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What’s on the agenda for ENGAGE at HLTH? – MedCity News

What’s on the agenda for ENGAGE at HLTH? – MedCity News

The fourth annual ENGAGE at HLTH conference will highlight conversations around patient engagement, such as drug prices, AI, and investment trends. The event is scheduled for Sunday, November 13, from 9:30 am to 1pm PST on the Disco stage at The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, in partnership with the larger HLTH conference.

ENAGE at HLTH will explore how providers and payers are focusing on patient-centricity against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how they and others are working towards more equitable care for all. The conference will feature the voices of patients, leading provider and payer executives, healthcare startups and investors who will share their ideas for how to improve the patient experience. Here’s a preview of the program (note: all times are PST).

Reimagining the in-person patient experience, 9:30-10:30 am  

Whether it be in a clinic or in the hospital, patients want to be seen and heard. Traditional EHR technology forces the primary care physician behind a screen as they scramble to enter information into the clinical record. Meanwhile, the physical design of a space, be it an out-patient center, or a hospital, can also have a great impact on a patient’s experience as can the experience of setting up appointments and communication. Learn from a panel of experts about how the patient journey can be improved. 

 Jack Stockert, managing director, Health 2047 (moderator)

Speakers:

  • Tom Bianculli, CTO, Zebra Technologies
  • Peter Durlach, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, Nuance Communications
  • Erica Olenski Johansen, founding executive director, August Artists
  • Shannon Connor Phillips, ​president, Intermountain Medical Group-UT, Intermountain Healthcare

What should an ethical PBM look like?  10:45 am-11:05 am 

Pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) have come under growing scrutiny from employers and governments over how they calculate drug costs and the opaque supply chains they are part of. Some PBMs are also owned by large insurance companies, a relationship many argue is inherently conflict-ridden. So can a PBM work effectively to ensure patients are getting access to affordable drugs? Hear from the CEO of an up-and-coming PBM who doesn’t mince his words and calls out the large PBMs for their unfair practices.

Moderator: Arundhati Parmar, Editor-in-Chief, MedCity News

Speaker: A.J. Loiacono, CEO, Capital Rx

From prison to a PhD: An expert in training addiction recovery professionals, 11:05-11:25 am 

Meet Haner  Hernández, who was incarcerated for possession of a controlled substance in his 20s and then turned his life around to help others in the throes of addiction. A PhD, Dr. Hernandez is an expert in delivering addiction counseling and clinical supervision to professionals in the field. He has served as a consultant to a number of local and state health departments with a focus on disparities, building health equity, addiction treatment, and recovery support services.

Moderator: Katie Adams, Reporter, MedCity News

Speaker: Haner Hernández, Addiction Recovery Specialist

How AI can aid decision-making, address clinician burnout, and staffing capacity 11:25-11:45 am 

AI/ML has made real strides in the world of medical imaging. The tech is also being used to address healthcare’s administrative burden. But it is at the patient bedside where AI’s predictive quality holds the most promise. Hear from an expert in the field who is building tools that use statistical machine learning techniques to tease out subtle information from “messy” observational datasets and provide reliable inferences for individualizing care decisions. This can also have a tremendous positive impact on clinician burnout and solve for staffing constraints. 

Moderator: Jay Bhatt, primary care internist and executive director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and Deloitte Health Equity Institute

 Speaker: Suchi Saria, CEO of Bayesian and John C. Malone Assistant Professor, Depts of computer science, mathematics and health policy, Johns Hopkins University

Investing in the patient: What technologies are VCs interested in? 12:00-1:00 pm

As improving patient outcomes, addressing health equity and greater patient engagement comes to the center of all healthcare discussions, what are the technologies that investors are intrigued by? What are the business models that make the most sense? Hear from a group of corporate and traditional VC firms. 

Morgan Cheatham, VP, Bessemer Venture Partners (moderator)

Speakers:

  • Chris Bischoff, managing director, General Catalyst
  • Ulili Onovakpur, managing partner, Kapor Capital
  • Christine Brocato, system VP, strategic innovation, CommonSpirit Health
  • Kelsey Maguire, managing director, Blue Venture Fund
  • Vijay Patel, partner, CVS Health Ventures

Photo: Maria Symchych-Navrotska, Getty Images