Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Patients, Providers, Progress: Powering Healthcare with Digital Health

Transcript

Patients, Providers, Progress: Powering Healthcare with Digital Health · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

• 0:00
  - Hello everyone.
• 0:00
  This is Erica Spicer Mason
• 0:02
  with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
• 0:04
  Thank you so much for tuning into this episode on improving
• 0:07
  provider experience and patient outcomes
• 0:09
  through digital health.
• 0:11
  We're thrilled to be joined today by VM Upia,
• 0:14
  the executive director of digital at M-D-V-I-P.
• 0:17
  Without further ado, vm, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:20
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 0:22
  - Thank you. I'd like to thank Becker's Healthcare
• 0:24
  for the opportunity, and, uh, also those
• 0:26
  who are listening in for their time today.
• 0:28
  - Oh, wonderful. Well, we're excited
• 0:30
  to hear your insights on digital health.
• 0:33
  Um, so I wanted to kind
• 0:34
  of start our discussion a bit high level here
• 0:37
  and ask you what you see as the role
• 0:40
  of digital health in driving patient
• 0:41
  experience and outcomes.
• 0:44
  - Yeah, absolutely. So I think one way we look at this is
• 0:47
  how consumer behavior
• 0:48
  and expectations have evolved since the pandemic.
• 0:52
  If you go back to prior to the pandemic, many providers were
• 0:55
  what we would consider to be low touch, low tech.
• 0:59
  So the investments in digital health were more a function
• 1:01
  of provider sentiment than patient expectations.
• 1:05
  What happened is this accelerated through the pandemic
• 1:08
  and has fundamentally shifted the mindset
• 1:10
  of the healthcare consumer towards preferring
• 1:13
  what we call more of a high touch,
• 1:15
  high tech type of engagement.
• 1:17
  And whether you look at patient monitoring, telehealth,
• 1:20
  you know, artificial intelligence driven diagnostics,
• 1:23
  medication management, right?
• 1:25
  All of those use cases point to a consumer
• 1:27
  that is definitely preferring more of a high touch,
• 1:30
  high tech type of engagement.
• 1:34
  In one study that, um, I often refer to when asked
• 1:37
  what could cause someone to leave their provider, the lack
• 1:41
  of online digital experiences, you know,
• 1:43
  even basic ones like scheduling were a key driver.
• 1:47
  And more pointedly, if you were, look, if you were
• 1:49
  to look at millennials, millennials were three times more
• 1:52
  likely than baby boomers to switch their providers
• 1:56
  just over the lack of meeting digital health expectations.
• 2:00
  Our own data at M-D-V-I-P suggests that utilization
• 2:03
  of digital health has doubled
• 2:05
  for some use cases versus before the pandemic.
• 2:07
  And ulti ultimately has fundamentally shifted
• 2:09
  the consumer behavior sense.
• 2:13
  Now, what this means is that a world of healthcare consumers
• 2:15
  that is increasingly biased towards high touch,
• 2:18
  high tech healthcare,
• 2:20
  and by the way, are willing to pay for it,
• 2:22
  it creates just a,
• 2:24
  a strikingly different competitive landscape in which health
• 2:27
  systems and other providers must now operate and thrive
• 2:31
  or risk losing their patients to a competitor.
• 2:35
  So at M-D-V-I-P, we, we utilize like what I,
• 2:38
  what I would call our few first
• 2:39
  principles for digital health.
• 2:40
  And, you know, I really hope that they're of value
• 2:42
  to the audience, uh, that's listening today.
• 2:45
  So, number one, we think
• 2:47
  that digital health experiences need to be of high quality
• 2:51
  and not necessarily of high quantity.
• 2:55
  So while an average M-D-V-I-P member,
• 2:58
  as an example has over 30 engagements a year with M-D-V-I-P,
• 3:02
  uh, and about 80% of those are digital,
• 3:05
  we really focus on the ones
• 3:06
  that can help drive positive change and therefore outcomes.
• 3:10
  I think a second, first principle is
• 3:12
  that digital health experiences need to be
• 3:15
  multimodal, right?
• 3:17
  So, you know, M-D-V-I-P members can use their apps,
• 3:20
  their web-based portals.
• 3:21
  They can securely message the practice,
• 3:23
  but they can also call their doctor.
• 3:25
  They can schedule an appointment, they can attend an event,
• 3:28
  uh, which could be online
• 3:30
  or offline that their doctor's hosting,
• 3:32
  which is focused on wellness and prevention.
• 3:34
  So I think the, the key takeaway here is that
• 3:37
  whatever we think about digital health experiences,
• 3:39
  multimodality plays a key role so that you can reach
• 3:42
  and broaden the reach of, uh,
• 3:44
  audiences that you're trying to engage.
• 3:46
  And then the third takeaway that, that we've had
• 3:49
  with our experience is that digital health experiences need
• 3:52
  to be highly personalized to the patient and to the doctor.
• 3:58
  So our members have a sort of a curated journey
• 4:01
  with digital engagements,
• 4:03
  but within that curated journey, we treat each practice,
• 4:06
  each doctor and each member with their unique needs in mind.
• 4:09
  In fact, we've done significant work with machine learning
• 4:13
  and, uh, various algorithms in this space
• 4:15
  that helps us understand practice level
• 4:18
  and patient level nuances that can help determine
• 4:22
  what digital health engagements can drive,
• 4:24
  what effective outcomes.
• 4:27
  So what does this all lead to, right?
• 4:28
  Like these three first principles, we try to live by
• 4:32
  and practice so that we can have a highly personalized,
• 4:35
  digitally enabled patient journey.
• 4:38
  So day in a life, right? If you're new in a community
• 4:40
  looking for a doctor, we're able to identify
• 4:43
  through various algorithms if you would be a good fit
• 4:46
  for doctors that operate in
• 4:47
  that community within the M-D-V-I-P model.
• 4:50
  And based on that fit, we can reach out
• 4:53
  to you within minutes, across a variety of channels
• 4:55
  to set up that first appointment,
• 4:57
  to learn more about the physician and program.
• 5:00
  Once you're a member, we have programs that offer, you know,
• 5:03
  various conveniences, messaging capabilities across apps
• 5:06
  or web portals that offer patients, you know, easy, direct
• 5:11
  and secure way to communicate with their doctors.
• 5:14
  And most importantly, personalized,
• 5:16
  curated digital content from a doctor
• 5:19
  that can help drive positive behavior and choices.
• 5:22
  In the panel, we run a program called Health Champions
• 5:24
  that is, has been very successful in this particular, uh,
• 5:28
  focus, which is to drive personalized digital content, uh,
• 5:31
  that can help patients make healthier choices.
• 5:35
  And then lastly on ai, right?
• 5:37
  M-D-V-I-P has been using artificial intelligence since 2015.
• 5:41
  And I think what is most telling as it relates
• 5:43
  to digital health, um, and its impact
• 5:45
  and on patient outcomes, is that in some use cases such
• 5:49
  as medication risk and even anti-cancer, early detection,
• 5:53
  our doctors have effectively used this technology
• 5:55
  for early better diagnosis and care delivery.
• 6:00
  - Thank you so much, vm. I really appreciate that overview.
• 6:03
  It, it's interesting to hear about this evolution
• 6:07
  in patients technology use from low, low touch low tech
• 6:10
  to now high touch high tech.
• 6:12
  And I think those three principles that you outlined, um,
• 6:15
  that you leverage at M-D-V-I-P are really helpful
• 6:18
  for our listeners and really tying that back
• 6:21
  to what's possible in terms
• 6:24
  of influencing the patient experience,
• 6:25
  but also their health outcomes.
• 6:27
  Um, so again, thank you so much for,
• 6:29
  for sharing those insights.
• 6:31
  So considering all of this
• 6:33
  and those three principles, going back
• 6:35
  to those best practices, you mentioned, you know, ensuring
• 6:37
  that digital health is high quality, um, multimodal,
• 6:41
  highly personalized,
• 6:43
  assuming a healthcare organization achieves those,
• 6:45
  those things, what are some good ways
• 6:48
  to get patients engaged in those digital health initiatives?
• 6:51
  - Yeah, that's often the, the, the tougher question, right?
• 6:55
  So, you know, as I reflect on a variety
• 6:57
  of digital health rollouts, um, that we've had,
• 7:00
  whether it's, uh, platforms that we've rolled out
• 7:02
  for messaging and various apps or portals
• 7:06
  or specific programs, uh, that have more
• 7:08
  of a clinical element, uh, that we've rolled out such
• 7:11
  as telehealth or digitally enabled chronic care management,
• 7:14
  remote patient monitoring, variety of clinical pilots,
• 7:18
  I think similar themes have emerged in driving
• 7:21
  engagement from patients.
• 7:24
  And I'll kind of stick to my sort of three rule principle,
• 7:27
  hopefully that that serves as good takeaways for the,
• 7:29
  the the listeners.
• 7:31
  Um, so I think the, the, the first learning we've had is
• 7:36
  buy-in and alignment from the doctor is a must have.
• 7:40
  And specifically in our model,
• 7:42
  which is uniquely focused on the physician patient
• 7:44
  relationship, focusing on the physician as the net promoter
• 7:49
  and champion of the digital health initiative is critical
• 7:52
  to driving patient engagement.
• 7:55
  The second, um, sort of takeaway
• 7:57
  or learning we've had is equally important to the doctor,
• 8:01
  perhaps even more is buy-in
• 8:04
  and alignment from the staff in the practice.
• 8:08
  So in addition to the physician championing the digital
• 8:11
  health initiative with the staff,
• 8:13
  with the practice staff on a consistent cadence,
• 8:17
  methodologies that really have worked
• 8:19
  for us in the past are threefold staff training,
• 8:23
  staff incentives and staff recognition.
• 8:27
  So for example, one thing we've done is having dedicated
• 8:30
  outside of operational working hours
• 8:32
  and frankly location training
• 8:35
  for practice staff on the initiative so
• 8:37
  that they are in the mental space to be able
• 8:39
  to really absorb and go through the change
• 8:42
  that's necessary in how they operationally execute on
• 8:45
  that digital health initiative,
• 8:48
  creating community of engaged staff.
• 8:50
  So one thing we've piloted
• 8:51
  and have had success with is linking
• 8:55
  practice staff from various practices so
• 8:57
  that they can exchange ideas
• 8:59
  and also be transparent about obstacles that they're facing
• 9:01
  with the digital health initiative.
• 9:03
  And that creates both sort of a feedback loop
• 9:08
  that is important not just for M-D-V-I-P,
• 9:10
  but it creates a feedback loop within the practices
• 9:13
  that can help motivate each other, uh, to bring
• 9:16
  that initiative to life and scale it.
• 9:19
  Another thing we've done vis-a-vis staff is
• 9:21
  to create quantitative
• 9:22
  and qualitative incentives for the staff.
• 9:25
  Sometimes physicians translate
• 9:27
  that to monitoring incentives.
• 9:28
  Sometimes the qualitative incentives
• 9:30
  include a recognition program.
• 9:32
  So we have a recognition programs for staff who go really
• 9:36
  above and beyond in the successful rollout
• 9:38
  or adoption of key initiatives at the practice.
• 9:41
  And all of this really then creates the conditions
• 9:44
  between the alignment from the doctor
• 9:46
  and then alignment from the staff to now start, you know,
• 9:49
  sort of sowing the seeds for good alignment
• 9:52
  and good engagement from the patients.
• 9:55
  And I think when it comes to the patients
• 9:56
  and their activation and additional health initiative
• 9:59
  itself, we use the same guiding
• 10:01
  principles that we talked about.
• 10:02
  So we, we look at engaging patients
• 10:05
  through multimodal means.
• 10:06
  We look at engaging patients
• 10:08
  through personalized mechanisms.
• 10:10
  So first we would, you know,
• 10:12
  we segment the patient population, identifying patients
• 10:15
  who would be good fit for the digital health initiative.
• 10:18
  Usually, you know, obviously this is enabled
• 10:20
  by the physician or some, uh, type
• 10:22
  of a clinical set of guidelines.
• 10:25
  We would then conduct multimodal outreach
• 10:27
  that is on the behalf of the physician
• 10:29
  so the patients are actually hearing from their doctor.
• 10:32
  And this could be a broad range of communications such
• 10:35
  as calls, like recorded calls
• 10:37
  or direct phone calls, emails, you know, messages,
• 10:41
  alerts across the various tools that patients use
• 10:44
  in office activation.
• 10:45
  So the patients come in for appointments, ac you know, using
• 10:47
  that opportunity to activate them on the initiative.
• 10:50
  And then, as I mentioned before, both virtual
• 10:52
  and offline events.
• 10:54
  And so sometimes we'll do like
• 10:55
  geographically focused webinars, right, on some specific,
• 10:59
  um, benefit, and then the patients can
• 11:01
  engage and learn from that.
• 11:02
  So all of these sort of go into the recipe of
• 11:07
  making sure that we are doing our best to engage patients,
• 11:11
  and then we're doing that follow up
• 11:12
  and follow through necessary for successfully rolling out,
• 11:16
  uh, whatever digital health initiative
• 11:17
  that we have on our plate.
• 11:20
  - Yeah, thanks so much VM.
• 11:21
  It sounds like a really intentional approach
• 11:24
  and as you were describing it,
• 11:26
  it sounds also like the provider experience is so connected
• 11:30
  with the patient experience when it comes
• 11:32
  to rolling out digital health initiatives
• 11:35
  and the experience that patients have.
• 11:37
  It's very much influenced by provider adoption
• 11:40
  and having those physician champions.
• 11:42
  Um, so I kind of wanted
• 11:43
  to drill down on that a little bit more.
• 11:45
  Can you share any opportunities, um, that you see
• 11:48
  to improve experience
• 11:50
  and outcomes for, for healthcare providers with these
• 11:52
  - Initiatives?
• 11:54
  Yeah, I think that's pretty spot on, right?
• 11:56
  Like many of the consumer expectations
• 11:58
  and the first principles that we operate, uh, that we spoke
• 12:01
  around on the patient side, interestingly apply
• 12:03
  to providers as well, right?
• 12:05
  So if you, if you think about our model, you know,
• 12:07
  it's more than two decades old,
• 12:09
  but it was founded by primary care doctors
• 12:11
  who recognize the need for more engagement
• 12:14
  and really greater work satisfaction amongst their peers in,
• 12:18
  um, in a delivery, in a care delivery environment
• 12:20
  where physician burnout is now approaching, what,
• 12:23
  70% in primary care.
• 12:25
  This really was a hypothesis, right?
• 12:27
  This hypothesis of an empathetic approach
• 12:29
  to primary care physicians,
• 12:31
  which would then ultimately drive higher satisfaction,
• 12:34
  higher engagement from those physicians,
• 12:36
  and then would have second order effects
• 12:38
  of driving patient outcomes.
• 12:40
  This, this hypothesis holds truer than ever.
• 12:44
  So when we engage with physicians, either, you know,
• 12:46
  whether they're employed by health system
• 12:48
  or in an independent setting, we look for doctors
• 12:51
  that can thrive in a model of smaller patient panels
• 12:54
  that can take the time, that can benefit from a time
• 12:57
  to deliver a personalized preventative care model,
• 13:00
  and then provide them with tools to help them do
• 13:03
  so both clinically and operationally.
• 13:06
  You know, in many ways, you know, when,
• 13:07
  when I think about our model, it, it,
• 13:10
  it is the original promise of value-based care, right?
• 13:13
  A relentless focus on the doctor, the patient,
• 13:16
  the relationships with both those stakeholders
• 13:19
  and the relationships amongst those stakeholders.
• 13:22
  And so bringing it back to those, uh, first principles
• 13:26
  when we focus on high touch, this focus on the doctor
• 13:29
  and the focus on relationships with the doctor is
• 13:32
  what we mean, which then creates the context necessary
• 13:36
  to deliver satisfaction
• 13:38
  and effectiveness both on the doctor side
• 13:40
  and the same for the patient side.
• 13:42
  So now you apply this to digital health, right?
• 13:44
  So the idea is
• 13:46
  that you've now created the necessary conditions
• 13:48
  for a doctor to really thrive.
• 13:50
  As I laid out. You can then
• 13:53
  focus on more decisioning
• 13:55
  and tooling support for the doctor,
• 13:57
  and that's where the technology
• 13:58
  and digital health really comes in.
• 14:00
  And we firmly believe that that technology
• 14:02
  and digital health should really be ambient
• 14:04
  to the human experience of a doctor spending time
• 14:07
  with a patient or us as the enablers
• 14:10
  of the doctor spending time with the doctor.
• 14:14
  So, you know, let's talk about a use case, right?
• 14:15
  Like one use case in which we've had success in
• 14:18
  enabling physicians this way is really leveraging machine
• 14:21
  learning to help doctors identify which patients should they
• 14:25
  conduct direct outreach to and engage.
• 14:28
  And these could be, you know, existing patients
• 14:30
  or new patients and that, you know,
• 14:32
  we could focus on engagements
• 14:33
  that can have predictive correlation to all kinds
• 14:36
  of key objectives and milestones we're looking for, right?
• 14:38
  Like, uh, like a wellness visit, which then could turn
• 14:41
  that in, turn could drive health outcomes.
• 14:44
  Another use case, um, to wrap up
• 14:47
  where digital tools have played a role is
• 14:50
  to helping our doctors with a set of,
• 14:52
  essentially a set of to-dos, right?
• 14:54
  Reminders that can help them
• 14:55
  and their practice staff proactively manage their patient
• 14:58
  panels across a variety of clinical, um, an example being,
• 15:02
  let's say rolling out remote patient monitoring
• 15:05
  or nonclinical or operational programs such as, you know,
• 15:08
  welcoming a new patient.
• 15:10
  So what we focused on is letting these tools be rolled out
• 15:15
  to physicians that can help drive efficiency
• 15:17
  and effectiveness in managing the M-D-V-I-P practice,
• 15:20
  letting these tools be ambient to the point of multimodality
• 15:24
  and high touch and personalization we talked about,
• 15:27
  but ultimately using them as enablers to increasing
• 15:31
  the physician's engagement and buy-in
• 15:33
  because they're seeing the support that's coming their way,
• 15:35
  which then has second
• 15:37
  and third order effects on patient outcomes
• 15:39
  because the physician is in a happier
• 15:41
  place with this context.
• 15:44
  - Absolutely, and as you were just mentioning
• 15:47
  that point about these tools serving as en enablers
• 15:51
  to increase physician engagement
• 15:53
  and buy-in, um, you know, I'm sure that, that it's,
• 15:57
  they see value in gaining time back
• 16:00
  to have meaningful interactions with patients.
• 16:02
  Um, so I'm sure that for a lot of providers out there,
• 16:06
  they can see the benefits in technology,
• 16:09
  but seeing those benefits versus actually, uh,
• 16:12
  becoming engaged in the digital health initiative,
• 16:14
  I'm sure those are two different things.
• 16:16
  So just kind of as we close out here, do you have any final
• 16:20
  best practices, recommendations,
• 16:22
  or methods that you'd recommend, um, for organizations
• 16:25
  who are really looking to get their providers engaged?
• 16:29
  - Yeah, so, you know, at M-D-V-I-P, we use that, you know,
• 16:32
  no two physicians and no two practices are really alike.
• 16:35
  And what that requires is discipline, meaning tools,
• 16:39
  analytics, and a mindset to be able to understand physicians
• 16:43
  and practices, you know,
• 16:45
  segmenting them in useful ways, right?
• 16:47
  To derive insights on who may be best suited
• 16:50
  for leveraging an opportunity in digital health.
• 16:52
  Not everyone is, and not everyone is well
• 16:55
  suited for every opportunity.
• 16:57
  So the first angle here is this like
• 16:59
  inside out analytical perspective,
• 17:03
  and then we combine that with an
• 17:04
  outside in feedback loop from physicians who sit on various,
• 17:09
  you know, task forces and advisory boards within our
• 17:11
  organization, and then sort of the two mix
• 17:13
  to create a degree of selection that can take place,
• 17:17
  which determines which physicians are fit
• 17:20
  for which digital health programs
• 17:22
  and which practices as a secondary qualifier are fit
• 17:26
  for which digital health programs.
• 17:28
  Now this engagement, you know, one, one criteria here is
• 17:32
  that it is usually sponsor driven.
• 17:34
  So you need a strong sponsor
• 17:35
  and buy-in from the sponsor who's typically the owner
• 17:37
  of the digital health initiative.
• 17:39
  And it's combined with boots on the ground
• 17:41
  engagement from various teams that support physicians
• 17:44
  and practices, um, to outreach
• 17:47
  to those physicians and engage them.
• 17:49
  Uh, the engagement is personal.
• 17:50
  Um, so the idea there is that
• 17:53
  really understanding your physician to understand
• 17:55
  what really motivates them.
• 17:57
  Is it clinical outcomes for their patients?
• 17:59
  Is it operational workflow and administrative load
• 18:02
  and lessening that, is it financial incentives, right?
• 18:06
  Those levers can vary across the physician population.
• 18:08
  It can vary based on
• 18:09
  where the physician is in their careers.
• 18:11
  So ultimately knowing your physicians well
• 18:13
  and maintaining a strong relationship with them
• 18:15
  to help drive these conversations
• 18:17
  and ultimately conversions is critical.
• 18:20
  And then there's obviously the multimodality aspect in
• 18:23
  physician engagement as well, right?
• 18:24
  So in addition to the, you know, the digitally enabled call
• 18:27
  and email campaigns,
• 18:29
  we also leverage digital tools in our
• 18:31
  portals to drive awareness.
• 18:32
  We also leverage, you know, community updates
• 18:34
  and newsletters to announce, you know, new initiatives
• 18:37
  that are coming online that physicians can pilot
• 18:39
  in or participate in.
• 18:41
  And in the last few years,
• 18:43
  we've also invested in developing online webinar
• 18:45
  capabilities for physicians.
• 18:46
  So you're almost building communities of interest, um, such
• 18:50
  as a digital task force that we put together, and then,
• 18:53
  but also using regularly scheduled regional
• 18:56
  and national in-person meetings
• 18:58
  to reinforce our priorities as well.
• 19:01
  So all of that sort of serves that multimodal touch points
• 19:05
  that can help engage doctors.
• 19:08
  So I think I'll leave you with this, right?
• 19:10
  Pursuing the goal of Happy Physicians
• 19:13
  that are successful
• 19:14
  and effective, it in turn leads to happy staff
• 19:17
  and practices that are successful and effective,
• 19:20
  and that yields patients who are engaged
• 19:22
  and are effectively managing their health
• 19:24
  to successful outcomes,
• 19:26
  which you can see across various published studies, right,
• 19:28
  that that MDV IP has had.
• 19:30
  Digital health is a ambient mechanism, a means
• 19:34
  to achieve these inherent goals,
• 19:36
  and it's not necessarily the end in itself.
• 19:40
  - Absolutely. I really love
• 19:42
  what you said there at the end vm, the pursuing the goal
• 19:46
  of Happy Physicians and kind of the ripple effect
• 19:48
  that can come from that on both staff and patient outcomes.
• 19:52
  So really think
• 19:53
  that our listeners are going to appreciate that.
• 19:56
  And I, I really appreciate you sharing all
• 19:58
  of your insights with us today.
• 19:59
  Thanks so much again for hopping on the podcast.
• 20:02
  - Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 20:04
  - We'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor
• 20:06
  today, M-D-V-I-P.
• 20:08
  You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare
• 20:10
  by visiting our podcast page at becker's
• 20:13
  hospital review.com.
• 20:14
  I.