Memora Health’s team of healthcare and technology professionals drives our mission to make complex care journeys simple for patients and clinicians. Marrying real-world clinical expertise with digital health experience, these experts continuously strive to ensure our intelligent care enablement platform lives up to its promise to make care accessible, actionable, and always-on.

Read on to learn about emerging topics in primary care, healthcare AI, and more.

New connections between consistent primary care, positive health outcomes, and lower costs

I cared for many Medicare patients during my career as a family nurse practitioner in a primary care practice — and witnessed firsthand the importance of regular patient engagement and appointment adherence. By seeing patients routinely over a period of months and years, I developed a more comprehensive view of the factors impacting their health. This helped me not only manage patients with chronic diseases more effectively, but also enabled me to more readily detect changes in their well-being. 

It’s widely established that primary care providers play an important role in decreasing healthcare expenditures in the United States. In fact, a groundbreaking retrospective cohort study of over 500,000 Medicare patients found “greater continuity with both primary care clinicians and practices has been associated with lower costs of care, reduced acute care utilization, and improved population-level mortality.” 

With the increasing emphasis on value-based care for Medicare beneficiaries, this study demonstrates the importance of supporting consistent primary care engagement as a key factor in reducing costs and improving outcomes. 

Consistent primary care allows for optimization of chronic disease management through education, symptom screening, preventive care, and medication adherence support. Memora Health’s Care Programs are designed to serve as an extension of the care team to facilitate all of these crucial benefits of primary care. 

Navigating a new punctuated equilibrium in AI evolution

The concept of "punctuated equilibrium" in evolutionary biology suggests that long periods of relative stasis are occasionally punctuated by brief, transformative bursts of change. This theory suggests that rapid disruptions — rather than slow, incremental shifts — are fundamental to evolution. In the realm of AI, large language models (LLMs) represent such a disruptive leap and lay the groundwork for a myriad of applications.

We're witnessing early explorations of LLMs' use cases beyond mere text generation. These include reasoning — exemplified by chain-of-thought prompting that encourages models to "think out loud"— and acting, such as interfacing with external APIs like Wikipedia. Innovative techniques like ReAct synergize reasoning and acting. A ReAct prompt comprises few-shot task-solving examples, detailing the actions a model can take and the requirement to think out loud and plan actions. These prompts show early indications of producing more accurate and constrained outputs to complex questions.

While LLMs signify a monumental shift in AI's evolutionary trajectory, techniques like ReAct — though promising — remain in their infancy. With its inherent sensitivities, the healthcare domain demands a significantly higher standard of accuracy from technologies and a uniquely cautious approach to implementing them when compared with other industries. As we leverage the transformative potential of LLMs and the techniques they inspire, ensuring safety, trust, and ethical application is paramount. 

At Memora, our approach to healthcare AI development harnesses LLMs’ understanding of language while putting patient safety first, delivering a conversational experience safeguarded by evidence-based, client-validated clinical content libraries.

The urgent need for innovation in chronic care management

Chronic conditions affect millions of Americans. I manage my asthma. My family has been impacted by chronic kidney disease, diabetes, arthritis, and chronic pain. And one report found the number of adults over 50 suffering from one or more chronic diseases will almost double by 2050 from 71.5 million in 2020 to 142.6 million. We need innovation in chronic care management — and we need it soon.

Part of that innovation needs to help people self-manage conditions and provide support throughout care journeys. This study found that educating patients on how to manage their own health led to real improvements across the board, including a 15% reduction in sick days, 21% improvement on depression scores, and 5% improvement in self-reported health.

As healthcare organizations try to reduce total cost of care, providers need to adopt new chronic care management processes and patient engagement strategies to make an impact. To do so, health systems and practices need to improve their health information technology capabilities and foster a thriving culture of innovation.

When it comes to innovating in chronic care management, providers should look for a solution that gives patients the ability to own their healthcare journey by consistently checking in on them, providing educational materials, nudging them to keep their care at top of mind, and providing easy access to high-quality, high-touch care support. They should consider Memora Health — an “always-on companion” for their patients.

Designing for cultural inclusion as a part of your health equity approach

Culture goes beyond the language we speak and the holidays we celebrate. It influences how we interact with other individuals, our environment, and technologies — including those in the healthcare sphere. 

Cultural differences can have a significant impact on how individuals view and adopt novel healthtech products — and have the potential to exacerbate existing digital divides. For instance, one study discovered individuals from cultures that value face to face interaction — specifically Indigenous communities in the U.S. — may be less likely to trust digital health products. Other evidence points to perception of privacy as an important factor in adopting solutions that transmit intimate details about one’s health. Another study revealed that individuals from cultures that value collectivism were more likely to share their personal data compared to those who originate from individualistic cultures. 

Despite this finding, cultures with an emphasis on family and community still might be less likely to engage with innovators they’re unfamiliar with. Developers of healthtech solutions need to be transparent during onboarding, and share with patients exactly how their data will be collected and used to build trust within such populations.

Ultimately, inclusive platforms that meet the needs of a culturally diverse end-user base are essential for expanding health equity and improving care delivery for all. At Memora Health, we’re not only aware of cultural differences, but we also consider them when developing our technology and creating our Care Programs. 

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