Friday Five – HLTH Recap

Dr. Nick van Terheyden
Host of The Incrementalist
Twitter: @drnic1

HLTH 2022 was a great return to normality or whatever we consider our new normal. It was normal in that we were able to attend without testing ourselves for infectious diseases and people generally were not wearing masks although there were some, myself included, at certain points in the conference, when I felt the need to mitigate my risks as much as possible (and stymie the mass surveillance that takes place in Vegas 😁)

Let’s start with burnout – I expected to see and hear more about solutions to address this. If you are not able to take care of yourself you certainly are not able to take care of other people effectively. I am witnessing firsthand the overwhelming workloads and the distraction of technology between the carers and the carees (is that a word…it sounds a whole lot better imo than patients). There were some companies and solutions directed at reducing administrative burdens like speech enablement and automating clinical documentation but I heard much less about them than I expected.

There was no surprise to me that telehealth and home health featured prominently and many solutions addressed these areas either directly or indirectly. I called out the ‘leak’ of Amazon clinic when it took place and was reported on Nov 9 just days away from the HLTH22 show

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23449075/amazon-clinic-leaked-video-healthcare-telemedicine

Questioning if this was a leak or test of the market/response before announcing and was proved right as they announced 6 days later on Tuesday mid-show their offering “Amazon CLinic”

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/what-is-amazon-clinic

They have the customer base and I’m thinking (hoping) they can apply their chops of friction-free experiences to this space. But more importantly, will it be economical – everyone is facing a big strain on their finances and the conference took place just as many health plans in the US go through open enrollment which I suspect produced some unpleasant and expensive surprises to many people as more and more costs shift to the individual

The backdrop of the Bankman-Fried-induced debacle of the FTX implosion, which according to those with better financial chops than me, will have a big knock-on impact across many areas as there are so many funds and organizations left swinging in the wind with nothing in their pockets was muted. Better yet the real bonus for me of the HLTH conference was it filled my optimism tank. I had multiple conversations with companies and leaders who understood the need to focus on returns and economics. There is money and investment available it is just a little more discerning. Customers likewise are focused squarely on the cost savings

There is real disruption out there and I saw several flashes of it in my walking of the halls and interactions with people and listening to sessions. Clever innovative ideas, some de-novo but most, and you won’t be surprised to hear this from me, incremental and additive in nature. We can and will change healthcare one incremental step at a time. What we need is a faster cycle time from innovation, to testing to refinement and roll out and return back again to the next incremental innovation to get what I term radical incrementalism. HLTH 2022 offered me lots of hope and optimism that we can and will see some real changes in the system coming from a variety of sources that will shake up the space.

As I said to many that I met – I strongly believe everyone comes into healthcare with good intentions (aside from a very small minority who let everyone else down badly and drag us all into the mud and the inevitable knee-jerk responses). Everyone top to bottom starts with the desire to do good and many are driven by an origin story that pushed them into this space. They are thwarted by systems and processes that inhibit their ability to deliver on their promise and that’s what we need to fix. A lot of this is not about technology but about the people and processes or workflow. The companies that stood out to me were the ones that started there and built solutions on top of real problems vs the other way around. I’ll be following up with some interviews I did on the show floor and look forward to having some of the people and companies I met on my upcoming shows.

The organizers of HLTH2022 did a good job – I called out the positive impact of the great food choices and the easy access to many areas and integrated stages and by all accounts, the final night was a blast for many.

I look forward to the next event from this group – Vive in Nashville next year