This week,
my colleagues and I have had the distinct pleasure of attending and
participating in the U.S. News and World Report Hospital
of Tomorrow Conference
held in Washington, D.C. Attending the event afforded us the opportunity to
connect with many leading hospital executives and health care visionaries to
explore how we can all help address the range of challenges facing the health
systems of today and those in the future, especially as we see the industry
changing right before our eyes.
Yesterday, I participated in the luncheon keynote session with Peter Slavin, M.D., President of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Shalom Jacobovitz, Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Cardiology. Our panel, which was moderated by Len Nichols, Ph.D, Director and Professor at George Mason University’s Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics, discussed the dynamics of how the health industry is changing in interesting ways in response to an array of pressures, beyond just the forced changes of health reform. We noted the benefits of community-based programs and looked at the ways we can harness the power of technology and innovation to enhance access, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes and patient care.
As I look
back on the panel and the additional conversations I had throughout the event,
I see several key themes emerging.
Prioritizing Collaboration and Consumer
Engagement
It
may or may not be fair to say that collaboration hasn’t always been the shining
characteristic of the industry. However, with the advent of health reform,
collaboration is becoming more commonplace. For example, hospitals are forming
insurance companies, partnering with pharmacy chains, instituting
community-based prevention programs, and experimenting with bundled payments. I
believe, though, that this is a paradigm shift that is being driven by far more
than health reform, as important as that is.
Specifically,
there is a convergence of three factors driving this shift, including 1)
disruption in the health market (i.e. budget pressures, new payment models,
etc.); 2) the emergence of an engaged consumer; and 3) technology innovations
in the areas of mobility, cloud, social and data. These factors are spawning
new business models that are designed to deliver more cost effective care
through collaboration, care coordination and patient engagement. In
addition, there is an increasingly evident overlap in interest among
communities, drug manufacturers, community health providers, insurers and
hospitals to meet these needs.
On
the first and second points, we’re seeing a renewed focus on payment for value
and improved outcomes. In particular, as employees pay out of pocket for their
health care and consumers become more active participants in monitoring their
own care and choosing their health plans (through insurance exchanges), the
industry is beginning to place an increased premium on consumer engagement and
improved service. As a result, we’re seeing new business entrants and modified
business models, including those at WalMart and CVS Minute Clinics, focus on
being accessible to consumers. In addition, life science companies and
providers are collaborating to leverage big data to improve drug research and
expand access to clinical trials.
Relatedly, in each of these instances, technology is playing
an increasing role by helping support critical collaboration, care and consumer
engagement. For example, personal health platforms like Health Vault are being used
by hospitals and integrated care networks, such as New York Presbyterian
Hospital and the Veterans Administration, in order to activate and engage consumers
in monitoring their health. Additionally, many health systems are
deploying devices across their systems to work more seamlessly with patients
and to connect consumers and care givers to improve ease and satisfaction. For instance, earlier this year, New York Presbyterian Hospital set out to enhance both its
in-patient experience and engagement by providing a Windows 8 tablet at the
patient’s bedside. The Windows 8 tablets, which come with two custom built
Windows 8 apps, allow the hospital’s patients to seamlessly communicate with
their care team and quickly access their health information on the facility’s
health portal.
Enabling Mobility and Clinician
Productivity
As health
workers truly move in a mobile environment, transitioning between seeing
patients and facilities, it’s becoming increasingly valuable for their health
system network to realize the benefits that can come from mobility. Of course,
that means the technologies they use need to provide the same productivity
experience regardless of the device they’re using. Where we see the greatest
opportunity for dramatic improvements in clinician productivity, team
performance and patient safety is in the technology innovations that health
systems have underinvested in relative to other industries, namely real time
communication and collaboration platforms running in the cloud with privacy and
security protections greater than what most health systems have in their own
datacenters.
We know,
for example, that poor communication and insufficient patient hand-offs between
shifts are the most common causes of adverse events in hospitals. So as we
think about success for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), we need to go
beyond getting the right information at the right time to the point of care. Instead,
success for ACOs is about mobile, multidisciplinary care teams getting 100
percent of its collaborative processes right and orchestrating these systems so
that they improve the quality and safety of care at a lower cost point.
ACOs need
real time communication and collaboration platforms to do this, but unfortunately,
most care teams still rely on traditional methods of communication and
collaboration in order to work together. Microsoft’s suite of mobile
communication and collaboration tools through Office 365, including Lync and
Sharepoint, can help ACOs and health care workers increase their productivity
virtually anywhere, allowing providers to focus on helping their patients.
Leveraging the Cloud
Finally,
cloud technologies are leveraged by hospital systems to connect disparate
points of care and to drive down infrastructure costs, both of which are
especially important in an era of merger and acquisition. Similarly, cloud
solutions span boundaries and enable collaboration with communities, educators,
and other health players. As we’ve seen in our work with Johnson
and Johnson, cloud technologies allow us to leverage
big data to not only benefit specific groups, but to also show us clear industry
trends. In many instances, hospitals now see that with a rise in
collaboration, new business models, and a focus on care coordination, cloud
technologies can help them better store and understand data and analysis, while
also allowing them to better leverage revenue streams and improve research and
most importantly, patient care.
As
we move forward, I have no doubt that that the paradigm shift will continue to
evolve. With new market entrants, the direction we need to take will involve
connecting disparate systems of care and prioritizing and improving consumer
engagement. Technology will undoubtedly play an integral role - a role that
must be based on a vision that spans the enterprise, from the consumer to the
largest health provider. That is the unique value proposition that Microsoft’s
vision and roadmap offers.
Vice President, U.S. Health and Life Sciences, Microsoft
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