Future Health - 11/14/19

Delivering care in the new virtual world… 

The Consumerization of Health Care Takes Hold – In a presentation before the Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Medical Innovation Summit several weeks ago, the CVS MinuteClinic President Sharon Vitti shared with an audience of health care innovators that CVS Health was focused “on the consumer” to make “things easy for them” while simultaneously impacting “health outcomes and the cost of care.”  The growing behemoth hosts more than 1,100 retail medical clinics in 32 states and the telemedicine service is available 24x7 at a cost of $59 for minor illnesses or skin disorders.  And, plans are in the works for another 1,500 “HealthHubs” to be deployed at CVS locations across the nation.  This is the future of health care. But, there’s one significant problem.  The “virtual” care provided through this model – and others (e.g. Teladoc, American Well, Sherpa and others) – while providing quality services, are disconnected from the ongoing primary care foundation provided by the face-to-face physicians.  This is a major problem.  We are beginning to see miscommunications or lack of communications, inadequate handoffs and an array of other “process” problems that are leading to duplication of service, disconnects or even dropped care as a result.  Setting up a parallel network of care delivery that is disconnected from ongoing primary care destroys the one model that’s been shown to make a difference.  In fact, examination of the data reveals that a comprehensive, coordinated primary care model saves money, enhances quality and drives better outcomes.  But, the current approach is leading to the disintermediation of the very platform it took several decades to build.  We need a better alternative…