As the editor of MedCity News, I have given away a lot of business cards over the last 3 years. I have met entrepreneurs all over the country, learned about financing options from investors and talked with doctors about new ways of working with patients. I’ve listened to dozens of pitches and moderated panels about everything from baby boomers to telemedicine in events from San Diego to Baltimore.
It has been exciting and exhausting to work for a digital media startup. We have tested new online products and grown our events business from the first one in Philadelphia in July 2012 to three in 2014. All three are on the calendar for 2015 with the potential for a fourth in a new market. My favorite project was the Google hangouts I launched in January 2014 and hosted monthly. These added an online component to our live events and connected entrepreneurs across the country.
As wonderful and educational as this work has been, it is time for a new challenge. Next week I will be joining a community health nonprofit affiliated with the Community Foundation of Louisville to run a digital health project. The project will be using technology from Propeller Health and grant money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal is to get 1,000 of Propeller’s asthma inhaler sensors distributed around Louisville. When a person with asthma takes puff from her inhaler, the sensor sends time, date and geographical location to the cloud. When we get enough sensors out in the community, we’ll be able to get real-time data on air quality. This information can help both patients and policy makers in a city that is among the worst places for people with breathing disorders like asthma and COPD.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
This new job wraps my interests in patient engagement, digital health and big data in a new community challenge. I am excited about working with the Propeller team and the Institute for Healthy Air, Water and Soil. This new nonprofit won the grant in October and will be adding this project to its ongoing air quality tracking work. This new effort will build on a smaller pilot project from 2013. If you want to know more or get your own sensor, contact me.
I will miss the MedCity News team. I especially grateful to Chris Seper for hiring me in February 2012. I have learned a lot from all the reporters I have worked with, including everyone on the current crew, as well as Lindsey Alexander, Amanda Harnocz, Arundhati Parmar, and Deanna Pogorelc.
As I move into this new role, I will take with me everything I have learned from talking to entrepreneurs, doctors, patients and healthcare leaders during the last three years. These are the three big ideas that will shape my work in 2015 and influence everyone in the digital health space.
We are moving into Health 3.0
Everyone (including me) has been saying that healthcare moves so much more slowly than every other industry. This may have been true until this year but no more. Accelerators like Health Box are changing their approach. Hospitals and health systems are getting on board with pilot projects. The best payers are seeing the writing on the wall and adapting to the digital world and the new consumer demands. Everyone in the healthcare world – patients, providers, payers – is catching up fast to the Internet age and learning to iterate and live in a world of constant change. It is much faster than I expected when I started at MedCity News in 2012.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
We need a new metaphor for the doctor-patient relationship
A few years ago I did some patient engagement research and used the term “co-pilot” to describe how some people were taking full ownership of and responsibility for their health. These are the people who will find a new doctor if they feel there is a bad fit and who will request additional tests that they think are relevant. Even though “co-pilot” is better than “unquestioning follower” for describing the best kind of doctor-patient relationships, even that newish term is not correct now. I see the healthcare world shifting to something closer to a consultant-client arrangement. At the moment, you must have money and access to care to have that set up, but that is changing quickly too. Soon patients will be able to shop for a doctor based on things like email access and price lists. That is not what you want for cancer care, but for primary care, it’s OK. Also, once pharmacogenetic testing and other forms of personalized medicine become more available, patients will have even more ways to made decisions about their own care. Finally, insurance exchanges — public and private — are soon going to become the way most people buy insurance. This and all the other “consumerization of healthcare” forces will ensure the evolution of the doctor-patient relationship.
EHRs are going to be a pain point for years to come
In our monthly startup reports, health IT companies always dominate the list. Everyone is trying to modernize EHRs or replace them or export data from them or make them less painful to use. The actual value of the switch to electronic records is all over the place for patients, ranging from no change at all to truly meaningful use. My personal experience with patient portals has been miserable. It’s a huge problem for patients and providers, and I have not seen any real solutions from established companies or startups. The path to a consistent and worthwhile experience is going to be slow and painful one.
This is not goodbye forever, I will still be writing for MedCity News from time to time. Thanks to everyone who joined me on this adventure and who helped me along the way. Here’s to a productive and prosperous 2015 for everyone!
