Digital Health Investment Symposium 2024

Panel Discussions: What Was Covered at DHIS 2024?

• AI Strategy and Resiliency: Proof Points versus Vaporware
• Ambulatory and Specialty HIT: Where Is the White Space Between Acute Care and Commercial Healthcare?
• Addressing Margin Pressures with RCM Investments: What Is Working and What Is Not?
• Cybersecurity: Building a More Resilient and Secure Healthcare System
• Patient Conversion and Engagement in Today’s Healthcare Environment
• Executing Coordinated Care across Post–Acute Care Verticals
• Healthcare Outsourcing: Getting the Most from the Team outside Your Four Walls

Black swan events are unexpected, low-probability events that have far-reaching consequences. In the past several years, the healthcare industry has been rife with these events, grappling with everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to nationwide cybersecurity incidents. Also, staffing shortages and margin pressures—typically thought of as ongoing healthcare challenges—have been particularly adverse over the last four years and, thus, are viewed as black swan events. Still, organizations have remained remarkably resilient as they have tackled these issues in a short period of time. At DHIS, attendees shared thoughts on what events may disrupt the market next and how organizations can prepare and build resilience.

Key Insights from Group Discussions

• Avoid single points of failure—have multiple instances of critical software and/or diversify your organization’s vendor partners to create redundancies and alternatives in case a black swan event occurs.
• Training for downtime is a necessity. Organizations need to have a playbook for critical system failures and practice workarounds (e.g., paper processes, tabletop drills for leadership).

Cybersecurity incidents are the black swan events that pre-summit survey respondents report being most worried about; this concern is likely driven by the number of recent high-profile breaches (e.g., Change Healthcare, CrowdStrike) that have affected countless healthcare stakeholders. Over one-third of all respondent types say their organization has been impacted by a cybersecurity event in the last year, and half of provider respondents report being impacted by an event in the last year. Among all respondent types who were impacted, about 60% say the financial/operational impact was moderate or significant. These insights suggest that cybersecurity incidents should be expected and planned for—their occurrence is not a matter of “if” but “when.” However, across the wider market, few organizations have substantially increased their spending on security measures due to budget constraints and challenges with obtaining cybersecurity insurance. Some attendees want regulatory guidance so they know how much to invest in security. A cybersecurity panel discussion at DHIS referenced New York’s new regulations mandating that all health systems of a certain size (1) have a CISO and (2) regularly report security metrics to the state. The outcomes of these regulations remain to be seen, but in the future, similar regulations could be adopted nationwide or become required for cybersecurity insurance.

Key Insights from Group Discussions

• Organizations are more thoroughly assessing HIT vendors for their data management practices, and this caution may slow down sales decisions. As a result, vendors are doubling down on their investments in security frameworks, like HITRUST or SOC 2.
• Building a culture of accountability is critical but challenging. The silver lining to the high-profile cybersecurity incidents that have impacted US healthcare is that stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem are now more aware of cybersecurity risks, which is helping build a culture where security is prioritized.
• Regulations may be required to drive top-down change in the healthcare ecosystem, especially in areas like cybersecurity.

AI and generative AI (GenAI) were main discussion topics at DHIS 2024—attendees reflected on how this technology has been adopted throughout the healthcare market. AI tools for ambient speech and clinical documentation are frequently explored by organizations looking to reduce clinician burnout and administrative loads. Some attendees also mentioned that these tools can help improve coding accuracy—a welcome benefit but not the main motivator for implementation. AI for patient communication (most commonly GenAI chatbot solutions) is also gaining traction. Of note, challenges are limiting AI adoption in some high-energy areas, like revenue cycle management (RCM). Whereas AI tools for ambient speech, clinical documentation, and patient communication are standalone products, AI tools for RCM aren’t as straightforward; to reach an acceptable level of accuracy, they require training on curated, customized datasets. Until these challenges are resolved, revenue cycle benefits are less likely to come from AI tools for claims or prior authorization and more likely to occur as an ancillary benefit of AI tools for ambient speech and clinical documentation. For more insights into AI adoption among provider and payer organizations, see the Healthcare IT Spending report KLAS published in collaboration with Bain & Company.

Key Insights from Group Discussions

• While RCM is seen as an area of interest for future AI use cases (autonomous coding, claims, preauthorization, etc.), ambient speech offers a more immediate ROI for top-of-mind metrics around clinician burnout and administrative overhead.
• AI tools are easier to implement for ambient speech and patient communication as opposed to other areas, as the tools are typically plug and play and don’t need to be heavily trained on curated datasets.
• There is very little appetite for black box technology in AI solutions. The healthcare market needs greater transparency into what is and isn’t created by AI, especially as AI functionalities are increasingly embedded in vendor solutions.
• Change management and stakeholder buy-in are critical for AI adoption and responsible usage.

3M

Access Healthcare

AccessOne

Advocate Health

AGFA HealthCare

ALIGNMT AI

AMN Healthcare

Andor Health

Apax Partners

ARUP Laboratories

Aspirion

Assured Healthcare Partners

athenahealth

Atrium Health

Avant-garde Health

AvaSure

Bain & Company

Berkshire Partners

Bertelsmann

BESLER

Bon Secours Mercy Health

Caregility

Castillo Primary Care

Censinet

CereCore

Charlesbank Capital Partners

Cinven

ClearBalance Healthcare

Cleveland Clinic

Continuum Health IT

Deloitte

Eir Partners

Endeavor Health

Epic

EQT

Essentia Health

Evergreen Healthcare Partners

EY

Fisher-Titus

Flexpoint Ford

Forcura

Frazier Healthcare Partners

Fresenius Medical Care

Gilette Children’s Hospital and Clinics

Goldman Sachs

Good Samaritan Hospital

Greenway Health

GrowthCurve Capital

Guidehealth

GuideIT, a Perot Company

Healthfirst

healthKERI

healthLinc

HFMA

Hg Capital

HonorHealth

Hospital for Special Surgery

HTC Global Services

Infinx Healthcare

Infor

Inovalon

Intermountain Health

IntraCare

Intraprise Health

KKR

LHC Group

Loma Linda University Health

Longevity Health Plan

Luma Health

Mass General Brigham Health Plan

Memorial Care Innovation Fund

Mercy Health

Mountain Independent Hospital Alliance

Multiview

Mytonomy

N1 Health

Nautic Partners

New Mountain Capital

Next Level Medical

Nordic

OnPoint Health Partners

Optum

Orlando Health

OSF HealthCare

Parkview Health

Penn Medicine

PerfectServe

Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company

PointClickCare

Providence Ventures

QGenda

R1 RCM

RAAPID

Raymand James

Relatient

ResMed

Revelation Partners

RevSpring

The Riverside Company

San Francisco Department of Public Health

Sierra Nevada Ear, Nose & Throat

Signature Performance

Sixth Street

Snowflake

St. Luke’s

symplr

TeamBuildr

Team Rehabilitation Physical Therapy

Tebra

Tegria

TeleVox

Thomas H. Lee Partners

TOPMed

Tufts Medicine

UCI Health

UC San Diego Health

UKG

UNC Health

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

University of Utah Health

uPerform

Upfront Healthcare

UST

Ventra Health

Vestar Capital Partners

Vyne Medical

Warburg Pincus

Watershed Health

Waystar

Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe

Workday