Report from HLTH: Innovation You Can Use in 2021 

You might think 2020 was more about responding to a present danger than pursuing innovation for a better future, and in many ways it was. But the critical importance of innovation was evident all year in the surprisingly seamless transition to remote working; in the success of virtual healthcare; and of course in the rapid development of the vaccines that will help us get back to some kind of normal. The second annual HLTH conference on innovation in healthcare took place – virtually – in October, and Mercer again sponsored a series of sessions for employers. To start the year in a burst of innovation, here are six reports from colleagues “on the ground” at the conference.

• Digital Health and the Pandemic 
  Kate Brown discusses the acceleration of digital health in 2020 as the catalyst to refine and strengthen benefits offerings during and after COVID.
  
  
• The Year of the Consumer 
  Nick Schram helps you get started on delivering the omni-channel experience that consumers want.
  
  
• Can Consumer Devices Improve Health Outcomes?
  Amber Boehm shares how health outcomes would improve if doctors could access all of a patient’s health data through consumer devices.
  
  
• The Quest for Healthcare Quality Begins with Analytics
  Andy Halpert blogs about ways employers are using data to address the underlying variation in quality and cost in their baseline networks.
  
  
• The National Local Care Paradox
  Tabit Xthona Lee explains how a few pharmacy systems intend to bring local orientation to nationally integrated health programs. 
  
  
• 3 Lessons Learned from The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation
  Natasha Galperin shares three ideas around ways to drive large-scale, impactful change across the healthcare system that leads to transformation.

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