Transcript to Transformation: Twitterview with @Berci

Transcript to Transformation: Twitterview with @Berci

Twitterview (twĭt’ər vyū) n.

  1. A twitterview is a combination of the terms Twitter and interview.
  2. The Twitter medium of 140 characters forces a concise style of interviewing and response.
  3. The public can join in on the conversation and become participants themselves by following along or tracking hashtags.

On March 26, 2009 the leading health care bloggers (see list below) throughout the blogosphere participate din a Blog Rally to raise awareness for public participation in the Healthcare X PRIZE design. Bertlan Mesko, leading Medicine 2.0 Advocate and author of the popular Science Roll blog, also conducted a “Twitterview” in support of the effort.

Berci: Can we start the twitterview now? I’d have 10 short questions, you may have 10 short answers. So everyone can enjoy it.

HealthXPRIZE: Thanks for taking the time. We appreciate your help in getting the word out. This Twitterview will complement the Blog Rally. Ready!

Berci: Great! First, what is the X PRIZE Foundation? What is the X PRIZE model?

HealthXPRIZE: The X PRIZE Foundation is a non profit organization that conceives and operates large incentivized prizes that lead to revolutionary breakthroughs. The X PRIZE model is based on leveraging a large purse, with a clear set of rules, that allows innovators to break through barriers.

Berci: Please tell us more about Healthcare X PRIZE!

HealthXPRIZE: The Healthcare X PRIZE is intended to be a competition to redefine health and demonstrate how new models of care can dramatically increase health value. We chose to focus on health value as opposed to a new wonder drug or device as our sponsor (WellPoint and WellPoint Foundation) & advisors were most interested in a systems prize. Systems prizes are much more difficult to conceive and operationalize than technical competitions like going to space or even replicating the genome rapidly. We are expecting that teams will need to innovate around health finance, care delivery, and individual incentives to increase health value. We are currently developing a clear set of rules, which provide the parameters of competition, as we believe that “creativity loves constraints”.

Berci: Reforming the US healthcare system is quite a brave mission, isn’t it? Why the focus on health value?

HealthXPRIZE: The US Health reform gets serious this summer and the HXP is well timed to actually demonstrate and prove in practice the principles of reform. Value is powerful organizing principle for reform efforts – we cannot just reduce costs, nor can we just attempt to improve quality without financial accountability. The focus on health value highlights the need to focus on both sides of the equation. Since Value =outcomes/cost, we are challenging teams to improve both simultaneously.

Berci: Why use an incentivized competition?

HealthXPRIZE: Incentivized competitions are very efficient, highly leveraged, and create an “X” factor within the competitive framework. Sponsors only pay the winner, a $10MM purse typical spurs >$100MM of investment, and the X factor creates global media attention to a key problem, inspire hero’s, encourage non-traditional thinking, and creates a powerful incentive for innovation.

Berci: And how can you properly measure health value? I guess you need pre-defined parameters. What are these?

HealthXPRIZE: Health Value has never really been measured within the US Health Care system. There are many efforts underway right now to properly define and measure health value. Many innovators are leading the way and we are attempt to build on their work or actively collaborate with new/ongoing initiatives (Dartmouth, IHI, AHRQ, etc) to solidify the health value measurement framework. In the context of competition, we are trying to make our measurement framework as concrete as possible by focusing on outcomes (mortality, specific morbidity, ED visits, hospitalizations, sick days etc.). Effectively communicating the notion of “health value” remains a challenge; we are considering focusing on aspects of health value (like decreased hospitalizations and sick days) as a more effective way to communicate to the public the hoped for prize breakthroughs.

Berci: How are the Teams and Test Communities Selected?

HealthXPRIZE: Teams will be selected by through a series of concept design and testing evaluations. They will be required to demonstrate or model the impact of their proposed interventions against test database provided by WellPoint. Independent judges will evaluate the merit/validity of the concept in order to advance. Communities will be selected based on specific criteria that are still being worked through. Intent is to have a defined population of 10K participants from which Teams will voluntarily enroll in the intervention. Test community will be matched against a geographically adjacent control group. Both the team and community selection requires further design, detailed analysis, and expert opinion which we are soliciting at this time through our network of national measurement experts.

Berci: When does this competition start and when will it end?

HealthXPRIZE: The “competition” has several phases: Design, Selection, Competition. We are currently in Design phase through our anticipated Launch later this fall. The Design phase includes soliciting public comment on how we can improve our initial concept/construct to create the most viable competition possible. After official “Launch”, we will begin recruiting teams to compete. Teams will then be narrowed as described above through late Spring 2011 when 5 finalist selected. After a brief integration period into test community, HXP competition is planned to officially begin in January 2012.

Berci: How does this shift the paradigm? What kind of outcome do you expect?

HealthXPRIZE: Great question – we believe the current paradigm is based on volume not value, on process not results, and incents the wrong behaviors while delivering bad outcomes. We want to shift the paradigm to rewarding the reduction of hospitalization / sick days and begin to pay for overall health improvement (this is the outcome we want!). We also want to not focus solely on disease care, and aren’t interested in just improving health care; but believe that we must move to an entirely new notion of engaged, activated health called “Vitality”. We want to demonstrate that this CAN be done at scale, with new entrants / new ideas, and want to set the HXP up as a framework from which these efforts can be tackled in the real world. By focusing on outcomes, instead of regimenting care processes or dictating care delivery, let providers/patients innovate and create rewards for those who obtain the best outcomes.

We believe incentivized competitions are a great vehicle from which we can accelerate change, shift the paradigm, and be a catalyst for the transformation that is required for the US healthcare system. We hope the outcome is a new way to think about health, measure health value, and demonstration of new models of care that demonstrate how to improve community health and individual vitality.

Berci: My last question, regarding X-PRIZE – first rockets, then genomics, now healthcare. What do you think? What’s next?

HealthXPRIZE: XPRIZE is a mission driven organization seeking to inspire the very best in human kind for the benefit of all – this isn’t just a nice quote. It is inherent in the DNA of the organization. We are attempting to be the catalyst in any “stuck” industry by creating incentivized competitions that can lead to radical breakthroughs to the grand challenges of humanity. HXP is now looking at education, energy (some really cool stuff), and developing world initiatives that can truly have major impacts. Fortunately for me, HXP is our focus for launch this year. It is quite challenging work, deals with multiple hard to think through issues, but includes the privilege to work with great people and teams including our sponsor WellPoint.

I have been thrilled with the level of commitment to this process and this prize development process has been tremendous experience. They have a very talented innovation team, led by Chad Pomeroy, who is fully supported by senior executives all the way up to Chief Executive Officer Angela Braly. They have been driving this initiative forward far beyond the $10MM prize purse; they are providing operational resources, sharing data, working to create appropriate test communities, altering business practices to accommodate the prize, and are committed to transparency as part of the HXP process. Their commitment to the project is the reason I became involved as I saw an unprecedented opportunity to really implement the innovation in an idealized but competitive test environment. We appreciate WellPoints leadership, foresight,and commitment to engage X PRIZE in developing the Healthcare X Prize for benefit of all. Very cool stuff.

Berci: Thank you very much for the interesting answers! I will publish the transcript on Scienceroll.com in a few minutes.

HealthXPRIZE: Berci, again, thank you for this twitterivew. We hope to have everyone visit our website, download the initial prize design, comment on our blog, and add their input to the Prize Design process.

3 Comments
  • Rod Macbeth
    Posted at 04:30h, 27 May Reply

    Not sure about this “Twitterview” but a good read nonetheless.

  • Mitchell Rabkin, M.D.
    Posted at 21:32h, 03 June Reply

    I have twice tried on the X-prize web item to ask this question, but have no evidence that it has registered: To muster the program sought in xprize for health will require significant resources of time, people and money. Is the expectation that potential competitors will find those sources on their own?

  • Grand Rounds Vol. 5, No. 37: The June Is Bustin’ Out All Over Edition | HIPAA Compliance News
    Posted at 19:57h, 09 September Reply

    […] a fuller introduction to the X Prize competition: Scott Shreve [IRL] posted his twitterview on the X Prize with Bertalan Mesko (@berci) at Crossover Health.  Learn more about it […]

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