In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Josh Luke, PhD, healthcare futurist and adjunct faculty at the University of Southern California's Sol Price School of Public Policy in Los Angeles.
Dr. Luke will speak on a panel during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference on "Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytics – Practical Uses," at 3:45 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: What do you see as the most vulnerable part of a hospital's business?
Dr. Josh Luke: Executives not willing to transform to a business model that understands the hospital is now the largest expense should be replaced by those who understand the new model is an insurance model. IT and infrastructure decisions should support the transition to this model of keeping community members healthy and at home. It seems that the focus of IT decisions is still primarily on getting paid for services. In the new model, value-based care, the hospital becomes the payer, and the last thing on its mind will be capturing charges as they are just one word: expenses.
Q: What is the biggest barrier to price transparency in the healthcare industry?
JL: Hospitals being unwilling to share and post prices is the biggest challenge at present. Hospitals are no longer a profitable business model. They are the largest expense in the model: the oil to the airliner. They must become part of a bigger business model — a bigger community vision — that drives profits through a healthy community, not heads in beds. Value-based care is an insurance model … How soon can we get there?
Q: What's one conviction in healthcare that needs to be challenged?
JL: The days of the hospital and doctor owning someone's personal health information must come to an end. In the digital era we live in, it is no longer acceptable that patients have to wait to get their own personal data. This process needs to be fast-tracked.