Livongo founder says the time for ‘piloting’ is over

When telehealth platform Teladoc and continual care management method Livongo merged very last calendar year, the $eighteen.five billion offer rattled the home windows of the digital well being field.  

At the time, Livongo founder and at the time govt chairman Glen Tullman mentioned the goal was to present a 1-cease store for healthcare without losing out on clinician empathy.  

Now, Tullman – who was also CEO of Allscripts for fifteen years and assisted acquire it general public – has moved on to yet yet another new healthcare venture: Transcarent, a platform aimed at overhauling employer self-insurance.

“We want to companion with well being devices throughout the state,” mentioned Tullman at the AVIA Digital Network Summit this week.  

“We assume well being devices are not the problem they are the answer. The problem is in the center,” Tullman continued.   

During a fireplace chat with AVIA CEO and president Linda Finkel, Tullman pointed to what he saw as the disconnect concerning purchaser-facing digital companies, such as Amazon and Uber, and healthcare.  

Apple, for instance, isn’t going to limit their business – or even their goods – to a single function.   

“Most more youthful folks you should not think about an Apple iphone a mobile phone,” he mentioned. “What they’ve finished is established an experience that folks definitely worth.”     

Only in healthcare, he mentioned, do suppliers current you with inconvenient appointments – “specifically when you have to perform” – at from time to time faraway areas.  

And meanwhile, expenditures preserve escalating.  

“If you’re a well being program in the market place and your competitor is greater than you,” he mentioned, “you are not able to try to disguise it.” 

Alternatively, he proposed, innovate to correct the problem – or danger losing out. “At each minute, you’re dropping powering or you’re getting greater,” he mentioned.

He pointed to a fragmented program that can guide to confusion and inefficiencies. His son, for instance, gets insulin to address his Variety one diabetes from 1 company, a pump from yet another and a ongoing glucose watch from a 3rd. He’s insured by a fourth business.

“And that’s just to stay nutritious,” mentioned Tullman – if everything goes improper, his son has to be hospitalized. 

“How could that maybe make feeling?” he puzzled.

The way Tullman sees it, we are at a pivotal minute in digital well being.   

“I feel the subsequent eighteen months will define the subsequent 5 years,” he mentioned. “If you’re not relocating now, you’ve received to stop piloting. You’ve received to stop finding out. You’ve received to jump in,” he mentioned.

General, he mentioned, the folks who matter in the field are these getting served: individuals and their people.  

“How do we empower folks to are living healthier lives?” he requested.

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Health care IT Information.
Twitter: @kjercich
Electronic mail: [email protected]
Health care IT Information is a HIMSS Media publication.