Salvo Health

Alyssa Guberman

Healthcare Analytics Shaper

Keeping Virtual Specialty Care Centered Around Patient Needs

Patients don't always have access to support when they need it, in the way they need it. Chronic disease, for example, doesn't happen every few months during an office visit. It happens every day, grocery shopping, traveling or managing a flare up. That is where digital health has the opportunity to change how care is delivered.

Healthcare has focused on educating patients, but knowledge alone doesn’t change behavior. Patients need support and someone to turn to when they are making real life decisions. That is why we combine quantitative and qualitative data with constant feedback from patients and our care teams at Salvo. Data tells you what is happening, and your care teams often tell you why. Combining those insights allows you to learn what works and build more personalized care pathways at scale.

Using Analytics to Improve Care Experiences and Patient Outcomes

Data creates value when it changes how care is delivered. I can’t tell you how many dashboards I have built in my career that have never been used. Data should actually help clinicians make better decisions and help patients achieve better outcomes. This starts with getting creative about what you ask and how you track it.

We always start with the data. If we don't have it, we use benchmarks, run pilots, gather patient or market feedback and continue learning. We have learned that context matters just as much as numbers. At Salvo, understanding a patient's mindset during intake helps our clinicians personalize care from the first conversation. Two patients with the same diagnosis often need different support to succeed. We have seen a few simple questions about readiness to change meaningfully to predict engagement and success in our program. The goal is not simply collecting a lot of data. It's connecting all of it and finding what can be used to deliver better care.

Leadership Lessons for Building and Scaling Data-Driven Healthcare Programs

One of the biggest leadership lessons I have learned is that building a successful healthcare program has less to do with building the perfect product. It has to do with building a care model that fits into the realities of how patients, clinicians and systems actually operate. Patients don't live in appointments. Clinicians don't have extra hours in their day. Health systems don't have perfect data. The best solutions acknowledge those realities instead of fighting them.

“Data tells you what is happening, and your care teams often tell you why. Combining those insights allows you to learn what works and build more personalized care pathways at scale.”

I've also learned that the most meaningful improvements often come from the people closest to the work. Data can tell you what's happening, but your care teams and patients tell you why.

The Challenges of Expanding Virtual Specialty Care

This won’t be a shock, but one of the biggest challenges is about connecting data. Healthcare generates huge amounts of information, but much of it still lives across disparate systems. Most platforms today advertise interoperability, FHIR compatibility and secure data sharing, but the reality can be very different. I have had to pull one report to understand a patient's clinical history, another report just to retrieve their email address and manually stitch together information that should already be connected. Healthcare has correctly prioritized protecting patient data. The next challenge is securely integrating it to unlock better care.

Digital health companies also face a uniquely high bar for proving value. We are expected to demonstrate outcomes, quality, ROI and attribution in ways that traditional healthcare isn’t typically asked to do. While the bar is higher, I actually think that is one of our greatest strengths. It pushes us to continuously measure outcomes, refine our care models and demonstrate quality in ways that ultimately benefit patients, providers and the system.

The Future of Virtual Specialty Care

I think we will continue to see digital health move beyond point solutions toward more coordinated models of care. Health systems don't want to manage ten vendors and patients don't want ten different experiences. The organizations that succeed will be the ones that bring more of the patient journey together.

Technology and AI will play an important role in this – to strengthen the human connection. AI will help us personalize support, reduce administrative burden and give care teams more time to focus on what patient’s value most: feeling heard, supported and confident in managing their health.

I think the organizations that succeed will be the ones that use technology and data to deliver continuous, personalized support that meets patients where they are, empowers clinicians and gives people the tools to confidently manage their health after they have left these programs.