I have been framing the future of health care as diagnosis through face-to-face interactions for making a diagnosis (and getting the patient to buy-in to the treatment plan) and ongoing maintenance or surveillance using telemedicine with supporting technologies. This article has forced me to reconsider how we might deploy artificial intelligence to support patients and clinicians during the triage and diagnosis stages of a medical journey. “Symptom checkers serve two main functions: they facilitate self-diagnosis and assist with self-triage. They typically provide the user with a list of potential diagnoses and a recommendation of how quickly they should seek care, … Read More
All posts in Care Delivery Innovation
“[Introduction] [..] MyHEART is a multicomponent, patient-centered, and theoretically based; it includes 4 evidence-based self-management components: (1) telephone-based health coaching with adult education specialists to teach and monitor self-management skills, (2) documentation of coach-patient telephone contacts, (3) individualized hypertension education materials, and (4) home BP monitoring. [..] The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of MyHEART on clinical outcomes, ie, the change in systolic and diastolic BP (primary) and hypertension control (secondary) after 6 and 12 months, compared with usual care. [..] [Methods] [..] The inclusion criteria included (1) aged 18 to 39 years at enrollment; … Read More
Select Key Findings Policy Issues Debating the Future: Does H@H Save Costs and Improve Patient Care? “[..] Recent studies of cost savings from H@H programs range from 20 percent (Reese 2021) to 40 percent (Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Levine et al. 2020). But these findings are not generalizable as they are based entirely on single case studies of highly structured programs involving small samples of very carefully selected patients. For example, the study of Brigham and Women’s program examined 91 adults who were admitted to the hospital’s ED and randomly assigned to the hospital vs home for treatment. [..] While … Read More
“[Authority Magazine’s Jake Frankel] can you articulate for our readers a few of the main benefits of having a patient in front of you? [Co-founder and CMO of HealthTap Geoff Rutledge] The most important point to emphasize is that the essential physician–patient interaction is direct face-to-face communication that allows a doctor to connect with their patient, engage with them, and enable them to share in detail what is going on with their lives and their health. And that this critical face-to-face communication can occur equally well either in an in-person, in-office setting or via high-resolution video and audio consultation. It’s … Read More
Excerpt – Amazon will stop offering its Amazon Care primary health-care services at the end of this year, according to an internal memo, after determining that it wasn’t “the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers.” The surprise move Wednesday is a major course correction in Amazon’s broader foray into healthcare. Amazon says the decision impacts only Amazon Care, and not its other health-care initiatives. “This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration,” said Neil Lindsay, Amazon Health Services senior vice president, in the email to Amazon Health Services employees. “Although our enrolled … Read More
“At a time when patients require whole-person care to improve their overall health and well-being, efforts to improve the quality of narrow processes in the primary care setting may instead lead to fragmentation of care and clinician burnout. We believe that truly patient-centered, integrated, whole-person care in the primary care setting would comprehensively address patient concerns during any given office visit, whether those concerns include chronic disease management, acute issues, or preventive health care. [..] The annual wellness visit exemplifies a piecemeal initiative focused on specific components of care that fails to meet patient expectations of comprehensive care. [..] Widely … Read More
“Having analyzed health outcomes data from the independent National Committee for Quality Assurance, health plan member satisfaction surveys from J.D. Power, and internal data from our own organizations, we are confident that full implementation of five opportunities would improve clinical quality nationwide by 20%, increase access to care by 20%, and reduce health care spending by 15% to 20%. Reduce expensive and unnecessary trips to the ER – [..] Kaiser Permanente members in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC [..] can access a 24/7 video health center that connects them with a doctor who can quickly assess the problem and offer … Read More
“The concept of value-based payment became widespread among U.S. health policymakers and analysts during the 2000s. It collectively refers to interventions that offer doctors and hospitals financial incentives that, in theory, induce them to improve both components of health-care value — cost and quality — without generating the hostility provoked by managed care insurance companies during the HMO [health maintenance organization] backlash of the late 1990s. [The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation reviewed 54 models of value-based payment. Only four were certified to be expanded:] The Home Health Value-based Purchasing Model demonstration cut Medicare spending by 1% with mixed … Read More
“The proposed rule would establish an Additional Condition for Nonprescription Use [ACNU] category for prescription products the FDA says consumers currently can’t appropriately self-select and use without a prescription. This is somewhat analogous to the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, which allow certain prescription drugs with potential safety issues to be approved for patients with additional requirements for use, such as verifying a negative pregnancy test for a drug that can cause birth defects or requiring a monthly lab test before the drug can be dispensed. With an ACNU, a drug company must meet several FDA-approved conditions to ensure that … Read More
“Having analyzed health outcomes data from the independent National Committee for Quality Assurance, health plan member satisfaction surveys from J.D. Power, and internal data from our own organizations, we are confident that full implementation of five opportunities would improve clinical quality nationwide by 20%, increase access to care by 20%, and reduce health care spending by 15% to 20%. Reduce Expensive and Unnecessary Trips to the ER Reverse America’s Chronic-Disease Crisis – For members of large multispecialty medical groups such as Kaiser Permanente [KP], high blood pressure is a much more manageable problem [outside of KP, control rates hover around … Read More