Alexa, get me to urgent care
Tech in healthcare is advancing rapidly and benefiting patients, Atrium CEO tells Charlotte Rotary; bionic noses at Wake Forest
The following article appeared in the October 30, 2019, edition of the Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter focusing on local business news. Sign up for free here.
Technology in healthcare is advancing so rapidly that patients will soon have many more ways to benefit by using apps on their phones, digital assistants and virtual reality, Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods said in a speech on Tuesday.
Speaking to the Charlotte Rotary uptown, Woods described technologies in their infancy that just a few years ago would have sounded as though he pulled them out of a sci-fi movie:
- Atrium patients can find and make reservations at urgent care centers using Amazon’s Alexa assistant.
- Children with cystic fibrosis can use virtual reality goggles to distract them from medical procedures.
- Providers can talk to patients about their symptoms via computer.
- The healthcare system analyzes data to predict how soon patients leaving the hospital might return.
- Your doctor can sync medical records with your Fitbit.
“We are trying to use this technology really for direct applicability to the patients,” Woods said.
Big medicine: Woods, who joined Atrium in 2016, oversees a growing healthcare giant that has 70,000 workers and 50 hospitals throughout the Carolinas and Georgia and takes in more than $11B in annual operating revenue. It is the Charlotte region’s largest employer, with about 35,000 workers locally.
Technology has transformed other industries, and now it is reshaping the delivery of healthcare. The advances aren’t just in medical research, like finding new cancer drugs, but also in the way that healthcare providers interact with patients.
Other healthcare systems are making advances, too, of course. Novant Health says its patients can use Google Assistant to locate the nearest medical office and can use a device that allows providers to examine children’s abdomens, throats and lungs remotely.
Wake partnership ahead: Woods also sounded impressed with a recent tour of medical facilities at Wake Forest University. Atrium and Wake are collaborating to create a medical school in Charlotte, the city’s first.
Of the visit to Wake’s Forest Baptist Medical Center’s innovation quarter, Woods said: “They are actually growing kidneys in the lab. They had a 3D printer that we were looking at that was printing a nose and printing an ear. They haven’t quite yet figured out how to put it in yet, but they are probably within five to 10 years. If you think about organ transplant waiting lists, if you can manufacture in the lab and make sure you have organ rejection capability, it’s just going to revolutionize the world as we know it in healthcare in the next decade.”
Woods on other topics:
On the partnership with Wake: “Before the end of the year, we will have a lot more to say about our partnership with Wake Forest University and Baptist Medical Center there. Not only will we benefit from the $200 million-plus of research funding that they have to discover the latest cures, but also we will be bringing a medical school to Charlotte. … We will have much more to say on that hopefully in the weeks and the months ahead.”
On why healthcare insurance premiums are so high: “If you look at how Atrium gets reimbursed for its services, about 60% of that is Medicare or Medicaid. So we don’t set the prices on that. … 60% of our business, we have no influence on price. 10% of those that come to Atrium have no ability to pay or pay 2 cents on the dollar. … 30% is insurance, and that’s where the premium focuses are. That’s where we’re trying to make sure there’s enough covered and insured to spread the risk … You get a bill from us, and you think, ‘Well, it’s too high,’ not knowing we probably didn’t set the price at all.”
On Atrium’s not-for-profit future: “We are not-for-profit, and we will stay not-for-profit. Some of these competitors are for-profits with different access to capital markets.”
On Alexa: “We are one of six healthcare providers in the entire nation that’s partnered with Amazon. If you have Alexa, you can say, ‘Alexa, take me to the nearest Atrium urgent care center and book me a reservation.’ And we’re just getting started on that. I think we are also developing things in the next year or two years that will take this to the next level.”
