2024 Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference Highlights Access to Care

On February 23, 2024, The MIT Sloan Healthcare Club convened the 22^nd annual MIT Sloan Healthcare and Bioinnovations Conference. This year the conference theme was “Breaking Barriers: Innovating for Healthcare Access”. Keynote speaker Deborah Di Sanzo, President of Best Buy Health, spoke about the retail company’s successful foray into healthcare. Several panelists also addressed the conference theme.

Two panels specifically focused on increasing access to care with innovative methods and programs. Innovations such as the latest AI techniques were employed as a catalyst for delivery. Programs that removed financial barriers to care with more traditional tools were also successful at delivering care more equitably and efficiently.

Innovating with AI

The first panel featured speakers knowledgeable about AI and healthcare innovation. Prof. Collin Stultz led off with some useful definitions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the largest category and refers to bringing or imbuing intelligence to machines. Machine Learning (ML) is a subclass of AI. ML refers to learning concepts and relationships through data. An ML tool, trained on data, can respond to queries. Generative AI is a subclass of machine learning. Generative AI can generate similar information as the data that was used to train it.

The panelists made a distinction between situations where AI-enabled support would be useful in healthcare settings and those where this type of tool is not yet ready to be implemented either because an issue with AI itself or because its usefulness has not been optimized for today’s clinical practice. The panelists emphasize discernment.

Gaye Bok, Partner, AI and Digital Innovation Fund Mass General Brigham, hedged against using AI applications in patient-facing situations. “Generative AI in particular has bias issues,” she cautioned.

Wyatt Decker, Executive VP, UnitedHealth Group Chief Physician, Value-based Care, took issue with how AI applications are implemented. Clinical decision support tools right now “can be irritating” and there is not enough thought put into a clinician’s workflow when installing these applications. Decker believes that AI-enabled support “could go somewhere exciting [if we can] harness all that data in front of clinicians in a useful and meaningful way to help make decisions.”

Stultz spoke about the need for AI/ML experts and clinicians to communicate better. They need to learn each other’s vocabulary and communication style. Right now, he believes, there is plenty of room for progress. Further, both groups need to keep the patient top of mind. The governing question should be, “how do we improve the life of the patient right in front of us?”

Despite their reservations, the panelists did see where these technologies could be very useful. Bok put it simply as “anything that does not touch a patient.” She gave examples of administrative tasks such as coding and revenue cycle management. Decker echoed those sentiments by suggesting that there was a big opportunity in offloading clerical tasks to AI/ML. “There are consequences to getting it wrong but nobody dies.” Even in these less weighty circumstances, however, they agreed that human oversight would still be necessary.

Innovating with new Financial Models

The second access-oriented panel focused on removing financial barriers to care. Alison Kosup, SVP Strategy and Growth from Surest, whose offering makes it easy for consumers to be certain of the cost of care before making an appointment, is from an established insurance company, UnitedHealth.  Nikita Singareddy is the co-founder and CEO of startup, Fortuna Health, which serves Medicaid consumers and guides them through the labyrinthian process of enrolling in and renewing coverage.  Laura Jensen brought her extensive pharmaceutical experience to her role at Amazon Pharmacy as the Head of Business Development. These three represent different ways of helping both employers reduce their health insurance costs and consumers reduce their out-of-pocket expenses.

Surest’s innovation is about price transparency. Members can find and compare the cost of care on the Surest app or website before they commit to an appointment. Surest plans offer care without some of the process and paperwork endemic to many other options. There are no deductibles, no coinsurance; plans are co-pay only. Surest claims that member out-of-pockets costs are 54% lower compared to more traditional plans and that 90% of members reenroll year-over-year. Employers experienced 11% lower total cost per member, per month.

Fortuna Health’s offering is for Medicaid members and those who provide services to them. Navigating and signing up for Federal healthcare programs can be confusing and difficult. Fortuna takes care of all of the obstacles that make accessing care difficult. Fortuna quotes: “75%+ of Medicaid churn is caused by procedural issues like missing a recertification notice. It should be simpler to navigate Medicaid.” Fortuna’s full-service, easy-to-navigate platform helps health plans, providers and members manage ongoing Medicaid eligibility in 30 seconds, and enrollment, and recertification in five minutes.

Laura Jensen brings both pharmaceutical and on-line consumer experience to her role at Amazon Pharmacy. Two goals that she keeps in mind are to reduce the cost to the end customer and to reduce the time to treatment. The point is to get the medication at a low cost to the consumer quickly. With the Amazon program, consumers know the cost before the prescription is filled.

How Best Buy Succeeded in the Healthcare Market

Keynote speaker Deborah Di Sanzo, President of Best Buy Health, spoke about how Best Buy adapted one of its unique offerings to the healthcare market. Best Buy has a play in healthcare in the health-at-home market. Consumers need technological hardware and the knowledge to use it to take advantage of digital and tele-medicine.

Best Buy is known for its Geek Squad service. People having trouble with their home theater or computer set up can get help at home from a person who shows up in a Geek Squad van to get them up and running again. Di Sanzo realized that Best Buy could leverage the Geek Squad’s reputation for trustworthiness and competence and adapt that to the healthcare technology market. Best Buy won’t provide care, but rather the logistics and supply chain needed to make health-at-home work for patients and providers.

Conclusion

This year’s theme highlighted varying ways to increase access to care through new technology at lower costs. Empowering patients to take a more active role was one thread that ran through many of the panelists’ talks. Some spoke of helping patients make better, less costly decisions. Another thread that that was repeatedly mentioned was support for health-at-home models, which cost insurers and providers less while patients get better more quickly and with fewer side effects.