Fueling food Rx movement 

Experts from the healthcare industry come together at HLTH 2022, to discuss a broad range of themes, transformative ideas, and the future of health.

Healthcare and wellness experts from Northwell Health, Instacart, FarmboxRx, the Office of the National Coordinator, Oracle Cerner, UnitedHealth Group, Change Healthcare, Advocate Arora Health and Atrium Health, and MercyOne and Trinity Health discussed themes and ideas that are shaping the industry. We present the key highlights of the discussion below. 

As per USDA, 41 million Americans are food insecure, which is directly related to living below the poverty line. 90% of those affected by hunger are children, and 10% are adults. Given the rising inflation and war in Ukraine, food costs have increased significantly, leaving more Americans in a dire state. Discussions during the HLTH event point to a clear trend – that the world is focusing on and investing in wellness in a big way. People and enterprises are moving the focus back to our fundamental needs, such as food. Executives in prominent healthcare and food delivery organizations are trying to resolve healthcare issues such as obesity, chronic cardiovascular conditions, and other diseases caused due to poor nutrition by introducing culinary programs for physicians, delivering fresh produce for Medicare and Medicaid population, and meeting consumers at the point of sale. Moving toward a value-based care model, which encourages individuals and the system to invest more in proactive healthcare and reducing the disease state, becomes a top priority. 

Empowering data interactivity and analytics 

Data will always play a critical role in healthcare.

Our ability to learn from the past is only possible with the amount and depth of data we have. Some explicit goals within the healthcare system are about the fluidity and speed of data exchange to give proper care at the right time. It is a strong belief that we need to be pivoting our stories to data interactivity than interoperability to create more patient and provider engagement and nurture a two-dimensional process. As data exchange rises in importance, considering social determinants of health, where one works, plays, and lives, could be a game changer.

Integrating and expanding with mergers and acquisitions 

2022 has been a great year for M&A.

There has been a huge demand to innovate, scale, and impact. The M&A trends indicate innovation, organizations gaining access to large member groups, and moving toward a more value-based care model. We must be more conscious and think through talent management, impact of M&As on the front-line workers and physicians, and technology integrations. 

Manifesting through digital twins

Using the digital twin concept in healthcare, we could improve patient care significantly. 

This can be done by improving medication accuracy, predicting disease states, reducing healthcare costs, and potentially reducing physician burnout. 

Using the digital twin concept in healthcare, we could improve patient care significantly by improving medication accuracy, predicting disease states, reducing healthcare costs, and potentially reducing physician burnout.

Some ways in which digital twin is being used in our health and wellness ecosystem include the following:

• Reducing medical errors: By understanding a patient’s response to different doses of a drug or different treatment variations, physicians could be more precise in their diagnosis and treatment, significantly reducing medical errors and misdiagnosis. 

• Improving efficiency in hospital operations: Creating different variabilities by modeling an existent hospital, will help healthcare management to understand where to reduce costs, improve process efficiency, and reduce workforce burnout by testing different processes, structural layouts in an ICU and much more.

• Improving member wellness: By projecting a healthier version, we would encourage and empower individuals to make better choices to create a healthier version of themselves through digital twin. For example, one can see the difference in their health by making certain food choices, staying active, and spending more time with the community. Linking this data with their health metrics—such as heart rate, mental health information, and other parameters will empower and improve member wellness. Increasing an individual’s wellness can drastically reduce healthcare visits and costs. 

The future of healthcare lies at the intersection of data interoperability, innovative technologies, and an empathy-centric operating models. With the accelerated technology innovations, a shift toward value-based care, and an increase in wellness concepts, the drive to predict, pause, and proactively react to global causes—such as climate change, food insecurity, sustainability, and socio-economic factors—would be the driving force for a smart healthcare and wellness ecosystem.