Health Care Trends

Is there anything about “SINGLE” we could like?

By M2|2017-10-08T11:15:04+00:00October 4th, 2017|Health care spending, Health Care Trends, Health Information Technology, Health Reform, Uncategorized|

Is there anything about “SINGLE” we could like?

As I write this, the latest version of Republican health reform has been halted. The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill (H.R.1628) was officially declared dead and next steps are all guesstimates.

It might be a coincidence that the bill was pulled and Senate Republican leadership decided not to bring the bill the floor for a vote just a day after CNN broadcast a debate between Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on “Obamacare”, CNN Debate Night: The Fight Over Obamacare; and a week after Sen. Sanders introduced the so-called “Medicare for All” bill on September 13.

More than once the CNN debate devolved into an argument over the Graham-Cassidy bill vs. “single payer” health care. But notably, two audience questions (one from a Republican and one from a Democrat) asked the Senate debaters to say what they would do immediately to lower the cost of premiums.

Usually the word “single” in health policy circles makes people think of “single payer.” In my opinion, there is not much possibility with the current Congress to pass a “single payer” bill that would create a nationalized health insurance and health provider system, but I do wonder if there is anything about the concept of “single” that could become policy. Here are two ideas: 1) A “single set of forms” and 2) A “single health IT system.”

“Single Set of Forms”

First, a single set of forms. Could Congress agree to pass a law that would require all insurers, payers, pharmacy benefit managers, etc. to use a standardized set of forms for everything from enrolling in a plan, to requesting a prior authorization for a prescription or medical procedure, to receiving a bill?

The concept isn’t new. Administrative simplification has been a buzzword off and on for more than a decade. Savings from reducing “billing and insurance-related” costs are substantial. A study in 2014 estimated, “A simplified financing system in the U.S. could result in cost savings exceeding $350 billion annually, nearly 15% of health care spending.”

Other studies have attempted to quantify exactly how health care providers waste administrative resources because of the multiple systems they must navigate in order to serve patients. For example, a typical physician might spend 3 to 4 hours per week interacting with health plans, other health care staff (e.g., RN/MA/LPN etc.) might spend 3 to 4 hours per physician per day, and clerical staff might spend 6 to 7 hours per physician per day interacting with health plans. Of the administrative activities involved, the majority of time spent is getting authorizations from health plans to perform services and navigating drug formularies.

A stark and oft-cited example is the Duke University hospital system that has three hospitals with 957 beds, but 1,600 billing clerks. Hard to think that a single set of forms – even if you have multiple payers – wouldn’t be a great way to save money in the U.S. health care system. Seems like “single” when it comes to “single set of forms” is an idea many people could support.

“Single” Health IT System

Second, a “single” health information technology (HIT) system might be a kind of “single” we could like in health care. Recently, the longtime CEO and president of the world-class health care delivery system Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Toby Cosgrove, appeared on Meet the Press Daily to discuss the Graham-Cassidy bill. Most of his comments were focused on ways to improve the current health care system, and one of his top ideas was to make health IT systems interoperable. He would certainly know.

A study from WestHealth Institute in 2013, The Value of Medical Device Interoperability, estimated more than $30 billion could be saved annually by making medical devices “talk to each other.” This seems obvious but the graphic below from WestHealth shows what is typical HIT in a hospital.

Sharing information from one device to another or between devices and the electronic health record (EHR) in a “consistent, predictable and reliable way” that allows clinicians to act upon the information would not only save money, it would also save lives and reduce negative outcomes. Lack of interoperability causes adverse events such as drug errors and diagnostics errors. Keep in mind that about 250,000 people die every year from medical errors. It also impedes clinicians’ abilities to prevent events such as pneumonia caused by ventilators put in at the hospital or postoperative shock.

Why does the word “single” in health care carry such negative connotations? Maybe because most parties—consumers, doctors, hospitals, and plans—don’t think a one-size-fits-all approach will work in this country to address such a wide set of needs when it comes to health care. But the downside to this stigmatization is that the word “single” has become so politically loaded that just uttering the phrase is often enough to stop a conversation that might otherwise turn into useful ideas for reforming our current health care system.

Maybe it’s time to focus on some good ideas for the word “single”—ideas that would truly benefit our large and diverse country. Administrative simplification and interoperability seem like a good place to start.

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Health Care Innovation is Hurtling Forward, Despite Policy Uncertainty

By M2|2017-10-08T11:32:37+00:00July 21st, 2017|Health Care Trends, Health Information Technology, Health Reform, Uncategorized|

Health Care Innovation is Hurtling Forward, Despite Policy Uncertainty

Yes, Washington, D.C. has been tied in knots for months over the future of Obamacare. Or more specifically, how and whether the federal government should pay for health insurance for certain consumers. In the meantime, health care innovation is hurtling forward as evidenced by investments and operational commitments by health care companies.

Digital Health Investments

StartUp Health’s 2017 Global Digital Health Funding Mid-Year Report compiles seed, venture, corporate venture, and private equity funding for the period January 1 through June 30, 2017 and shows 2017 investing in digital health “has already surpassed previous years in overall funding.” The second quarter of 2017 was the biggest ever, and that single quarter accounted for more money invested than total annual funding for 2010 and 2011 combined. In the first half of 2017, more than 300 digital health deals were inked, worth more than $6 billion.

CHART: Digital Health Funding 2010-2017 (YTD) from StartUp Health

Many of the digital health funding supports innovative ways of delivering health care.

For example, CareDox is a company focused on helping public school health programs be more efficient. More than 50 million students are served by school health care clinics in the U.S., making it one of the largest medical networks in the country. Innovating this front line of health care for kids could improve both the health care children receive and the coordination of care between schools, medical professionals, and parents.

One of the largest investments has been for GRAIL, a big data/analytics company that has received nearly $1 billion since its inception. GRAIL was started by Jeff Huber, who may not be a household name to health policy wonks, but I can guarantee you use something he’s built. Jeff was a senior engineering leader at Google who spearheaded the harnessing of massive data sets to create Google Ads, Apps, and Maps. After those projects, but just before starting GRAIL, he was working on big data at Google Life Sciences as part of Google X (aka The Moonshot Factory). Jeff’s vision is to combine “science, technology, and clinical studies to reveal cancer at its beginnings. To detect cancer early, when it can be cured.”

Being a glass half-full type of person, I get very excited to read about all the new health care ideas out there being turned into businesses. I’m just covering a few in this blog, but if you want to see a more detailed list, mobihealthnews covered the 81 digital health funding deals for Q2 2017.

Health Insurer Innovation

Several health insurers also announced innovative approaches recently (which we will cover more in upcoming blogs) indicating to me, that while big health policy issues are still up in the air, businesses need to keep providing services and coming up with new products to maintain current customers and win over new ones.

An innovative example of a company combining digital health innovation with health insurance is Bright Health. A Minneapolis-based health insurance company launched in 2016 by former UnitedHealthcare CEO, Bob Sheehy and two partners, Bright Health will be selling plans in the individual market in 2018 in select geographies, including Colorado. The company just landed $160 million in venture capital based on this thinking from one of their investors:

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Bright Health to disrupt a complicated industry where consumers are demanding change and leading health systems are hungry to deliver.”

The innovation Bright Health is offering is the selection of a sole health system as a deep partner in a state, and to use apps and other tech tools to attract consumers. In Colorado, Bright Health has chosen to partner with Centura Health to deliver care to its members. While health policy types might bemoan this type of “ultra-narrow” network, time will tell if consumers prefer to trade less choice for lower premiums.

Watching big picture policy debates, it’s easy to forget that investors and companies across the U.S. are coming up with all kinds of new ways to serve health care customers. The dust will eventually settle (I think!) on whether 2017 is the year to change Obamacare, but in the meantime innovation is hurtling forward which is much better way to see what the future of health care looks like in the U.S.

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Patients Like It and Physicians are Interested – Why Isn’t Telehealth Flourishing?

By M2|2017-10-08T11:39:21+00:00June 21st, 2017|Health Care Trends, telehealth, Uncategorized, What do we pay for and why|

Patients Like It and Physicians are Interested – Why Isn’t Telehealth Flourishing?

Most people don’t really like going to the doctor. But at least some studies are showing people are more comfortable when the “going to” part of seeing a doctor is taken out of the equation.

Telehealth is defined as the use of medical information exchanged from one location to another via electronic communications to improve a patient’s health.

So how do patients view telehealth? In a recent study of patient experiences following video visits with their primary care physicians, all 19 patients interviewed reported overall satisfaction with the video visits. Most reported being interested in continuing use of video visits as an alternative to in-person visits.

Convenience and decreased costs were the main benefits cited. Some of the patients reported feeling more comfortable with video visits and preferred to receive serious news via video visits, as they could be “in their own supportive environment.”

But are physicians routinely offering telehealth visits to their patients?

In family practice, the answer is no; only 15% of family physicians had used telehealth services during 2014, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Physician telehealth users differed from nonusers in many ways. They were more likely to be located in a rural setting (26 percent vs. 15 percent), to use an electronic health record (97 percent vs. 92 percent), and to work in a practice with at least 6 family physicians (40 percent vs. 29 percent). In addition, telehealth users were less likely to work in a privately owned practice and to provide general primary care to their patients.

Physician telehealth users were also less likely to report at least one barrier to providing telehealth services in their office than nonusers. Lack of training and reimbursement were the most common barriers identified by both users and nonusers.

“If telehealth services are to have a major impact in the primary care setting, more physicians will need to become experienced in the use of these services,” the authors conclude, noting that many of the barriers to wider adoption “are amenable to policy modifications.”

“One suggestion for overcoming the training barrier is for family medicine residency programs to ensure that graduating residents are offered opportunities to use telehealth services. To address issues of reimbursement, governmental and private payers could engage in outreach efforts to increase awareness of their current allowed payments for telehealth and either expand the types of telehealth services currently eligible for payment or develop new ways to reimburse telehealth services,” the authors say.

The bottom line is that “uptake in the United States has occurred most rapidly where reimbursement is favorable,” according to the authors of recent study in The Annals of Family Medicine. Notably, Medicare reimburses for telehealth specifically in areas where there are health care professional shortages and for specific approved services, the study says.

As far as patient preferences, the study participants “repeatedly cited reduced costs as an important benefit of video visits,” the authors note.

As part of a pilot program evaluated in this study, patients were not required to pay a co-pay for their video visits. “While this likely contributed to participants’ opinions of the cost benefits, patients also noted that they saved transportation costs and were absent from work for less time,” the authors say.

“Further work is needed to identify the full range of patient cost considerations related to telehealth, they state. “Cost issues have important implications for practices and health systems incorporating telehealth into care models, as they are likely to impact patient satisfaction and uptake of virtual services.”

If it is cheaper to the patient, and it provides high-quality care that the patient is satisfied with, why wouldn’t we reimburse for it?

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Health Information Technology: Visioning vs. Planning

By M2|2017-10-08T11:51:55+00:00May 30th, 2017|EHRs, Health Care Trends, Health Information Technology, Hospitals, Uncategorized|

Health Information Technology: Visioning vs. Planning

A recent study in Health Affairs confirmed what health providers and their patients already know: During a typical patient, the health care professional spends more than half of his or her time staring at the computer, not talking face-to-face to the patient. As of 2015, about 96% of health care organizations have a certified electronic health records (EHRs), and by the end of 2013, 66% of physicians were using electronic prescribing. Just ten years ago, those numbers were much lower, with only 9.4% of hospitals using a basic EHR and only 7% of physicians e-prescribing. Behind the push to get hospitals and physicians using health information technology was the promise of using big data.

While there have been volumes written about this has worked well in some ways, and not so well in others, what is undeniable is that health care organizations, and the patients they serve are now digitally intertwined. It is unlikely the system will be going back to paper-only records any time soon, so are there ways to make health information technology (HIT) work better?

One point of view was recently published by Family Medicine for America’s Health (FMAHealth) which focused on what primary care physicians want from HIT. They argue, “in addition to putting up barriers to achieving the Triple Aim, the poor usability and utility is resulting in health IT contributing to the growing problem of physician burnout.”

After a one day Visioning Summit, FMAHealth put forth a vision based on the following design principles: HIT should:

“(1) foster connections among health care professionals, including the individuals and communities they serve, and the environment in which people live;

(2) accumulate and analyze data that can support these connections and address the needs of population health; and

(3) promote appropriate payment for health care.”

The vision is set forth in 1, 3, 5 and 10 year increments. For example, in one year, the group would like to see “Data visualization technologies, which make it easy for the clinician to see patterns and make insight, will emerge to support health-related decisions and actions.” In three years, technology will “provide easy ways to natively support healthy behaviors, such as improved diet and exercise…”. In seven years, the group hopes “We will effectively use technology to deliver meaningful and relevant health-related information at the right time in a way that is “frictionless” and supports bringing the joy back to the practice of medicine.”

In my opinion, HIT is capable of all kinds of things, many of which I am sure we only starting to understand. Bringing joy back to the practice of medicine might be really difficult, but FMAHealth is putting forth a vision, not necessarily a plan.

Leave the plan to the Chief Information Officers (CIOs)!

Considering all of the money, time and human resources invested in HIT, some CIOs argue that hospitals, health systems or large provider groups are essentially health care shops AND software shops. David Chou, CIO at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO [check it is MO] explained, “the day you made that investment you became a software vendor.”

What are some of the ways to make this technology work better, according to these experts?

· Think like a software vendor (hint: clinicians are your customers!)

· Have a strong focus on the end user

· Use an iterative model to develop, test and get feedback from users

· If you can’t buy it, build it (don’t hesitate create a capability that works for your organization)

No matter our daily work – as policy makers, business owners, health care professionals, or patient advocates, we should all be focused on the end user, and on iterating. As the health care system continues to change, looking to some of the lessons of the fast moving and customer-focused industry of software development could be a great playbook to follow to improve HIT.

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Who should advise patients about exercise?

By M2|2017-10-08T11:52:28+00:00May 26th, 2017|Health Care Trends, Physician-patient communication, Uncategorized|

Who should advise patients about exercise?

In 2015, 20.9% of Americans exercised as recommended every week. Not sure what that recommendation is?

You’re not alone.

According to the CDC, the average American adult should try to get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of the two. This means walking, running, biking, bowling, gardening, etc.

Less than 21% of Americans actually get this amount of exercise. And several studies show that few people know what the guidelines are, including a British study that shows only 14% of respondents even knew how much exercise they are supposed to get.

We are all busy. It is hard to know what the very latest research says.

But a new study shows the problem may run deeper.

Let’s say you have been diagnosed with cancer and are now undergoing a treatment regimen with an oncology specialist. Would it seem reasonable to ask your doctor for advice on exercise?

A study published in May in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network says just that: “Patients want advice and support about exercise while enduring the physiological and psychological side effects of treatment. Furthermore, they prefer that the exercise recommendations come from the oncology provider.”

The gap between what the patient wanted and what the oncologist did in this small study is instructive. 95% of patients told interviewers they felt physical activity was “very important during their cancer treatment.” When focus groups and individual patients were asked, “From whom and how would you like to receive exercise information?” 80% of participants said they wanted advice from their oncologist. Ideally, the patients said, they’d like their doctor to recommend a home-based exercise program.

But more than half of providers wanted to refer patients to another health care professional for exercise recommendations.

Even discussing exercise options was difficult for oncologists, for several reasons. Time constraints, lack of knowledge of a patient’s fitness level, or what kind of program would be appropriate, cost of rehabilitation, lack of transportation, side effects of treatment (for example, fatigue) were all cited as barriers to oncologists recommending exercise programs.

In this particular study, nearly all of the cancer patients wanted their oncologists to discuss physical activity with them, but in reviewing patient-physician transcripts, the researchers found such conversations were “nonexistent.”

As with many best practices in health care, although the evidence-base supports physical activity for most cancer patients undergoing treatment, that doesn’t mean patients can get reliable information on exercise programs from their trusted heath care professionals. In part, the oncologist does not get paid for this interaction. Even if an exercise therapist or similar health care professional were able to collaborate with the oncologist, it might be difficult for the patient to either attend another doctor’s visit, or pay for such a visit. A “shared-care” clinic visit might work well if the focus is to provide health care provider focused care. But the study indicated what these cancer patients really wanted was a home exercise program.

While policymakers and others talk about “patient-centered care,” when it means moving care from a health care institution to a home setting, or asking a trusted provider to be trained in something he or she may not feel expert in, it is very hard to get the system to do what works best for the patient. Bridging the gap between the system we have and the system we want requires patients and physicians to behave differently, but it also requires payers and health systems to change their ways as well.

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Light Health Care Users: Most Americans Use Few Health Care Resources and Have Low Out-of-Pocket Spending

By M2|2017-10-09T01:49:05+00:00May 23rd, 2017|Health care spending, Health Care Trends, Insurance, Out-of-pocket spending, Uncategorized, What do we pay for and why|

Light Health Care Users: Most Americans Use Few Health Care Resources and Have Low Out-of-Pocket Spending

Every day we read news coverage focused on rapidly rising health care costs, but a seldom-reported part of the story is how very few people are responsible for those costs.

A study of health care costs from 1977 to 2014 shows that over the length of the study period, the top 1 percent of the health care using population consistently cost the system more than the bottom 75 percent. Just 1 percent of the population, in fact, accounts for nearly a third of medical spending.

The study, published in the April 2017 issue of Health Affairs, finds that “most Americans use few health care resources and have low out-of-pocket spending.”

In addition, more than 93 percent of these light spenders (those in the bottom half of the population) believe they have received “all needed care in a timely manner,” and the light spending by the majority of the population “has remained almost unchanged during the thirty-seven-year period.”

This light spending has also remained “unchanged since the inception of the Affordable Care Act (ACA),” as a Medscape article on the study notes.

These findings matter because most health care policy discussions focus on spending at the population level – in other words, on the 1 to 5% of the U.S. population that incurs significant medical costs. That isn’t how individuals think of health spending, however. Most of us think of what we as individuals, or perhaps our family, spends on health care.

Insurance, by design, must include many non-users, so to speak, in order to work. Most of us buy home insurance or car insurance and never use it. That is, we make payments to an insurer in the form of premiums, but we typically don’t have car accidents and don’t have house break-ins or fires. Similarly, most people don’t have much in the way of medical spending.

But if too many light spenders don’t buy insurance, the price of insurance increases for everyone. And in fact, that is what happens.

This chart from the April 2017 Health Affairs article shows that the highest spenders are the most likely to be on public insurance – think Medicaid for the severely disabled – and light spenders are the most likely to be uninsured – they don’t think they need it, and they probably don’t for years and years – until something catastrophic happens.

In terms of out-of-pocket spending, for light spenders in 2014 this figure was just $75 on average, which is less than the $94 (in adjusted 2014 dollars) spent in 1977, the authors find. On the other hand, high spenders averaged $1,096 in out-of-pocket costs. And 50% of light spenders had no spending at all (not including health insurance premiums, if they were insured), whereas only 6.1% of high spenders had none.

As we continue to think about how to improve or change health care insurance, delivery, and payment in the U.S., it is important to remember how few people actually interact with the health care system every year. Even for people buying health insurance, a large proportion of people spend little on actual health care services, and that has remained stable for decades.

This makes some complaints about the Affordable Care Act a little easier to understand. As the study explains, light spenders “as a group are unlikely to receive substantial short term benefits from the Affordable Care Act.”

The question is, what is insurance for? We probably shouldn’t design the entire U.S. health care system for people who don’t need care. But the subtle lines of who pays more, the sick or the well, the old or the young, are something we still need to work out.

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Service Business Model Innovation, an overview of our recently published book chapter

By M2|2017-10-09T02:03:42+00:00March 7th, 2017|Health Care Trends, Uncategorized|

Service Business Model Innovation, an overview of our recently published book chapter

We are proud to announce the publication of Service Business Model Innovation in Healthcare and Hospital Management by Springer. The book includes process innovations and toolkits that can be used to improve value generation and build competitive business architectures in the health care sector.

M2 authors contributed a chapter entitled “Essential Characteristics of Service Business Model Innovation in Healthcare: A Case-Study Approach.” The chapter highlights examples of successful service business model innovation at four different U.S. health systems, based on interviews with leaders from each institution. The next few blog posts will highlight key learnings from the case studies we wrote about Baylor Scott & White Health’s collaboration with The Cleveland Clinic, BJC HealthCare and the BJC Collaborative, the Massachusetts General Physician Organization, and Sutter Health and the Sutter Medical Network.*

Why did we write these cases?
In my work with clients, and as a lecturer for graduate students in public health, I have been given access to two unique viewpoints into the U.S. health care system, and in my opinion, each set of observers need to know more about the other. My clients are often grappling with creating health care system change, but don’t have a roadmap – they often have to create models from scratch. Graduate students, who are often academic learners and professionals in their field, are taught theoretical models or frameworks, but don’t have a good sense of how theory translates into practice.

In addition, the system of delivering and paying for health care in the U.S. is undergoing seismic changes. Some of this change is driven by federal, state and local governments, who pay for about half of all U.S. care, and some of the change is driven by innovation created by the marketplace. Health care organizations that have succeeded in creating service business model innovation in the new world of accountable care, integrated delivery, shared-savings, and value-based approaches have certain characteristics in common.

Based on the case studies we wrote, which represent a range of U.S. geographies, provider types, and collaborative arrangements, we found service business model innovation rests on the pillars of trust, leadership, and cooperation.

Why is innovation needed now?
The health care system is undergoing massive change, no doubt. But why is innovation needed now?

Thomas Robertson, the Executive Vice President of Member Relations and Insights for the University HealthSystem Consortium, an alliance of nonprofit academic medical centers and their affiliated hospitals, wrote in an opinion piece for Academic Medicine in 2015:

“Seemingly lost in the race to manage everything everywhere is the recognition that a very small subset of very sick patients account for the vast majority of health care spending. Any programs, prospective payment systems, or policies designed to curb health care spending must focus on improving the efficiency of complex episodes of care delivered to the sickest subset of the population. Whether a population is defined as a company, a county, or a country, the overwhelming majority of its health care spending comes from a small minority of the individuals, and the bulk of that spending is associated with either largely unavoidable and unpredictable single events or complex episodes of care. Achieving an economically sustainable health care system will require more efficient and effective delivery of those complex episodes of care.”

More efficient and effective delivery of complex care, however, requires a diverse set of providers to work together – which is not how the current system was built, nor is it how most payers reimburse health care practitioners for providing care. In these contexts, a health organization must trust its partners more than ever before.

Our chapter, “Essential Characteristics of Service Business Model Innovation in Healthcare: A Case-Study Approach”, provides a roadmap of the various ways organizations are meeting the challenge to efficiently and effectively deliver complex care by using the key skills of trust, leadership, and cooperation to create service business model innovation in the U.S. health care system. We hope this roadmap serves health care leaders, health care system students, and anyone else interested in creating health care change.

*A special thanks to Dr. Horn (MGPO), Sarah Krevans (Sutter), Dr. Mack (BSW), Sandra Van Trease (BJC) and Dr. Wreden (Sutter) for participating in interviews on behalf of their organizations.

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Everything is Getting Faster, Including Health Care

By M2|2017-10-09T02:06:12+00:00November 15th, 2016|Health Care Trends, Retail Health, Uncategorized|

Everything is Getting Faster, Including Health Care

In Robert Colville’s book released this summer, The Great Acceleration, he explains a variety of ways in which the world is getting faster and faster. It is a worthwhile read and certainly aligns with current demands across the health care system that service times accelerate.

Additionally, the election of Donald J. Trump as 45^th President of the United States on November 9, 2016, and the alignment of Republican majorities or control in Congress with more than half of state legislatures and governorships, is likely to mean rapid changes to health care policy – striking while the iron is hot, so to speak.

Health care corporations are already focused on this trend of acceleration. For example, CVS Health (NYSE: CVS), the large pharmacy chain and pharmacy benefit manager, explained two very interesting acceleration trends in its 2016 third-quarter earnings. The first relates to its retail clinic business. CVS now operates more than 1,100 clinics in 33 states and Washington, D.C., including the retail clinics inside Target (NYSE: TGT) stores. Most news coverage about CVS Health’s earnings focused on the fact that they recently lost their position as a preferred pharmacy provider for some federal government clients. Also of note was that revenues are up nearly 25% for the retail clinic business from last year, and the “Hold My Place in Line” online queuing tool is used by 33% of CVS Health patients.

People might be sick, but they don’t have time to wait in line.

Second, CVS also mentioned the (so far) great customer ratings of its new Curbside Pickup service which was launched in 40 markets and 4,000 stores in September. The graphic below explains the effort.

Source: CVS Health Curbside Pickup

Hopefully people aren’t using the Curbside Pickup app while they drive, but this is certainly meeting the customer where she or he is. If you don’t have time to park, CVS has got you covered.

Walgreens (NYSE: WBA) also made a big foray into speed this summer, announcing a partnership with Mental Health America and MDLive to improve access to mental health services via telehealth. Part of the effort is to help visitors to Walgreens’ website use free screening tools and surveys to determine their mental health status and whether they need additional help. Patients are able to use the online tools then receive referrals to the Mental Health Association website or click to an MDLive telehealth resource called Breakthrough that delivers therapy wherever you are.

The tagline? “Mental Health Therapy From Your Couch.” Or what New York Times bestselling author, Susan Shapiro, has called “Speed Shrinking.” (Shapiro’s Twitter description starts with “Instant-gratification-takes-too-long…”) Health care organizations that don’t keep up will lose customers, lose revenue, lose relevance.

Faster care. More convenience. Accelerated times to serve the (im)patient/customer. Everything is getting faster, including health care. Are you ready?

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