Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1219854
27 INNOVATION Express Scripts chief innovation officer focused on leveraging technology: Here's why By Mackenzie Garrity E xpress Scripts' chief innovation officer says technology is what is going to change the healthcare landscape for the better, and that's why the pharmacy benefits manager remains op- timistic about its investments in digital health solutions, according to Yahoo Finance. Glen Stettin, MD, chief innovation officer of Express Scripts, spoke at the CES on Jan. 8 about the company's progress in virtual care, artificial intelligence and other digital health efforts. With bullish views on digital health in 2020, Express Scripts has launched a dig- ital health formulary. The formulary allows startups and tech giants to access a platform that can distribute their solutions to a larger patient base. To get access, companies must either have a pilot or contractual agreement with in- surers or employers. With the digital formulary, Dr. Stettin hopes to create a standard for digital health solutions. Along with the formulary, Dr. Stettin discussed Express Scripts' tele- health efforts. Currently, Express Scripts is building a "telehealth capa- bility that gets at the issues of wellness and primary care," according to Dr. Stettin and cited by Yahoo Finance. Express Scripts is also investing in AI and data analytics to better equip patients and physicians with information. n New AMA hub connects healthcare startups, physician-innovators By Andrea Park T he American Medical Association announced on Jan. 14 an initiative launched in partnership with investment platform RedCrow to build collaborations between physicians and healthcare startups. The RedCrow Hub will be housed within the AMA's Physician Innovation Network. Through the hub, physicians will be able to offer health-focused startups their clinical expertise and insights, resulting in the development of technologies, products and services that improve their work and the healthcare system as a whole. "Overlooking physician requirements is one reason new medi- cal technology may not live up to its promise," AMA CEO James Madara, MD, said in the announcement. "The AMA believes when physicians and entrepreneurs are aligned on the challenges and opportunities in healthcare, we can expect meaningful advances from medical technology. The new collaboration brings togeth- er the expertise of physicians and the passion of entrepreneurs to develop cutting-edge technology that improves the way the healthcare system works." n be able to articulate and develop the change man- agement necessary around this without really strong clinician support — I don't think that's going to work. You look at someone like John Halamka, who was at Beth Israel Lahey and now is over at Mayo: He's been a CIO for years and he's also a physician, and he was pretty much a trailblazer in that. I think that's going to be more of the trend. You think about physician CIOs, physician leaders of digital and in- novation — I think that's going to be broadly the trend. I think it's really, really critical that we really think about what the clinical side of this innovative work looks like. Q: It often seems like a lot of new health IT leaders are coming from outside of health- care, so it's interesting that you see the trend moving in the opposite direction. ER: Definitely. Part of it is there's not a lot of us doctors, nurses and others who are either trained or even comfortable with the technology side of things; it's relatively new. You've got a great crop of chief medical information officers that are developing — we›ve got a really strong one here [at Moffitt] in Dr. Randa Perkins — but even that is relatively new. So that transition and that trend is early still, but I think it's definitely going in that direction. Going back to the original question: I have an MBA, I've done clinical operations, I've done hos- pital operations, I've done transformation. So, what I bring to bear here, when I think about the job and the business side and management, is how I can improve operations using digital innovation. I've been in hospital operations, so I think about how I can leverage digital innovation in some of these core hospital operations, because I've been there and helped build patient towers and things of that nature. And then you think about the transformation side, and for me, that's really important. e difference, from my perspective, is there's a difference between innovation and transformation. I'm thinking about innovation in terms of something that's new with an uncertain outcome, and it's really, really important that you continue to innovate. It has an uncertain outcome, which by definition means it may fail, but that's OK — we should learn how to fail better, es- pecially in these spaces around digital. Transforma- tion is different: It takes innovation — all that we're learning from innovation and all that we're learning from implementation science — but the job is to make that learning stick long-term. It's really about leveraging change management. If you're truly transforming something, that thing looks different when you're done; but when you innovate and you fail, it could look exactly the same. at's the perspective I bring as I think about digital innovation. It's not going to be just about innovating things, because you can have an endless spin cycle around innovating. You want to actually make sure things stick long-term so that you truly are a new entity at the end of the day. n