With many events overwhelmingly focused on AI and other cool, shiny objects, it was refreshing to hear Reuters Digital Health 2024 hold a session with the focus squarely placed on the seemingly mundane side of making it all work to deliver value – clinically, operationally or both. Xealth was proud to support several customers speaking at the conference about how they keep their feet on the ground while continuing to imagine future possibilities.
Yes, AI was discussed, but the conversation focused on making things simple for engaging patients, change management, scaling digital health and how technology can enable that, instead of the other way around. Cindy Gipson, Assistant VP for Growth & Accountable Care Enterprise at Scripps Health, offered that last piece of advice during her presentation, titled “Because technology is only as good as those that use it; getting the change management process right is critical.”
Later, Jeff Johnson, VP Digital Business Strategy for Banner Health, joined Reed Smith, Chief Consumer Officer of Ardent Health, Anne Hoverson, VP, Digital Transformation of Guidewell & Florida Blue, Dan Shoenthal, Chief Innovation Officer of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Dr. Patrick Runnels, Chief Medical Officer of University Hospitals, for the session “Maximize patient engagement with remote platforms and devices.”
Jeff challenged the audience with the following question: “When looking at technology, are you going after the right thing? Be clear about the end goal. No one is looking for a ¼” drill – they want a ¼” hole. The panel discussed ways to integrate digital health into workflows, using portals to reduce steps and logins, as well as enabling virtual care and remote patient monitoring (RPM) to help people who must travel up to two days for a 15-minute appointment while stretching the capacity of experts. What can be automated, standardized and centralized?
During the session, “Learn from digital health disruptors and optimize your primary care process,” Bradley Crotty, MD, MPH, Chief Digital Officer for The Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin, shared that they try to “leverage technology in ways that superpower our people and help with the scalability of care.” Digital health should integrate into clinical operations and augment the patient journey, enabling patients and their families to go after what they need.
The bottom line is helping people. How can technology allow healthcare organizations to see more patients and lower costs?
In addition to its thought-provoking sessions, Digital Health 2024 was great for deepening connections in addition to creating new ones, plus giving insight into future innovations via a start up challenge. National Coordinator for Health IT at the ONC Micky Tripathi helped close out the event with an engaging discussion around HHS efforts to enable a federal digital foundation that supports data exchange.
Healthcare is a digitally transformed industry. Several of these themes resonate deeply with Xealth as we partner with many of the country’s leading health systems to automate digital health and bring assets and tools into current workflows, making them more accessible and simpler to use for engaging patients, which benefits everyone involved – patients, caregivers, providers and healthcare organizations.
Using Xealth’s digital health platforms creates substantial benefits from automation, staying within workflows and monitoring patient utilization and their condition. It also simplifies the IT lift for rolling out new programs and reduces clinician time in engaging patients with them. To date, Xealth has sent more than 12 million digital assets from about 100,000 providers.
Contact the Xealth team to learn more about what’s in fashion for digital health and how it helps centralize, scale and automate digital health efforts, accelerating the benefits to patients, providers and the organization.