CHC breaking news: Qualcomm on 5G’s $1T impact, Think Fast stroke VR

From the Connected Health Conference in Boston

Qualcomm announced today two releases: an analysis on the effects of 5G mobile on the healthcare sector and the Think Fast virtual reality (VR) simulation program for stroke diagnosis.

5G Mobile: Qualcomm’s study, “5G Mobile: Impact on the Health Care Sector”, found that 5G’s increased data speed, reliability, and security will have a substantial and positive impact on healthcare both in quality and financially. 

  • It will enable the ‘personalization of healthcare’ through permitting the continuous real-time gathering of healthcare data through sensors and on the back end, to process that data usefully. Qualcomm calls this the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) which works for this Editor as long as the devices and apps are secure. (Having worked in telehealth where network drops and latency in many areas, particularly rural, often made check-in via tablet connectivity a matter of the stars aligning right, this is good news–Ed. Donna)
  • It will better support remote diagnosis and imaging, including the application of VR
  • It will facilitate distributed computing, which is data processing closer to the patient, for the greater use of predictive analytics 
  • Faster and more data will help in the transition from volume-based to value-based/outcome-based care
  • Financial impact is estimated by IHS Markit at more than $1.1 trillion in global sales in healthcare by 2035. broken down as follows:
    • $453bn in the healthcare vertical: hospitals, doctors, medical equipment, pharma
    • $409bn in supply chain and related
    • $253bn in added value sectors: payers, data analytics providers, cloud data services

The study was authored by Prof. David J. Teece, Tusher Center for Intellectual Capital, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and supported by Qualcomm. Study PDFPreviously in TTA: Ericsson’s less rosy 5G international healthcare survey [TTA 13 June].

Think Fast VR: FAST–Facial drooping, arm weakness, speech difficulties and time to call emergency services–is the acronym for what to watch for when someone is having a stroke. But if you could observe it in reality, it would be far less ambiguous and more memorable. Think Fast is a VR simulation program that lets the user (a med student, nurse, healthcare educator, or average person) observe a stroke’s effects as if it was happening to them. By stepping inside a stroke victim’s world, it educates on warning signs and critical steps for care. It was designed by ForwardXP using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon VR SDK and Unity 5.6 plugin. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in America and a leading cause of adult disability–which can be minimized or prevented with quick response within three hours. Video below. Hat tip to Ashley Settle of Weber Shandwick

Population health is everywhere (US)

Last week, CMS published the ominously dubbed Final Rule on MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015) which utterly changes how physicians are compensated by Medicare and the various monetary incentives they have in quality and patient-centered care. This Editor is not going to get into interpretation of 2,300+ pages, but her belief is that this will not be effective in 2017 as designed, as literally it is over-complex and not understood by those who implement patient care. The dizzying models include Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and for the daring, the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM). All great business for the 100 or so ‘value-based consultants’ ready to help those expensively organized ACOs which thought they’d be rich from Meaningful Use. Oh, and what about the patient and their well-being in the meantime?? Healthcare Dive, Healthcare IT News and here  Don’t hunt for CMS’ fact sheet–it’s here. Don’t look for much about telemedicine and remote monitoring, which apparently was included in the law but not in the Final Rule for MIPS but is a part of the Advanced APM. Congress may act to expand Medicare’s payment policy on telehealth, but don’t hold your breath for it happening this year. POLITICO Morning eHealth 19 Oct

But population health and the data analytics that’s needed to get a handle on both large-scale patient health trends to allocate care where it is needed, and the financial metrics that organizations need, is hot. Verily Life Sciences (Alphabet-Google’s ever versatile healthcare tech arm) is allying itself with 3M Health Information Systems. (This Editor bets that you never thought that the Post-It Notes company was in health information!) According to the article, 3M’s part has to do with its business in coding, classification and risk-stratification methodologies. Verily will bring to the party data analytics, algorithms and software development. Healthcare IT News

This Editor also noted IHS Markit’s analysis of MACRA mixed with a bit from ATA’s Fall Forum. One insight: And now CMS plans to tie 90 percent of traditional Medicare fee-for-service payments to value-based payments in 2018. A lagninappe: “MACRA will help telemedicine to simply become another modality within healthcare delivery.” The wrapup is quite illuminating.

As identified during a recent consumer survey conducted by IHS Markit on digital health trends in the US, patients are interested now more than ever in sharing their healthcare data, and provider communication is at a low: (more…)