The Digital Front Door Shaping the Future of Healthcare
– Tom White, Founder and CEO, Phynd Technologies
Our recent podcast guest on The Big Unlock podcast was Tom White, Founder and CEO of Phynd Technologies. Tom discusses digital front doors and the role of interoperability in healthcare with Paddy Padmanabhan, CEO of Damo Consulting.
Listen to the full conversation
“We believe that healthcare systems need a central hub of provider information that can flow into their clinical, marketing, and claims systems that keep everything in sync from a data perspective. We enable output into areas that can drive consumer experience and better operations through better provider data.”
– Tom White, The Big Unlock – Episode #47
Digital front doors are practical and useful for healthcare industry
COVID-19 has accelerated the use of telehealth and other virtual care models. However, the current pandemic has brought certain challenges as well for the healthcare systems. Tom believes that digital front door technologies are being adopted extensively by healthcare systems and are practical and useful for the industry, especially in the current pandemic situation.
“We’ve seen an acceleration in interest from prospects across the country because of the digital front door ecosystem, whether it’s symptom checkers, smart waitlist, appointment reminders, self-scheduling, or provider search. The ecosystem is certainly right now for digital adoption across the healthcare industry. What all those systems need is a provider data solution and the central hub of provider information can feed all these different types of systems.” – Tom White
COVID-19 has created a need for consolidation of digital health startups
Tom says that there is a huge amount of investment happening in the patient engagement area due to the current pandemic. Various digital health startups are coming up with digital front door solutions. This is creating too many choices for health systems and many of the digital front door solutions are somehow the same. Tom expects that, to leverage the opportunities in healthcare, the startups should consolidate with each other.
“Since the pandemic there is a tremendous amount of investment in the patient engagement area. And there are a lot of great solutions that are out there. I think that there needs to be a coming together of them. There is just going to be too many choices for healthcare systems to have to kind of weed through to buy things. So, I think that there is got to be some level setting eventually, whether it is a consolidation, M&A activity, or partnerships. But there is going to be some consolidation. There are just too many vendors kind of chasing some of the same ideas.” – Tom
Digital front door – future of healthcare
Tom believes that the healthcare industry is moving in the right direction. However, 80% of the healthcare needs to be driven through digital means and 20% through phone calls, unlike the current situation.
“I think that the future is bright for consumers. The digital front door technologies will hopefully expand the learning and the use of consumers across the board. There are just too many phone calls, right now. I still have to call my providers sometimes to schedule a visit. Those things need to flip. I would say that 80 percent of healthcare is driven on phone calls and 20 percent digital and needs to be 80 percent digital, 20 percent phone calls.” – Tom
Interoperability is the key to healthcare
Tom thinks that with the coming of various patient engagement vendors, we will need data integration for better care coordination. He believes that interoperability in healthcare is the key for better health outcomes.
“Interoperability in healthcare is the key. There is a tremendous amount of patient engagement vendors that are coming to market and you have to be integrated into the IT topography and the landscape. So, the data must be bidirectional, it has to create this feedback loop. I think that it’s important for health systems when they are looking at vendors that they ensure that it’s bidirectional into their core clinical systems.” – Tom
