Jason Joseph, serves as the Senior Vice President, Information Services, for Spectrum Health Delivery System.
On May 11th, Jason Joseph will present at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership 2018. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 10-11th 2018 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Mr. Joseph's session, click here.
Question: Who or what are the disruptors that have your attention?
Jason Joseph: I believe the combination of digital technology, telehealth and artificial intelligence will be very disruptive in the years to come. The question around ""who"" will disrupt really has more to do with who will leverage these capabilities in new and innovative ways to shift the model of care. As health systems get serious about reducing the cost of care while keeping quality, outcomes and experience levels high, it's not going to be about doing things the same way, but with incrementally less manpower. There are many aspects of medicine that can benefit from machine learning, protocol-driven decision making, consumer engagement and automation. I'm not suggesting we will be doing virtual heart transplants any time soon, but consider how much of the care process from wellness, to primary care and convenient care, to diagnostics and monitoring could be optimized and automated with virtual technologies and advanced machine learning. These technologies are able to detect patterns that humans may not be able to see; collect information in near-real-time, instead of periodically; and scale exponentially, instead of linearly, to large populations. I think the next evolution will see machine learning and predictive analytics getting more specific and precise, and will help guide caregivers to the best clinical action sooner and more efficiently. This has the real potential, when combined with virtual monitoring and care, to transform the way care is delivered to various populations. The question is: Who will grab these opportunities, and advance them in a manner that begins to truly impact cost and outcomes overall?
Q: What did you notice about your most recent healthcare experience as a patient?
JJ: I am going to comment on this from a parent's perspective. This experience had both a frustrating component and a very positive one. My son had an allergic reaction — he is allergic to tree nuts, and had some chocolate around the holidays that he shouldn't have. After our typical routine of Benadryl and a nap, he had a severe stomach ache, so we thought he should seek medical attention.
Rather than going to the emergency department, we opted for urgent care. However, since they were close to closing, urgent care was not willing to give Epinephrine without an agreement to go to the ED afterward for monitoring. That's two visits now, instead of one.
After the Epi shot, he felt great and we would have liked to bring him home. However, given the risk of some type of reaction — which we deemed as very low — we complied and drove to the ED, where he was monitored without incident — other than being very bored — for three hours. Given that we have a health savings account, this experience was not what we would have desired, and it was quite expensive. I would have preferred an option such as ""here is a prescription for an Epi Pen. If you have to give it, please monitor symptoms closely and go to the ED immediately if things get worse."" Or, ""here is a shot — please go to the ED quickly if any symptoms return."" Either of these options would have saved us hundreds of dollars and, in hindsight, been a better outcome, at least from an experience perspective.
On the other side of the coin, once at the ED, the physician prescribed an Epi Pen to take with us later, and in the process we not only found a location that was open 24 hours, but one that carried a generic version at the lowest price — saving us hundreds of dollars. This was an amazing effort to call, verify inventory and confirm pricing, and it was very appreciated. Health systems are not yet engineered to balance great care, which we did receive; patient preferences, or not sitting in the ED for 3 hours; and cost, which was realizing we are paying for all of this out-of-pocket. Healthcare decisions need to consider clinical risk, experience and cost to truly transform the model for consumers.
Q: What's one consumer-centric capability that your organization has built or tapped into within the past 18 months?
JJ: We recently rolled out a specialized digital app for consumer-facing virtual visits called MedNow. This app is available on multiple platforms, and allows 24/7 access to providers for many common health conditions. Not only is it very efficient and easy to use, but the care is also integrated into our core model of care for our in-person visits — we use the same EMR, online systems, portal, et cetera. Patients benefit by not having episodic care that is completely disconnected from the rest of their care, with full access to their comprehensive medical record even at 1 a.m. in their living room. The experience is quite good and we are continuing to add capabilities to our program. The future of virtual care is bright, and we believe there are efficiencies to be gained as a system while also enhancing our consumers' experiences when interacting with our health system.
Beyond this capability, we have a robust patient-facing application, called MyHealth, which allows patients to schedule online, message their provider, see results, pay bills and perform many routine tasks within our health system. Patients can find providers with online reviews and ratings, videos and bios, and can evaluate and compare the cost of services, along with much more. We see digital and consumer-facing technology as an ecosystem. This ecosystem needs to be both comprehensive and intuitive. We will continue to expand our digital health portfolio, but we will do so in a manner that enhances the overall consumer experience. For example, while we expect to have multiple function-specific apps in our digital portfolio, shared authentication and user profiles need to be the foundation that links the experience together. We can all think of companies that have done this well, and some that have not done it well, and we don't want to emulate the latter.