Less Disruption Please

Making an Impact with athenahealth

I was pleased to attend athenahealth’s Analyst Day for the first time on November 8^th and 9^th. The event was not only quite fun, but also let me gain insight into the why behind their market positioning.

Interoperability: More Than a Buzzword

After the Monday meet and greet, the group quickly got down to business. I was especially eager to understand athenahealth’s perspectives on TEFCA and IBR impact, how this was expected to impact their client base, and how athenahealth planned to effectively support those needs.

Joe Ganley (VP of Government & Regulatory Affairs) provided their 10,000-foot view on the policy and regulatory landscape. As many vendors have stated, Ganley similarly spoke to the opportunities that came concordant with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. They too have seen increased interest and accompanying investments into the digitalization of healthcare services and innovative tools for care provision.

Under the category of government affairs, athenahealth is focusing efforts on reducing clinician burden and burnout, cost reduction, care quality improvement, improved health equity, enhanced connectivity, and helping to make healthcare more patient-centric overall. The point most repeatedly made during Ganley’s presentation was that we are not anywhere near fully leveraging the power of technology in improving care; the fuel powering this engine, as suggested in the below slide photo, indeed seems to be aggregated data.

Information Blocking: the Bane of Everyone’s Existence

I later attended a customer panel on technology-driven patient access. The discussion was spearheaded by Jessica Sweeney-Platt (VP of Research & Editorial Strategy), who sat alongside Jessica Boland (Director of Behavioral Health at Esperanza Health Centers) and Jen Carlson (Integrative Program Coordinator at Whole Life Health Care). The panel made clear that for some of athenahealth’s customers – serving rural health, Medicaid, etc. – are facing challenges rooted in inequity and the digital divide in which it manifests. Equity is pivotal to achieving the goal of interoperability – not the other way around, as many believe.

When I asked the panel for their thoughts on the October 6^th Information Blocking Rule, Boland described it as “the bane of [their] existence,”; a sentiment with which Carlson agreed in earnest. Boland chimed in regarding their struggle with adolescent-aged patients and confidentiality rules; balancing these competing needs with IBR requirements was described as tricky to manage and driven yet further from overall improvements in access. Many attendees nodded in agreement to these comments, and…

as I chatted with a number of attendees post-panel, it became quite clear that confusion stemming from the IBR and its eight exceptions was widespread. I found no dissenting voices to the collective belief that the IBR lacked clarity, and that the eight exception scenarios are frustratingly unclear still.

Building the Ecosystem – Where does athenahealth fit in?

Day two began with remarks from CEO Bob Segert, who welcomed the group and remarked that athenahealth had earned the top Net Promoter Score (NPS) within healthcare IT.

The first three quarters of 2022 saw athenahealth signing up 2,200 new practices despite poor economic conditions. As the number of independent practices continues to decline amidst continued sector consolidation, and new models of care continue to gain traction, Segert laid out the specific objectives for athenahealth that reflect these trends. These are 1) to grow the network overall; 2) to strengthen their leadership position within RCM; 3) to make VBC a core pillar of the company; and 4) to deepen interoperability throughout the wider ecosystem.

Given my research focus, I was excited at the mention of interoperability, and felt a renewed energy and focus despite the action-packed schedule of the event thus far. Segert stressed the importance of a connections-driven growth strategy and shared plans to build experiential and data interoperability across ambulatory and acute sites as part of this overarching approach.

Michael Palantoni (VP of Product Management & Platform) expanded on Segert’s speech in a jampacked presentation titled “Building the Ecosystem.” Palatoni emphasized that that we are in the era of “true interoperability” that entails platform-to-platform data exchange. He shared their belief that healthy ecosystems have three key players: platforms, orchestrators, and utilities. In alignment with their overarching growth strategy, athenahealth intends to promote more thoughtful ecosystem design by inverting the traditional EHR approach, and building from the outside in, rather than the other way around, using their OneSharp platform.

In the Q&A session that followed, Palantoni was asked about athenahealth’s plans for TEFCA inclusion. He confirmed that athenahealth has no intention of becoming their own QHIN; rather, their intent is to embrace the role of participant, and engage with the highest quality QHINs as they demonstrate their capabilities and robustness.

Making an Impact in Ways Big and Small, Present and Future

All in all, the athenahealth Analyst Day event was quite an enjoyable event! The sessions were engaging, varied and insightful, digging into topics of sufficient depth such that I found it valuable for my own research.

That being said, no event can answer all questions of every future development to come, but with time, we will see how closely athenahealth can meet its goals and positively impact communities and lives. I feel that athenahealth is different from its competitors because they are invested in the well-being of the communities, and they serve them in a way that came across as genuine – and that resonates with what I, as an individual, can do to better the world around me.

A good example of this was the event on Monday evening, in which analysts in attendance worked together to build six bikes for children whose families had limited access to such resources. Sure, six bikes cannot change the world, but it can change the world for six children and the communities in which they engage. The energy in the room during this engagement was one of friendly competition, and the activity was very much in alignment with fulfilling a purpose greater than oneself. I will carry this experience with me as I continue to maneuver through this industry in my own career, yet in its infancy, but hopefully carrying future potential of ever-growing impact as I continue finding my way. I hope others were similarly inspired as they reflected upon the meaning of the activity, and on the learnings of the event overall.

I do feel on the whole that athenahealth is doing everything that they can to realize their longest-term vision: “to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.”