#4 Aneesh Chopra: True interoperability requires an integrated health care approach
Aneesh Chopra, the president of CareJourney, chats with Notable’s Muthu Alagappan about the role of data and analytics in healthcare reform, our progress toward interoperability and his role as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer during the Obama administration.
0:01:17 How did you get into healthcare? When did you first get interested in the industry? '
0:04:56 I'm fast forwarding a bit, but you later went on to be the first and serve as the first CTO under President Barack Obama. What was it like defining that role as the first person to serve in that capacity? How did you go about defining what you would work on and what did you ultimately spend time on during those four years?
0:10:26 I believe in that role, you spent time in areas outside of healthcare as well, or at least, the broader sectors you mentioned. When you were looking at healthcare versus education or climate or infrastructure, did healthcare as an industry lag behind those in terms of technology adoption at that time? We love to say that healthcare lags other industries. Is that what you noticed in that role?
0:14:30 You mentioned in the earlier part of your career being interested in the application of the internet to health care. And we look today in 2022, and it's just amazing how much progress technology has made as a whole. And if you were to sort of grade health care in terms of the pace of innovation over the last 20, 30 years, the early part of your career to where we are now, how well do you think health care has done in terms of the pace of technology innovation and adoption in the industry at large?
0:18:19 It's been $40 billion in the last year alone invested in this space by capital allocators. Thousands of new companies literally have entered the space. What about the last few years have made digital health such a popular space for folks to be in compared to the decade before that?
0:21:16 When we think of the next wave of digital transformation in healthcare, do you think it's going to be led by the large population of startups and new entrants into the space or will innovation continue to be led by the large EMRs, Optum, Change, Amazon, sort of the incumbents and big corporations? Where do you see that power balance actually ending up?
0:25:02 One of the advantages of competitive advantages of smaller companies has always been the agility and the ability to partner where they have their own internal gaps. What are your thoughts on the value of new entrants partnering with one another sharing services, combining to reach more collective, whether it's reach or audience or impact?
0:29:00 I want to transition a bit to talk a little bit about interoperability of which you're one of the foremost experts. To begin with, just break it down for me very simply. What do we mean by healthcare interoperability and what are the challenges so far and what's the goal? Where are we heading toward?
0:35:25 I understand the optimism and I feel bullish. But as a provider, as a patient, as a member of a software company in the space, it still feels like there are... It is not easy to access information, develop applications to get to that application substitutability vision you outlined. Am I off or are we still a far away, away from getting there?
0:38:57 I believe part of the Cures Act is also about information blocking. And so I'd love to hear in your mind, what are some of the examples where information blocking is still taking place to a great extent? Where, if anywhere, does that still happen?
0:42:18 I'd love to hear what is the best case scenario that you see for interoperability and the health care digital landscape in, let's call it three years or five years. If all of this works as intended and goes really well past this 12/31 day, what is the world going to look like? What can we be excited about?
0:44:53 End
