What’s Next for Patient Engagement Tech? Artera’s Platform Evangelist Says ‘Behavior Change’

Hey, it’s Jessica DaMassa, with WTF Health, what’s the future of health? I’m talking to the who’s who of health tech and healthcare innovation. I’m doing it right now at Artera’s customer event, Heartbeat. And who better than Artera’s very own? In fact, I’ve got their Senior Vice President and Platform Evangelist. I love talking to an evangelist, Meg Aranow. It’s good to have you here.

Oh thanks so much, I’m thrilled to be here.

Alright, well we are going to pick your brain because not only are you on the front line at Artera evangelizing away, but you are also front line in terms of hospital executive level IT. You were a CIO at a health system, so it’s interesting that you’ve made the jump into the startup world. I want to hear from you right now on what’s really hot when it comes to what’s changing in the patient experience?

Oh, everything’s different than it used to be, if you go way back. Alright, so we’ve moved from feeling as though the doctor was the be-all and end-all to inform healthcare and now we understand that there’s a consumer element to patient care and that the patient is really the one that should drive the pace, the attitude towards healthcare, the attitude towards health, and needs to be engaged through the whole process. It’s markedly different than it was decades ago and really different even than it was a few years ago with the advent of consumerism and expectations being set by consumerism coming into healthcare.

How are you seeing that play out right now in your job at Artera? What are some of the things that you are now going into health systems and they’re saying listen, our patients, our consumers, are demanding X Y and Z. What are they demanding?

Well, they’re demanding services in a way that they wish to receive them on their timetable, especially when it comes to some of the things Artera is doing such as messaging, right? I want to get my messages when it’s convenient to me, in a modality that’s convenient to me, whether that’s email or phone calls or texts. And I want it to be meaningful and by all means make sure it’s personal. Please make sure that you know me and that it doesn’t sound robotic.

Yeah that’s a big point. How are we doing that? I mean what are some of the tricks here? On the Artera side, let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you guys have done to put in place. The ways health systems cannot fail in doing these things. So talk a little bit about personalization because I sat through one of your panels yesterday and it was about digital empathy, which I thought was a very interesting concept. And you were talking about, one of the things you said was that we know how to send the messages now, but we don’t know how they land. So how do you make sure a message lands right?

That’s right. Well, I think we’re learning as we go. It’s still relatively new technology, right? But a patient is also a person. They’re not their disease. They’re a whole person. They have family obligations.They have history and they have goals. We know enough about them to be able to engage them in that way, but we just need to be sure that we are. But the idea of making sure that messages are landing is that we’re not spam. We’re sending you a message because we are trying to move you in some direction. We’re trying to get you to participate in your care in some way, so are we measuring that? Are we measuring that we make sure that we’re getting the outcome not just that the message was delivered, but that the behavioral or attitudinal change that we’re trying to affect actually happened.

Oh okay, say a little bit about that. Give us an example where that’s working. Where the behavioral change that you’re trying to send the message to cause is actually happening in effect.

So, some of the very early stuff that we did of course during COVID was to make sure that patients were actually coming in for their visits, right? So making sure that a patient was reminded at an appropriate cadence, so that they were able to stay with the regimen that was presented to them for their appointments. So no show rate was something that was often measured. Did the patient actually show up? But now we’re going further, right? That’s almost table stakes at this point, is making sure that they showed up. And now we’re starting to message patients after their visit to make sure that they’re doing the follow-up care. Did you get your prescription filled? Did you have a good experience when you were there? Have you already scheduled your follow-up appointment? So we can track that because those are tangible outcomes and we can see whether a patient is actually following through on their care.

Alright, give me a favorite example. IOne of the things I heard through this event was using text messaging to tell a patient that a person from the health system was going to call them, which I thought was just genius. I’m like okay, so the text comes first and somebody is going to call you in 30 to 45 minutes. Yes, brilliant, so you don’t miss that call that you’ve been waiting for. What’s one of your favorite examples about how some of your health system clients have integrated the technology that Artera provides?

Well, one of my favorites, staying on the phone call analogy or the phone call path, was we have something called call to text where we’re having patients that can opt out of waiting on hold and can respond to a text about whether or not you’d rather have us call you back at another time, or whether or not you’d like to convert the whole conversation to a text-based conversation, which again is just perfect, right? I’m letting you tell me the best way to communicate with you, which of course predicts the best successful outcome for the conversation, whether that’s a digital conversation or a real conversation.

Alright, we said at the beginning you worked in health systems before and now you are a translator, so translate for us out there in health tech, who might not have the background that you have. When health systems are hesitant to integrate technology that would improve their patient engagement, their experience, what are some of the hesitations? How can we understand what they’re thinking about when they’re hesitant to integrate some of the stuff that seems like it would just be so easy?

Well, you’re right I was in healthcare for a very long time.

Tell us how long.

Can I just say over 30 years? Okay, we’ll stick with that. I think what folks that haven’t actually worked on the provider side of healthcare don’t understand is that they are tremendously matrixed organizations. They are not hierarchical and so for something to move forward, particularly a dramatic change, it’s a lot of consensus building. There are a lot of parties that are stakeholders within that decision and it takes a long time. And everybody has their own objectives that they have to meet, so it’s not as straightforward as many of the other industries. There’s a lot of consensus building that has to take place. It has to serve patient needs. Financial needs. Employee needs. Administrative needs. Regulatory needs, etc. And so often, we see technology companies frankly that have been very successful in other markets, unable to succeed in healthcare.

Alright, so you’re an evangelist now for a tech company. Give us your best tip for helping build that consensus that moves things along in a health system. How do you evangelize? What are the things to focus on? Is it all ROI? Tell me what it is that you talk about when you evangelize about Artera?

Well, what I talk about is useful impact. I know that sounds very simple, but what I talk about is what we’re presenting to our customers. Something that will solve problems that they define. It is our customers that bring the problem statement. Presenting solutions before you know the problems is a surefire way to fail and often unfortunately that’s a mistake that some startups make, right? So going in understanding, having empathy with your customers, asking why several times, so that your customers are presenting you with the root cause problem statement, rather than a simple solution to something that maybe is more surface level. It is a way to engage the conversation and what that does is you become a consultant to your customers and you’re bringing something together that’s more meaningful for problem solving. So it builds rapport, but it also ensures success.

I love that. Alright, last thing for you. What’s the next big thing in terms of patient journey, patient engagement? The whole crux of the series here I’m doing is to find out what’s the latest, the leading edge ideas and thinking strategy around it? What are you seeing from your vantage point? What are health system executives, whether on the technology, or the patient journey, or the consumer engagement side, what are they really talking about? Give us the gossip that you’re hearing when you go into these places.

Well, I think it’s still all about data. So the most recent evolution of course is AI and what’s happening there. The challenge in healthcare always has been, and continues to be, how do I take the most innovative technology and make sure that my patients still feel a personalized soft touch. In some hospitals where I worked in the past they would call it high-tech, high-touch. You need to have the balance of both. Medicine has always been science-based. It always will be. Now we’re introducing AI into that, but when it’s your family member you don’t want a machine delivering the care. Even if there are machine assists in the background, right? So that’s always going to be our challenge, but it’s all going to be data driven. It’s all going to be about understanding the full patient, all aspects of the patient and being able to deliver that personalized medicine with a very high-touch.

I love that. Thanks a lot Meg. Well, thank you. I seriously appreciate hearing your perspective. It’s interesting to get that lens of, well the duality, of both in a hospital a former Hospital exec now recovering in a startup I guess. I love it. Thank you so much. So for more of these interviews on patient engagement and the patient journey and how it’s changing in healthcare, we’ve got a whole series up there on my YouTube channel. Thanks to the folks here at Artera, who invited me to their event. You can check that out at youtube.com/WTFHealth, along with all my other interviews with the startups and other entrepreneurs and Adventure capitalists and Healthcare incumbent innovators, who are changing the way that we do healthcare. I’m Jessica Damassa. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks again Meg. Bye.