As the retail industry looks for new ways to improve the shopping experience and manage consumer expectations around personalization, convenience, service and digital tools, the healthcare industry is learning to engage consumers for the first time. Historically a business-to-business industry, healthcare has not needed a deep understanding of consumer behavior. That foundation is shifting as care moves out of hospitals and individual patients begin having opportunities to act more like a true consumer. Health:Further has partnered with the Global Market Development Center to produce a track at the 2019 Selfcare Summit and look at these issues. GMDC CEO Patrick Spear joined us on the podcast to discuss the state of retail today, explain selfcare, and talk about the value of unconventional partnerships between the healthcare and retail industries. During the ​Rise of the Healthcare Consumer Track​ at the 2019 Selfcare Summit, produced by Health:Further, you will learn about opportunities for the healthcare and retail sectors to redefine how health is delivered based on these trends, particularly through new collaborative models that combine traditional clinical settings and retail. Through this track, healthcare providers will learn how to leverage the trend of care moving out of hospitals and towards patients-as-consumers for increased traffic, new revenue streams, and better overall health for society.

How do healthcare providers adjust to the emerging system where patients are responsible for more of their healthcare spending? How do providers collect on unpaid medical bills? How do patients take responsibility for their care and demand accountability from their clinicians? What role does patient education play in the finances of healthcare? In this healthcare roundtable, we touch on all of these topics and more. We were joined by Wes Pass of CarePayment, Jeff Ridlehoover of Sphere.com, and Bradford Crowther of TransUnion.

We recently published a post about the customer-centric redesign CapitalOne is testing with their new cafes and what healthcare might be able to take from the project. Then we called up Lucas Artusi, Senior Systems Designer at the Design Institute for Health, to get his reaction. The Design Institute for Health team spends their time working to build a human-centered healthcare system through physical design, design thinking, technology, UI/UX, engagement patterns, and more, so Artusi is perfectly positioned to talk about a program like the CapitalOne cafes and whether it's relevant for healthcare.

Derek Anderson is Vice President of Business Improvement at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management. The combination of teaching future healthcare leaders and working within a top-tier academic medical center has given Anderson a strong yet sober opinion on the trajectory for traditional healthcare providers. Anderson recognizes the increasing rate of change in healthcare, viewing it as “a lot of potential chaos and a lot of uncertainty.” As a result, providers are being “thoughtful” about their next steps, especially as they look at managing their fixed assets like physical hospitals. Read more about the conversation here

Adoption of value-based care has gone in fits and starts. The latest news shows adoption has slowed, even while providers recognize its importance. Meanwhile, tech companies are moving faster than ever, and the conversation around patients turning into active healthcare consumers is accelerating - although there is still a lot to work out (for example). Trying to harmonize these two trends is key to managing the current change in today's healthcare economy while planning for what it will look like in the future. Health:Further CEO Marcus Whitney spelled out what's happening and who's responsible. Watch the conversation, listen to the podcast, or read the four main takeaways here.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recently published a presentation titled Evaluating an episode-based payment system for post-acute carethat explains the committee’s thinking about a bundled payment model for post-acute care. Soon after, Becker’s highlighted 5 key points from the presentation. We spoke with Bruce Greenstein to get his insight on the post-acute care landscape and, more specifically, the potential value of bundling post-acute care services. Greenstein is the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at LHC Group, as well as the former Chief Technology Officer of the US Department of Health & Human Services. Check out the full post with quotes here.

Professor Jackie Oldham is a physiology researcher, and academic by background. During the course of her work trying to bring her own innovations out of the lab and into the market, she “vowed that it would never be as difficult for anybody else.” That led her to join Health Innovation Manchester and the Oxford Road Corridor, where she is now the Director of Strategic Innovation. This week she was in Nashville as part of a UK trade delegation. During the course of their time here, Professor Oldham, along with Health:Further parent company Briovation, announced a partnership to facilitate transatlantic investment and acceleration of promising health and healthcare companies. Professor Oldham spoke with Health:Further CEO Marcus Whitney to discuss why Manchester is such an interesting, unique and exciting place to be involved in healthcare innovation.

Chris Chan is one of those people we need more of in healthcare. He's experienced and knowledgeable while also inherently unconventional. Which means he's perfectly positioned to look at both the "legacy" establishment and the new disruptors and find how they can all combine forces. In this conversation, Chris and Health:Further's David Shifrin talk about having a unique, unconventional perspective. They also look at: The impending golden age of healthcare Patient-centric data transparency (because how can you not talk about that?) Payment models and payment systems Employers' relationship with healthcare Incentives (for patients and the industry) And a lot more.

When we started Health:Further in 2015, it was with a belief that by bringing together a diverse group of people passionate about the future of healthcare, we could help to build bridges that would result in real relationships, partnerships and progress. We also felt that the pace of change in the industry was rather slow, and so gathering once a year to check in and see where things were felt adequate. That founding belief carried us through the growth of an event from a summit to a festival, and the development of an awesome community of people breaking ground on moving the industry forward. We felt like we were on top of things, and our festival could support the industry through its evolution to a more ideal state. Then 2018 happened. The pace of change accelerated, and we came to the conclusion that it was time for us to shift our focus from convening our community to taking direct action. Listen to Health:Further CEO Marcus Whitney, Chief Development Officer Steve Tremitiere, and Director of Research and Content David Shifrin, discuss where we've been and where we are heading starting today. Learn more at healthfurther.com

A few months ago Don Lee, host of the #HCBiz Podcast and healthcare IT consultant, and I started talking. There's a lot to be done in healthcare, and the podcasting community tends to be way more collaborative than competitive. A few phone calls and a couple of beers later, the result was this episode. Don and I talk through several of the trends and common ideas we've picked up on over the past year of interviewing dozens of leaders in healthcare. We look at clinical decision support and care transitions as big areas of change and opportunity. We also talk about marketing and leadership as critical, but sometimes unheralded, factors that healthcare organizations of all sizes can use to build success.