Mike McSherry, CEO & Co-Founder
Even against the backdrop of the brand-new Las Vegas Sphere arena, HLTH 2023 held its focus and energy on the latest healthcare innovations. Themes centered around what AI can and can’t do, along with bringing actionable insights on how organizations and industry leaders are reshaping the entire spectrum of health.
At our Sunday evening receptions and throughout HLTH, we connected with attendees across healthcare, including health systems, vendor partners, investors and patients. It’s great to see each group supporting each other and bringing excitement to reforming healthcare, balanced with an understanding that digital health needs to show value early.
While VC investments and health system budgets are tight, and will probably stay that way into the beginning of the new year, business deals continue to be inked with companies that deliver measurable value. Everyone is trying to do more with less, giving companies that understand this and can show how they bring operational efficiencies a competitive advantage.
Preventive care takes the Earth Stage
It was great seeing Tracy Chu, Corporate VP of Population Health and Chief Executive of Scripps Health’s ACO, onstage discussing The Cost of Prevention. For this session, she was joined by Shantanu Agrawal, MD, Chief Health Officer of Elevance Health, Sonny Goyal, SVP, Diversified Business Group and Chief Strategy Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sunita Mishra, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Amazon, and moderator Natalie Davis, co-founder and CEO of United States of Care.
During this packed session, the panelists debated points around current reimbursement rates for preventative health services and how we bring these resources to the majority of our population. Tracy drove home the fact that, as an industry and even with all of the innovations we have available, we “need to protect relationships between doctors and patients…engaging them with the right communications at the right time.”
AI draws attention
It’s still early days for AI in healthcare, so many panels on this topic were packed. Many understand the need to learn where to utilize AI but best practices are yet to be set and we could use a better understanding of where the balance lies with maintaining human interaction when it comes to care. We’ll soon see which companies have what it takes to advance true AI but ambient voice, clinical inbox management/response, and back end claims processing are early areas of focus.
Greater acceptance that hybrid / asynchronous care is healthcare’s future
Much of the focus around hybrid care has been on traditional care settings accepting telehealth and virtual care options. What we are seeing more often involves new entrants, including remote care companies, opening brick-and-mortar locations, creating more pressure on health systems to innovate or risk being disrupted.
During the conference, General Catalyst had the industry buzzing when, during a session, it floated the idea of purchasing a health system via “HATCo”, becoming a new type of organization entering the space. It will be interesting to see how this, and other news from the show, develops.
Key Takeaway: With the current economic climate, Xealth is well positioned as we work with our health system clients, enabling them to demonstrate value with their digital health programs and clinical workflow automation.