Article Contents
Backstory
Dinesh Apte is the Head of Commercial Growth at Wellth. He also has his own digital health consultancy where he helps digital health organizations identify pathways for integrating their solutions into health plans and integrated delivery networks (IDNs). 
Dinesh has 13 years of sales experience working with innovative health care companies and selling to providers, health plans, and IDNs. He also has a background ranging across the health care spectrum, from medical devices to pharmaceutical to digital therapeutics, and most recently, more tech-focused clinical care solutions.
Disruption in Health Care
Disruption, by definition, can evoke fear within an industry. Disruption is a disturbance or a problem to an activity or a process. When you take that definition and relate it to health care and well-being, the idea of a disturbance can be worrisome. However, in the health care world, this idea is more about simplification than disruption. While disruption can appear big and scary, simplification is something health care can truly get behind.
Patients prefer the ability to quickly take steps and actions to improve their health and go about living their life. That is why disruption, or simplification, is really important for digital health ecosystems. Health care organizations need to take on the responsibility of putting processes in place that make the overall experience and engagement much simpler for the end-user.
Health care is a complex entity, and shouldn’t be oversimplified to make difficult things look easier than they are—nor should it be overgeneralized to imply that different patient populations are going to react to different tools or different information in the exact same way. The ultimate goal should always come back to this question: “How can health care create a more simplified process?” This is helpful for both the buyer and the user of digital technology.
Simplification in Health Care
THE CHALLENGES
Simplification can be difficult to accomplish on a national scale, due to the complexity of making changes that cover the entire U.S.—mainly because of the many regulations that health care providers have to work through and around.
Simplifying processes can also evoke fear due to the rate of change happening in the health care environment. Instead of having the opportunity to slowly introduce new processes as patients drive their own health care, health organizations are forced to rapidly change to a very consumer-based buying environment. This can cause health care providers to question whether they are making the right decision or not.
As a digital health technology company offering solutions to these problems, it is important to show each partner that you’re dedicated to working, building, and evolving with them over time while still providing elegant, empathetic, and empowering solutions for their members. Show them your strategic plan, but also show them how that plan can evolve over time.
THINGS TO CONSIDER DURING SIMPLIFICATION OR DISRUPTION IN HEALTH CARE
As technology companies and health care become further intertwined, there’s a big opportunity to help strengthen the relationship between health plans and their members. Members’ trust, in the past, has usually come from their health care provider. However, now is the time for health plans to step in and become the person that members trust. That is why it is important for health plans to start developing relationships with their members early on. If health plans have already begun developing a relationship with their members, they will more easily build rapport with them. Once that trust is in place, it will be easy for both health plans and their members to see the value of their relationship.
Now you, as a health technology company, have the opportunity to show health plans how you provide value to them. However, it is important not to oversell yourself. Be realistic about what your capabilities are today, but discuss where you want to build out even more capabilities for them and what the timeline of that happening might look like.
When there is more transparency between you and health care organizations, you can have an open and honest conversation with members. Health care organizations will be much more receptive to the idea that you’re an organization that wants to listen to them and their challenges, as well as help them define a plan of action to help shape their products into an exceptional member and patient experience. Make the people you’re trying to help become the hero of your brand and not yourself.
Must-Read Books
Dinesh’s current favorite book is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. It’s a great balance between travel and philosophy and gives a great perspective on how to look at life. Dinesh also recommends Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande and If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body by Dr. James Hamblin.
Want to Connect With Dinesh Apte? Find Him Here:
LinkedIn: Dinesh Apte
Email: dinesh@wellthapp.com
Aptitude Consulting: Aptitudeconsulting@gmail.com
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