DistilNFO had an opportunity to interview Majd Alwan, SVP Of LeadingAge. Mr. Alwan is a thought leader in the healthcare industry. He works tirelessly to accelerate the development, validation, evaluation and adoption of appropriate technology solutions that can positively impact older adults, individuals with disabilities, their caregivers and the people that serve them.
1. Majd, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. DistilNFO appreciates it. To start with, tell us a little bit about yourself and Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) at LeadingAge, your journey so far & the most exciting thing you are working on?
Majd Alwan: I am an electronics engineer by training, have a Master’s degree in control engineering and a Ph.D. in autonomous mobile robots. I have always been interested in biomedical applications and applications for older adults, individuals with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.
I lead the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) at LeadingAge, which is a program that brings forward-thinking aging services providers among LeadingAge members together with representatives from technology companies, researchers involved in developing or evaluating technology for the aging population, as well as policymakers, to accelerate the development, validation, evaluation, adoption and use of technologies to improve care quality, efficiency, and quality of life.
Prior to LeadingAge I was an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia and prior to that I was a Lecturer at the Higher Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology in Damascus, Syria. So I have had experience in academia, teaching, conducting research, and developing assistive and monitoring technologies for the above-mentioned populations using a user-centered design approach. In January 2007, I co-founded a WellAware Systems and led the translation of the technologies I was involved with, before being recruited into LeadingAge to lead CAST, which I was involved in since its inception in 2003 as an advisor and CAST Commissioner. WellAware was later acquired by HealthSense, and the latter was recently acquired by GreatCall.
The most unusual thing I was involved with is an award-winning video, titled “High-Tech Aging: Improving Lives Today” showing the value of an array of commercially available technologies to aging services providers, and more importantly the value of technology-enabled aging services providers as strategic partners to others in the healthcare eco-system, including acute care providers, namely hospitals, physicians, ACO, as well as payers, in this era of pay-for-performance and people’s desire to age and thrive in their place of choice.
The most exciting thing though, is a series of hands-on tools to help aging services, including pre-acute wellness and health management providers as well as long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC), providers incorporate technology systemically into their strategic planning, conduct strategic IT planning, and then understand, plan for, select and implement key enabling technologies applications that are becoming key to survive, let alone thrive, this day and age. We have produced selection tools for EHR, Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), Medication Management, Functional Assessment & Activity Monitoring, and Shared Care Planning & Coordination technologies; this year we are working on a new portfolio focusing on Social Connectedness & Engagement technologies.
2. What is the role of technology in long-term and post-acute care? What are the top trends you see shaping the future?
Majd Alwan: Appropriate technologies, when correctly planned for, selected, and implemented can help providers improve efficiencies, accuracy, and timeliness of documentation, coordination among providers, and care quality. Similarly, appropriately designed technologies (especially from the usability and user experience perspective) that are implemented after workflow redesign to maximize efficiencies, can reduce the burdens on care professionals and improve their satisfaction. Finally, technology can improve social connectedness and engagement, which helps older adults combat isolation and depression; it can also enable providers to deliver preventive and proactive interventions, including supportive services, hence maximizing independence and quality of life.
I see the convergence of 3 major trends shaping the future: The first is people’s desire to remain independent for as long as possible, people refer to this trend as Aging in Place; I prefer Thriving in Place of Choice. The second is the shift away from pay-for-service toward pay for performance by most payers. The third is the significant proliferation of technology and improvement in technology in terms of speed, mobility, interoperability standards, reliability, user interfaces, including touch screen, enhanced Graphical User interfaces, and lately voice and natural language processing, and finally Artificial Intelligence and Analytic Tools that help us make sense of big data.
3. What is LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) doing to help Long term and Post-Acute care (LTPAC)?
Majd Alwan:
We are doing several things:
1. Creating and evangelizing a vision showing Wellness and LTPAC providers what technology that is available today can do for them, and demonstrate the value of technology-enabled Wellness and LTPAC providers to potential strategic partners, including hospitals, physician groups, ACOs, and payers.
2. Helping our members:
- Engrain technology in their thinking and incorporating it in their strategic planning and conduct detailed Strategic IT Planning to ensure that their IT infrastructure is updated to support all their strategic goals and enabling technology applications.
- Better understand the different enabling technology categories, their uses, value, evidence of efficacy and cost-effectiveness, important functionalities and features to consider, and how to plan for, then select and implement different technology applications under a variety of available business models and payment streams; the Interactive Guides and Whitepapers of our tools were developed with this in mind. While our Online Selection Tools and Product Matrices help them select from and compare commercially available products supporting that particular application category based on fit for care setting/ business model, and functionalities and features they offer.
- Learn from the experience of other providers who embarked on adopting and quantitatively evaluating these technology applications through real-life provider case studies.
- Understand where they stand in our sector compared to their peers in terms of technology adoption and technology spending surveys we conduct in partnership with Ziegler, a LeadingAge Gold Partner.
4. It seems like no IT Conversation is complete unless we talk about Social, Mobile, Cloud and Analytics. What is your view of these?
Majd Alwan: Indeed, I personally cannot imagine an organization surviving, let alone thriving this day and age without these.
Social media changed the way people connect, interact, shop, and even “learn”. Providers need to have online presence and social media, as well as have technology to facilitate engaging their residents with each other, with wellness programming and activities, as well as their families and the world at large.
We are now a mobile society, and a mobile and connected staff translate into informed staff, efficiencies, improved responsiveness to residents’/clients’ needs and improved client satisfaction. Providers need to be pro-technology and need to have appropriate enterprise mobility solutions to attract millennials and overcome the shortage of professional caregivers.
The Cloud has reduced the barriers of capital cost, space, burden of implementation and maintenance, as well as the level of competency associated with technology adoption in the Wellness and LTPAC sector. Many LTPAC solution vendors have updated their legacy locally hosted applications and embraced the Cloud, and so did our members.
Technology is generating a lot of data, and we need analytics to make sense of all the data, turn data into information, trends, root causes, knowledge, and actions. Our sector is starting to embrace such solutions, the two that come to mind are Minimum Data Set (MDS) analytic tools, such as CareWatch from LeadingAge Silver Partner ABILITYNetwork and others, as well as CareSage from Philips, a LeadingAge Silver Partner and CAST Suporter; but we have a long way to go.
Last year, we created a 7-Stage Adoption Model for the Wellness and LTPAC sector and we are encouraging our members to use Advanced IT functionalities in their IT systems and EHRs, including Analytics.
5. Payers have a great influence on LTPAC industry as they pay for these services, what is your advice to Payer executives?
Majd Alwan: I would highly advise Payer executives to take a fresh look at the Wellness, Health Management, and LTPAC providers and consider partnering with them on demonstrations of innovative payment models that are technology-enabled that provide sufficient incentives to these providers to deliver relatively low cost supportive services, proactive wellness and preventive health management interventions, ongoing chronic disease management, medication management, care coordination, and rehabilitation services, etc. enabled by technology that can not only pay large dividends in terms of cost but also improve quality of care as well as patient satisfaction outcomes.
There are many technologies that have been proven to be not only efficacious but also cost-effective under the right payment and operational models, like telehealth & RPM for example; the return on investment in these technologies can be significant, however, only a small proportion of our members are using these technologies because there are many restrictions in traditional payment streams on telehealth modalities, originating site, eligible providers, eligible professionals, etc.
LeadingAge and CAST would be more than happy to engage and discuss such potential demonstrations further.
6. Due to change in Administration, healthcare industry is in the midst of uncertainty and change. What is your advice to healthcare executives during these times of uncertainty?
Majd Alwan: If there is one thing that is certain, it is the shrinking reimbursement and the drive to improve care quality, communication, and care coordination among providers, while reducing cost; think of the bundles.
My advice to executives of acute care providers is to think beyond their organization, to identify potential strategic partners from the pre-acute wellness, health management, as well as the LTPAC provider sector, and explore win-win partnerships around technology-enabled preventive and proactive interventions, including social supportive services, that allow delivering care in the least costly setting, people’s own home wherever that may be; such partnerships reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and hospital readmissions. Engage meaningfully in information exchange with partners, tell them what key data elements you’d need in which format/ standard, and ask them what they would need post-discharge or post-visit to do the best job. Put pressure on your IT solution vendors to make those information exchanges happen.
To those in the Pre-Acute and LTPAC space, I strongly advise them to incorporate technology into their strategic planning, and take advantage of the tremendous resources that we have put for them.
7. Cyber security is critical in this age, how should a company safe guard itself from cyber threats?
Majd Alwan: Indeed cybersecurity is a serious threat. I suggest starting with the weakest link, the user! We should educate and train staff on IT security basics and how to discern phishing emails.
IT staff should always implement operating system patches, conduct regular scans, ensure proper firewalls setting, update virus and malware software, perform backup data regularly and test your recovery procedure; the last item is the one to which many in our sector don’t pay enough attention.
LeadingAge CAST has just pulled a working group from our members and we will be developing an informational whitepaper, benchmarking tool, guide and resources on cybersecurity for our members in partnership with CAST Supporter BlueOrange Compliance. Stay tuned…
8. You are a very successful executive, what can others learn from the way you manage your time and how you set priorities on your tasks for yourself and your team?
Majd Alwan: I am still learning! Email has been a significant drain, so now I prioritize by sender, topic, and importance.
In terms of tasks, I use the strategic plan for LeadingAge and CAST and strategic goals as a filter; if the task supports, facilitates, or accelerates achieving one or more of the strategic goals, I prioritize it and do it; if not I tend to put it on the back burner until we have the time and resources to do it if it is a good fit for us, beneficial to us, our members, and/or the public and makes sense.
I am still learning to say no, and I am getting better at it.
I have regular touch points with my team, and I make myself available to them, ensuring that we work smarter, not necessarily harder, streamlining work and workflow, eliminating unnecessary tasks when they are no longer beneficial or worth the time, etc.
9. Any closing thoughts?
Majd Alwan: I firmly believe that we as a country and society have a significant opportunity to see payers and providers across the whole spectrum of care, including pre-acute and LTPAC providers, meaningfully partner together to improve care and patient experience and reduce cost through the use of appropriate technologies; that opportunity is ours to miss!
I would like to thank DistiINFO for the opportunity; I enjoyed our conversation immensely.