By Stephanie Crabb, Co-Founder & Principal, Immersive
Twitter: @ImmersiveLLC
A recent announcement in Becker’s (Jackson Health Signs Patient Monitoring Deal with Philips) seems to be pointing to an emerging trend in innovative and transformative business models between medical device manufacturers and providers.
Noteworthy about the agreement:
- Under the “Enterprise-Monitoring-as-a-Service (EMaaS) partnership, Jackson Health System will be able to adopt patient monitoring systems, such as wearable biosensors, for a per-patient fee and adopt standardized patient monitoring for each care setting across its network.
- Philips will maintain ownership of hardware, software and networking solutions related to patient monitoring technologies at Jackson Health System — a move that contrasts the traditional business model, in which the hospital would purchase and own the patient monitoring system and maintain responsibility for ongoing upgrades.
- Philips will also provide technical support, continuing education, and asset and data management as part of the deal.
Looks good on paper, right? We have a service model and fee structure that is better aligned with value-based care compensation models. Both traditional capital and operating expenses associated with the capital investment are avoided and replaced with a new model. Philips seems to be on the hook for all of the risk…it’s their gear, their network infrastructure, their SLAs. It seems to be a pretty solid data protection win as well.
But what about the data? The notes suggest that Philips will also provide “data management” as part of the deal. What does that mean? Just what is the data governance model? Does it even matter? Do patients even care?
Well, according to a recent study performed by Aetna, Aetna Study of Healthcare Consumer Concerns, around 80 percent of consumers view patient privacy as a very important aspect of healthcare, and 76 percent have the same view of data security.
As a data lifecycle management company, we love to see data innovation at work, particularly data innovation that translates into better patient care for a better cost. But let’s not be naive to the reality that times are a changin’ and there is an emerging healthcare data economy that is just starting to reveal itself. Those that possess the data and are able to monetize it will be better positioned for competitive advantage. The way that these “new deals” are struck should be attentive to these considerations. And, let’s not forget about our patients and their concerns. Most patients still believe, and want to believe, that all of their data is tidily and thoughtfully maintained in a single medical record with their provider. Do we owe patients an explanation as to where their data is and how it is being managed? How many organizations could even begin to truly account for a patient’s data in this manner?
All of these considerations are front and center for the data-driven, information-led organization. The data strategy and business strategy are not only aligned, they are ONE enterprise strategy wrapped in effective governance.
This article was originally published on Immersive and is republished here with permission.
ICYMI – Hear Stephanie on Healthcare de Jure with Matt Fisher discussing privacy and security of health information and the future of protecting information.