Five Good Things with Janae Sharp and Megan Antonelli: A rapid-fire segment highlighting positive developments in digital health. Janae and Megan share insights on recent innovations, successful implementations, and emerging trends that are driving progress in healthcare technology.
Janae Sharp, Founder, The Sharp Index
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT
00:00:00 Intro: Welcome to digital health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae Sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
00:00:30 Megan Antonelli: Hi everybody. Welcome to Digital Health Talks. This is Megan Antonelli and today and always I am joined by Janae Sharp. Hi, Janae.
00:00:39 Janae Sharp: I sounded like you couldn't escape for a while. Always. I'm always here. I'm Janae Sharp, founder of Sharp Index. Thrilled to be here and talk about good things always.
00:00:51 Megan Antonelli: You know, it feels like we just recorded one. So finding the good things is often a little hard. But it's been a busy month. You know, lots of conferences, lots of big announcements from the government. Lots of noise and lots of things that, you know, we don't want to pay attention to. So it's kind of fun to read. Digital health talks. Uh, digital health news.
00:01:09 Janae Sharp: Yes, I'm thrilled, actually, because we have some good news. Even though the news right now is overwhelming and I respect everyone who's listening. If you have ways that you cope with things, let us know. But we have we have a lot of good things that are happening right now. So what's your first thing we do?
00:01:27 Megan Antonelli: Well, you know, we were at Health Impact earlier this month and so that was a good thing. But we had, uh, Abe Sutton from CMI join us and talked a bit about the access model. And then, of course, uh, during that time, the FDA also announced the tempo pilot. So between the tempo, which is technology enabled, meaningful patient outcomes, and the access uh, program for chronic care, there's a lot of discussion, a lot of seeming momentum and positive Movement towards things happening on both from both the FDA and CMS. So despite all other things going on at the administration's level, um, you know, it's good to see some significant, substantial discussion and support of digital health. Um, and.
00:02:20 Janae Sharp: I think that's so important, like seeing like, the technology people, we have it together. Right? Like the home as a healthcare hub initiative where they want to allow you to have care where you're at with the devices you want to use. It's really following the market. People are going to get their health information from where they want it, and it's time for healthcare to wise up to that and stop giving away so much of their power to other digital tools. So I'm thrilled that they could have interdepartment cooperation. Like, these initiatives are big, and I can see that that's really following what consumers want, you know, patients want care. That's great. And they want care that's using great technology. Maybe you could tell a little bit more about like the tempo program I don't know, I mean I was reading about it, but you know.
00:03:13 Megan Antonelli: You know, my understanding is that it's going to be, um, around the, you know, kind of measurable outcomes and, and focused on what, what the pilot programs of digital health devices provide. Um, but the other thing we were going to talk about, and the other good thing, which is a little around both sort of innovation and connecting it to reimbursement, and that's what that tempo program is all about. The Medicare telehealth, uh, was extended through twenty twenty seven. So finally, as part of the consolidation, uh, Consolidated Appropriations Act that actually got signed February third. And that puts us through twenty twenty seven. Um, and I think the there might be some don't quote me on it, but extended through twenty thirty. In terms of the hospital at home program. Right? Right.
00:04:03 Janae Sharp: And that's that's thrilling because I don't I don't want us to lose some of the progress that we've made. I think it is because, like, look, I'm tired of healthcare providers being like, no, we have to go through X, Y, and Z giant hoops when better care might be through telehealth or, you know, you don't have access, like you have to wait seven months for a specialist like and for a while when everything was available through telehealth, I think we got spoiled. At least I got spoiled. And now that's the expectation. Like, I want to be able to get care and obviously it isn't actually impossible to do right. So why don't you go ahead and keep doing it? But it was always a barrier that people were being paid less to do more work with telehealth. You know, they have more work. They have to log into all this stuff. They still have to do all that work. But I think we're moving in the right direction.
00:05:00 Megan Antonelli: Talking about telehealth. It's been available. The technology has been available for many, many, many, many years. And the fact that we're still discussing, I guess, and that's why I'm like, it's thrilling. I mean, it's like sort of like finally. Right. But but it is like the the people want it. And also the way Medicare goes, the way commercial health reimbursement goes. And so we need to have the policy in place to ensure that it's not just, you know, that it doesn't get cast aside as kind of like a pandemic accommodation, when in fact it should have been policy before the pandemic.
00:05:36 Janae Sharp: Right? Imagine if policy encouraged great health. Wild. Speaking of which, maybe we could go on to the next thing. Right.
00:05:43 Megan Antonelli: For vulnerable populations who who need it? Um, you know, obviously I love it. And and it saves me time and and it's convenient more than anything else. But for those who can't get to the care that they need, It's so important. So, um, thankfully we have some extension, but hopefully that extension becomes, um, you know, much longer and it does become sort of permanent policy and embedded in our system.
00:06:09 Janae Sharp: Yeah. Um, it'd be great to see payment align with what people need. Yes. And payment policy, you know, procedure care I don't know, come up with another P.
00:06:21 Megan Antonelli: But I do. So I think along those lines there was also a report saying, you know, talking about the just the growth of the telemedicine market and sort of what we expect to see in terms of revenue and financials. So, you know, I think at the end of the day, in healthcare, nothing ever gets made to policy until it benefits every stakeholder that's involved, which is often, you know, an impossible construct. But, um, now that you can get reimbursed for it, it will become, you know, the way of the future. And therefore, um, there's going to be a lot of growth. And I think the numbers they were throwing around were something like one hundred and eighty billion, which seems like quite a bit.
00:06:59 Janae Sharp: Um, yeah. The telehealth market is projected to reach one hundred and eighty billion by twenty thirty one. The interesting thing about that, when I read the report was that right now it's eighty five billion.
00:07:10 Megan Antonelli: Right.
00:07:10 Janae Sharp: It's giant. Right. So next time you're wondering if you can get telehealth, just know you should be able to.
00:07:19 Megan Antonelli: Right. It's available somewhere.
00:07:21 Janae Sharp: Yeah.
00:07:22 Megan Antonelli: It's available somewhere on your iPhone.
00:07:26 Janae Sharp: Yeah. And I and I think it's good to to take those steps to make patients safer and patients able to get great care.
00:07:33 Megan Antonelli: Yes. Which is so important. And I, you know, at the end of the day what it's all about. And I, you know, I mean, I had, um, this week, my close friend from college talked about, uh, she, she works for the Wall Street Journal, but she had her personal essay about, you know, her journey of getting cancer, um, being misdiagnosed for for two years, you know, not in telehealth, in, you know, in person care. And it wasn't until, you know, she had some very acute symptoms that she finally got the diagnosis and they were able to take care of her very quickly, thankfully. And she's fine now. But it it was such you know, this is a highly educated, highly sophisticated person who is navigating our healthcare system and is challenged by it. And, um, you know it. And that diagnosis that can be so hard because the system is so siloed, right, that that your endocrinologist doesn't talk to your allergist, doesn't talk to, um, you know, your ob gyn and, and all of those things. And at the end of, you know, it became it was a blood. You know, she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, lymphoma, which is a blood disease. So it's, you know, um, those our system of care being so siloed leads to poor patient outcomes. And I think when we think about the future of technology and how those things can come together. There's so much there. Which brings us to our next good thing.
00:09:02 Janae Sharp: Is it the Typekit.
00:09:03 Megan Antonelli: Know something you're involved in?
00:09:05 Janae Sharp: Oh, something I'm super excited about, which is that the Lorna Breen Act was reauthorized, the Doctor Lorna Breen Act through twenty thirty. Oh, that's.
00:09:14 Megan Antonelli: What I meant.
00:09:15 Janae Sharp: Oh, which one did you mean?
00:09:17 Megan Antonelli: It's the standards of care. Oh my gosh. Patient facing AI.
00:09:22 Janae Sharp: You're right, you're right.
00:09:23 Megan Antonelli: Jumped around.
00:09:23 Janae Sharp: Okay. They're both good. They're both good right.
00:09:26 Megan Antonelli: I jumped around because.
00:09:27 Janae Sharp: Now we're going to have to think about this. But before we say that, I do want to say like I feel like telemedicine and technology, sometimes when I look at that market, I think about influencers selling supplements, because every time I see something where someone's just selling their new book or their new supplement, questionable value or questionable research, sometimes you hear, but some of them are really compelling. And I think about telehealth. To me, part of that future of digital health and the market will be when we have science catch up to the marketing abilities of Joe Blow selling you vitamins on the internet. You know, it's a dream of mine. But let's go back to what patients want. And the patient AI standard of care. Um, and this is actually relevant to some of those discussions of like Facebook and ChatGPT and patient safety. And we've I've read a lot of horror stories about mental health and, and some of those systems, they they don't always lead to safety. They aren't safe for people to use, but they're widely, widely available. So people are using them. So I was able to be part of the AI care standard, um, for patients just talking about what type of Regulations policy, and what framework we need to make sure that patient communication is safe when we're involving artificial intelligence. And, you know, we love Chris Gibbons. When he spoke, he always talks about like hallucinating. So you shouldn't be hallucinating. You know, you shouldn't be giving false data. You should be taking into account lots of stuff, you know.
00:11:15 Megan Antonelli: Back up a little bit for all the folks who don't know what is the AI care standard for patient communication and what are they? Who are they trying to serve and who are they?
00:11:27 Janae Sharp: All right, that's a great question. So the AI care standard, it's a coalition of people that came together, experts in technology, in healthcare, a lot of patient, patient, um representatives that developed a framework for patient facing AI standards. And it's actually also a tool. So you can go in there and say, is is it ready to deploy to patients and you can fill it in so healthcare decision makers could plug in the different tools they want, or people who are paid, people who are patients who are interested. And it's really like the standard to make it safe and to make artificial intelligence as it becomes part of our care. What are the guidelines that should be used to bring that in?
00:12:16 Megan Antonelli: So is it like when I first looked at it, I thought it was more about informed, almost like informed consent telling the patient about, you know, where AI is going to be involved in their care process. Is that what it is, or is it more about, you know, kind of just create more of a, an agreement for the health system to kind of say, this is how I'm going to I'm going to take this framework and apply it to how I use AI with care.
00:12:45 Janae Sharp: Um, both it it says that it can be used for your artificial intelligence committees for like the chief Chief AI officer or equivalent leaders, or also from vendors who are developing these patient solutions. There's so much interest from the artificial intelligence community in healthcare right now, and it provides basic guidelines that keep things safe. So part of it is safety. But there are also other other things that are important, you know. Got it. It took a couple months and we went through with a lot of experts and and I'm proud of it. Like for.
00:13:23 Megan Antonelli: Yeah I mean they did a good job laying out kind of what the critical pieces of, you know, what's important here. I mean, it made me think when we were in health impact last earlier this month, um, during the the session with Kamal Bajaj, Doctor Bajaj and, um, Nancy from Heidi Health the they talked a lot about, you know, sort of an unexpected I didn't expect them to talk about this, but a lot about capturing the patient's voice in, you know, when using ambient technology. And we talk so much about, you know, sort of the documentation and removal of documentation and how important or, you know, reduction of documentation burden and how important that is. But what what they really got into, which I think is, you know, a little bit more future state and how do we do this? But listening to the patient voices and, and figure and learning from that and whether that's from a, you know, yes, diagnostic perspective, but also, you know, there's a satisfaction piece of that. There's, you know, so much to what you can hear in people's voices, um, as they're getting, getting this and, and certainly in terms of being educated on, you know, how AI is being used in all of this, you know, um, so I think, um, when I saw the work that you guys were doing at the AI care standard, um, it made me think a lot about that in terms of, um, you know, the future of this because we're just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much we will be involved being in be involving AI with the care process and with the patient experience, whether it's both from an outcomes perspective, but that that experience perspective as well.
00:15:11 Janae Sharp: Yes, yes. That's great. Like the experience matters. Like we want it to be safe and we want it to be cutting edge within, you know, frameworks of safety. Um, so so that's something everyone should check out.
00:15:25 Megan Antonelli: What's next for them? Yes, it's at AI care. Com and, um, you know, what are they? What are they hoping to do? Are they hoping to kind of bring this to health systems who will then implement and adhere to it? Um, or is it more than that?
00:15:43 Janae Sharp: Yeah, I think it's more than that, too. It's about developing appropriate safety standards. It's about setting that industry benchmark. And you know, we want we want people to adopt it. We also want more people to participate in the conversation. You know, doctor Bridget Duffy, doctor, they've both been really willing to meet with people. So if anybody wants to interview them, let us know. You know, they want to share that knowledge and and also enhance the conversation. We want to bring it forward. We want to talk about these frameworks. We want to talk to people who are developing. Um, so accelerating patient involvement and patient communication while at the speed of technology is the goal.
00:16:29 Megan Antonelli: Mhm. Well and speaking of frameworks that does bring us to one, you know sort of side good news. And it's kind of an extra. But there was I know ONC had their ACP had their annual meeting and there were some conversations that came out of that. But that tech tech tech Tfca has reached nearly five hundred million records exchanged. And so, you know, as we're looking at this powerful tool platform shift that AI is bringing us, we're finally seeing a lot of the data actually being online. And that interoperability is, you know, here, I guess, operational, if you will, as opposed to just kind of this holy grail that we're, you know, sort of chasing after in healthcare. That said, as soon as we get to one bar, there's many other bars. So now we've got, you know, so many more, you know, elements of data to, to kind of bring in and to effectively coordinate care. But if you think of that picture of, of care coordination from telemedicine to, um, you know, patient communication and diagnostic, then to what AI is doing, and then now to actually delivering on that interoperability process. We have, um, you know, a lot of the promise of technology coming together. So lots of good things.
00:17:55 Janae Sharp: Yes, I know we had so many good things this month.
00:17:58 Megan Antonelli: And then one that I know that you have personally worked on quite a bit and certainly worked through, um, you know, and a topic that is both near and dear and so important, um, to everyone in terms of clinician mental health and burnout prevention.
00:18:17 Janae Sharp: Yes. I was thrilled that the Doctor Lorna Breen Act was reauthorized for twenty twenty six and that they're going to fund furthering that research. You know, during the pandemic, I was so excited to see people humanizing physicians, nurses, health care providers, frontline workers because we made so much progress. And then you come across like that worry like, is this just going to be marketing? When people talk about burnout and anyone involved, anyone in healthcare has heard a lot of marketing about it and you almost get burned out on burnout. And and it's thrilling to see that people recognize that humanity and the need for this work going forward. So it was enacted in twenty twenty two, and we're still doing it. We're still working on solutions and helping employers and and figuring out the best way to, you know, train people, prevent it, develop a healthy work system.
00:19:20 Megan Antonelli: We've talked about it before, but remind me, what does the Act actually do in terms of what is by by reauthorizing it through twenty thirty? Is it does that mean there's going to be more funding and, and, you know, sort of prioritization of mental health. What is that what is the act do for folks?
00:19:39 Janae Sharp: Oh, that's a great question. So when we're looking at what the what the new funding does, which we'll go through September of twenty thirty, it's a lot about the coalition and congressional champions. You know, they say thank you, but what the program will do going forward, it's expanding grant programs for hospitals and health systems, health professionals and the community organizations to improve the systems in which health system workers are educated and in which they practice. And I think that's important because some of these initiatives where we're looking at, you know, what's a healthier way to learn about medicine? What's a healthier way to create a workplace for them? Um, they shouldn't have to be a special interest. So, you know, change takes money, it turns out. And change in healthcare takes training. There'll also be continuing with the National Impact Well-Being initiative and to equip hospitals and clinics, um, in their creating a facility with a thriving workforce. And I think there have been so many great changes there, even changes with with the law and changes with licensing for physicians where, you know, you're not supposed to ask invasive questions, where we're protecting people who are working in healthcare, and we're funding research in order to create more ideas in order to create a better workforce. And that's thrilling. So.
00:21:13 Megan Antonelli: Yeah, I know it's an important piece of, you know, legislation that has has made, you know, and it's good to see that the priority is still there. I mean, I think that's I mean, the telehealth, uh, reauthorization this I mean, you know, these things came out of the pandemic. They were silver linings, just like our five Good things, uh, segment. Um, and that we're still supporting them. And we recognize the importance of that. And it hasn't just been something that we've turned away from, like some other things that we've turned away from. Um, so it's good from that perspective. Um, you know, and it would be great. You know, it'd be great if we got to a point where we don't need it. Um, but at the end of the day, it's such an important area of research and of support, um, that it's great to see that, that they have continued to do that from the at the government level.
00:22:06 Janae Sharp: Yes. I love I love that we're making progress and that we're taking the good and and progressing it to make that an expectation. I think that can be an expectations for patients that they're able to get better care in better places with better technology. And that's kind of the theme for me this month that we're going to move forward with that. We're going to have artificial intelligence with guardrails. We're going to have interoperability. Maybe someday you'll be able to go to the doctor anywhere and get your data. You know, sometimes when we're when we're looking at it from our perspective, you see the flaws very clearly. And it's nice to hear more about the technology policy and people progress. That's going to bring us closer to our goal of fantastic care.
00:23:01 Megan Antonelli: And we will no doubt hear a lot about that in the next two weeks or three weeks as we go to Viv next week here in Los Angeles, and then two weeks later, we'll be at hims and there will be a lot of discussion about what's working and what's not, you know, and certainly a lot of marketing discussion about about what, what's working. And hopefully and I am sure, um, you know, some results from the folks that are actually implementing it. And so lots of learning to come. I'm looking forward already to our March five good things because there will be like fifty.
00:23:35 Janae Sharp: Yes, yes. And everyone who's listening in, you should make sure while you're at those events for yourself, find Megan and also share your good things like tag us online. We want to hear your good news every every month we look through press releases. We're looking for things to share. So if you liked our good things today, share them. If you didn't share them anyway, lie to us. Just kidding. But, but, but we really want to hear more about what people are doing, what's useful, and what the good news in healthcare can be. So like subscribe, share it with everyone you know. Share it with your mom. Tag us all day. It's fine. Yeah.
00:24:20 Megan Antonelli: Well thanks Janae. Thank you everybody for listening again. That's another segment of five good things with digital health talks. This is Megan Antonelli as Janae said, subscribe share. And that's me signing off.
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