Author: Kedar Ganta, Chief Product and Engineering Officer, Caregility
The third edition of ViVE demonstrated that healthcare technology has come of age. The 2024 conference wasn’t just about futuristic ideas; it showcased practical applications of health IT advancements that are augmenting care and revolutionizing healthcare delivery. Discussions centered on the significant shift from traditional models to hybrid care, promising improved outcomes across the healthcare ecosystem.
Beyond this overarching theme of progress, there was equal emphasis on both opportunities and challenges. Here are a few of the themes that dominated conversations at the event.
Expansion of Virtual Care
The growing significance of virtual care in supporting new care models is undeniable. There were numerous announcements of new virtual care platforms and partnerships that showcased their potential to enhance patient monitoring and care delivery. Despite its potential, virtual care still confronts significant hurdles such as bridging the digital divide, building patient trust, addressing privacy concerns, and navigating complex regulatory issues.
An offshoot of virtual care expansion that continues to get attention is virtual nursing. This year ViVE introduced a new track for nurse leaders at the conference, aimed at cultivating nurse-led innovation to address challenges and improve care delivery. Sessions on nursing’s role in the home, tackling staffing challenges, and training for future work point to the growing role technology will play in this field.
Responsible AI
AI continues to bask in the limelight, showcasing its potential for streamlining administrative tasks and optimizing workflows, impacting the entire patient care journey from admission to discharge. There are still many questions about the ethical considerations of applying this technology at scale, yet, despite these concerns, many organizations are eager to embrace AI-augmented solutions.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) saw a significant surge in momentum, offering a greater promise of reducing administrative burden. In addition to industry incumbents like Nuance and M*Modal, emerging players such as Abridge, Sunoh.ai, and DeepScribe are vying for prominence. Abridge’s recent funding garnered attention, accelerating their efforts to lead in this space. Notable is DeepScribe’s collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale their healthcare-focused large language models and seamlessly integrate with AWS HealthScribe, signaling a shift towards purpose-built healthcare language models.
As AI becomes increasingly pervasive, we can expect more discussions around the need for regulations and guidelines governing AI’s ethical and acceptable use in healthcare. Responsible use of AI is imperative to uphold patient data privacy and mitigate the risks of misuse.
Data, Security, and Trust
The emphasis on interoperability at the event underscored the significance of data in decision-making, leading to better patient outcomes and driving innovation to revolutionize healthcare delivery.
Cybersecurity took center stage, prompted by the recent high-profile attack on Change Healthcare. As my colleague Jeff Ryan put it, “The focus certainly shifted from AI to cybersecurity as news spread of the incident.” The cyberattack serves as a cautionary reminder of the risks of pursuing innovation without sufficient governance measures in place. It underlines the importance of implementing robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard patient privacy and maintain trust within the healthcare ecosystem.
A Glimpse into the Future
As the curtains closed on ViVE 2024, it dawned on me that we now possess the necessary technology to support the healthcare workforce and ecosystem. It offers a promise where staffing challenges are addressed, burnout is reduced, and the joy of healthcare is restored. From cybersecurity and interoperability to responsible AI, the digital health space offers ample opportunities for innovation. The onus lies on the industry and its leaders to be proactive, challenge the status quo, and forge a new path to reshape the future of healthcare as we know it.
About the Author
Kedar Ganta brings 20 years of leadership experience in enterprise-scale and cloud-native applications to his role as Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Caregility. He previously served as Head of Product for Global Growth Verticals at Cisco Systems and shaped digital product strategy in technical leadership roles at athenahealth, GE Healthcare, and Microsoft.