Ann Mond Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, American Telemedicine Association
Lee Schwamm, MD, Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Health Officer, Yale New Haven Health
Naveen Valluri, General Manager, Health and Life Sciences Data and AI, Microsoft
Stephany Verstraete, Chief Marketing and Product Experience Officer, Teladoc Health
Session: Leading Transformative Change to Shape the Next Generation of Healthcare
In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare ecosystem, new innovations and technologies can deliver radical improvements that redefine patient care. Yet with any transformation comes challenges that leaders must address.
Experts from the American Telemedicine Association, Yale New Haven Health and Microsoft joined Teladoc Health’s Chief Marketing Officer, Stephany Verstraete, at Forum 2024 to discuss the transformation strategies and leadership approaches that will be critical in shaping the next generation of care delivery and outcomes.
Setting the stage for the discussion, Verstraete presented five transformation themes that impact healthcare leaders, regardless of geography or specific sector, in their work to drive transformative change. These themes include structural behavioral barriers as well as emerging trends. Let’s take a look at five drivers, and what the panel had to say about them:
The shortage of healthcare workers—a crisis only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic—is reaching critical levels. Approximately 83 million people live in areas with insufficient access to primary care, yet there is a projected 100,000 provider shortfall in the next decade.
Hospitals and health systems across the country need a solution for current and projected workforce challenges in order to deliver quality patient care.
Ann Mond Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of the American Telemedicine Association, highlighted the need to remodel the care delivery approach, given these workforce pressures:
Verstraete highlighted the potential savings that can result from the adoption of artificial intelligence, quoting a recent study from Deloitte that estimates $360 billion in annual potential savings from AI for the U.S. healthcare system over the next five years.
While the panel of experts agreed that AI has tremendous potential for healthcare, leaders will need to address issues including responsible use, bias and scalability to realize these savings.
Chief Digital Health Officer of Yale New Haven Health, Dr. Lee Schwamm, shared cautious optimism for scaling AI in healthcare: “AI models bring systematic bias. Our job is to make sure we understand and have a mechanism for breaking up the bias, measuring and monitoring.”
Dr. Schwamm also sees benefits in the accessibility of AI across a diverse workforce. “We can start making the technology adapt to the workflows of the existing workforce, not the other way around.”
Naveen Valluri of Microsoft discussed how the speed at which AI is evolving will have transformative impact: “Over the past 20 or 30 years, you were able to double capacity of work every 18 months. But now with AI, we reach an inflection point every six months. New models can achieve behaviors that weren’t possible six months prior. This is a revolutionary moment for the way we work.”
Related to the AI discussion, our panelists discussed the challenges that come with scaling technology and systems to treat the whole person. In his work with health systems, Valluri identified issues scaling programs when data is in different formats, requiring thousands of AI models for different tasks or areas within the health system. While work is progressing to address these challenges, it’s not solved yet. This is especially important as fragmented treatment of chronic conditions drives up healthcare costs and results in poor patient care.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 84% of all hospital stays involve people with one or more comorbidities. Of this group, 50% have at least three comorbidities. Technology and solutions that treat the whole person will be critical to address fragmented treatment and improve outcomes for patients.
While healthcare is extremely complex, patients demand an experience that is similar to how they utilize services in other parts of their lives. Johnson highlighted the need to make it simple for patients without taking additional steps, just like they would expect when setting up a new device.
A study from McKinsey found 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. Even more—76%—get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
Personalized health support is not only the preferred experience for patients, but it also results in higher engagement and better health outcomes.
As decision makers evaluate new technology and solutions, it’s no longer just by measuring ROI, but a broader set of “value of investment” metrics. Value can be found in a variety of factors including member engagement, retention, equitable care, clinical outcomes and health cost savings.
For example, the total estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes is more than $327 billion, which includes $237 billion in direct medical costs and $90 billion in reduced productivity. In this case, a program to reduce the prevalence of diabetes can bring exponential cost savings.
Additionally, Valluri discussed how an AI solution reduced the administrative burden on physicians, leaving them more time to engage with patients. This was extremely valuable for health systems often struggling with provider burnout, retention and recruitment.
With tremendous opportunity to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, our panel of experts believe transformation will take resolve, ingenuity and responsibility. Our collective ability to innovate can shape a future that results in better health for all.
