Approximately 129 million Americans are living with at least one chronic condition, and fragmentation of care creates a significant hurdle as these individuals often find themselves navigating a complex web of health care services.

“When you have a chronic condition, you end up engaging with your specialist significantly more — over three times as often — than you do with your primary care physician,” Joel Haugen, chief product officer for DaVita, said at the 2024 AHIP Consumer Experience and Digital Health Forum on Sept. 25. “This means [people with chronic disease are] engaging with nurses...cardiologists, nephrologists to address things like medication adherence, to drive updates in requests that have nothing to do with that specific chronic condition.”

Fragmentation in care can leave patients feeling lost in a system that doesn’t always prioritize their unique needs while contributing to inefficiencies, worse patient outcomes and increased spend.

“There’s a little more than $4 trillion dollars of medical spend in the industry,” Haugen said. “About 90% of that happens within specialty care.”[1]

The good news? Today’s technological solutions hold potential to enhance patient engagement and transform the specialty care landscape. From telehealth platforms to integrated care management tools, technology is reshaping the way health care providers can connect and engage with patients. In a landscape where fragmented care is a widespread challenge, DaVita leaders are helping shed light on the pressing need for a more integrated approach to care and how DaVita is using its technological capabilities to help improve the care experience.

For example, the patient mobile app DaVita Care Connect is designed to increase patient engagement — and deepen trust. According to DaVita patients, their reasons for using the app include telehealth visits and care appointment reminders, secure messaging with their team, access to their lab results, always-available education and recipes, and virtual support group sessions among others.

As the health care community continues to explore how technology can transform the care experience, Haugen emphasizes the importance of designing solutions that work for patients. By adopting effective engagement tools that echo the user-friendly interfaces people encounter elsewhere — whether it’s social media, online shopping platforms or other digital experiences — can provide a more intuitive and accessible experience, one with which patients will be more engaged.

“Technology helps drive greater engagement, greater timeliness of information and more holistic information,” Haugen said.

However, as progress continues, Haugen points to the need for intentional change that prioritizes creating the right solutions for everyone involved:

“Focus on the experience. We often forget about the care team’s experience in addition to patients’. How are we optimizing sharing information using technology to drive the best experience for both our patients and our care teams?”  

Haugen concluded by underscoring the need for collaboration to enable success. As he explained, collaboration with key stakeholders — including payors, other providers and patients — will help unlock the ability for organizations like DaVita to scale solutions. This collective effort can help create a future where integrated data systems can help optimize experiences and reduce care fragmentation for both patients and clinicians, regardless of location.