Mark West, president of SharedClarity, LLC, entered the healthcare industry relatively late in his career. Even so, it didn’t take long for him to develop a keen interest and appreciation for the significant impact of healthcare.
West first started working in healthcare in 2005, when he became the executive director of Supply Chain Management for the Cleveland Clinic. His first office at the Cleveland Clinic was inside the children’s hospital, which he says was a blessing; “I was so fortunate to have my office in that location, because for a newbie in healthcare, it put me right in front of the patient, and that’s a good thing.” He went on to explain,
“I couldn’t walk down the hall without seeing kids that were going through some serious health issues, and I witnessed their hopes and fears and that of their parents and families. It really made me think about how I could impact patient outcomes. From a supply chain point of view, of course, you think about having the right product at the right price at the right place at the right time. But it went even further than that. In the healthcare industry it’s all about helping patients either avoid being sick or helping them heal. Even within the supply chain component, it caused me to ask, ‘How do we help the patients heal faster?’”
West said his experience at the Cleveland Clinic caused him to immediately become fascinated with healthcare. “I really couldn’t imagine myself in another industry. Other industries are worthwhile, but boy, healthcare just hits home with me.”
When asked what he thinks is the biggest challenge within healthcare today, West responded:
“I think the biggest challenge is transparency.” He explained,“ Healthcare is an evolving industry, and transparency comes on a couple levels. When you think about transparency, first you think about the patient. If you think about being a patient and going into any healthcare facility and wondering, ‘What’s the cost of this activity going to be for myself? What’s the quality of the facility? What’s the quality of the doctors? What’s the process that I go through?’ I think that there have been steps made in the last handful of years that improves that patient understanding, but I still think there’s a long way that the industry has to go to achieve transparency, from a patient perspective. I also think about it from the hospital point of view, too. Physicians need transparency on how products perform, and getting independent information on these types of products can help them make better decisions. There are a lot of challenges in the industry, but transparency is one that always kind of jumps out at me.”
West went on to note that another important issue and challenge within the industry is improving affordability of healthcare. Affordability is an issue that his organization is trying to influence. “SharedClarity is just one cog in the machine, but we think we could really have an influence on affordability in the industry. If we can identify products that result in fewer complications and readmissions, that makes a big impact on affordability—both for the providers and the patients.”
A third challenge West pointed to within the healthcare industry is gathering more data—better data that will help improve efficiency, effectiveness, and affordability throughout the industry. This is an issue that SharedClarity is very much focused on. “We have clinical review teams that evaluate carefully selected products, and through that review and evaluation process our goal is to provide independent data so that better decisions can be made.”
Currently, most data is focused on capturing patient information at the health care facility where they are receiving treatment, only from admission to discharge. SharedClarity’s data is focused on the continuum of care, offering more comprehensive insight of patient treatment because of its access to claims data from UnitedHealthcare.
Without a doubt, there are many big challenges facing the healthcare industry today. But with organizations like SharedClarity choosing to see those challenges as opportunities, significant change and improvement is just around the corner.