A webinar sponsored by Elation Health highlighted some of the challenges primary care practices face and how a more thoughtful, nuanced approach to health tech could transform healthcare practices. MedCity News Editor-in-Chief Arundhati Parmar moderated a conversation with Elation Health executives Dr. Sara Pastoor, head of primary care advancement, and Meaghan Sullivan, senior sales engineer. They discussed how to reduce fragmentation and burdensome, time-consuming administrative tasks that can lead to clinician burnout. Pastoor and Sullivan championed the benefits of their approach to help healthcare practices run smoother and more efficiently.

Sullivan acknowledged that the shift to value-based care payment models has led to practices feeling pressure to align with the appropriate payment model, which is adding complexity and less certainty for reimbursements. Different reimbursement models can directly impact revenue and operations, Sullivan said. Understanding these structures and choosing the right approach is key to financial stability and high-quality care. 

“By addressing these challenges head on with integration, AI-driven efficiency, and strategically selecting the appropriate payment models, organizations can unlock real progress and better outcomes for both providers and patients,” according to Sullivan.

Pastoor highlighted the downside of healthcare practices relying on disparate tech solutions — it leads to low-skill, redundant, duplicative, repetitive tasks that inflate labor costs, distract from patient care, and ultimately increase turnover rates, which can increase overhead costs. She championed the potential of AI and noted that for healthcare practices laboring under these challenges, implementing an AI-led approach could be transformative.

“I want you to think about a world in which your EHR has natively integrated AI tools that help you with smarter clinical decision support that help you automate the delegation of certain tasks,” Pastoor said. “[In this world] people are working at the top of their license, which streamlines everything from scheduling to prior authorization to help clinicians focus more on patient care, predictive analytics for help with getting more upstream with our interventions to prevent bad outcomes, monitoring medication adherence, and optimization.”

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