I’m heading home after a few days in San Diego at the AHA Leadership Summit, or at least I’m trying to. Like many others, my journey began with flight delays and cancellations related to Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and blue screens of death. On my return, almost a week after the initial IT outage, my airline still struggled to get me home. (I bet you could guess which airline). When my initial flight was canceled, I was tempted to throw in the towel and skip the event, given the Sunday departure and cross-country travel. However, I found another flight allowing me to salvage the bulk of the Summit, and I’m glad I did. I was able to connect with a couple of members of my team as well as several friends and colleagues from across the healthcare industry and hear about so much great work that is going on within hospitals and clinics across the country. With a little extra time on my hands heading home, I’m reflecting on a few themes that emerged from the Summit:
Aligning reimbursement to upstream care
One speaker said, “We need more health in healthcare.” She meant that the industry continues to improve how we treat and care for the sick, but we need to do more upstream to keep patients healthy. I agree. This is the promise of population health and value-based care models, which are nowhere near reaching their full potential.
Related, a speaker in an entirely different session talked about the challenge of payment models needing to keep up with the pace of innovation related to care delivery and how that is a significant barrier to progress. In so many areas of healthcare, we have found ways to deliver better care and better outcomes, but the reimbursement models don’t align. It’s been proven over time in every industry that despite the best intentions, behavior follows the incentives.
Also related is the need to better address behavioral health upstream. This is a large and growing challenge in the industry, with far too few resources. Our acute care hospitals are bearing the burden of housing and treating these patients ‘downstream’ in a very expensive care setting that isn’t adequately resourced nor reimbursed for that role.
The ’how’ matters… a lot
I was reminded that when it comes to making impactful changes in healthcare, HOW you do, it matters much more than WHAT you do. Several sessions touched on incredible results achieved through focused improvement efforts and deploying vital digital technologies. In every case, the presenters emphasized the critical role of the change management process, communication, trust building, stakeholder representation, etc. They also discussed the importance of accurately defining the problem they were trying to solve – which is often more complicated than it appears. They also discussed applying the necessary rigor and discipline to choose the solution for their organization’s unique circumstances. However, how they ultimately deployed the solutions was most critical to their success. The effort will fail if you don’t appropriately plan for and execute an effective rollout.
Still talking about artificial intelligence… a lot
You’re shocked to read that AI was a frequent topic at the conference. I almost hesitate to write about it because coverage of AI feels so oversaturated. But I did hear a couple of points worth sharing. First, there are common use cases where many provider organizations have begun using AI to create measurable value today, such as ambient listening for clinical documentation, image screening, and patient messaging. Most organizations I talked with that had made progress with AI-enabled solutions had focused on one or more of these areas. The common thread is that these are generally applications of AI that produce substantial savings of time and effort on the part of staff and physicians but with minimal clinical risk. But there is still some risk, which brings us to the next point.
“AI is like an intern; somebody better check their work” – paraphrased from one of the speakers. Like an intern, you trust them with the tasks you assign, but you still need to double-check their work before it goes out the door. Much work still needs to be done on the regulatory front to test and validate the clinical efficacy of numerous potential AI applications. Yet, even for the applications in which AI is currently trusted, there remain sufficient errors, mistakes, and ‘hallucinations’ that require human monitoring and intervention. Unlike Ron Popeil’s infomercials, you cannot just “set it and forget it.”
Presidential election impacts on healthcare
With last Sunday’s announcement that President Biden was exiting the race, there was unsurprisingly a lot of discussion at the Summit about what this means for healthcare. Spoiler alert: Nobody knows. In a very prescient move by AHA, they had already planned a town hall discussion on navigating the 2024 political landscape. We heard from two excellent political strategists on both sides of the political spectrum (Paul Begala and Scott Jennings), and while they didn’t agree much, both agreed that they had no idea who would win in November. Three and a half months is a VERY long time in politics. We can all speculate based on previous track records and rhetoric, but there is no certainty.
In closing, I want to offer my thanks and admiration to all of the healthcare professionals who attended the Leadership Summit and were willing to share their great work and lessons learned with the industry. Keep up the great work!
