Will Patients be the Real Winners of Healthcare Innovation? Info on #TiEcon Healthcare Tracks

Will Patients be the Real Winners of Healthcare Innovation?

Health track at #TiEcon 2023 is truly exciting as is the innovation happening in health technology and healthcare. As I had summarized in my post https://bit.ly/3Zz1W5y on the themes that emerged during #BiotechShowcase, #JPM2023 and related events in San Francisco in January 2023, “real winners of the innovation happening in healthcare in the decades ahead, likely will be patients”.  Future innovation in the medical industry will be driven by automation and will be propelled with exciting technology advancements. For instance, generative AI is poised to leverage complex, messy torrents of medical data into usable data, giving new insights into patients, providers and payers. 

This new era of patient care will the focus in stellar panels and exciting tracks, at #TiEcon 2023.

Moving data sharing insights to new outcomes – Track 1

Data features prominently in several industries. In healthcare, quality data rendered useful with advancements in artificial intelligence and Generative AI is expected to lead to many actionable changes, helping people make better choices, enhance consumer engagement and provide insights, directly translating into enhanced patient care. 

In this panel, Trannum Guller, Chief Medical Officer at HCA and Shakthi Kumar, Global healthcare and life science leader at AWS will discuss the importance of data in the healthcare ecosystem; sources from where health data is obtained and effective policies and regulations around its use, sharing and security. Qualitative and secure health data can help us extract meaning in ways that are truly beneficial to patients. The panel will discuss how to forge and enhance partnerships among various stakeholders involved, in order to leverage the insights obtained from health data. 

Innovation in patient centered care – Track 2

Each patient visit to the healthcare provider is not only the time when most personal and private data of the patient is exchanged and discussed but more importantly, all health data builds on prior health data. Patient’s health history is of immense importance. Human body is an incredibly complex and amazingly inter-connected system where knowledge or prior history and knowledge of comorbidities helps the physician and the patient to make most logical health decisions.  And with millions of patient visits generating new data daily, and physicians and hospitals extracting new insights and constantly evolving to enhance diagnoses and treatment options, more than ever, data is and will be driving the business of healthcare. 

Who better than a team of esteemed physicians to discuss the impact of emerging technologies including Cognitive AI, Multimodal AI for Medicine, Edge, Blockchain and more on the status of health and healthcare? Can this panel shed some light on whether these technologies will help simplify our complicated healthcare experience, lower healthcare costs and deliver better patient outcomes, in the years to come? 

Marcus Zachry, Chief Clinical Officer at Babylon Health, Brigitte Piniewski, Physician author of “Wealthcare: Demystifying Web2 and the Rise of Personal Data Economies” and Reena Bhargava, Medical Director at Kaiser Permanente will discuss these issues in what promises to be a highly exciting conversation. Entrepreneurs can expect to get many insights on areas of opportunities and glaring gaps as well as learn about challenges and ways to mitigate them.  

Don’t miss the largest #entrereneurship conference @TiEcon 2023 happening in May at Santa Clara, CA. Register at www.tiecon.org .

JP Morgan & #BiotechShowcase #Healthcare events 2023 – Major themes for the decade ahead

During JPM 2023 week, I attended #BiotechShowcase and observed and mingled at many receptions. I met incredible professionals in pharma, biotech, medtech, digital health and almost anyone working with anything to do with health or healthcare. I met VCs, CEOs, and others, witnessed all sorts of deal making conversations, sat in as attendee in investor panels and listened to media roundup. 

From these observations, panels and conversations, here is my assessment from very inexperienced eyes – (please take it with a spoonful of salt).

Looking at the decade ahead after the transformational, post-pandemic phase……

• There is capital available for serious players in the field. Easy seed money may have dried up somewhat but there are many sources of funding available to entrepreneurs who can protect their IP, tell a good story,  and back up their claims with data. There is still a great deal of hype and every entrepreneur claims to be working on the next company worth $4+ billion. But many investors want to see some serious revenue stream before putting down a check.

• I heard some discussions about the cost of healthcare. We spend a lot of money on healthcare and yet among developed nations, the USA lags behind. There will be continuing increased focus on providers to uplevel care. There was also discussion that we have had fewer curative solutions. My sense is that all these conversations means the industry is seriously focused on solutions that will elevate the quality of healthcare and indeed quality of life.

• Real winners in the decade ahead will be patients.  Interesting innovations are happening in challenging areas of oncology to chronic diseases. In oncology, previously the focus was mainly on prolonging life by a few months, there are now discussions for more curative solutions. From diagnostics to transformative therapeutics, quality of life will be better for patients and longevity with better quality of life looks very likely.

• The innovation that is happening is fast paced and on the cusp of several disciplines. The advantages in technology and participation of previously non traditional medtech players like artificial intelligence and machine learning is enabling biotech, medtech and healthcare and facilitating these slower disciplines to evolve rapidly. Remote work, collaborations via zoom and other technologies have broken down silos even further and have facilitated for people from diverse disciplines to come together with ease and without many hurdles.

• Mental health will be a serious aspect of overall healthcare. However, mental health offers an entirely different set of challenges. I will mention three challenges here – insurance reimbursement, objective markers of mental health, integrating service with solutions –  1) The insurers need to step up reimbursement for mental health. Advantages of good mental health in reducing overall costs are increasingly becoming clear and savvy entrepreneurs have been making that case. The payors have yet to step up to impact innovation, although VA is leading in innovation in the mental health arena. 2) Companies may need to come up with objective markers of good mental health – for instance, differences in behaviors, voice, routine maintenance etc. Markers for health are easy – a patient’s blood sugar or BP goes down or does not. However, objective markers of mental health are not yet clear and that clarity will enable more payors to step up for reimbursement. 3) There is also difference in therapeutic solutions. For instance, for a patient with diabetes, once a solution is provided, a patient can be counted upon for measuring blood sugar levels and taking necessary medication. Even then adherence is sometimes an issue. But among mental health patients, that can be much more challenging. Frequently, patients fall off the routine and then have epileptic seizures, repeat attacks of psychosis and during those times, they cannot be counted upon to administer the medications themselves. So companies working on drug therapies for instance, may increasingly need to integrate service with therapeutic solutions and bridge the gap.

• We may likely see foundational changes among regulatory agencies like FDA and in the regulatory framework. As mentioned above, increasingly innovation is happening on the cusp of various disciplines. Much of the regulatory framework has not kept up with these changes and in the years ahead we may likely see brand new, better, tech savvy regulatory agencies and frameworks. 

Time to fasten seat belts and get ready for some of the most exciting changes yet to impact quality of life for patients, increase longevity and offer better quality of life overall.