MintHealth Q&A: Meet our New CTO, Tyson McDowell
We’re thrilled that Tyson McDowell has joined MintHealth as CTO to lead our technology and development teams. Check out the announcement here. We sat down with Tyson to hear why he’s so excited about blockchain, and after almost two decades in the healthcare industry, why he believes MintHealth is on the cusp of remarkable changes.
What about your experience makes you the best person for this position?
Most of my experience, as both a CTO and a CEO, has been working directly to optimize processes within the US healthcare system. And as technology has evolved, I’ve helped drive transformation in the industry all the way from data integration to machine learning applications that help maximize staffing and care. I watched healthcare shift from fee-for-service independent providers to large integrated population health management organizations, and watched tech transform from the basic HTML web applications to fully distributed, intelligent, highly persuasive human/technology partnership solutions. This experience has brought me to today and my belief that the greatest application of technology is to use it to drive human behaviors. If we can use technology to drive positive behaviors, that will have the greatest impact on the health system yet. I’ve built and operated almost all of the necessary pieces for such a system at some point in my career, and sold to and served almost every stakeholder in this value chain, so I am lucky to have my passion aligned with my experience and access to market.
What do you find especially interesting about MintHealth?
Simply put, their approach as I see it has the potential to address an issue that the industry has been struggling with for decades. The healthcare cost problem is a complex issue. There is ever-changing knowledge about what works to move the needle on healthcare cost and life quality. The individual is very disconnected from these processes and decisions, so while good intentions can be had by a person, they are still likely to do actions and consume things that at best, aren’t the most valuable thing they could be doing, and at worst, actually make matters worse. Thanks to Minthealth’s concept of a currency that is immutably tied to real actions and clinically-validated outcomes, the user experience can be as simple as “follow-the-yellow-brick-road.” So Minthealth’s reward token, Vidamints, can sate the human need for immediate gratification, but also the human need for long term gratification as the coin pays out for ultimate result-attainment. It’s easy to explain to users, and the coin is implicitly “healthy” for that, specific person. I’m excited because I actually can visualize healthcare consumers (and that’s really all of us) en-masse will follow the path the coin lays out, and I know our team will ensure that each coin is aligned with something that will actually move the needles of health cost and life quality. It’s our passion, and therefore we will be tenacious at making good on this promise.
Why are you excited to join?
The team, and the problem they’re solving. As I said, I’ve been around a lot of blocks in my time, in tech, healthcare, and elsewhere. This is a many-dimensional problem that requires knowledge of truth in every one, and to work with a team that has such strong knowledge yet enjoy working together is not an opportunity I wanted to miss. This team’s depth in healthcare, tech, crypto, legal, business strategy, shareholder value optimization (which is now token-holder value optimization) is second to none, and we fundamentally enjoy each-other. If a team likes running together, they are certain to last, and therefore succeed, and therefore win.
Why do you think MintHealth is uniquely positioned to have a significant impact on chronic disease prevention and management?
Our ability to align patients, even unknowingly, with their most critical risk factors according to the entities who pay for their health, is our core differentiation, and what will ensure our success. Healthcare experts know what an individual should do to move the needle, but individuals rarely do those things. It’s not a lack of knowledge of what to do, it’s a lack of ability to drive the person to do them, consistently, throughout their daily life. Our token, and experience in getting the right message to the right person at the right moment, gives us the best chance of anyone to make transformational traction with individuals in measurably reducing the cost of the whole. That, coupled with our deep integration with real, clinically validated healthcare data that health institutions trust, means our data will be highly effective at driving the next generation of knowledge on disease prevention and management.
What are your thoughts about the blockchain and a token incentive approach?
Blockchain can replace trust. Maybe that sounds skeptical but healthcare institutions and consumers don’t really trust each other when it comes to Patient Health Data, and as a result, very little data gets to come together so that meaningful machine, or even human analysis can be done. This has been a stumbling block for progress for a long time. The more data aggregates at the individual level, the smarter our system is at knowing that exact next thing at that exact right time to drive the individual to do. And with a token, that user doesn’t need to understand the complex reasons about why that token is available to them just then, and for just that, and why it is valued as it is at that moment. They need only know that they can do x and will get y token. The user experience is simple, and the token embodies all of the knowledge we have gained, and will continue to gain, about connecting that behavior to these very big and complex results of health cost and life quality.
