and which “shiny new objects” have dulled and been pushed aside.
And if that isn’t enough, there will also be a Billy Idol concert.
The agency is warning that no devices have been approved that can accurately measure a user’s blood glucose without piercing the skin
Federal regulators are hitting the pause button on digital health advancements for diabetes care management.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a safety alert indicating that smartwatches or smart rings that claim to measure a user’s blood glucose levels without piercing the skin should are not reliable and should not be trusted.
“The FDA has not authorized, cleared, or approved any smartwatch or smart ring that is intended to measure or estimate blood glucose values on its own,” the agency said.
Some 38.4 million Americans live with diabetes, according to a 2021 report from the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and experts say that population is the fastest growing chronic care population in the nation. Care management includes monitoring blood glucose levels throughout the day and taking immediate action (such as injecting insulin) when those levels are out of particular range. A trending high or low blood glucose level could lead to serious health issues, including coma and death.
Digital health advances have greatly improved care management for diabetes over the past two decades, including wearable sensors that can track blood glucose and administer doses of insulin when needed and AI-enhanced tools that can identify trending blood glucose levels before they become dangerous or are even noticed.
While the industry has been working on wearables that can accurately measure blood glucose without pricking the skin, that technology hasn’t yet been perfected.
“The FDA routinely monitors the medical device market and became aware of unauthorized products being marketed to consumers,” the agency said in its alert. “The agency is working to ensure that manufacturers, distributors, and sellers do not illegally market unauthorized smartwatches or smart rings that claim to measure blood glucose levels. Additionally, the FDA is alerting consumers about this issue and making the public aware that smartwatches and smart rings should not be used to measure blood glucose levels.”
