The Power of AI: Driving Efficiency and Opportunity in Healthcare with Justin Dearborn, CEO of Praia Health

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Beat Podcast.

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Saul Marquez here recording live from the Vive event in Los Angeles.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Today I have the privilege of hosting Justin Dearborn on the podcast CEO of Praia Health.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the podcast, Justin.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, that bit of ear.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So nice to have you here, Justin.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Look before we kick off the questions.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to just to get a little more information about you and the work you do at Praia.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was brought into Providence in August of last year with really the goal of spinning out Praia Health

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: out of the Digital Innovation Group at Providence.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So this will be the fourth company they've spun out of Providence and whether model works typically is a identified gap in the market,

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_01]: build a solution to play it internally at Providence and measure the results there.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they'll do some voice-acustomer work and determined was this a Providence only problem they saw for it

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_01]: is that they have commercial capability.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: If they determine the latter, then they'll bring in somebody to finish the commercialization steps which involves a raising external funding which we're finishing up that process right now.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And prior to coming to Providence, I ran a patient engagement company for a few years and then a digital healthcare startup before that.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And then spent the majority of my time at a company called Merge Health Care, which was a publicly traded medical imaging company that was required by a VL.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure, very familiar with Merge.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and Praia, do you want to tell us about Praia?

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Super exciting consumer engagement platform.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And Praia lead would fall into a patient engagement but there's a lot of noise in that space and it's pretty broad.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: See if they're really defined with that means.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And what Providence recognized was missing or they couldn't find it the market was a platform to bring together all of the digital point solutions that they had invested in and rolled out in on fashion or another.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: But, and not really a coordinated fashion. So patients were getting messages from different sometimes different numbers if it's text messaging.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And they just weren't a coordinator reach and this platform brings all that together by starting with really ideas of foundation.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So knowing the patient is enriching starting before that knowing that the consumer is through a logged in experience then we really can focus on an end of one personalization.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And leveraging all the investment they made in things like the REMR of course as well as a lot of patient engagement solutions that they deployed over the years.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that. Yeah, that's super interesting sounds fine tuned and certainly like a great solution.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you see digital transformation shaping healthcare delivery in 2024? And what are the main challenges and opportunities this presents?

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Good question.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: In healthcare the challenge is always inertia and just a lot of there's a lot of things fighting for people's time on their schedule and there's a lot of projects to be implemented.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And healthcare moves slower and there's a good reason for that in some cases. I don't want to be the first usually on a new solution.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We have broker that we have two customers which is great, but it's hard to get in the first one in healthcare. So inertia has a lot to play into it tight staff.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The opportunities are really endless and you see that all the way from the big AI push and that's driving a lot of discussion in the market.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: In really what does that lead to automation?

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So a ton of opportunity there to really help health systems, monetize and really capitalize on all the investments they've made in the past and you know coherent fashion something like prior.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like timing is good for this COVID was obviously incredibly difficult for people personally businesses and really it was tough to get attention for something that it's a newer vertical.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So we are evangelizing this. There's a couple providers in the space vendors in the space that should say that are still evangelizing quite a bit. This is not an RFP sale. It's really going in understanding what is

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: the capital system has on their consumer strategy and helping solve that puzzle piece. But it is a multi department sale as well.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It touches clinical marketing strategy so a lot of folks involved but there's lots of opportunities because it's still very early in the market adoption there.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Very interesting and so you're leading the charge at prior health. What value does this company bring to healthcare?

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Great question. So at Providence the way they develop solutions again, they recognize a gap in the market build out and then they have to generate an ROI to keep going with the investments.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: The ROI on this solution really depends on the use cases you enable. So a lot of it comes down to efficiency and self scheduling as well as expanding reach with a patient or consumer.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So on average the in the US adult sees five different providers a year. Most health systems might get one to two of those visits. So how do they keep more that in the system?

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So even if it's not a clinical interaction which a lot of folks are just really accustomed to just interacting with their health system or local hospital when they have a clinical need.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: How do they serve the holistic health and wellness so about 80% of your health and wellness is outside of clinical visit. So how does the well use province in this case Providence really provide a platform for that from all things like wellness visits.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And Providence is case there's a lot of faith based material there's great literature there's great other clinical things that you don't need to in your visit but just health and wellness documentation and information available to folks that a lot of people know it's available. Providence has libraries most health systems have a ton of information like that. So how do that is Providence serve the consumer patient and holistic way he did in between episodic care visits.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a big opportunity. That's where most of the things happen and said to be able to engage in those areas is key. What is the business value of shifting from patient identity to customer identity.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's continuing with that theme a lot of health systems and electronic medical records only recognize you when you become a patient when you're scheduling a visit or you're scheduling a follow up or looking at your lab work really Providence took a holistic view and let's treat folks as consumers first.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So we have multiple different ways to basically identify someone and log them in so give them a log experience without a clinical experience and really that hopefully there are some preventive care that can go into that and they don't become a patient in the end because that's really what the health systems are all about but they can start as a consumer and you might evolve to become a patient but you might not.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But it starts that relationship at the consumer level versus a patient which means you've already scheduled a visit and most cases most the way most EMRs define it.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's quite forward thinking and taking us toward that health care rather than sick care as is commonly said some could see this as a competitor to the EMR. So EMR friend or fo.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Great question and when we get asked every time so we feel we have a better together story Providence is a big epic shop of one of their larger customers and has a great relationship with epic and uses just about everything epic releases.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: In this case we feel like we are enhancement to my chart so my chart is part of the prior experience and prior as white labels he won't know prior as powering the Providence app for instance but.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: We pull through the relevant pieces of my chart that a consumer or a patient wants to a patient wants to see and if you want to schedule a visit and your in the hospitals using epic for scheduling you can punch through to that so we're embedding my chart within that experience.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But then bringing the other non-clinical aspects to health and wellness around that Providence one of the metrics they track is my chart adoption.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course there's fees for that or might try to use it more you more fees you pay that's way epic and most software companies were and they're happy because the ROI on a my chart user was off the charts not to use upon but so they're happy to pay for that we're actually helping with a little we're taking a little friction out of that adoption and they measured 17% additional my chart adoption.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And using prior good for epic good for health system good for patients good for us so we do think it's a better together story but epic does obviously provide some of these things but again we look at the the entire health and wellness picture.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate that response has the organization working to ensure that advancements in health care technology are accessible and equitable particularly for underserved or rural communities.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So just like the all the push for infrastructure improvements for rural areas I think that really took off during COVID one of the positives maybe.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They came out of that was a telehealth and every health services to go around that's the adoption of digital i think is proven there's lots of different metrics for that but to help under serve communities whether they're transportation challenged.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: They are don't live near a hospital so I think just the adoption and we're helping focus and streamline the delivery of those digital tools I think most people would say digital adoption does benefit.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Folks who traditionally weren't part of the health system and hopefully can help us preventive care and part of our ecosystem strategy we're bringing on.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: For some really cool companies that I will say for our press release coming up but they do really cool stuff like food delivery transportation work with underserved communities.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: They'll come in and build a ramp for someone who needs that service and out of feature house for someone to become disabled so really cool services that again we'll serve up through the app and frankly i didn't know some of those things were available and i think a lot of people didn't broader.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm feeling that i think is beneficial to everybody.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Well you guys are definitely doing a fantastic job just in with inclusion as well as helping people stay healthy really excited about what you guys have going on with prior.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And the work that you'll do moving forward.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being on and if you were to leave the listeners with the closing thought what would you leave them with.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow good question i think health care moves slowly but it feels like we're at a really interesting inflection point with a.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to drive a lot of it and for the better for in health care there's a lot of talk about of course a i and good or bad but i think in health care it's really positive and most.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's been a lot of people who are in this space are really doing it for all the good reasons so i think it's being applied for the for the benefit everyone and really.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And overuse term really is democratizing health care and all the digital solutions that available folks who never access it there's a lot of cool stuff happening and it's it's happening fast.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah it certainly is and just and just want to say thanks for being with us today it's been a pleasure thank you.