Women’s health: Technology and patient engagement

Four women health care leaders discuss the value of connected health data, clinical studies at the point of care, neurodiversity considerations in data collection, and the importance of community care. This second episode on women’s health continues the conversation on how health systems need to change to eliminate barriers and address the needs of women patients to provide whole-person care. 

Featuring:

• Moderator: Nasim Afsar M.D., MBA, chief health officer, Oracle Health
• Christy Dueck, Ph.D., global head of the Learning Health Network and Health System Activation, Oracle Health
• Esther Gathogo, M. Pharm., Ph.D., senior performance improvement leader, Oracle Health
• Sarah Matt, M.D., MBA, vice president, physician and healthcare technology executive, Oracle Health

Listen as they discuss:

• Many women prioritize others’ care above their own needs. What are ways technology can partner with providers to ease this burden? (2:49)
  • Clinical trials
  • Patient engagement and automation
• When patients feel like they aren’t being listened to, they might seek alternate options. How can patients and clinicians work better together to make sure they're bringing all of the data and modes of health and wellness together to really treat the whole person? (8:53)
  • Providers need to re-educate on other modalities
  • Patient education 
  • Social determinants of health data in the EHR 
• How can we bring data together to proactively help communities that are exposed to higher risks? (12:43)
  • Using data to identify populations preventatively
  • Digital therapeutics
• What are some other ways you’ve seen health organizations share info with their communities? (19:56)

“I think that it's really about how can we make these super busy people utilize the tools that work for them best … Because every data element I don't fill out as a patient is a data element a medical assistant, a nurse, a doctor is going to have to do instead, which means less time treating me like a patient.” – Dr. Sarah Matt 

“Where you live has a tremendous impact on your health and well-being, not just at a country or state level, but down to the neighborhood level. And so when we can get that information in the EHR, then we're able to proactively engage based on transportation barriers, food insecurities.” – Christy Dueck, Ph.D.

“How do we pull that data together to be able to proactively reach into those communities? When I think about women and historically vulnerable populations, I think those are some of the same type of thinking and methodology that we have to leverage in connecting the data together, using data from a variety of sources to proactively identify populations, and then reach out to them.” – Dr. Nasim Afsar

“There are a lot of [technology] platforms I feel that have come on board, which just makes it more accessible for people. And then just thinking about different groups of people who may perhaps were not considered before, like neurodiverse, and are we thinking about them when we are designing the [technology] systems or thinking about their data and how to connect their data … How do they communicate with their healthcare provider? Do we have a lot of information about that? Neurodiversity covers quite a lot and there will be a lot of changes [to technological solutions] in terms of how we capture the information in a standardized way.” – Esther Gathogo, M.Pharm., Ph.D. 

-------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00:00:00

You're listening to Perspectives on Health and Tech, a podcast by Oracle with conversations about connecting people, data and technology to help improve health for everyone. 

In the second episode on Women's Health Equity, we'll be talking about how the role many women play as caregivers can present a challenge for patient engagement. We'll talk about technology and patient data and how we can effectively unify our knowledge together to treat the whole person.

00:00:37

Hi, I'm Dr. Nasim Afsar, chief health officer at Oracle Health. And joining me today on the podcast are three of my colleagues from around the world. I'll ask them to introduce themselves and give a brief overview of what they do.

00:00:53

Sarah Matt Thanks, Nasim. I'm Dr. Sarah Matt. I'm a surgeon by training my fellowships and burns, but I've been in product development all over the world for my entire career. That's building our electronic medical records, new mobile applications, patient engagement solutions, you name it. First, I came in to drive our OCI, the cloud side of our business for health care and life sciences. And now, after our acquisition of Cerner, I focus on new product development. 

Nasim Afsar Thank you. Esther? 

00:01:20

Esther Gathogo  Hi, I'm Dr. Esther Gathogo, and I'm a pharmacist with 18 years’ experience working across different sectors: community, hospital, academia and clinical research. And I currently work as a senior performance improvement leader in international based in UK. And I also focus on health equity and AI.

00:01:40

Nasim Christy?

Christy Dueck Hi, everyone, I’m Dr. Christy Dueck. I'm the vice president and global head of our Learning Health Network and really have responsibilities around creating health system partnerships with life sciences industries to bring clinical research as an integrated component of clinical care. 

00:02:02

Nasim Thank you, Christy. And my background is in internal medicine. I practiced as a hospitalist for over a decade in tertiary, quarternary academic medical centers. I've been in health care administration on the health care delivery side for over sixteen years in roles, in quality roles, in health management, contracting and health care operations. My team is focused on how do we ensure that across the globe we have healthy people, healthy workforce and healthy businesses. Driving the best of products and services to ensure that we're improving the health of the world.

So thrilled to be here and thank you all for joining me today as we talk about women and health equity. 

00:02:49

Nasim Afsar Many women prioritize the care of other people, their loved ones or family members above their own, and oftentimes may feel like they don't have time to take care of themselves or be able to do the extra research that's required or seek a second opinion. Some of the ways that technology can help partner with providers to ease that burden. Christy, what do you think about this?

00;03;17

Christy Dueck Well, I'm going to hit it from that clinical trial perspective again, as we look at ped's trials. We know the number one driver of not enrolling enough kids onto those trials is because the appointments happen when parents are working. And really when moms are working. And so it's, again, something as simple as we're changing that behavior so that we can bring that clinical trial out of a clinical research organization or at a specialty clinic that's 4 hours away from where that kid lives, and actually make it available at the point of care within their community on a Saturday morning so that a mom can take her kid to be part of that trial.

00:04:00

And instead of trying to create processes where we're enabling health systems and caregivers to work at optimum times, we've got to also create processes that actually allow our community members to engage in the care that they need on the time systems that work for them. 

And so I think, Nasim, you know, exactly what you were saying is that if we're going to have moms engage in their own health and in the health of their kids, we've got to make it available for them at a time that works for them. And it can be something as simple as changing those appointment times, or the availability for them, that completely changes the outcome of a clinical trial. 

00:04:42

Nasim Sarah, wondering about your thoughts on this. 

Sarah Matt So for me it's really about options. So I'm here at my desk and on my desk I have this letter. They actually send me a letter from the doctor's office and it was about an upcoming appointment.

First of all, I'm in a generation that a letter is just not going to work. It's not going to cut it. But I was never given the opportunity to tell them how I communicate best. So if they would give me an option to use some other patient engagement tool, a portal email, a text message, literally anything else for me would be a better option.

00:05:20

But I think that's the trick, is that technology can allow for more options. So maybe Christy is a text person. Maybe Esther actually will listen to her phone messages. If someone calls me, they're never going to get a hold of me. But, you know, I think that it's really about how can we make these super busy people utilize the tools that work for them best.

And every health care organization uses patient engagement tools, whether they're using a third party for a kiosk in their office or a patient portal or other outreach mechanisms for population health. There's so many ways they can do this, and some populations are going to love that letter. Other populations, like me: please text me, please send me an email, because anything I can do by multitasking, anything I can do where I don't have to stay on hold and talk to an actual person is going to be better for me.

00:06:11

I think the second piece is really about the information in your medical record. Nothing is more frustrating than showing up to a doctor's office or for me with this letter, they sent me