Tag Archives: HIT

Healthcare Companies Sitting On Lots Of Cash…What Will They Do With It?

September 2, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

In the September 8-15 edition of Time Magazine, they have a whole article about data and numbers.  One of the pages is on which companies have the most cash.  Apple is number one and the one you always hear about.  As we’ve all seen, there are lots of rumors about Apple, Google, and Amazon and what they’re doing that is health related. 

At the same time, I was intrigued to see all the health related companies on the list:

  • Medtronic – $13.7B
  • Abbott Labs – $8.1B
  • Merck – $27.3B
  • Pfizer – $48.8B
  • Johnson & Johnson – $29.2B
  • Abbvie – $9.9B
  • Eli Lilly – $12.7B
  • Amgen – $23.1B
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb – $8.3B

You have several other non-healthcare companies which are doing things in healthcare that are also on the list:

  • Walmart – $8.7B
  • GE – $14B
  • Procter & Gamble – $8.5B
  • Qualcomm – $31.6B

If you look at the Rock Health recent report, you can imagine how these companies could leverage all this money to really change healthcare.  They could fund companies.  They could buy companies.  They could invest in orphan drugs.  They could create new technology standards.  They could educate consumers.  They could push technologies like the Internet of Things. 

Consumerism, Healthcare, Innovation, mHealth, Research, Technology
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Book: My Healthcare Is Killing Me

August 31, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”  Groucho Marx

While I was flying last week, I had the chance to read My Healthcare Is Killing Me.  I could probably think of a few other titles for the book like:

  • Don’t let healthcare bankrupt you
  • Navigating the healthcare billing maze
  • Negotiating to better health
  • The $20 disenfranchisement fee

Those should give you a hint about the topic of the book.  It’s written by Chris Parks, Katrina Welty, and Robert Hendrick who are all part of the founding team at Change Healthcare.  If you’re not familiar with Change Healthcare, you should look at them and others in the transparency space.  (You can look at Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s series on cost transparency for more information.)

Here’s a few of my notes from the book:

  • Hospitals and doctors view their patient’s bills as Days Sales Outstanding (which is why you can negotiate for prompt payment).
  • 22% of people have been contacted by a collection service for a medical bill
  • 60% of consumers that asked for discount on a medical bill were successful
  • The bill is NOT what the provider will (or expects) to get paid…It is the most that they will get paid
  • The chance of getting the right diagnosis and treatment on the first visit is 50% (scary)

The book has an interesting analogy from Patsy Kelly comparing healthcare to a restaurant:

“In healthcare, the patient does not order the service or have the primary responsibility for payment.  Additionally, the person who pays for the service does not order it or consume it, and the person who orders it does not pay for it or consume it.”

Another quote from Unity Stoakes was:

“We must arm ourselves with knowledge, wisdom and information.  Demand transparency in pricing by researching alternatives.  Negotiate!  Take control of your own healthcare now.  The more you know, the more power you have.”

The authors do a good job of simplifying down some of the complexities of the healthcare payment system.  Some things have changed with health reform, but the fundamentals are the same.  For someone taking on a large, complex condition which is likely to result in lots of costs, its worth reading.  For someone trying to change healthcare and understand the fundamentals, it’s also a great quick read which you can then follow-up on to see how this became the foundation for Change Healthcare. 

 

Consumerism, Healthcare, Managed Care, Methodology, mHealth, Press
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Our Unreasonable Expectation For Devices And Apps

June 2, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I was reading an article the other day about devices like FitBit and their use within corporate wellness programs. One of the questions it was asking was why use them when people abandon them after a while.  I found this great chart from Endeavour Partners in their whitepaper which looks a lot like an adherence curve.  They say that 1/3 of people abandon their devices within 6 months which makes it a hard investment for anyone.  Image

 

It’s the same question you might ask around mobile apps.  While this chart shows that Americans install almost 33 apps, the questions is how long they use them.

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(Source: http://www.statista.com/chart/1435/top-10-countries-by-app-usage/)

According to Flurry, most apps peak within 3 months, and they show that health and fitness app retention is only 30% after 90-days. Again, that doesn’t make you want to invest a lot of money in a mobile app.  But, there are lots of reports out there telling us that people want to use mobile to communicate with their providers, track calories, and do lots of other health related tasks.  (see RuderFinn report, see IMS report, see Pew report)

So, what gives?  Do we have unreasonable expectations?  I would say yes.

We live in a ADD culture where people are constantly multi-tasking.  People want things that evolve and constantly change.  It’s the same reason we don’t want the same experience every single day.  It’s the reason that you’ve seen people from gaming coming into healthcare.  They understand how to keep people engaged over time.

Whether you want to picture it as a customer journey or different phases, the reality is that messaging needs to evolve with the consumer.  If you got the same letter every month, at some point, you don’t even pay any attention to it.  At some point, you wouldn’t even open it.

When I worked in healthcare communications, it was the same challenge from a strategy perspective.  How would we coordinate communications across channels?  What would the first message say versus the fifth message?  How do you avoid message or channel fatigue?

It’s the same thing in the digital or device world.  So, I ask the question…do we have unreasonable expectations about these tools by thinking that we can put them out there and sustain use of them?  I think so.  We need an evolving, constantly changing strategy about content, community, functionality, etc. to keep engagement sustained.

Healthcare
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Great #BigData JAMA Image Missing Some Data Sources

May 27, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

JAMA image data

When I saw this article and image in JAMA, I was really excited.  It’s a good collection of structured and unstructured data sources.  It reminded me of Dr. Harry Greenspun’s tweet from earlier today which points out why this new thinking is important.

 

But, it also made me think about this image and what was missing.  The chart shows all the obvious data sources:

  • Pharmacy
  • Medical
  • Lab
  • Demographic
  • EMR / PHR

It even points out some of the newer sources of data:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Online communities
  • Genetics

But, I think they missed several that I think are important and relevant:

  1. Structured assessments like the PHQ-9 for depression screening or the Patient Activation Measure.
  2. Communications data like:
    • How often do they call the call center?
    • What types of questions do they have?
    • Do they respond to calls, e-mails, SMS, letters, etc?
    • Have they identified any barriers to adherence or other actions (e.g., vaccines)?  Is that stored at the pharmacy, call center, MD notes?
  3. Browser / Internet data:
    • This could be mobile data from my phone.
    • What searches I’ve done to find health information.  What have I read?  Was it a reliable source?
  4. Device data (e.g., FitBit):
    • What’s my sleep pattern?
    • What am I eating?
    • How many steps do I walk a day?
  5. Income information or even credit score type data

These things seem more relevant to me than fitness club memberships (which doesn’t actually mean you go to the fitness club) or ancestry.com data which isn’t very personalized (to the best of my knowledge).

In some cases, just simply understanding how consumers are using the healthcare system might be revealing and provide a perspective on their health literacy.

  • Do they call the Nurseline?
  • Do they go to the ER?
  • Do they have a PCP?
  • Do they use the EAP?

We’d like to think this was all coordinated (and sometimes scared into believing that it is), but the reality is that these data silos exist with limited ability to track a patient longitudinally and be sure that the patient is the same across data sources without a common, unique identifier.

Books / Articles, Care Management, Healthcare, Infographic, Managed Care, Methodology, mHealth, PBM / Pharmacy, Research, Social Media
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Innovative Ideas For A Weight Loss Company

May 15, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

As I’m enjoying my time thinking about what’s next, one of the things that I’ve thought a lot about key problem areas in our healthcare system.  Obviously obesity is one of them.  And, you have lots of companies trying to figure out what to do here.  

So, I was thinking about what I would do if I were at a Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or Vree Health…

  1. Build an assessment tool (like Milliman or InterQual) which could be used for assessing patients and creating an evidence-based care plan.
  2. Work with KitchenAid or others to create a branded line of smart devices which used the Internet of Things to do things like re-order healthy foods and suggest menus.
  3. Work with Jiff’s assessment tool or with Newtopia to study the ability to take data and create personalized diet plans.
  4. Work with FitBit or other device company and a gamification company to create a kid’s device linked to a game where the key player got fat tied to their activity level and where they opened up new levels tied to their behavior (e.g., eating healthy).
  5. Create online communities for people to share stories and experiences (like PatientsLikeMe but moderated).
  6. Move from physical locations to a virtual site using American Well technology blended with Withings scales.
  7. Incorporate stress management and sleep management into the overall program.
  8. Work with Healthways and the Blue Zones effort to create a family centric option tied into the schools and focused on getting everyone healthy across generations.
  9. Create a mobile coach using embodied conversational agents (similar to avatars) to drive behavior change and create a location-based prompts (i.e., as I pull into McDonalds).
  10. Work with manufacturers to create a “beyond the pill” approach to obesity drugs that incorporates coaching and behavior change with the pill being the final mile which should drive greater formulary coverage.
  11. Create a detailed patient journey map based on ethnographic research for weight loss with different triggers and create a “Coach certification” that can be used with coaches to certify that they are following best practices.
  12. Work with biometrics companies (e.g., LabCorp, Quest) or clinics (e.g., MinuteClinic) to create an early identification process for obesity and/or metabolic syndrome with a process for them to “prescribe” a specific program.
  13. Research and design ethnic specific obesity related programs for sub-populations within the US.  For example, partner with the large Hispanic groups to create a Spanish (language, experience, culturally relevant) programs.
  14. Partner with the ADA and NKF to jointly address metabolic syndrome together.
  15. Work with the AMA and medical schools to teach MDs how to treat and talk with obese patients (something they don’t do well today).
  16. Work with a grocery store or food company to create an augmented reality process for smart phones or Google Glass that would highlight healthy foods on the shelf and help people shop better.
  17. Work with Medicaid to create a process by which people earned cell phone minutes or lower copays based on activity and participation.  

Just some ideas that I thought I’d share.  

Healthcare
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Several Great Presentations To Share

March 19, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I try not to do a lot of promotion of things within the company.  (This is not a corporate blog.)  But, I’m always happy to share cool things that are in the public domain that catch my eye. 

Our sister company – GSW Worldwide – has been putting out a lot of new things on a blog, through their innovation lab, and through their SlideShare channel.  I thought I would highlight a few of those here.  Leigh Householder, Chief Innovation Officer, along with Ritesh Patel, Global Head of Digital, are driving a lot of this along with others on their teams. 

 

Healthcare
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Why Do We Let People Pick The Wrong Health Plan?

March 17, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

I was reading some of the research by McKinsey this morning on the individual market enrollment and the overall exchange product benefit design.  It got me thinking about the issue where consumers choose the wrong plan design based on their personal utilization of healthcare.  Why do we let that happen?

I know some of you are thinking “let that happen”…we don’t do that.  Others who work in the industry may be thinking that consumers can make good decisions. 

But, we know that consumers don’t spend enough time evaluating their options.  We know that consumers are overwhelmed by all the information they get about healthcare.  We know that consumers don’t have access to all their data.  And, we know that consumers can’t understand all the healthcare mumbo-jumbo that we use to explain what we do. 

“The ACA deals with the problem of consumer misunderstanding by requiring insurance companies to publish standardized and simplified information about insurance plans, including what consumers would pay for four basic services,” noted lead author Loewenstein. “However, presenting simplified information about something that is inherently complex introduces a risk of ‘smoothing over’ real complexities. A better approach, in my view, would be to require insurance companies to offer truly simplified insurance products that consumers are capable of understanding.” (source of this study)

This study from a few months ago predicted that over half of consumers would choose the wrong plan thereby causing them to spend more money out-of-pocket annually for their healthcare.  Companies understand this.  There is an initiative called Putting Patients First which created a cost estimation tool – http://www.puttingpatientsfirst.net/.  This conceptually helps.

But, the reason I say “let” is because the healthcare companies all have our data.  They know our medical claims.  They know our pharmacy claims.  They have our lab values.  Everyone has predictive risk models now.  If that data could be downloaded to a Personal Health Record (PHR) and then used to model our costs under each of the benefit plan options, we could make an informed decision. 

And, no…this isn’t just a healthcare.gov issue.  Most employees have had access to multiple plan options at their employer for years.  Sometimes all under the same health plan and sometimes with multiple health plans.  I’ve talked about this for a long time.  This would be relatively simple for an IT team to build and deploy.  It could also be a huge catalyst for the PHR movement to get data into the hands of the consumers and give them a reason to do this.  If I knew I could save $500+ per year by tracking and using my data, that should be a great reason to take action. 

Healthcare
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NantHealth and Other Health Mashups

February 28, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

I’m always thinking about different ways to blend companies through acquisitions or partnerships.  The announcement by NantHealth the other day at HIMSS got me thinking more about it.  They are an interesting company from what I can tell although I don’t know anyone there.  

I’ve talked about Google and all their health assets although they’re not actively trying to integrate them.  I also think that there are some investment firms like Sandbox Industries that have their fingers in lots of interesting healthcare companies.  

So, what would some other interesting opportunities (M&A, partnership, JV) be (ignoring size, valuation, ownership, and likelihood):

Of course, I’ve talked about different PBM plays recently, and I think healthcare has become such a front page issue that companies like McKesson, GE, AT&T, Emdeon, Cisco, Apple, and others are waiting to figure out how and when to buy up some technology plays.  I could easily see McKesson jumping in to buy several of the adherence companies that I highlighted a few weeks ago like Proteus.  And, I’m sure there’s more from this list of fastest growing healthcare companies that will get snapped up or create some interesting partnerships.  

I also believe that health reform will drive some consolidation on the provider and payer side.  A friend on Wall Street predicted we’d get to 6 national health insurers.  I still think that’s possible – United, Aetna/Cigna, Wellpoint/BCBS, Kaiser, Humana, and ??

Healthcare
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Dossia: Not Just a Personal Health Record Anymore

January 27, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

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I had a chance to see a product demo of Dossia the other day.  I was really impressed which I don’t easily say.  I was expecting to hear a pitch on Personal Health Records (PHRs) and why they were different.  Instead, I got to see a robust patient engagement portal which did some really interesting things. (see image above from the Health 2.0 demo they gave)

From their website, here’s the “about” description which lists some very influential players…

Dossia is an organization dedicated to improving health and healthcare in America by empowering individuals to make good health decisions and become more discerning healthcare consumers. Backed by some of the largest, most respected brands in the world – Applied Materials, AT&T, BP, Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, Vanguard Health Systems, NantWorks and Walmart – Dossia’s founding member companies have united under the common vision of changing healthcare.

Having these companies involved over the past 6 years has been really important for them to accomplish what they’ve done.  As someone that’s worked on a lot of the same population health challenges, they’ve accomplished things that not even Google Health could do.

So what were the features and functions that really impressed me:

  1. They’ve built integration to health plans, PBMs, pharmacies, lab companies, and even EMR companies.  This creates a data rich longitudinal view of the patient for the patient.  (I like the expression on their website where they say “Dossia is the connective tissue that powers healthy change.”)
  2. They’ve incorporated health content which by itself isn’t impressive, but the content is tailored to the individual based on their medical data.  Not hard, but not something that many people do well.
  3. They’ve built out a series of partnerships and integrations with over 50 apps where you can navigate that turn them on as widgets within the portal.  This is very similar to some of the cool things that CarePass is doing.
  4. They’ve built the system out using open APIs (application programming interfaces) which allows other companies to easily integrate with them.
  5. And, probably one of the cooler things from my consumer engagement lens was their ability to do WYSIWYG rules creation to trigger outbound communications based on clinical data.  The idea of a rules engine isn’t difficult, but the ease of their solution with the integrated data makes it very powerful.

And, they’ve expanded their reporting.  They’ve pulled in ways to manage those family members for which you’re a caregiver.  They’re doing lots of interesting things.  They are definitely worth talking to if you haven’t seen them in a few years.

Care Management, Consumerism, Healthcare, Leadership, Marketing / Communications, mHealth, Software, Technology, Value Propositions
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How Do The Big PBMs Grow?

January 17, 2014 by George Van Antwerp 4 Comments

By now, the idea of a PBM and who they are is much more of a household item than it was a decade ago.  We’ve seen massive consolidation in the industry.  We’ve seen PBMs grow in the specialty PBM space.  The question I often ponder is what’s next.  Here’s some of my thoughts.

  1. Do Nothing.  Obviously, there’s a lot to be said for ongoing momentum.  The PBMs have shown growth for many years.  While the generic opportunity and the mail opportunity has slowed down, there are still opportunities in the specialty space.  
  2. Distribution. This seems like an obvious possibility.  Why not buy Cardinal, AmerisourceBergen, or someone else?  Procurement and distribution are core competencies so I think this makes some sense.  But, will that create issues in the current client list and retail pharmacies and PBMs haven’t always had the best relationships.  (E.g., Express Scripts GPO with Kroger)
  3. Pharma.  This has been debated by a few PBMs, but getting into the R&D space is risky and doesn’t build on their core competencies.  What could be more interesting would be them getting into the services space by acquiring a company like IMS or Quintiles.  
  4. International.  Several PBMs have tried this model.  In general, it hasn’t gone anywhere.  I think the international collaboration of Walgreens and Boots is really interesting and other retailers have gone international.  I don’t see this happening anytime soon with any material impact.  
  5. Physician.  Having a greater impact in the prescribing process could make a lot of sense.  I could see some interesting targets in terms of Allscripts, Cerner, or athenahealth.  This has been a challenge for years with a few ventures into the space.  (e.g., CVS Caremark and iScribe)
  6. Technology.  At the end of the day, the PBMs are large technology companies.  Could they see their way into the mHealth space?  This space is growing like crazy, and you’re seeing established players get into the remote patient monitoring space (e.g., AT&T and Qualcomm).  I could see an acquisition in this area of a telehealth company (e.g., Teladoc) or a device company (e.g., Welldoc).  Or, they could build something more organically.  On the flipside, they could look at technology platforms to open doors to care management or ACOs (e.g., Lumeris).  Alternative, I could see SoloHealth as a really interesting asset.    
  7. Retail.  With a few exceptions, I think this strategy is off the table.  I’ve loved the CVS Caremark integration for years, and I think it’s showing dividends.  Rite-Aid is probably the only big acquisition target out there.  In this space, you probably have to look at it the other way.  Would any retailers (e.g., Walmart, Walgreens, Target) buy a PBM?  Walgreens got rid of their PBM, and Walmart has said they don’t want to be in that market so I’m not sure that would go anywhere.  
  8. Insurer.  I think this one has some interesting opportunities from a Medicare perspective and from a commercial perspective.  Could PBMs create an underwritten product and take on risk?  I think yes, BUT I think that could impact their need for reserves and the way the market sees them.  That makes me think this is less likely, but possible.  
  9. Device Benefit Management.  I think several ex-PBM executives have gone out to try to build the “benefit management” concept into the healthcare marketplace in other areas (e.g., IPG).  Could an existing PBM do it and cross-sell into their base?  Perhaps.  But, a stretch.  They’re getting big so they want to buy meaningful revenue, create synergies, and then grow it.  
  10. Navigation.  The most used benefit is pharmacy.  Today, consumers touch the healthcare system most frequently through retail and their daily prescriptions.  With the ongoing complication of the health benefits, there is a huge need for navigators (and not just in the healthcare.gov use of the term).  Think about companies like Health Advocate or Accolade.
  11. Data.  With the RxAnte acquisition, it has to make you wonder about PBMs and their data assets.  How can they use them differently?  Can they create apps?  Can they create algorithms to license?  What would this look like?  What about companies like Proteus?  Perhaps, a PBM could consolidate several unique assets along the device, smart bottle, data path.
  12. Condition specific.  I could see some PBMs going deep on particular areas like oncology to really build out an oncology practice that did everything from second opinions to case management to end-of-life counseling.  Those could all wrap around the drugs.  Or, imagine them going into the chronic kidney care space by acquiring a company like DaVita.  
  13. Providers.  While there could be some interesting synergies here with a large hospital group (e.g., HCA) or some ACO/PCMH players, I see that more of a managed care play for rolling up companies.  The ROIC (Return on Invested Capital) is too different in these physical operations that I see that being a struggle.  And, I think there’s lots of concerns about the hospital needs over time.  

Which path plays out…I don’t know, but I think it’s getting close to time that you’ll see another shift in the market as they try to secure their next 10 years of growth by expanding into something that builds on their core competencies.  

I think the other question would be if they focus on differentiation by really showing material differences in outcomes and engagement rates and look at how they show an overall health ROI not just Rx specific.  That would be where I would place my bets and look at which of these options support that.  Maybe we’ll see a PBM X (like Google X) doing some strategic long-term deals to change the overall healthcare roadmap.  

Healthcare
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2014 Healthcare Predictions and Trends

December 31, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Happy New Year!  2013 has been an interesting year in healthcare with 2014 promising many more exciting developments.  A few of the biggest stories from 2013 include:

  • Healthcare.gov – the politics, the drama, and the missteps
  • Healthcare transparency and costs – new companies, new revelations, and an entire Time magazine focused on it
  • Healthcare engagement – ongoing focus on how to get consumers to engage
  • mHealth and QuantifiedSelf – apps and devices proliferate
  • Investment – a huge jump in VC and angel funding for healthcare
  • ACOs – do they work or not
  • Big Data – so much data…so many opportunities

Here’s my predictions for 2014:

  1. Transparency – The race to bring cost data to the forefront of the consumer mindset will move from a radical concept to an expectation.  With increased out-of-pocket costs and HDHPs, consumers will expect access and information to cost data.  They will look for systems that can predict what they need and push data to them in a timely fashion using location based services and predictive algorithms. 
  2. Exchanges – With big companies trying the private exchanges and moving their employees to the federal exchange, we’ll see the market holding its breadth to see what happens.  If this drives success on both sides of the equation – employers and payers, you can expect a large jump in this direction later in the year.   
  3. Mobile – The traditional member website will continue to die a slow death without mobile optimization in place.  More and more consumers will access the healthcare system through a smart phone or device like an iPad.  This will drive healthcare companies to figure out how to embrace user design and member experience in new ways as they strive to provide the sustainable app that consumers use more than a few times. 
  4. Providers – Providers will continue to cautiously embrace pay-for-performance, value-based healthcare, and models like ACOs and PCMHs.  They will want them to work, but they will continue to look for the Tipping Point in which their overall panel is part of these programs.  Providers will also begin to modify their workflows using technology based on Meaningful Use and the ubiquity of technology. 
  5. Engagement – Consumer engagement in healthcare will continue to be the elusive Holy Grail.  Companies will try behavioral economics, incentives, and mass personalization to try and get consumers to understand healthcare and take actions to improve their health.  There will be more shifting to include caregivers and embrace social media (e.g., Facebook) and peer-to-peer networks.  We will start to see documented case studies and results in terms of improved outcomes. 
  6. Devices – While 2013 was the year of device proliferation, we will see the number of people (early adopters and QuantifiedSelf groupies) maxing out.  I expect some further consolidation and a dip in adoption rate as we move into the period of disillusionment.  Devices will be less about a standalone solution and look at how they integrate with the smart phone and existing systems (at work and home).  Like smart pills and smart clothes, this will lead to increased data and integration into daily life.  This will require collaboration with providers and employers to figure out how to come through this period.
  7. Value-based – CMS will continue to be a big driver in pushing new payment models around healthcare as they struggle to figure out how to slow the tidal wave of costs coming in Medicare and Medicaid.  This will meet up with some of the progress in the commercial space with ACO and PCMH models leading to an evolving path in terms of how drive value.  This won’t be the breakthrough year, but we’ll see meaningful progress. 
  8. Investments – I don’t see any slowdown in healthcare investments.  Our health issues aren’t going away in the US or abroad.  China is just emerging with a long list of health issues and technology is creating new solutions in 3rd World countries. 
  9. Pills Plus – With pharma struggling with how to reinvent itself, they are going to look at new solutions like Merck is doing with Vree Health.  This will cause them to look at many of these trends and how they wrap services, technology, and incentives around their medications.  
  10. Specialty Care – Specialty pharmacy will continue to be a big growth driver with novel innovations coming down the pipe.  But, these pharmacies will realize that they can’t work in a vacuum.  They have to do a better job at integrating care management into their services and partnering with Case Management companies to holistically treat the patient. 
  11. Metabolic Syndrome – The overall global issues of obesity and diabetes will become a huge weight around the shoulders of the healthcare system.  While the focus will continue to be on the complex cases requiring massive dollars, the majority of people will be struggling with a chronic disease.  Metabolic Syndrome will become a big focus for payers, employers, and health services companies as they try to find ways to prevent further complications. 
  12. Prevention – While I don’t expect a huge shift here, I think we’ll start to hear more voices on the perimeter yelling about why we only spend 5% of our dollars on prevention.  They’ll point out other models outside the US spending more with better outcomes.  Health Reform will begin to enable some change here, but it will be slow. 
  13. Community Based Care – With more people coming back into the healthcare system with Health Reform, there will be a greater need for location based access to healthcare.  This will involve clinics but will be much broader.  Companies will need to look at how they embrace community resources like churches to engage the disengaged and poor who don’t trust the system and have limited access to the traditional channels.  
Healthcare
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Why Use RunKeeper?

August 3, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I’ve been a longtime user of Garmin for my running.  They provide easy to use GPS watches that provide you with all the details and history you want.  I also now have my FitBit as another tracking device when I run.

So, while several people encouraged me to try RunKeeper, I was hesitant.  How many trackers for the same activity do I need?  But, I started carrying my iPhone for music while I ran so I decided to give it a try.

I like it.

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So, the question is why?

  1. It talks to you.  While looking at my Garmin is pretty easy, the RunKeeper app speaks into my headphones while I’m running to tell me when I’ve completed a half-mile, what my total time is, what my average mile pace is, and what my last split was.  I can certainly calculate all that and see it on my Garmin, but this is very easy.
  2. It gives you reinforcement and now some badges (through Foursquare which I don’t use).  But, I do like the reinforcement – i.e., that was your longest run, that was your fastest run.  Simple but positive.
  3. It has a nice GUI (graphical user interface) or app.  It tracks my data.  It’s easy to read.

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So, if you’re like I was, I’d recommend trying it.

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exercise, mHealth, Technology, Value Propositions
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CarePass, Another Aetna Innovation – What’s Your Healthy?

July 10, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 5 Comments

Have you seen the new “What’s Your Healthy?” campaign?  Here’s a few shots.

BTW – My healthy is keeping up with my kids in sports and moving down a belt notch.

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As many of you know, I consider Walgreens and Aetna to be two of the most innovative healthcare companies today (out of the big, established players).  [And, full disclosure, I own stock in both.]  I’ve talked about Walgreens (see Walgreens post on innovation) several times along with Aetna (see Healthagen post).

That being said, the new campaign along with the press caught my attention.  I was glad that I was able to get some time with Martha Wofford who is the VP and head of CarePass.

“We want to make it easier for everyone to engage in their health and hopefully shift from thinking about health care to taking care of their health,” said Martha L. Wofford, vice president and head of CarePass from Aetna. “CarePass helps consumers connect different pieces of health data to create a fuller, more personalized picture of their health.”

I spent some time talking with Martha and team about their initiative.  Here’s some highlights that stuck out to me.

  • There use of goals was really easy and intuitive.  If you log-in to the CarePass site and get started, you have 3 options or you can create your own (see below).  We spent some time talking about the importance of making these relevant to the individual not focusing on “healthcare goals” like adherence or lowering you blood sugar.  Most of us don’t think that way.  As they described them, they picked “motivation centric goals”.
    Aetna Carepass goals
  • I was also really interested in how they picked which apps to recommend.  There are so many out there, and many of you know that I’ve been fascinated by the concept of curating apps or prescribing apps to people.  They had a nice, simple process:
    • Which apps are most popular?
    • Does the app have “breadth”?  (i.e., national applicability)
    • They also spent more time pre-screening apps which collect PHI to understand them before listing them on the site.
    • They’re using the consumers goals to recommend apps to them.
  • The other big question I had is why do this.  It certain helps build the Aetna brand over time, but there’s not direct path to revenue (that I see).  They described their efforts as “supporting the healthcare journey” through connected data.  Ultimately, it’s about making Aetna a preferred consumer brand which may be very relevant in the individual market and exchange world in the not too distant future.
  • I like the idea of companies being “app agnostic” as I call it.  Walgreens is doing this.  Aetna is doing this.  I plan on doing this in my day job.  This allows the consumer to pick the app that works for them and as long as the data is normalized (or can be normalized) and the app provides some type of open API (application programming interface) it’s much easier to integrate with.
  • We talked a little about what’s next.  Metabolic syndrome is something they brought up.  This is something that Aetna’s been talking about in several forums for a while now.  They launched a new offering earlier this year.  (I still hate the term metabolic syndrome from a consumer perspective, but it seems to be sticking in the healthcare community.)
  • We also talked about new goals to come around smoking cessation, medication, and stress.
  • Another discussion I have with lots of people is how this data gets used.  (see a good article about what’s next for QuantifiedSelf)  I personally really want to see my data pushed to the care management team to monitor and send me information.  (Eat this not that type of suggestions)  Martha talked about how the data belongs to the member and they have to choose to push it to the coach.  She also talked about how they’re integrating with their PHR (Personal Health Record) first and then looking at others.  (see old interview with ActiveHealth)

In summary, CarePass is a nice additional to your #QuantifiedSelf toolkit.  As you can see from the screenshots below, the GUI (graphic user interface) is simple.  It’s well designed.  Integration with your apps is easy.  It provides you with goals and motivation.  They help you navigate the app world.  And, it helps you bring together data from multiple sources.  Once it can pull in all my Rx, medical and lab data along with my HRA data and my device data, it will be really cool!  But, I know that I’m a minority in that effort.  I’m really intrigued by the lifestyle questions they ask and wonder how those will ultimately personalize my experience.

Carepass lifestyle questions Carepass dashboard

So, what apps do they share?  Here’s a screenshot, but you really should log-in and try the site and see the full list.  It’s simple and worth the effort.

Carepass apps

As an added bonus, I’m adding a presentation I gave with Aetna at the Care Continuum Alliance two years ago.  I was searching for my past interviews with Aetna people and found this online so I added it to SlideShare and put it here.

Books / Articles, Care Management, Consumerism, Healthcare, Innovation, Leadership, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, mHealth, Press, Research, Technology, Value Propositions
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How Walgreens Became One Of The More Innovative Healthcare Companies

April 28, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 3 Comments

While we are generally a society focused on innovation from start-ups (and now all the incubators like Rock Health), there are a few big companies that are able to innovate while growing.  That’s not always easy and companies often need some catalyst to make this happen.  Right now, there are four established healthcare companies that I’m watching closely to track their innovation – Kaiser, United/Optum, Aetna, and Walgreens.  (Walgreens has made the Fast Company innovation list 3 of the past 4 years.)

I think Walgreens is really interesting, and they did have a great catalyst to force them to really dig deep to think about how do we survive in a big PBM world.  It seems like the answer has been to become a healthcare company not just a pharmacy (as they say “at the corner of Happy and Healthy”) while simultaneously continuing to grow in the specialty pharmacy and store area.

Let’s look at some of the changes they’ve made over the past 5 years.  Looking back, I would have described them as an organic growth company with a “not-invented-here” attitude.  Now, I think they have leapfrogged the marketplace to become a model for innovation.

  1. They sold their PBM.
  2. They re-designed their stores.
  3. They got the pharmacist out talking to people.
  4. They got more involved with medication therapy management.
  5. They increased their focus on immunizations increasing the pharmacists role.
  6. They formed an innovation team.
  7. They invested heavily in digital and drove out several mobile solutions including innovations like using the QR code and scanning technology to order refills.
  8. They’ve reached out to partner with companies like Johns Hopkins and the Joslin Diabetes Centers.
  9. They increased their focus on publications out of their research group to showcase what they could do.
  10. They started looking at the role the pharmacy could play and the medications played in readmissions.
  11. They partnered with Boots to become a much more global company.
  12. They offered daily testing for key numbers people should know like A1c and blood pressure even at stores without a clinic.
  13. They created an incentive program and opened it up to link to devices like FitBit.
  14. They partnered with The Biggest Loser.
  15. They increased their focus on the employer including getting into the on-site clinic space.
  16. They created 3 Accountable Care Organizations.
  17. They partnered with Novartis to get into the clinical trials space.
  18. They developed APIs to open their system up to developers and other health IT companies.
  19. They formed a big collaboration with AmerisourceBergen which if you read the quote from Greg Wasson isn’t just about supply chain.

    “Today’s announcement marks another step forward in establishing an unprecedented and efficient global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing network, and achieving our vision of becoming the first choice in health and daily living for everyone in America and beyond,” said Gregory Wasson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Walgreens. “We are excited to be expanding our existing relationship with AmerisourceBergen to a 10-year strategic long-term contract, representing another transformational step in the pharmaceutical supply chain. We believe this relationship will create a wide range of opportunities and innovations in the rapidly changing U.S. and global health care environment that we expect will benefit all of our stakeholders.”

  20. They jumped into the retail clinic space and have continued to grow that footprint physically and around the services they offer with the latest jump being to really address the access issue and help with chronic conditions not just acute problems.

“With this service expansion, Take Care Clinics now provide the most comprehensive service offering within the retail clinic industry, and can play an even more valuable role in helping patients get, stay and live well,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kang, senior vice president of health and wellness services and solutions, Walgreens. “Through greater access to services and a broader focus on disease prevention and chronic condition management, our clinics can connect and work with physicians and other providers to better help support the increasing demands on our health care system today.” (from Press Release)

This is something for the whole pharmacy (PBM, pharma, retail, mail, specialty) industry to watch and model as I talked about in my PBMI presentation (which I’m giving again tomorrow in Chicago).  It reminds me of some of the discussions by pharma leaders about the need to go “beyond the pill”.

 

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#WHCC13 Interview: Content + Community + Competition = Keas

April 9, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I had the opportunity to sit down this morning with Josh Stevens who is the CEO of Keas.

“Keas is the most engaging wellness program in the workplace. Keas promotes healthy behavior and teamwork with interactive media that delivers relevant, individualized content to hundreds of thousands of employees. Keas has a proven track record of supporting corporate HR in increasing retention, productivity, teamwork, collaboration, and competitiveness. By rewarding people for achieving simple exercise and nutrition goals, employee health is improved and overall healthcare costs are decreased.”

He is a passionate believer in using fun and social to drive change in healthcare with a focus initially on wellness and then moving upstream to other challenges like disease management.

As CEO of Keas, the market leader in corporate wellness, Stevens is responsible for leading the development and market adoption of the company’s breakthrough wellness platform and applications.

Stevens has over 20 years of experience in product, sales, marketing, and is a recognized leader in driving high-value product experiences that deliver customer delight and investor’s valuation growth.

Prior to Keas, Stevens was Vice President of e-commerce at YouSendIt, Senior Vice President of strategy and business development at TicketsNow, and General Manager of e-commerce at AOL. Prior to his GM role at AOL, Stevens held a variety of leadership positions in business development, product marketing, product management, and corporate strategy.

Some of you may have seen Keas over the years. They were founded by Adam Bosworth who was responsible for Google Health at one point. They’ve gone through a few evolutions, but it seems like they’ve hit on a working model leveraging several principles that we discussed:

  1. Being intellectually nimble
  2. Developing holistic and integrated solutions
  3. Using content, community, and competition to drive engagement
  4. Building social networks around health
  5. Integrating into the consumer’s experience to be seamless (e.g., single sign on)
  6. Recognizing that change is dependent upon corporate culture changing also
  7. BYOD (bring your own device) meaning that they can integrate with anyone with an open API
  8. Realizing that while some people (like me) might want to focus on data in a Quantified Self manner, we’re only 15% of the population

While Josh isn’t a healthcare native, that seems like a good thing. I’ve seen a lot of people try to come into healthcare from the outside. Most of them fail because they get overwhelmed by the regulation or frustrated by the challenges or stick too much to what they personally think should work. In the hour we spent together, I didn’t get that sense.

I’m looking forward to learning more about Keas and trying out the tools myself. One of the most fascinating points was that they get people to engage 15 times per month. I told him that that was a ridiculous number in healthcare. We went on to talk about his hiring a team from the gaming industry and that they were used to being tied to repeat visits not simply getting people to download the tool.

IMHO – if you could get 50% of people to engage twice a month with a tool (and sustain that engagement rate), you would be a hero.

As I’ve talked about in my posts about CVS and as I tweeted earlier today from the conference, companies need to engage the worker at the workplace to transform healthcare. Josh gets that key point.

“Today’s employees spend most of their daily lives at work and companies can have a huge impact on improving overall health by creating a culture of wellness at work. That culture starts with Keas’ fun, engaging platform, which helps employees become healthier, more productive and more engaged at work, and in life.” (press release)

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The Prescribing Apps ERA – Will Clinicians Be Ready? #mHealth

February 7, 2013 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Dr. Kraft (@daniel_kraft) recently spoke at FutureMed and talked about the prescribing apps era.  I’ve talked about this concept many times, and I agree that we are rapidly moving in that direction.  And, there’s lots of buzz about whether apps will change behavior and how soon we’ll see “clinical trials” or published data to prove this.

From this site, you can get a recap, but here are the key points that he made:

1) Mobile Phones (quantified self) are becoming constant monitoring devices that create feedback loops which help individuals lead a healthy lifestyle.  Examples include; monitoring glucose levels, blood pressure levels, stress levels, temperature, calories burned, heart rate, arrythmias. Gathering all this information can potentially help the patient make lifestyle changes to avoid a complication, decrease progression of a particular disease, and have quality information regarding his physical emotional state for their physician to tailor his treatment in a more efficient manner.

2) The App prescription ERA:  Just as we prescribe medications prescribing apps to patients will be the future. The reason why this is important is that apps created for particular cases can help the patients understand their disease better and empower them to take better control.

3) Gamification: using games in order to change lifestyle, habits, have been mentioned before. A very interesting concept was that created in the Hope Labs of Stanford. The labs created a game in which children would receive points after there therapeutic regiment, once points were optioned they could shoot and attack the tumor. Helping with the compliance rate of the treatments

4) Lab on a chip and point of care testing

5) Artificial Intelligence like Watson and its application in medicine.

6) Procedure Simulation: Several procedures done by medical professionals follow (not 100%) a see one, do one teach one scenario.  Probably very few people agree with this concept and that is why simulation has great potential. In this case residents, fellows in training can see one, simulate many and then when comfortable do one.

7) Social Networks and Augmented Reality

At the same time, a recent ePocrates study hammered home the point that while this is taking off physicians don’t have a mechanism for which ones to recommend and why.

According to the Epocrates survey, more than 40 percent of physicians are recommending apps to their patients. In terms of the apps being recommended, 72 percent are for patient education, 57 percent are lifestyle change tools, 37 percent are for drug information, 37 percent are for chronic disease management, 24 percent are for medical adherence and 11 percent are to connect the patient to an electronic health record portal.

Physicians also have several different sources for identifying which apps to recommend to their patients. According to the survey, 41 percent get advice from a friend or colleague, while 38 percent use an app store, another 38 percent use an Internet search engine, 23 percent learn of an app from another patient or patients, and 21 percent use the app themselves.

That said, the survey also notes that more than half of the physicians contacted said they don’t know which apps are “good to share.”

As I’ve discussed before, this is somewhat of the Wild West.  Patients are buying and downloading apps based on what they learn about.  They’d love for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other trusted sources to help them.  But, those clinicians are often not technology savvy (or at least many of the ones who are actively practicing).  There are exceptions to the norm and those are the ones in the news and speaking at conferences.

IMHO…consumers want to know the following:

  1. Which apps make sense for me based on my condition?
  2. Will that app be relevant as I move from newly diagnosed to maintenance?
  3. Should I pay for an app or stick with the free version?
  4. Is my data secure?
  5. Will this app allow me to share data with my caregiver or case manager?
  6. Will this app have an open API for integration with my other apps or devices?
  7. Is it intuitive to use?
  8. Will this company be around or will I be able to port my data to another app if the company goes away?
  9. Is the information clinically sound?
  10. Is the content consumer friendly?
  11. Is it easy to use?
  12. Is there an escalation path if I need help with clinical information?
  13. Will my employer or health plan pay for it for me?
  14. Is my data secure?

And, employers and payers also have lots of questions (on top of many of the ones above):

  1. Is this tool effective in changing behavior?
  2. Should I promote any apps to my members?
  3. Should I pay for the apps?
  4. How should I integrate them into my care system?
  5. Do my staff need to have them, use them, and be able to discuss them with the patient?  (Do they do that today with their member portal?)

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