THE HEALTHCARE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION LEADER

My first book, The Big Unlock, was about the vast opportunity in front of healthcare organizations to harness data to drive digital health experiences. When I published the book in 2017, healthcare was horribly siloed. While new data sources were emerging, healthcare organizations were struggling to harness their patient medical records; they were stuck trying to move data across their multiple information systems (never mind that the data was poor quality anyway). They were yet to figure out how to integrate newer data sources such as social determinants into the electronic health record. AI was in its infancy. One of my previous startups had built a platform for analyzing structured data using predictive models to risk-stratify patient populations for proactive interventions. We didn’t know it then but it would later come to be known as population health analytics. Ours was a stand alone system that had yet to figure out how to pull and push data from and into EHR systems.

Four years on, it appears that EHR platforms continue to be where they were. The challenge of aggregating and analyzing data from multiple sources for driving healthcare outcomes has fallen to big tech firms such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Using their market clout, their superior analytical capabilities, and unmatched cloud-based infrastructure, they are now the de facto choice for health systems desperate for insights to improve patient experiences, improve caregiver productivity, and improve healthcare outcomes.

Many newer companies have targeted the problem – Snowflake and Innovaccer among them – who are racing to capture market share and investing heavily in product development. Apple has democratized access to patient data by providing their customers with a single-click ability to access and share their health records from their providers. Traditional health IT firms are all trying to remain in the game, harnessing the data available to them to enhance their product offerings and become an integral part of the transformation under way.

The game is still in its first quarter. The ultimate winners are yet to emerge, but one thing is clear. Healthcare data is in play, finally. Healthcare leaders I speak with have had it with the resistance from the traditional custodians of health data. They are determined to unlock it and unleash its potential.

The Big Unlock is finally under way.

Last week, I commented on an insightful report published by McKinsey on the quarter-trillion-dollar opportunity ahead of us in the shift towards virtual care. In this week’s podcast episode, I interview the lead authors of the report, McKinsey Partners Oleg Bestsennyy and Jenny Rost. Take a listen.

Have a great week.
Paddy