/ en Sat, 14 Jun 2025 02:36:11 -0500 Tue, 10 Jun 25 06:15:00 -0500 /center/community-health-improvement-week Mon, 09 Jun 2025 07:00:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-06-10-5-ways-equip-your-chro-success <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/5-Ways-to-Equip-Your-CHRO-for-Success.png" data-entity-uuid="f301f353-d34d-4779-be2b-af7133a66372" data-entity-type="file" alt="5 Ways to Equip Your CHRO for Success. The hand of a Chief Human Resources Office clicks on a the keyboard of a laptop that show icons of the five new crucial functions of HR leaders: HR Functional Expert; Talent Strategist; Culture Ambassador; Change Agent; and Strategic Connector." width="1200" height="751"><p>Like so many leadership positions in health care, the roles of a chief human resources officer (CHRO) and chief people officer are becoming increasingly challenging and complex.</p><p>This has led many hospitals and health systems to expand the scope of human resources (HR) to encompass a broader range of roles, functions, operations and technologies, notes a recent <a href="https://wittkieffer.com/insights/the-multifaceted-role-of-chros-in-us-healthcare-delivery-how-the-evolving-role-of-chros-helps-drive-transformation-in-healthcare" target="_blank" title="WiffKieffer: The Multifaceted Role of CHROs in US Healthcare Delivery">WiffKieffer report</a>.</p><h2>5 Facets to the New CHRO Leadership Model</h2><p>The new CHRO model WittKieffer leaders propose focuses on five crucial functions for HR leaders:</p><h3>HR Functional Expert</h3><p>Functional excellence requires health care CHROs to be proactive in developing future-focused approaches to HR functions that are responsive to workforce shifts and keep pace with new human capital demands. It also includes championing tech-driven transformation in leveraging technology to streamline HR processes and enhance the employee experience, including using AI for talent acquisition, data analytics for strategic talent planning, virtual reality for training and development, and more.</p><h3>Talent Strategist</h3><p>CHROs need to advance and assume a lead role in redesigning health care work. This includes redefining job descriptions, reassessing workflows, cross-training team members and implementing new tools and systems to improve efficiency and quality of care, the authors explain.</p><h3>Culture Ambassador</h3><p>The CEO remains responsible for setting the desired organizational culture, but the CHRO should partner in bringing to life a culture that is engaging, promotes innovation and delivers top clinical and business performance. The CHRO communicates the organization’s vision and values to health care professionals and works with business partners, front-line managers and clinical leaders to cascade and embed culture consistently throughout the health system or hospital.</p><h3>Change Agent</h3><p>Modern CHROs lead and champion organizational transformation initiatives while strategically addressing barriers to adoption and cultivating an environment of readiness for changes among all teammates. They need experience in developing effective change management plans, communicating them clearly and inspiring team members to adopt and utilize changes.</p><h3>Strategic Connector</h3><p>With the rise of partnerships and external collaborations, CHROs must build purpose-driven connections with institutions inside and outside health care to learn best practices for more effective and efficient HR functions. This includes collaborating with educational institutions to establish talent pipelines, partnering with technology companies for digital solutions and working with other providers for shared services.</p><h2>How to Equip CHROs for Success</h2><p>Here are some recommendations from WittKieffer to help CHROs navigate health care’s evolving landscape, seize opportunities and address leadership challenges effectively.</p><h3>HR Functional Expert</h3><ul><li><strong>Stay ahead of the curve.</strong> Proactively develop future-focused approaches to HR functions that are responsive to shifts and keep pace with new human capital demands. Keep up to date on the latest innovations and trends in HR functions inside and outside health care.</li><li><strong>Champion tech-driven information.</strong> Embrace digital transformation and artificial intelligence integration. Stay current on the latest technological advancements and proactively integrate them into HR strategies to support more cost-effective and innovative HR operations.</li></ul><h3>Talent Strategist</h3><ul><li><strong>Develop innovative talent acquisition strategies.</strong> Likewise, focus on retention programs and learning and development opportunities to attract and retain top talent. Position your organization as a talent magnet.</li><li><strong>Prioritize succession planning.</strong> Concentrate on long-term leadership continuity and sustained organizational success. Identify strategically vital roles — existing and emerging — and identify high-potential talent for those roles. Provide them with the needed training and development opportunities to prepare them for future leadership roles.</li><li><strong>Embrace change.</strong> Proactively redesign roles and work to ensure that your organization is well-positioned to meet future challenges. Stay ahead of the curve and enhance your organization’s brand as a field leader to attract top talent.</li></ul><h3>Culture Ambassador</h3><ul><li><strong>Align with organizational goals.</strong> Partner with the CEO to set the desired organizational culture, ensuring that it aligns with business and talent objectives and supports the business strategy.</li><li><strong>Prioritize safety.</strong> Make patient and workforce safety a core cultural value. Prioritize physical and psychological safety by implementing prevention and control standards, policies and strategies to mitigate safety hazards.</li><li><strong>Lead with compassion.</strong> Foster a culture where all teammates feel recognized, appreciated and involved.</li></ul><h3>Change Agent</h3><ul><li><strong>Involve teammates in the change process.</strong> Engage them by soliciting their input and feedback to increase buy-in and reduce resistance to change. Consider nominating champions who can act as change accelerators and message multipliers.</li><li><strong>Address change fatigue.</strong> Prioritize the most critical changes and communicate clearly the reasons for each change. Proactively identify legacy processes or procedures that may hinder change or create confusion around the desired behaviors and outcomes of change initiatives and focus on them. Show empathy and provide support, resources and opportunities for rest and recovery.</li></ul><h3>Strategic Connector</h3><ul><li><strong>Build a compelling business case.</strong> To secure C-suite buy-in and resources for HR initiatives, prepare a business case that demonstrates the value of these initiatives. Quantify their impact on clinical and operations performance, demonstrate their return on investment, provide a framework for measuring the success of HR initiatives and make adjustments as needed.</li><li><strong>Build a network of peers.</strong> To stay current on best practices, emerging trends in HR and key leadership topics, build a network of peers or a community of practice with other HR leaders in health care and other fields, as well as experts in talent management, organizational development and other relevant fields.</li></ul></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 10 Jun 2025 06:15:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-06-10-violence-costs-hospitals-staggering-18-billion-2023-aha-report <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Violence-Costs-Hospitals-a-Staggering-18-Billion-in-2023-AHA-Report.png" data-entity-uuid="f08c5cbf-977e-436d-8f33-e3fd3345f401" data-entity-type="file" alt="Violence Costs Hospitals a Staggering $18 Billion in 2023: AHA Report. A clinician in scrubs with his hands held up to stop violence stands behind glass with bullet holes in it." width="1200" height="629"><p>Studies show that over the past 10 years, rates of assault, homicide, suicide and firearm violence have been increasing in the U.S., bringing with them huge costs to hospitals.</p><p>Further, violence increased during the COVID-19 pandemic including rates of intimate partner violence, suicide, firearm violence and workplace violence toward health care workers, and have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.</p><p>The AHA recently released a comprehensive <a href="/costsofviolence">report</a> that measures the substantial financial resources hospitals and health systems spend on preventing and responding to violence in their facilities and communities.</p><p>Prepared by Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center, part of the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, the report analyzes the financial costs and broader impacts of violence and threatening behavior and found that the total financial cost of violence to hospitals in 2023 was estimated at $18.27 billion. These costs include health care treatment for victims, security staffing for health care facilities, and violence prevention programs and training, among other costs.</p><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Percentage-breakdown-of-estimated-2023-violence-costs.jpg" data-entity-uuid="dbac361f-a178-4acf-808c-8942d555bdfd" data-entity-type="file" alt="Percentage breakdown of estimated 2023 violence costs to U.S. hospitals and health systems (by pre- and post-event and component costs). Health care for fatal and nonfatal injuries: 72.1%. Post-event: 80.2%. Pre-event: 19.8%." width="1411" height="975" class="align-center"><p>“It is an unacceptable reality that those who dedicate their lives to healing should face the threat of violence,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “We know the enormous human and emotional toll violence takes on our communities and caregivers. This report goes beyond that to break down the significant related financial costs incurred upon hospitals and health systems. With the increase in violent events within clinical settings across the country, the resources needed to protect hospital workers and care for victims has grown exponentially. Every member of the health care team bears an enormous risk and burden of this violence. This report is yet another reminder we must do more to protect them.”</p><p>Researchers said that hospitals in 2023 spent $3.62 billion in pre-event costs to cover things like training and violence prevention programs, tech investments to monitors possible events and security personnel and staffing. Other pre-event expenses included facility modification to prevent and mitigate harms, outreach to build public trust, and policy and procedure development.</p><p>Post-event costs totaled $14.6 billion, including more than $13 billion in health care costs for fatal and nonfatal injuries.</p><h2>Learn More</h2><p>Visit the <a href="/hospitals-against-violence-havhope">AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence webpage</a> to find examples and best practices in the field about workplace and community violence and other resources to address these issues.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 10 Jun 2025 06:00:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-06-03-3-health-care-takeaways-google-io-2025 <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/3-Health-Care-Takeaways-from-Google-IO-2025.png" data-entity-uuid="b23e93d4-46a0-4e5e-b31c-f6462add9566" data-entity-type="file" alt="3 Health Care Takeaways from Google I/O 2025. The logo for Google I/O 2025 conference." width="1200" height="751"><p>It was no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) dominated news coming out of last month’s <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-io-2025-all-our-announcements/" target="_blank" title="Google: 100 things we announced at I/O">Google I/O 2025</a>, the tech giant’s annual developer conference.</p><p>And as in past conferences, excitement abounded about where AI is headed and how fast some of the grandest visions for the technology’s promise could be realized. Here’s a rundown of what grabbed our attention.</p><h2>Could AGI Really Be Here in Five Years?</h2><p>Google's co-founder Sergey Brin and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis shared slightly different projections about whether artificial general intelligence (AGI) would arrive by 2030 or slightly later.</p><p>AGI generally has been understood to mean AI that matches or surpasses most human capabilities, which could have potentially huge implications for health care and other fields.</p><p>The trouble is, AGI remains somewhat of a unicorn. Plenty of tech gurus and AI developers can describe AGI, but no consensus exists on what it would look like or how it could change lives once it gets here, notes a recent <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/google-sergey-brin-demis-hassabis-agi-2030" target="_blank" title="Axios: Google leaders see AGI arriving around 2030">Axios report</a>.</p><p>Hassabis predicts developers likely will need a couple more big breakthroughs to get to AGI. One of those breakthroughs already may have been partially achieved via reasoning approaches that Google, OpenAI and others unveiled recently, he said.</p><h3>Takeaway</h3><p>AGI developments bear watching in health care, regardless at what pace they occur. And make no mistake. Experts believe AGI has a future in all fields — whether that’s two, five or 10 years from now. AGI's self-learning can transform health care, improving diagnoses and personalized treatments. However, its integration presents regulatory, ethical and public perception challenges.</p><h2>MedGemma Could Speed Development of Health AI Apps</h2><p>The launch of <a href="https://deepmind.google/models/gemma/medgemma/" target="_blank" title="DeepMind: MedGemma homepage">MedGemma</a>, an open model for multimodal medical text and image comprehension, has the potential to accelerate development of new health applications.</p><p>It is designed to be a starting point for developers building such applications as analyzing radiology images or summarizing clinical data, and its small size makes it efficient for fine-tuning specific needs. When evaluated on the <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.13081" target="_blank" title="What Disease does this Patient Have? A Large-scale Open Domain Question Answering Dataset from Medical Exams">MedQA benchmark</a>, its baseline performance on clinical knowledge and reasoning tasks is similar to that of larger models, Google states.</p><p>MedGemma follows on the heels of Google’s Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer (AMIE) launch last year. AMIE is a research AI system based on a large language model that is optimized for diagnostic reasoning and conversations. Google says it trained and evaluated AMIE along many dimensions that reflect quality in real-world clinical conversations from the perspective of both clinicians and patients.</p><p>To scale AMIE across a multitude of disease conditions, specialties and scenarios, Google developed a self-play-based simulated diagnostic dialog environment with automated feedback mechanisms to enrich and accelerate its learning process.</p><h3>Takeaway</h3><p>Speeding development of medical AI programs is important, but experts note that users must remain diligent in testing programs for the possibility of errors, privacy breaches, biases in decision-making and potential replacement of human judgment.</p><h2>An AI operating system to enhance efficiency</h2><p>Google outlined how its Search with <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/ai-mode-search/" target="_blank" title="Google: Expanding AI Overviews and introducing AI Mode">AI Mode</a> powered by Gemini 2.5 (an experimental tool at this point) could help health care organizations improve operational efficiency, improve the patient experience and support better clinical outcomes. A <a href="https://medium.com/@rstechcreations2020/gemini-2-5-pro-vs-complex-clinical-notes-you-wont-believe-how-well-it-did-978c21c2e75f" target="_blank" title="Medium: Gemini 2.5 Pro vs Complex Clinical Notes: You Won’t BELIEVE How Well It Did!">new report</a> shows one health care AI expert’s experiments with Gemini 2.5.</p><p>The AI Mode rollout to all U.S. users employs Gemini 2.5’s advanced reasoning, multimodal capabilities and contextual understanding to handle complex, longer queries (two to three times longer than traditional searches) and ask follow-up questions. It provides conversational answers rather than traditional link-based results.</p><p>Google’s Deep Search, meanwhile, breaks down queries, performs web exploration, iteratively browses and synthesizes information into structured responses or reports. AI Mode incorporates Deep Search, which analyzes hundreds of sources in real time to generate comprehensive research reports, enhancing its utility for in-depth queries.</p><h3>Takeaway</h3><p>Potential use cases include image classification, clinical reports, summarization, triage and medical Q&A. The models are for research, not clinical use, requiring developers to validate and adapt them before deployment. Google states that health care users can use Deep Search to assist physicians in summarizing a patient’s medical history across multiple providers, analyzing lab results and other tests, while generating a comprehensive overview to support decision-making.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } h3 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 03 Jun 2025 06:15:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-06-03-why-rural-hospitals-may-have-some-advantages-drive-tech-innovation <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Why-Rural-Hospitals-May-Have-Some-Advantages-to-Drive-Tech-Innovation.png" data-entity-uuid="bb0adbd4-9ef7-48af-89da-1fc1b74bdad5" data-entity-type="file" alt="Why Rural Hospitals May Have Some Advantages to Drive Tech Innovation. A clinician with a stethoscope around her neck, wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard stands in a rural field of grain. Around her is a mandala of AI circuits." width="1200" height="751"><p>Rural hospitals and health systems may not have the size, resources or scale of their urban and academic medical center counterparts, but they have ideal traits to help spur technology innovation.</p><p>Rural health organizations offer the agility, practicality and a culture of creative problem-solving, <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/industry-voices-plan-do-study-disrupt-how-rural-hospitals-can-power-innovation" target="_blank" title="Fierce Healthcare Industry Voices: Plan, do, study, disrupt—how rural hospitals can power innovation">notes Jason Cohen, M.D., in a recent blog</a>. Cohen, formerly chief medical officer at North Valley Hospital in Montana, is now chief medical officer-inpatient for <a href="https://www.qventus.com/" target="_blank" title="Qventus">Qventus</a>, a tech company providing AI-powered care operations automation software to improve health system efficiency.</p><p>Rural hospitals, by necessity, are experts in working “lean,” Cohen writes. “They typically lack the resources of larger systems, but their experience of doing more with less makes them understanding partners for startups.”</p><p>Feedback loops also run deeper in rural settings, he notes. Providers and patients are used to more personal, face-to-face interactions — and often are more generous with their time and insights. Though the volume of interactions may be lower, the quality is higher, offering sharper, more actionable feedback for startups, Cohen adds.</p><h2>How Rural Hospitals Can Advocate for Innovation</h2><p>Cohen offers the following suggestions for ways rural hospitals can become advocates for innovation to drive greater tech advances that can lead to greater efficiency in the field.</p><ol class="red"><li class="red"><strong>Develop in-house expertise</strong> across clinical, technical and operational teams. This helps rural systems become active co-creators of solutions.</li><li class="red"><strong>Step into startup spaces</strong> such as digital health summits and health conferences like the <a href="https://ruralconference.aha.org/" target="_blank" title="AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference">AHA Rural Health Leadership Conference</a>.</li><li class="red"><strong>Build innovation coalitions</strong> across hospitals to attract startups that need broader populations to develop their products. Innovation partnerships thrive on mutual readiness, and rural systems that show up informed, organized and curious can help steer solutions that can work for them and others in the field.</li></ol></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } ol.red li.red::marker { color: #9d2235; font-weight: bold; } Tue, 03 Jun 2025 06:00:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /center/team-training/courses-and-workshops/essentials-virtual Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:25:41 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-05-27-where-are-amazon-cvs-and-walgreens-headed-health-care <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Where-Are-Amazon-CVS-and-Walgreens-Headed-in-Health-Care.png" data-entity-uuid="2e0f6ea1-bcb6-47b6-9545-3655b2b9a488" data-entity-type="file" alt="Where Are Amazon, CVS and Walgreens Headed in Health Care? Sunset at a crossroads with a signpost that has CVS, Amazon, and Walgreens signs with arrows pointing in different directions." width="1200" height="751"><p>The forecasts of health care increasingly being delivered by large, privately held or publicly traded retail pharmacies and other companies have taken a detour. Many of these companies are now rethinking their health care strategies.</p><p>Some once-ballyhooed health care disruptors are licking their financial wounds after multibillion-dollar investments in primary care outlets and other businesses didn’t pan out as planned. As a result, some are significantly scaling back or exiting delivery of primary care services altogether.</p><p>Three of the largest players in this space — Amazon, CVS Health and Walgreens — still grab plenty of headlines as they continue to reshape their respective health care visions. Where are they headed? Recent developments with each company offer some insights.</p><h2><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Amazons-3-Health-Care-Priorities.png" data-entity-uuid="35cd97a6-c086-41a0-ba33-fa24f2950b33" data-entity-type="file" alt="Amazon’s 3 Health Care Priorities. Amazon boxes stacked up." width="75" height="97" class="align-left">Amazon’s 3 Health Care Priorities</h2><p>The e-commerce giant has several priorities for this year, including:</p><h3><span>1.</span> Expanding Amazon Pharmacy.</h3><p>The company plans to add same-day delivery to 20 more cities by the end of the year, more than doubling its current reach. This expansion will make same-day delivery of prescription medications available to nearly half (45%) of U.S. customers by the end of 2025, according to Amazon.</p><h3><span>2.</span> Growing One Medical.</h3><p>These brick-and-mortar and virtual care operations provide same- or next-day appointments through Amazon. One Medical is partnering with <a href="https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2024/10/21/cleveland-clinic-and-amazon-one-medical-announce-collaboration-to-expand-access-to-high-quality-coordinated-care-in-the-cleveland-area" target="_blank" title="Cleveland Clinic Newsroom: Cleveland Clinic and Amazon One Medical Announce Collaboration to Expand Access to High-Quality Coordinated Care in the Cleveland Area">Cleveland Clinic</a> and Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey to open primary care facilities in their areas. The new locations also will offer each system’s patients on-site lab services and wraparound virtual support for members. The <a href="https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/en/news/2025/03/11/amazon-one-medical-opens-its-first-primary-care-office-in-new-jersey" target="_blank" title="Hackensack Meridian Health News: Amazon One Medical Opens Its First Primary Care Office In New Jersey">Hackensack location</a>, which opened in March, will expand access to comprehensive care, including chronic disease management.</p><h3><span>3.</span> Further developing artificial intelligence (AI) for health care.</h3><p>Amazon and Nvidia are collaborating by combining Amazon's cloud infrastructure (AWS) and health care services with Nvidia's AI and accelerated computing capabilities. This wide-ranging partnership is helping to accelerate drug discovery, support AI infrastructure and computer power, while delivering enhanced AI-powered medical imaging.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>Effectively tying together its health care-related businesses and partnering with more hospitals and health systems will be critical to Amazon’s long-term growth prospects in the field. If successful, Amazon can make good on its plans to deliver a sustainable approach to offering retail primary care and wraparound services at a low price point with easy access — even if it ends up being on a less grand scale than it once hoped.</p><h2><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/CVS-Health-Targets-Cost-Cutting-While-Refocusing-Aetna.png" data-entity-uuid="15ddf908-7880-42b9-8b46-2cf0060bb6fd" data-entity-type="file" alt="CVS Health Targets Cost Cutting While Refocusing Aetna. A CVS basked filled with personal health items." width="75" height="97" class="align-left">CVS Health Targets Cost Cutting While Refocusing Aetna</h2><p>Although committed to keeping all its health care businesses, CVS Health has been busy over the past year working to reduce costs, adjusting the focus of its Aetna insurance division and strengthening its pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) business Caremark.</p><p>CVS stated earlier this month that it again will <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/cvs-aetna-exit-aca-novo-nordisk-wegovy-deal/746833/" target="_blank" title="Healthcare Dive: CVS plans to exit ACA individual exchanges, strikes Wegovy deal with Novo Nordisk">stop offering plans for individuals on the Affordable Care Act exchanges</a> in 2026. The move will enable CVS to focus on more profitable business lines. The news came after the company projected significant losses in the business line this year. Aetna had exited the ACA market entirely in 2017 but returned in 2022 as the exchanges settled down.</p><p>CVS, like its peers, also has faced rising costs across its Medicare plans, but the hit was more pronounced because the company enrolled the highest number of new members under the plans, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/cvs-healths-turnaround-efforts-focus-amid-record-high-medical-costs-2025-02-11/" target="_blank" title="Reuters: CVS Health's turnaround efforts in focus amid record-high medical costs">Reuters recently reported</a>.</p><p>Addressing these and other rising expenses is part of CVS’ plans announced last August to reduce costs by $2 billion in the coming years. The company’s plans also call for strengthening its Caremark PBM business through CVS CostVantage and TrueCost.</p><p>These programs aim to increase transparency in pricing, provide more stable access to the national pharmacy network and offer clients flexibility in choosing pharmacy benefit models.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>Despite CVS Health’s recent strong Q1 financial results, some analysts believe all aspects of the company’s business have become more challenging. Investors will be watching closely over the coming year to see how CVS executes on its efforts to streamline its health care operations.</p><h2><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Walgreens-Tries-to-Reposition-Its-Health-Focus.png" data-entity-uuid="5403598e-eb37-4f3b-bacb-64a0b4a7cf9b" data-entity-type="file" alt="Walgreens Tries to Reposition Its Health Focus. A Walgreens sign in one of the company's stores parking lot." width="75" height="98" class="align-left">Walgreens Tries to Reposition Its Health Focus</h2><p>Speculation has been rampant about how the retail pharmacy ultimately will recast its lot in health care. A report in March by the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9087ffb1-24d5-4adc-8a57-ef123d4c4c63" target="_blank" title="Financial Times: Walgreens Boots buyout to lay groundwork for three-way split of group">Financial Times</a> stated that Walgreens’ parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, would divide into three businesses.</p><p>This would involve selling or spinning off Boots UK, which has more than 1,800 stores overseas ranging from local community pharmacies to large destination health and beauty stores.</p><p>Walgreens’ U.S. retail pharmacies would be separated into a second company. A third company would include its fast-growing specialty pharmacy business, which the company highlighted last year as a $24 billion enterprise.</p><p>The Financial Times report came on the heels of the private equity firm Sycamore Partners entering into an agreement to acquire Walgreens Boots Alliance for $10 billion. The sale is expected to close later this year.</p><p>Meanwhile, after investing more than $6 billion to take a controlling stake in primary care provider VillageMD, Walgreens has scaled back dramatically on this enterprise and reportedly has been seeking a buyer for the business. Walgreens also has scaled back its stake in the drug distributor Cencora from 10% to 6%, which generated about $300 million in proceeds.</p><p>Now, as Walgreens continues to close less-profitable stores and take aggressive cost-cutting measures, it along with CVS Health have been purchasing some of the more than 1,000 pharmacies Rite Aid sold as it undergoes bankruptcy for a second time.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>It seems clear that Walgreens’ future in health care will center more narrowly on its pharmacy business, health and wellness, and being a resource for its customers’ health needs outside of being a provider of primary care services. But unlike CVS Health, Walgreens does not have a PBM or an insurance company to help steer business to its pharmacies. The next year will be revealing as to how large an impact Walgreens will have in health care going forward.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } h4 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 27 May 2025 06:15:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-05-27-digital-health-funding-surges-q1-ai-leading-way <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Digital-Health-Funding-Surges-in-Q1-with-AI-Leading-the-Way.png" data-entity-uuid="734cd6d5-6942-4131-9c5b-726f64e0d487" data-entity-type="file" alt="Digital Health Funding Surges in Q1, with AI Leading the Way. The hand of a venture capitalist inserts funding into a AI hospitals building." width="1200" height="751"><p>Digital health funding, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) companies, surged 47% in Q1 over the previous quarter, even as deal volume slipped 9%, according to a recent <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/ai-trends-q1-2025/" target="_blank" title="CB Insights: State of AI Q1’25 Report">CB Insights report</a>.</p><p>This underscores a broader venture capital trend: Investors are making fewer bets but writing larger checks.</p><p>Investments reached the highest level since mid-2022 despite contraction in contract deal volume. The divergence can be attributed to a more selective funding environment, with capital concentrating around established companies, particularly those leveraging AI for specialized health care applications, the report explains.</p><h2>3 Takeaways from the Report</h2><h3><span>1</span> <span>|</span> Megarounds are back, and AI is claiming most of them.</h3><p>Funding from megarounds ($100 million-plus deals) rose to $2.5 billion across 11 deals in Q1, capturing 46% of all digital health funding. AI-focused startups secured eight of the 11 megarounds, signaling where investors expect outsized returns.</p><h3><span>2</span> <span>|</span> AI companies are capturing more than half of digital health funding.</h3><p>AI startups raised $3.2 billion in Q1, or 60% of all digital funding, the report states — up from 41% in 2024. Top-funded segments included AI-derived small molecule drug discovery and clinical documentation tools, underscoring the shift toward targeted, high-impact applications.</p><h3><span>3</span> <span>|</span> Unicorn creation rebounds, driven by AI-native platforms.</h3><p>Digital health saw six new unicorns in Q1 (companies with more than $1 billion in value) — more than in all of 2024. With half of these investments focused on AI related to provider workflows, the data suggest that investor conviction is highest where AI directly supports care delivery.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 27 May 2025 06:00:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-05-20-3-ways-engage-todays-health-consumers <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/3-Ways-to-Engage-Todays-Health-Consumers.png" data-entity-uuid="3cd918d2-3637-41b0-a692-84288081e6fb" data-entity-type="file" alt="3 Ways to Engage Today’s Health Consumers. A clinician, a patient, and a patient's family member compare results from the patient's wearable medical device and a data on a mobile phone telemedicine app." width="1200" height="751"><p>As consumers take a more active role in their health, their relationships with hospitals and health systems continue to evolve.</p><p>This new landscape, replete with consumers having unprecedented access to health data through wearable devices, remote monitoring and other technologies, is causing some organizations to more closely examine their engagement strategies and tactics.</p><p>Likewise, with Americans’ expectations and behaviors continuing to shift when it comes to how they monitor and act on their health concerns, today’s environment requires a deeper understanding of consumers.</p><h2>A ‘Lightning’ Response to Assessment</h2><p>The <a href="https://cbc.ict.usc.edu/" target="_blank" title="USC Center for Body Computing homepage">USC Center for Body Computing</a>, for example, has developed digital research software called the <a href="https://ict.usc.edu/research/projects/the-lightning-platform-cbc/" target="_blank" title="USC Institute for Creative Technologies: The Lightning Platform (CBC)">Lightning Platform</a> that continually assesses a person’s self-reported psychological state and can measure cognitive status dynamically.</p><p>These datasets, when integrated, provide measures of holistic health and help to drive a deeper understanding of their relatedness in the moment or as a trend. This provides individuals with data and insights to make the best health and human performance decisions.</p><p>Because these tools measure the consumer continuously, the line between health and disease states blurs. This requires a redefinition of health and human performance that is much more individualized and dynamic, researchers suggest in a recent <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12059502/" target="_blank" title="National Library of Medicine—Journal of Medical Internet Research: Health Care 2025: How Consumer-Facing Devices Change Health Management and Delivery">study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research</a>. This de-siloing of health and disease, they say, presents significant challenges for a health care system built and defined largely by what happens inside a medical facility to patients who are sick.</p><h2>Building a More Consumer-Centric Organization</h2><p>With each passing year, as consumers feel more empowered to manage their health and have greater access to technology to monitor and act on their conditions, their behaviors continue to change. Data from the recently released <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/engaging-the-evolving-us-healthcare-consumer-and-improving-business-performance" target="_blank" title="McKinsey & Company: Engaging the evolving US healthcare consumer and improving business performance">Consumer Health Insights survey</a> from McKinsey & Company highlight evolving behavioral shifts.</p><p>Survey respondents reported low to medium satisfaction with many steps in their health care journeys, data revealed. For example, nearly 70% expressed satisfaction with how they receive care, the follow-up process with their providers and managing how prescriptions are filled. Areas such as ease of finding care, managing their own health and wellness, and saving and paying for care scored below 60% satisfaction.</p><p>No silver bullet exists for the best way to respond to some of these issues, the report’s authors explain. An organization-wide strategy is needed, because the range of experiences that consumers in the survey noted as needing attention are multifactorial and cross-organizational silos. This takes time and focus, the report concludes. Change begins with developing cross-functional capabilities, building the governance structure to support the transformation and embedding a consumer-centric culture.</p><h2>3 Tactical Shifts the Report’s Authors Recommend</h2><ol><li>Set a strategic vision that captures the overall value at stake and propels the organization to change its culture and ways of thinking about consumers.</li><li>Adopt an agile, consumer-centered operating model to refine innovations by using a test-and-learn model.</li><li>Build consumer-centric capabilities to reach and respond to consumers more effectively — by investing in, for example, defined metrics and personalized communications.</li></ol><p>By surprising and delighting consumers in multiple ways over the course of a year, an organization can change even long-held attitudes and opinions, the authors state.</p><h2>3 Ways to Better Engage Consumers</h2><h3><span>1</span> <span>|</span> Direct consumers to more expedient options.</h3><p>While some consumers prefer to be loyal to their current physicians, many will choose to visit a new provider if they encounter difficulties in scheduling appointments with their preferred doctors. This highlights health systems’ opportunity to invest further in improving timely access — for example, by optimizing capacity through dynamic scheduling and increasing virtual or walk-in options.</p><h3><span>2</span> <span>|</span> Become the trusted source of published medical information.</h3><p>While physicians are still the most trusted source for health information, health information websites come in second, according to McKinsey research. Since consumers find value in the type of content they find on health information websites, hospitals and health systems could consider publishing their own or licensing third-party content. High-quality content can better inform consumers, increase engagement and build brand loyalty, the authors suggest.</p><h3><span>3</span> <span>|</span> Augment the health care journey with integrated digital solutions.</h3><p>Survey respondents expressed interest in digital products, particularly those that enable health information sharing with doctors, provide personalized health tips and support adherence to a doctor’s recommendations. “This suggests an opportunity for health care organizations to work with tech companies to integrate relevant tools seamlessly into health care journeys,” the authors conclude.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 20 May 2025 06:15:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-05-20-can-selfie-really-estimate-ones-age-and-predict-cancer-outcomes <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Can-a-Selfie-Really-Estimate-Ones-Age-and-Predict-Cancer-Outcomes.png" data-entity-uuid="afa72536-8042-449d-a202-58645edf2d27" data-entity-type="file" alt="Can a Selfie Really Estimate One's Age and Predict Cancer Outcomes? A man standing in front of a background of cancer cells holds up his mobile phone and takes a selfie of himself." width="1200" height="751"><p>Eyes may be the window to the soul, but a person’s biological age could be reflected in their facial characteristics in photos, according to investigators from <a href="https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en" target="_blank" title="Mass General Brigham homepage">Mass General Brigham</a>.</p><p>The researchers have developed a deep learning algorithm called <a href="https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/press-releases/ai-face-photos-tool-estimate-age-predict-cancer-outcomes" target="_blank" title="Mass General Brigham: AI Tool Uses Face Photos to Estimate Biological Age and Predict Cancer Outcomes">FaceAge</a> that uses a photo of a person’s face to predict biological age and survival outcomes for cancer patients.</p><p>They found that patients with cancer, on average, had a higher FaceAge than those without and appeared about five years older than their chronological age. Older FaceAge predictions were associated with worse overall survival outcomes across multiple cancer types.</p><p>They also found that FaceAge outperformed clinicians in predicting short-term life expectancies of patients receiving palliative radiotherapy, according to results published in <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(25)00042-1/fulltext" target="_blank" title="The Lancet Digital Health: FaceAge, a deep learning system to estimate biological age from face photographs to improve prognostication: a model development and validation study">Lancet Digital Health</a>.</p><h2>How the FaceAge Algorithm Works</h2><p>The work by investigators and their study shows that information obtained from a photo like a simple selfie could help to inform clinical decision-making and care plans for patients and clinicians, said Hugo Aerts, Ph.D., director of the <a href="https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/research-and-innovation/centers-and-programs/artificial-intelligence" target="_blank" title="Mass General Brigham: Mass General Brigham AI">Artificial Intelligence in Medicine program</a> at Mass General Brigham.</p><p>When patients walk into exam rooms, their appearance may give physicians clues about their overall health and vitality. Those intuitive assessments combined with a patient’s chronological age, in addition to many other biological measures, may help determine the best course of treatment. However, like anyone, physicians may have biases about a person’s age that may influence them, fueling a need for more objective, predictive measures to inform care decisions.</p><p>With that goal in mind, Mass General Brigham investigators leveraged deep learning and facial recognition technologies to train FaceAge. The tool was trained on 58,851 photos of presumed healthy individuals from public datasets. The team tested the algorithm in a cohort of 6,196 cancer patients from two centers, using photographs routinely taken at the start of radiotherapy treatment.</p><p><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Selfie-Cancer-Evaluation-Algorithm-Process.png" data-entity-uuid="97d35a3a-6929-4c67-b259-2c73756621c2" data-entity-type="file" alt="FaceAge algorithm selfie evaluation process. Input > Deep Learning Pipeline: Face Localization; Face Feature Extraction > Output: FaceAge; Chronological Age. Source: Mass General Brigham, 2025." width="1200" height="383"></p><h2>Results of the FaceAge Research Study</h2><p>Results showed that cancer patients appear significantly older than those without cancer, and their FaceAge, on average, was about five years older than their chronological age. In the cancer patient cohort, older FaceAge was associated with worse survival outcomes, especially in individuals who appeared older than 85, even after adjusting for chronological age, gender and cancer type.</p><p>Estimated survival time at the end of life is difficult to pin down but has important treatment implications in cancer care. The team asked 10 clinicians and researchers to predict short-term life expectancy from 100 photos of patients receiving palliative radiotherapy. While there was a wide range in their performance, overall, the clinicians’ predictions were only slightly better than a coin flip, even after they were given clinical context, such as the patient’s chronological age and cancer status. Yet, when clinicians also were provided with the patient’s FaceAge information, their predictions improved significantly.</p><h2>Use of FaceAge in a Clinical Setting</h2><p>Investigators say further research is needed before this technology could be considered for use in a real-world clinical setting. The research team is testing this technology to predict diseases, general health status and lifespan. Follow-up studies include expanding this work across different hospitals, looking at patients in different stages of cancer, tracking FaceAge estimates over time, and testing its accuracy against plastic surgery and makeup data sets.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } h2 { color: #9d2235; } Tue, 20 May 2025 06:00:00 -0500 AHA Center for Health Innovation