(US and Canada) Roger Jansen, Chief Innovation and Digital Health Officer, Michigan State University Health Care, speaks with Jake Dreier, Director Strategy and Growth, HiLabs, about healthcare going astray and tools to revive it, innovation and patient requirements, the interplay of AI and ML for data insights, and leveraging data to address interoperability issues.

Jansen asserts that many people could become wealthy off of American illnesses. He highlights that the American Medical Association spent more on lobbying than the energy and military industries, and counters that the power needs to reside with the self-insured employer and the consumer.

To change healthcare, Human Resources departments need to better understand healthcare since they are the benefit negotiators, says Jansen. He urges companies that are creating alternatives to the existing commercial insurance process to come forward.

Jansen brings up an Axios study which states that cancer drugs bought by hospitals are marked at 650% more than what they pay to insurance companies. He mentions that apart from the corruption, the complex structure of the healthcare industry has made it unwieldy. As an example, he highlights a 200% increase in the number of physicians and a 5,000% increase in the number of administrators in the United States since 1977. Similarly, the buildings, worth millions of dollars, are not reducing the cost of care, nor providing improved access or outcomes, says Jansen.

Jansen suggests looking at a continuum versus discrete variables. He states that if the business model of healthcare is not changed, then carrying out innovation-driving practices will be difficult. Innovation treatments need to be reimbursed by insurers and reimbursement groups need to be adopted, says Jansen.

He urges that innovation needs to address ways to lower expenses. He mentions the use of pharmacogenomics, which provides tailored treatments for individuals that enhance efficiency and reduce healthcare costs.

Jansen asserts that, although it is still rare, some insurance companies are noticing and paying for innovative treatments. He stresses that unless there is a billing code established, it is difficult to get people to adopt innovation. A true innovation in healthcare calls for true innovation in the business model, says Jansen.

Jansen states that a significant problem lies in not having interoperability among electronic medical records (EMRs) across the country in order to share data. He posits that digital health apps and fitness trackers may begin to provide a rhythm and method.

He believes data analytics will aid in understanding the interactive effects among a number of variables to drive predicted outcomes. With AI and ML, the industry is trying to make predictive health journeys based on patient information.

In conclusion, Jansen states that data needs to be well-organized, usable, and as close to real-time as possible. There is a need for standards to identify variables such as the type of data being utilized. He maintains that the power of data in medicine is not truly understood yet. He says it is necessary to pick up on patterns and rhythms, and bring them together to create data that leads to better interoperability.