Why is American healthcare so expensive, and why doesn’t spending more necessarily translate into better outcomes?

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Christopher Kunney sits down with Malgorzata Guyot, PhD, an Independent Board & C-Suite Advisor with extensive experience across pharma, manufacturing, finance & audit, and international business.

Having worked across the United States and Europe, Malgorzata brings a unique perspective to one of healthcare’s most complicated questions: why do different healthcare systems produce such different economic and clinical realities?

This conversation goes beyond EHRs, AI, and technology to examine the underlying financial, governance, regulatory, and incentive structures that shape healthcare.

🎙️ Straight Out of Health IT is hosted by Christopher Kunney, bringing raw, unfiltered conversations about the people, policies, economics, and innovations reshaping healthcare.

If you found this conversation valuable, like, subscribe, and share the episode with someone working in healthcare, health IT, pharma, finance, policy, or healthcare leadership.

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🔗 CONNECT WITH THE GUESTMalgorzata Guyot on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malgorzata-guyot-phd/

🎙️ CONNECT WITH THE HOST

About Christopher Kunney: https://sohit.host/your-host

Christopher Kunney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherkunney/

Christopher Kunney on X: https://x.com/HealthITProf

IOTech Consulting: https://iotechconsulting.com/

--#Healthcare #HealthIT #HealthcareLeadership #HealthEquity #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech

Healthcare has a knowledge management crisis. The evidence exists, clinical guidelines exist, and best practices exist, but too often that knowledge never reaches clinicians when they need it most.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, host Christopher Kunney sits down with Dr. Ido Zamberg, physician, anesthesiologist, technologist and Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of C8 Health, to explore how healthcare can close the gap between what medicine knows and what actually happens at the point of care.

Dr. Zamberg brings a unique perspective from both technology and clinical medicine. He began his career as a computer scientist and technology executive before moving into medicine and becoming an anesthesiologist.

Today, he is focused on using technology and AI to help healthcare organizations implement evidence-based best practices.The conversation covers healthcare AI, generative AI, clinical knowledge management, healthcare IT, digital health, evidence-based medicine, clinical decision support and the future of healthcare technology.

Christopher and Dr. Zamberg discuss:

• Why healthcare struggles to implement best practices

• The growing clinical knowledge management crisis

• Why publishing clinical guidelines does not mean they are actually implemented

• The gap between medical evidence and care at the point of practice

• How generative AI can help clinicians find the information they need

• How AI can support clinical decision-making without replacing physicians

• AI governance and responsible AI in healthcare

• Healthcare alert fatigue and how to make clinical notifications more effective

• The relationship between clinical knowledge management and physician burnout

• How better access to clinical knowledge can improve patient outcomes

• How AI can help identify gaps and potential bias in clinical best practices

• Why healthcare systems should rethink how they work with healthcare startups

One of the most striking points in the conversation is the idea that healthcare does not necessarily have a knowledge problem. It has a knowledge-to-practice problem.

Dr. Zamberg also shares the story that inspired his work: while treating a complex patient, a critical clinical protocol was eventually found on paper inside a binder dating back to 2002. In a healthcare system surrounded by modern technology, clinicians were still struggling to find the information they needed.

The episode also tackles a major question surrounding AI in medicine:Will AI replace doctors?

Dr. Zamberg argues that AI is a tool to help clinicians work more efficiently, improve accuracy and make decisions based on current best practices, while human clinical judgment and accountability remain essential.

If you work in healthcare IT, health technology, clinical informatics, digital health, healthcare leadership, AI or healthcare innovation, this conversation offers an important perspective on where healthcare AI can create real-world impact.

#HealthcareAI #HealthcareIT #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #ClinicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence

What happens when healthcare spends decades and hundreds of billions of dollars digitizing medical records — but clinicians still can't see the whole patient?On this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Christopher Kunney sits down with healthcare technology veteran Jonathan Bush, Founder & CEO of Zus Health and co-founder of athenahealth, for an unfiltered conversation about the problem hiding in plain sight: healthcare has plenty of data but too much of it is trapped in silos.Jonathan doesn't mince words.He calls out “data defensiveness” the instinct across health systems, vendors and physician organizations to treat healthcare data as something to control rather than something to share for the benefit of the patient.And then there's the bigger problem:The EHR was built to store data. It wasn't built to orchestrate care.So what happens when we stop treating the medical record like a filing cabinet and start treating it like a living, shared picture of the patient?Christopher and Jonathan go deep on:- Why today's EHR infrastructure wasn't designed for value-based care- Data defensiveness and why it can work against better outcomes- The shift from fee-for-service to value-based care- Federated medical records and the idea of a common patient record- Why healthcare organizations can be reluctant to share data- Why the “fourth D” may be data- How AI can turn buried clinical information into actionable intelligence- Why AI may finally unlock the value sitting inside the medical record- What happens when AI agents become part of always-on care- The future of always-on, coordinated healthcare- Why the patient — not the claim, encounter or health system — needs to become the center of the record--Jonathan also shares lessons from his journey from EMT on the streets of New Orleans and U.S. Army combat medic to co-founding athenahealth and ultimately building Zus Health around a vision for a more connected healthcare ecosystem. The episode traces that journey directly into the problem he's trying to solve today.One of the most striking moments comes when Jonathan points out that even organizations using the same system were once faxing medical records to one another illustrating just how fragmented healthcare data has remained.And then there's AI.Jonathan explains how AI can go beyond simply surfacing structured data by actually reading attachments and identifying clinically relevant information buried in the narrative creating a much richer picture of the patient.This isn't just a conversation about technology.It's about who controls healthcare data, who gets access to it, how healthcare gets paid, how AI changes clinical work, and whether the infrastructure underneath American healthcare is finally ready for what comes next.--🎙️ Hosted by Christopher KunneyFounder, healthcare technology strategist, digital transformation leader & host of Straight Outta Health IT.👤 Guest: Jonathan BushFounder & CEO, Zus HealthCo-Founder, athenahealthIf you're working in healthcare IT, digital health, AI, interoperability, value-based care, EHR strategy, health data, population health, care coordination or healthcare transformation, this conversation is for you.Stay curious. Stay disruptive.And this is Straight Outta Health IT.---🔗 CONNECT WITH THE GUESTJonathan Bush on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanbushjr/🎙️ CONNECT WITH THE HOSTAbout Christopher Kunney: https://sohit.host/your-hostChristopher Kunney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherkunney/Christopher Kunney on X: https://x.com/HealthITProfIOTech Consulting: https://iotechconsulting.com/--#straightouttahealthit #healthit #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcareai #ehr #healthdata #interoperability #valuebasedcare #jonathanbush #zushealth #christopherkunney #healthcareinnovation

Your personal brand is not just your resume; it is the story people experience before you ever enter the room.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Christopher Kunney sits down with Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe, Social Media Marketing and Execution Consultant at Social Espionage, to explore why personal branding has become essential for healthcare IT leaders, clinicians, consultants, vendors, and anyone looking to grow their influence in a competitive industry. Dorothea explains that building a strong personal brand starts with building a community and that being "open for business" means approaching others with an open mind, an open heart, and a genuine willingness to connect.

She also challenges the belief that good work alone is enough to create new opportunities. In today's digital and AI-driven world, visibility matters, and professionals need to be intentional about how they present themselves both online and offline. Dorothea shares practical strategies for identifying your audience, selecting the right platforms, engaging with niche communities, and creating content that educates, engages, entertains, emotes, shows empathy, or empowers.

Drawing from her global background, intelligence work, marketing expertise, and personal journey, Dorothea offers a thoughtful perspective on what it takes to stand out while remaining authentic. She reminds listeners that personal branding is not about vanity but about creating clarity, fostering meaningful connections, and communicating purpose.

Tune in to learn how healthcare professionals can build a personal brand that reflects who they are, opens doors, and helps them stand out with intention!

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe on LinkedIn.

• Follow Social Espionage on LinkedIn and explore their website!

• Watch Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe’s TEDxNYIT talk here!

Key Takeaways

• AI can either help reduce healthcare inequities or magnify existing bias, depending on how it is designed, trained, governed, and used.

• Responsible AI requires transparency, representative data, community participation, and clear accountability when tools fail or cause harm.

• Health equity work cannot be treated as philanthropy; it requires shared ownership across health systems, government, industry, nonprofits, and communities.

• Health systems must address existing bias in clinical language, protocols, and care delivery before expecting AI to fix systemic problems.

• Trust is built through transparency, shared power, community partnership, and honest conversations about the harms patients still experience today.

Resources

• Connect with Tanisha Sullivan on LinkedIn.

• Follow Sanofi on LinkedIn and explore their website. 

• Connect with Dr. Chris Pernell on LinkedIn.

• Follow the NAACP on LinkedIn and explore the website.

• Connect with Kimberly Wells on LinkedIn.

• Follow Ascension on LinkedIn and explore their website.

Healthcare AI is moving faster than many health systems can govern it.

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, David Hilderbrand, Chief Commercial Officer at Ferrum Health, joins Christopher Kunney to discuss the rapid rise of clinical AI, medical imaging AI consolidation, and the growing need for enterprise-level governance. He explains why health systems are no longer just asking which AI tools to buy, but how to monitor, manage, and understand the tools already running across their organizations. As AI enters through devices, platforms, service lines, and vendor relationships, CIOs and clinical leaders are facing a new kind of operational complexity. The conversation explores why effective AI oversight has become essential as adoption accelerates across healthcare.

David breaks down the difference between AI committees, analytics, telemetry, and true governance. He explains that governance is not simply about knowing whether an algorithm is turned on, but about understanding how it behaves in clinical care and how it performs across different patient populations. Without that level of visibility, health systems risk overlooking issues such as bias, model drift, inconsistent performance, and patient impact. He argues that meaningful governance is critical to ensuring AI delivers safe, reliable, and measurable clinical value.

David also shares how Ferrum Health approaches clinical AI through platforming, observability, and neutral model monitoring. Rather than recommending which AI tools organizations should adopt, Ferrum helps health systems gain visibility into their entire AI portfolio so they can make informed decisions about expanding, replacing, or retiring algorithms. The discussion also covers measuring ROI, recognizing the costs of underperforming AI models, and the importance of early disease detection. Hilderbrand concludes by explaining why AI governance should remain independent from vendor bias to support better long-term clinical and operational outcomes.

Tune in to hear why clinical AI governance is becoming essential infrastructure for health systems, and why the future of healthcare AI depends on visibility, accountability, and trust.

Key Takeaways

• Clinical AI is expanding quickly, but many health systems lack the tools to understand what is actually running across their environments. 

• Vendor sprawl is creating new operational, financial, and clinical risks as AI tools enter through devices, platforms, and service lines. 

• True AI governance goes beyond telemetry and analytics; it requires visibility into how algorithms interact with patients and clinical workflows. 

• Health systems need unbiased observability to determine whether clinical AI tools are performing as promised. 

• AI governance can help organizations reduce the cost of failed algorithms and improve the value of their AI investments. 

• Early detection through clinical AI can improve patient outcomes while also reducing downstream care costs. 

• Governance must remain separate from vendor bias so health systems can make clear decisions about which tools to keep, expand, replace, or remove. 

• The next phase of clinical AI will require stronger infrastructure, especially as agentic AI and cloud-based workflow solutions grow.

Resources

• Connect with David Hilderbrand on LinkedIn.

• Follow Ferrum Health on LinkedIn and visit their website.

Healthcare AI can only be as strong as the data behind it, but patient privacy cannot be treated as collateral damage. 

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Dr. Julia Komissarchik, CEO and Founder of Glendor, Inc., joins Christopher Kunney to explore one of the most pressing challenges in healthcare AI today: how to responsibly use patient data while ensuring that protected health information (PHI) is not exposed.

Julia breaks down why de-identification is far more complex than simply stripping a patient’s name from a record. She explains that PHI can be embedded in many different forms beyond structured fields, including clinical text, medical images, voice recordings, video, metadata, and even indirect contextual signals such as hospital names, locations, or physician specialties. Because of this, ensuring true privacy protection requires a much more nuanced and multi-layered approach than many assume.

She also highlights the importance of diversity in healthcare data when building AI systems. According to Julia, robust models depend on exposure to a wide range of populations and care settings, including rural, urban, tribal, and underserved communities, to ensure that AI performs reliably and equitably across different real-world environments.

Tune in to learn why privacy, trust, and responsible data infrastructure are foundational to the future of AI in healthcare.

Resources

• Connect with Dr. Julia Komissarchik on LinkedIn here or reach out via email here.

• Follow Glendor, Inc on LinkedIn here and visit their website here.

What happens when healthcare organizations stop working in silos and begin treating community partnerships as part of the care model?

In this special episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Christopher Kunney joins healthcare leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and community advocates at the WellLink CONNECTNEO 2026 Conference in Cleveland. Together, they explore how collaboration, AI, data, and community partnerships can help address some of healthcare’s most persistent challenges. Rahul Mahadevan, Founder of WITT, discusses the nonclinical barriers that often prevent patients from receiving care, including transportation, food insecurity, family responsibilities, and the reluctance to ask for help. 

Brian Lane, President and CEO of WellLink, explains how the organization is expanding its network to bring hospitals, businesses, faith groups, and community organizations together around shared health goals. Jason Ferri of Premier explores ongoing supply-chain challenges, including pricing volatility and shortages, and explains how collective purchasing can strengthen healthcare organizations. U.N. Amighi of HealthCorum highlights how transparent provider analytics can reduce wasteful spending while connecting patients with the right providers.

John Paganini introduces Northern Ohio HIMSS' AI Center of Excellence and its efforts to advance AI literacy, governance, data management, and digital equity. Dominic Hopson of Neighborhood Family Practice emphasizes the importance of trusted, accessible primary care as the front door to the healthcare system. Across every conversation, a common theme emerges: meaningful healthcare transformation requires collaboration across organizations, sectors, and communities.

Tune in to hear how Northeast Ohio’s healthcare community is connecting organizations, technology, and local expertise to build a stronger and more equitable healthcare ecosystem!

Key Takeaways

• Patients may delay or forgo treatment because of transportation, food insecurity, family obligations, and other nonclinical barriers.

• Community support is more effective when patients can ask for help without feeling like a burden.

• AI adoption in healthcare requires strong privacy protections, robust governance, and responsible implementation practices.

• Healthcare technology creates greater value when integrated into existing workflows and supported by reliable data.

• An aging population will place increasing pressure on care delivery across the continuum.

• Hospitals, community organizations, businesses, and faith-based groups achieve more through coordinated action and shared resources.

• Group purchasing organizations help providers navigate shortages, pricing volatility, and supply-chain disruptions.

• Transparent provider analytics can reduce waste and guide patients toward higher-value care.

• AI literacy must extend across the healthcare workforce and the communities it serves.

• Strong primary care and strategic partnerships are essential to improving access and supporting underserved and rural communities.

Resources

• Connect with Rahul Mahadevan on LinkedIn.

• Follow WITT on LinkedIn and explore their website.

• Connect with Brian Lane on LinkedIn.

• Follow Jason Ferri on LinkedIn.

• Follow Premier Inc on LinkedIn and explore their website.

• Connect with U.N. Amighi on LinkedIn. 

• Follow HealthCorum on LinkedIn and explore their website.

• Connect with John Paganini on LinkedIn. 

• Follow Paguar Informatics on LinkedIn and explore their website.

• Connect with Domonic Hopson on LinkedIn.

• Follow Neighborhood Family Practice on LinkedIn and explore their website. 

Revenue cycle doesn’t just need more reporting; it needs smarter systems that can prevent problems before they happen.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Jeff Hatfield, Co-Founder and CEO of Four Points Health, talks about how Agentic AI and intelligent automation are reshaping revenue cycle management for hospitals. He explains why denials, write-offs, payer complexity, and manual rework continue to drain financial resources and create unnecessary administrative burden. Drawing from both personal experience and years of working with hospital leaders, Jeff shares why healthcare needs to move beyond retrospective dashboards and toward real-time action.

Jeff introduces the Agentic Claims Integrity System (ACIS), built to help hospitals shift from reactive denial management to proactive denial prevention. Rather than simply flagging problems after the fact, ACIS identifies issues upstream, intervenes before claims are submitted, and helps teams reduce avoidable denials and write-offs. He also explains how closed-loop systems can track payer behavior, validate whether fixes worked, and continuously improve performance over time.

He also explores the human side of automation, emphasizing that AI should not replace healthcare teams but give them leverage. By reducing repetitive work, improving productivity, and speeding up reimbursement, intelligent automation can help staff focus on higher-value tasks while strengthening hospital financial performance. Hatfield also highlights the importance of making this technology accessible to rural and community hospitals, so AI does not widen existing gaps in healthcare.

Tune in to hear how Agentic AI can help hospitals reduce denials, improve cash flow, ease staff burnout, and build a more sustainable future for healthcare operations!

Resources

• Connect with Jeff Hatfield on LinkedIn here.

• Follow Four Points Health on LinkedIn here and visit the website here.

What happens when healthcare innovation is shaped not only by technology, but by the real human experiences behind it?

In this SOHIT HIMSS 2026 episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Christopher Kunney speaks with healthcare leaders, informatics experts, entrepreneurs, and innovators at the Texas HIMSS Regional Conference about how technology, AI, data, and human experience are transforming healthcare. Erica Olenski, Founder of Monarch Futures and August’s Artists, shares how her experience as a caregiver and the loss of her son inspired her work in healthcare innovation. She emphasizes the importance of treating patient and caregiver experiences as valuable data that should inform the design of digital health solutions.

The discussion continues with Elsie Gori, Nurse Informaticist and Program Chair for the Texas HIMSS Regional Conference, who explains how nursing informatics can improve care delivery through better workflow design, data utilization, AI, and smarter alert systems that help reduce alarm fatigue. Nayan D. Patel, SVP and General Manager for Transformation at Neteera, adds the perspective of both a former healthcare CIO and technology executive, highlighting the potential of contactless vital sign monitoring and the need for AI solutions that solve real clinical challenges without adding complexity to existing workflows.

Katherine Taylor Pearson, President of the American Nursing Informatics Association, discusses her journey from military nursing to informatics leadership and explains why clinicians remain essential in guiding AI adoption and interpreting healthcare data. Closing the episode, Ted Lindsley, CEO of CognomIQ, explores how modern healthcare data platforms can replace fragmented systems, transform static data into actionable insights, and create the foundation needed for more effective operations, clinician innovation, and the future of healthcare AI.

Tune in to hear how healthcare leaders are connecting lived experience, clinical insight, AI, and data infrastructure to build a more human and effective future for health IT.

Resources

• Connect with Erica Olenski on LinkedIn here.

• Follow Monarch Futures on LinkedIn.

• Connect with Elsie Gori on LinkedIn here.

• Follow Lone Star Communications Inc on LinkedIn and visit their website here.

• Connect with Nayan Patel on LinkedIn.

• Follow Neteera on LinkedIn and visit their website here.

• Connect with Katherine Taylor Pearson on LinkedIn here.

• Follow the American Nursing Informatics Association on LinkedIn and visit their website here.

• Email Katherine here.

• Connect with Ted Linsley on LinkedIn.

• Follow CognomIQ on LinkedIn and visit their website here.