Three big takeaways from HLTH 2022
This year’s HLTH22 conference at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, attracted nearly 12,000 attendees from all over the world. The event brought together the brightest minds to dive into conversations and ideas around shaping the future of healthcare, current trends and the biggest challenges in the industry.
The exhibit hall featured a maze of booths and pavilions, with various stages placed in between where presentations and panels took place. There were over 300+ speakers, 800+ sponsors, food and drink galore, a massage station, a beauty salon and complimentary professional headshots, a zen meditation tent, a puppy park and a rockstar performance by Ludacris.
Beyond the four walls of the expo hall, Las Vegas was buzzing with healthcare executives and individuals continuing the conversations at networking events as they seek to find solutions to the challenges faced by the industry. At ixlayer, we connected with the world’s top health tech leaders face-to-face and shared how we can help them innovate and stay ahead of the game when it comes to health testing.
Here are a few takeaways and key themes from this year’s conference that resonated with our team.
1) Addressing disparities and health equity
Health equity is top of mind for many individuals and was also reflected in a number of presentations and panel discussions this year, including the opening remarks from Greg A. Adams, Chair and Chief Executive officer of Kaiser Permanente who talked about Kaiser’s historical commitment to health equity to personalize care for its members, patients, and communities.
Health equity is described as every person having a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health, without unfair differences in their ability to access and receive care. Yet unfortunately in today’s world, there are major challenges in delivering and receiving care in rural communities, and those individuals face even greater challenges due to race, gender, historical marginalization, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and poverty.
People in rural areas face a number of barriers in accessing care and social services, but it’s not groundbreaking science we lack, it’s creating pathways and adapting existing innovation to ensure these individuals can gain access to care.
By leveraging technology and analytics, it is possible to uncover consumer trends in these healthcare deserts.
Another solution is for companies to start with their own organizational culture and diversity. Do you have a diverse team that reflects the diversity of the population you serve? Building gender and racial diversity into your recruitment process can help.
At ixlayer, our mission is to make healthcare more accessible and equitable for all through remote testing, leading to healthier and happier individuals that are empowered with the information they need to make healthy choices. We offer a number of sample collection modalities, including at-home self-collection kits mailed to the member’s home. In instances where individuals do not live close to a primary care doctor, a lab testing site or even a medical clinic – they can close that gap in care through completing a self-collection testing kit in the privacy and comfort of their own homes.
2) The impact of value-based care
Value-based care is the idea of paying healthcare providers for the outcomes they produce, versus the number of services they perform. It’s an alternative and potential replacement for fee-for-service reimbursement which is based on quality rather than quantity. The key idea here is to incentivize providers to keep people healthy. This is hardly a new concept, however the recent COVID-19 pandemic has created more traction and momentum around the idea.
Payors and providers are building care delivery models focused on improving quality outcomes, while lowering health care spend. How can we expand choices for patients and improve their access to quality care?
Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, President and CEO of Geisinger, explained that in order for healthcare to thrive in a way that benefits patients, payers and providers, it must change the way healthcare is financed and delivered to build capabilities and programs and bring them closer to where people live and work. Centered around value-based care, this method offers a solution to patient-centered innovation.
Lab testing is where value-based care begins. It is the doorway for diagnosis and treatment pathways – impacting cost, quality and outcomes. 70% of medical decisions depend on lab test results. The problem is that 40% of lab orders go unfilled. And one of the key issues is the inconvenience for consumers. By increasing access to testing, we can significantly improve preventative care.
3) Focus on people centered experiences
During a presentation titled, “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: Why the Future of Health Care Starts with People-Centered Policy” a panel of featuring: Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, CEO at Aledade Care Solutions, Nzinga Harrison, MD Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Eleanor Health and Venice Haynes, PhD, Director of Research & Community Engagement and United States of Care discussed what is possible when we listen to what people want and hear how you can be a part of building the health care system of the future. What if we created a people-centered health care system? We need to use data first and then technology to bring intervention at the right time to help make actionable decisions that put the patient first. We have HEDISⓇand Star ratings, but they often have nothing to do with the voice of the patient. If we’re not measuring experiences from a patient’s perspective, if we’re not drawing the line between total care and retention, then companies don’t know if they’re truly making a difference.
There is a need to focus on the patient and the quality and value of their experiences. All of the innovative companies at HLTH 2022 are trying to solve for higher quality care at lower costs. How can you increase access, improve quality without increasing the cost to patients? How can we bridge gaps in care to reach individuals in rural areas and provide them access to the care they deserve, without breaking the bank?
ixlayer takes a patient centric approach by making the home a location where care can take place. Moreoften than not, care is delayed not because a member is unwilling but due to a number of external factors: lack of transportation, needed access to childcare, the need to take time off work, etc. With at-home testing those barriers are removed, allowing individuals to take a health test in their own home when it’s convenient for them. At-home testing is not limited to self-collection. Mobile phlebotomy makes it easy for individuals to complete sample collection because they don’t have to travel to a site or some other central location to get their blood drawn. The bottom line is more testing options make it easier for patients to complete their screenings.
To say that our team had a great time at HLTH22 would be an understatement. We left the conference motivated and energized by the innovation and transformation in the healthcare industry, and are excited to be a part of the conversation and driver of change. Our team is shaping the future of health testing, making it more accessible to all.
HEDIS® is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)