I Don't Care

On this episode of I Don’t Care, host Kevin Stevenson talked with Steve Loveless, President, and CEO, Regional Market Executive of St. Vincent Healthcare, about his career in healthcare, which began as a fellow working with Stevenson in Oklahoma. They also talked about leadership and taking risks.

“Those early activities, as they pulled me out of the fellowship and into the role of value enhancement, and the efforts to understand what brought value to healthcare" - Steve Loveless

In his first role as a fellow at Good Samaritan Hospital in Oklahoma, Loveless learned the importance of vision. He noted that the leadership at the time had a vision, and they were willing to take risks. This is a value that’s important to healthcare, according to Loveless.

These leadership examples early on in his career would have an impact on how he would lead.

“Those early activities, as they pulled me out of the fellowship and into the role of value enhancement, and the efforts to understand what brought value to healthcare,” Loveless said. “Then to break it down and to pursue action plans in each of those areas and drive value further was the groundwork for the activities that I’ve been driving in my organization.”

As he heads into the next phase of his career, one in which he’ll focus on the development of others, specifically leaders and future leaders, as an executive coach.

Technologent is a Global Provider of Edge-to-EdgeTM Information Technology Solutions and Services for Fortune 1000 companies. They help companies outpace the new digital economy by creating IT environments that are fast, flexible, efficient, transparent, and secure.

The duo talked about how the pandemic brought upon the need to cut costs and move to a digital environment more dire. The healthcare industry loses about $150 billion annually due to missed appointments because 88 percent of appointments are still made manually. With an RPA, errors could be reduced and will increase savings.

“It isn’t about replacing workers. It’s about making work more efficient,” Buckley said.

Listen to learn more about how RPA and AI Can improve healthcare systems.

On this episode of I Don’t Care, host Kevin Stevenson talks with Ted Quinn, the CEO and Co-founder of Activate Care, a digital health company helping everybody engaged in the healthcare system - clinicians, patients, families, and communities - act together to make health happen, wherever they are.

The duo dug into CIEs or a Community Information Exchange platform. During the pandemic around the country, many healthcare organizations struggled to communicate between parties. Many of these issues could be solved if important information about patients and care could be shared between stakeholders.

“A community information exchange is a platform that enables all those stakeholders in a community, like a town or a county, to come together and share its space,” Quinn said.

If these stakeholders can share this information, they can come together to drive the outcomes they want to see.

The pandemic highlighted some of the issues that these community organizations lacked. Some of these things include having different terminologies, priorities, incentive programs, and how they communicate. The goal moving forward is to have these organizations communicate with each other so care is improved for patients.

Rural hospitals took a major hit during the pandemic, with many closing or on the verge of it. These organizations are a lifeline for the community, and some are persevering and thriving. Sharing her hospital's story, Fairfield Memorial Hospital CEO Dr. Kathy Bunting joined I Don’t Care with Kevin Stevenson.

Dr. Bunting started by telling Stevenson about Fairfield. “We have a staff of around 300 with 90 credentialed physicians and providers. We have a strong team, and our employees are the heart of who we are.”

In January 2020, the hospital broke ground on a new $24 million expansion just months before the pandemic. The expansion, Dr. Bunting, explained, aligned with community needs. “We listened to what they felt was the most important, including orthopedic services, which will include a suite for operating and radiology.”

Dr. Bunting noted that the “silver lining of COVID” was their ability to adjust to new demands. “We were able to rearrange the design to add negative pressure rooms, more laundry services, and PPE storage.”

The hospital’s response to the pandemic was one of a united front. The hospital didn’t eliminate any jobs. Instead, they cross-trained certain individuals to take over areas that needed more attention. One example was to use coders to help with housekeeping services.

Dr. Bunting put together a COVID team that organized mobile testing and managed the surge of hospitalizations they experienced in the fall. Now, they are one of nine hospitals in Illinois that has no restrictions on vaccine supply and have vaccinated thousands of Illinois residents.

There’s no denying the importance of technology in healthcare; in fact, it became even more critical in the last year. With so many opportunities to improve care delivery, it’s about getting the right products to market. That’s the focus on Aaron Call, Founder of Jaunt. He joined I Don’t Care and host Kevin Stevenson to talk about this dynamic. Call is a long-time med-tech startup pioneer. Jaunt connects businesses with investors through data-backed insights and models. 

“We work on early-stage companies and focusing on what can be improved for healthcare and then how to commercialize,” Call explained.

While telehealth is certainly the buzziest tech in the space, it’s not the only field Jaunt specializes in, but Call and his team worked with telemed platforms differentiate.

“Years ago, we saw that most companies were just SaaS products, not much different than Zoom. We helped a client realize there was a need for much more robust tools for such a system,” Call noted.

Call also noted the U.S. had little adoption pre-pandemic. “It amazed me. There were so many economic benefits. It was the payers holding it up in many ways, and the pandemic adjusted this.”

Jaunt realized that what they were doing for companies with market analysis and commercialization strategies was what investors were seeking in due diligence. “We’re serving up information from a third party that startups can use to go to investors, and the investors know us as a trusted source.”

Call said that the pandemic didn’t dry up investment, as they first expected. What it did do is change approaches to commercialization, sales models, and predictive market analytics.

He also shared what’s exciting him in the space right now. “Personalized health with data and tech behind it is exciting. Digital health that can help change behaviors and improve life is also big right now.”

Telehealth grew tremendously in the last year, but not all patients have access, especially those in underserved populations. How is the country dealing with the gap? I Don’t Care host Kevin Stevenson welcomed Richard and Nathan Walsh, Co-Founders of Continuud, a patient access program using telehealth platforms. These serial entrepreneurs began building businesses in the tech space. They also had a passion for community service, leading to the creation of Continuud.

Richard explained what makes their platform different. “We work with nonprofits and federally qualified organizations to break down barriers to access. The focus now is on chronic illness management, specifically HIV.”

Continuud is more than software. They provide tablets, as well, because access to video-ready phones or other devices isn’t a reality. Nathan added, “It’s surprising how many Americans don’t have this; it’s one in five.”

They designed their platform to support health experts. “Our hardware can be the vehicle and catalyst for organizations to administer telehealth how they want,” Nathan commented.

Richard and Nathan shared research and studies that support telehealth's adoption and its ability to engage and be more in control of their own health.

How healthcare groups use the devices goes beyond the virtual visit. The devices can include apps to get emergency services, resources, or even pill reminders to improve medication nonadherence.

“We can push out new applications to the patient level. The goal is to merge patient experience with the clinical experience. The device can include life skills classes, educational opportunities, and job search,” Richard said.

The company’s vision is to empower clinicians to deliver holistic treatment. The more engaging the technology, the better the outcomes. Nathan explained, “With the resources and gamification, the technology can make the patient a better and more sustainable person.”

Technology has become the true innovator in healthcare, and with great technical and medical minds, the next generation of medical devices is here. Talking about their company’s innovations, Rob Kaul, CEO, and Dr. Sonny Kohli, Chief Medical Officer, of Cloud DX, joined I Don’t Care. 

Technology has become the true innovator in healthcare, and with great technical and medical minds, the next generation of medical devices is here. Talking about their company’s innovations, Rob Kaul, CEO, and Dr. Sonny Kohli, Chief Medical Officer, of Cloud DX, joined I Don’t Care. 

Kaul started the company over a decade ago with a focus on technology that was a new way to measure blood measure. Kaul and Dr. Kohli became acquainted over their shared vision. They ended up pursuing the XPRIZE for remote diagnostics and monitoring.

Dr. Kohli said, “The challenge was to create smartphone-based technology that could diagnose conditions and monitor vital signs in the cloud, which you could then apply analytics.”

They ended up winning with VITALITI, a wearable piece that can measure almost every vital sign. It’s currently in trials for FDA approval.

VITALTI, beyond the wearable, has a base station that can measure samples of fluid and diagnose and software that uses AI. “It can ask about symptoms, and we were looking at ways to diagnose pneumonia,” Kaul said.

That led them to a company in Boston that created technology to diagnose respiratory conditions based on coughing, which they licensed.

With the XPRIZE funding, the company began testing the cough technology to diagnose Tuberculosis, specifically in Mozambique, where it’s an epidemic. “It’s a major issue in the country, and detecting is very expensive, so this is a noninvasive way that can be a great screening tool,” Dr. Kohli explained.

The guests then went back to the blood pressure device, which is the Pulsewave. “It measures blood pressure differently,” Kaul noted. It has greater accuracy and delivers more data to identify arrhythmia or even if patients aren’t taking their medication.

“It’s part of the Connected Health Platform and is FDA cleared and commercially available, helping those with COPD and congestive heart failure,” Kaul said.

It’s the next horizon of remote patient monitoring and moving toward data-driven healthcare, which could improve patient outcomes.

Challenges and barriers in healthcare have been persistent for some time. Many would argue that what got left behind was compassion. However, new perspectives, technology, and collaboration are changing things. To discuss these topics, host Kevin Stevenson welcomed Dr. Summer Knight, author of Humanizing Healthcare and Managing Partner of Deloitte’s Life Sciences and Health Care practice.

Dr. Knight has an impressive and diverse background. She began her career as a paramedic then became a physician. “I was practicing medicine, solving issues, and spending more time interacting with the state government,” she said.

Those interactions led her to become the Chief Medical Officer for the State of Florida. She then launched digital healthcare companies, realizing the importance of technology in the future of care. She also worked with Signa and Aetna.

Her goal now is to transform healthcare in a more humanized approach. “Patients are at the top of the pyramid, although we’re not really calling them this anymore. We call them clients because it elevates the respect,” Knight added.

Humanization is the way to solve big problems in a meaningful way. Her life and perspective changed when her son was diagnosed with cancer.

Through the experience, she built a strong support system and created a digital platform to share information from clinicians to family and friends. “The system did help break one barrier with physicians from different health systems talking to one another.”

That led her to write Humanizing Healthcare. In the book, she describes the trends changing healthcare: consumerism, technology, and regulatory. It focuses on cultural changes, removing barriers, and the delivery of care.

Knight and Stevenson also discussed the disruption of healthcare. While devastating, Knight does say there will be positive outcomes in the long run. “It’s forced adoption to virtual, and it’s been an accelerant for technology. It’s also forced interesting partnerships across silos and competitors.”