Tech-Enabled Care Delivery | Scaling Access & Elevating Outcomes at Greater Efficiency

Carl Berke PhD opened a conversation with Clay Johnston MD, PhD, Mihir Kamdar MD, and John Voith around a deceptively simple question: why did care models developed around academic medicine need new companies to reach more patients?

For Johnston, the answer was incentives. Harbor Health combines insurance and care delivery so it can reward prevention, primary care, and better outcomes rather than treating them as financial losses. Kamdar described a similar mismatch in palliative care. Research at Mass General showed that earlier palliative support could improve symptoms and reduce unnecessary hospital use, but fee-for-service economics and a severe workforce shortage made scaling difficult. Tuesday Health uses technology to identify patients, extend specialist support into the home and intervene earlier when symptoms begin to worsen.

Voith told the same story from pediatric mental health. InStride Health grew out of an evidence-based McLean Hospital model for children and young adults with complex anxiety and OCD, but long wait lists, geographic limits and self-pay economics kept it out of reach for many families. Technology and insurance partnerships created a path to scale the clinical model without stripping away the involvement of families, schools and care teams.

The common thread was that tech-enabled care is not simply digital care. Technology works best when it helps proven clinical models reach more people, aligns payment with outcomes, and preserves the human relationships that made the care effective in the first place.