B-Time with Beth Bierbower

David MacMurchy, CEO of Lightship a company that organizes and manages remote clinical trials discusses remote clinical trials and how they can increase speed to market while maintaining patient safety.

According to Accell Clinical Research by mid-2019 there were over 322K research studies registered worldwide with 100K in the US.  Typically, the participant is required to be located within a defined radius of a designated facility, usually a major Health System in a major city which means many eligible potential participants cannot participate due to geography.  But, geography does not necessarily have to be a constraint for all clinical trials. 

Remote clinical trials have been on the rise and allow for the collection of data remotely and are effective and appropriate for many trials.  The introduction of remote clinical trials means more patients have access to participate in this type of important research.

Show notes:  Favorite Books:  The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom; Things I Learned on the 6.28: A Guide To Daily Reading by Stig Abell ; The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times by Lionel Barber.

Voluntary benefits are typically limited benefit policies designed around a specific condition or event such as cancer, an accident or a hospitalization and usually paid by the employee.  These policies usually pay out large sums of money $5,000 - $50,000 when the employee is diagnosed with a covered condition.  While the payout is attractive with a Voluntary Benefit these payouts are often tied to infrequent events. 

Brella is a new type of Voluntary Benefits company that is proposing to change the Voluntary Benefits game.  From the benefits payout to the claims filing process, Brella is rethinking the customer experience and product value.

Shownotes:  Books: GANDHI: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 By Ramachandra Guha; Podcast B-Time.

 

Atomic Habits Book Review: I thought the book Atomic Habits by James Clear would be good to read over the holidays.  I like to make New Year resolutions so I thought if I could learn some new approaches as to how to make these resolutions stick, that would be helpful.

Let me begin by stating that this is a really quick read.  I read it in one afternoon.  I credit the author with describing the concepts simply and succinctly.  I appreciate the fact that he avoided repeating the same information over and over.

The premise of Atomic Habits is that small changes compound over time, significantly improving our lives in the long term.  Clear stresses that we should not focus on goals, rather we should focus on the systems we need to put in place to achieve the desired outcome.  Clear also encourages readers to focus on changing our own identities – to focus on who we want to become.  For example, if you are in the process of quitting smoking and someone offers you a cigarette, you should not say, “No thanks, I am trying to quit.”  Rather, you should say, “No thanks, I am not a smoker”.  The latter statement changes your identity from someone who is trying to quit to someone who is not a smoker.  At my Weight Watchers meetings we call this “self-talk” and it’s an important part of any behavior change.

Clear’s framework includes 4 steps: Cue, Craving, Response, Reward.  The Cue triggers your brain to create a behavior.  The Craving is the motivation you have behind the habit or what you desire to change.  Response is the habit you perform, and the Reward is the end goal of the habit.  Clear states that if our behavior is insufficient in ANY WAY in these four stages, we won’t be able to create a habit.  Understanding this, I highlighted a lot in this book and reread the areas I highlighted hoping to retain as much as possible. 

To ensure that a habit change is successful, Clear gives us Four Laws of Behavior Change and, just as important in my mind, he gives us Four INVERSE laws of Behavior change.  I’ll share the law and the inverse law with examples, so you gain an understanding of what the author means.

• Law #1 is Make it obvious – and the inverse is make it INVISIBLE. As an example, put the fresh fruit on the counter and hide the cookies in the back of the pantry
• Law #2 is Make it attractive and the inverse is make it UNATTRACTIVE. Put a book next to your bed if you want to read a little at night and put your cell phone in another room.
• Law #3 is Make it easy and the inverse is make it DIFFICULT. Changing your environment such as putting your workout clothes on the bed means when you get home you are more likely to change into them and go for a run.  If you want to stop playing a game on your phone, you delete the app.
• Law #4 is Make it satisfying and the inverse is make it UNSATISFYING. This rule is a bit more nuanced.  Habits need some semblance of reward to keep you motivated and this is where the author tells us to focus, on small progressive steps.  If you want to stop eating out so much, have a jar where you put money each time you eat at home and label the jar with an activity you want to do in the future such as taking a trip.  Conversely – you could put money in a jar every time you eat you and then give that money away to a charity.  While it is hard to say this is unsatisfying, the point is…do something that “punishes” when your behaviors are not in synch with who you want to be.

I also learned from this book that creating a new habit is not so much about time, rather it is about frequency.  Clear states that we should never miss more than one which really resonates.  Don’t miss more than one gym workout at a time.  Don’t schedule a meeting over your time reserved for writing more than once.  If you do, then you will continue the bad habit.

Clear offers us a lot of good tips in this book and while it is definitely worth the read for these tips, what is even more powerful is learning about James Clear’s personal story.  Once you learn about what he overcame, you realize that he is sharing from deep personal experience and for me, learning from the experiences of others is the best form of motivation.

So start your year off right with Atomic Habits, by James Clear. 

Dr. Paul Grundy is known as “The Godfather” of the Patient Centered Medical Home.  He is also the founding President of The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative.  Dr. Grundy shares the history of the PCMH and tells us how this has evolved over time.  He shares why it’s all about the data and gives us a refreshing look at why we need to focus on population health.

Show notes:  Favorite Podcasts:  This Week in Virology. 

Books:  Provider-Led Population Health Management by Richard Hodach; Trusted Healers: Dr. Paul Grundy and The Global Healthcare Crusade by Dan Pelino; Lost and Found: A Consumer’s Guide to Healthcare by Peter Anderson and Paul Grundy; and The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid.

 

There is a growing trend in the healthcare ecosystem where providers are focused on a specific population of individuals.  Maven Clinic is a platform that focuses on the entire parenthood experience from pre-conception or adoption through birth and keeping your little ones healthy moving forward.  We are going to hear from Sonia why the team at Maven Clinic chose to focus on this segment.  What are the unmet needs or Jobs to be Done as I like to say? 

Show Notes: Favorite Podcasts: B-Time with Beth Bierbower; How I Built This with Guy Raz; Hidden Brain with Shankar Vendantam; Bright Spots in Healthcare with Eric Glazer.  Favorite Books: Talking To Strangers: What We Should Know About The People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell.

Great Quote: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

Consumers spend $1 Trillion annually in out of pocket healthcare costs and premiums yet they don’t have a lot of control over their spend.  In fact, many consumers don’t see healthcare as a purchase.  Author of The Health Care Consumer’s Manifesto, Deb Gordon shares patient’s stories and provides the reader with a view into the consumer’s view of the healthcare system.  This is a must read for any individual who is working in the healthcare. 

Show notes; Favorite Podcasts: The New Yorker Fiction Podcast: The Writer’s Voice Podcast.  Books: Watershed by Mark Barr: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Maria Thomas has had a unique career covering such well-known brands as The World Bank Group, Amazon, NPR and Etsy.  Maria’s intellectual curiosity and her ability to see where the puck is going has afforded her the opportunity to work with bright people and help drive each organization forward in its digital transformation.  Join us as we hear from Maria, what skills are transferrable across industries, why customer focus matters and why it’s important to take risks.

Show notes:  This episode was recorded on November 30, 2020.  Maria’s favorite podcast revolve around these four themes: Media, Storytelling, Business and Healthcare.  Her favorite podcasts include: Hidden Brain, Throughline, How I Built This, Freakonomics, Home HealthCare News, Masters of Scale, Meditative Story and Should This Exist, Creating A New Healthcare and Tradeoffs.

Favorite Books Include: Reinventing American Healthcare by Ezekiel Emanuel, MD; The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama; On Earth We’re briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong; Exit West by Mohsin Hamid; Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens; The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys With The Hustlers And Rebels Of The New China by Frank Langfitt.

Article which mentions Bezos' point of view on negative reviews

https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/jeff-bezos-says-1-thing-separates-successful-people-from-everyone-else-and-will-keep-you-from-giving-up-on-your-dreams-too-soon.html

1999 CNBC interview with Bezos in which he touches on customer centricity and long-term thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GltlJO56S1g

Launch of NPR Music which I referenced when talking about NPR and brand stretchability. In this 2007 article I mention some of the same points I brought up in the episode:

https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/tv/article/On-Radio-NPR-expands-its-digital-presence-1252124.php

James Allworth is a man of many talents. He is co-author of How Will You Measure Your Life w/ Clay Christensen & Karen Dillon, co-host of the Exponent Podcast 7 Head of Innovation at Cloudfare. James shares life & work lessons from the Late Prof Clay Christensen. We discuss work culture & work/life balance. We also discuss Big Tech and market power. We also discuss Tik Tok and Hauwei and privacy concerns. You don’t want to miss this engaging episode that covers a range of topics.

Show Notes:  Podcasts:  James likes podcasts that play electronic dance.  He says these are great to work out to.  Books: The Innovators Dilemma by Clay Christensen; Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond; The Black Swan:  The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

 

 

Microsoft’s Azure business has grown to become one third of its $143B of annual revenue in 10 years.  This major growth came partly from changing the sales game.  Microsoft shifted its focus from traditional sales.  Jeff Fattic, Customer Success Manager at Microsoft will share why focusing on creating customer value matters and how it can generate long term growth. 

Show Notes:  Books: Customer Success:  How Innovative Companies are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta.  Microsoft’s Azure business has grown to become one third of its $143B of annual revenue in 10 years.  This major growth came partly from changing the sales game.  Microsoft shifted its focus from traditional sales.  Jeff Fattic, Customer Success Manager at Microsoft will share why focusing on creating customer value matters and how it can generate long term growth. 

 

Seth Sternberg, Co-founder and CEO of Honor discussed the innovations his company is making in the personal care market.  It starts with focusing on the Care Professionals and treating them with respect by understanding their preference and given them agency by providing the proper training, giving them the right tools, setting expectations and ensuring they are working in the right environment. 

Honor’s approach seems to working as its net promoter score from their Care Pros is 68 which is well above most employee NPS scores. 

Show Notes:  Seth’s chosen book is The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion by Jonathan Haidt.  Seth enjoys podcasts tied to bicycles and science and his two favorite are: Marginal Gains Cycling Podcast and The Peter Attia Drive Podcast.