News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

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News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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XPRIZE Founder Diamandis Predicts Tech Giants Amazon, Apple, and Google Will Be Doctors of The Future

Strategists agree that big tech is disrupting healthcare, so how will clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups serve virtual healthcare customers?

Visionary XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, MD, sees big tech as “the doctor of the future.” In an interview with Fast Company promoting his new book, “The Future Is Faster Than You Think,” Diamandis, who is the Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, said that the healthcare industry is “phenomenally broken” and that Apple, Amazon, and Google could do “a thousandfold” better job.

Diamandis, who also founded Singularity University, a global learning and innovation community that uses exponential technologies to tackle worldwide challenges, according to its website, said, “We’re going to see Apple and Amazon and Google and all the data-driven companies that are in our homes right now become our healthcare providers.”

If this prediction becomes reality, it will bring significant changes in the traditional ways that consumers and patients have selected providers and access healthcare services. In turn, this will require all clinical laboratories and pathology groups to develop business strategies in response to these developments.

Amazon Arrives in Healthcare Markets

Several widely-publicized business initiatives by Amazon, Google, and Apple substantiate these predictions. According to an Amazon blog, healthcare insurers, providers, and pharmacy benefit managers are already operating HIPAA-eligible Amazon Alexa for:

  • Appointments at urgent care facilities,
  • Tracking prescriptions,
  • Employee wellness incentive management, and
  • Care updates following hospital discharge.

For example, the My Children’s Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERAS Cardiac) program at Boston Children’s Hospital uses Amazon Alexa to share updates on patients’ recovery, the blog noted.

Alexa also enables HIPAA-compliant blood glucose updates as part of the Livongo for Diabetes program. “Our members now have the ability to hear their last blood glucose check by simply asking Alexa,” said Jennifer Schneider, MD, President of Livongo, a digital health company, in a news release.

And Cigna’s “Answers By Cigna” Alexa “skill” gives members who install the option responses to 150 commonly asked health insurance questions, explained a Cigna news release

Google Strikes Agreements with Health Systems 

Meanwhile, Google has agreements with Ascension and Mayo Clinic for the use of Google’s cloud computing capability and more, Business Insider reported.

“Google plans to disrupt healthcare and use data and artificial intelligence,” Toby Cosgrove, Executive Advisor to the Google Cloud team and former Cleveland Clinic President, told B2B information platform PYMNTs.com.

PYMNTs speculated that Google, which recently acquired Fitbit, could be aiming at connecting consumers’ Fitbit fitness watch data with their electronic health records (EHRs).

“Ultimately what’s best is human and AI collaboratively,” Peter Diamandis, MD, founder of XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University told Fast Company. “But I think for reading x-rays, MRIs, CT scans, genome data, and so forth, that once we put human ego aside, machine learning is a much better way to do that.” (Photo copyright: SALT.)

Apple Works with Insurers, Integrating Health Data

In “UnitedHealthcare Offers Apple Watches to Wellness Program Participants Who Meet Fitness Goals; Clinical Laboratories Can Participate and Increase Revenues,” Dark Daily noted that by “leveraging the popularity of mobile health (mHealth) wearable devices, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) has found a new way to incentivize employees participating in the insurer’s Motion walking program.” UHC offered free Apple Watches to employees willing to meet or exceed certain fitness goals.

The Apple Watch health app also enables people to access medical laboratory test results and vaccination records, and “sync up” information with some hospitals, Business Insider explained.

Virtual Care, a Payer Priority: Survey

Should healthcare providers feel threatened by the tech giants? Not necessarily. However, employers and payers surveyed by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), an employer advocacy organization, said they want to see more virtual care solutions, a news release stated.

“One of the challenges employers face in managing their healthcare costs is that healthcare is delivered locally, and change is not scalable. It’s a market-by-market effort,” said Brian Marcotte, President and CEO of the NBGH, in the news release. “Employers are turning to market-specific solutions to drive meaningful changes in the healthcare delivery system.

“Virtual care solutions bring healthcare to the consumer rather than the consumer to healthcare,” Marcotte continue. “They continue to gain momentum as employers seek different ways to deliver cost effective, quality healthcare while improving access and the consumer experience.”

More than 50% of employers said their top initiative for 2020 is implementing more virtual care solutions, according to NBGH’s “2020 Large Employers Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey.”

AI Will Affect Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Diamandis is not the only visionary predicting big tech will continue to disrupt healthcare. During a presentation at last year’s Executive War College Conference on Laboratory and Pathology Management in New Orleans, Ted Schwab, a Los Angeles-area healthcare strategist and entrepreneur, said artificial intelligence (AI) will have a growing role in the healthcare industry.

“In AI, there are three trends to watch,” said health strategist Ted Schwab (above) while speaking at the 2019 Executive War College. “The first major AI trend will affect clinical laboratories and pathologists. It involves how diagnosis will be done on the Internet and via telehealth. The second AI trend is care delivery, such as what we’ve seen with Amazon’s Alexa—you should know that Amazon’s business strategy is to disrupt healthcare. And the third AI trend involves biological engineering,” he concluded. (Photo copyright: Dark Daily.)

Schwab’s perspectives on healthcare’s transformation are featured in an article in The Dark Report, Dark Daily’s sister publication, titled, “Strategist Explains Key Trends in Healthcare’s Transformation.”

“If you use Google in the United States to check symptoms, you’ll get five-million to 11-million hits,” Schwab told The Dark Report. “Clearly, there’s plenty of talk about symptom checkers, and if you go online now, you’ll find 350 different electronic applications that will give you medical advice—meaning you’ll get a diagnosis over the internet. These applications are winding their way somewhere through the regulatory process.

“The FDA just released a report saying it plans to regulate internet doctors, not telehealth doctors and not virtual doctors,” he continued. “Instead, they’re going to regulate machines. This news is significant because, today, within an hour of receiving emergency care, 45% of Americans have googled their condition, so the cat is out of the bag as it pertains to us going online for our medical care.”

Be Proactive, Not Reactive, Health Leaders Say

Healthcare leaders need to work on improving access to primary care, instead of becoming defensive or reactive to tech companies, several healthcare CEOs told Becker’s Hospital Review.

Clinical laboratory leaders are advised to keep an eye on these virtual healthcare trends and be open to assisting doctors engaged in telehealth services and online diagnostic activities.

—Donna Marie Pocius

Related Information:

2020 Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management – April 28-29

Amazon and Apple Will Be Our Doctors in the Future, Says Tech Guru Peter Diamandis

Introducing New Alexa Healthcare Skills

Livongo for Diabetes Program Releases HIPAA-Compliant Amazon Alexa Skill

“Answers by Cigna” Skill for Amazon Alexa Simplifies, Personalizes Healthcare Information

2020 Predictions for Amazon, Haven, Google, Apple

Health Strategies of Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft

How Big Tech Is Disrupting Big Healthcare

Large Employers Double Down on Efforts to Stem Rising U.S. Health Benefit Costs which are Expected to Top $15,000 per Employee in 2020: Employers cite virtual care and strategies to manage high cost claims as top initiatives for 2020

How to Compete Against Amazon, Apple, Google: Three Healthcare CEOS on How to Compete Against the Industry’s Most Disruptive Forces

UnitedHealthcare Offers Apple Watches to Wellness Program Participants Who Meet Fitness Goals; Clinical Laboratories Can Participate and Increase Revenues

Strategist Explains Key Trends in Healthcare’s Transformation

More Hospital Closed Due to Empty Beds as Providers Succeed in Reducing Hospital Admissions: Pathologists Should Respond with Outpatient/Outreach Services

With patient care shifting to outpatient clinics and home-based medical care, clinical laboratory managers should beef up outreach lab testing services

Declining patient volume is shuttering hospitals across the United States as hospitals lose patients to ambulatory care centers and home-based medical care. This trend directly impacts the pathologists and medical technologists who work in the clinical laboratories of these hospitals.

Empty Beds Indicator of Failing Hospitals

Most pathologists are unaware that, between 2008 and 2013, nearly 130 community hospitals closed. That left 4,974 hospitals operating in the United States, according to American Hospital Association (AHA) 2015 Hospital Statistics, which are based on data from the 2013 AHA Annual Survey.

It is no surprise that below-average occupancy rates are a common denominator of most failed hospital, noted the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). The 14 hospitals that closed in 2013 had an average occupancy rate of 34%. This is lower than the 48% average occupancy rate of the hospital nearest to the closing hospital, MedPAC stated in its March 2015 report to Congress. (more…)

Consumers Now Use Medical Cost Websites to Price Shop for Clinical Pathology Laboratory Tests and Other Medical Procedures

Price transparency expected to encourage competition among healthcare providers, including medical laboratories

Before consumers visit a clinical laboratory, they can now check the “fair” price of medical laboratory tests. New websites have sprung up that make it easy for consumers to find what experts consider to be fair market prices for each type of lab test, as well as for other medical procedures and healthcare services.

Pathologists should think of the well-known “Kelly Blue Book” that has been the price authority for prices of new and used automobiles for decades. These new medical price websites are easy to use and make it quick for a consumer to find “fair” prices for common clinical laboratory test and medical procedure.

These new web-based companies are organized to serve the needs of consumers who are enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHP). For an individual, an annual deductible can be as high as $2,500—and as much as $5,000 for a family. Thus, clinical laboratory managers should not be surprised that consumers are actively price-shopping before they visit their laboratory to have a specimen collected.
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