The Backstory

Health systems have enjoyed the benefit of the doubt for a long time. That time may be ending. On one side are those who say, hospitals are “on track for their worst financial year in decades” and “will be forced to take drastic measures to reduce costs…including service line closures if not closing altogether.” On the other are those say “hospitals test the goodwill of Congress” as they endlessly ask for more federal dollars, even though “the industry has not been scrutinized as much as other health groups, despite being the primary driver of rising medical costs.” In this formulation, “some facilities would be just fine without lawmakers’ help."

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Between regulatory hurdles and financial imperatives, getting a hospital merger or acquisition across the line is hard enough. But that’s just the start. A common aim of healthcare mergers is to integrate the organizations involved, yet bringing everyone together is its own jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are there on the table, but how to bring them together, undergo the difficult change management and create the big picture? Kim Fox and Tim Stewart sit down to discuss the challenges facing mergers and acquisitions after the transaction is closed, the role culture plays in bringing organizations together – or keeping them apart – and how healthcare leaders can best lead through the process.

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Lee Aase is a digital healthcare pioneer and a social media expert. Now, he's a healthcare entrepreneur as co-founder of HELPCare Clinic, a membership-based direct primary care clinic. His current work is particularly relevant for this conversation because we talk about why there hasn't been an episode of DigitaLee recently: Lee's recent back surgery. We discuss how the referral process went, the seamless handoff from his primary care physician to the surgery team at Mayo Clinic. Plus, thoughts on where digital comes into play with a good streamlined care continuum.

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This week's conversation was prompted by the ongoing discussion in healthcare about what constitutes "Charity Care," as well as President Biden's recent reluctance to define the current economic environment as a recession. The issue in both cases is not that President or hospital executives are wrong about their respective definitions. Instead, it's that definitions don't always feel accurate even when they may be technically correct. Kim Fox and Tim Stewart discuss definitions in the context of hospitals and healthcare, politics, baseball and more.

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Relatively recently, CMS, U.S. News & World Report, Lown Institute and, just this week the Joint Commission have signaled that how your organization is addressing health equity will be part of their dashboard for measuring and comparing hospital and health system performance. It’s a big push, long in the making. Energy has been building. According to a survey from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2019, one quarter of U.S.-based healthcare leaders surveyed identified health equity as one of their organization’s top three strategic priorities. In 2021, that percentage doubled to 58%. We seem to have reached a critical mass, a turning point, a moment to activate that energy. Doing so is integral to our collective missions. These steps add operational and financial urgency to today’s social crisis.

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Change is hard and, these days, it’s compounding. Big disruptions layered with small pivots have led to a tough environment where “one more thing” is a burden, not an exciting opportunity.

In this environment, healthcare executives and hospital board members are challenged with walking a fine line – guiding their organizations through disruption while acknowledging the uncertainty, making decisions when the path forward is foggy, and processing their own exhaustion, too.

Jarrard Inc. CEO David Jarrard and McDermott Will & Emery partner Michael Peregrine – both of whom have a deep interest in helping healthcare executives and boards navigate change – sat down to talk about the situation. They first acknowledge the challenge, then provide some historical context, then offer a few ideas for getting through it all.

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Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase talk about the news that Netflix is cracking on their long-standing policy of going ad free. Then Lee gives an update on the rent versus own debate – and that’s with regards to blogs and social media, not the housing market, although that might be an interesting discussion too. Finally, they close by talking about Lee’s latest venture the HELPCare Clinic as an example of how digital tools can help personalize health care.

Episode Links

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Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase look at an article from Fierce Pharma that describes a marketing and ad agency building out a dedicated team to work on diversity in advertising. Then, they check in on the conventional wisdom around ways to ensure that content is broadly accessible and close by talking through the role of healthcare marketing teams and supporting the CEO.

Episode Links

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Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase are both confused by CVS moving into selling virtual healthcare goods. Once they get past that, they look at provider organizations planting the flag in the metaverse, and then it's the second of our two-part digital ROI miniseries, this one on how healthcare marketers can position digital programming to justify the ROI.

Episode links:

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Today we have a full panel discussion with four top healthcare marketing and communications leaders discussing team dynamics and navigating the C-suite. It’s a conversation around how marketing leaders and their teams can use their seat at the table to not just be scribes for their hospital or health system but to serve as strategic leaders and advisors.

The team today includes:

This conversation is a prelude to a panel discussion the group will be having on Tuesday, May 17th at the Health Care Marketing and Physician Strategy Summit (HMPS) in Salt Lake City. For more on the event, check out healthcarestrategy.com.

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