Founder & Principal

Thomas Merrill

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to attend and speak at BioHive’s Life Sciences Summit, held in Salt Lake City (conveniently close to Redstone’s headquarters).

BioHive is a recently formed organization dedicated to supporting the life sciences sector in Utah and in Salt Lake City, in particular (shout out to Mayor Erin Mendenhall).

One of my interests in BioHive as an organization has been to help bring the national conversation of value-based care and related concepts like comparative effectiveness research (CER) to bear on Utah’s rapidly developing life sciences sector. My hope is that as we grow in our innovative capacity, we do so in a way that supports high-value care that is financially accessible to everyone living in this great country. 

In my remarks to those gathered, I discussed

• The story of McAllen, Texas and how average healthcare spending per Medicare beneficiary was more than double its neighbor up the road, El Paso—with no discernible health benefits for patients.

• The research contribution of the Dartmouth Atlas regarding the powerful impact of provider decision making on healthcare spending in the United States.

• The story of Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City and the crucial decision that leadership took to boycott a low-value drug that would have financially devastated patients with no appreciable improvement in life expectancy.

I then connect these three developments to the growing field of comparative effectiveness research and its clear relevance to the life sciences and the evolution of outcomes-based contracting—a growing business imperative given the trajectory of healthcare spending in the US.

My hope is that we are on a path to combine the insights of these three stories for the benefit of U.S. healthcare and finally find a system that is, yes, uniquely American, but truly ensures the health and wellbeing of its citizens. It will take lots of political, intellectual, and moral willpower to make it so, but I know this country is up to it. 

A big thanks to BioHive and their gracious director, Katelin Roberts, for allowing me to pontificate on their stage and be part of something special.

I hope you enjoy my thoughts.

Healthcare leaders need to stay abreast of the latest developments in value-based care—from regulatory changes in DC to what their colleagues down the road are saying about best practices. But staying on top of the news is literally a full-time job. Redstone takes the pain out of staying on top, by hand-picking the top three new developments—each week—and delivering them to subscriber inboxes each Thursday afternoon.

As a mission-driven firm, we believe that the fruits of our labor should be shared. So, here it is, the intel that powers our firm can now power the offices and boardrooms of America’s healthcare industry — three headlines at a time, week after week.

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Earlier this month, Redstone principal and founder Tom Merrill received word that the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) at the University of Utah School of Medicine wished for Redstone to join their industry advisory board (IAB). Redstone accepted and now joins 30-plus other companies representing the breadth and depth of Utah’s healthcare landscape—including 3M Health Information Systems (Senthil Nachimuthu, MD, PhD; Lee Min Lau, MD, PhD), ARUP (Brian Jackson, MD, MS), Cambia Grove (Elisabeth Nebeker), Collective Medical (Chris Klomp, MBA), Health Catalyst (Jason Jones; Eric Denna), and Intermountain Healthcare (Sid Thornton, PhD).

IAB at DMBI Membership

Redstone’s commitment to America’s successful transition to value-based healthcare is deeply tied to bioinformatics specifically and to health IT more generally. Meaningful data—clear and actionable—is critical to both achieving and assessing value. As a member of the IAB at DBMI, Redstone is grateful for the opportunity to serve the very students who will be instrumental in moving America’s healthcare systems forward.

ABOUT IAB

The University of Utah Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) Industry Advisory Board (IAB) plays a vital role in linking industry and academia.  Members of the IAB are professionals in industry and government who are committed to advancing the informatics field.  They collaborate with DBMI through advising the academic program, sponsoring events, and providing learning experiences for students.

ABOUT DBMI

The Department of Biomedical Informatics was established in 1964 at the University of Utah and is internationally recognized as a leader in biomedical informatics research and education. The department has a National Library of Medicine (NLM) training grant to support its educational programs. Research affiliations include University of Utah Health, Intermountain Health Care facilities, the Veterans Administration Medical Center, HealthInsight (the Peer Review Organization for Utah and Nevada), and the Utah Department of Health. As one of the largest biomedical informatics training programs in the world, the department’s faculty and students are a diverse group with a wide range of experience and interests.

Photo by Parker Gibbons on Unsplash