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When health systems are underwater, you might want to look up upstream to see what the trouble is. When you get there, sometimes you'll find out why those systems are falling into the water. . . and sometimes you'll find out who's pushing them. In this episode, we're going upstream to look at how we got to the point where a health system that served more than a hundred thousand people per year suddenly closed its doors, and what went wrong along the way.

Correction to an earlier version of the podcast: Michelle Henry was the PA Attorney General at the time she made her remarks featured in this episode, not at the time of the sale, as previously suggested. A correction has been made.

A health system is gone.  How did they end up underwater . . . and who pushed them in?  Follow up this Thursday to find out.

The story of private equity in healthcare is often told in numbers, spreadsheets and transcripts from bankruptcy court. But in Part 2 of our series, we hear from the people in the trenches and on the front lines of Crozer Health, a collapsed hospital system in Pennsylvania, who are living out the awful consequences of decisions made, not by clinicians in Delaware County, but by executives in California and a judge in Texas.

You need to hear this while it's fresh and raw.  We'll have more on Thursday but, for now, here's what we heard late last week.

The Crozer Chester Medical Center in PA is closing as we speak, but the fall of Delaware County's largest hospital system has been building for years. In interviews with the doctors, nurses, paramedics, and legislators who kept Delaware County healthy, Wendy and Matt go behind the headlines and speak to the people who are living through these changes right now.

This is the first episode in a multi-part series focusing specifically on Crozer Health.

New episodes drop each week.

We're never more aware of the need for real human interaction than when faced with an automated Patient Portal. In this special bonus ep., Wendy and Matt share a listener voice memo about the challenges of navigating patient care through AI, and talk about how we can - and must - do better.

The 'social architecture' of an organization can make or break meaningful connections between patients and physicians, and physicians and the administration. In Part 2 of our two part series, Allison Pugh, a research professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World joins us to talk about how we can foster connective labor within larger organizations, what happens when that connection fails, and where AI fits in to all of it.

There's a growing sense of disconnection in our lives, and a growing number of reasons why. But instead of focusing on what's forcing us apart, we want to look at the work we can do to bring people together - and why it matters. In Part 1 of a two part series, Allison Pugh, a research professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World, joins us to talk about the art and science of the most important cognitive exercise you've likely never heard of: Connective Labor.

Lately, there's been a lot of talk – and fear – about violence against healthcare executives. Less talked about is the near doubling of violent incidents against healthcare workers. Well, we're going to talk about it. What's behind the violence? Who's involved? And, importantly, what can we do about it?

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What happens when people are betrayed by the system they took an oath to protect? Tim Heaphy, lead investigator for the January 6 Committee, as well as the independent investigation into the 2017 riot in Charlottesville, VA, joins us us to talk about what these events reveal about preparing for (and protecting yourself from) moral injury within government systems, and what healthcare practitioners can learn from them.