Latest / CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered. / 2023 State of Digital Healthcare

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2023 State of Digital Healthcare · CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered.

• 0:00
  David: Well, digital health had plenty of ups and downs in 2022 with continued innovation and billions in new investment, but also a nearly 7 billion writedown on the Blockbuster Teladoc Livongo deal with new advances in 2023.
• 0:14
  David: Like chat, G P T and Sensor Technologies.
• 0:17
  David: It's time to look ahead.
• 0:18
  David: And who better to do that with than Jess Amasa from WTF Health?
• 0:23
  David: Welcome to Care Talk, America's Home for Incisive debate about healthcare, business, and policy.
• 0:27
  David: I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
• 0:30
  David: And I'm John
• 0:30
  John: Driscoll, the president of Walgreens Health.
• 0:32
  John: Jess, it's so great to have you back on the show.
• 0:36
  Jess: Hi.
• 0:37
  Jess: Hi David.
• 0:38
  Jess: Hi, John.
• 0:38
  Jess: So great to be here again.
• 0:40
  Jess: My God, wouldn't it, it takes a long time to get a repeat invite to this show.
• 0:44
  Jess: It's been left forever,.
• 0:47
  Jess: David: Well, Jess, it's not just for that you haven't exactly been just cool in your heels all year either.
• 0:52
  Jess: You're telling me about something about helicopters and Mexico and Las Vegas.
• 0:55
  Jess: I mean, what's the, what, what the f you?
• 0:58
  Jess: I know you wouldn't believe it.
• 0:59
  Jess: So yeah.
• 1:00
  Jess: So last year, the big news of the year was a personal thing for me.
• 1:03
  Jess: I got married.
• 1:04
  Jess: I got married in a helicopter flying over the Las Vegas strip.
• 1:09
  Jess: I knew my husband for 40 days.
• 1:11
  Jess: Uh, yeah.
• 1:12
  Jess: And it is very romance that ended in a whirlwind marriage in a literal helicopter.
• 1:18
  Jess: John: Wow.
• 1:19
  Jess: So who presided over?
• 1:20
  Jess: I know the helicopter.
• 1:22
  Jess: I mean, was it the pilot?
• 1:25
  Jess: .
• 1:25
  Jess: Jess: No, we get asked that a lot.
• 1:26
  Jess: No, the pilot was a pilot and then we had an officiant and then we had a photographer and I think we needed the extra person in there cause we needed two witnesses.
• 1:33
  Jess: So the the pilot was a witness, the photographer was a witness.
• 1:36
  Jess: And then you had the officiant.
• 1:38
  Jess: Wow.
• 1:38
  Jess: Wow.
• 1:39
  Jess: I know everybody's like, it's a good thing you didn't jump out.
• 1:42
  Jess: That would've been a whole, uh, I forget running down the aisle.
• 1:45
  Jess: , yes.
• 1:45
  Jess: Screaming in terror.
• 1:46
  Jess: It would've been a, I guess
• 1:47
  John: parachute.
• 1:48
  John: You're kinda boxed in there, Jess.
• 1:49
  John: But Congrat.
• 1:50
  John: Mm-hmm.
• 1:50
  John: . Big congratulations.
• 1:51
  John: I know you're super excited.
• 1:53
  John: Thank you so much.
• 1:53
  John: And happy.
• 1:54
  John: And that, that, that's just the best.
• 1:56
  John: Um, so suggestion.
• 1:57
  John: Thank you so much.
• 1:57
  John: What, what is the state of digital health right now?
• 2:01
  John: I mean, are, are, is are we moving the ball forward or back?
• 2:05
  John: I mean, it's kind of confusing cuz all these great entrepreneurs.
• 2:08
  John: Tons of capital and, and um, you know, but it's been a jarring year.
• 2:14
  Jess: It has been, but I have to say, I feel like I, I was annoyed all of last year about just how jarred everybody was because Oh, the funding deals.
• 2:23
  Jess: The funding deals.
• 2:24
  Jess: But it's like, if you look at the numbers, like, yeah, okay.
• 2:26
  Jess: Of course the pandemic year, it was that big 29 billion funding year for digital health, but the year before that, it was like 15 billion.
• 2:35
  Jess: and the year, oh no, I'm sorry.
• 2:37
  Jess: It was like, yeah, right around 15.
• 2:38
  Jess: It's like 14.7 and then like this year, this last year, 22 ended and it was like 15.3, so 14.7 before 15.3 after the big, big bump up there when everybody was clamoring for virtual digital, remote patient, anything.
• 2:54
  Jess: I mean, he.
• 2:55
  Jess: It was kind of an anomaly, but really I feel like if you look at the whole trend, I mean, we're still on pace with where we were, which is a good thing.
• 3:03
  Jess: Fact ticked up a little bit and people forget if they look back like you guys, I'm sure.
• 3:07
  Jess: I mean, you've been around a long time.
• 3:08
  Jess: Way too long.
• 3:09
  Jess: Not quite as long.
• 3:10
  Jess: I've been around, not quite as long.
• 3:12
  Jess: But if you look at 18 and 19, the funding totals, then we were cruising, we were stuck at 8 billion and everybody was like, it was kind of a wild card.
• 3:19
  Jess: And then when we had that one big year, 14.7, um, right before the pandemic, everybody was really excited.
• 3:25
  Jess: And, you know, you mentioned Livongo on the, on the beginning of this, that was the year that Livongo iPod.
• 3:30
  Jess: So it's, it's interesting, um, when you look at it rather than just look.
• 3:34
  Jess: Quarter by quarter it, it really doesn't seem like it's as bad.
• 3:39
  Jess: And the sentiment I got, I talked to a lot of people, you know, you guys know I do interviews, you know, all over the world really.
• 3:44
  Jess: And.
• 3:45
  Jess: , the last big conference was health, obviously in Vegas.
• 3:49
  Jess: Talked to a lot of investors there and it's like they're, they, they've got a lot of money in their coffers they're looking to, to make investments.
• 3:55
  Jess: So it's, it's, it's not on that end.
• 3:57
  Jess: Um, the term sheets I've heard though, are what's kind of killing these entrepreneurs that are out there these days is that they're not getting these numbers that, you know, just the year before people were.
• 4:07
  Jess: . And That's right.
• 4:08
  Jess: It was a corruption.
• 4:09
  Jess: So, you know, this is the new state of things, but you know, as we're talking today, just this morning shifted, closed a 200 million round for, its, um, it's wild nurse, nurse care staffing business.
• 4:20
  Jess: Well, that's a great, that, that's like one of the hot areas still.
• 4:23
  Jess: So I think you know what's ahead for, I mean, there's these pockets that keep continuing to get a lot of money poured into 'em.
• 4:29
  Jess: And I think a lot of these were companies that were either too early to get this kind of funding during the boom year, or it's like now that people.
• 4:37
  Jess: People, providers, plans, retailers have adopted kind of like a, a, a clearer picture of what their virtual care or digital health strategy is moving forward.
• 4:47
  Jess: It's all these things that are kind of filling in the cracks and the gaps and helping make care delivery possible, helping coordinate things, helping figure out billing, helping.
• 4:54
  Jess: Staff with nursing.
• 4:56
  Jess: It's, it's technology use in this more infrastructure way that I still see as getting funded quite a bit.
• 5:01
  Jess: The days of Livongo, uh, or you know, like some of these big digital health companies that we're getting these big numbers early on.
• 5:09
  Jess: I think that, that, that's gone away for a little while now.
• 5:11
  Jess: It doesn't mean it won't come back, but we're gonna be looking at a very different market with a lot of very different players who are further along the maturation cycle of, of, you know, an entrepreneurial business.
• 5:20
  Jess: And what they need to do now is scale.
• 5:22
  Jess: And that's kind of where we're at.
• 5:25
  Jess: .
• 5:25
  Jess: David: So Justin, you know, it sounds big deal of the funding up and down cuz it was so far up that down is, is still, you know, pretty good.
• 5:34
  Jess: What would you say, you know, what was the most important digital health story in 2022?
• 5:39
  Jess: You stella it for me, David on the intro.
• 5:41
  Jess: Teladoc write down of Livongo.
• 5:43
  Jess: I'm sorry.
• 5:43
  Jess: That was the most important news of 2022 and mostly because it really captured like that whole Livongo story.
• 5:51
  Jess: Beginning, even before their I P O in 2019.
• 5:55
  Jess: But then when they got bought in that pandemic summer of 2020 at 18.5 billion, everybody's like, this is it.
• 6:01
  Jess: And the thing that that deal represented was not only like the market top for like a digital, like what was possible and like a time of like extreme exuberance.
• 6:09
  Jess: Um, but what it also represented was this opportunity for.
• 6:13
  Jess: A very specific point solution.
• 6:15
  Jess: I know everybody hates that term, but point solution to be integrated into a bigger care delivery organization.
• 6:21
  Jess: I mean, I think people forget, like Teladoc wasn't just providing, you know, like the white label, uh, virtual care to health systems and plans.
• 6:28
  Jess: They also had their own primary care bus.
• 6:30
  Jess: And that they often made them competitive.
• 6:31
  Jess: And when that deal happened, that was the thing that everybody said was, whoa, this makes them, this Rosen really into competition with the likes of like an Optum or, you know, any other kind of, um, hospital or, or care provider because they're really doing all of the same things.
• 6:44
  Jess: So when that deal got written down, written down in 2022, not once, but twice, to the tune of half the value of what they paid for it, I feel like both of those times it was like a, oh crap, because what it.
• 6:59
  Jess: Brought into question.
• 7:00
  Jess: I think the larger issue that it raised was how do you integrate, you know, a digital health point solution, something that does remote patient monitoring and that's collecting a lot of data in, in, in a variety of different chronic diseases.
• 7:12
  Jess: How does that integrate back in?
• 7:14
  Jess: To a primary care world, how does that integrate in with the rest of the way that care is being delivered?
• 7:20
  Jess: And Teladoc hadn't figured that out and there wasn't anything there for, from the Livongo side for them to very easily plug into.
• 7:27
  Jess: So I mean, it kind of, they just didn't have the, um, the ability to make that work.
• 7:33
  Jess: And I mean, to the tune of losing half the value of that house.
• 7:36
  Jess: I mean, it's pretty incredible.
• 7:37
  David: But
• 7:37
  John: Jess, are we mistaking price for progress?
• 7:41
  John: It to your point as if there's a lot of people like David who are blown around by the headlines of the day-to-day, and he gets overly excited one day and overly depressed in the next, isn't the real, the theme, the underlying theme to your point, not just the things that are getting, getting funded, but that we're actually making progress, digitizing a lot of the physical world, which should allow us to be more connected?
• 8:07
  John: Or, or, or, or is David right?
• 8:09
  John: It's all about.
• 8:11
  Jess: No, it's not about price and it's trying, what I'm trying to say here is that the underlying thing that despite the price, it was like there was no integration and clients were leaving.
• 8:19
  Jess: I mean, I, I talked to a lot of people on the dl off the record, but a lot of, um, other virtual, like chronic condition care companies picked up a lot of Livongo customers that weren't happy with the way that it didn't integrate into anything that they were promised in that Teladoc Livongo merger.
• 8:35
  Jess: So, I mean, it's interesting that, I mean, what's progress John like, you know, I mean, I think, you know, if you look at, you know, the way that these were sold, the way early chronic condition management companies, these point solutions were sold.
• 8:49
  Jess: It was like they kept going to employers, and the employers were point solutions out, and then they're trying to get in involved and integrated into care delivery at.
• 8:55
  Jess: Point of care.
• 8:57
  Jess: I had a great interview just recently with, um, Sean Duffy from Oma Health, and they've, they've got a deal with Intermountain, where Intermountain's primary care physicians are recommending Omada at the point of care.
• 9:07
  Jess: That, to me is progress.
• 9:09
  Jess: But you know, the, the headlines with the, with the numbers and the numbers that are there and the not there, and that includes both dollars and users.
• 9:17
  Jess: Um, I, I do feel kind of maybe not set us back, but it definitely makes, I think the, I.
• 9:23
  Jess: Part of the industry that would be sourcing these things.
• 9:26
  Jess: Pause for a second and, and question just how much infrastructure is built in around this to support the seamless integration of care.
• 9:34
  Jess: And of course it's not there, it's nascent, it's new, but you know, some have more patients than others with integrating technology and waiting for some of those bugs to work out.
• 9:44
  David: So Jess, it's hard to know exactly what's gonna happen as, as you look ahead, but a couple things are already, I think, becoming clear for 2023.
• 9:51
  David: One of them, uh, is that the public health emergency is scheduled to end.
• 9:54
  David: It's kind of weird to schedule the end of an emergency, but that's, uh, that's one thing that has some implications.
• 9:59
  David: And then the other thing is that ai, you know, has, has come up, uh, quite to the, for it's now not on the lips of everybody, not just, uh, me, you know, those, those that are really not just John.
• 10:10
  David: Yeah.
• 10:10
  David: Not just John.
• 10:11
  David: I mean, John, there's two things about John.
• 10:13
  David: Three things about John.
• 10:14
  David: We're gonna talk about this.
• 10:16
  David: Uh, and that, I guess ai and then also usually ice slip in somewhere about 10,000 people turning Medicare eligible every day.
• 10:23
  David: I haven't heard that yet.
• 10:23
  David: You, you
• 10:24
  John: kind of lost track of where you were going with that, David, going from two to three, I think a
• 10:28
  Jess: big price tag.
• 10:30
  Jess: . Okay.
• 10:31
  Jess: Price tag could have been the third.
• 10:33
  Jess: I mean, Jack had a pretty 20
• 10:35
  John: What's what's your thought?
• 10:36
  John: I mean, I, I've always been a believer.
• 10:39
  John: That, you know, it's overutilized, but machine learning computation really does have an ability to create more kind of physician extenders and more intelligence at the point of care.
• 10:50
  John: But now everybody's into ai.
• 10:51
  John: It used to be a, a small sliver.
• 10:53
  John: Where, where do you think.
• 10:55
  John: What do you think the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning's gonna be this year based on what you're seeing in the marketplace?
• 11:03
  Jess: Well, I think we are seeing some really good examples of where it's working very well, and for me, the, the best example to look at is the, uh, clinical trials area.
• 11:14
  Jess: I feel like that's been standout over the last three years and ramping up where they've figured out how to use AI in a way.
• 11:21
  Jess: And, and bring help, bring in and identify social determinants of health data, which I know everybody wants to see to improve the, you know, diversity of people participating in clinical trials, but they're also using AI to like, to, to fill those trials up faster, to help run them more, um, efficiently.
• 11:38
  Jess: I mean, and then we're starting to see even more fancy tricks there, like the, um, the digital twin idea, which I love, where it's like they, they're using the cohort that they have and then replica.
• 11:48
  Jess: Their data and then using ai, running one group, testing the X that's being tested in real, real life, real time, and then they're using the digital version of their data to run.
• 11:59
  Jess: What would happen if it wasn't?
• 12:00
  Jess: So nobody has to get a placebo.
• 12:01
  Jess: That's so cool.
• 12:02
  Jess: Like, I mean, think about the future of that, that that's one of the things that blows my mind is like a, a humanitarian kind of healthcare story is like down the road.
• 12:10
  Jess: If somebody's got like a, you know, a medication that could be lifesaving for a.
• 12:14
  Jess: Group of people with maybe some sort of terminal disease.
• 12:16
  Jess: No one has to take the placebo.
• 12:17
  Jess: You can replicate their data.
• 12:19
  Jess: This is early days now, and the FDA's gotta weigh in some more on the, the, the utilization of that, that whole real world evidence, real world data debate.
• 12:27
  Jess: But I, I think that that area of clinical trials is one to watch as far as the potential for using AI at a big scale, make a big difference in terms of patients' lives and, and clinical outcomes.
• 12:39
  Jess: And the, the way that pharma has.
• 12:41
  Jess: In these companies and are working with them and partnering with them.
• 12:44
  Jess: I mean, they're backed by billions and with, with, uh, a lot of, you know, very, um, specific processes in place.
• 12:52
  Jess: And I doubted and ts crossed and, you know, knowing what to do with federal regulation, not just in the US but around the world.
• 12:57
  Jess: So for me, I mean, that's one of the best examples of AI and healthcare, um, writ large, global.
• 13:03
  Jess: I think the other thing we're starting to see more of, and John you probably can speak a little bit to this too, is like some of the, the way AI is helping.
• 13:11
  Jess: , like within hospitals.
• 13:13
  Jess: Like we, you know, everybody raved about Olive, you know, a couple years ago.
• 13:17
  Jess: We've since seen what has happened there.
• 13:19
  Jess: Um, but you know, I think that, um, there are other companies, smaller companies that are doing similar things and maybe not trying to swallow the elephant like.
• 13:29
  Jess: Olive did take on all sorts of different administrative tasks in healthcare organizations and, you know, in clinicians' offices.
• 13:36
  Jess: But take these and do them piece by piece.
• 13:38
  Jess: So, I mean, I know there's a couple, you know, uh, Andres and Horowitz in particular is very hot on investing in these, um, health tech infrastructure companies that are doing just that.
• 13:48
  Jess: They're building a platform for ingesting massive amounts of data in one area, being able to get actionable insights from it.
• 13:54
  Jess: And then, you know, kind of,
• 13:55
  John: well, and, and to your point, I mean, you know, we.
• 13:58
  John: At Westar, we where I'm the chairman of this RevCycle software business, so much of it's using intelligence that just simplifies and connects.
• 14:07
  John: It doesn't, you don't have to be David.
• 14:09
  John: It's really kind of simple.
• 14:10
  John: It's the way you think about things.
• 14:12
  John: It's, yeah, it just put, just make the bad stuff go away, focus on the right stuff and connect it.
• 14:17
  John: There's so many things that go wrong just in terms of billing and EOBs for.
• 14:22
  John: For, for doctors and for patients.
• 14:24
  John: You try to figure out exactly what's being paid for and why in your average bill.
• 14:30
  John: It.
• 14:30
  John: That's the kind of thing that, that are easy pickups, that it's one of the reasons why healthcare is just so darn and efficient and I think that, I think as computation becomes more comfortable for.
• 14:40
  John: More healthcare companies, I think you're gonna see a lot of administrative costs go away cuz, but it's interesting, Jess, I I do think that people tend to focus on the, the sexy things like curing cancer as opposed to the boring things like fixing your bill.
• 14:54
  John: And I think that's where you're gonna see the biggest impact of artificial intelligence, of intelligence that is artificially, uh, leveraged.
• 15:03
  David: Well, John, I think, you know, the, the, um, I liked what Jess said about the digital twins.
• 15:07
  David: Speaking of sexy stuff, I, I, I'm an older brother of, of, of twins.
• 15:11
  David: My brother's identical twins, and they used to both like be railing on me at the same time.
• 15:15
  David: If I had a digital twin, especially like one that was, you know, like really strong, I think I would've benefited a lot from, uh, from growing up with that.
• 15:22
  David: But on the AI side, I think you're right, John, that there's exciting stuff like the chat and the, and the twins and curing cancer, which, yeah, I, I, I still think if it can cure cancer, we should.
• 15:31
  David: But the, you know, figuring out how are we gonna do something with workforce in order to make jobs more sustainable, to enable, um, more productivity.
• 15:39
  David: I think that's where the, that's where the action is gonna be before I cut off Jess.
• 15:42
  David: So, un nice, un nicely.
• 15:43
  David: But yeah, I'm just, I'm gonna say, Jess, it was actually a digital twin that cut you off.
• 15:47
  David: Not me.
• 15:47
  Jess: Oh, okay.
• 15:48
  Jess: I like that.
• 15:49
  Jess: . We are in a, we're in a virtual environment here.
• 15:51
  Jess: No, and I think, I mean, to John's point, I think you're absolutely right and I think that the more, the, the thing that might stop the, the larger uptick, even though everybody wants the AI to help with like these very like mundane.
• 16:02
  Jess: Clerical clinical things like, you know, the EOBs and the billing and like what claims are gonna get denied and which ones are not.
• 16:08
  Jess: I mean, like, I know a company that built like a, like a denial brain where it's like based on how it was coded and based on past experience and knew it was gonna get kicked back.
• 16:15
  Jess: Okay, well great.
• 16:16
  Jess: That is like, uh, that is part of that adamant ex.
• 16:19
  Jess: Expense that adds so much to healthcare.
• 16:21
  Jess: The thing about that, that's always gonna be a challenge I think in this current environment is the EMRs.
• 16:25
  Jess: You know, and so it's like we've, we're all kind of like, there's a lot of data that is captured in the EMR that is yet to be, we lease.
• 16:31
  John: Yeah, we, we've, we talked about Digital Lakes, but what we've got is digital syncs.
• 16:37
  John: Figure that one actually.
• 16:39
  John: , David: boy, Jenna, put that Right?
• 16:41
  John: But not healthy.
• 16:42
  John: Not only the clean stuff.
• 16:45
  John: So, so, so, Jess,
• 16:46
  David: what?
• 16:46
  David: That's
• 16:46
  Jess: a whole other category there, David.
• 16:48
  Jess: Don't care.
• 16:48
  Jess: The psychedelic
• 16:49
  David: digital club.
• 16:50
  David: Yeah.
• 16:50
  David: So, so Jess, who
• 16:52
  John: are the entrepreneurs to watch in, in, in, in, in, as we think about progress in digital health, you're talking to all of them.
• 17:00
  John: So pick your top three.
• 17:03
  Jess: What?
• 17:04
  Jess: Top three.
• 17:04
  Jess: Oh man.
• 17:05
  Jess: Oh, come on.
• 17:06
  Jess: All right on the spot here.
• 17:08
  Jess: Well, I mean, so, all right, I'm gonna point, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be very honest.
• 17:12
  Jess: So my show is sponsored, so I'm gonna kick out some sponsor names here, but only because I know them really well.
• 17:17
  Jess: So, and, and they're all in three very different areas of the business.
• 17:20
  Jess: And so, um, I'm gonna say I.
• 17:23
  Jess: Um, Michelle Davy from Wheel One of my favorites.
• 17:25
  Jess: I heard that you guys are gonna have her on the show soon.
• 17:27
  Jess: That's very cool.
• 17:28
  Jess: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Jess: But I love what she's built there in wheel because of the fact that it's this, it's one of my favorite categories of digital health company.
• 17:35
  Jess: It's like the, the virtual care enabler.
• 17:38
  Jess: Like that's what it is.
• 17:39
  Jess: Like you don't need to be, you don't need to have your own.
• 17:42
  Jess: , a virtual care system platform EMR thing that connects it in online ordering for, for testing and prescriptions.
• 17:49
  Jess: Doctors even.
• 17:50
  Jess: You can have wheel and, and it can be, they are in the background, white labeled.
• 17:54
  Jess: You don't see them, your patients don't see them, but it works.
• 17:56
  Jess: And that's a way for.
• 17:57
  Jess: For, I think the existing incumbent organizations do very easily gonna get, get their feet wet in virtual care.
• 18:03
  Jess: So I love those kinds of companies that are virtual care.
• 18:06
  Jess: Um, another entrepreneur I really admire a lot is Jeff Dashes the CEO of One Drop.
• 18:10
  Jess: And one of the things I like about what they're doing is they started out in that whole rat race with Livongo, Madda, Vida Verta, um, Lark, all of those chronic condition management companies, and they ended up going kind of on a tangent that is now through a.
• 18:26
  Jess: They, they're invested in by Bayer.
• 18:27
  Jess: And so part of their, um, work with them has been developing this continuous health sensor.
• 18:32
  Jess: And so they are completely changing the way or trying to change the way and the cost and the, um, the approach for managing type two diabetes by doing these continuous health sensors that are like itty bitty.
• 18:46
  Jess: I, it's like the tip of my thumb and it's got these tiny little needles in it, and you can, you know, it
• 18:51
  John: sounds vaguely fer like.
• 18:53
  Jess: Oh no.
• 18:54
  Jess: It kind, it, it's, it is, but it isn't, cuz it actually works.
• 18:58
  Jess: . And they're using, they're using the, um, the different like chemicals in your blood to detect your, your how, how your blood sugar is doing, and a couple of other things too.
• 19:07
  Jess: And they're, they're refining their platform as such to be able to, um, expand that.
• 19:11
  Jess: But what they're saying is that, you know, typically right now people with type two diabetes, they don't usually have a glu.
• 19:17
  Jess: And so they're kind of flying blind.
• 19:19
  Jess: The standard of care is not to give them a glucometer.
• 19:21
  Jess: And so it's like if, if a glucometer were perhaps cheaper and disposable and didn't hurt so bad, like what they've invented here and is going through, I think FDA approval this year, um, that perhaps, you know, the way type two diabetes is treated could change in the future.
• 19:35
  Jess: And so I like the, the vision on that . Very
• 19:38
  David: good.
• 19:38
  David: So I got a last question here.
• 19:40
  David: I I'm gonna ask both of you for it and I'll, I'll put John on the spot.
• 19:43
  David: So what will be the big surprise of the year in digital health?
• 19:50
  John: I, I, I think that the big surprise in digital health, David, is it won't be a separate category.
• 19:57
  John: It'll just be part of healthcare.
• 19:58
  John: I think one of the mistakes we've made is the secular, you know, dis the secular separation of digital versus physical and just started to talk about it with Wheel.
• 20:09
  John: It's the integration.
• 20:11
  John: Of tools and you don't, you don't talk about work and then computer work.
• 20:16
  John: You talk about your work and you just happen to use a computer day to day.
• 20:20
  John: I think the same thing is gonna happen in healthcare and I think what's gonna be remarkable is they'll, they'll be companies that will be leveraging technology, but they won't be tech first companies.
• 20:29
  John: They'll be healthcare companies that just happen to be using the tools available.
• 20:32
  John: I think that's gonna be the big change in the categories.
• 20:34
  John: The categories will converge and the, and the ones that are successful with real results will.
• 20:41
  John: , Jess: Jess.
• 20:42
  John: I like that.
• 20:43
  John: I was gonna say, I think that Teladoc gets acquired by like one of the retail health players and then one of these retailers is gonna end up being the biggest virtual care company in the world.
• 20:52
  John: And that's gonna be the thing that takes virtual and digital mainstream.
• 20:55
  David: Alright, well my, my thing about the surprise, I think that, uh, we're gonna find out that the balloon that was hovering over Montana was there not to look at the weather or the silos, but rather it was meant to.
• 21:07
  David: A digital health platform for rural health.
• 21:11
  David: That's my
• 21:11
  John: last, I I, I thought you were gonna say that.
• 21:13
  John: That was, that.
• 21:14
  John: That was Jess's Alternative Wedding transport,.
• 21:17
  John: David: It's not that.
• 21:18
  John: It's got nothing about my helicopter, I'll tell you that.
• 21:21
  John: Alright, well that's it for yet another episode of Care Talk.
• 21:24
  John: We've been speaking today about digital health with a special guest.
• 21:28
  John: And, uh, helicopter person, jest Masa, welcome Helicopter Bride.
• 21:32
  John: Thank you, helicopter Bride.
• 21:34
  John: With all that, that, all that, that I implies.
• 21:37
  John: I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group, and I'm John Driscoll, the President of Walgreen Health.
• 21:41
  John: If you like what you heard, you didn't, please subscribe and thank you to our Esteem Guest and Bend Jest for
• 21:48
  Jess: joining us.
• 21:49
  Jess: Thanks for having me, guys.
• 21:50
  Jess: Always a pleasure.