Read on Twitter
1/ Everyone's talking about video visits. But are they really the greatest gift of digital health? I think they’re a red herring. Just a new medium for the same old episodic care. REAL change will come as we transition to systems of "Always-On Triage" https://a16z.com/2021/01/08/always-on-triage/
2/ The majority of healthcare spend will not even occur via video visits, as evidenced by the rapid swing that we saw back towards in-person care by late last year. https://twitter.com/vintweeta/status/1345891367797460994?s=20
3/ As such, we need to think bigger, about how technology will more fundamentally change the nature of care delivery. I kept coming back to *triage*. Medicine is basically all about efficient and accurate triage. And this is true in both acute and chronic situations.
4/ We've begun by simply triaging patients *between* video vs in-person visits. This is a whole new function on many care teams, call centers. One pt may review scans fine on video; another needs exam of a lesion. These decisions are building a new kind of triage muscle already.
5/ But then we'll get to the much more exciting kinds of triage. *Proactive* vs reactive triage, in which we use historical real-world data to anticipate what patients will need, way before they have to reach out. Faster triage to an always-on network of specialists.
6/ Triage based on new home-based data streams we didn't have before. And smart triage between different sites of care, enabled by access to more technology at home, and the building of entirely new, sub-acute care locations which didn’t exist before.
7/ A whole host of technology and regulatory innovation will support Always-On Triage, ranging from interoperability incentives to tools that give us a better pulse on patients' social determinants of health.
8/ We're particularly excited about reimbursement innovation or risk-sharing agreements that actually support providers who want to do continuous triage (and yes, we think there's room for a lot more beyond FFS RPM codes...)
9/ In short, the video visit is a commodity. Let's think much bigger, and re-frame digital health innovation around enabling Always-On Triage for our patients. This means sustainable, smart care that reaches the right patient, at the right time, from the right provider.
10/ This used to feel like a pipe dream, but the pandemic has proven it's actually within reach. Are you building part of the Always-On Triage stack? We'd love to connect! https://a16z.com/2021/01/08/always-on-triage/
