The Health Pulse

On this episode host Greg Horne interviews David Rhew, M.D., Global Chief Medical Officer & VP of Healthcare for Microsoft, on the role of technology in health care. Dr. Rhew, who has a background in infectious disease management, observed early in his career that evidence-based practices often lead to better health outcomes, but they aren’t adhered to consistently. From there he set out on a digital transformation journey that quickly brought him into health tech and eventually Microsoft. Dr. Rhew and Greg discuss the role of technology in delivering the right information at the right time to improve patient experience and outcomes. For example, in one cardiac rehab program where patients were offered the option to participation digitally, completion rate jumped from 40 to 80 percent and 30-day hospital readmissions dropped from 12 percent to less than 1 percent. Quite simply, making things easier for patients improves care and reduces costs. According to Dr. Rhew, the next horizon in health care will be around making data more interoperable so that the industry can bring it into a common platform and analyze it to drive actionable insights that improve care. And, Dr. Rhew leaves us with his parting thoughts on technology’s capacity to improve health equity and access.

A transcript of this episode can be found here. 

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