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Click Bait title, but a good top 10 list of digital health strategy must haves.. https://www.xealth.com/blog/are-hospitals-the-next-blockbuster-video-10-digital-health-strategy-must-haves/

Transcript

Today in health, it, our hospitals, the next blockbuster video. Can you believe somebody wrote this article should be fun to read. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital And creator of this week health, a set of channels, dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.

We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Gordian dynamics, Quill health So site nuance, Canon medical, and current health. Check them out at this week. health.com/today. All right. I've been in this industry for a while. And one of the things that is an interesting phenomenon that exists is if you talk to people who actually work for health systems for providers,

They will say things change very slowly and most people will agree with that. I find very few people will disagree with that. But if you talk to people who are selling into healthcare providers, They tend to see a change coming a lot quicker than what the health system providers do. And so this is an interesting article, comes from an outside the healthcare provider space. It's Mike McSherry. We've had him on the show CEO and co-founder of Xealth.

And he talks about the innovator's dilemma. Can health systems afford a digital health future? And can they afford not to.

And he goes on to say, when it comes to digital health strategies, few large health systems are implementing them effectively. And at scale, while many are aspirational, we often see them stuck in analysis paralysis and enable to actuate real changes across their organizations. On the other hand, some organizations act quickly without a solid plan.

Or governing strategy, essentially, blindly throwing darts at digital health and hoping something sticks. However, it's becoming more apparent that patients want access to a more holistic. Digital approach to care the health systems that stay inactive or act without proper planning, risk losing patients.

, and they talk about inaction amongst health systems in the past, doctors were the primary gatekeepers of medicines. So when we saw a rise in digital health, many believe they would be the ones driving it forward. However, over the last five years, digital health initiatives have largely bypassed doctors and hospital systems.

It's been payer employer and consumer driven hospital systems. Have been slow to meet the need. I'm sure that sentence makes sense. But, , some of that is financially motivated as hospital systems mostly still get paid by seeing someone in a face to face visit. So fee for service is still alive and well.

In many respects, payer employers and even patients. Themselves are doing a better job of approaching health, more holistically,

he goes on ideally, a digital health strategy stems from the top down. An organization needs absolute executive level attention towards any digital change management. They also need. The budget and authority to drive these initiatives through,

they need to set up dedicated teams to strategize their priorities, resources, and budgets, and be held accountable to their goals. ROI and execution of that framework.

, you know, I know cases where there are dedicated teams. I know. The Diop At, , Houston Methodist. , I don't know if that falls into that category. Either. I don't think it does. And I think that's a pretty good model as well. So I'm not sure about the model there, but regardless without the proper strategy, execution and management, comprehensive digital health programs, won't come to fruition. Top 10 must haves.

Of an ideal digital health strategy. So here you go. Top 10, number one, digital strategy ownership. You must own the execution delivery and management of your digital health strategy. All right. So somebody has to own it within the health system. I make the case that your digital strategy at, in healthcare is owned by your CEO.

And quite frankly, because digital touches every aspect of the health system, the CEO needs to own it. And we have seen some CEOs step up into that. And really own that. And we've seen others. , defer, let's just say defer. , number two governance and prioritization. To ensure deliverability, there must be clearly defined internal management processes and prioritization within the organization. What service lines and patient population to prove organizational competencies and ROI achievement.

Okay. Governance and prioritization. Absolutely. I hear that being one of the biggest challenges in the digital initiatives that are going on in health systems. Number three, operational execution. Absolutely. , in fact, a CIO for a major system, and I were talking about this, that most of these projects now are, are operational projects. They are not technology projects. There is a technology component in every project to be sure.

But most of these are operational projects and really organizational change management projects. , number four clinician by him. Absolutely. You always need buy-in. I don't know why we're still talking about this. This is the age old. This was, this goes back. My gosh, when I, 30 years ago, we were talking about this how important it is to get buy-in from, , anyone who's going through a change process.

That could be a family member. I mean, you could be talking about, Hey, we're not going to go on vacation here. We're going to go on vacation here. You need to get buy in on those kinds of things. , there's, there's, , there's top-down which doesn't work. You have to get buy-in because if you, you can do top-down, but you're going to get a silent veto.

And the silent Vito's even worse. Number five patient awareness and enrollment. , it's sort of jumping around here, clinician buy-in for Patient awareness and enrollment. Sure. Depending on what the digital initiative is, , awareness for sure. Enrollment. Sure. If it's a patient facing initiative,

, number six, financial considerations, most hospital systems don't get paid unless the patient comes in for a face-to-face visit. So systems must consider their capitation arrangements. They can either assume risk or work with the local payers. To share risk. Right. So. , I've had this conversation with several startups where they say, this is our model. This is how we're going to get paid.

And I look at him, I'm like, no, you're not going to get paid. The reason you're not going to get paid is you don't understand how health systems get paid. And if they implement your solution, they're going to get paid less. And so there's no incentive for them to get paid in a fee for service model to do the things you're asking them to do now.

Then it's should you be going after a different market or is there a way to approach that provider to partner with the payer to do a risk share or, or something to that effect. You have to understand how people are getting paid. And I think that's the financial considerations. That's the whole point. Number six here. Number seven measurement.

Got to measure anything or, you know, whatever gets measured gets done. Whatever doesn't get measured does not get done. , eight budget, nothing comes for free organizations. Need to contemplate. Where they invest their dollars and find the ROI and effectiveness of that spend and to start to be smart about it. , and we can talk about that in another podcast, but.

, budget is important and we're going to have less and less budgets. So we're going to have to leverage. A foundation. What some people call a platform. I'll just call a foundation for today. , foundation for multiple digital projects, right? You don't, you got to get out of the silo mindset. Anytime you even see some aspect of a silo, you got to run from those digital projects as much as possible.

And you've got to look for shared infrastructure, shared analytics. , shared, , security models and that kind of stuff. , again, we're not going to be able to make each digital project stand on its own from a financial and a budgeting standpoint. You're going to have to figure out a way to share those costs across multiple projects.

, competence. Right? So you need competence. It needs to be a part of your DNA. We used to call it developing a new muscle. Right. This is not a muscle we've had within the health system. Therefore you have to exercise that muscle. You have to build new capabilities. You have to bring in some new resources, maybe some new expertise on your staff. And then number 10, payer employer contracts.

When clinicians prescribing digital health program to their patients compared to a payer or a compared to a payer or employer. There is a significantly higher adoption rate. It's essentially to negotiate payer and employer contracts that compensate your organization accordingly. Especially when you're able to show improved outcomes.

And other results. So, and finally he closes with stay competitive with digital health competence and convenience patients are looking for cost-effective convenient and helpful care. And that's what we should be building. This goes along with the. , show I did yesterday, which is talking about why patients switched providers. Do we need these digital health capabilities? Absolutely.

, but we need to be smart about them. Which ones are the patients actually asking for? Which ones are going to keep them engaged with our health system? And a interesting article, I think, inappropriately named, I think it was named that way to get clicks and congratulations. You got to click. So this is on the Xealth website, our hospital's the next blockbuster video, 10 digital health strategy must haves, , and they don't talk about blockbuster video at all. So it really is a clickbait kind of title, but worth reading.

, because I really appreciate the work that Mike McSherry and the team itself have done. And I appreciate , these insights that he's given us. So that is all for today. If you know, if someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, Stitcher.

You get the picture. We are everywhere. And, , don't forget to check out our webinars this week. health.com top right-hand corner. We got one coming up next Thursday. , we want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health Gordian dynamics, Quill health tau site nuance, Canon medical, and 📍 current health. Check them out at this week. Health.

Dot com slash today. Thanks for listening. That's all for  

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