Client Congress 2019: Celebrating our clients, patient advocates and busting silos

Our annual event is now called Customer Congress. 2023 event details can be found here.

It’s far too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work we do. It’s important work, vital work, but it’s important to take a step back and give space to appreciate and celebrate the clients and partners that are also doing the important work of improving the patient experience and overall healthcare outcomes. Earlier this month we did just that as we came together to celebrate, discuss and learn with our client leaders from health plans, provider organizations, pharmacy and life sciences companies for the 11th annual Inovalon Client Congress. During the two-and-a-half-day conference, we engaged in conversation to address the healthcare industry’s most compelling issues and promising opportunities.

Moderated dynamically by Susan Dentzer, Client Congress gave a voice to renowned keynote speakers and some of the nation’s most prominent healthcare experts as they presented real-world case studies and shared best practices to accelerate speed to value and empower data-driven strategies that impact quality and economics benefiting the entire healthcare ecosystem.

Officially kicking off the event, Inovalon’s CEO, Dr. Keith Dunleavy, spoke about our belief in the power of technology to empower data-driven healthcare and shared three guiding principles for Inovalon and its clients:

• • Breaking down silos
  • Real-time data aggregation and analytics
  • Consumer-centric healthcare that provides greater convenience and control to consumers

Data-sharing and busting silos: Better serving our clients and their members

Noting the importance of transparency across the healthcare industry, Mona Siddiqui (@MonaSiddiquiMD), chief data officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spoke to the projects HHS is working on around population data and the power of sharing data.

HHS is focused on connecting disparate data sources and improving outcomes and the patient experience — something that becomes a true competitive advantage, more so than the actual collection of the data.

Establishing a connected healthcare system through clinical interoperability remains a vital need in today’s healthcare ecosystem, and new and evolving regulations and standards — such as HL7 FHIR® — are creating greater opportunities for data sharing. Client Congress attendees were treated to several dynamic sessions regarding interoperability and data sharing, with lively conversations that will continue with our trusted partners long after the conference.

Using data aggregation and analytics to drive improved health outcomes

Data is uniformly changing how we view — and how we benefit from — healthcare, and Medicare certainly benefits from data and the aggregation of that data through health IT solutions, a point that Dan Mendelson, Inovalon Fellow and Avalere Founder, spoke about when he took to the stage, noting that when we are only truly succeeding in the data discussion when patients ultimately benefit.

Furthering the data conversation, Zak Kohane, M.D., Ph.D. (@zakkohane), Marion V. Nelson Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, led an engaging discussion about predictive medicine and genomics, asking us all to consider the “what ifs” of data analysis.

“What if we better understood the data? What if we liberated the data?  And what if we accepted that patients are partners in their care and in the science behind that care.”

Regardless of how you interact with the healthcare system, all stakeholders share the goal of providing (or receiving) better care — and data plays a key role in accomplishing that goal.

Attendees were also engaged in conversation about artificial intelligence in healthcare — one of the most popular topics in the industry today. We discussed real-world applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare and shared how artificial intelligence solutions can — and in some cases already are — delivering superior insights to drive improved patient outcomes and economic performance.

Consumer-centered care and giving a voice to the patient

While patient-specific care is certainly crucial to successful healthcare delivery, our understanding of the overall health of a patient population also plays a vital role in improving outcomes. Speaking to that, our partners at Johns Hopkins Healthcare Solution discussed the work they are doing around population health and its impact on patient outcomes, including how to target care management and wellness programs to the right patients, at the right time.

Dawn Alley, Ph.D., Director of the Prevention and Population Health Group and Acting Director of the State Innovations Group, CMMI, CMS, discussed the importance of addressing social needs to improve population health. Ms. Alley’s talk was just one of many important Client Congress sessions that focused on how social determinants of health can influence patient care, performance measurement and payment systems and how accounting for factors beyond clinical care is critical to reducing disparities, accurately representing play performance and improving quality.

Patient-centered care demands that we ask for and listen to the patient voice. J.R. Martinez (@iamjrmartinez), Army veteran and patient advocate, certainly proved just how powerful the patient voice is when he took to the stage and shared his perspective and reminded us all that every day is an opportunity to home in on the customer experience and patient experience, closing out the conference with a keynote session that Inovalon employees and clients won’t soon forget.

Our goal throughout our time at Client Congress is to build a customer experience that aligns on the needs of our clients and the challenges they are solving for their businesses, members and patients.

Thank you to our clients for sharing their insight and time with us, and thank you to our guests; YOU make the experience. We look forward to seeing you next year!

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