Health innovation salon dinner highlights

www.pwc.com/180healthforum
Health
innovation
salon dinner
highlights
The ROI of the
“quantified self”
Continuing PwC’s 180°
Health Forum discussion
Boston, Massachusetts - 2015
PwC and Healthspottr recently convened a select group of innovators, investors, and
thought leaders from across the health industry to continue exploring the “quantified
self”—the movement to leverage the wealth of consumer health data generated by
mobile technologies, biometric devices, sensors in the environment, and more. Their
challenge for the evening: To identify opportunities to increase the ROI of wearable
devices and other technology innovations that enable the quantified self.
How can we make better use of personal health data generated by the quantified self to
elevate the quality of care, minimize cost, and expand access to care in the New Health
Economy™? How can we leverage the data more effectively to produce measurable
returns on the industry’s substantial financial investment in personal health
technology? These are two of the critical questions our dinner guests explored.
Introduction
Through the eyes of the 1960s, it was
23rd-century medicine: portable,
wireless devices that could sense and
scan patients’ medical states,
providing a wealth of data wherever
and whenever needed by their
users—the fictional future travelers
of TV’s original “Star Trek” series.
Today that sci-fi scenario doesn’t
seem so far in the future. Smart
clothing, fitness-tracking cell phone
apps, wearable devices and
connected technology are enabling
the concept of the quantified self,
and adding a rich dimension to the
New Health Economy™.
Personal health devices offer patients
the possibility of taking a more active
and informed role in managing their
health. They point health systems to
new avenues for improving care and
reducing costs by monitoring
patients outside the office. These
devices provide employers and
insurers with a new trove of
population health data. And they give
pharma/life sciences companies a
complement to clinical trials as well
as a powerful new approach to
Startup Health Insights™, Digital Health
Funding Rankings, 2015: The Year Digital
Health Hit Its Stride, December 15, 2015,
Startup + Health,
http://www.startuphealth.com/content/
insights-2015.
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Health innovation salon dinner 2015
measuring their products’ outcomes
and demonstrating their value.
Given these benefits, it’s no wonder
that the quantified self is gaining the
attention of investors: While venture
funding across all digital health
startups declined from a recordbreaking $7 billion in 2014 to $5.8
billion in 2015, funding in the
specific areas of “Personalized
Health/Quantified Self” is now the
fourth-largest category, bringing in
$583 million in total dollars raised in
2015, according to research by
StartUp Health.1 This same category
ranked seventh in total dollars raised
in 2014.
Consumers are also intrigued: Nearly
one in two respondents to a 2014
PwC survey said they were “very” or
“somewhat” likely to buy a wearable
in the following year.2 That said,
adoption so far has been modest:
21% of American adults own a
wearable, and more than half of
these owners wear their devices only
occasionally or not at all, the PwC
survey found.3
“Health Wearables: Early Days,”
PwC Health Research Institute, 2014.
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/healthindustries/top-health-industryissues/assets/pwc-hri-wearable-devices.pdf
2
3
Ibid.
Key conclusions
Over several hours of candid but nuanced discussion, the group surfaced
insights into three key themes:
1 | What data must do: Data from wearables should be leveraged for
numerous purposes. It must be used to make disease management easier,
provide consumers with interventions, not just information, and create
a sense of shared purpose for patients. The data should help payers to
measure, and pharma/life sciences companies to demonstrate, the
efficacy and value of drugs. Finally, the health data generated by
wearables should be used to illuminate genetics, and to enable truly
global drug development.
2 | The data disconnect: What explains the gap between consumers’
optimistic opinions of wearables and their relatively slow adoption of
this “quantified self” technology? Our dinner guests emphasized the
need for technology to cohere with patients’ goals, limitations, social
environments, and daily obligations—what one called “the workflow of
life.” But a lack of coherence isn’t the only reason for the modest adoption
rate of wearables: Advocates for the quantified self also must be cognizant
of patients’ weariness and mistrust of a health system which offers advice
that changes over time and often conflicts with previous messages.
Data will always play a key role in treating disease and improving health.
But it’s important to differentiate the potential for using patientgenerated data in the wellness space and the potentially greater impact of
such data in treating illness and disease.
3 | Where opportunities lie: Companies that manufacture wearables
and other connected health technology would be wise to capitalize on
opportunities to generate new metrics for understanding the health states
of patients with complex diseases, and tap into the eagerness of chronic
disease patients to know the status of their conditions. Patient-generated
data presents other opportunities as well: It could give providers new
ways to differentiate themselves; fill gaps in care and guide payers’
decisions about providing new services; and inform more effective,
innovative high-touch interactions with patients.
Our dinner group concluded that one thing is certain: Collecting
and mining data will be insufficient to the task of enhancing
health and wellness. If participants in the New Health Economy™
are serious about evolving solutions that will improve care
quality and outcomes, and deliver better user experiences to
patients and caregivers, all stakeholders must consider the
larger context in which health and healthcare take place—the
“quantified community.”
1
The ROI of the “quantified self”
1 | What data must do:
To many innovators in the New Health Economy™, few priorities are as
pressing as driving healthier behavior to tackle the chronic conditions that
account for 86% of healthcare spending, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.4 In a nation in which diabetes accounted for an
estimated $245 billion in medical costs and lost productivity in 2012, more
than half of adults don’t meet recommendations for physical activity.5While
heart disease and stroke led to an estimated $315.4 billion in medical costs in
2010, 90% of Americans raise their risk of high blood pressure by consuming
more salt than recommended.6 Despite a notable decline in smoking over the
last 50 years, 15% of adults in the US still haven’t kicked the habit.7And
despite widespread knowledge of the dangers of alcohol abuse,
overconsumption of alcohol causes 88,000 deaths a year.8
Against this backdrop, one of the most powerful things wearable devices can
do, according to our dinner salon participants, is make a case to patients to
change their ways, using hard numbers and in real time.
As PwC Principal Paul D’Alessandro sees it, the quantified self movement
could help to solve healthcare’s problem of what behavioral economists term
“hyperbolic discounting”—disproportionately valuing present rewards over
more distant goals, or overvaluing the upside of a choice today and
undervaluing its downside consequences for the future. “How do I bridge that
gap between my actions today and my outcomes tomorrow?” D’Alessandro
asked. “And does this stream of data that’s coming off of me and this notion of
the quantified self and beyond really begin to address that?... All of a sudden
we see promise—we have line of sight to that.”
4
http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/
American Diabetes Association. The Cost of
Diabetes. http://www.diabetes.org/advocate/resources/cost-of-diabetes.html.
Accessed December 23, 2013.
6 Go AS, Mozaffarian D, Roger VL, Benjamin EJ, Berry JD, Blaha MJ, et al; American Heart
Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. Heart disease and stroke
statistics--2014 update: a report from the American Heart Association.Circulation. 2014;
129(3):e28-292.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/12/18/01.cir.0000441139.02102.80.full.pdf.
5
7
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/earlyrelease201509_08.pdf
Kanny D, Liu Y, Brewer RD, Garvin WS, Balluz L. Vital signs: Binge drinking prevalence,
frequency, and intensity among adults—United States, 2010.MMWR. 2012; 61:14-19.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6101a4.htm?s_cid=mm6101a4_e%0d%0a.
8
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Health innovation salon dinner 2015
How do I bridge that gap between my actions today and my outcomes
tomorrow, and does this stream of data that’s coming off of me and this
notion of the quantified self and beyond really begin to address that?... All of
a sudden we see promise -- we have line of sight to that.
Paul D’Alessandro
Principal, PwC
Wearable devices could make inroads into changing behavior, our dinner
guests agreed. For patients, such technology could make it simpler to manage
chronic diseases within the “workflow of life”; make information more
powerful by coupling it with intervention; and help to create a sense of shared
purpose by enabling patients to exchange data and contribute to research that
advances healthcare as a whole. For payers, the quantified self could help to
clarify the efficacy and value of drugs. And for pharma/life sciences
companies, patient-generated data might aid in demonstrating product value;
illuminating genetic factors in health; and conceivably, in engaging in truly
global R&D.
Easing disease management: Some diabetes patients spend up to five
hours a day booking appointments, seeing physicians, filling prescriptions,
completing paperwork, and more, said Charlotte Yeh, MD, Chief Medical
Officer, AARP Services Inc. Yeh feels that personal health devices could,
and should, shift the focus from how healthcare manages patients to how
patients manage healthcare. "We all say, 'This is what we want the consumer
to do' [and] ‘how do we put this in the workflow of the physician practice?’
but we never talk about the workflow of your life,” she said. “…If you can
actually impact that burden of care and streamline [the patient’s] workflow
of life at home, then now you’ve got a reason that they’re going to embrace
and participate.”
We all say, ‘This is what we want the consumer to do’ [and] ‘how do we put
this in the workflow of the physician practice?’ But we never talk about the
workflow of your life…. If you can actually impact that burden of care and
streamline [the patient’s] workflow of life at home, then now you’ve got a
reason that they’re going to embrace and participate.
Charlotte Yeh, MD
Chief Medical Officer, AARP Services Inc.
Providing intervention, not just information: Devices need to do
more than give patients a status report, according to Kemp Bray, Director
of Strategy, Parexel International. “[T]he trick is connecting that to something
that enables people to actually make a decision on how to change” their health
status,” he told the dinner group.
3
The ROI of the “quantified self”
Fostering shared purpose: Some consumers are already proving they’re
eager to engage with health data, through information networks such as
PatientsLikeMe, an online community in which more than 370,000 patients
with various conditions have volunteered their information to compare notes
and contribute to research.9
For instance, as part of a recent joint study by PatientsLikeMe and Biogen,
248 multiple sclerosis patients were given wearable health tracking devices.
The goal was to explore whether the activity trackers could be useful in
collecting mobility data. The results were positive: 83% of participants
said they would keep using the devices after the study, according to
PatientsLikeMe.10Daniel Palestrant, MD, Founder & CEO, Par8o, who isn’t
involved with PatientsLikeMe, suggests what makes such efforts succeed
is “a shared purpose of helping others. Tapping into that, I think, is what’s
so powerful.”
Helping payers to measure, and pharma to demonstrate, drug
efficacy and value: As they seek to negotiate outcomes-based contracts
with pharma/life sciences companies, payers are looking to patient-generated
data to help “get a better sense of what’s value, and pay for that,” said Richard
Weisblatt, PhD, Chief of Innovation & Strategy, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
And pharma companies hope that quantified-self data can help to define
their products’ value proposition “so that our product becomes consumed
in a much smarter way, where we can actually make it work [in] our patient,
real-time,” said Ruchin Kansal, Executive Director and Head of Business
Innovation, Boehringer Ingelheim.
Illuminate genetics: Amid the focus on behavioral factors in health and
illness, it’s important to remember that genes also play a vital role. If the
quantified self movement can illuminate genetic predispositions to disease, it
could enable pharma companies to carve out new markets for their products
among susceptible populations, said Rick Edmunds, Principal, PwC’s
Strategy&. But he cautioned that the key is having material, immediate,
actionable information. Can consumer-generated data be translated into such
information? “Can you look through the lens of: How can you apply this in a
way that’s not hypothetical?” he asked. “ … As an individual, will I make a
different decision that’s not based on a meta-analysis, but based on my
predisposition to [a condition] or what will happen [to me] next year?”
9
https://www.patientslikeme.com/patients
10
4
“PatientsLikeMe Study Monitors Walking Activity in People with MS,” PatientsLikeMe,
April 15, 2015. http://news.patientslikeme.com/press-release/patientslikeme-studymonitors-walking-activity-people-ms
Health innovation salon dinner 2015
Helping pharma to think globally: As they make research investments
on a global scale, pharma/life sciences companies are hungry for worldwide
data rather than regional or health-system-wide statistics, according to Bray
of Parexel. “We really need global data sets where the data actually lines up,
and that’s the big wall that we keep running into,” he said. Could a world of
quantified selves shed new light on how to treat disease?
How can you apply this information in a way that’s not hypothetical? … As
an individual, will I make a different decision that’s not based on a metaanalysis, but based on my predisposition to [a condition]?
Rick Edmunds
Principal, Strategy&
2 | The data disconnect
If healthcare industry experts see potential in wearables, so do consumers.
More than half of those surveyed by PwC for its health wearables study (56%)
believe the devices will increase average life expectancy by ten years, and 46%
think they will reduce obesity. But those great expectations don’t translate
into a high level of usage, the research showed.11
That finding is not lost on those in the wearables market. “There’s a real
problem in retention, even among motivated people,” said Graeme Moffat,
PhD, Director of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs for InteraXon, maker of the
Muse brain-sensing headband. Moffat says that Muse’s retention rate is
higher than most, but he offered an idea about why interest in some wearables
wanes: “We may not have figured out how to integrate this into people’s lives
in a way that simple and easy for them to act on,” he told the dinner group.
The theme of integrating data monitoring into patients’ lives resonated as the
group discussed what could be called the data disconnect: the gaps between
optimism and adoption of quantified self technology, between the potential
benefits and the actual ROI. Several participants argued strongly that the
drive for data will be a dead end unless the New Health Economy™ charts the
psychosocial landscape that shapes consumers’ health behaviors, choices, and
goals. Others cited additional pitfalls, including patients’ shaken trust in a
health system that has offered inconsistent guidance.
Yet data is also the cornerstone of the healthcare industry’s record of success
in curing diseases and relieving suffering, the group noted. So it’s important
to differentiate what quantified-self measurement can do for those who are
sick from what it can offer to those who are healthy.
11
5
“Health Wearables: Early Days,” PwC Health Research Institute, 2014.
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/health-industries/top-health-industry-issues/assets/pwc-hriwearable-devices.pdf
The ROI of the “quantified self”
The quantified self and the psychosocial equation
Data alone isn't the answer to improving outcomes because health, in
itself, isn't a patient's goal: “It's living well, with health as a component or
a means of doing so,” said Yeh of AARP Services. Yeh believes that sparking
healthier behavior requires understanding patients’ motivations at least as
much as their metrics. "It’s not about ‘what is my hemoglobin A1C [a type
of blood-glucose measurement] and ‘What is my weight gain?’ ” She said.
“What you’re really being driven by is: ‘Can I go to my granddaughter’s
wedding, and, more importantly, can I dance at my granddaughter’s
wedding?’ And when you hit that level of connection, then it allows you
to say, ‘I can,’ and then we say, ‘Here’s how we can do that in a way that’s
not painful, and you can succeed.’”
In fact, Yeh argues that addressing the emotional and psychosocial
components of health may accomplish more than does drilling down into
data. She co-authored a study, published this year in the journal Gerontology
& Geriatric Medicine, of 3,765 Medicare patients with relatively intense
health needs. 12According to Yeh, the research found that almost 55% of
patients suffered at least some level of loneliness and 28% were severely
lonely. More importantly, severe loneliness was a stronger predictor of
dissatisfaction with care than were various demographic, socioeconomic,
and health factors.
Furthermore, Yeh shared that forthcoming AARP research on Medigap
patients (those with insurance that supplements Medicare) found that socially
isolated patients spent an average of $137 a month more on healthcare, Yeh
told the dinner group. She reminded her colleagues that various non-AARP
research has suggested that having a sense of purpose in life lowers risks of
heart disease and stroke and slows the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, and
that life satisfaction correlates with fewer hospitalizations and physician
visits.13 “We have forgotten some of those emotional connections that really,
actually influence your health,” Yeh concluded.
This is not to say that gathering health data isn’t important, but if healthcare
companies want to integrate wearables into the "workflow of life," they must
also recognize that employing quantified self-data—that is, putting to
practical use the numbers and statistics collected by a wearable or biometric
device—has to be made much easier for busy end-users. As it is, said dinner
guest Alexandra Drane, taking the time to interpret and comprehend the data
they produce while sporting a smart watch is a luxury too few consumers
12
13
6
Charlotte S. Yeh, MA, FACEP, et al, The Impact of Loneliness on Quality of Life and Patient
Satisfaction Among Older Sicker Adults, Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine, JanuaryDecember 2015: 1–9 http://www.researchgate.net/publication/276206004
Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, Aron S. Buchman, MD; Robert S. Wilson, PhD; Lei Yu, PhD; Julie A.
Schneider, MD; David A. Bennett, MD, Effect of Purpose in Life on the Relation Between
Alzheimer Disease Pathologic Changes on Cognitive Function in Advanced Age, JAMA
Psychiatry, May 2012, Vol 69, No. 5.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1151486
Health innovation salon dinner 2015
enjoy in the face of daily priorities like work, caring for children or paying the
bills. Ms. Drane is Co-Founder and Chairman of Eliza Corp., a health
engagement management company that collects data on consumers’
healthcare actions, behaviors, and decisions. In Eliza’s experience, she shared,
the connections between personal strain and health problems aren’t
hypothetical, or fleeting: Divorced women suffer heart attacks at higher rates
than women whose marriages endure, even if the divorcees remarry,
according to a Duke Medicine study that tracked over 15,000 adults for 18
years.14 "The healthcare system, right now, is so fixated on technology in
search of a problem,” she told the group. “What if we started with the real
problems that are waking people up at night?...If I lecture you about your
diabetes while you’re going through your divorce, I’ve lost you.”
Rather than emphasizing “quantified self” technology, focus first on
quantifying stress and alleviating it, Drane suggested. Some possibilities:
prioritizing the use of technology to connect caregivers to one another to
alleviate their isolation and stress, or working on ways to promote
volunteering. Studies suggest that volunteering promotes better health in
older people, linking it to such benefits as lower blood pressure 15 and Stanford
University’s Center on Longevity has proposed further research to assess
whether volunteering produces short term cognitive benefits in individual
participants and, if it does, might therefore also help produce the long term
benefit of ultimately lowering health care costs. 16
The healthcare system, right now, is so fixated on technology in search of a
problem. What if we started with the real problems that are waking people
up at night?….If I lecture you about your diabetes while you’re going
through your divorce, I’ve lost you.
Alexandra Drane
Co-Founder and Chairman, Eliza Corp.
Co-Founder, Engage With Grace and Seduce Health
Even if it’s not an ill-timed lecture, are consumers willing to listen to a pitch to
quantify themselves? In conducting consumer studies, PwC Principal Doug
Billings finds that people feel bombarded by so much ever-changing medical
information—study upon study, conflicting dietary advice—that “the message
I hear, loud and clear, is: ‘The health industry, you guys have lost credibility,’”
he said.
Matthew E. Dupre, PhD et al, Association Between Divorce and Risks for Acute Myocardial
Infarction, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, April 14, 2015.
http://circoutcomes.ahajournals.org/content/early/2015/04/13/CIRCOUTCOMES.114.001291.
full.pdf+html
14
15
Sneed, Rodlescia S. and Cohen, Sheldon, A prospective study of volunteerism and hypertension
risk in older adults. Psychology and Aging, Vol 28(2), Jun 2013, 578
586.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032718
16
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http://longevity3.stanford.edu/santa-clara-county-volunteering-survey/
The ROI of the “quantified self”
Andrew Norden, MD, Associate Chief Medical Director of Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute, openly doubts that technology is the secret ingredient that
can induce people to stop doing pleasurable but unhealthy things. As a
neurologist, he well knows how powerfully pleasure acts upon people. While
Muse and some other entrepreneurial health organizations may be making
headway with a base of motivated customers, Norton believes the potential for
widespread behavior change is limited: “I think the likelihood of building
successful businesses around motivating people to change the most deeply
entrenched behaviors is small," he said.
I think the likelihood of building successful businesses around motivating
people to change the most deeply entrenched behaviors is small.
Andrew Norden, MD
Associate Chief Medical Director, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
But our experts cautioned against looking to the experience of the
quantified self in the wellness space to extrapolate conclusions about its
potential to attack disease. “When we become sick, the value proposition
and formula for generating an ROI radically changes; the ability to leverage
data in very specific concrete ways to effect positive outcome is profound,”
said Healthspottr Co-Founder and CEO Carleen Hawn. Besides informing
treatment and medical advances, patient-generated data can provide useful
insights into environmental and societal factors related to health, added
Harvard Pilgrim’s Weisblatt. “That’s where Big Data is so interesting to us,
as a health plan,” he said. “… We’re curing new diseases every day, so this is
not about just counting steps.”
Case study | The Muse headband:
Tapping into the quantified mind
Many wearables give users a glimpse of what’s going on inside their bodies. The Muse headband offers a peek inside their minds.
With seven brainwave sensors packed into a headband, Muse functions like a mini electroencephalogram (EEG), but it doesn’t
require a neurologist to interpret the results. Instead, Muse uses Bluetooth technology to link to a cell phone or other mobile
device and give users instant feedback about their state of mind by translating brain activity into wind sounds. Calm, focused
mentation sounds like tropical breezes; a restless, active brain, like stormy gusts.
“We use [it] to teach or to help people who are motivated to learn how to meditate and self-regulate, and we get a lot of positive
feedback on the efficacy of that, because it gives not only relatively long-term, data-over-days-and-weeks kind of feedback, but
immediate and direct feedback on how someone is doing and what they’re trying to achieve,” Graeme Moffat of InteraXon told the
dinner group.
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Health innovation salon dinner 2015
Marketed as a meditation aid, Muse—which retails at about $300—boasted $3.5 million in sales in the first few months after its
2014 introduction, according to InteraXon’s co-founder and CEO Ariel Garten. 17 The product has enjoyed extensive coverage in
general-interest media as well as the tech and business press. 18
Funders have taken notice: After raising nearly $300,000 through a campaign launched in 2012 on the crowdfunding platform
Indiegogo, Toronto-based InteraXon secured $6 million in series A funding in 201319 and another $10 million in series B funding
in May of 2015. 20
While positioning Muse as a mindfulness tool in settings from corporate wellness programs to golf courses, InteraXon also has
invited mental health professionals to incorporate the device into their practices, as a way to monitor patients’ engagement
outside of sessions and a means of developing new revenue streams. 21 The company has also joined forces with universities and
hospitals to engage in research, including a Mayo Clinic study on whether meditation can reduce stress among breast cancer
patients undergoing surgery. 22
3 | Where opportunities lie
Capitalizing on data collected through quantified-self technologies may not be
easy, but the experts gathered in Boston offered ideas on how to accomplish
it. Connected technology could generate new ways of understanding the
health states of patients with complex diseases and chronic conditions. Health
systems could use quantified self-technologies and data to design more
effective interactions with their patients, and to establish branddifferentiation from peers in the market. Payers could use quantified self-data
to fill gaps in care and guide decisions about providing new services. Above
all, the New Health Economy™ must do more than zoom in on the quantified
self; it must integrate the benefits of the quantified self and of consumer
generated data into the broader health infrastructure and social environment
that surrounds the individual.
Lauren Orsini, “Speaker Profile: Interaxon's Ariel Garten On Muse, The Art Of Zen—And Mind
Games,” April 30, 2015. http://readwrite.com/2015/04/30/ariel-garten-wearable-worldcongress-interaxon-muse
17
18
http://www.choosemuse.com/what-are-people-saying/#press
“InteraXon Raises $6M Series A Round From Horizon, A-Grade And Others For Its BrainwaveSensing Headset,” Techcrunch, August 15, 2013. http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/15/interaxonraises-6m-series-a-round-from-horizon-a-grade-and-others-for-its-brainwave-sensingheadset/
19
“OMERS Ventures leads $10 mln Series B funding of InteraXon,” PE Hub, May 7, 2015.
https://www.pehub.com/canada/2015/05/07/omers-ventures-leads-10-mln-series-b-fundingof-interaxon/
20
21
http://www.choosemuse.com/professionals/
Abigail Ballou, “Not Just a Meditation Tool: The Muse Brain Sensing Headband in
Neuroscience Research,” Medtech Boston, October 14, 2015.
https://medtechboston.medstro.com/not-just-a-meditation-tool-the-muse-brain-sensingheadband-in-neuroscience-research/
22
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The ROI of the “quantified self”
Developing new measures for complex and chronic
health conditions
Besides aiding patients and caregivers, solutions such as NEAR’s may provide
more sensitive metrics and lenses for viewing complex diseases, such as
dementia, about which healthcare players lament that too little data is
available, PwC’s D’Alessandro said. Such monitoring could pinpoint “the
threshold of observable data that begins to tell us something about the
patient,” whether it’s the number of times a dementia patient gets up at night
or an indication that the patient is diverging from his or her normal routine,
he noted. In other words, PwC’s Edmunds said, the data could help to speed
decision making by showing “you don't need perfect information....You need
enough to say, ‘This person needs more care.’”
Parexel’s Bray thinks the quantified self movement also has applicability to
chronic disease sufferers who are worried about their quality of life declining,
want to change, and are primed to take advantage of what data has to offer.
“In combination with changes they know they can do and then see the
feedback, that can have a big impact on (a) people’s lives, and (b) a huge
chunk of the spending within healthcare,” he said.
Creating new metrics to differentiate providers:
PwC Partner Bob Valletta thinks that quantified-self data can help to answer
a nettlesome question for healthcare: What are good metrics to use to identify
quality? “The additional data will help organizations to do that,” he said. “It’s
an opportunity for health systems to differentiate themselves… People will be
able to track it better, and there will be a better transparency level to be able
to compare organizations.”
This is an opportunity for health systems to differentiate themselves…. We’ve
struggled, as a sector, saying, ‘What are good metrics to identify good
quality?’ The additional data will help organizations to do that. …People will
be able to track it better, and there will be a better transparency level to be
able to compare organizations.
Bob Valletta,
Partner, PwC
Providing a human touch
However compelling the new technologies, their true potential lies in shaping
better interactions with patients, said Valerie Fleishman, Executive Director
of the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit policy
institute. The institute’s studies of remote, in-home monitoring for heart
failure patients have found that technology reduces costs and the rate of
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Health innovation salon dinner 2015
hospital readmissions.23But in talking to a few patients, “the answer we
heard back more than anything was that they just like talking to someone”
about their care, Fleishman said. “We’re always trying to develop these fancy
technologies, and at the end of the day, people want that human interaction,”
she noted. “What interests me is less the person themselves using the data
and counting steps and all that, and it's more: How do we leverage data and
technology to provide high-touch interventions? Because at the end of the
day, I think that's what's really been shown to work.” Tom DeLay, CEO of
iHealth Analytics and COO of Healthspottr adds that, much like persuading
a consumer to do anything else, the New Health Economy™ needs to put
patient-generated data in the hands of “a caregiver who can actually put that
into action and translate it in an emotional interaction.”
Filling gaps in care and guiding new services
As one of New England’s leading not-for-profit health plans, Harvard Pilgrim
Health Care is interested in looking to technology to play a role in bridging
care gaps, such as the gap between providers’ offices and patients’ homes,
Weisblatt noted. The health plan is considering a range of services that might
not usually be reimbursable, and it’s working with providers and directly with
consumers to try to discern “who are those disrupters that are providing what
people want when they want it,” he said. But “the problem is sorting out the
wheat from the chaff,” he added. “There’s a lot of things that sound really
good, but I can’t tell whether they make a difference or not. We’re talking to a
lot of folks and trying to promote payment for [the technology], so that
payment is not an obstacle for people getting it.”
We're always trying to develop these fancy technologies, and at the end
of the day, people want that human interaction. What interests me is less
the person themselves using the data and counting steps and all that,
and it's more: How do we leverage data and technology to provide
high-touch interventions?
Valerie Fleishman
Executive Director, the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation
Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, 2004:
http://www.nehi.net/writable/publication_files/file/final_rpm_minuteman_color.pdf.
And an update in 2009:
http://www.nehi.net/writable/publication_files/file/rpm_research_update.pdf.
23
11
The ROI of the “quantified self”
Conclusion – The quantified community
The biggest opportunity to make the quantified self a potent, profitable
element in the New Health Economy™ lies in rethinking it as more than a
self, the dinner group agreed. “Technology, on its own, isn't going to do
anything,” said Parexel’s Bray. “It has to be done in combination with
integrating with processes and communities in order to drive change. There's
a whole social angle to technology that can really support the mental health
side of improving healthcare.”
PwC’s Billings proposes a term for that social angle: the quantified
community. After all, he noted, “we're social beings,” enmeshed in and
influenced by those around us. “The quantified self, I think, is a misnomer,”
he said. “It's the quantified community. It's the quantified social structure.…
Whether it's you and your family or it's you and your peers, it is the
quantified community.”
The quantified self, I think, is a misnomer; it is the quantified community.
It’s the quantified social structure.… Whether it is you and your family
or…you and your peers, it is the quantified community.
Doug Billings,
Principal, PwC
12
Health innovation salon dinner 2015
Participants

Ada Au, PhD, Strategic Implementation Manger, Smith & Nephew

Kemp Bray: Director of Strategy, Parexel International

Alexandra Drane, Co-Founder & Chairman, Eliza Corp.

Valerie Fleishman, Executive Director, The Network for Excellence
in Health Innovation

Patricia Forts, Director of Innovation & Strategy, Harvard Pilgrim
Health Care

Ruchin Kansal, Executive Director and Health of Business
Innovation, Boehringer Ingelheim

Graeme Moffat, PhD, Director, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs,
InteraXon

Andrew Norden, MD, Associate Chief Medical Director, Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute

Daniel Palestrant, MD, Founder & CEO, Par8o

Richard Weisblatt, PhD, Chief of Innovation & Strategy, Harvard
Pilgrim Health Care

Charlotte Yeh, MD, Chief Medical Officer, AARP Services, Inc.
Event hosts
14

Bob Valletta, Partner, PwC

Doug Billings, Principal, PwC

Rick Edmunds, Principal, Strategy&

Paul D’Alessandro, Principal, PwC

Todd Hall, Health Industries Marketing Leader, PwC

Tom DeLay, CEO iHealth Analytics, and COO, Healthspottr

Carleen Hawn, Co-founder and CEO, Healthspottr
Health innovation salon dinner 2015
More information
To find out more about PwC Health Industries and the innovation salon
dinners, please contact:
Kelly Barnes
US Health Industries and Global Health
Industries Consulting Leader
[email protected]
(214) 754-5172
Carleen Hawn
CEO, Healthspottr
(415) 306–7451
[email protected]
Bob Valletta
US Health Services Leader
(617) 530 4053
[email protected]
Tom DeLay
COO, Healthspottr
(415) 302–1133
[email protected]
Mike Swanick
US Pharmaceuticals and
Life Sciences Leader
(267) 330-6060
[email protected]
Doug Billings
Principal, PwC
(508) 878-9067
[email protected]
Rick Edmunds
Principal, Strategy&
(703) 682-5755
[email protected]
Paul D'Alessandro
Principal, PwC
(847) 910-5763
[email protected]
Todd Hall
US Health Industries Marketing Leader
(617) 530-4185
[email protected]
www.pwc.com/180healthforum
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