Intermountain, Presbyterian and SSM Health Tackle Digital Transformation

Health care disruptors have made rapid gains in capitalizing on the benefits of technological innovation, but health care remains hamstrung by siloed data. The good news is that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred many hospitals and health systems to move quickly to identify needs, assess novel tools and solutions and implement them efficiently.

Innovative solutions make data exchange easier and digital transformation at scale possible, but organizations can face huge costs to purchase and implement third-party products.

Clearly, hospitals and health systems need a different approach. And that’s exactly what Intermountain Healthcare, Presbyterian Healthcare and SSM Health recently did by founding a nonprofit company to tackle the digital transformation challenges.

Dubbed Graphite Health, the venture is modeled after Civica Rx, a nonprofit drug company formed by member hospitals to address drug shortages and reduce generic drug prices. Graphite Health has an App-Store-like marketplace where digital health entrepreneurs can sell their software tools, and health care organizations and consumers can more easily buy and implement them.

Graphite Health’s mission is to establish a trusted digital ecosystem that includes an interoperable data platform and an application marketplace that drives the digital advancement of health care for patients. Members invest in and own the company and commit to utilizing Graphite tools and technology. Each receives technology solutions designed for and by them, along with the resources needed to onboard and adopt the new capabilities.

The key to the Graphite platform is an overarching data management strategy that accounts for how the system ingests raw data from existing systems of record, how it shares data within the health system walls and how patients can share data externally. A successful platform in health care will require a common data platform that is administered independently and also can facilitate data discovery across organizational boundaries. Graphite is working toward making such an exchange possible.

The Graphite Marketplace provides an open one-stop shop for both parties: The health system members have a single process for accessing hundreds of trusted applications; it offers entrepreneurs one platform to facilitate access to dozens of partner systems representing millions of users; and it provides a seamless experience for disseminating and accessing innovative technologies.

The marketplace is constructed around four stores: consumer-facing apps, care coordination apps, business efficiency apps and provider satisfaction apps.

Moving from disruption by outsiders to an ecosystem of digital transformation directed by hospitals and health systems not only prioritizes patients and their health care needs, but also can reduce provider workload, increase operational efficiencies and control costs.