Healthcare providers, you have been warned: Give patients what they want.
That was the consensus by a panel of healthcare experts gathered by the American Hospital Association on Tuesday, who all agreed that having patients that are increasingly shopping around puts the onus on providers is to pay attention to consumer behavior and make healthcare accessible. That even means delivering care to the home either in person or virtually through telehealth.
If they don’t, another provider, or even the local drugstore, will, experts said.
“If you stand there,” said Providence CEO Rod Hochman, “you will get run over.”
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Walgreens Vice President and Strategic Clinical Partner Alan London said if the drug store chain was successfully dispensing flu shots, then why couldn’t it treat chronic diseases such as diabetes?
While the retailer is clearly not in the business of delivering high-end physician care, London said, 25 million seniors a week walk into a Walgreens store.
“The number of Americans getting flu shots has gone up steadily,” he said. “Could we do the same with chronic disease?”
Walgreens provides services such as a medication management tool to let consumers keep track of their medications and doses, blood pressure and other readings.
“We’ve really advanced this idea in 500 of our stores,” London said.
[Also: Walgreens cuts ties with two ACOs]
So far, the feedback has been good, he said.
Panelist Jeanne Pinder agreed that the retail health market is booming.
Barbara Casey of Cisco said she sees a future in telehealth.
“I think what you’ll see more in the future, this person won’t go to a clinic,” Casey said. “But she will pull up a laptop or smartphone, have a dialogue with a nurse and possibly get meds, possibly delivered to her home.”>
Digital healthcare and home delivery entails what one expert called an “ecosystem” of players.
Pam Sutton-Wallace, CEO, University of Virginia Medical Center, said the system she oversees has 139 connected sites, including health centers, prisons, and the Veteran’s Administration.
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“It’s not just in a traditional setting any longer, it’s diverse,” she said.
A requirement on third-party payers to reimburse for telemedicine has “created huge opportunities to create networks of care,” Sutton-Wallace said. “We’re able to integrate electronic health records. We’ve spared Virginians 15.5 million miles of travel.”
Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs, held up her smart phone and said, “In the future, we’re all going to be shopping on this thing.”
Her organization has posted the prices for 30 to 35 procedures such as MRIs and blood tests, Pinder said, saying the difference in price can be hundreds to thousands of dollars between facilities in the same city.
Consumers are taking notice, she said, and are no longer satisfied with vague answers on price when they’re paying high deductibles.
“What we learned is, people are upset about their prices,” Pinder said, adding they don’t understand their explanation of benefits.
Rod Hochman, M.D., president and CEO of Providence Health & Services in Seattle, said the last 10 hires for his organization have been from Amazon, Microsoft and other high-tech businesses on the West Coast.
This is because technology companies have long put the consumer at the center of the business model, he said.
Providence is currently working with Boeing and other large companies to determine what the employers, and employees want for healthcare services, such as getting an appointment on the same day the call is made, he said.
Jesse Cureton, chief consumer officer for Novant Health, said he spent 30 years in the financial services business and was there during a time of transition.
“There was a solid focus on the consumer,” Cureton said of the finance sector, “and we had to reinvent the business.”
Twitter: @SusanMorseHFN