Provider Engagement in the New Digital Era

Bradford Curtis, MD, FAAP, vice president and senior medical director at OptumRx, talks with Managed Healthcare Executive Editorial Advisor David Calabrese, RPh, MHP, about the future of provider engagement.

The way we practice medicine in the U.S. has evolved significantly over the last 20 years. What began as a largely entrepreneurial, small-group practice model where providers used paper charts and forged lifelong relationships with their patients, has transformed into large-scale health systems that favor IT infrastructure, data and analytics, and capacity. The result? A complex, still largely disjointed system where providers-and patients-are sometimes left behind as it relates to sufficient communication, coordination, and education/engagement.

Provider engagement, in particular, is more important than ever to ensure better outcomes and greater value throughout the healthcare system. Engagement requires heightened transparency and easing the administrative burden of physicians.