Meanwhile, Robert Groves, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer of Banner | Aetna, described the tremendous advances he and his colleagues are involved in at his organization, which merged a health plan and a health system several years ago, and focuses on empowering doctors and other clinical professionals to create change. As Dr. Groves told me in his keynote talk, there is simply no substitute for engaging physicians and bringing them into the equation as co-actors of change. All of the things we, as a health system, must do to improve the health of patients with chronic diseases will require enormous commitment and buy-in from physicians; and he and his colleagues are creating that at Banner | Aetna and the year after year statistics prove it.
Meanwhile, Jim Whitfill, MD, chief transformation officer at Phoenix-based Honor Health, offered fascinating insights into where artificial intelligence could take our healthcare system in the coming years. Of course, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns, and Dr. Whitfill was very clear in pointing out areas of potential concern that everyone should be aware of and manage. But what is clear, as he noted, is that we are going to need AI more than ever, in both its traditional and generative forms, to boost the effectiveness of doctors and nurses in a health system that is reeling from shortages. of personal. shortages and operating costs.
And we had great discussions about social determinants of health, telehealth and virtual health, behavioral health, and of course cybersecurity as well. All of the presenters and panelists are leaders in their organizations, which in turn are leading organizations, and they are all focused on advancing healthcare in this country.
And that speaks to that enormous figure of 7.7 trillion dollars. Ultimately, the aging population in this country means that healthcare costs will continue to rise, no matter what we do as a healthcare system and as a society; and that will also be true for all advanced industrialized nations. But if there were ever a hot platform for changing the healthcare system, it would have to be the realization that we, as a nation, are willing to spend one-fifth of our productive wealth on healthcare. There is simply no way to overstate the enormity of that figure, or the other figures involved here.
But here’s the thing, and this is something I talked about with Dr. Groves in our keynote session. Having been in health publishing for 35 years, what is tremendously encouraging is seeing the transformation (still incomplete, but tremendously advanced since three and a half decades ago) of medical culture in our health system. As I pointed out to Dr. Groves, and he agreed, 35 years ago, medical students were trained to be “lone wolf” doctors, and virtually no energy or effort was put into helping medical students think about team care. Now, medical schools are strongly emphasizing to their students that the world in which they will practice will necessarily involve team-based care delivery as well as ongoing measurement of their clinical interventions. And that’s how it should be. All of our program’s physician leaders on Wednesday agreed that we can no longer afford the fee-for-service vision of health care delivery to be limited to one-on-one encounters between doctors and patients. This is particularly true given that the majority of our healthcare system spending in the future will go towards the care and management of chronic diseases, as a large plurality of our population will live with one chronic disease and many will live with two, three or even four. chronic diseases.
So that $7.7 trillion burning platform is right in front of us. But it is encouraging to share the stage at our Summits with wonderful medical leaders and leaders of all kinds, as we work together to improve our health care system and learn how to manage the tremendous collective set of tasks of caring for our sick national population. and yes, in health. And despite all the enormous challenges we face, knowing that leaders like those who showed up at our Rocky Mountain Summit are helping to lead the charge is truly encouraging.
