‘Done well, there are very few boundaries around the digitization of healthcare,’ says Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of the Digital Medicine Society

Second of three parts

In a wide ranging conversation with Managed Healthcare Executive, Jennifer Goldsack, M.Chem., M.A., MBA, OLY, the CEO of the Digital Medicine Society was asked about the boundaries of digital medicine and what counts as digital healthcare.

“Done well, there are very few boundaries around digitization of healthcare,” said Goldsack, noting that in other parts of the economy, computers and digitization are no longer seen as a separate category: “No one talks about computers in commerce … it is just a state of being.

The electronic health record and digitally enabled care delivery are part of the broad trend of the digital healthcare.

“One of the challenges that we’ve had in the early days is that there’s been a focus on what folks might describe as point solution — individual productions or solutions that disregard the fact that this entire $4.3 trillion domestic industry, this $10 trillion worldwide industry, is digitizing across the board,” said Goldsack. “Nothing can be done in a vacuum. It has to contemplate the entire environment.”

Asked about a success story in digital healthcare, Goldsack cited collaboration between Podimetrics and the Department of Veterans Affairs in using the company’s SmartMat, which uses heat sensors in a mat on the floor to detect what might be the early warning signs of diabetic foot ulcers and therefore could help prevent lower-limb amputations

“That’s the sort of thing we want to see,” said Goldsack. “It’s not an individual device; it’s part of a full-stack solution. And the outcomes have been superb.”