Collaboration key in boosting outcomes
In today’s healthcare ecosystem, it’s much better to partner than to go it alone.
That realization — coming as it does at a time of ballooning healthcare costs and daunting chronic conditions — is increasingly driving stakeholder collaboration across the industry to improve outcomes.
This was a key theme at the Drug Store News Industry Issues Summit in New York City, where industry leaders said retailers, providers, payers and technology companies need to work more closely together to improve patient journeys across a range of touchpoints. The discussion was part of a panel on “Payer Partnerships and Delivering Outcomes.”
“Collaboration is the key to medicine,” said Marc Watkins, chief medical officer and vice president of Nashville, Tenn.-based The Little Clinic/Kroger. “It puts the patient at the center of the things that we do.”
Panel moderator Dave Wendland, vice president of strategic relations at Waukesha, Wis.-based Hamacher Resource Group, said that collaboration involves “simplifying the path to wellness, the path to recovery and the path to health management.”
To see a PDF of this story as it appeared in print, click here.
[caption id="attachment_583751" align="alignleft" width="168"]
Shannon Huneke[/caption]
Shannon Huneke, UnitedHealthcare’s senior director of strategic alliances, said collaboration enables synergies and makes the healthcare journey easier for consumers. She cited her organization’s alliances and partnerships with such retailers as Walmart, Kroger and Walgreens, among others.
“We can’t do it alone, nor should we do it alone,” she said. “We see tremendous opportunities among our strategic partners, including retailers, pharma, consumer goods companies and others.”
Such retail venues as pharmacies and grocery stores are great places to recruit customers into a “patient-centric ecosystem,” but retailers can’t do it alone, said Alex Hurd, senior director of health and wellness transformation at Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart.
“It is, with organizations such as manufacturers, payers, providers and technology companies, that we can start building and accelerating the move to such an ecosystem,” he said.
New strategies and technology solutions
Companies are developing new approaches as they pursue collaborative business models. For example, Johnson & Johnson Consumer has engaged in both external and internal collaboration, said Geoff Betrus, the New Brunswick, N.J.-based company’s senior director of shopper solutions.
“We are developing collaborative partnerships with our external customers — retailers, payers and providers,” he said. “We are also driving collaboration internally at Johnson & Johnson across our three business sectors — consumer, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. As the world’s largest healthcare company, J&J is working to bring our collective expertise and assets to bear to benefit every patient on their respective journey — especially at the point when they make the transition as patient back to a consumer.”
He said that some five years ago, he wouldn’t have thought the consumer organization would be working with such partners as UnitedHealthcare, Aetna or Methodist Hospital. “But we are doing that today,” he said. “We feel there is opportunity to bring different ecosystem partners together to co-create and influence innovative solutions, and our efforts are focused on helping to facilitate these connections.”
The growth of collaboration has been creating opportunities for new technologies that, in turn, further boost efforts through data integration. A case in point is the Chicago-based company higi, whose U.S. network of more than 11,000 health stations enables consumers to obtain biometric health screenings at retail and other community locations nationwide.
[caption id="attachment_583750" align="alignright" width="172"]
Vicki Harter[/caption]
“The longitudinal data that’s available at our biometric stations is augmented by Fitbit data,” said Vicki Harter, higi’s vice president of solutions marketing. “More than 80 different wearable devices can be integrated into a higi account. People can take health risk questionnaires and surveys. That provides the ability to use that data to stratify populations and then steer them to the right locations, whether it’s a retail pharmacist or a nutritionist, for example, and to identify what the barriers are in adherence and really help them.”
Harter said industry partnerships are the best approach to overcoming hurdles. “The strategy has to come from that collaboration within the payer, provider, retail and community organizations,” she said.
Technology has a big role to play both for patients who are ready to make changes to their behaviors, and those who aren’t yet committed, said Jeff Key, managing director at Shreveport, La.-based PioneerRx, which develops pharmacy management systems for retail chains and independent pharmacy.
“Obviously, technology can help patients who already [are] determined they need to be adherent, with tools to be adherent,” Key said. “There also is a role for a different set of tools to try to convince somebody they need to be adherent. How do you use technology to make people care? It needs to be more fun, possibly through gamification, so it allows people to be winners.”
Improving outcomes for diabetes
Industry stakeholders are taking a deeper look at how collaboration impacts different stages in patient journeys. A case in point involves diabetes, where it’s important that each partner is on the same page for each patient.
[caption id="attachment_583752" align="alignleft" width="163"]
Geoff Betrus[/caption]
“It’s about how you weave it together, and how you inform the care team, through their UnitedHealthcare nurse navigator, the pharmacist at Walmart or the nurse practitioner at Kroger,” said J&J’s Betrus. “If the entire care team is saying the same thing, saying it in a way that has meaning, connecting with the patient on an emotional level versus just telling the patient ‘you need to do X, Y or Z,’ then you’re going to have meaningful change that will result in a healthier patient. There will be value for every stakeholder in the equation.”
Betrus added, “That’s why it’s so important that we look at collaboration beyond just manufacturer and retailer — we have to involve the entire healthcare ecosystem. If we do this successfully, we will build connected patient journeys that amplify the patient’s chances of becoming and staying healthier.”
Addressing such a challenge as diabetes also involves using data and intelligence to predict the best ways to help our members and shared patients, said UnitedHealthcare’s Huneke.
“We see the opportunity to start applying everything that we know about our consumer, in terms of the claims data, but also in terms of predictive modeling,” she said. “It’s about how we would index an individual, who perhaps may be pre-diabetic, and engage them in a conversation, into a one-one relationship by entering into a new personalized dynamic with their insurance company, meeting their needs every step of the way.”
That realization — coming as it does at a time of ballooning healthcare costs and daunting chronic conditions — is increasingly driving stakeholder collaboration across the industry to improve outcomes.
This was a key theme at the Drug Store News Industry Issues Summit in New York City, where industry leaders said retailers, providers, payers and technology companies need to work more closely together to improve patient journeys across a range of touchpoints. The discussion was part of a panel on “Payer Partnerships and Delivering Outcomes.”
“Collaboration is the key to medicine,” said Marc Watkins, chief medical officer and vice president of Nashville, Tenn.-based The Little Clinic/Kroger. “It puts the patient at the center of the things that we do.”
Panel moderator Dave Wendland, vice president of strategic relations at Waukesha, Wis.-based Hamacher Resource Group, said that collaboration involves “simplifying the path to wellness, the path to recovery and the path to health management.”
To see a PDF of this story as it appeared in print, click here.
[caption id="attachment_583751" align="alignleft" width="168"]
Shannon Huneke[/caption]Shannon Huneke, UnitedHealthcare’s senior director of strategic alliances, said collaboration enables synergies and makes the healthcare journey easier for consumers. She cited her organization’s alliances and partnerships with such retailers as Walmart, Kroger and Walgreens, among others.
“We can’t do it alone, nor should we do it alone,” she said. “We see tremendous opportunities among our strategic partners, including retailers, pharma, consumer goods companies and others.”
Such retail venues as pharmacies and grocery stores are great places to recruit customers into a “patient-centric ecosystem,” but retailers can’t do it alone, said Alex Hurd, senior director of health and wellness transformation at Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart.
“It is, with organizations such as manufacturers, payers, providers and technology companies, that we can start building and accelerating the move to such an ecosystem,” he said.
New strategies and technology solutions
Companies are developing new approaches as they pursue collaborative business models. For example, Johnson & Johnson Consumer has engaged in both external and internal collaboration, said Geoff Betrus, the New Brunswick, N.J.-based company’s senior director of shopper solutions.
“We are developing collaborative partnerships with our external customers — retailers, payers and providers,” he said. “We are also driving collaboration internally at Johnson & Johnson across our three business sectors — consumer, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. As the world’s largest healthcare company, J&J is working to bring our collective expertise and assets to bear to benefit every patient on their respective journey — especially at the point when they make the transition as patient back to a consumer.”
He said that some five years ago, he wouldn’t have thought the consumer organization would be working with such partners as UnitedHealthcare, Aetna or Methodist Hospital. “But we are doing that today,” he said. “We feel there is opportunity to bring different ecosystem partners together to co-create and influence innovative solutions, and our efforts are focused on helping to facilitate these connections.”
The growth of collaboration has been creating opportunities for new technologies that, in turn, further boost efforts through data integration. A case in point is the Chicago-based company higi, whose U.S. network of more than 11,000 health stations enables consumers to obtain biometric health screenings at retail and other community locations nationwide.
[caption id="attachment_583750" align="alignright" width="172"]
Vicki Harter[/caption]“The longitudinal data that’s available at our biometric stations is augmented by Fitbit data,” said Vicki Harter, higi’s vice president of solutions marketing. “More than 80 different wearable devices can be integrated into a higi account. People can take health risk questionnaires and surveys. That provides the ability to use that data to stratify populations and then steer them to the right locations, whether it’s a retail pharmacist or a nutritionist, for example, and to identify what the barriers are in adherence and really help them.”
Harter said industry partnerships are the best approach to overcoming hurdles. “The strategy has to come from that collaboration within the payer, provider, retail and community organizations,” she said.
Technology has a big role to play both for patients who are ready to make changes to their behaviors, and those who aren’t yet committed, said Jeff Key, managing director at Shreveport, La.-based PioneerRx, which develops pharmacy management systems for retail chains and independent pharmacy.
“Obviously, technology can help patients who already [are] determined they need to be adherent, with tools to be adherent,” Key said. “There also is a role for a different set of tools to try to convince somebody they need to be adherent. How do you use technology to make people care? It needs to be more fun, possibly through gamification, so it allows people to be winners.”
Improving outcomes for diabetes
Industry stakeholders are taking a deeper look at how collaboration impacts different stages in patient journeys. A case in point involves diabetes, where it’s important that each partner is on the same page for each patient.
[caption id="attachment_583752" align="alignleft" width="163"]
Geoff Betrus[/caption]“It’s about how you weave it together, and how you inform the care team, through their UnitedHealthcare nurse navigator, the pharmacist at Walmart or the nurse practitioner at Kroger,” said J&J’s Betrus. “If the entire care team is saying the same thing, saying it in a way that has meaning, connecting with the patient on an emotional level versus just telling the patient ‘you need to do X, Y or Z,’ then you’re going to have meaningful change that will result in a healthier patient. There will be value for every stakeholder in the equation.”
Betrus added, “That’s why it’s so important that we look at collaboration beyond just manufacturer and retailer — we have to involve the entire healthcare ecosystem. If we do this successfully, we will build connected patient journeys that amplify the patient’s chances of becoming and staying healthier.”
Addressing such a challenge as diabetes also involves using data and intelligence to predict the best ways to help our members and shared patients, said UnitedHealthcare’s Huneke.
“We see the opportunity to start applying everything that we know about our consumer, in terms of the claims data, but also in terms of predictive modeling,” she said. “It’s about how we would index an individual, who perhaps may be pre-diabetic, and engage them in a conversation, into a one-one relationship by entering into a new personalized dynamic with their insurance company, meeting their needs every step of the way.”
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