Session Description
Pandemic Push: Accelerating Connected Care
Dr. Houghton will
discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on connected care and Ochsner Health accelerates new care models out of it. As an example, in 2019, less than 4,000 home-based virtual visits were conducted by the Ochsner system. At the pandemic peaks, the health system was handling almost that many every day. And chronic disease management programs expanded into digital care ecosystems.
A silver lining of the pandemic, says Houghton, is a healthcare revolution that has given people with chronic illnesses tools to manage their healthcare. The pandemic forced people to figure out technology with new models of prevention and treatment across multiple generations. "We are really trying to reinvent healthcare to focus on wellness, meet the patients where they are and take advantage of a digital community that we are all living in,” says
Houghton. “Since we have online banking, ride sharing, Instacart and Amazon already, why should healthcare lag behind?”
Speaker Biography
David J. Houghton, M.D., M.P.H. is a neurologist who earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and his Masters in
Public Health in epidemiology at Emory University. He completed his internship and residency in neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Fellowship training was subsequently received at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Pennsylvania Hospital. He served as a member of the faculty and Neurology Residency Program Director at the University of Louisville. Dr. Houghton was recruited to Ochsner Health as Chief of the Division of Movement
Disorders. Today, he is the Medical Director of Ochsner Health’s Digital Medicine program and System Chair of Telehealth, a nationally recognized, clinically-proven program revolutionizing how to treat chronic conditions combining digital tools and engagement with a dedicated care team. Ochsner Health operates 48 hospitals and nearly 300 health and urgent care centers across Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf South; and its cutting-edge Connected Health digital medicine program is caring for
patients beyond its walls. In 2021, Ochsner Health treated more than 1 million people from every state and 75 countries.