The Digital Patient Ep. 60 - Dr. Judd Hollander: Navigating 9x Growth of Telehealth During COVID-19

Episode 60 of The Digital Patient – Stories from the frontline of Digital Patient Engagement. Show notes 👇

[0:00] Introducing Dr. Judd Hollander, Senior Vice President of Healthcare Delivery Innovation at Thomas Jefferson University;

[2:18] How Dr. Hollander pivoted from emergency medicine clinical research to leading Innovation after taking a sabbatical to examine new ways of delivering healthcare using telemedicine and meeting visionary leaders, Drs. Stephen Klasko and Mark Tykocinski;

[4:20] How Dr. Hollander’s views on telehealth were shaped by CEO Dr. Klasko, who insisted it was all about the patient, not the healthcare system, explaining that consumerism would drive innovation and that it was not about making money today, but looking into the future;

[6:26] Why Dr. Hollander chose to go all-in on telemedicine rather than launching a pilot by sharing the vision with every department in the system, acknowledging there are economies of scale when rolling out technology;

[9:00] Why Dr. Hollander believes it is important for the provider to be bought-into telemedicine as 70% of patient decisions are shaped by the provider (e.g. A patient will not ask for a telehealth visit if it’s not first brought up by their physician);

[11:45] Why Dr. Hollander never considered a pilot for the telemedicine as it requires more work to set up (e.g. Training physicians, Integrating with EMR, establishing workflows, etc.) than to scale as long as its “built for scale” leveraging methods like remote training via video;

[16:00] How Thomas Jefferson University’s telehealth use grew from 10% of patient interactions to well over 90% during COVID-19 which presented new challenges such as vendor license restrictions and forced the team to launch tech solutions without adequate testing;

[19:20] How Dr. Hollander was able see declining COVID-19 rates ahead of time by monitoring the drop in on-demand telehealth visits and why this insight is possible because JeffConnect telemedicine was used to arrange COVID-19 testing;

[22:22] How Dr. Hollander created the National Quality Forum’s Framework for Telehealth Measurement in 2017 and why he would simplify the framework post-COVID to four main tenets: 1) Access; 2) Cost/Finances; 3) Experience; and 4) Effectiveness;

[23:10] Why Dr. Hollander dislikes “diagnostic accuracy of telemedicine” as a measurement since a patient’s diagnosis is determined by a composite of their care and not the visit itself;

[24:21] Why Dr. Hollander believes telemedicine should be compared to the best alternative and not the gold standard as a patient will cancel/no-show an office visit roughly 25% of the time compared to 14% for telemedicine;

[26:30] Why Dr. Hollander is most excited about innovation driven by patients as opposed to the payer since the payer often does not have the patient’s interest in mind;

[31:30] Why Dr. Hollander initially implemented telemedicine to get ahead of value-based care, and how he advises digital leaders across the country to build the foundation for telemedicine so you can scale up when you need it;

[33:33] Why Dr. Hollander believes care in the future is not one-size-fits-all and will follow a hybrid model that caters to the patient’s needs;

Fast 5 / Lightning Round:

What is your favorite book or book you’ve gifted the most?
“The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” by Michael Lewis

Eagles or Cowboys?
“Eagles… But the better question would’ve been Giants vs. Eagles since I’m originally from New York. I switched to the Eagles because my son was friends with Andy Reid’s son.”

Would you rather have Super strength, super speed, or the ability to read people’s minds?
“I am content as is.”

What is something in healthcare you believe that others might find insane?
“The fact doctors have very little say over your healthcare decisions as it’s driven by economics.”

COVID-19 lockdown related – what is 1 hobby or activity you’ve gotten into since the pandemic?
“Tennis, tennis and more tennis!”

[mikestack]

Amazing! Great vision Dr Judd. We have Telenet Doctor that could contribute to EMT and mobile telemedicine clinic.