Health IT leaders have a shared responsibility to deliver a less costly and more efficient system for all. The question is—what’s the best way of accelerating innovation to achieve these goals?
On the latest MEDITECH Podcast, I had the pleasure of discussing this topic with Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, MBA, President of Verily Health and the author of, The Long Fix: Solving America's Health Care Crisis with Strategies that Work for Everyone.
A passionate champion of improving health, and a recent speaker at our MEDITECH LIVE conference, Dr. Lee’s mission is rooted in advancing precision medicine and achieving interoperability to create a brighter future for all.
Throughout our conversation, Dr. Lee provides insights on key healthcare trends including what it means to deliver precision health, the rapid proliferation of digital apps, and how AI and machine learning can positively impact providers and their patients.
“I really love the goal of bringing precision health to everyone, every day,” she explains. “We recognize that not only are we biologically different, but we also have different social and economic circumstances. It is all about engaging people in a way that matches their specific needs, leveraging technologies people use day-to-day so everyone has access to healthcare.”
Dr. Lee also shares the importance of reimagining healthcare with a user-friendly approach that elevates digital health platforms and better engages patients, their caregivers, and clinicians.
“Over 90,000 digital health apps came onto the market in 2020, so there is certainly a lot of energy in this field right now, which is especially great when it’s coming from people who understand patients as consumers.”
“With this explosion, one of the most important things healthcare organizations can do is set high expectations, conduct serious research, and gather data ensuring this particular app or technology actually benefits the kinds of patients you’re caring for.”
Despite the hard work and challenges ahead, Dr. Lee is hopeful about how healthcare technologies, including EHRs, can be used to align incentives to deliver better outcomes, improve experiences, and lower costs.
“I'm very optimistic,” Lee says. “You can tell from the title of my book. It's ‘The Long Fix’. The journey there may be a little longer than we’d like, but we do have ‘fix’ at the end of it, and I think getting to that fix is closely tied to the data that we have access to, especially the data coming from our electronic health records, and how we use it to drive performance improvements and lower the costs of care.”
Tune into the MEDITECH Podcast to listen to my full interview with Dr. Lee, and make sure to subscribe today to learn more about technologies that are changing the future of medicine.
