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AI In Healthcare: A Conversation With Jack Stoddard, CEO, Patina

AI In Healthcare: A Conversation With Jack Stoddard, CEO, Patina

In July 2022, Amazon acquired One Medical in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $3.9 billion. According to an Amazon press release, One Medical is a human-centered, technology-powered national primary care organization on a mission to make quality care more affordable, accessible, and enjoyable through a seamless combination of in-person, digital, and virtual care services that are convenient to where people work, shop, and live. The premise is to reinvent the healthcare experience. Even prior to this acquisition, One Medical strived to leverage technology and AI to drive a strong patient and provider experience and to optimally manage population health.

Before One Medical made the news, Patina launched with $57 million in funding from Andreesen Horowitz and GV (Google Ventures) in late October 2021. Patina is led by Jack Stoddard, a healthcare executive with an impressive set of experiences – Eden Health, Haven, Accolade and Optum. Patina’s mission is to profoundly improve the healthcare and aging experience for older adults and the loved ones who care about them. I talked to Jack to better understand his thesis and motivations with Patina. Here are some key takeaways:

Why the focus on adults 65 and over?

Jack: Everyone deserves a better care experience that’s led by a team who sees them; who understands their values, goals and preferences; and who creates a personalized plan that enables each person to live their fullest lives. The current system is built with hospitals and clinics at the center, and aligned to the needs of the average adult, resulting in one-size-fits-all care, delivered in the production model of short, episodic and transactional office visits. This model doesn’t work for older adults, who have unique clinical and psychosocial needs that affect their ability to live independently and enjoy the highest quality of life. A model that achieves this goal doesn’t exist in healthcare today, so we are building it.

Why primary care?

Jack: Primary care is the backbone for overall health. When done right, primary care reduces healthcare spending and improves health outcomes. Primary care practitioners have the opportunity to understand patients holistically – their story, values, preferences, goals – and help them make informed decisions. There are many opportunities today for innovation and growth in this market. Primary care lends itself to new approaches, leveraging technologies such as digital and virtual channels.

This is a crowded space with many start-ups and many other established players. What are some critical success elements for you?

Jack: We have the opportunity to build the care model of the future from the ground up. We aren’t stuck within legacy technology and workflows. By building something brand new, we can align people, process and technology to focus on generating value for older adults and their loved ones. We’ve matched our business model to our care model, which allows us to provide coordinated whole-person care in a proactive way. This is in contrast to many established players who are serving multiple populations, have legacy technology and workflows, and have business models with misaligned incentives. It’s like trying to turn a combustion engine car into an electric one. It doesn’t work. We’re starting from scratch to reinvent primary care.

Something that is unique about Patina is that you do not have clinics. You instead send a nurse or nurse practitioner to the patient’s home. Why is that?

Jack: Clinics were built to optimize the productivity of clinicians in a fee-for-service healthcare world. As we defined our first principles to reinvent primary care for older adults, we found in our research that older adults want to be independent at home, especially when they aren’t feeling well. So we decided to bypass the “drive-park-wait” clinic model, and use technology and people to bring care to them, on their terms. We learn a great deal about people when we visit them in their homes. Does the patient have enough social support? How do they manage their medicines? Their meals? Are they lonely? Often these factors determine outcomes even more than clinical interventions. When a patient comes to a clinic, we lose the opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of their health. Our entire model is built on the idea of our care team coming to patients where they are, and seeing people, not as one data point but dynamic individuals.

Much has been made about digital transformation and the pace of digital in the past three years. And the same can be said about leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning for improving health outcomes. Can you give me some specific ways that Patina is leveraging new technologies and methods to improve outcomes?

Jack: What sets Patina apart is how we pair our technology with in-person care to create a high-touch, personalized experience for our patients and their loved ones. We bring tech into the home, enabling us to evaluate our patients’ health as if they were in a clinic. Patients are less stressed and more comfortable when they’re at home. In turn, we build relationships that inform care alongside the metric-based assessment we get from digital technology. For example, our Nurse Champions use digital stethoscopes to listen to a patient’s heart, and the remote PCP is able to receive the data in real time using telemetry. In addition, AI is taking in that information and comparing the heartbeat to a massive data set, flagging heart murmurs or other cardiac issues for the clinician in real-time. Together our app, virtual visits and AI-enabled technology help providers interact more frequently with their patients, build lasting relationships and be proactive when additional care is needed.

Any closing thoughts?

Jack: Sixty million Americans are over 65, and 90 million will reach this age by 2060. This population faces changes in function and mobility, and often develops chronic conditions, leading to an increased need for high-quality healthcare and personalized support. Yet most older adults face a healthcare system that is fragmented and uncoordinated. They end up with multiple doctors who provide short visits to fix problems rather than prevent them. Adults 65+ often navigate their care alone. Patina is here to turn these challenges on their head, letting every person age with dignity and be seen, respected and supported. We’re doing it with a team of experienced, empathic people who use modern technology to create a personalized care experience.

Wish you and Patina the very best, Jack.

Jack: Thank you.

What do you think?

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