Summit snapshots: How to scramble eggs and more

I wrote a wrap up of our HME News Business Summit for the HME Newswire that hits email boxes on Monday, but there was so much more. So much.

So here are some quotables from the event:

Much of the data being collected by hospitals and health systems right now is what speaker Fletcher Lance of North Highland Company calls unstructured data. Not being collected: unstructured data like doctor chart notes. There are “fortunes to be made” for whoever puts the two together to tell the patient story, he said.

Data isn't just good for patient outcomes, it's good for business, said speaker Tim Murphy of Philips Respironics. One of the big questions on the provider's mind should be: “How can data optimize my profits?” he said. Murphy advised providers to know the whole “journey cost” of each patient. “We don't lack data,” he said. “It's determining which are meaningful.”

Speaker Jim Hollingshead of ResMed had three pieces of advice for providers considering a more connected business model for sleep therapy: 1.) adopt devices with connected capabilities, 2.) centralize your compliance function, and 3.) market what you're doing to referral sources.

This was a first at the Summit: Speaker Dave Gilbert of Evermind shared a poem, Chorus of Cells from “Poems from the Pond” by Peggy Freydburg, who died earlier this year at 107, to illuminate how seniors feel about health care and technology. Gilbert also had a prediction for providers on who's going to pay for telematics in health care: equipment manufacturers.

One of the biggest takeaways from a panel of disrupters talking about doing things differently: look at the HME industry as if you weren't in the HME industry. Of panelist Dan Afrasiabi, who took over Geneva Woods Pharmacy four years ago and has been “scrambling the eggs” ever since, panelist Dan DeSimone said, “He's a true leader.” DeSimone explained that those entrenched in the HME industry are used caring for patients, not leading employees.

If you didn't make it this year, keep an eye on www.hmesummit.com in the spring for details on the 2016 event. We do know this: It will take place Sept. 18-20 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, S.C.