Five Good Things with Janae Sharp and Megan Antonelli: A rapid-fire segment highlighting positive developments in digital health. Janae and Megan share insights on recent innovations, successful implementations, and emerging trends that are driving progress in healthcare technology.
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT
Janae Sharp, Founder, The Sharp Index
[00:00:00] VO: Welcome to Digital Health talks. Each week, we meet with the healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't. As we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
[00:00:31] Megan Antonelli: Hi everyone. It's Megan Antonelli, and I am here with my friend Janae sharp. Hi, Janae, hello.
[00:00:36] Janae Sharp: I'm thrilled to be here. We're back.
[00:00:38] Megan Antonelli: We are back. We didn't. We didn't. We took the summer off only from five good things. We were working all summer very, very hard, but we took it. Took a break on reporting the five good things, but we've been collecting them and tracking them, and we've decided to take the five good things from the summer, because it's been a pretty big summer. How was your summer? Janae,
[00:00:58] Janae Sharp: My summer was great. My summer still, it's if, if you believe it can always be summer
[00:01:04] Megan Antonelli: I can. I live in Southern California, so it is always well,
[00:01:08] Janae Sharp: Okay, now you're showing off.
[00:01:11] Megan Antonelli: In fact, it has only just now gotten warm, and I am actually quite warm today in my office. But so are
[00:01:19] Janae Sharp: You going to become one of those California people who every time, every time we do good things, you'll be like, my five good things are, I live in California, and then I live in California, and the weather in California is pretty good. Well,
[00:01:31] Megan Antonelli: In addition, although I don't want to wake him, in addition to good things, I also got a puppy this summer, but we'll wait, because he'll wake up eventually, and then we'll introduce them. But oh,
[00:01:41] Janae Sharp: and I have a child. I didn't get a summer period,
[00:01:46] Megan Antonelli: but did he have a good summer? Yes. And
[00:01:49] Janae Sharp: he saw your puppy on screen earlier, and he wants to see the puppy again, so we'll have to see the puppy later.
[00:01:53] Megan Antonelli: Okay, when he wakes up, I don't want to wake him up, because then he'll be annoying anyway. So let's see the first five good things. What did we have
[00:02:08] Janae Sharp: gonna talk about good things? And the first thing is something about women's health with the American Heart Association. And they've done kind of a lot this summer. So maybe you can introduce the ones you think are great? Yeah, I
[00:02:23] Megan Antonelli: think so. The first post I saw was Lisa soonin, who is now the managing partner at the American Heart Association ventures. So she took the role and announced the starting of that venture fund. And in fact, there's been news about that all, all summer. And I think the, you know, I think it's a $75 million fund. And then most recently, they had a donation from Sally Ross Soter, who's donating 15 million to the Go Red For Women's venture fund. And, you know, and it's obviously focused on scientific research for women's health and and cardiovascular we've talked quite a bit about how that research has always been very male centric, and it is, in fact, one of the number one killers, or it is the number one killer for women. And so this is super important work, and we're super excited to see money going to this space. And of course, where we love the American Heart Association, because we work with them, and we're working on their healthcare, heart health tech competition that is going to be at their scientific sessions meeting in November. So it'll be exciting to see the developments around the Venture Fund, as well as our competition.
[00:03:43] Janae Sharp: Yes, I think that's great to watch what people are doing, especially at that event, where there are a lot of clinicians there, there are a lot of people who are experts. Also, just to see people who are individually making a difference in in women's health, there's historically been a giant disparity there, where there's less research money, there's there's just less for women's health. So they're working to make strategic investments to bridge that gap. And we always love, we'd love to see it.
[00:04:15] Megan Antonelli: We do. It has been, you know, and there's been a lot of good investment this summer around that space, which is is good to see for sure, you know. And we've talked a little bit, I think I was, I was talking to Katie McMillan about, I think we're still waiting on the ARPA H to find out where they're what some of those programs that they've accepted or are investing in are, but hopefully that will be our, on our good things next month, yes,
[00:04:47] Janae Sharp: and I love to see big organizations kind of invest in research, invest in smaller organizations or nonprofits to promote health, right? Go to our second big thing, which, as you know. So everyone right now loves AI for the next, however long they love it. Just kidding, yeah. Well, it
[00:05:08] Megan Antonelli: was certainly a big topic. This summer, we had our measuring the impact of AI webinar or virtual Summit. I guess in August, Chris Ross was great, and Chris was great, we had some great sessions from a novel on and avashar and the folks over at Natera. And it is, you know, I think we're getting to that point where some people have some really good use cases, and they're, you know, we're talking about where the value is, you know, coming and where we're seeing value, and we're able to measure it, as opposed to talking about hypotheticals. Yeah, that's exciting, yeah, and yeah. So a lot in the news, but our favorite, our folks over at Chai, at Coalition for health, AI, early in I think it was like late June, so early ish in the summer, released their draft framework for responsible development and deployment of AI, yes,
[00:06:02] Janae Sharp: and I think, did he speak about that at the health impact event? We, we got to meet Brian Anderson at that event, and he got to, he shared some of those principles that they were getting many people together to to develop and and to share, to ensure that, like AI, has transparency and has lots of ethics, especially, that's critical for healthcare.
[00:06:28] Megan Antonelli: Yeah, he did. He mentioned it, and I guess it was open for comment all summer. So it'll be interesting to see. You know how that what the response has been, and I'm sure, though, there'll be something forthcoming around the response and what's next. And I think, you know what I really like about how Chai has focused on, kind of the importance of AI in, you know, ensuring that groups like, you know, underserved groups and underrepresented communities are included, and that, you know, it's providing value where, where it's most needed within the healthcare system, as opposed to just sort of, you know, kind of the healthy Well, if you will, right?
[00:07:10]Janae Sharp: We also had a framework, or principles, guiding principles, released by the College of Healthcare Information Management executives, or chime, as we know them, and they released a report about 10 key concerns or 10 areas of focus that people should have when they are developing those and I'm going to go through them, because they're part of that good thing, patient safety, administrative efficiencies, regulatory oversight. Wouldn't that be nice if AI could do that for you? Innovation and Research, discrimination, bias and equity, affordability, privacy, cybersecurity, high speed broadband, education and workforce. So everything, everything, everything, I mean, those are really critical topics, and they're also, you know, problems to be solved in healthcare. So I'd be thrilled, like, if AI could help solve some of the affordability issues that people face in healthcare. That'd be wonderful. Yeah. I mean, talk about it, yeah.
[00:08:15] Megan Antonelli: And I think it's important. I mean, chime has done some great work around, you know, sort of the leadership and the community and building the community. Oh, did yeah, we have a puppy visit. We have a puppy. Good timing, Bear. And so,
[00:08:31] Janae Sharp: yeah, my child heard and came to see the puppy.
[00:08:37] Megan Antonelli: And so the, you know, I think, for, for what chime, you know, their role within the within the ecosystem, if you will, in terms of driving leadership and providing frameworks. It's really nice to hear you know what their vision is for this, and how other you know how health system CIOs can really, you know, take the right steps to ensure that they're not left behind in this, in this implementation, and we talked a lot about it today, and in the interviews that I've been doing with a lot of our digital health female founders, you know it's coming, and it's here, and there's so much possibility, and it is, you know, the regulatory oversight hopefully will not hinder that innovation, that that is so promising. Yeah,
[00:09:24] Janae Sharp: I think it'll be great. Let's talk also about some of the good things that happened on LinkedIn for me this summer, suddenly, a bunch of government officials posted jobs. And I was like, I don't understand this job thing. Like, you guys are really excited about this job, and they're all posting the same jobs. Turns out they were new jobs. They weren't just posting their same job, but under a different thing. But there's been a reorganization. For for the ONC, for technology, cybersecurity, data, artificial intelligence, strategy and policy, and, you know, Susanna Fox post about it, and then some Mickey Tripathy and other leaders. So that was exciting for me, not only because they all showed up in my feed and I didn't know, but also because it's a big deal. Yeah,
[00:10:24] Megan Antonelli: I mean, ONC has been on C for a long time. It's going to take me a long time to stop calling it OMC. I think I'm still calling cms hikva, and that that certainly ages me. So it is. It's exciting. It isn't as catchy of a title though the office of what the Assistant Secretary for technology policy and the Office of National Coordinator and information technology, right? So it's
[00:10:52] Janae Sharp: asked, ask TP asked, well, Mickey Tripathy did once say, when he was on there that there, he's not good at at making those up. Well, I don't
[00:11:02] Megan Antonelli: know that seems to be one of the qualifications if you're going to be a policymaker in healthcare, be good at acronyms. Some of them are very
[00:11:09] Janae Sharp: good. And I like him living His truth.
[00:11:12] Megan Antonelli: I appreciate that too. I appreciate that. So astp, slash OMC, and so I think the the point, though, is that they're going to have increased responsibilities, right? And so it's in bringing in, you know, really technology and data and AI policy, and which has been interesting, because it's been interesting to see, like Troy taspaz from the FDA is has had a lot to say about AI, and then at the at the on, you know, obviously ONC and Mickey and that their team. And so this is interesting, and that it brings it really under there and, and it'll be really cool to see who they hire and bring in to, you know, bolster up that team, right?
[00:11:56] Janae Sharp: And as they've said in the past, and our HHS Secretary says, often the challenge with government is making our regulation and regulatory bodies as agile as our technology advancements are. So there's there's, we still have that gap in healthcare where there are some ambiguous areas in terms of regulation, because regulation doesn't move as quickly as our data is is moving, and that's also exciting, but it's exciting to see them create some of that flexibility and and create they have now a chief AI officer and the chief data officer. So if you know who is going to get those jobs, please let us know in the comments, or if we'd love to have, we want them on the show, but also, if it hasn't been announced, and I also want to know that,
[00:12:51] Megan Antonelli: so that was a great thing. The next thing we have that is more of like, you know, okay, here's a use case on an area that we're really we've been following, we're interested in, you know, I'm really passionate about healthcare at home and hospital, the hospital at home, movement and seeing where this goes, because I think it's so important. There's been, you know, multiple programs around home based care and the value that it provides and what people want, right? I mean, not very many want. People want to be in skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes and sort of more temporary situations. And so figuring out how to make hospital from home work well, I think is super important, and I hope that they figure it out by the time. I really need it.
[00:13:38] Janae Sharp: You need it. We should talk a little bit about that, because when I read some of the stuff news about that, I was not about you necessarily, but just just the news. Like my grandfather, before he passed away, had that, but then I didn't realize this, that Medicare hadn't paid for any of that like, so some of the big changes that happened were during the pandemic that Medicare expanded what they would pay for which, you know, we're not going to talk about any of the ethics or, like whatever insurance reform. That's not our job. But if you are a policy expert, you should talk about it in the comments. But yeah, so the covid 19 waiver expanded what people would pay for and what could be reimbursed across 37 states. And I know atrium Health here in Charlotte, they made a big deal about some of their hospital at home moves and clinical outcomes under that waiver were excellent,
[00:14:46] Megan Antonelli: but it's exciting and so unfortunately, the good news we don't have the the good news to report, which is that it's been extended again. So it is that waiver is set to expire December of 24 right? So December of this year, so hopefully. Basically it will be expanded, extended once again. However, what is exciting is that we're seeing hospitals invest in it regardless, right? They see it as a competitive advantage. They see it as what their patients want. So I think what one of the stories that I had highlighted was around Mass General, they received a huge grant, like almost $5 million around studying in home, rehab care for better patient outcomes. Hackensack just released a story on their hospital at home. We've talked to Terry cowicz at Guthrie clinic about the programs that they've implemented. And what's great is we're, you know, they're doing it because it's working, because they're seeing it. And I know I talked recently to mental health, digital health provider and around sort of the rehab and addiction programs that are happening at home. So there's a lot of activity there. We're excited to be covering it. And if you're doing work in that space, please reach out. Our health impact event in January is going to talk about that a lot, so we're super excited about that. And I'm just, you know, excited to see that there's money coming to it, even if it isn't just based on the waivers, you know, and where that is headed,
[00:16:14] Janae Sharp: right? And speaking of that, I love that more programs are becoming available to more people. Also, you were talking about behavioral health, like our last good thing was the Biden administration, the Harris administration, they took steps to improve the Harris
[00:16:35] Megan Antonelli: administration,
[00:16:36] Janae Sharp: the Biden HARRIS I said, it wrong. Now we're going to have to the Biden Harris administration keep that. Actually, you can keep it. You can keep it. You know, when we don't this kind of, kind of a big deal, and we, we probably actually should talk a little bit about that, like mental health parity, payment parity has been a big deal throughout history, and I think this is super relevant to my work. People see this huge divide between mental health and behavioral health and like real health in medical education everywhere, right? So it's this, this law that says that you're going to get reimbursed or be able to have mental health care. That's 15 years old. They passed, passed it, and I've heard the Kennedys speak about, you know, the importance of being able to pay for addiction care, and it's really compelling. And then in practice, that law still doesn't exist, and the law didn't have a lot of teeth. What's the phrase they say about like legislation without there are no you know, it was like just a suggestion. There wasn't enough to like make people do it. So 15 years later, people still hadn't done it. So they went ahead and released some things about about what that actually needs to look like for decreasing out of pocket costs. Some of the things that I think are really interesting, especially to the IT world, are you're supposed to actually say if people are in your network, and I don't know if anyone here has tried to get mental health support, but if you call the numbers of people that are in your network to provide care, you might find out that that information is incorrect, right? Or if you, you know, try to get on a wait list for a program, you might find out that some of these, some of these coverages, they don't actually exist, like it's not actually accessible. And now
[00:18:47] Megan Antonelli: does the rule, and I should know this, but I don't, but does it require that the networks be also comparable? Because, I mean, part of that is it's just that hard to find a provider in your network.
[00:18:59] Janae Sharp: Yes, not only should the networks provide just as much coverage, they also should provide the same amount of coverage for an out of network provider that you would be able to get for healthcare. And yeah, like you should be shocked, because right now, I think it's 40% of people are paying for their mental health care out of pocket. There's been some some concern about this law. Obviously, a lot of people that are the best mental health care providers decide to not take insurance, because there are so many barriers to getting reimbursed,
[00:19:38] Megan Antonelli: right so and even now, just not even going into the field, because it is so, you know, I mean, the customer base, even though we're rather large, it's, it's such an underutilized service, because, you know, these rules are not in place, and they're certainly not being enforced in terms of. And how it works. And it's interesting, I mean, and it'll be interesting to see how this impacts and is utilized within digital health, with all the digital health, you know, mental health providers. And you know, because, of course, it does, the reason the insurance companies haven't been doing it is because they clearly don't have the financial incentive to do it, and it's hard, right? So they have to figure out how to do it in such a way that they're not going to lose money on it, right? But that's not my problem.
[00:20:31] Janae Sharp: No, it's not. That's not my job. It is also, I think it's relevant to my job, though, because in the nonprofit, we are getting more and they see this across the board, not just with our nonprofit. There's more need for mental health support and more demand than ever before, and parents will call us who are physicians like the need can be staggering, right? But, but the payment availability is not so people, and even you see that with like investment, with donations, like mental health, is not something that that we give the same weight to, and it's a huge problem right now. It's, you know, the Surgeon General has talked about, not only, you know, kids needing help, but also parents right now needing help. So I'm thrilled that this seems to be moving in the right direction. And I don't know all of the technical implications. I just, you know,
[00:21:35] Megan Antonelli: yeah, it's so complicated, and it's been, it's been such a huge problem in the United States, and it is, you know, part of it is mental health stigma, but you know, the bigger issue, I mean, these societal issues that we do talk about, that we are worried about, that are we're concerned about, around homelessness and addiction, you know, they're all, or in so many ways, tied to mental health. And when we basically got rid of the mental health system. In this country, everything got worse. And instead of taking care of the mental health system and putting it back and bolstering it and making it available to people, we've done the opposite, and we've blamed these, you know, ridiculous. You know, reasons of why, why those things exist, you know that don't have anything to do with it. When, if we had proper mental health care in this country for so many there would be so many problems that would be a bit more manageable. They won't go away. But I'm not trying to remind i to it is, for lack of a better term, crazy.
[00:22:39] Janae Sharp: Well, I'm not super pro institutionalization, like, I understand some of that. I think also some of our problems are like, they're societal problems, you know, they're a lack of connection. They're not all going to be able to be solved through through healthcare, like
[00:23:00] Megan Antonelli: pro institutionalization. It's more it's just that we never replaced it. We never put in a system where there was anything that, you know, other than the jails, which is, you know, that that doesn't work. That's a really bad system. I
[00:23:16] Janae Sharp: think we, you know, we can argue that, um, some of these things are, we need to make it more integrated, you know, like, hospital home, right? We need to make mental health at home, like, let's try to make it at least a little bit healthier for people and
[00:23:33] Megan Antonelli: let them have I mean, it's interesting, because it's also, you know, employers will say, Okay, well, these, you know, these services are available, right? We've got these wellness programs, and we've got these, you know, hotlines and places to call and things to do, and they come to you through your employer, but people don't want to use them. They're underutilized. They're, you know, they don't have the right the level of engagement that people want. And it's interesting, I haven't seen stats and stuff about, you know, talk space and all the others being utilized and offered through employers. And it'll be interesting to see over the coming years how the the adoption on those things go and what it means for people's mental health. But, you know, I think there's a long history of saying, Oh, well, it's, it's, it's available to you, but the place that it's available isn't the right, you know, place for people to actually seek it. Yeah, it's
[00:24:27] Janae Sharp: available to you as long as you have unlimited funds, unlimited time and, like, unlimited support,
[00:24:34] Megan Antonelli: right, which, so what that you wouldn't eat it anyway
[00:24:37] Janae Sharp: you might, but, like, you're less likely to right, like, yeah, yeah, there are other barriers and, and this is, I think, scratching the surface of some of those accessibility issues where, you know, getting actual support is a logistical nightmare, and we don't talk about that enough, and about the reality of what is. Actually involves, so, right? And so
[00:25:02] Megan Antonelli: it'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's great to read this, you know, statement from the White House at this, you know, particular time in an election year that they're going to put some teeth in an old law, you know, that's sort of overdue. And, and, you know, will it actually, you know, what will we see from it? So, it's good news. It's good news because all we always celebrate attention and headlines and trying to get that, you know, get get the right conversation started. But this is probably just the beginning of what, you know, what we can hope to see in this space. Are we absolutely true mental health reform, and, you know, real, real consumer protections around it that get people the access that they need.
[00:25:47] Janae Sharp: Yeah, so I love that. You know, 70% of kids who want to get mental health care or need it don't have access, half of adults. So you know, any one of our audience there, you know, if you know about this, we want to know who's doing great work. You know, we want to encourage people to invest just, just like investing in the research and and improving women's health, like, let's continue the good news, where people are seeing those barriers and they are doing the right thing, both insurers and both policy from the policy side, where our laws have teeth, and from an individual side. I think this is great news for for me.
[00:26:32] Megan Antonelli: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I heard about, which I don't know that much about, but I think we were at the HFMA SoCal meeting, and they the, it was actually, ironically, it was the president of cedars, I think, who was talking about, but we were talking about new build, and that there's a new UCLA neurosite, you know, neuro psych hospital being opened, you know, in downtown Santa Monica, I think, and it's, you know, it's a partnership across multiple institutions, and, you know, it's just, it's good to see that money is going to places to to address this. And so hopefully the government can back those things and we can make some progress, absolutely. So do we have any other good things? I mean, it's been a long summer. We're back. It's been a long summer. This is a
[00:27:23] Janae Sharp: tough summer for me, but I'm going to be positive. So it's positive. We're back. That's a good thing. We're going to have some events.
[00:27:33] Megan Antonelli: We are we have our next health impact, lot health impact, in person forum in January in New York, which we're excited for that, and we'll be going to some events this fall. Oh, there's bear. He's coming to say hi, yeah, and yeah, it's gonna be a busy summer. And it'll be like, busy going into January and February. It's kind of crazy. I mean, it's been a busy summer already. And you know, no stop.
[00:28:03] Janae Sharp: Don't stop. Yes. So as we continue on, we're thrilled. Our other good thing is always our audience. So you should like and subscribe and share it with all of your friends and some of your family. And that one guy you don't like, that's your relative, share it with him too, because you're the reason we're here, and we want to hear more about your good things and about the good things that are happening
[00:28:28] Megan Antonelli: we do well, thanks, Janae. It was good to catch up. Thank you audience for joining us, and that is Megan Antonelli. Janae sharp bear and
[00:28:40] Janae Sharp: Naveen, periodically
[00:28:42] Megan Antonelli: signing off for five good things. Thanks so much for joining us this time, and we look forward to seeing you at another event soon.
[00:28:50] VO: Thank you for joining us for this week's HealthIMPACT's Digital Health Talk. Don't miss another podcast. Subscribe@digitalhealthtalks.com and to join us at our next face to face event. Visit healthimpactlive.com.