The Beat

What are patients looking for in a health care provider?

Zocdoc has been in business for 17 years, and in that time, the platform has collected a significant amount of data regarding what patients want from their health care.

And you may be surprised to learn what matters most to consumers in the process of choosing a provider, be it a primary care doctor or specialist. 

Dr. Oliver Kharraz is Founder and CEO of Zocdoc, the leading healthcare marketplace in the US. Millions of patients visit Zocdoc monthly to find quality, in-network doctors and book appointments for in-person or virtual care.

In his wide-ranging career, Dr. Kharraz has gained comprehensive experience in building efficiency and affecting change in large scale health organizations using information technology.

On this episode of The Beat, Dr. Kharraz joins host Dr. Gautam Gulati to discuss the latest research and insights on patient and physician engagement from Zocdoc’s 2023 Report: What Patients Want.

Dr. Kharraz discusses the pros and cons of offering patients a suite of choices for access to care and shares Zocdoc’s guided search experience for selecting the right provider.

Listen in to understand how Zocdoc uses machine learning and AI to serve consumers and clinicians and learn the top three things patients consider as they choose a health care provider.

Topics Covered

• The pros and cons of offering a suite of choices for patients to access care
• How often Zocdoc patients go back to the same provider (once the initial choice is made)
• How Zocdoc functions as the interoperability layer for logistics in the healthcare system
• Categorizing the different types of access to care from a patient’s perspective
• Healthcare technologies that the consumer isn’t ready for vs. healthcare technologies that haven’t figured out their business model
• Zocdoc’s guided search experience for choosing between telehealth and in-person visits
• The challenges Zocdoc faces in publishing prices for different care options
• How Zodoc uses machine learning and AI to serve consumers and clinicians
• Dr. Kharraz’s vision for using the blockchain to solve for trust in healthcare information
• Dr. Kharraz’s top 3 key takeaways from Zocdoc’s What Patients Want Report
• Why the needle hasn’t moved on the primary issues in healthcare despite significant advancements in technology

Connect with Dr. Oliver Kharraz

• Dr. Kharraz at Zocdoc
• Dr. Kharraz on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• Zocdoc Practice Solutions
• Zocdoc 2023 Report on What Patients Want
• Atul Gawande’s 2017 Piece on Incremental Care

We know that diverse founders only receive a fraction of VC funding. And that healthcare inequality is exacerbated by the lack of diverse perspectives and solutions in healthcare tech.

But what if there was a venture fund that focused on diverse founders building healthcare technology for the communities they come from?

Justin Williams is Principal at Seae Ventures, an investment firm specializing in early-stage healthcare technology companies founded by diverse entrepreneurs.

In his role at Seae, Justin leads portfolio sourcing, deal due diligence, financial modeling and portfolio management.

On this episode of The Beat, Justin joins host Dr. Jessica Shepherd to discuss healthcare portfolios that focus on diversity and disadvantaged communities.

Justin shares examples of Seae’s portfolio companies, explaining how Functional Fluidics serves patients with sickle cell disease and Kiyatec helps cancer patients make personalized therapy decisions.

Listen in for insight on implementing new innovations in diverse patient populations and learn how Seae is moving the needle on health equity by investing in diverse founders of healthcare tech.

Topics Covered

• What inspired Justin’s transition from finance to healthcare investing
• How its mission to advance equity through opportunity drew Justin to Seae
• How Functional Fluidics serves patients with sickle cell disease
• The benefit of founders being a part of the communities they serve
• Justin’s passion for investing in diverse founders who help underserved communities
• How Kiyatec helps cancer patients make personalized treatment decisions
• Identifying how certain communities, ethnicities and genders respond to cancer therapies
• Seae’s strategies for finding new portfolio companies
• The diversity among Seae’s team and the company’s group of founders
• How Seae works with FQHCs to implement tech solutions in diverse patient populations
• Justin’s advice for aspiring VCs from diverse communities

Connect with Justin Williams

• Seae Ventures
• Justin on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• Functional Fluidics
• Kiyatec
• Seae’s Partnership with EBNHC

About  Russ Richmond:

Russ Richmond has diverse work experience spanning various industries and roles. Russ is the CEO and Co-founder of Laudio, a healthcare leadership company that improves frontline actions. Russ has also served as a Member of the Innovation Growth Board at Mass General Brigham. In addition, they have held positions such as Executive Chairman and Independent Board Director at Validic, Member of the Board of Directors at BioDigital, and CEO and Board Director at Advanced Practice Strategies (APS), where they successfully restructured the company and facilitated its acquisition. Russ has also worked at Explorys, an IBM company, as an Independent Board Director. Prior to that, they were the CEO and co-founder of Objective Health, a startup within McKinsey & Company, where they played a significant role in establishing the company and leading its performance insights efforts. Russ had earlier worked as a Consultant and Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company. Russ also has experience as the Executive Vice President of Verisk Health and as a resident physician at the University of Michigan Health System.

Things You’ll Learn:

• Laudio redefines healthcare management by empowering frontline leaders with integrated, AI-powered workflows, addressing issues like burnout and turnover.
• Laudio's strategy of publishing data-driven insights fosters a culture of informed leadership and drives the spread of Laudio's solutions.
• Laudio accelerates market adoption despite the typically slow healthcare sales cycle, building a teamwork-based approach to engage multiple executive stakeholders for impactful collaboration.
• The platform's AI-driven approach to automating managerial tasks can save up to 6 hours a week for health managers. 
• The strategies that Laudio employs to foster customer acquisition, scaling effectively in an industry known for long sales cycles.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Dr. Russ Richmond on LinkedIn.
• Follow Laudio on LinkedIn and visit their website.

About Nasim Afsar:

Nasim Afsar is relentlessly focused on advancing the health and care of the world through Healthy People, Healthy Workforce, and Healthy Business. As Chief Health Officer, Dr. Afsar leads Product Strategy, Global Market Strategy, and Entry and Third Party Partnerships. Last year, her team delivered higher quality care for over 2 million people (Healthy People), saved physicians and nurses nearly 200,000 hours (Healthy Workforce), and positively impacted the financial performance of clients (Healthy Business). She leads Oracle Health’s Steering Committees on AI/ML in Healthcare, Retail in Healthcare, and Payers. Her team has a focus on health equity, working closely with key stakeholders globally. She also works on building the larger ecosystem of healthcare, including working closely with payers, retail, pharma food and beverage, and public health agencies.

Previously, Dr. Afsar served as Chief Operating Officer for UCI (University of California, Irvine) Health. She led inpatient and ambulatory operations, including ambulatory care, inpatient progression efforts, clinical support services, ancillary services, public safety, building and construction, and emergency management. She led health system contracting, working closely with payers to bring new products to market. Her work led to historically high ambulatory growth, inpatient volumes, surgeries, and tertiary care transfers to the institution. During her tenure at UCI Health, Dr. Afsar spearheaded and co-led innovative programs, such as telehealth, hospital-at-home, and strategic partnerships, to help provide value for patients and communities. After the onset of COVID-19, Dr. Afsar created a mobile field hospital, led the licensure of ambulatory spaces, created drive-thru COVID-19 testing centers, and led a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination program.

Things You’ll Learn:

• Oracle Health is committed to advancing healthcare by combining best-in-class technology with clinical, operational, and financial outcomes.
• The potential of Oracle's health data intelligence platform is groundbreaking as it brings together various healthcare entities.
• Oracle integrates data from numerous sources and applies intelligence to potentially lost data crucial for precision medicine.
• Oracle's aim is to empower healthcare providers in different roles.
• Current digital innovations should be designed to reduce administrative burden and enhance decision-making processes for healthcare providers, ultimately enriching patient care and potentially revolutionizing the industry.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Nasim Afsar on LinkedIn.
• Follow Oracle on LinkedIn and visit their website.

In 2009, David Goldhill’s father died of a hospital-acquired infection. And he realized that preventing medical errors was not an economic imperative in the American healthcare system.

In fact, our third-party payment system creates a misalignment of incentives, making insurers and governments the customer rather than the patients themselves.

So, David wrote a cover story for The Atlantic entitled ‘How American Health Care Killed My Father’ which expanded into a book, Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong.

Since then, David has become a leading voice for healthcare advocacy and founded Sesame, a company that is revolutionizing healthcare with a direct-pay marketplace that delivers high quality healthcare at half the price.

On this episode of The Beat, David joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Gautam Gulati to explain who uses the marketplace and how competition drives down prices on Sesame without compromising quality of care.

David discusses what attracts providers to the Sesame model and describes the criteria for joining the platform as well as its rigorous rating system.

Listen in for insight on maintaining continuity of care in telehealth and learn how David is bringing a revolution of consumerism to healthcare in the US and around the world.

Topics Covered

• How Sesame eliminates the third-party payment system from healthcare
• The breakdown of who uses Sesame’s direct pay marketplace
• How competition drives down prices on Sesame without compromising quality of care
• The personal experience that inspired David’s healthcare advocacy
• How the third-party payment system causes a misalignment of incentives in healthcare
• Why insurance- and safety net-based healthcare systems are outdated 
• What attracts healthcare providers to the Sesame model
• The criteria for providers to join Sesame and the platform’s rigorous rating system
• How David thinks about maintaining continuity of care in telehealth
• How Sesame handles the transference of health records and information
• What David admires about the current healthcare system in America
• David’s vision for bringing a revolution of consumerism to the healthcare industry

Connect with David Goldhill

• Sesame
• David at Sesame
• David on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• ‘How American Health Care Killed My Father’ in The Atlantic
• Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong by David Goldhill
• Atul Gawande
• ‘The Cost Conundrum’ in The New Yorker
• ‘The Heroism of Incremental Care’ in The New Yorker
• ‘In Health Care, America Is the World’s Indispensable Nation’ in
•  The Washington Post

WebMD is the most trusted online platform for health education. But as we know, information does not equal transformation. 

So, how do we engage people throughout their health journey? How do we encourage them to apply what they’ve learned about good health and implement the behavior changes necessary for long-term health?

Can AI and other emerging technologies support this kind of patient engagement?

Dr. John Whyte is Chief Medical Officer at WebMD, where he leads the development of strategic partnerships that create meaningful change around important public health issues. 

Dr. Whyte has written extensively, creating award-winning health content for TV and the web, and developed numerous initiatives addressing diversity in clinical trials.

On this episode of The Beat, Dr. Whyte joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Gautam Gulati to discuss how WebMD has evolved over the last 27 years and describe WebMD Ignite’s solutions for engaging patients throughout their healthcare journey.

Dr. Whyte shares his vision for democratizing access to health technology tools and resources—and then using that personalized data to provide better care.

Listen in for insight on connecting good habits with independent living later in life and learn how to bridge the gap between health information and habit change for long-term health transformation. 

Topics Covered

• Why WebMD is the most trusted online platform for health education
• How WebMD has evolved in its aim of empowering people with information over 27 years
• What physicians can do to engage with patients who’ve done their own health research
• WebMD Ignite’s solutions for every stage of the healthcare journey
• Leveraging technology to engage patients and reduce healthcare disparities
• Innovating around existing behaviors vs. trying to get patients to change their behavior
• Dr. Whyte’s vision for democratizing access to health technology tools and resources (and then using that personalized data to provide better care)
• Strategies for engaging patients and encouraging incremental habit change
• How our systems reinforce bad behavior in the context of health
• Dr. Gulati’s future press release exercise of inspiring people to focus on their health
• Connecting simple exercises with independent living later in life

Connect with Dr. John Whyte

• Dr. Whyte at WebMD
• Dr. Whyte’s Website

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• Medscape
• WebMD Ignite
• Same as Ever by Morgan Housel
• Hara Hachi Bu

Did you know that there is a team of techies who serve the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or CMS?

What is their role in this federal agency? How is CMS changing with emerging technologies? 

And how might software engineers, project managers and other tech professionals help innovate from the inside to reform the complicated healthcare system in the US?

Andrea Fletcher is the first Chief Digital Strategy Officer and Executive Director of Digital Services at CMS, where she is responsible for leading digital modernization efforts and promoting interoperability and public access to health data.

On this episode of The Beat, Andrea joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Gautam Gulati to explain how her team responds to tech emergencies and plans big strategic plays for CMS.

Andrea discusses the potential for the federal government to be a leader in AI adoption and shares her open-source software initiative to reuse tech stacks within and across federal departments and agencies.

Listen in for Andrea’s insight on leveraging data to rethink how we pay for and deliver care and learn how CMS is looking to evolve with ‘Jetson’s era’ technologies and improve the experience of healthcare for individual Americans.

Topics Covered

• What Andrea’s team of techies does as the Digital Service at CMS
• How Andrea’s team responds to tech emergencies and plans big strategic plays for the agency
• How Andrea’s team collaborates with other federal departments and agencies
• Andrea’s hope that the federal government will be a leader in the adoption AI (and what that might look like)
• What differentiates leading in government from the private sector
• Opportunities to innovate within the complicated Medicare and Medicaid systems
• Andrea’s open-source software initiative to reuse tech stacks across federal departments and agencies
• Andrea’s human-centered approach to leveraging AI in healthcare 
• Rethinking how we pay for and deliver care in a world of advanced technology
• What we can learn from the VA’s diabetes prevention research and outcomes-based care model
• Andrea’s predictions re: how clinics will change in the future and what roles AI might replace
• How to participate in shaping Americans’ healthcare experience

Connect with Andrea Fletcher

• The Digital Service at CMS
• Andrea at CMS
• Andrea on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• US Digital Service
• FindSupport.gov
• White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research
• Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
• VA Research on Diabetes
• DigitalVA

About Stephanie Trunzo:

Stephanie Trunzo is senior vice president for Oracle Health & Industries. While Stephanie is a tech geek across cloud, AI, and emerging tech, she is also a storyteller committed to usability and design thinking. This is reflected in the mission of Oracle Health: to create a human-centric healthcare experience powered by unified global data. Stephanie helped lead the launch of Oracle Health and was part of the core acquisition team working closely with Cerner, now part of Oracle Health.

Stephanie’s diversely skilled team continues to define Oracle Health’s market presence, broadening the aperture of the traditional health landscape to a much richer and more holistic portfolio. That same holistic, unified model will be the pattern she will apply across other Oracle Industries.

Previously, Stephanie applied her digital and experience disciplines to create and deploy Oracle’s global, value-based approach for multi-cloud, hybrid customer strategies.

Stephanie joined Oracle from IBM, where she was the global head of IBM Cloud Garage, a network of more than one dozen innovation hubs purpose-built to meld industry practices, startup culture, and IBM's expertise. Prior to that, she founded and led her digital transformation startup through a public acquisition of Globant.

Stephanie was affectionately dubbed “the prototype” for the chief digital officer role by the CDO Club. She is an active board advisor, giving back to nonprofits and early startups, including Valeos, Oracle Health Foundation, International Science Reserve, and InsureLife.

Her writing can be found in publications such as Fast Company, Forbes, and HuffPost.

Things You’ll Learn:

• Oracle Health's focus is on putting humans at the center of all decisions, with initiatives to streamline patient interactions and provide a more intuitive, seamless patient journey. 
• Oracle is working on solutions to reduce the administrative burden for clinicians, empowering them to focus on care rather than data entry.
• The industry can facilitate tighter and more impactful collaborations by offering data sharing in an anonymized manner and bringing partners together. This approach ultimately drives innovation.
• While AI has been present for some time, Oracle Health is now leveraging it to create transformative impacts, which involve improving efficiency, streamlining workflows, and enabling intelligent, patient-focused interactions.
• Oracle is exploring the potential of large language models and Gen AI for novel disease prediction and personalized medicine.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Stephanie Trunzo on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Oracle Health on their LinkedIn and website.

About Diana Gelston:

Diana Gelston is the chief commercial officer of Best Buy Health for Best Buy Co. Inc. In her role, she is responsible for building and strengthening the company’s commercial relationships that aim to enable care at home for everyone.  

Diana leads a large, diverse team in creating and executing high-impact, go-to-market strategies that support the company’s mission to enrich and save lives through technology and meaningful connections. At Best Buy Health, she is focused on developing integrated technology services and offerings that support consumers wherever they are on their health journey and improve the care-at-home experience.  

Previously, Diana has successfully launched and developed more than a dozen sales and marketing teams in tech, medical devices, digital health, and healthcare information systems at Amazon Business Healthcare, Fresenius Medical Care, Philips Healthcare, and other innovative start-ups.  

Diana earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and a certificate in Leadership Development and Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School. 

About Carrie Shaw:

Carrie Shaw, CEO and founder of Embodied Labs, works at the intersection of storytelling, immersive experience design, and caregiver education. She holds both a bachelor’s degree in Global Public Health and a master’s in Biomedical Visualization. After returning from the Dominican Republic, where she served as a Peace Corps Health Educator, Carrie became the primary caregiver to her mother, who was living with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. This opened Carrie’s eyes to the needs of the aging services workforce. Carrie speaks to global audiences about her personal journey as a young adult caregiver and her experience as an entrepreneur building a venture-backed digital healthcare company that is revolutionizing the way healthcare providers, caregivers, and patients learn about human health through immersive experiences.

Things You’ll Learn:

• Embodying the experiences of others through immersive training has proven to be a game-changer for Best Buy Health.
• Connecting on a personal level, whether it's with a patient, caregiver, or consumer, has revolutionized the approach to care and technology support.
• Individuals retain and internalize knowledge in a way traditional training methods can't offer through immersive experiences.
• An empathy approach is particularly impactful for the healthcare and technology sectors, making training more effective and memorable for employees.
• Building a world focused on empathy and thoughtfulness is critical for meeting the diverse needs of individuals as they age.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Carrie Shaw on LinkedIn.
• Follow Embodied Labs on LinkedIn and visit their website.
• Connect with and follow Diana Gelston on LinkedIn.
• Follow Best Buy on LinkedIn and visit their website.

AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, from predictive analytics to operations management to remote patient monitoring.

But with so many possibilities, where do we begin? And how do we use AI responsibly with our health information?

Harjinder Sandhu is CTO of Health and Life Sciences Platforms and Solutions at Microsoft, where he helps chart Microsoft strategy around the application of large language models in healthcare. 

Harjinder has founded and cofounded several successful startups centered around AI and healthcare, including Saykara, Twistle and MedRemote.

On this episode of The Beat, Harjinder joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd and Dr. Gautam Gulati to discuss the impact and implications of AI on our health information.

Harjinder describes some of the administrative and clinical use cases of AI in healthcare, highlighting what Microsoft’s DAX Copilot can do for clinicians and why he predicts its quick adoption.

Listen in for Harjinder’s insight into using artificial intelligence responsibly and learn about generative AI’s potential to improve the patient experience and ‘bring the joy back to medicine’ for clinicians.

Topics Covered

• Harjinder’s important role in crafting AI strategy at Microsoft
• How Microsoft thinks about the possibilities of AI in the context of healthcare
• Administrative and clinical use cases for generative AI in health
• Harjinder’s approach to reducing redundancy in the patient journey
• The potential for AI to ‘bring the joy back to medicine’
• What Microsoft’s AI DAX Copilot can do for clinicians and why Harjinder predicts quick adoption
• Introducing new tech to single physician practices and rural hospitals
• AI uses cases we should approach with caution vs. relatively risk-free applications
• The frameworks Microsoft uses to think rationally about responsible AI
• Why Microsoft encourages customers to implement AI solutions with human oversight
• The potential for AI to help reduce human bias in healthcare

Connect with Harjinder Sandhu

• Microsoft Health & Life Sciences
• Harjinder on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jessica Shepherd

• ViVE
• HLTH
• Dr. Shepherd on Twitter
• Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
• Dr. Gulati on Twitter
• Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Resources

• Ambient Clinical Intelligence