In this first installment of the Future of Healthcare Technology Roundtable discussion series, several health care leaders came together to answer questions about the present and future of health care technology. One of those individuals was Mike McSherry, CEO of Xealth. Here are the questions and McSherry’s answers.
Q: What problem does your company solve for the health care industry?
McSherry: Digital health is driving exciting advancements that can improve patient experiences and outcomes; however, the digital health ecosystem is extremely fragmented, including within the same hospital. This makes implementing digital health initiatives in a meaningful, consistent way extremely difficult.
Xealth believes clinicians and their patients should be able to use familiar technologies to share information back and forth with each other as part of their daily routines. That’s why the company makes it easy for clinicians to find and order the right digital tools and programs, send these digital health orders right to the patient’s portal account, and then provides a feedback loop to the clinicians to monitor and optimize the digital health programs. This helps hospitals incorporate digital health programs in ways that are most meaningful.
Q: In your opinion, what are the top three opportunities for technology to affect health care efficiency over the next five years?
McSherry: 1. Reduce the disparity in health care: We have an opportunity to engage patients using tools that are already part of their daily life, including cell phones; 2. Strengthen the physician-patient relationship: People trust their doctors and technology should support that bond, not circumvent it; and 3. Bring a consumer experience to health care delivery: Technology that aids organizations in offering a convenient digital experience to patients will have a larger role in health systems’ strategies.
Q: How can technology innovation impact long-term sustainable change in health care?
McSherry: Long-term sustainable change can only be achieved if it enhances the overall experience. Technology by itself does not motivate new behavior. It is the way it is applied to make processes reliably easier, faster, or more convenient that will show sustainability.
Q: What is the biggest roadblock in bringing new health tech innovation to the market?
McSherry: The largest barrier for health tech innovation is determining how it is best incorporated into the broader environment to drive meaningful change. That takes an understanding of the technology, the clinical perspective, and all the stakeholders involved.
Q: Do you believe the trend towards provider consolidation will continue in the U.S.? What other trends do you see shaping health care from a business model perspective: providers, payers, practitioners, and patients?
McSherry: Especially as value-based care establishes a greater foothold, the gap between payers, providers, practitioners, and patients needs to narrow. Care coordination cannot happen with independent silos and each group has a stake in the same outcomes, just through a different lens. The extent to which we can close this gap may impact the trend toward provider consolidation.
Prior to Xealth, McSherry was CEO of Swype and had high-level roles at several other tech companies. Drawing from his background of more than 20 years in consumer engagement with electronic devices, McSherry’s mission with Xealth is to make digital health tools an integrated part of care delivery.
Read the full roundtable discussion, featuring McSherry’s comments as well as the answers given by Manoj Jhaveri of Hyr Medical, Charlie Lougheed of Axuall, and Carm Huntress of RxRevu, here.