OnRamp Healthcare Conference on August 12 is now virtual and free!
WEA Trust Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and former Wisconsin Medical Society CMO, Tim Bartholow, MD, shared why he thinks physicians and other health professionals should participate in healthtech and OnRamp Healthcare Conference.
“It is my belief that what patients really want is the expertise of a physician, a nurse, a pharmacist, a social worker and sometimes in combination. Telehealth has taught us that one or a couple of health care team members can be present in the telehealth "room" with the patient to provide guidance, reassurance and to make a coordinated plan. Elementally, the patient wants you to give them real advice about what is best for them.
Too often pre-COVID, the visit was to buildings with high glass fronts, baby grand pianos, marble, even basketball courts and test kitchens. In addition to these costs, non-direct patient care staff in systems has dramatically increased, some of them essential. These building and staff investments are not then available to the vast number of our patients who are working for $45,000 or less per year, navigating a $3,000 deductible – if not an $8,000 deductible – whose sparse and rare pay raises go directly to health care cost increases.
So why is WisMedAssure interested in healthtech, and why does WEA Trust support this?
Some of the most amazing improvements in health care will occur as communication/interoperability of key data happens more easily, or when analytics make a new insight available like the AI of Ensodata, or the texting of Care Signal, Remote Sensing of Nonnatech and dozens of others. These companies take mundane tasks away from the care team so they can focus on complex care delivery, or they make observations that if the care team was aware, they would respond to help a patient. This will be an active decade in these types of technologies. There will be opportunities for physicians and their teams to articulate the improvements we need, opportunities to advise some of these emerging companies that are hungry for physician advice, and with proper vetting – vetting is key – there are opportunities to build investment opportunities into carefully selected companies.
In a time when too many of us feel like we have been asked to do more mundane tasks, or when we are not heard when we have a good idea, or when we seek to have health care more affordable and therefore more accessible to our patients, these companies and your involvement can be highly impactful.
I do not believe that the “health care system,” including insurers, that have increased cost by 6% per year for a decade is going to suddenly make care more accessible, affordable, for most of our population who are forgoing colonoscopies or immunizations or “elective care” because they just cannot afford it. I think that our supporting positive disruptions to an inefficient status quo may allow patients advice and comfort, while providing the care team an opportunity to advocate for the better way to provide care.
I encourage all of us to be involved, believe that there is a better way, an affordable path to care for more of our community.”
If you are interested in providing valuable input to innovators, we need you to participate. Register to attend the virtual OnRamp Healthcare Conference and contact Laura Jacobs or Shawna Bertalot for more information.
Back to top