July 31, 2022
It was another blistering summer day and another Digital Health Institute for Transformation (DHIT) Happy Hour networking event! Our DHIT team convened at American Underground, the Triangle area’s front door for the resources that startups, their founders, and their employees need to build a connected,
flexible, and agile community, work ethic, and product. Our team was joined by a diverse contingent of colleagues in the digital health transformation space to engage in conversations around how to better engage patients and providers with streamlined communication throughout their care journeys to drive
better health outcomes.
The evening was sponsored by Bluedoor, a full-service growth and innovation agency for healthcare and life sciences companies, and our guest speaker was Jeff Fuller, Vice President of Analytics Solutions and a committed healthcare transformer at CipherHealth – a leading patient engagement solutions provider.
“We have an opportunity to innovate technology, provide health systems and patients with what they need to participate in their own health, and understand how upstream influences can affect downstream behavioral change.” – Jeff Fuller
Jeff highlighted that a growing body of empirical evidence shows that better patient experience and engagement leads to better health outcomes. Yet a gap still exists between those organizations that have embraced digital health technology and empathetic service delivery and those that have not. Fundamental components of the delivery model that Jeff promoted were referred to as the A’s and P’s. The A’s represent Access, not just to a clinician, but to education and information on how to connect to care providers; and it should offer Asynchronous options in addition to synchronous ones, so patients can engage with their health on their own terms and at their own speed, as wellness interactions have historically revolved around a Monday-Friday, 9-5 schedule despite existing in a 24/7 health system. The P’s represent Proactivity, where patients serve as their own chieftain and care providers proactively engage with the patient; Personalization, where health systems work to deliver on patients’ needs rather than their own; and Participatory, where patients actively engage in their own health. Jeff remarked that, “we have an opportunity to innovate technology, provide health systems and patients with what they need to participate in their own health, and understand how upstream influences can affect downstream behavioral change.”
Jeff continued to note that health transformation is a two-way street: it is a patient that wants to be proactive and involved in their own health ‘meeting in the middle’ with a provider that has the capabilities and mechanisms to activate the patient’s ability to get involved. “However, the consumer-customer conundrum exists – Who decides what is happening? Who benefits from it? Who pays for it? Such a stratified system engages too many parties which disrupts the patient-centered approach to healthcare delivery. If you simplify it, and again, revolve it around patient-centered engagement where a patient wants to be involved in their own health and a provider has access to solutions that drive real informed consent and opportunity, then healthcare organizations can ‘move the needle’ and convene around a solution that is mutually beneficial for the patient and provider to drive better experience, engagement, and consequently, better outcomes.”
Many thanks to Jeff for taking the time (on his birthday, no less!) to speak at American Underground at our DHIT Happy Hour event. Continued collaboration across the ecosystem around Digital Health transformation will enable us to drive towards lower costs, improved health access, and better healthcare experiences for us all.
Join us at our next Happy Hour event on Wednesday, August 17th at the Bluedoor Studios in Chapel Hill where we will continue to connect with the region’s most disruptive digital health innovators, break bread, drink wine, and channel more engaging conversations and collaborations to enable a world without health inequity!
For more information about DHIT’s mission, events, and partnership opportunities, subscribe to the DHIT Digest, a monthly newsletter that will be delivered directly to your inbox!
Talk soon!