Campbell and Fisher: Communication Key to the Future of Healthcare

At the Digital Pharma East meeting in Philadelphia, two healthcare thought leaders (and spouses) Kevin Campbell, MD, and Deborah Fisher, MD, gave thoughts and tips for the future of healthcare.

Speaking to Healthcare Analytics News™, Fisher, a gastroenterologist, focused on infrastructure and philosophy, while her cardiologist husband, Campbell, focused more on technologies. The unifying themes? Communication and patient-centricity.

Fisher believes that healthcare has spent too much time answering questions that no one has asked, and needs to find out what patients really require, but that is beginning to change. “More people have understood the importance of getting the patient voice from the very beginning,” she said.

She continued that the sheer volume of data that can be collected today could go a long way to informing outcomes, but that the challenge would be linking and interpreting all of that information. According to Fisher, healthcare leaders need to keep these issues in mind.

“There has to be an investment in infrastructure,” she said. “Every level healthcare is fragmented, and one of those important levels is all the different tools used to collect data and store data.”

For that, Campbell offered, artificial intelligence could be important.

“If you think of it as a building that's on fire because this data just keeps coming down, you've got to do something to improve outcomes,” he said. “I think that's going to come from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and very smart software programmers.”

Campbell’s advice to healthcare leaders had more to do with outreach. “Engage on social media,” he said, arguing that every CEO and hospital administrator should have a Twitter account.

“Start by listening and figuring out who the thought leaders are. Follow those thought leaders…figure out what the hotspots are, how you can improve your systems, and care for your patients.”