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The Consumerization of Healthcare

By Marcelo Cruz - Elery.co
Co-Founder

STORY INLINE POST

By Marcelo Cruz Murcia | Co-Founder - Mon, 10/03/2022 - 13:00

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In late 2018, I got a call from Paul Leinwand, a senior partner at PwC Strategy& and adjunct professor of strategy at Kellogg. At the time, I was a management consultant in the consumer markets group of the firm. He offered me a role in a strategy project for a major health system in the US. The scope was both exciting and challenging: help the system consumerize its operation. When I got the call, I had just been promoted to director and I was coming back from parental leave. The rational thing to do would have been to not accept the project, focus on my consumer clients, and start making my case to become a partner in the New York office. Fortunately, I did not make the sensible decision and took the role. That’s when my passion for the healthcare sector began. 

During almost a year, working closely with the CXO of the health system and many of my incredibly smart colleagues at PwC, we developed a strategy with an ambitious goal: create an integrated network of healthcare products and services that would enable the system to manage a lifetime of health and well-being. None of this, however, would be possible without technology. They needed to build a tech platform to deliver a seamless consumer experience, provide physicians with better access to real-time data, and expand the opportunities to monetize health services outside of the hospital. While I could not see it implemented because I left the project — and the firm — shortly after they started executing on the plan, this experience taught me the importance of treating patients as consumers of healthcare.

A consumer has agency. A consumer is empowered. A consumer considers many variables when making a decision. Obviously, seeking medical excellence has to be the No. 1 priority and all people in their right mind want to be healthy, but that is not enough. When designing a new treatment, service, or product, it is critical to consider other non-medical pain points: financial, social determinants, convenience, trustworthiness. With this principle in mind, my childhood friend, Dr. Ibar Langle, and I co-founded a healthcare startup in Mexico, elery.co 

I co-founded elery, because I believe that patients are demanding health systems that build a longitudinal relationship over their lifetime and provide preventive, acute, and chronic care, when they need it, how they want it. Unfortunately, the current system in Latin America is unbelievably myopic and siloed. It only focuses on immediate ailments and not people. People who today need a treatment for a disease or condition, but who tomorrow will likely need many other types of care.

In Latin America, this is more pronounced than in other places because there are more than 1 million physicians working independently or in public health systems with limited resources. There are very limited opportunities for at-scale operational efficiencies. I believe, however, that technology will be the key to transforming healthcare. How?

  1. Empower consumers of healthcare to find inflection points: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had been living in multiple silent pandemics: diabetes, heart disease, cancer. Silent because in many cases it takes many years for symptoms to manifest. However, there are natural inflection points in peoples’ lives, where they are motivated to live a healthier lifestyle. Some are motivated by a disease or ailment, some by a life event. At elery, for example, we use digital channels of awareness and education to identify inflection points and start building longitudinal relationships. In our case, these pivotal moments manifest when a patient needs an elective surgery or treatment.

  2. Expand channels of access: Telemedicine accelerated during the pandemic, expanding access and convenience. While this was a great first step toward omnichannel care, I believe it is not enough to digitize existing practices. If a specialist has to invest the same time with a patient online or offline, the provider efficiencies are minimal. The true value is unlocked when we use technology to triage patients to the right resources: doctor or not, human or not, synchronous or not.

  3. Improve the omnichannel experience: As a consultant, I helped many companies think through an existential question: what would happen if Amazon disrupted my industry? Well, in healthcare that question is not theoretical. With the acquisition of One Medical, Amazon has entered the provider side and we can be certain that they will use technology to expand their mission to be Earth’s most customer-centric company into healthcare.

  4. Balance demand and supply: The fragmentation of supply and demand creates huge inefficiencies in the system. It is not uncommon for specialists to waste hours driving from clinic to clinic or hospital to hospital. Technology can balance this supply and demand, aggregate volume and find efficiencies. At elery, for example, we aggregate demand in “campaign days” where our surgeons perform seven or more of the same ambulatory procedure in a single day.

  5. Use AI for preventive care and diagnostics: I believe that we do not need to take health systems into web3 or plan for the metaverse, just yet. In many cases, we just need to bring the sector into the 21st century. My first four points are highly relevant improvements for healthcare, but are table stakes in many other industries. I believe the huge transformational opportunity is when we compile data across multiple touchpoints and use AI for two specific use cases: nudge patients to do the healthy thing in preventive care and assist physicians with complex diagnoses.

There is no doubt that technology will play a critical role in the future of healthcare. We must, however, never forget the humanity required to build in this sector. I believe that any well-designed technology will improve the humanity of the whole system by automating low-value activities and assisting humans in high-value interactions and complex decision-making. This will enable a deeper and more human relationship between provider and patient.

If you are an entrepreneur, executive, or healthcare professional, I encourage you to join the movement to transform healthcare with technology through a consumer lens.

Photo by:   Marcelo Cruz

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