Inside Health Care #124: Targeting Health Equity Gaps with Digital Tools

Quality Matters: A Podcast by NCQA

The course of the Digitalization of Health doesn’t always run smooth. But for every set of pain points a provider might experience, there are companies developing technological solutions – platforms and tools – that not only guide us through digital transformation but identify crucial patient and population data along the way.

In this episode, we talk with two health tech leaders, interviewed during NCQA’s 2023 Health Innovation Summit in Orlando, Florida, about their strategies and successes in using digital tools that can ultimately reveal and resolve gaps in health care delivery.

Sebastian Seiguer, is co-founder and CEO of Scene Health. Scene Health is a company focused on medication “engagement”, a comprehensive approach that means more than just getting patients to take their medicine. They provide personalized medication support by combining video technology, clinical coaching, and validated interventions to improve medication adherence rates. Within the tapestry of their mission is the clear goal of reaching and engaging with diverse, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach populations.

Upendra Patel, CEO of AaNeel Infotech, is finding ways to support clinicians through EHR, or Electronic Health Record, interoperability. AaNeel Infotech worked with Medstar Health to transform an isolated risk calculator into a FHIR-based app. Upendra’s company helped them use the SMART on FHIR methodology. That’s FHIR as in “Fast Health Interoperability Resources” and SMART as in “Substitutable Medical Applications and Reusable Technologies”. Using the SMART on FHIR approach, AaNeel Infotech helped create an app called “Mobilizing a Million Hearts”, which integrates the Million Hearts Longitudinal Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease risk calculator into the MedStar Health EHR system and allows Medstar providers to get an even more comprehensive view of their patients at risk for cardiovascular disease.