8TECH OUTLOOKNovember - 2020In My OpinionThe Inflection Period is a new mental model that translates our unique capacity to understand end of life with the potential to influence the healthcare landscape - potentiate truly collaborative relationships based on physiologic certainties, true informed consent and patient-centricity resulting in better care. It is a cognitive framework predicated on undeniable physiologic certainty which enables us to expand beyond the linear algorithm.Identification of the Inflection Period is essential so optimal care and direction may be provided by aligning relevant clinical strategies reflecting patient goals based on these realities. Dr. Timothy Ihrig is a well renowned proponent of offering care delivery with a human touch. He is globally recognized for bringing together his clinical and administrative expertise to system design for promoting population health management, care coordination, and care delivery for the vulnerable population. He has also applied his visionary approach to care delivery as the CMO of Crossroads Hospice & Palliative Care and as the CEO of Ihrig MD & Associates. In conversation with MedTech Outlook, Dr. Ihrig discusses his understanding of risk as applied to healthcare contractual entities, micro and macro healthcare economics, population health, regulatory compliance from a system perspective, and the interaction of all these aspects. He also comments on how doctors and caregivers should hone a more esoteric perspective towards healthcare, thus focusing more on the overall quality of life while assisting critically ill patients in thinking about how to live their lives, rather than focusing on how their lives will end. What are some of the major trends and challenges that are impacting the medtech space today?Over the last five to 10 years, the changes in the medtech space, may it be patient engagement tech or diagnostics tech, has been focused on mitigating the financial vulnerability of health systems. There has been an exponential growth in products meant to curb the costs of patient care, prevent admissions and re-admissions, and find more ways to offer better care outside of hospitals. With a strong emphasis on improving the efficiencies of patient care, the medtech space is less focused on the patients themselves, which poses the challenge of having a misaligned understanding of how to care for the most vulnerable population. Another issue that plagues the healthcare space today is that systems and technologies are aimed at offering the same kind of care to all, even the 10-15 percent of the population who need palliative care outside hospitals and healthcare facilities. These patients require a completely different care paradigm than the others. Most healthcare providers drive healthcare reforms but fail to change the way they care for the vulnerable population. Technology has nonetheless enhanced the efficiencies of data collection, simulation, communication, transference, and enabling delivery of continued care. But it has not reformed care for the people, which is based on two major tenets. One of these is what truly matters to the individual in question, and the other is informing the individual about the absolute truth about the disease and trying to provide accurate care for it. But what it all comes down to is the fact that even after being backed by the latest technologies, we fail to improve the quality of life of individuals or increase the length of their lives. These aspects are, no doubt, an esoteric approach to patient care, but it gives a better understanding of how we, in many ways, are lacking the ability to incentivize the right things. Additionally, the regulatory and compliance norms that rely on the historical model of care delivery fall short of the understanding of the adequate ways to care for the vulnerable population. How important is it to change the healthcare facilities and personnel to bring about a reform in the medtech space, and what is your approach to bringing this change?According to me, it is multi-factorial. In the medical space today, some systems incentivize a linear algorithmic approach of clinical treatment and patient engagement, which, to a A Compassionate Approach to Patient CareAn interview with Dr. Timothy Ihrig, CMO, Crossroads Hospice
< Page 7 | Page 9 >