Demystifying Healthcare: Digital Health Investment Symposium 2018
Over the past several years, I’ve come to appreciate two halves of the same truth. Part one: Progress doesn’t come cheap. Part two: Behind every improvement in healthcare IT stands at least one investor. These investors assist HIT vendors, health systems, and providers in the shared business of improving healthcare.
The crucial position of investors even allows them to influence the market itself. Their decisions on which technologies and companies to sponsor prod HIT vendors to create helpful tools and providers to work toward worthy goals.
Investors in the HIT world understand their power. They want to spend their money wisely, steer vendors in the right direction, and ultimately help providers give better care. But how can investors be sure to choose the best causes to champion?
Six years ago, KLAS decided that we could help. We began sharing our data with investors, connecting investors with our provider friends, and initiating conversations about the steps to be taken next.
Some of our efforts solidified into an event called the Digital Health Investment Symposium (DHIS), which put providers, vendors, and investors in the same room and allowed them to learn and collaborate like never before.
We focused the 2017 symposium on sharing principles of success that we had seen emerging from our interviews with thousands of providers. We interviewed Keith Figlioli, General Partner at LRVHealth, and Amy Belt Raimundo, Managing Director of Kaiser Permanente Ventures, on their insights on the EMR-Enterprise power play. And by the end of the 2017 symposium, we’d already begun planning the next one.
On August 14th and 15th, KLAS teamed up with TripleTree, Marwood Group, and LEK to host DHIS 2018. Leaders from across healthcare gathered at Utah’s Snowbird Resort with the goal to scout the optimal path toward successful investments in digital health.
Investors were able to exchange ideas with experts in several fields and measure future growth plans and investment strategies against KLAS data from over 30,000 healthcare providers across the world.
I jumped at the chance to attend the symposium. For one thing, I knew our keynote speaker—Rasu Shrestha, MD MBA—was prepared to share great wisdom on how UPMC has tackled innovation in healthcare. The attendees and I were not disappointed.
I also relished my opportunity to facilitate the symposium’s panel discussion on one of healthcare’s hottest topics: precision medicine. Our all-star panelists included Justin Brueck, AVP of Research at Northshore University Health System in Evanston, Illinois; Dr. Tony Magliocco, Chair of the Department of Anatomic Pathology at the Moffitt Cancer Center; and Dr. John Quackenbush, Director of the Center for Cancer Computational Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
This panel was the perfect opportunity to discuss precision medicine’s current place in the market, the creation of a genomics-friendly workflow, and future uses of personalized medicine. The attendees and I got to hear the panelists’ answers to questions like:
- What does a solution strategy for precision medicine look like? What solutions/partnerships enable a healthcare provider organization to scale genomics to the enterprise?
- Why are so many genetic testing companies popping up, and what does that mean for the market?
- With billions of dollars floating around in the genomics industry already, how are investors putting their money to good use? Where is the business case today for healthcare?
- How can we break down barriers between silos and achieve the interoperability needed to use genomic technology effectively?
- Besides oncology, in what areas could genomics be affordable and realistic to apply?
- What opportunities for investments in precision medicine can we expect in the near future?
The insights from our panelists only amplified my excitement for the future of personalized medicine and its uses in the healthcare world. That’s one reason I’m eager to share a few of those insights.
My hope, going forward, is that the learnings from the symposium will inspire healthcare professionals and investors to dive into digital health. Stay tuned for future insights for the investment community.
Interested in learning more about the KLAS Digital Health Investment Symposium? Email us!