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2022 Predictions From Health IT Executives: Interoperability, AI, and More
Nine health care executives reflect on lessons learned in 2021 and predict how organizations will continue adopting technology and pivoting to improve interoperability, costs, and patient outcomes in 2022.
Amid all the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI), in 2022 there will be a surge in this tech being used to augment physician decision-making and improve equity in patient care.
AI will play a role in curbing information overload by helping to reset the clinician when facts are not making sense. Providers can get distracted by other cases or interruptions during a shift, but tools like AI can help refocus them on the problem at hand, much like a checklist in a cockpit helps pilots focus on which tasks to complete in a certain order.
We will also see AI-driven tools that equip clinicians with robust, diverse sets of medical expertise and resources, from specialist knowledge to disease presentations on different skin pigments, which can help to avoid bias, fill gaps in medical knowledge, and improve diagnostic accuracy.
—JT Finnell, MD, chief medical officer at VisualDx
As we wrap up 2021, we are starting to see health systems and others across the care provider segment gain an affinity for the cloud. No longer is it a question of if health care will move to the cloud; instead, it is a question about the order of operations and which workflows and infrastructure will move first.
As this shift occurs—and as compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) patient access and interoperability rules accelerate—we will see less reliance on virtual private networks (VPNs) and more on fast health care interoperability resources application programming interfaces (FHIR APIs). This will necessitate a gateway to enforce security, authorization, and consent and to act as that single entry point for any health care digital front door.
—Scott Galbari, chief technology officer, Lyniate
Health plans have struggled with digital engagement. However, new price transparency mandates provide an unprecedented opportunity. People look to their health plan to understand costs for care. By building engagement there and providing the guidance in care selection that people crave, plans can build trust in other areas to achieve health outcome and savings goals.
—Matt Parker, senior vice president of product, HealthSparq and Kyruus
There will be significant change in the health care space in the year ahead. Payers will start to explore more sophisticated ways to address health equity issues highlighted by the pandemic by implementing advanced AI technologies, conducting more tailored member outreach, and gathering feedback directly from health care consumers. By utilizing this member data, organizations will then be able to create targeted campaigns that recognize and correct bias, ultimately better addressing inequities in health outcomes.
Organizations will also need to leverage new technologies and systems to meet the needs of the ONC Cures Act in 2022 amid looming deadlines and frustration surrounding interoperability challenges. Payers and providers will need to collaborate even more closely to lead the charge on interoperability standards and adoption.
—Emad Rizk, president and chief executive officer, Cotiviti
We all know COVID-19 is unpredictable, with surges of new variants popping up when we feel like we are almost out of the woods and mask mandates changing day by day. That said, the federal public health emergency has now been extended until mid-January after being pushed out seven times already, and as a part of it, the deadline for Medicaid redetermination was also pushed out. There is a chance it could be extended again, but one thing for certain is redeterminations are inevitable in the coming months.
In the year ahead, it will be critical for state and federal leadership, as well as providers and payers, to determine the best approach for redeterminations to ensure continuity of coverage and minimize disenrollment of eligible individuals. To navigate this new health care landscape with a record high of more than 81 million Medicaid beneficiaries, organizations will need to leverage data-driven analytics, utilize innovative technologies, and implement agile operations to drive efficiency and meet the needs of consumers.
—Venkatgiri (Giri) Vandali, president, healthcare and lifesciences at Firstsource
2021 was a memorable year across Health information technology (IT) from the perspective of wrestling with solutions to addressing COVID-19. Looking ahead to 2022, I predict the industry will be focused on health care becoming more personalized and participatory, facilitated through enhanced patient engagement tools, such as digital front doors.
Remote monitoring has demonstrated value in safely managing many specific conditions, I anticipate its continued use and expanded adoption. There will be ongoing concerns around addressing long-standing issues such as public health infrastructure, provider burnout, workforce shortage, and complex, siloed IT systems. Planned improvements to increase interoperability across the country will help alleviate these issues.
—Chris Hobson, MD, chief medical officer, Orion Health
The combination of social justice movements plus the ongoing public health crisis shines a bright light on the country’s health inequities, and the time to act is now.
The systemic inequities in our health care system disproportionately affect under-resourced and marginalized populations, often resulting in delayed access to care, poor care quality and outcomes. Many health systems and hospitals are beginning to turn to evidence-based and scalable digital solutions to close these gaps in care.
In 2022, we are going to see broader adoption of solutions like culturally responsive texting, community resource referral platforms, digital access to transportation options, and on-demand virtual care—solutions that will not only drive quality and equitable health care, but also encourage more holistic, frictionless care and experiences for all.
—Linda Finkel, chief executive officer, AVIA
While a terrible public health tragedy, the continued spread of the COVID-19 virus and emergence of dangerous variants have accelerated progress in the use of DNA sequencing in diagnosis and treatment. Representing a significant paradigm shift, acceptance of genetic and genomic testing most certainly will enhance clinical practice in 2022 and beyond, improving care for individuals and cohorts of patients.
For example, precision medicine can help front-line providers identify patient populations at greatest risk for common heritable conditions like cardiomyopathies, cancer, and neurological disorders to effect timely diagnosis, preventive care, and early intervention. Likewise, use of genetic testing helps both primary care providers and specialists detect and even predict potential drug-gene interactions and unsatisfactory therapeutic response.
—Joel Diamond, MD, FAAFP, chief medical officer, 2bPrecise; primary care physician, Handelsman Family Practice
The rapidly expanding adoption of FHIR APIs, highlighted by recent ONC and CMS rules requiring providers and payers to make patient data available to patients via applications of their choosing, is likely to lead to a rethinking of population health.
Historically, the limiting factor in population health’s ability to change patient behavior has been the need for “direct touches” of the patient by care management teams. With the modern stack of FHIR resources, patient engagement can be moved directly to the patient’s smart phone with a richer set of options to engage with them.
Behind the scenes, scalable serverless cloud FHIR platforms can underpin a more insightful and real-time analytic infrastructure to provide personalized suggestions, similar to how online shopping sites guide us to related products. Simultaneously, bulk FHIR APIs will allow the replacement of the classic isolated quality measures with computationally robust measures of the entirety of provider performance. We will then be able to find and start rewarding true clinical innovation.
—Don Rucker, MD, chief strategy officer, 1upHealth
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