As health systems and providers transition from fee-for-service to value-based care reimbursement models, many are turning to precision health as a tool to reinvent care delivery. This evolution, however, requires fundamental changes to the way providers, patients and payers interact. It also requires the healthcare sector to adopt new technologies and derive actionable, data-driven insights to support decision-making processes.
On Nov. 17, panelists discussed these issues and the associated challenges during the first day of the Precision Health Virtual Summit hosted by hc1 and Becker's Healthcare.
Presenters were:
● Brad Bostic, founder, chairman and CEO of hc1
● Stephen K. Klasko, MD, president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health in Philadelphia
● Patrick Holland, CFO and treasurer of Auburndale, Mass.-based Atrius Health
● David Carmouche, MD, president of Ochsner Health Network and senior vice president of community care and executive director at Ochsner Accountable Care Network in New Orleans
● Yolangel "Yogi" Hernandez Suarez, MD, associate dean for clinical and community affairs at Florida International University in Miami
● Gary Stuck, DO, CMO of Milwaukee and Downers Grove, Ill.-based Advocate Aurora Health
● Ben Kraus, managing director of Kain Capital and co-founder and president of New York City-based Stellar Health
● Eric Bricker, MD, CMO of Dallas-based AHealthcareZ and founder of Texas Family Insurance
● Shez Partovi, MD, AWS worldwide lead of healthcare, life sciences, genomics, and med devices
● Steven Goldberg, MD, MBA, vice president of medical affairs, population health and chief health officer of Quest Diagnostics
● Jane Dickerson, PhD, DABCC, Co-Founder of PLUGS, director of chemistry and reference lab services for Seattle Children's
● David Freeman, general manager of Quest healthcare analytics solutions at Quest Diagnostics
Five key takeaways from the first day of the summit:
1. Precision health centers on the idea that "people are people, not patients." Precision health and connected care help individuals thrive based on factors specific to them. According to Dr. Carmouche, this requires contextual knowledge about a person's behaviors, environment, genomics and more. Using a population health lens is also essential for precision health. "We know that if we don't focus on social determinants of health, we will fail in the value-based risk model," explained Dr. Stuck.
2. The healthcare sector is shifting its attention to preventive care and health assurance. Historically, the American healthcare system has focused on "sick care" and treating individuals after they became ill. Dr. Klasko believes that health assurance is a better approach. "Let's merge technology, population health and precision medicine into consumer-centric, data-driven healthcare services that will bend the cost curve and help people stay well," he said. Both the healthcare sector and the investment community recognize that preventive care is key. "If you break health into diagnosis, treatment and prevention, investors are really interested in the prevention part. I think it's the first time the macroeconomic landscape has made this type of investment attractive," said Mr. Kraus.
3. Medication therapy failure is a costly problem, but precision medicine can help. From a human and an economic perspective, medication therapy failure is expensive, contributing to billions in financial losses and thousands of lives lost, according to Mr. Bostic. "Genetic mutations affect how people metabolize medications and nearly half of the 50 most prescribed medications have known genetic implications. There's clearly an opportunity to deliver a more precise approach to prescribing medications for people," said Mr. Bostic. To address this challenge, hc1 is using a precision health insight network approach. The organization leverages technology to identify high-risk patient/medication scenarios and identifies more effective medication therapies for individuals. The result is much healthier patients and significantly lower healthcare costs.
4. To deliver value-based care, physicians may need additional training. Providers that excel at value-based care understand how to participate in multi-disciplinary teams and act on data. Dr. Hernandez Suarez noted, however, that many physicians haven't been trained to work in these ways. "Physicians who have never been forced to work in a team environment don't know what to delegate or how. There's also a ton of education needed to make data come to life for providers," said Dr. Carmouche. How providers react to data, identify patterns and activate care teams is becoming more critical to longitudinal health management. "We need to turn the mirror around — what kind of data can we analyze about providers that could help change their behaviors?" asked Mr. Kraus.
5. When connecting precision medicine with value-based care, payer-provider alignment is essential. Many believe that the next evolution in healthcare will be tighter integration between the delivery and insurance sectors. "To really deliver on value-based care, we need better integration with the insurance side of the house," noted Mr. Holland.
To view the full sessions from Day 1 of the Precision Health Virtual Summit on-demand, click here. To learn more about hc1, click here.