Health:Further

Marquise Stillwell, Founder and Principal at Openbox, might be our favorite guest on the Future of Health Podcast. Stillwell brings a unique perspective to healthcare that comes from his design background combined with constant consideration of cultural and social questions. As a result, he is designing a future healthcare system that necessarily looks radically different than what we have today. In this conversation, we discuss some of those cultural considerations, including what is "culture"? Stillwell talks about the "invisible gap" that contributes to issues like under-utilization of recommended cancer screenings. We discuss the physical design of the hospital, and how Stillwell is even now rethinking what (or if!) a hospital should be. Openbox itself is a design studio that uses human-centered design to solve real-world problems. Their work includes urban design, education, mobility, and healthcare. Projects cover multiple formats, including film - Marquise mentions a current film project at the beginning of the conversation.

Virtual reality has been described as "the most psychologically powerful medium we've ever had." It has the ability to essentially bypass normal learning pathways and implant information into our brains as experiences. This, obviously, has huge implications for how we teach people. In healthcare, companies like BehaVR are using virtual reality to immerse people in experiences as a way to drive behavior change. In this conversation, Founder Aaron Gani and Chief Medical Officer Pete Buecker, MD, discuss the role of VR in helping people make lifestyle changes that could improve their own health and, collectively, lead to massive savings and improved outcomes across our healthcare system. Gani and Buecker talk about how VR can target many issues, including mental health, behavioral health, diabetes, heart disease, weight loss, and other chronic diseases.

Last year, Kristen Johns, Partner at Waller joined us to provide an intro to blockchain in healthcare - what it is and some of the applications to the industry. In this conversation Johns returns to give an update on the blockchain landscape a year later and define a few more of the terms (public vs private blockchain, permissioned vs permissionless). From there, Sean O'Brien, Founder of OMNY Health joined us to talk about why his company built a supply chain management system on a blockchain. Together, we discuss the usual concerns: what's real, what's hype, where is distributed ledger technology headed, and when it might - or might not - be the right option for a company to build on.

Andrew Rainey is the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Binary Fountain. Elizabeth Davis, the manager of online marketing at HCA Healthcare, works closely with Andrew and Binary Fountain as a client. In this conversation, recorded at Health:Further 2018, we talk about why reputation management isn't just clicking three out of five stars and walking away. In healthcare, reputation management means collecting and responding to feedback in near-real time to improve patient experiences. It's also collecting information over time to see which individuals or departments are performing well, and which ones might need some help. Davis and Rainey touch on a common theme, which is that healthcare organizations aren't competing against each other for patient satisfaction, but companies in other sectors like retail. Customers expect high-quality service and quick responses to problems, so a strong online marketing and reputation management system is important for hospitals, physician practices, and clinics.

This episode was recorded on August 28 at the 2018 Health:Further Festival. Our guest, Michael Ramey, is a Principal at PYA, an accounting and consulting firm with offices across the country and deep expertise in the healthcare industry. PYA is a long-standing sponsor and partner of Health:Further. Michael provides transaction advisory services, strategic planning, business valuation, fair market value compensation analysis, and related consulting services for hospitals, healthcare systems, physician practices, and healthcare information technology companies for purposes of facilitating mergers and acquisitions, performing due diligence, acquiring physician services, and pursuing joint ventures.  His primary areas of expertise are in transaction support, due diligence, valuation, financial analysis, and post-merger integration. Although we've covered the topic of consolidation before, Michael is really the first person we've talked to for the podcast who is working directly in the arena of healthcare consolidation. In this conversation, we discuss the overall healthcare landscape in terms of consolidation, who's doing what (lots of private equity), and areas where Michael is seeing a lot of interesting activity (urgent care). Read more and listen to A Transaction Advisor Talks Consolidation here.

Erik Wagner is Senior Director of Provider Strategy, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Salesforce, one of sponsors at Health:Further 2018. Erik has about three decades of experience in healthcare, working in multiple areas that all tend to revolve around healthcare IT. So he has a great understanding of what the digital side of healthcare looks like these days. In this conversation, we talk about the state of health IT in general, why a lot of supposedly consumer-friendly platforms (like patient portals) don't work, and the difference between just "checking boxes" and actually designing to engage people. Erik also talks about how Salesforce is used in the healthcare industry to solve some of these problems and give providers insight into the patients coming through their doors. It's patient engagement in real time. Check out the whole thing on the Health:Further blog here.

We're recording at the 2018 Health:Further festival! Chip Blaufuss is the Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at HCA Healthcare, the presenting sponsor of Health:Further. Chip heads up innovation at the largest healthcare organization in the country - one of every 20 babies born in the US is born in an HCA facility. So how does such a large company keep new ideas flowing? What happens when a nurse on the floor has an idea for solving a problem? How does leadership vet and test those solutions? Where is the balance between internal and external innovation, where do partnerships in healthcare come in to play? We discuss all of that in this conversation

Martie Ross, Principal at PYA, was one of our first guests on the Future of Health Podcast. Last year, we talked about the earliest days of MACRA and MIPS, among other things. In this conversation, we come back to those issues, and Martie gives us an update on the attitudes within the healthcare industry around these still-new value-based care models. In addition, she talks about what CMS is up to and her outlook on the many new programs the agency is running through Medicare. We also touch on consolidation, telehealth, and consumerization of healthcare.

Waller Law is a long-standing partner of Health:Further, and we are proud and grateful to have had the chance to work with them over the past several years. I recently sat down with Jesse Neil and John Haubenreich, attorneys who work at the intersection between healthcare, policy and regulation. They help clients navigate the complexities of our ever-evolving healthcare system, working on compliance and handling investigations when they arise. Our conversation touched on a number of topics, ranging from current regulatory issues to how to approach a lawyer for help.

This is the second part of an informal and miniseries looking at leadership and culture. Last week we heard from Jeff Thompson, CEO emeritus of Gundersen Health, and this week I’m talking to Jenn Lim of Delivering Happiness. Jenn is the Co-founder, CEO and Chief Happiness Officer at Delivering Happiness, an organization built to help companies understand the importance of, and then build strategies around, happiness and employee satisfaction. A lot of this came out of Zappos, which has a remarkable story about company culture and customer satisfaction and - ultimately - business success. Her team spends a lot of time working with healthcare organizations, and the healthcare community is looking more closely at the ideas Jenn and her team bring to the table. In this conversation, we look at case studies such as Northwell Health to show the value of a strong culture in healthcare.