Using Digital Health to Deliver a Better Consumer Experience than Amazon

A Conversation with Dr. David Houghton

Dr. David Houghton, Medical Director, Digital Medicine & Chief, Division of Movement and Memory Disorders, Department of Neurology at Ochsner Health
Twitter: @OchsnerHealth

Dr. Houghton earned his Medical Degree from the Medical College of Georgia and his Masters in Public Health in epidemiology at Emory University. He completed his internship, neurology residency, and movement disorders fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After then serving as Assistant Professor and Neurology Residency Program Director at the University of Louisville, Dr. Houghton joined the staff at Ochsner Health in 2012 as Chief of the Division of Movement & Memory Disorders and Vice-Chair of the Department of Neurology. Since 2016, he has also served as the Medical Director of Ochsner Telemedicine–harnessing technology to create unique virtual clinical connections between Ochsner’s providers and patients across the Gulf South.

Listen to the Conversation

Episode Takeaways

  1. Dr. David Houghton shares why he believes virtual care can improve physician empathy with their patients as technology enables the physician to be invited into the patient’s home on their time as opposed the traditional sterile environment at the clinic.
  2. How Ochsner’s digital programs grew from the Innovation Ochsner Suite with support by a fantastic team of clinicians who were focused on going beyond traditional remote monitoring to proactively manage chronic disease.
  3. Learn how Dr. Houghton prioritizes digital requests within the health system through a framework dubbed the 5 A’s.
  4. Practical steps that Dr. Houghton and his team take to prevent a “digital divide” between patients and their care such as utilizing the technology that is ubiquitous for each patient.
  5. Why Dr. Houghton and the digital team at Ochsner Health expanded their programs to accommodate Medicaid patients despite financial barriers and lack of incentives, and how this effort has garnered an NPS of 91 – a score higher than Apple, Amazon and Uber.

Hosts

Alan Sardana

For nearly a decade, Alan Sardana has combined a unique blend of curiosity and community-advocacy to uncover and disseminate best practices in healthcare innovation. He is an award-winning filmmaker, science advocate and startup enthusiast, having played an instrumental role in supporting multiple startups advance from seed financing through multiple funding rounds.

Alan is currently the Marketing Lead at SeamlessMD—the leading Digital Patient Engagement platform for health systems to engage, monitor and stay connected with patients across healthcare journeys. In his role, Alan is responsible for developing and advancing SeamlessMD’s positioning and partnerships.

Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO, SeamlessMD
Twitter: @joshuapliu

Dr. Joshua Liu is a physician turned entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder/CEO of SeamlessMD, which provides the leading Digital Patient Engagement platform for health systems to engage, monitor and stay connected with patients across healthcare journeys.

Joshua graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Toronto. During his medical training, he co-led a research project at UHN on hospital readmissions and sat on UHN’s physician advisory group for post-hospital discharge follow up. As a result, Joshua was inspired to develop technology to better support patients and prevent adverse outcomes such as a readmission – which ultimately led to him co-founding SeamlessMD.

About the Show

Rated one of the top 30 Best Digital Health Podcasts by FeedSpot, The Digital Patient takes an “edu-taining” approach to all things digital patient care. On this show hosts Dr. Joshua Liu, and Alan Sardana talk with healthcare, technology, and innovation leaders about the latest advancements in digital health, trends in digital transformation, and strategies for optimizing the patient experience. Guests include Dr. Becket Mahnke, CMIO, Confluence Health, Dr. Denise Basow, Chief Digital Officer, Ochsner, Dr. Michael Radtke, CMIO, Intermountain Health, Duska Kennedy, Chief Digital Officer, North York General Hospital, Dr. David Putrino, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation, The Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Jay B. Shah, Chief of Staff, Stanford Health Care, and many more.