Aspen Ideas Health: Why a Sense of Urgency will Change Health Innovation This Year
Last week, we attended Aspen Ideas Health with other innovators, leaders, and policy makers in the health industry. The energy and dynamics were different this year than from years past. Urgency, a sense of action, and doing something now rose to the forefront of every single conversation. What can health leaders do today? Here are three ways to take action to help fuel momentum and change with your strategic initiatives.
Accelerate with Data
Of course, AI was on everyone’s minds at the conference. However, it was the proof points and examples shared by leaders from multiple organizations that signaled the dramatic surge in impact. Dr. David Fagjenbaum’s breakthrough discovery by repurposing a drug saved his life. His organization Every Cure is now using AI to evaluate all existing therapeutics and connect the dots to discover their full potential–to make every disease curable.
Real World Evidence (RWE) was also at the forefront of conversation. From the Mt. Sinai Million program, to Dr. Fanny Elahi’s race to cure Alzheimer’s and develop drugs faster, to Medicare’s openness to use RWE to evaluate therapeutic options – we are in a new era of drug discovery and human health. Dr. Elahi’s calculated enthusiasm was revealed in her dream care pipeline, “We’re using analytical methods to ask the data to point us where the answers might be, to tell us what similarities and differences people have. And, to then understand how pathology begins, how it develops and then where it ends.”
Those with data sets, who build solutions to analyze data, and those who acquire data will lead healthcare innovation in the next five years and beyond.
Move from Transactions to Relationships
How might we make healthcare less of a transaction and more of a long-term relationship? In a panel on advancing inclusion in clinical trials, Verily’s Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Vindell Washington talked about the importance of co-creating with patients to help them accomplish their goals. Walgreens’ Ramita Tandon discussed the effort her team is making to embed into a community to develop relationships and improve access to clinical trials.
When we deliver care in a way that’s consistent with what patients want, we move toward developing a relationship vs. a one-time encounter. Calm Health’s digital app solutions for helping provide better, more convenient and consistent care for treating mental health conditions is more than just a one-off program. Instead, David Ko, Calm’s CEO, said “We want to be a part of the mental health journey, every step of the way.”
Strategies such as embedding into the community, bringing patients along in the journey, and designing for consistent, daily moments will help leaders win in healthcare innovation.
Listen with Intention
Many leaders asked, what can we do better now? How do we solve the toughest problems? Something that seems easy, but is often overlooked, is listening. Dr. Iman Abuzied, CEO and Founder of Incredible Health said, “we have enormous data sets and know what nurses want and what they are thinking. We can start conversations with this knowledge and then effectively make change.”
The highly accomplished and engaging leader of ARPA-H, Renee Wegrzyn, showcased how their new funding organization will change the way science moves forward. By breaking the traditional government way of doing things, program directors at ARPA-H are listening to ideas, pushing thinking and changing the future of health.
Let’s not ignore or avoid difficult conversations. Instead, let’s listen to what our consumers, patients, clinicians, and customers want–across the entire healthcare ecosystem.
The Golden Age of Medicine is here. Let’s work together to help accelerate access, improve outcomes, and continue to build trust and relationships with the populations we serve.