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Over the past five years, the annual HLTH conference has become one of the leading summits for the world’s most innovative healthtech companies. Our team met with more than 150 leaders from best-in-class health systems, payors, and digital health companies in Las Vegas, and a few key themes surfaced around where providers are focused in light of ongoing challenges with staffing and burnout, waning patient engagement, and disparate technologies. Here are our five takeaways from the event.
1. Workforce challenges are worsening, healthcare employees are burned out.
The healthcare industry is facing a monumental workforce crisis that demands urgent attention. Confronting a global pandemic has spread healthcare’s workforce thin, and hemorrhaging staff levels (with some people leaving the sector altogether) presents a challenge like no other. The fact is that we can’t out-recruit this problem — there simply aren’t enough caregivers. With the care delivery experience for care teams and metrics around burnout under a microscope — healthcare leaders are increasingly leveraging innovative technology to efficiently extend teams and clear routine tasks off clinicians’ plates. Digital healthcare solutions are key for unburdening the workforce, reducing work time outside of work — and giving them superhuman assistance to triage and respond to patient requests with less stress than ever before.
2. “Radical collaboration” is an emerging concept in digital healthcare.
Siloed software is becoming a thing of the past. It’s increasingly obvious how important it is to collaborate with others in the space to offer health systems — and their providers and care teams — platforms that aren't just point solutions. Memora Health integrates seamlessly with existing EHRs to supercharge care management without the headache of bouncing from app to app. That's why so many organizations are interested in white labeling a solution like Memora's intelligent care delivery platform to automate care team workflows across technologies and provide seamless experiences for clinicians and patients.
3. As health systems need to diversify revenue, healthtech companies need to prove ROI.
In the past, healthtech companies could focus on one primary area, like increasing patient engagement, unburdening care teams, or improving clinical outcomes. But now, health systems expect integrated solutions that can serve multiple uses. And, as providers increasingly need to diversify their revenue streams to deliver higher-quality care (e.g. expanded home-health services, more telehealth investment, commercialization of intellectual property), digital health innovators have to show proof that their platforms offer real ROI. That’s why every healthcare organization we spent time with at HLTH 2022 was heavily focused on how to extend the reach of their care teams and add bandwidth to their current operations — both clinical and non-clinical. The most innovative technologies in this space lean on AI and natural language processing (NLP) to intelligently engage and educate patients as if their physician was right in the room with them — extending the workforce outside the four walls of the hospital without weighing down healthcare resources.
Memora Health can help healthcare organizations save an average of $15k in avoidable readmission costs per patient.
4. Digital health needs to focus on helping those who need care the most.
Digital health technologies help streamline care. But are they inclusive and easily accessible? Many healthtech solutions rely on a branded smartphone app or portal to function. But what about those without access to a data plan or wireless? Inequities still exist when it comes to broadband internet access. And what about groups that experience a steeper learning curve with phone apps? Though aging populations have adopted smart technology more and more over the past decade, texting remains a widely-used communication channel across generations. That’s why healthcare providers increasingly leverage simple SMS to engage with patients. No passwords to remember, no disruptive application errors, and a more inclusive experience for all.
5. It’s not just about collecting patient data. How we share it and its impact in the real world are crucial.
How do you collect patient data, and what types of health outcomes are you impacting with that data? Information shouldn’t live in a vacuum. PROs and other patient data can be used to help leaders assess areas for improvement at a system level, care providers prioritize patient needs at a unit level, and patients navigate and understand their care journeys. And with patient experience metrics affecting Star Ratings for health plans more than ever before, gleaning and using patient data brings organizations together across the care continuum. Memora Health’s flexible platform minimizes friction often experienced when adopting new technology by integrating with your existing workflow with a single sign-on (SSO). We connect your data to reality, helping curate the best care experiences for your patients and making care delivery more efficient for your clinicians and care teams.
Showcasing Memora Health at HLTH 2022 was refreshing. Not only did we get to lend our insights to a greater community of healthtech innovators, we had the pleasure of meeting on-the-ground clinical leaders who were enthusiastic about the opportunity to make healthcare better. The excitement we received about Memora’s vision only motivates us further to use cutting-edge digital solutions to automate workflows to address workforce challenges and reinforce resilience within the healthcare industry.