Big Topics in Small Doses Episode 4: 2021 Year in Review

Written By Healthy Dose of Dialogue

2021 Year in Review

Hello everyone. Thanks for joining us for this special year-in-review edition of Healthy Dose of Dialogue podcast. In this episode, we look back at 2021, reflect on the insights of featured guests, and focus on the unique challenges and opportunities in the year ahead.

As we think about 2021, the pandemic remains an undeniable force. This year we’ve listened to experts across the industry talk about the pandemic’s continuing impacts.

These shifts touched everything from service delivery to policy making to the innovative technologies driving change. In almost every sense, the pandemic has been an inflection point, prompting us to reflect and respond.

Nowhere has this been clearer than on the front lines of health care. We’ve heard from industry leaders and insiders about the difficult tasks placed on organizations and providers.

With limited staffing, long hours, and a surge in patients, health providers were pushed to their limits. At the same time, we’ve also been inspired by the tenacity and ingenuity of entrepreneurs, policy advocates, and innovators who’ve spoken to us about how they’ve led progress and reform.

One of these innovators was Dr. Tom X. Lee, a serial entrepreneur and founder of the telehealth startup Galileo. At the start of 2021, he estimated the pandemic would not only disrupt the industry, but do so dramatically in the next few years.

“I think the iceberg is starting to crack, so I think we’re going to start to see some more radical change—certainly in the next five years some change, and in the five-to-ten-year timeframe much more significant change. I tend to be a little bit more optimistic, because now the market is hitting some constraints, meaning the willingness to pay is hitting a ceiling at a real fundamental level. And technology innovation is really a separate force that’s kind of loosening up what’s available.”

Dr. Lee said new digital solutions, health analytics, and startups would lead healthcare’s coming transformation and increase the types and delivery of care.

That idea of greater accessibility couldn’t be more real for startup CEOs Tammy Sun, founder of Carrot Fertility; and Naomi Allen, founder of Brightline. The two have taken once-niche areas of health care and opened them up by connecting patients to specialists online.

At Carrot Fertility, Sun said her startup simplified fertility care by pairing patients with a team of fertility clinicians and a global provider network.

“The biological clock, both for men and women, males and females, is the same whether you live in New York or the middle of the country. And so this is one of those things that we have always really believed is a fundamental part of human health.”

At Brightline, a health provider specializing in pediatric mental health care, Naomi Allen said that since the company was founded her team has tirelessly worked to increase access to pediatric mental health specialists. Throughout the nation there is a severe shortage of providers trained to deliver care for children and Brightline’s platform expands the reach of these professionals.

“We've got to show to health plans that we're delivering high-quality care consistently with high access day in and day out, day in and day out at a reasonable price point. Otherwise, none of this stuff matters.”

In Silicon Valley, we also had a chance to hear how the pandemic has pushed tech giants like Google to form tighter partnerships with health organizations and engineer new technologies in artificial intelligence and machine learning to reshape care.

Aashima Gupta, Google Cloud’s director of global healthcare strategy and solutions, said the year has unlocked new and exciting partnerships for innovation.

“What we see is a tremendous opportunity where not one company can do it alone. We have the tooling, you have the domain expertise. Can we combine that in solving some bigger audacious goals together?”

Outside the private sector, government officials felt a growing intensity to ensure everyone had access to quality healthcare. As never before, COVID-19 showed the world how one person’s health impacted everyone’s health.

No matter the income level, career, or status, officials understood that equitable health care was no longer just a moral ambition, but an urgent duty to preserve public safety.

At the heart of this work, Covered California’s Executive Director Peter V. Lee spoke to us about California’s pursuit of new models, policies, and tactics to expand and improve care through its health insurance marketplace.

Lee said the state is investigating population-based payment models that reward quality outcomes over service quantity and establishing meaningful health metrics to objectively evaluate providers.

“COVID-19 put spotlights on things that have been with us for a long time. We need to be looking at public health more robustly, payment, and incentives, quality, and disparities in health.”

John Baackes, CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation's largest publicly operated health plan in Los Angeles County, said to increase access, governments also need to design programs for vulnerable populations who likely don’t have much experience using health insurance.

“What we’re really talking about are the barriers to people getting the right care at the right time. And I think that’s important, and particularly for MediCal, because most of the programs that have been designed to improve health care are really aimed at a cohort of people who have had insurance, or are used to it, and also have the resources to participate.”

During the course of 2021, many of our guests spoke of how the pandemic pushed the topic of mental health to center stage. Whether the discussion was about overcoming addiction, cultivating mindfulness, supporting youth, or coping with anxiety and loss, the issue of improving mental health took precedence in both the national conversation and among our guests.

Mental health is uniquely pertinent for the healthcare industry as a whole, with the ​​National Academy of Medicine reporting that in 2021 roughly 70 percent of its clinicians surveyed confirmed some form of mental health illness related to burnout.

This finding also represents a 30 percent increase compared to before the pandemic. More broadly, the CDC reports that 1 in 5 Americans are estimated to experience a serious mental health issue every year.

Patrick J. Kennedy, founder of the mental health advocacy group The Kennedy Forum and a long-time proponent for mental health, said the pandemic and its raft of mental health issues only underscore our need to invest in and incentivize robust mental health services.

“Too often in the past we have separated mental health from physical health, as if the two can be separated. And then you put different models of reimbursement around them when the really true value is the whole health and the value that mental health can be to the rest of your physical health.”

As this year comes to a close and we look toward 2022, we thank all of our guests for their valuable insights into the issues, innovations, and trends that are redefining our industry.

Thank you

We also want to express a heartfelt thank you to you, our listeners, for tuning in and supporting this podcast.

And if you’re looking for more insights, visit doseofdialogue.com, where you can listen to our latest episodes and hear from industry experts mentioned in this special edition of the podcast.

You can also join the conversation on LinkedIn and Twitter at Dose of Dialogue.

Happy holidays and thanks again for listening.

Listen to the full episodes referenced here by clicking the links below:

Healthy Dose of Dialogue
Previous

Big Topics in Small Doses Episode 5: Healthcare Technology and Innovation
Next

Big Topics in Small Doses Episode 3: Health Equity