Podcasts about hcbiz show

On this episode, Don Lee and Shahid Shah celebrate 200 episodes of The #HCBiz Show! We discuss what we've done over the past 6 years and tell you where we're headed next. In a nutshell, we're going to work to codify what we've learned about innovation in healthcare over the past 200 episodes and in our decades of deploying digital health solutions.   We're steering the effort, but we need your help. There will be plenty of ways to get involved. Thanks for learning with us over the past 200 episodes. Here's to 200 more! Oh... and we're on YouTube now too if you prefer the visuals: The #HCBiz Show! - YouTube   Learn more at https://TheHCBiz.com

In INBW32, I talked about telehealth. In this episode, I'm talking about collaboration between healthcare stakeholders or the lack thereof. My grandfather suffered from heart failure. This was many years ago now. But when I say suffered, I mean it. As many of you know, when heart failure is uncontrolled, it is painful to go through or even watch a loved one go through. There was that one time when I accompanied my grandfather (and my grandma was there, too) on a trip to the emergency room, you know, because he was drowning in his own lung fluid and could barely breathe. And when we arrived, they were going to wheel him into one of the exam rooms. But my grandmother put her foot down. She did not want to go into that one exam room because the TV was broken in there. Yes, the two of them had been in the ER so many times that they were familiar with the pros and cons of the various exam rooms. The end of my grandfather's life was almost unbearable, and I can't even begin to estimate the hundreds of thousands of dollars racked up in ER visits and inpatient stays. He was in the ER once a month at a minimum, and he would come home disoriented and confused. Now, as everybody listening to this show knows, this anecdote is also a data point that is, dare I say, all too common. But to that end, let me just talk about heart failure data for a second. Patients with heart failure generate a third of Medicare spending and 40% of Medicare fee-for-service deaths. They are also responsible for 55% of Medicare readmissions. You'd think that if there were any chronic condition that we'd be looking to improve outcomes on, it'd be this one. So, everybody's on it, right? Oh, wait … heart failure readmissions have actually gone up in recent years.   I just want to point out that in between ER visits and inpatient stays, my grandfather received effectively no education, no PCP or cardiology follow-ups, no community support. He did not get a case manager. He got no coaching. He got 25 pages of tiny, printed instructions just before the door hit him in the butt on his way out to the parking lot. Obvious point here, but to do any of this in-between stuff would have required collaboration between the hospital and others. And it was conspicuous in its absence. Look, this is sad and I'm not telling the story because I think it's unique. If I asked who else has a story like this one where a family member or a loved one got lost in the gaps between their care, I am suspecting that everyone would raise their hands—even those of you who have medical degrees. No matter how much any of us know or care or try to help, stories like my grandfather's are painfully and unequivocally common in this country today. OK, so how to improve care, especially for chronic care patients. At its core, and I am not telling anyone listening something that you probably have not already thought about at great length, but there are two important contributors to patient outcomes. Not the only contributors for absolutely sure, but here are two important ones: Nonfragmented patient journeys that adhere to evidence-based best-practice care. My grandfather and anyone with a chronic condition requires a patient journey that isn't a game of whack-a-mole. Carly Eckert, MD, says this so well in EP361. Steering patients to the best care setting, which is required to get the highest-value best-practice care and also reduce financial toxicity. Short but important sidebar: We know that financial toxicity is clinical toxicity. There was just a study that came out that said in 2030, a leading cause of death will be noncompliance to treatment due to patients abandoning care because it costs too much. Wayne Jenkins, MD, from Centivo (EP358) talks about other implications of financial toxicity for a half-hour. Also, there's another paper that, again, is just more on this point. At this juncture, it is not arguable. Financial toxicity is clinical toxicity. So, we need to get patients, people, customers to the next place that is the highest value for them. Doing either or both of these things—nonfragmenting the patient journey and making sure patients get to the next care setting—it requires collaboration. Let me quote Dr. Steve Klasko, who, until recently, was president and CEO over at Jefferson Health in Philly. He said—and this is an adaptation of an old Steve Jobs mantra—but Steve Klasko said that for hospitals, our old math was inpatient revenue, outpatient revenue, and in-person tuition and funding. The new math is going to be strategic partnerships around this healthcare at any address model. Right? But good collaborations don't just improve patient outcomes. Here's another benefit: They also make happier clinicians or employees. If every outside interaction is a friction point, where employees, clinicians, doctors, nurses are rubbed raw because every interaction becomes a battle, if that's the ecosystem that any given party has created for themselves, patients aren't happy and clinicians aren't happy. And since everything in healthcare spirals around that one relationship, the one between the patient and their clinicians, this could not be more vital. There's that famous Richard Branson quote, which I'll paraphrase: If you want to keep the customers happy, keep the employees happy. How anyone thinks that patients are going to get amazing care when those providing the care are miserable is just the very definition of magical thinking. All right … so, let's get into the hard thing about hard things: why with the lack of collaboration across the industry there are a lot of excuses for why parties cannot collaborate. For example, interoperability, HIPAA, legal, cyber, bureaucracy … Also, people are busy, COVID response, being overworked and burned out is a big deal. And I'm not saying that some of these are not valid, but the elephant in the room is this: In healthcare today, most (if not all) big organizations for sure and a lot of small ones have a business model that is built on revenue maximization. Look, when I'm referring to organizations as revenue maximizers, maybe I'm not talking specifically about specific departments and people working hard in those departments within any given organization. Organizations are not one-celled organisms, after all. But what I am saying is that, as a whole, healthcare organizations—the vast majority and certainly every so-called incumbent payer and health system—when you factor in the actions of the CFO, the actions of the billing department, the group that sets premiums, the one that sets prices, the group that incentivizes brokers, the group that sells to employers, the group that lobbies politicians, the group that writes the contract terms … if you factor in the whole organization, what you get is an organization who acts to maximize outcomes—financial outcomes, that is. As per my normal MO, I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud here. One big reason why parties do not collaborate is because they are thinking they are going to maximize their revenue by info blocking to prevent network leakage, or not sharing data with an employer because then the employer might steer the employee to an infusion center for their chemo, or drugs will get switched from the profitable one to the not profitable one. I just saw another article the other day, entitled “The Many Barriers to Payer-Provider Alignment on Value-based Care.” Two entities vital for a nonfragmented frictionless patient journey cannot figure out how to align incentives, share data, or even figure out what good looks like. Speaking industry-wide here, but if patient outcomes were the top of either the payer or the provider's organizational lists of priorities, I do not think that this would be the case decades later. Listen to the show with Kevin Schulman, MD (EP366); Scott Haas (EP365); or an upcoming one with Autumn Yongchu and Erik Davis coming out in a few weeks that just drives this point home.   So, can you do well by doing good? Yes, you can. I have a degree from a business school, after all; but there is a line that gets crossed when maximizing revenue harms patients. And I'll tell you how you can tell if you're over the line. And again, I'm talking organizations here who have power and control in their local markets. I would say that a lack of collaboration is a symptom. If we all agree that collaboration is essential and some organization is not doing it, maybe it is a sign. It is an actionable bit of information that I hope, if relevant, gets contemplated. For example, back to my grandfather for a sec, it's pretty well known how to reduce heart failure revisits. There are more than a few care models that have definitely been shown to work. Here is one of them, and this was talked about in Dr. William Bestermann's Substacks. There was a nurse in the Carolinas—and I talked about this before—but there was a nurse in the Carolinas who decreased heart failure readmissions markedly by simply calling up heart failure patients and making sure they were doing OK and that they understood how to take care of themselves. She was caring, and she had relationships with these patients. That's all she did.   So, hospital collaborates with a payer case manager or a CBO (community-based organization) or an MSO (management services organization), or maybe the hospital has pop health capabilities internally. I mean, we can manage to transplant important organs in this country, and most healthcare organizations cannot figure out how to work together well enough that a nurse calls up a bunch of patients? Is this some arcane or highly complex thing to do? No, it's not. But most are not doing anything even close to this because revenue maximization is the goal of one or more of the entities who would need to be a party to this, and everything else is just an excuse. If anyone is thinking interoperability right now, I've heard Don Lee say on The #HCBiz Show! often enough that there's lots of evidence at this point that interoperability has been solved from a technical standpoint. It's been solved for years. The problem is a business case problem. No one wants to be interoperable because … revenue maximization All right … aspirationally here, despite all of this, great collaborations happen every single day—collaborations that are bright spots and that definitely improve patient outcomes and reduce financial burdens short-term and long-term. Let me give you some examples: what 32BJ is doing in New York City (upcoming episode with Cora Opsahl talking about the cool things that they are doing with Mount Sinai); CINs (clinically integrated networks), like Lisa Trumble, who talks about SoNE HEALTH in EP349.   There are MSOs that work with ACOs (accountable care organizations) and others. Listen to Shawn Rhodes (EP354); also what Nicole Bradberry and Kelly Conroy are doing in Florida (EP324).   In an upcoming episode, Dave Chase from Health Rosetta: He's got one great story after another about how employers these days are teaming up with provider organizations, pharmacies, and their communities to put a serious dent in costs while raising patient outcomes and satisfaction. Doug Hetherington's episode (EP367) talks about direct contracting with hospitals. Katy Talento (EP350) talks about this also. Steve Schutzer, MD, talks about collaborating with other local orthopedic surgeons to stand up a now nationally recognized center of excellence in Connecticut (EP294). We also have some pharma companies who are developing some pretty great disease-centric resources for providers. Some pharma companies and some internal teams at those companies can actually be fair and good community players. Mike Levitt and the work that he has done on the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative, which is headed up by Dr. Eric Weaver, who has been on the show (EP277); or I'm sure after this show airs, I'm gonna hear about more. Please send them my way.   Now, look … let's get real here. These collaborations may have been initiated with, let's just say, other beneficial side effects; but they all improve care and reduce costs. If I were gonna list some common and appealing side effects that could motivate some prospective collaborators to come to the table, some of the usual suspects are proposing that the collaboration will, for example, improve HCAHPS scores, quality metrics, star ratings; improve predictable spend; reduce shock claims; avenge your common competitor and steal their market share; gang up against a payer or some consolidated health system; improve OR utilization; or improve efficiency in some way. What I would say, though, is that if leveling up patient care happens and costs do not rise as a result, that's the shared priority I'd focus on. If someone gets some beneficial side action, this is kind of the definition of doing well by doing good. All right, so let's talk about the different kinds of collaboration just briefly. I'm gonna say that there's three kinds of collaboration: Collaboration along the patient journey by multiple parties who are all along the patient journey Collaboration by parties who can help inform the patient journey, but they're not necessarily on the patient journey themselves Collaboration by parties who can help navigate the patient journey I am mentioning these three because there's often sort of this insinuation that collaborators should have equal stature in the care journey or have similar roles, that if you're not actually on the clinical journey, then you don't have any responsibility or accountability for the clinical journey and, therefore, are not a worthy collaborator. That is limiting if you are trying to figure out who you might be able to collaborate with to help you. The patient journey is not like a movie showing all the minutes a patient spends in clinic, and then all the gaps in between visits are edited out. Care can be improved at the population level, at the community level. Care can be improved at the disease or the condition level when clinicians get needed insights or information or tools. I mean, frankly, to my mind, it shouldn't be considered a plus when a pharma company or a payer actually does something in the service of improving patient outcomes. It should almost be a requirement that they do. I don't mean by delivering care in any way. And for the record, most prior auth programs are the opposite of collaborative. Payers can collaborate by supplying data, as just one example. Heck, external collaborations are great, but we also could think about collaborating internally, like invite the CFO or maybe the gang rewarding brokers with sales competitions. I don't know. I'd consider ethically dubious: Invite them to come to some meeting where oncology patients are choosing to die rather than bankrupt their families. Communication is the first step to collaboration, after all. That's a place to start. Or life science types: They can supply knowledge and expertise about specific diseases or conditions with the purpose of improving patient outcomes. Informing the patient journey could be a collaboration with some of these amazing patient efficacy organizations or CBOs that are out in the community. Now, I think one barrier to collaboration that we all need to get over is the whole, I call it, stakeholder prejudice thing. Here's what Colton Ortolf wrote on Twitter the other day. He tweeted, “Hospitals are the Lance Armstrong of healthcare. Pissed [off] at all the [crappy] things they do economically, but also grateful for all the lives they save.” If we're gonna eliminate everybody in healthcare who has revenue maximization as their organizational goal, as aforementioned, there is going to be basically no one left standing. As Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, said in EP356, there's no angels and no demons in healthcare. Everybody is both.   If we're talking about stakeholder prejudice, though, I would be remiss not to single out Pharma. When I mentioned them a sec ago, I bet some of your eyebrows went up. Here's my take on it. Consider Pharma's potential role in leveling up disease-/condition-specific outcomes. I mean, there are thousands, millions probably, of diseases and conditions and health problems out there that any given doctor or clinician has to be familiar with. Pharma has huge infrastructures and physicians and smart people who focused on, like, six of them. They know more about those six than anybody else. We pay a ton also for their drugs. It's my view that people along the patient journey should ask for what they want and need relative to the expertise that Pharma possesses. It should be about helping those providing care on the patient journey to level up the standard of care. Frankly, I'd expect collaboration from some of these entities. Ask for it on your own terms, and if all you get back is a sales pitch, you deserve better than that. Find somebody higher up on the food chain to talk to. And also, outcomes-based contracts … yeah, we need to figure out how to operationalize them so that really good drugs that actually produce outcomes like overall survival get paid for and those that do not do not. Point of note must be said: Colluding and conflict of interest is not cost neutral. If someone is getting things bought for them and then thinking, falsely, that it does not impact prescribing, that is not collaboration. Any of these revenue-maximizing hookups are not included in my definition of collaboration. So, in sum, ultimately, what we're talking about here is our legacy. As David Muhlestein, PhD, JD, talks about really well in EP364, we got to ask ourselves, What do we want to leave behind to our children and our grandchildren? Some of this is generational change, for sure. But seriously, talking about today, I mean, who wants to sign their family member up for what my grandfather went through? Right now, across the country, there are heart failure patients going through exactly what he did; and there are other patients with care journeys so dysfunctional that lives are shattered.   Chronic care patients, oncology patients … and this isn't going to change unless we contemplate, first of all, what we can do today—right now. Even little things can matter a lot, but then also to really consider what we want healthcare to look like in 20 or 25 years and then start working back from that vision and collaborating today so that, slowly and surely, we reach a place with better care that is not financially toxic. Check out the 8-Step Collaboration Roadmap for more resources to operationalize a collaboration. For more information, go to aventriahealth.com.   Each week on Relentless Health Value, Stacey uses her voice and thought leadership to provide insights for healthcare industry decision makers trying to do the right thing. Each show features expert guests who break down the twists and tricks in the medical field to help improve outcomes and lower costs across the care continuum. Relentless Health Value is a top 100 podcast on iTunes in the medicine category and reaches tens of thousands of engaged listeners across the healthcare industry. In addition to hosting Relentless Health Value, Stacey is co-president of QC-Health, a benefit corporation finding cost-effective ways to improve the health of Americans. She is also co-president of Aventria Health Group, a consultancy working with clients who endeavor to form collaborations with payers, providers, Pharma, employer organizations, or patient advocacy groups. 03:07 How do we improve care, especially for chronic care patients? 03:18 What are two important contributors to patient outcomes? 03:40 EP361 with Carly Eckert, MD. 03:56 “We know that financial toxicity is clinical toxicity.” 04:09 EP358 with Wayne Jenkins, MD. 06:05 Why can't parties across the healthcare industry seem to collaborate? 08:05 EP366 with Kevin Schulman, MD. 08:07 EP365 with Scott Haas. 08:10 Upcoming episode with Autumn Yongchu and Erik Davis. 08:34 “I would say that a lack of collaboration is a symptom.” 10:10 There's lots of evidence that interoperability has been solved. It's been solved for years. 10:37 Upcoming episode with Cora Opsahl. 10:46 EP349 with Lisa Trumble. 10:53 EP354 with Shawn Rhodes. 10:57 EP324 with Nicole Bradberry and Kelly Conroy. 11:04 Upcoming episode with Dave Chase. 11:19 EP367 with Doug Hetherington. 11:25 EP350 with Katy Talento. 11:28 EP294 with Steve Schutzer, MD. 11:50 EP277 with Eric Weaver, DHA, MHA. 13:00 What are the three kinds of collaboration in healthcare? 13:23 Do collaborators need to have equal status in a collaboration? 13:57 “Care can be improved at the population level, at the community level … at the disease or the condition level.” 15:10 How is stakeholder prejudice holding healthcare back? 15:42 EP356 with Ge Bai, PhD, CPA. 16:55 “Outcomes-based contracts … we need to figure out how to operationalize them.” 17:08 “Colluding and conflict of interest is not cost neutral.” 17:30 EP364 with David Muhlestein, PhD, JD.   For more information, go to aventriahealth.com.   Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab How do we improve care, especially for chronic care patients? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab What are two important contributors to patient outcomes? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab “We know that financial toxicity is clinical toxicity.” Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab Why can't parties across the healthcare industry seem to collaborate? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab “I would say that a lack of collaboration is a symptom.” Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab There's lots of evidence that interoperability has been solved. It's been solved for years. Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab What are the three kinds of collaboration in healthcare? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab Do collaborators need to have equal status in a collaboration? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab “Care can be improved at the population level, at the community level … at the disease or the condition level.” Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab How is stakeholder prejudice holding healthcare back? Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab “Outcomes-based contracts … we need to figure out how to operationalize them.” Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab “Colluding and conflict of interest is not cost neutral.” Stacey discusses #healthcarecollaboration on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #healthcollab Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Ashleigh Gunter, Doug Hetherington, Dr Kevin Schulman, Scott Haas, David Muhlestein, David Scheinker, Ali Ucar, Dr Carly Eckert, Jeb Dunkelberger (EP360), Dan O'Neill, Dr Wayne Jenkins, Liliana Petrova, Ge Bai, Nikhil Krishnan, Shawn Rhodes, Pramod John (EP353), Pramod John (EP352), Dr Eric Bricker, Katy Talento, Stacey Richter (INBW33), Stacey Richter (INBW32), Dr Steve Schutzer (Encore! EP294), Lisa Trumble, Jeb Dunkelberger, Dr Ian Tong, Mike Schneider, Peter Hayes, Paul Simms  

As one of our guests, Dr. Tony DiGioia (EP332), has said, healthcare has been pushed to its limits this past year; but that doesn't mean that nothing good has come of it. Celebrating our bright spots and using our experiences to inform future innovations is really the key to more accessible, equitable, and higher quality of care. While the timing of the celebration could, in general, be better given the latest pandemic news, as they say, there's no time like the present. So, let's do this thing. Also, it's just definitely good from a mental health perspective to find bright spots and to be grateful for them. So, let me kick this off with all of the gratitude I can hold in my two hands for anybody listening who is on the so-called front line of healthcare. My appreciation cannot be expressed more fiercely. I wish, in fact, that there was more that I/we could do to address the systemic issues that plague our healthcare industry and really impact you directly. Speaking of doctors as one of these frontline healthcare groups, in the Doximity Physician Compensation Report that was released for this past year, here's four stats to know:   Twenty-two percent of physicians are considering early retirement because of overwork. Sixteen percent of physicians are looking for another employer because of overwork. Twelve percent of physicians are looking for another career because of overwork. Twenty-seven percent of physicians said they're not overworked, so I guess there's that—that's a bright spot. So, all you docs, nurses, PAs, social workers, therapists of all kinds, any other healthcare workers: Thank you for all that you do even in the face of these adversities and a bunch of seemingly shortsighted policy and/or administrative decisions. Take care of yourself first and foremost. We need you; we appreciate you. Thank you. I'd also like to thank everybody who listened to Relentless Health Value this past year. Thank you for being part of an inspired and inspirational community of individuals who are trying hard to do the right thing and learn and connect with others on a similar journey—even in the face of all the perverse incentives and calcified status quo processes, the whole host of factors that add up to formidable barriers to positive change. All of us—and I'm thinking that includes you—we continue to press forward. This is important because the more of us there are, the more of us who link hands and do some combination of educate, cajole, scold, guilt into, demand, lead, vote, wear down … the more of us who consider ourselves part of the change, the more effective we can be. So, recruit your fellow thinkers and let's continue to make inroads. I want to give a special thank you to the many of you who have reached out to me over this past year. You have encouraged, coached, and debated with me. You have added details and case studies. You've provided context. You have offered up topics to explore and introduced me and our team over here to some great guests. You have changed my mind. You have made me realize that there's some maybe underlying reason for something that is, in fact, valid or a consequence that maybe hasn't been thought through well enough by me and/or others. I couldn't be more thankful or appreciative to every single one of you. For more information, go to aventriahealth.com.   Each week on Relentless Health Value, Stacey uses her voice and thought leadership to provide insights for healthcare industry decision makers trying to do the right thing. Each show features expert guests who break down the twists and tricks in the medical field to help improve outcomes and lower costs across the care continuum. Relentless Health Value is a top 100 podcast on iTunes in the medicine category and reaches tens of thousands of engaged listeners across the healthcare industry. In addition to hosting Relentless Health Value, Stacey is co-president of QC-Health, a benefit corporation finding cost-effective ways to improve the health of Americans. She is also co-president of Aventria Health Group, a consultancy working with clients who endeavor to form collaborations with payers, providers, Pharma, employer organizations, or patient advocacy groups. 03:36 Thank you to our listeners and the feedback you've given the show over the years. 05:10 “Good and bad is a matter of extremes.” 06:20 Thank you to Dr. Steve Schutzer, Dr. George Mathews, Dr. Ge Bai, Troy Larsgard, Dr. Hugh Sims, Vinay Eaton, Dr. Brian Decker, Jeff Hogan, Peter Hayes, Dr. Aaron Mitchell, Parker Edman, Andre Wenker, Doug Aldeen, Cristy Gupton, LynAnn Henderson, Chad Jackson, and Darrell Moon. 07:27 Thank you to our iTunes reviewers. 07:47 If you haven't given us a review yet, please do here. 08:01 Thank you to Malfoxley, Jopo1234, and Teresa O'Keefe for your 2021 reviews. 08:19 Thank you to Dr. Nadia Chaudhri, who sadly died this past year of ovarian cancer but who did so much to advance the awareness of ovarian cancer and pursue better outcomes and better patient care. Look through her Twitter feed. 08:39 Thank you to Brian Klepper, who is a great writer but also runs what might be the largest Listserv for those on the innovative self-insured employer side of healthcare. What I most admire about Brian is his ability and dedication to fact-based and productive debate. Brian is featured on several RHV episodes this past year. You can check them out here: EP335 and AEE16. 09:09 I'd also like to thank Dr. Eric Bricker for his series called AHealthcareZ. Dr. Bricker is a guest on an episode coming up that I'm so looking forward to publishing. 09:45 Thanks to these writers for taking the time and effort to put out such worthwhile content: Brendan Keeler, Kevin O'Leary, Nikhil Krishnan, Olivia Webb, Joe Connolly, Christian Milaster (Telehealth Tuesday), Gist Healthcare daily/weekly newsletter and podcast, John Marchica's newsletter and podcast, and Merrill Goozner.10:10 If you don't already, I'd also recommend following these individuals on LinkedIn: Darren Fogarty, Leon Wisniewski, and Christin Deacon (listen to Christin's episode about the CAA this past fall). 10:26 David Contorno and Emma Fox, thanks so much for all of your work motivating collaboration and inspiring self-insured employers to wield the power they possess in meaningful ways. There's a symposium coming up that anyone interested should check out. 10:42 I appreciate and periodically check out Julie Yoo from Andreessen Horowitz's collection of resources on a Google doc. 10:55 Thanks to Rohan Siddhanti and Ezequiel Halac for organizing events in NYC. 11:03 People often ask me for podcast recommendations, so here's a few I listen to regularly: John Lynn's podcasts, Creating a New Healthcare with Dr. Zeev Neuwirth, Race to Value with Eric Weaver, Radio Advisory, Gist Healthcare Daily, The #HCBiz Show! with Don Lee, and Primary Care Cures with Ron Barshop (I was on the show released Thanksgiving week). There's also the Pharmacy Podcast Network.11:42 Also thanks to the following publications who have given us press credentials and passes to conferences: STAT News, NODE.Health, HealthIMPACT, and JAMA. 12:03 Lastly, we have a tip jar on our Web site which we don't really publicize. I say this to emphasize that those who choose to donate are just simply kind and gracious individuals: Alex Dou, Linda Garcia, James Farley, Arthur Berens, Lois Drapin, James Cheairs, Robert Matthews, Lois Niland, Teresa O'Keefe, Richard Klasco, Hugh Sims, Matt Warhaftig, Meredith Fried, Chad Jackson, Vidar Jorgensen, and Brandon Weber. 12:38 Thank you ALL for your continued leadership in improving healthcare. 12:42 Christin Deacon has said, “What we need more of in the healthcare industry are leaders who are willing to take on legacy institutions and their lobbyists, in both public and private discourse. We need leaders that are willing to take on an industry that makes up about 20% of our GDP and is willing to go on record stating that the goal is not just to curb growth but, rather, stop it and rebuild this whole thing better for patients.” For more information, go to aventriahealth.com. From all of us at Relentless Health Value, THANK YOU for your listenership and support. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth Did you know you can review our #podcast? https://relentlesshealthvalue.com/4-steps-rate-review-podcast-itunes/ Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth In memory of @DrNadiaChaudhri, check out her Twitter feed for info on better #patientoutcomes and care. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth Check out @DrEricB's AHealthcareZ for in-depth industry information. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth Thanks to @healthbjk, @olearykm, @nikillinit, @OliviaWebbC, @JConnol, @GistHealthcare, @DarwinHealth, @_GoozNews, and @HealthChrism for putting out great content. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth We appreciate and recommend following @julesyoo for more #healthcareinsights. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth Thanks to @RSiddhanti and @halac_ezequiel for their event organizing in NYC. Our host, Stacey, shares highlights and resources from this past year on our latest #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth We love #podcasts! Check out some of Stacey's recs in our show notes, including @techguy, @ZeevNeuwirth, @Eric_S_Weaver, @raemwoods, @Alexolgin, @The_HCBiz, @RonBarshop, and @PharmacyPodcast. #healthcare #healthcarepodcast Thanks to the following #healthcarepublications as well: @statnews, @HITHealthIMPACT, @JAMA_current, and @nodehealthorg. Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Stacey Richter (INBW32), Dr Steve Schutzer (Encore! EP294), Lisa Trumble, Jeb Dunkelberger, Dr Ian Tong, Mike Schneider, Peter Hayes, Paul Simms, Dr Steven Quimby, Dr David Carmouche (EP343), Christin Deacon, Gary Campbell, Kristin Begley, David Contorno (AEE17), David Contorno (EP339), Nikki King, Olivia Webb, Brandon Weber, Stacey Richter (INBW30), Brian Klepper (AEE16), Brian Klepper (EP335), Sunita Desai, Care Plans vs Real World (EP333), Dr Tony DiGioia, Al Lewis, John Marchica, Joe Connolly, Marshall Allen  

What is going on with Value-based payment models in healthcare? We've been talking about it for years and despite all the chatter and investment, uptake has been slow. Now, the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) has put many of its models on hold including the Direct Contracting Geo model that we covered earlier this year. Does this mean we are moving away from value-based payment models? Absolutely not! In fact, things are going to start moving much more quickly towards value in 2022. The #HCBiz Show has partnered with Value-based Contracting expert, Gail Zahtz to bring you a 5-episode series that will tell you everything you need to know about value-based payment models to prepare for 2022. Get all the details here: https://thehcbiz.com/174-vbp-2022-series-preview-gail-zahtz/

There are many ways to innovate within an existing organization. However, it can be difficult to move as fast as you'd like within the constructs of an established business model and culture. For one, it's difficult for your team to innovate on top of their “day job”. Second, it can be difficult to hire and incentivize the right people to drive the innovation within your existing constructs. These are the types of issues that the folks at Cleveland Clinic identified as reasons for not innovating fast enough in telemedicine. They decided that if they were going to pick up the pace, they were going to have to take a different approach. The Clinic is a joint venture between Cleveland Clinic and Amwell that connects patients with Cleveland Clinic physicians for online second opinions. Together they are using the latest telemedicine technology to, as CEO Frank McGillen put it, “unlock access to the world's best medical care”. On this episode, we talk with Frank McGillen, CEO, and Peter Rasmussen, MD, Chief Clinical Officer of The Clinic by Cleveland Clinic to understand why one of the best known global brands in healthcare decided that a JV startup was the best way to bring this innovation to market quickly. We discuss: The problem that needed to be solved The benefits of the spin-off/startup approach The benefits of partnering with vs. hiring a technology vendor How they were able to get Cleveland Clinic physicians on board The importance of unique business models in a competitive marketplace How they are measuring the success of their second opinion service How they are measuring the success of this innovation approach Advice for organizations who are considering a startup/spin-off approach to innovation   About The Clinic by Cleveland Clinic The Clinic is a visionary joint venture that combines the unrivaled clinical expertise of Cleveland Clinic with Amwell's industry-leading telehealth platform. Through innovative solutions like our Virtual Second Opinions, we enable easy, secure access to the highest quality medical expertise. Patient-centric and deeply collaborative, we are passionate about realizing the global possibilities of digital health, providing advanced solutions that help tame the costs of care while enabling patients to achieve better outcomes and the greatest degrees of hope.   Learn more: Web: https://theclinic.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitalhealth1/ Anthem signs on with Cleveland Clinic's, Amwell's virtual second opinions service   Full show notes and links: https://thehcbiz.com/172-spin-offs-and-joint-ventures-with-the-clinic-by-cleveland-clinic   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. 

On this edition of #HCBiz Office Hours, Don and Shahid talk with Yuma Nambu, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at CROSS SYNC. CROSS SYNC is a Japanese startup whose medical data analytics software, “iBSEN”, enables hospital ICU's to automate the monitoring of patient vitals and motions continuously to assist healthcare professionals in identifying acute deterioration as early as possible.  The platform relies on multimodal AI capabilities that combine time-series vital analytics from physiological monitors and patients' motion analytics from live video feeds including facial recognition and motion detection.  As CROSS SYNC looks to expand globally, and into the U.S. market in particular, what are the regulatory requirements for their software? Will they need FDA SAMD Clearance to deploy iBSEN in the U.S? Don, Shahid, and Yuma discuss FDA/SAMD regulatory requirements in detail. Plus, they expand on the idea to explore the more important question all digital health startups face: How will you prove that your software works?  For more details and full show notes: https://thehcbiz.com/171-office-hours-does-my-software-need-fda-samd-clearance/   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. 

We spend a lot of time talking about how to align your startup's vision with the realities of the business of healthcare. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't properly validate your offering with customers, clearly and concisely explain the value it will bring them, close deals, and deliver on your promises then it will amount to nothing. Each of these steps is critical to your success. However, you can get many of them right and still fail. The best way to prevent this fate is by tying them all together with a financial plan that's based on reality and considers the long-term goals for your startup. Today we talk with Kristian Marquez, CFA, Managing Director for FinStrat Management, Inc. about how to properly manage your startup's finances.  The good news is that you don't have to be perfect. Kristian tells us you should expect to get a lot of it wrong and have to clean it up along the way. That's ok. His advice: go bare-bones in the beginning when it comes to finances, legal, and generally “papering your business”. That way, you can put all of your resources into ensuring you have a product that people will actually pay you for. That means more time talking with customers, managing your pipeline (and not lying to yourself about it), practicing selling, and cultivating the confidence to ask for the close. Kristian walks you through this early-stage strategy, explains when it is time to bring in the experts, provides guidance on debt vs. equity funding, and even helps you prioritize your spending based on the type of company you want to build. This episode pairs well with: Episode 30: Why You Should Always Be Preparing to Sell Your Company with Dexter Braff Episode 85: Lessons on Selling in Healthcare w/ Dom Cappuccilli ---------- Kristian Marquez, CFA – Kristian serves as Managing Director for FinStrat Management, Inc. FinStrat Management (“FSM”) is an outsourced financial department services firm providing fractional accounting, controller services and CFO services. Exclusively serving B2B SaaS companies, we provide fractional: Chief Financial Officer, controller and accounting services. Web: https://finstratmgmt.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finstratmgmt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/finstratmgmt Please email info@finstratmgmt.com if you'd like a free consultation. ---------- This episode is brought to you by: The Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program (STAR LRP) gives behavioral health providers up to $250,000 to repay school loans in exchange for working full-time for six years at an approved site. Apply now through July 22, 7:30 p.m. ET. ---------- The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.  Music by StudioEtar

Just about every health system has an innovation program, but how do they know if it's making a difference? That's the question we set out to explore with the team from Houston Methodist Center for Innovation. On this episode we talk with:   Michelle Stansbury, Vice President of IT Innovation Brad Shaink, Administrative Director of Digital Innovation Josh Sol, Administrative Director of Ambulatory Innovation   They walk us through:   Innovation Expectations: How do you set expected goals, OKRs, KPIs, etc.? Innovation Discovery: Where do you find solutions? Innovation Evaluation: How do you evaluate solutions before you pilot them? Innovation Pilots and Early Adoption: How do you pilot your solutions? Innovation Procurement: RFPs, templates, etc. Innovation Diffusion: Implementation, integration, etc. Innovation Recognition: How do you recognize teams that are doing things well? Innovation Failure: How do you know if an innovation has failed? Exnovation: How do you know when it's time to stop doing something, or to turn off legacy solutions?   Key takeaways include:   Right-sizing your pilots: Start small and keep your efforts in line with what you are trying to accomplish. Metrics can be qualitative or anecdotal, but they must exist and you must be honest with yourself about whether they are being met. Honesty and trust are key to innovation success. If you aren't giving honest feedback and holding one another accountable then everything falls apart. Startups should focus on solving the customer's problem first and avoid pushing their own agenda. If you invest in the customer's needs first, you'll get a chance to expand the vision later. Make innovation a priority and develop innovation habits: The Houston Methodist team schedules “Monday Demos” each week to ensure they always have new ideas and solutions entering the pipeline. Sometimes they find a solution for a problem they didn't even realize they had.   Links and Resources   Connect with Michelle Stansbury on LinkedIn Connect with Brad Shaink on LinkedIn Connect with Josh Sol on LinkedIn Learn more: Houston Methodist Center for Innovation   Related Episodes:   Episode 149: How Health Systems Think with Neil Carpenter (Listener Favorite) Episode 137: The Novation Dynamic: 3 Pillars for Healthcare Innovation Success with Michael Ackerman Episode 133: Keeping Your Innovation Engine Humming During the COVID-19 Crisis w/ Karen Murphy, PhD, RN (Geisinger)   This episode is brought to you by: The Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program (STAR LRP) gives behavioral health providers up to $250,000 to repay school loans in exchange for working full-time for six years at an approved site. Apply now through July 22, 7:30 p.m. ET.     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.  Music by StudioEtar

Early in the pandemic, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched the Diagnostic Development Initiative (DDI) to help organizations around the world accelerate diagnostics research and development. In the first phase of the initiative, AWS awarded $8 million in computing credits and technical support to 87 organizations in 17 countries. Some of the highlights include:   Stanford University School of Medicine's smartwatch app that detects early signs of COVID-19 Ilumina's identification of viral mutations through next-gen sequencing Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub used Machine Learning to estimate the number of unreported COVID-19 Cases University of British Columbia & Vancouver General Hospital applied machine learning to CT scans to identify indicators of COVIOD-19 and detect more severe progression of the disease. Then they open sourced the model.   Today we're talking with Grace Kitzmiller, Principal Product Manager of AWS Disaster Response about the next round of DDI. AWS will distribute an additional $12 million in compute resources and technical support to organizations working in three areas:   Early disease detection Prognosis Public Health Genomics   And while AWS will continue to support COVID-19 projects, they will also consider projects focused on other infectious diseases. The application is open now and runs through the end of the year. However, AWS is encouraging applicants to submit by July 31, 2021, for priority consideration.   In this interview we discuss:   The details of the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative (DDI). The problems AWS is trying to solve. How AWS is measuring the success of the initiative. The highlights and major outcomes from round 1. How the program is being expanded for round 2. How organizations can apply the compute, technical resources, and subject matter expertise made available through DDI. Who should apply? Plus, we do some brainstorming on possible solutions that could benefit from the program.   This is a great opportunity for organizations to accelerate their work in diagnostics and we encourage you to check it out.   Links and Resources   AWS Activate offers startups free tools, resources, and more to quickly get started on AWS Registry of Open Data on AWS is a registry that exists to help people discover and share datasets that are available via AWS resources. Synthea provides realistic health data at no cost. Check out all our coverage in Infection Prevention and Control Check out our sister podcast TIPS Deep Dive Interviews for discussions with the best minds in global health.     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.  Music by StudioEtar

A major driver of health disparities is that the system does not typically account for the differences in the culture, language, and experience of the patients it is charged to serve. Today we talk with Abner Mason, Founder, and CEO of ConsejoSano about the importance of customizing engagement to match the multicultural realities of your patients. Abner tells us that it's not about translating, but “creating content based on culture; based on deeper factors than language”. And it's effective. ConsejoSano is helping payers and providers get their patients into clinics and closing gaps in care. This of course leads to better outcomes, lower costs, and increased revenue for practices.   Key topics include:   What does it mean to create a more equitable and just healthcare system? How has COVID shone the light on the problems in our system? How do the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) factor into health equity? Is there a willingness for providers and health plans to invest in these solutions? What did the original vision for ConsejoSano look like and how did healthcare's challenging reimbursement models lead to a pivot? How do you align patient engagement efforts with the multicultural reality of the U.S. population? How does your solution fit into the business model of providers and payers? What are the opportunities in Medicaid? Medicare Advantage? How are value-based payment models driving this work? What data is needed to support multicultural patient engagement? What is Health Tech 4 Medicaid and how is it enabling innovation in Medicaid? ConsejoSano's podcast: Health Equity Now     Abner Mason, Founder and CEO, ConsejoSano   Abner Mason is a healthcare technology leader who's dedicated to creating a more just, equitable, and effective healthcare system. As the founder and CEO of ConsejoSano, a multicultural patient engagement company, he leads a team of diverse professionals who strive every day to improve outcomes and lower costs on behalf of health plans. He's also the founder and chair of HealthTech 4 Medicaid, a nonprofit composed of innovative leaders working to radically change the pace of innovation to improve care quality and access. A federal and state government policy veteran with deep experience fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis, Abner knows how to tap people's unique talents and innate sense of compassion to achieve big goals.   ConsejoSano   ConsejoSano is a patient engagement platform that helps connect payers, providers and health systems with their multicultural Medicaid and Medicare patient populations. The company utilizes multi-channel engagement tools to reach patients in a culturally relevant way that increases engagement, lowers costs, and improves health outcomes. For more information, visit www.consejosano.com.   Connect with Abner on Twitter and LinkedIn Check out ConsejoSano and connect with them on Twitter and LinkedIn Watch the latest episodes of Health Equity Now, the show that's dedicated to spotlighting and solving health disparities, here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.   Music by StudioEtar

When it comes to billing codes there are many processes and solutions that focus on the backend. They support the coders and help ensure the codes are “bill ready”. However, as today's guest points out, there are very few solutions that exist solely to help providers put those codes in the EHR accurately and efficiently in the first place. Abboud Chaballout created Diagnoss to untether the clinician from a clunky EHR interface when it comes to coding. Chaballout describes it as a provider assistant that reads the free-text clinical narrative as they record it and uses AI to suggest the appropriate codes needed to paint an accurate picture of their patient's health and the nature of the care they provided. Certainly, this will improve the accuracy of coding and allow for improvements in the overall coding workflow, but that really isn't the goal. For Abboud, it's far more important to give the providers some relief from clicking, pecking, and guessing in the EHR. The EHR is one of many contributors to physician burnout, or as Abboud prefers to describe it, moral injury. Simply put, Abboud and Diagnoss are using AI in an attempt to improve providers' lives. It's their sole focus. In addition to exploring Diagnoss' goals and capabilities, we also get into the technical aspects of building this type of startup in healthcare. We discuss:   How to decide which EHRs to work with. How to engage with those EHRs and get access to their API. How much variance you see from EHR to EHR when it comes to integration and APIs. How FHIR will impact the EHR integration process in the future.   This is a great discussion for anyone trying to do the hard things in healthcare, especially when they require tight integration with many EHRs.   Abboud Chaballout Abboud Chaballout is the CEO and founder of Diagnoss, a digital health company on a mission to reduce the administrative burdens of medical providers on the front lines of our healthcare system by building seamless tech. At Diagnoss, he's taking on medical coding with an AI-based coding assistant that “whispers over a doctor's shoulders.” Find and connect with him on LinkedIn to talk AI, EHRs, and medical coding.      Connect with Abboud on LinkedIn Follow Diagnoss on Twitter Learn more at https://www.diagnoss.com/ Diagnoss Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3zFZ8yHPY    Diagnoss Diagnoss supports providers in their most cumbersome EHR tasks so they can spend more quality time with patients. Today, Diagnoss's AI powered EHR assistant helps providers pick medical codes, more quickly and more accurately, saving them time while simultaneously enabling them to capture more revenue. By building the most robust real-time predictive system for clinical teams, Diagnoss transforms the experience of medical providers from one of frustration to one of inspiration.       The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

95% of innovations that are brought to market fail to reach an adequate level of customer adoption or financial ROI. It sounds scary, but it doesn't have to be this way. Today we're talking with healthcare commercialization strategist and digital health advisor Dr. Roxie Mooney, about the steps innovators can take to dramatically increase their chances of being in the other 5%.   Why you need an early adopter strategy that focuses on the specifics needs, goals, and desires of the customers who are looking for something new and novel. How to avoid pilot purgatory by negotiating future sales up-front and ensuring you can get value from the pilot along the way. The risks of falling in love with your idea and skipping the all-important customer discovery and market validation step. And no, your mom is not a good source of feedback on your innovation. The benefits of being strategic with your go-to-market timing (i.e., don't rush to market; do rush to customer feedback). How to co-create with your clients without building a product that works only for them. When to convert your early-adopter messaging (i.e., new, never been done before, innovative, etc.) to mainstream messaging (i.e., social proof, trustworthy, reliable, ROI, etc.). This is a rich conversation, and whether you're a startup or innovating within your organization, it's full of things you should be thinking about right now!   Dr. Roxie Mooney, DBA Healthcare Commercialization Strategist and Digital Health Advisor   Dr. Roxie Mooney helps health tech innovators uncover their most profitable and viable market strategies, from early adoption strategies to pivoting. She transformed 20 years of business practice, 7 years of researching over 500+ peer-reviewed articles, and 160+ interviews with health innovators into a repeatable method to go from an idea to full-scale adoption. She advises startups and emerging healthcare brands and has been involved in three successful exits. She currently serves as the Healthcare Commercialization Strategist and Digital Health Advisor of Legacy DNA. She's also the international best-selling author of How Health Innovators Maximize Market Success: Strategies to Launch and Commercialize Healthcare Innovations, as well as host of the podcast and video show “Health Innovators.” In addition to her strategist role, Dr. Roxie is a sought out speaker and educator. She's spoken at HIMSS and the Connected Health Conference, and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Jack Welch Management Institute and an Adjunct Professor of Gender Leadership and Coaching and Consulting at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She's also a Board Member of One Purse, a nonprofit organization committed to restoring the lives and dreams of sex-trafficking survivors. Dr. Roxie holds a DBA with a Marketing Specialization from Walden University, an MS degree in Organizational Leadership from Palm Beach Atlantic University, and a BA degree in Organizational Communications from Rollins College. She has carried out additional post-graduate studies on Disruptive Strategy under Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School. To learn more about Dr. Roxie's personal and professional work, follow her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/roxiemooney. Learn about her company Legacy DNA at www.legacy-dna.com.    Links and Resources More on selling/getting things done in Healthcare:   Episode 150: How to Turn the Growth Engine on in your Digital Health Startup with Bryan Loomis Episode 149: How Health Systems Think with Neil Carpenter Episode 148: Partnering with Payers w/ Andrew-Adrian Karlin of Highmark Episode 103: Selling to Health Systems: Advice for Digital Health Startups (Part 1) Episode 105: Selling to Health Systems: Advice for Digital Health Startups (Part 2) Episode 85: Lessons on Selling in Healthcare w/ Dom Cappuccilli   Also mentioned on the show:   Clayton Christensen on what Disruptive Innovation really means. Startup books by Steve Blank (and others he recommends) VideoPeel.com – remotely capture video testimonials from your customers in seconds.     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

Machine Learning in healthcare (and Artificial Intelligence in the broader sense) is real and is being used today. The problem is, it's difficult to sort out what's real and what's hype. Opinions on the matter range from “it's all hype and BS” to “AI is revolutionizing healthcare and replacing doctors”. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between. Today we talk with Josh Miramant, CEO and Founder of Blue Orange Digital, to help you sort this out. After listening you'll have clarity on what Machine Learning is, an understanding of what's possible in healthcare today, and a practical expectation of what's coming next.   In this conversation we'll:   Help you understand the terminology. What is Machine Learning? What is Artificial Intelligence? What is everyone talking about!? Take the “magic” out of Machine Learning and help you understand at a basic level what's happening here. Layout the need for data quality and data fidelity (i.e., the usefulness of data for a purpose). Along with data acquisition, this is the first thing you'll need to address. Discuss practical applications of Machine Learning that are being used productively in healthcare right now. This is “Applied Machine Learning” and there are many solved problems that add value in healthcare administration, patient acquisition, costs, pricing models, etc. Dig into the research and operational applications of machine learning. These include things like image detection, diagnosis, etc. like we discussed with Eric Topol (Episode 91). These applications are real and they're improving, but they aren't replacing doctors anytime soon. Then we touch a bit on the theoretical. Things that are happening in the lab that are incredibly exciting but have a way to go before they have real-world applications.   About Josh Miramant Josh Miramant is the CEO and founder of Blue Orange Digital, a top-ranked data science and machine learning agency with offices in New York City and Washington DC. Miramant is a popular speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to enterprise companies and startups. As an example of thought leadership, Miramant has been featured in IBM ThinkLeaders, Dell Technologies, Global Banking & Finance Review, the IoT Council of Europe, among others.   Connect with Miramant:   LinkedIn: @joshmiramant Email: contact@blueorange.digital Twitter: @jmiramant   About Blue Orange Digital Blue Orange Digital is recognized as a “Top AI Development and Consultant Agency,” by Clutch and YahooFinance, for innovations in predictive analytics, automation, and optimization with machine learning in NYC.  They help organizations optimize and automate their businesses, implement data-driven analytic techniques, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things. Whether your goal is to optimize your supply chain, use existing data to decrease operating costs, or customize the patient experience with predictive modeling, Blue Orange Digital can help you meet your challenge.  Have a project in mind but need some help implementing it? Contact us, we'd love to discuss how we can work with you to co-develop your AI project.  For more on AI and technology trends, see Josh Miramant, CEO of Blue Orange Digital's data-driven solutions for Supply Chain, Healthcare Document Automation, and more case studies at BlueOrange.Digital.   Connect with Blue Orange:   LinkedIn: @blueorangedigital Email: contact@blueorange.digital Twitter: @BlueOrangeData Medium: @blueorangedigital    Links and Resources Smartwatches can help detect COVID-19 days before symptoms appear     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

The CMS Patient Access Rules are coming. And they're easy to cheer for. We're giving patients their data and that's a huge win! We all love that! But what we don't love is when FraudulentHealthcareApp.com collects patient data and sells it to the highest bidder to support targeted marketing, or whatever other nefarious act they can come up with. Well, the health plans don't get to pick and choose which apps they connect to. What if their member wants to use FraudulentHealthcareApp.com? What's their recourse? How can they educate and protect their members? On this episode, we're sharing another of Shahid's recent panels. This one from Health Data Unbound, and it's like an #HCBiz super panel as we've had all 4 of the panelists on the show in the past. The panel asks the question: “How Will Patients Securely Connect 3rd Party Apps To Their Data Once Patient Access Rules Kick In?” And they will be kicking in on July 1st of this year (2021). Shahid Shah is our moderator, and he's talking with:   Andrew Adrian-Karlin, Director of Business Platform-Product, Highmark Health (Episode #148: Partnering with Payers) Gunjan Siroya, Principal Partner & Sr. Vice President, Netspective (Episode #69: An Open Source Industry Platform for Provider Directory) Ron Urwongse, Director of Strategy and Innovation, CAQH (Episode #13: Are We Asking Providers the Wrong Questions?)   They cover this core question and discuss the tools and frameworks health plans can use to protect their members and themselves. And then, as he always does, Shahid asks the most important question. Is this going to make a difference for the patients/members? Will it help them pick a health plan? Will it help them find out if their doctor is covered? Their meds? Will it help them better understand how much things are going to cost them out of pocket? Because if not, what the hell is the point? It's easy to get caught up in the implementation, especially when you're dealing with regulatory requirements. Question 1 is naturally… how do we meet the regs so we don't have a problem? That, as Shahid puts it, is institution first thinking. The smart health plans… the member-centric health plans are asking, how are we going to use this to make things better for our members? It's a great discussion. You're going to love it and I'm so happy we get to share it with you. On that note, thank you to Satish Kavirajan, Managing Director at the Actionable Intelligence Network (AIN) for letting us share this with you!   Health Data Unbound The Health Data Unbound Virtual Conference: Innovations in Health Data Sharing for the COVID-19 Era and Beyond, hosted by Actionable Intelligence Network, was held on November 10-12, 2020, and is now an on-demand event. While there have been many events on interoperability and data sharing, what's unique here is the focus on the BUSINESS rationale for health data sharing. The conference focuses on the emergent need for interoperability of all kinds, implementation of appropriate sharing of patient information, high priority use cases, value propositions, and companies with enabling technologies, business models, and strategies. Videos of all presentations from the Health Data Unbound Virtual Conference can be accessed by registering on the Summit website: https://ain.events/hdu/     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

This podcast features the Selling to Health Plans panel discussion at the Digital Health Growth Summit, moderated by our very own Shahid Shah, with panelists Vijay Bhatt, Deputy CTO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and Bill Friedman, Vice President of Sales, Zipari. The panel covers some of the most important digital health technologies that health plans are interested in and how digital health startups can get health plan executives to buy the technologies they're building. One of my favorite points is that you've got to de-risk the decision to buy:   Start small and build-up Pilots are not bad when done right Show the IT department that you won't be a pain in their neck Show the finance department a transparent roadmap of the true cost of ownership from implementation thru tangible ROI.   Some great advice for anyone trying to sell in healthcare.   This panel discussion complements several recent episodes:   Episode 145: How Payers Can Master Core Administrative Transactions and Deliver a World-class Experience to their Members and Providers w/ Steve Krupa Episode 148: Partnering with Payers w/ Andrew-Adrian Karlin of Highmark Episode 150: How to Turn the Growth Engine on in your Digital Health Startup with Bryan Loomis – one of the organizers of this event Episode 151: Shifting Healthcare's Culture Toward Openness and Experimentation with Red Hat's Paul Jones where we talk about his experience as a buyer at a health plan and how that helps him in his new role as a seller.   We focus on selling a lot because you may have the best solution in the world, but nothing happens until someone sells something.   The Digital Health Growth Summit The Digital Health Growth Summit, hosted by Actionable Intelligence Network and Viral Healthcare Founders, is an on-demand virtual event. The Summit was held on October 29-30, 2020. This two-day Summit highlights the marketing, sales, and leadership capabilities and strategies that are necessary for digital health startups to grow and scale. Speakers include nationally recognized growth experts and executives from digital health companies, hospitals, health systems, health plans, investors and accelerators. The Summit is designed to meet the information needs of marketing and sales leaders and other senior executives at digital health startups. The program would also be of interest to digital health accelerators, the investment community, consulting firms, and marketing and sales technology companies. Videos of all presentations from the Digital Health Growth Summit can be accessed by registering on the Summit website: https://ain.events/dhgsummit/ Thank you to Satish Kavirajan, Managing Director at the Actionable Intelligence Network (AIN), and Bryan Loomis, Founder at Viral Healthcare Founders for allowing us to share this content with you   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

The business of healthcare is consensus-driven and permissions-based. As we've seen time and again on this show, this culture slows innovation, stretches sales cycles, and inspires institution-first thinking. Ultimately, it's responsible for the high costs and lousy user-experiences we're all trying to fix. What if healthcare went from a culture of consensus and permission to one of openness and experimentation? That's what we're going to explore today. Our guest, Paul Jones, “grew up” in a large health plan where he was the prospect and buyer of health IT systems and solutions. Now, as Red Hat's Healthcare Strategist for the Northeast US, Paul is selling innovative healthcare solutions rooted in Open Source software back into the industry he cut his teeth in. After making this move, Paul didn't just find open-source software, but an open culture. Looking back on his days at the health plan, this is the first thing he would try to replicate if he went back. We're going to find out why and explore the hurdles he might face in that endeavor. In addition, we dig into everything Paul learned as a prospect and buyer of health IT systems, and how he's using that to be a more effective partner as he sells back into the healthcare industry. We round out the conversation with a real-world example of a Sepsis-detection system that has already saved 9,000 lives, a riff on why FHIR may still be the gamechanger the hype has promised, and of course, we get into data governance and data quality. This is a wide-ranging conversation, and it's packed with insights. Enjoy!   Paul Jones Paul Jones is Red Hat's Healthcare Strategist for the Northeast US.  He and his teammates drive innovative healthcare solutions rooted in Open Source software.  Prior to that Paul was VP, Card-to-Care at HM Health Solutions where he led the Clinical, Provider and Pharmacy Application Delivery domains focused on Value-Based Care and Care Management Solutions to multiple payers. Before that Paul Led Architecture at HM Health Solutions.  Paul has had roles in both IT and Business. “Open unlocks the world's potential.” Email: paul.Jones@redhat.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulejones/   Red Hat Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux®, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. This efficient, focused method outpaces traditional proprietary software development models and enables healthcare customers to customize solutions in areas such as data integration, clinical reasoning, and compliance automation. It's why 100% of healthcare companies in the Global Fortune 500 rely on Red Hat. Learn more at redhat.com/health   Related Episodes   Episode #148: Partnering with Payers – Andrew Adrian-Karlin Episode #149: How Health Systems Think with Neil Carpenter And since Paul briefly mentions the topic, check out our Provider Directory series.   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

Many digital health startups rely on sales prospecting to generate new leads. That works to a point but doesn't scale because each deal takes a long time, and good healthcare salespeople are hard to find. Today we're talking with Bryan Loomis, a Digital Health Growth expert and mentor, about how to design, build and execute a growth plan that generates leads in a more sustainable way.   We discuss:   Bryan's PAGE Methodology (Purpose, Audience, Gospel, and Experimentation) for growth The importance of generating marketing qualified leads instead of relying solely on sales prospecting Why email opt-ins are a good indicator your plan is working Useful tools to help you execute your growth strategy The proper way to reach out to prospects on LinkedIn How to use the assets you already have to generate content and “gifts” for your audience You don't need blind experimentation, but hypothesis-driven experimentation with measures and statistics. And much more   Bryan Loomis “I'm Bryan Loomis, digital health growth expert and mentor. I've mentored 25+ digital health companies, from ranging a founder with an idea to 200 million in ARR. My proven methodology helps digital health startups grow rapidly in an entrenched industry that's set up for them to fail. Grow your startup. Change the world.” Learn more, check out the video series VHFcast, and sign up for Bryan's Slack Community at: https://bryanloomis.com/ Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn   Related Episodes & Resources   Episode 136: Marketing in a Post-COVID World with Jared Johnson Book: Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares – This book breaks down the 19 channels that you can use to build your customer base and helps you identify the best ones for your business.   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

There's a lot of talk about addressing physician burnout, but little practical advice about what to do. The path to action lies first in understanding the many sources of burnout, and then separating them into those that we can impact, and those we cannot. There's a class of burnout factors that are intrinsic to being a physician. Simply put, it's a hard job, and it's demanding in both a physical and mental sense. But this is part of what they signed up for, and due to their passion and sense of purpose (as we discussed at length with Dr. Vivian Lee on Episode 143), most physicians are willing and able to work through them. That's good because there's little we in the tech/entrepreneur community can do to help. The problems arise with the other class of burnout factors – the extrinsic variety. As a society, we have in many ways changed our deal with doctors over the past 10+ years. Under the guise of healthcare transformation, we have piled on to the existing stressors with paperwork, regulations, quality measures, reimbursement cuts, and more. These are burdens that physicians didn't sign up for, and they are not supported by the same passions we mentioned earlier. The additional layers may be necessary to support our healthcare transformation goals at a systemic level, but they don't always translate into better care for individual patients, and often undermine the patient/physician relationship. To a physician, this administrative burden feels unnecessary at best, and directly in conflict with their mission at worst. If we really do need these things, and we should confirm that regularly, then we also need to provide the tools and support to make them happen. And that brings us to the point of this episode. Today, we're sharing a discussion from the HealthIMPACT Live Summer Forum (July 22-24, 2020). In it, our co-host Shahid Shah discusses how to apply conversational AI to reduce physician burnout with Peter Durlach, SVP of Strategy and New Business Development at Nuance. As the setup would indicate, Shahid and Peter discuss the sources of physician burnout and help us to better understand where we in the tech/entrepreneur community should be focusing our efforts if we want to make an impact. Their discussion covers: The sources of physician burnout The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic stressors and why we should focus on the latter How good conversational AI, or dictation, can cut the administrative time by half How ambient conversations, where the AI listens in to the conversation as it happens, can take it to the next level Why we should also be working on nurse burnout How we can help before, during, and after the patient visit How the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating decision making and innovation in healthcare (as discussed in Episode 137 - The Novation Dynamic: 3 Pillars for Healthcare Innovation Success with Michael Ackerman) Specific advice for entrepreneurs looking to enter healthcare The difference between health systems that get this right and those that spin their wheels I'd like to thank our partners at Purpose Events for allowing us to share this content with you. They run the HealthIMPACT Live series, and our very own Shahid Shah is the HealthIMPACT Forum Chair. Shahid describes it as a “No BS and No PowerPoint” event that's intended to be more of a conversation than a series of presentations. The goal is to get healthcare leaders together and facilitate a conversation amongst peers about the work they're doing in the real world. Definitely fitting for a listener of this show. Links and Resources Purpose Events website HealthIMPACT Live page HealthIMPACT Live on YouTube This interview on YouTube Upcoming HealthIMPACT Live Events Episode 144: HealthIMPACT Live Fall Forum Preview plus Tips on Running Virtual Events Episode 90: Healthcare Is Not Quite Digitized w/ Bill DeStefanis of Nuance - how and why paper is still widely used in healthcare, how we can keep it secure, and how we can effectively integrate it into our digital workflows.     The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

It may seem cliché to say payers need to be more like Amazon, but the analogy provides fundamental, and surprisingly actionable insights for the health insurance industry. Think about your experience with Amazon (or Google or Zappos, or any other organization that provides a phenomenal customer experience). Whether they're helping you find the right product, or streamlining the purchase, or dealing with a delivery problem, or a return, these organizations have made the transactions feel easy... frictionless... natural.   If you're a payer: Ask yourself, does your front-end member experience, or back-end provider experience even remotely resemble this? If you're a member or provider: Does your experience with health insurance companies even remotely resemble this?   If we're being honest, approximately 100% of you are shaking your heads "No". The reason that Amazon can provide an awesome consumer experience is because, through telemetry and analytics, they know exactly what's happening in their business in real-time. They know how much each decision costs them, and they know it on the spot. That enables automation. And that enables the end-user experience we're trying to emulate. How is this relevant to payers? Well... that's what this interview is all about. Steve Krupa, CEO of Health Edge, explains that the adequacy and data sharing capability of a payer's underlying transaction systems will be the rate-limiting factor when it comes to improving the member and provider experience. And what could that experience look like?   First-pass payment accuracy that reduces the need for "claw-backs", saving health plans money and reducing a key source of provider abrasion Point-of-Service Payments that provide members with transparent out-of-pockets costs and improve provider cashflows. Automatic claims adjudication that works as-well-as, or better than the current workflow, and does it in real-time.   Additionally, Krupa very elegantly explains the transition of health insurance companies from underwriters of risk to managers of risk, and now increasingly, to participants in the delivery of care itself. We're always looking to expand our fundamental understanding of the business of healthcare. This section created some new and powerful connections for me, and I suspect it will for you too.   Steve Krupa, CEO, HealthEdge Software, Inc.  As the leader of HealthEdge, Steve has the unique opportunity to leverage the various aspects of his professional experience. He started out as a Mechanical Engineer and programmer for Johnson Controls, using software and digital interfaces to control large mechanical systems. Later, Steve became involved in the healthcare mergers and acquisitions business, where he worked on over $12BN of strategic acquisitions and recapitalizations, including the landmark acquisition of US Healthcare by Aetna. Prior to HealthEdge, spent 18 years as a healthcare venture capital partner at the Psilos Group. Today, Steve's professional passion is for the people and customers of HealthEdge, and its vision to build its substantial and unique intellectual property into the most innovative solutions partner in the HCIT marketplace. Steve holds an M.B.A. with Distinction from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated a Palmer Scholar; and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of South Florida where he was elected to Tau Beta Pi.   About HealthEdge HealthEdge provides modern, disruptive healthcare IT solutions that health insurers use to leverage new business models, improve outcomes, drastically reduce administrative costs, and connect everyone in the healthcare delivery cycle. Its next-generation enterprise solution suite, HealthRules, is built on modern, patented technology and is delivered to customers via the HealthEdge Cloud or onsite deployment. An award-winning company, HealthEdge empowers health insurers to capitalize on the innovations, challenges and opportunities that await in the new healthcare economy. For more information, visit www.healthedge.com. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthedge/ Twitter. https://twitter.com/HealthEdge Website. www.healthedge.com   Relevant Links and Resources   Episode #141 The State of Payer Data with Jordan Bazinsky of Cotiviti: Learn about the converging data management challenges that will change the payer industry forever, including clinical data integration and the CMS 2020 Final Rule. Episode 104: Why HIEs Will Lead the Way on Healthcare Quality Measurement w/ John D'Amore Episode 096: The CMS NPRM: Opportunities from the Payer Perspective Episode 094: The Path to Healthcare Interoperability Checkout #HCBiz's extensive coverage of the Provider Directory problem Providence Digital Innovation Group: Publications, research and perspectives on issues that are reshaping health care through digital innovation   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

Patient Centricity is a buzzword that's easy to throw around, but difficult to realize. The notion itself is straightforward… build your product or service around the patient who it is intended to help. Talk with them. Incorporate their input. Understand their needs, desires, and goals. It's so straight-forward that today's guest tells us this is no “ah-ha” moment for healthcare, but more of an “ah-duh”. Why do other industries do this organically, while healthcare talks about it as some enlightened idea? It's because our healthcare system is dis-intermediated to the point where the patient no longer looks like the customer. And unfortunately, there is no business case for “doing the right thing” in healthcare. Even though our intentions are good, our end-game involves much more than an outstanding patient experience with the best possible outcome. Consequently, our thinking gets cloudy and our efforts get diluted. Today we talk with Matthew Zachary, founder and CEO of Offscrip Media, about the shortcomings of healthcare's so-called “Patient Centricity” movement. Matthew shares what he's learned first-hand as a cancer patient and survivor, and through his advocacy work at Stupid Cancer, the nonprofit responsible for igniting a global movement advocating for AYA (adolescent young adult) cancer programs and support. Patient centricity is table-stakes at this point, but you've got to be coming at it from the correct frame of mind. This interview will help you to think about it in a whole new way.   Matthew Zachary Ten years after surviving brain cancer at age 21, concert pianist and composer Matthew Zachary created the first health podcast, founded Stupid Cancer, the nonprofit responsible for igniting a global movement advocating for AYA (adolescent young adult) cancer programs and support that brought dignity in the face of health adversity. After stepping down as Stupid Cancer's CEO in 2019, Matthew continues his legacy of building community, galvanizing the patient voice, and blowing up the status quo with OffScrip Media, the first digital health podcast network focused on patient advocacy, education, and empowerment. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewzachary/  Twitter: http://twitter.com/matthewzachary  Facebook: http://facebook.com/matthewzachary  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thematthewzachary   OffScrip Media Today's healthcare conversations are too polite. OffScrip Media's here to fix that.  Created by Matthew Zachary, a 25-year brain cancer survivor, and the Founder of Stupid Cancer, OffScrip Media is the first podcasting network at the intersection of patient advocacy, education, and digital health. Our mission is to build community, end isolation, amplify voice, and improve quality of life for patients and caregivers. Company: https://offscrip.com/    Links and Resources Episode #114: Who's Got the Patient's Back? with Patient Advocate Grace Cordovano Episode #93: Building a Social Network for Patients and Caregivers w/ Brian Loew of Inspire The Mighty: a digital health community created to empower and connect people facing health challenges and disabilities.   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

In a growing crowd of national health information networks, eHealth Exchange is one of the oldest and most connected in the U.S.. Notably, they are the primary way healthcare organizations connect with federal agencies such as the Social Security Administration (SSA), Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In addition, they're connected with 75% of all U.S. hospitals, more than 60 regional and state HIEs, more than 5,000 dialysis centers, and more. Today we take a thorough look at eHealth Exchange with Executive Director, Jay Nakashima to find out what they do and to give you a sense of how they may fit into your clinical data strategy. Topics include: What does the eHealth Exchange do Who participates How eHealth Exchange connects federal agencies like the SSA, DOD, and VA Why is the social security administration is such a large consumer of clinical data The difference in outcomes when you're opt-in vs opt-out How does eHealth Exchange compare with the other national networks How does eHealth Exchange fit in with TEFCA How the Surescripts Record Locator Service is used within the network How is eHealth Exchange different than regional and state HIEs Why they don't store any clinical information and the pluses/minuses for federated vs. non-federated exchanges New support for electronic case reporting Recent simplifications to their integrations and onboarding The PULSE Connectivity model   Jay Nakashima Over the past 25 years Jay Nakashima has designed and implemented EHRs, optimized clinical workflow, and spearheaded data exchange. Jay has worked for health IT vendors, providers, payers, and now leads the eHealth Exchange, the nation's oldest and largest public-private health information network.   eHealth Exchange Active in all 50 states, the eHealth Exchange is the largest query-based, health information network in the country. It is the principal network that connects federal agencies and non-federal organizations, allowing them to work together to improve patient care and public health. Web: https://ehealthexchange.org/ Twitter: @ehealthExchange   Links and Related Episodes What you need to Know About TEFCA Right Now w/ Mariann Yeager Transforming the Prescription Decision Process Between Physicians and Patients w/ Surescripts CEO Tom Skelton Interoperability 2.0 with Niko Skievaski Why HIEs Will Lead the Way on Healthcare Quality Measurement w/ John D'Amore The Path to Healthcare Interoperability TEFCA, Interoperability, and an Industry's Unreasonable Expectations The Regional HIE Should be Your First Stop for Interop ADVault: https://mydirectives.com/ make your end of life medical wishes known   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

In our ongoing series around the COVID-19 crisis, we plan each episode with the specific aim of delivering you, the listener, actionable items you can do right now. To ensure that during this crisis you can solidify and strengthen your business while continuing to serve your patients at the highest level, we're bringing you two of our favorite people in healthcare. Joining us today is David Goldhill, CEO of Sesame and Dr. Allison Edwards who runs a direct primary care facility, to talk about how you can adopt the right strategies for doctors to overcome this crisis. Highlights How a personal tragedy and a timely New Yorker article set David Goldhill on the path from being a top media exec to one of our leading voices in healthcare. Why incentives and priorities are a huge motivation and focus of David's research. What we saw was an opportunity to create something of an alternative health economy outside of third party reimbursement. David Goldhill The Direct Primary Care Marketplace: A guide for practices and patients. The solution for high deductible patients you can't collect from. We elected to not bill insurance in our clinic simply because we wanted to make sure that we were actually working for our patients as our customers. Dr. Allison Edwards Insurance made it difficult to treat patients: How helping under-served populations in an FQHC drove Dr. Edwards to DPC. The DPC Speed Advantage: How Dr. Edwards was able to adapt and pivot without having to convince government or insurers, she just had to convince her patients. The NEW Channels, Formats, and Expectations for the doctor-patient relationship. An overview of the video platform, payment, and scheduling with Sesame. What you can and can't do through Telemedince in Primary Care. A rundown of the Virtual Check-in Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. David Goldhill, President and Chief Executive Officer David Goldhill is the founder and CEO of Sesame, which operates an innovative direct pay marketplace for the full range of health care services.  Sesame launched its service in Kansas City in 2019.  Goldhill has been a leading voice of market-based health care reform since publication of “How American Health Care Killed My Father” as the cover story of the September 2009 issue of The Atlantic. Goldhill is the author of “Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care is Wrong” (Knopf, January 2013) and of “The Real Costs of American Health Care” (Vintage 2016).  He is co-editor of New York's Next Health Care Revolution (Manhattan Institute, 2015).  Goldhill is chair of the Board of Directors of the Leapfrog Group, an employer-sponsored organization dedicated to hospital safety and transparency. In his business career, Goldhill was president and CEO of GSN, which operates a US cable television network seen in 80 million homes and one of the world's largest digital games companies.  He previously served as president and COO of Universal Television Group, the largest division of Universal Studios.  In this capacity, he oversaw all operations at the company's domestic and international cable television networks, cable and network television studios, first-run syndication business and worldwide television distribution. Goldhill was also chairman and CEO of Independent Network Holdings, Ltd. (INTH), which created and operated the TV3 television network in Russia.  Prior, Goldhill was the CFO of Act III Communications, a privately-owned holding company with interests in television stations, movie theaters, magazines, and film/television production.  He has served as Director of Commerce Hub (CHUBA), Expedia (EXPE), eLong (LONG), and numerous private companies. Goldhill graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. degree in history and holds a M.A. degree in history from New York University.  Sesame Sesame is a marketplace for health services where customers pay upfront for care. Sesame connects patients and providers directly, making quality health care more accessible, affordable, and transparent. No surprise bills, no hidden costs. Just great doctors offering their services at fair, transparent prices. Sesame offers an end-to-end HIPAA-compliant telemedicine solution with a key distinction.  Sesame virtual appointment includes our direct-pay payment and billing functionality.  At a moment of uncertain reimbursement policies around telemedicine – and with telemedicine appointments carrying fees meaningfully less than in-office visits, Sesame allows practices to recoup revenue with little administrative cost. Our platform is a fully HIPAA compliant, easy to use service that enables any licensed medical provider in the US - in any specialty - to immediately list their services using our convenient, self-onboarding tool. The platform also works with other video services, which allows physicians to utilize Sesame for its upfront payment functionality alongside an existing video conference solution. We're offering the service free to all providers for the next three months as a way to introduce the concept of direct-pay services to a broader range of providers. Patients can use Sesame to find the telemedicine care they need, with a wide range of specialties and providers—from general consultations, to dermatology, physical therapy and beyond, all available with clear, affordable pricing and a straightforward booking platform. Links, Resources and Related Episodes Sesamecare.com Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong Catastrophic Care Book Review by Don Lee DPCFrontier.com Direct primary care alliance university EHRs for DPC – Elation, Hint, Atlas (in the order they were mentioned) Twitter @SesameCare @Dr_A_Edwards @David_Goldhill Linkedin: Sesame David Goldhill Dr. Allison Edwards More on Direct Primary Care (DPC) from The #HCBiz Show

Legionellosis accounts for thousands of hospital admissions and many deaths. It has a 10% mortality rate for those infected and that rate goes up as high as 25% in a healthcare setting. The good news is, it's controllable. In fact, it's largely an engineering problem that has known, low-tech controls. Given the prevalence of the issue, the high mortality rate and increased risk in healthcare settings (especially in LTC), CMS now says that Hospitals must develop water management policies to prevent Legionnaires' disease. They're calling for hospitals to do a risk assessment, implement a water management program and specify testing protocols. The approach sounds like it would be in line with that of a good HIPAA or cyber-security program. That is, you must build a culture of control and manage the issue for the long haul. On this episode, Dave Purkiss and Joseph Cotruvo tell you what Legionella is, how it can be controlled and why health systems should prioritize the issue. Most importantly, they'll tell you about the standards, tools, and approaches that'll help you implement a sound water management program, keep your patients safe, and avoid a non-compliance citation from CMS.   On this episode you'll learn: What is Legionella? Why was it largely unknown prior to 1976? Why does Legionellosis have such a high mortality rate? Can we control the issue and prevent outbreaks? What is the CDC doing to track outbreaks and promote the appropriate measures to control it? How much of a problem is Legionella for U.S. Hospitals? Are Hospital leaders aware of the issue? Why are Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities at greater risk? Are healthcare leaders aware of the tools that exist to properly manage water systems and control Legionella? When did CMS begin to regulate the issue? How does CMS validate that the health systems are properly managing their water systems? Why should a healthcare organization prioritize this issue? What advice would you give a health system leader for getting started with a water management program? How can health systems use tools like the NSF 444 standard and ASHRAE 188 to guide them? Is there a potential for a CMS audit and are there any financial penalties involved? The Legionella 2018 conference: Who's it for? What you'll learn? What are the goals of the conference? How does a good water systems control program relate to a HIPAA program or a cybersecurity program?   This episode originally aired on The #HCBiz Show on February 21, 2018.

If we've established anything on The #HCBiz Show, we've established that healthcare is complex. And with a million priorities, each with its own complexity, it can be difficult to know if you're doing any of it right. So, we do the best that we can with the knowledge, resources, and tools at our disposal, and put out the fires when they occur. This, of course, can be very problematic when the work is more complex than it seems. And that is certainly the case when it comes to Environmental Services (EVS). We outlined the complexity of the issue at HITS 2018 with  The Environmental Services Optimization Playbook (ESOP) is a multi-disciplinary, cross-industry initiative to support reliable design (standardization of evidence-based practices) for environmental cleaning and disinfection in health care facilities in alignment with AHE Standards, to reduce the risk of HAI (healthcare-associated infection). As project lead Aaron Jett puts it, “it's like bringing Coke and Pepsi together to talk about the best ways to make soda”. On this episode, we get acquainted with the ESOP initiative and talk about how it will standardize around the 4 Ps: Patient, Product, Process, and Processing. And, in what might be our favorite part at the #HCBiz Show, the playbook will even provide guidance for explaining all of this to the various stakeholders within the health system. That's huge! ... Environmental Services Optimization Playbook (ESOP) Primary Purpose: To support reliable design (standardization of evidence-based practices) for environmental cleaning and disinfection in health care facilities in alignment with AHE Standards, to reduce the risk of HAI (healthcare-associated infection). For more information: https://www.zeroinfections.org/esop---evs-optimization-playbook.html ... This episode is sponsored by the Healthcare Infection Transmission System (HITS) Consortium. For the second year in a row, The #HCBiz Show had the honor and privilege of being a media partner for the annual HITS Conference. Last year we were in Nashville – check out the episodes we recorded there. This year, we attended HITS 2019 in Buffalo, NY. Check out all our shows from HITS 2019. Thank you to Christine Greene, Kelly Reynolds, Savannah Hatt, John LaRochelle, and Michael Diamond, along with the entire HITS Consortium for the work you're doing to protect our families and our communities. The battle against healthcare-associated infections can only be won through collaboration, and from what I've seen in working with you all for the past few years, HITS is bringing the best ideas and brightest minds together to do just that. ... For full show notes and links: https://thehcbiz.com/esop-hits-2019/ 

Sepsis is not an infection. Rather, it's your body's overwhelming reaction to an infection and can lead to some serious health issues. In fact, sepsis is the #1 cause of death for patients in hospitals. Sepsis definitions and protocols have been around for some time, but have been undergoing major changes. Additionally, sepsis is under scrutiny from CMS at the federal level and is subject to public reporting in many states. All of this, plus the importance of quickly diagnosing and treating the condition puts clinicians in a difficult spot. Many times they'll find themselves treating to the protocol, even when their clinical instincts suggest something else. In that regard, sepsis proves to be a very instructive topic in our never-ending quest to unravel the business of healthcare. On this episode, we'll talk with Michael Ackerman who's Director of the Master in Healthcare Innovation Program and Professor of Clinical Nursing at The Ohio State University. Michael is an expert on the topic who speaks on it across the country. He'll help us understand what we're up against and why it's so complicated from both a clinical and administrative standpoint. We discuss: What is sepsis? How is sepsis diagnosed? Why it's so important to diagnose and treat quickly. Why protocols and definitions continue to change. How new definitions of sepsis seem to be at odds with public reporting. How this impacts the clinicians and their ability to treat. How public reporting and media impact the approach. How proper identification and treatment impact healthcare costs. Why we need to focus on quality, but can't ignore the patient experience, the costs of care or the value that you bring to that care. What it all means to the patient and how we can protect ourselves. Why hospital administrators need to take the long-view. How a Sepsis-team can drive tremendous value to the hospital. The importance of incorporating new technology.   This episode originally aired on The #HCBiz Show! on May 3rd, 2017.   For more details visit DeepDive.tips

There are two things I can say for sure. First, healthcare-associated infections (HAI) cause a lot of suffering and cost a lot of money. Second, it's really hard to sell into healthcare, even when you have an innovative product that attacks a well-known problem in a common-sense way. On this episode, we get to dive into both of those things. Infection Control and Environmental Surfaces Over the past decade, substantial scientific evidence has accumulated indicating that contamination of environmental surfaces in hospital rooms plays an important role in the transmission of several key HAIs. Environmental surfaces contribute to cross-transmission of pathogens. These surfaces include both nonporous (hard) surfaces and soft surfaces such as bed linens, gown, mattress, etc. The more a patient comes into contact with a surface, the more important it is to keep it clean. Well, what happens if you can't keep your pillows clean? Many standard-issue hospital pillows allow pathogens to enter through sewn seams, vents, and non-barrier covers. Then patients put their heads on them. It's an issue that seems to have a common-sense call-to-action, much like hand-hygiene. But as we've seen, common sense and good products are not all you need to penetrate the healthcare market. Selling into the Hospital Innovators and entrepreneurs who want to make it in the healthcare business should absolutely focus their efforts on delivering products and services that help patients. That is, after all, the whole point of what we're doing. But if your sales strategy relies on what you've deemed to be "common sense" and "good for the patient" and nothing else, then you're likely to fail. When David Woolfson and his team at Gabriel Scientific started winning awards for their hermetically sealed pillow with a filter, they thought they had short-circuited the healthcare sales cycle. As we'll hear, it drove some VC attention but did little to open doors at the health systems. David's story is instructive in many ways, but it delivers a truth that many in the startup community won't want to hear: it's going to be a grind and there are no short-cuts. This episode originally aired on The #HCBiz Show! on May 3rd, 2017. Episode 004  On this episode, we talk with David Woolfson to learn: How soft surfaces like pillows and mattresses contribute to the spread of infection in hospitals. How outbreaks close hospital rooms and impact revenue How working in infection prevention often makes you feel like Cassandra (in Greek mythology she had the power of prophecy but was cursed so that no one would ever believe her). How to isolate your value, show direct economic impact and get on your buyer's priority list. The importance of understanding the purchasing systems of your prospects and adjusting your approach to match it. The importance of understanding your buyer and their personal needs as much as the hospital's needs. What the heck "Stars and Stripes selling" means. How to get the experts talking about your product and leveraging that to open doors (even just a crack) Who is the hardest person in the hospital to convince How to keep yourself safe and healthy at home, at the hotel, and the hospital. And most importantly, how an Irishman can be an asset on St. Patrick's day and get you free pints!   For more details visit DeepDive.tips

“Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” Seth Godin That's one of my favorite quotes and it's exactly what Proximity did when they looked across the 1,500 healthcare facilities they were already serving with wall-mounted workstations and medication storage carts. They saw a ton of high-touch surfaces that were not being cleaned regularly and that were likely contributing to the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAI). This observation led them to launch their UV-CLEAN line of products that automate the sterilization of high-touch surfaces like keyboards in the hospital. It's an automated disinfection device that uses UV-C energy to inactivate microorganisms at the genetic level by scrambling their cellular DNA (link below if you want to see what that looks like under a microscope). On this episode, we talk with Steve Reinecke and Jeremy Goza of Proximity. They explain the risks these high-touch surfaces pose to hospital staff and patients and explain the mechanics behind that risk. It's an interesting approach that stands to raise the baseline for disinfection, and reduce the spread of HAIs. All while nobody's looking. ... ... This episode is sponsored by the Healthcare Infection Transmission System (HITS) Consortium. For the second year in a row, The #HCBiz Show had the honor and privilege of being a media partner for the annual HITS Conference. Last year we were in Nashville – check out the episodes we recorded there. This year, we attended HITS 2019 in Buffalo, NY. Check out all our shows from HITS 2019. Thank you to Christine Greene, Kelly Reynolds, Savanah Hatt, John LaRochelle, and Michael Diamond, along with the entire HITS Consortium for the work you're doing to protect our families and our communities. The battle against healthcare-associated infections can only be won through collaboration, and from what I've seen in working with you all for the past few years, HITS is bringing the best ideas and brightest minds together to do just that. ... For full show notes and links (and to see a single-cell paramecium explode under UV-C light!): https://thehcbiz.com/proximity-hits-2019/

Clostridium difficile (klos-TRID-e-um dif-uh-SEEL), often called C. difficile or C. diff impacts 453,000 people every year. And with 29,000 associated deaths, it takes more lives than AIDS and drunk-driving combined. Yet, most people have never even heard of it. That's a big problem because you can't protect yourself from a threat when you don't even know it exists. The impact on the business of healthcare is significant too. A study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found that C. diff-associated diarrhea (CDAD) increases hospital costs by 40% per case (an average of $7,285 ) and puts those infected at high risk for longer hospital stays and readmissions.  Some even believe those numbers are likely underestimated. C. diff presents us with an interesting problem at the cross-section of Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC). It's an environmental bacterium that's found pretty much everywhere and is difficult to kill, but it's usually held in check by the good bacteria in our bodies. The problem usually occurs when a patient is in a weakened state from some other healthcare intervention. That may be an antibiotic treatment for another healthcare-associated infection or chemotherapy, etc. With our bodies in a weakened state and our good bacteria depleted by antibiotics, we become susceptible to C. diff. So, it's important that we avoid unnecessary antibiotics and execute on all the other IPAC practices like proper hand hygiene and surface cleaning in the hospital so that, as our guest puts it, we can disrupt the chain of events that allow to C. diff to proliferate.   This episode originally aired on The #HCBiz Show! on April 26th, 2017.   On this episode, we're joined by the co-founder and Executive Director of the Peggy Lillis Foundation (PLF), Christian John Lillis.  Like so many people who've dedicated their lives to driving change in the healthcare industry, Christian has a very powerful “why”. He lost his mother to a clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection in April 2010. After struggling with the fact that he lost his mother to a disease he never heard of, and later finding out that it impacts so many people, Christian, along with his brother Liam, founded PLF and are building a nationwide C. diff awareness movement by educating the public, empowering advocates and shaping policy. Christian gives us a deep and personal take on his family's experience with C. Diff and the work that the Peggy Lillis Foundation is doing to help. We discuss: What is clostridium difficile (C. diff)? Is C. diff a Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) or something else? How important are hand hygiene and environmental cleaning in preventing the spread of C. diff? Why haven't more people heard of C. diff? Why is it so hard to measure the true impact of C. diff on our health system? How do we fix that? Why do only some states require reporting on outbreaks? How does that affect the business of healthcare? How does it affect the patients? What is the Prevention and Public Health Fund? Why is it under fire and what is the impact to the CDC, states and beyond? What is the financial impact of C. diff?   Christian's story is powerful and it's full of wisdom that can help patients, families, and providers. In our quest to unravel the business of healthcare, it's important to understand the people we serve and how our work impacts their lives. This is a crash course and I hope it touches you as it did me. Enjoy. For more details visit DeepDive.tips

Hand hygiene is the number one line of defense when it comes to controlling the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and infectious disease.  Since we know that antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance is on the rise, and few new antibiotics are being developed, it becomes exceedingly important that we prevent people from acquiring these infections in the first place. We know that hand-washing is effective when done right, and we know that when monitored, we do it right. In fact, right after we recorded this podcast the Jama Network showed us that patient mortality decreased during unannounced accreditation surveys at US Hospitals. The point is that you can expect what you inspect.   This episode originally aired on >The #HCBiz Show! on April 19th, 2017.   On this episode, we get into the details with Tamás Haidegger and discuss: Why hand hygiene is so important How the struggle to get it right goes back to the 1800s The complex human psychology that we need to address to solve this problem The astonishing number of people who fail hand-washing tests even when they know they're being monitored Engineering solutions that can help keep us objective How hand-hygiene can save the U.S. healthcare system $9 Billion next year   For more details visit DeepDive.tips

Rik Heller is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Wello.  A self-confessed technology and healthcare geek, Rik has also been called the Grandfather of Active RFID and holds many patents in this area that are licensed globally. With a background in math and electrical engineering, he has been working in healthcare since 1989. In 1999 Rik Heller founded FreshLoc and became a pioneer of environmental monitoring for compliance and reporting in the healthcare industry. FreshLoc is a remote temperature monitoring technology for hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, and other healthcare entities to help comply with temperature related safety regulations. More recently, Rik has pursued interests in infection prevention and control, founding Wello. There he has developed, among other high-tech digital solutions, a hands-free, self-service fever screening, identification and notification platform that is focused on controlling entry of potentially contagious persons to very high-risk patient areas. Rik calls this a “barrier technology” and believes that in the battle against Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) it's critical that we “separate the match from the fuse”.   This episode originally aired on The #HCBiz Show! on April 12th, 2017.   We cover a lot of ground on this episode, including: How infections spread Why it's only partly a healthcare solution that we need to seek The role of humidity in mitigating or amplifying a contagion Why we must dispel the myth that asymptomatic people are the problem How 10% of the sick are “super-spreaders” and how we can identify them Why you should stay home when you're sick and why your employer should make you Where the CDC gets it wrong Why good hair days are bad health days

The costs and human impact of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are well known and have been well documented on this show. And as we've seen there are industry best practices and proven science to help us prevent and control HAIs. Yet, running an Environmental Services (EVS) unit at a hospital is no easy task. How do you pick the right people, and train and retain them? What products should you use? How should you use them? How will you stay on top of the constantly changing regulatory landscape? And how will you keep up with the evolving science, technology, and best practices to ensure you're doing all you can to protect your patients? On this episode, we talk with Brooke Hossfeld, Infection Prevention Specialist and Jeff Bennett, Director of Marketing about Sodexo Healthcare's infection control protocol, Protecta. With Protecta, Sodexo Healthcare aims to address infection control at acute-care hospitals with a full-service model that covers staffing, training, product, procedure and best practice research, and outcomes measurement. Brooke and Jeff explain why this type of service is needed, tell us about the results so far, and share their insights on where the industry is headed next. ... This episode is sponsored by the Healthcare Infection Transmission System (HITS) Consortium. For the second year in a row, The #HCBiz Show had the honor and privilege of being a media partner for the annual HITS Conference. Last year we were in Nashville – check out the episodes we recorded there. This year, we attended HITS 2019 in Buffalo, NY. Check out all our shows from HITS 2019. Thank you to Christine Greene, Kelly Reynolds, Savanah Hatt, John LaRochelle, and Michael Diamond, along with the entire HITS Consortium for the work you're doing to protect our families and our communities. The battle against healthcare-associated infections can only be won through collaboration, and from what I've seen in working with you all for the past few years, HITS is bringing the best ideas and brightest minds together to do just that. ... For full show notes and links: https://thehcbiz.com/sodexo-hits-2019/

The Infection Prevention Strategy (TIPS) is a not for profit that exists to advance innovations, ideas, and processes that make a difference in global health.  TIPS extends to 30+ countries and is the key strategic partner for many notable organizations, initiatives, and events. In the past few years, TIPS has contributed millions in Scientific Impact.  Many of our successes are published on our Open Access Journal www.IC.tips and discussed on this podcast series. The TIPS Deep Dive interview series is all about the inventors, scientist, leaders and great minds behind the promising innovations, ideas, and processes that our team helps advance through evidence-based science. This podcast was created by Michael Diamond, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of TIPS, and me, Don Lee, Founder, and Co-host of The #HCBiz Show! Michael and I have been working on global health content for The #HCBiz Show! for the past several years. The response has been so positive that we've decided to create an entire show dedicated to it. This show! Over the next two weeks, we're going to kick this party off with more than a dozen interviews that we've worked on together for The #HCBiz Show!. After that, you can expect to hear brand new deep-dive interviews with the best minds in global health. So, my all to action for you is this: Subscribe now so that you never miss an episode. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts and at DeepDive.tips. We'll see you soon!

Usually, we know what we need to do. But doing it is hard and we struggle. This is true for individuals. It's true for organizations. And it's true in healthcare, especially when it comes to behavioral side of infection prevention. Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH addressed these issues in the opening keynote for the HITS 2019 conference in Buffalo, NY. We caught up with him at the event to discuss:   What can we learn from the experiences of Ignaz Semmelweis? How to address the adaptive/behavioral component of infection prevention Addressing the culture and sub-culture so that we do the right thing every single time The power of being present with your patients and how to use rituals to get you there Understanding the significance of your interactions with the patient Creating a culture of excellence that polices itself.   Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, is the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. There's a lot of wisdom in this short interview. Enjoy! ... This episode is sponsored by the Healthcare Infection Transmission System (HITS) Consortium. For the second year in a row, The #HCBiz Show had the honor and privilege of being a media partner for the annual HITS Conference. Last year we were in Nashville – check out the episodes we recorded there. This year, we attended HITS 2019 in Buffalo, NY. Thank you to Christine Greene, Kelly Reynolds, Savanah Hatt, John LaRochelle, and Michael Diamond, along with the entire HITS Consortium for the work you're doing to protect our families and our communities. The battle against healthcare-associated infections can only be won through collaboration, and from what I've seen in working with you all for the past few years, HITS is bringing the best ideas and brightest minds together to do just that. ... For full show notes and links: https://thehcbiz.com/sanjay-saint-hits-2019/

Part 2 of 2 - What happens when you take an experienced digital health buyer and an experienced digital health seller and have an honest conversation about the process of bringing new innovations into a health system? You get lots of not-so-obvious, but tremendously valuable insight into how to cross the moats successful health systems have been forced to build to keep you out. Co-host Shahid Shah recently published a post with Brian Van Winkle on The Healthcare Blog titled: Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 2. Shahid, an experienced digital health innovator played the role of the seller. Brian Van Winkle, an expert on bringing new technology into hospitals, played the buyer. On this episode, Shahid and I discuss the key points from that interaction and tie them back to the principles we're always talking about on The #HCBiz Show! In part 2 we explore topics including: Getting the right people in the room Consultative selling Having a clinician on your team (and how to find one if you haven't already) How to reach out to experts for help The importance of having a documented integration plan and the Triple F (“flat-file fallback”) Preparing for failure-based and success-based objections (i.e. you go out of business or you get bought) Selling innovation to people who want hard proof and low risk. The importance of knowing what you are trying to prove and having a plan to prove it. Health Systems are not technology-averse, but they are risk-averse. Selling into health systems is complicated, but it is possible to differentiate yourself from the flurry of innovators that are competing for their attention. With the proper perspective and a sound strategy, digital health startups can address the health systems unique needs and constraints to close deals. This conversation (along with the guidance in Part 1) will provide you with tools to get it done. Check it out and let us know what's worked for you by hitting us up on twitter: @The_HCBiz ... Links and Resources: Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SOPE) – A global community of change makers and entrepreneurs transforming the future of healthcare PubMed – PubMed comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. NODE.Health (Network of Digital Evidence in Health) is the home for evidence based digital medicine that brings together a network of societies, organizations and innovators dedicated to digital transformation in health. NODE.Health builds and explores the knowledge base now required to lead global healthcare systems and industry into the value based era. The Health Care Blog – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask. Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 1 – This is the article that part 1 was based on. Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 2  – This is the article today's episode was based on. Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship A tremendous book that'll take you deeper on many of the concepts we discussed in this series. ... This episode is brought to you by Patchwise Labs. They're a creative strategy firm focused on social innovations in health. If you're interested in the social determinants of health (SDOH), then you absolutely need to sign up for their newsletter, the Dispatch. It's a weekly roundup and analysis that separates the signal from the noise in key topics across policy, business, and technology. Everything you need to know related to SDOH, in your inbox each week. I've been recommending the Dispatch to my clients and friends for months. They all love it and you will too. And while you're there… Listeners of The #HCBiz Show! can also use the code ‘HCBiz' for a massive discount on Patchwise Labs' 2018 Buyer's Guide: Social Innovation Technology for Healthcare. ... For full show notes: https://thehcbiz.com/selling-to-health-systems-part-2/

What happens when you take an experienced digital health buyer and an experienced digital health seller and have an honest conversation about the process of bringing new innovations into a health system? You get lots of not-so-obvious, but tremendously valuable insight into how to cross the moats successful health systems have been forced to build to keep you out. Co-host Shahid Shah recently published a post with Brian Van Winkle on The Healthcare Blog titled: Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 1. Shahid, an experienced digital health innovator played the role of the seller. Brian Van Winkle, an expert on bringing new technology into hospitals, played the buyer. On this episode, Shahid and I discuss the key points from that interaction and tie them back to the principles we're always talking about on The #HCBiz Show! We explore topics including: How health systems make decisions How health systems contract What it means when they say health systems are consensus-driven and permission-based Why it's critical to understand the budget process and procurement cycle How to determine who should be involved in the process and who has the necessary authority How volunteering can be a creative way to get on the inside Using BANT to guide you (Budget. Authority. Need. Timing.) How to balance the need to build a pipeline with the notoriously long sales cycles and the need to make sales now Using OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results to prove your value. Why there are 0 examples of software-only companies succeeding in healthcare. You're a tech-enabled services company whether you like it or not. Getting to No! It can be the best thing for you and your prospect and it's valuable to get there quickly. Looking at annual reports and SEC filings to find out what hospitals want to buy. (Jeff Byers talked about this on Episode 62 too) Why and how to get on the RFP invitation lists. And then why you probably shouldn't reply to that RFP anyways! The magic of “Always Be Valuable (ABV)” Rule: If you don't know your value then free is fine. If you know your value then free is a waste of time. Volunteering is for learning. Not selling. Corollary: Even if they give you $0, it's still not free for them. They are spending staff time and opportunity time on you. Rule: If you're asking them to do something for you before you've done something for them… stop! There's always a value exchange. There are other things you can ask them for besides money (i.e. Present at an event together. A shared study. A press release. Etc.)   Selling into health systems is complicated, but it is possible to differentiate yourself from the flurry of innovators that are competing for their attention. With the proper perspective and a sound strategy, digital health startups can address the health systems unique needs and constraints to close deals. This conversation (along with the technical guidance in Part 2 coming soon) will provide you with tools to get it done. Check it out and let us know what's worked for you by hitting us up on twitter: @The_HCBiz ... Links and Resources:  NODE.Health (Network of Digital Evidence in Health) is the home for evidence based digital medicine that brings together a network of societies, organizations and innovators dedicated to digital transformation in health. NODE.Health builds and explores the knowledge base now required to lead global healthcare systems and industry into the value based era. The Health Care Blog – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask. Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 1 – This is the article today's episode was based on. Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship A tremendous book that'll take you deeper on many of the concepts we discussed today. ... This episode is brought to you by Patchwise Labs. They're a creative strategy firm focused on social innovations in health. If you're interested in the social determinants of health (SDOH), then you absolutely need to sign up for their newsletter, the Dispatch. It's a weekly roundup and analysis that separates the signal from the noise in key topics across policy, business, and technology. Everything you need to know related to SDOH, in your inbox each week. I've been recommending the Dispatch to my clients and friends for months. They all love it and you will too. And while you're there… Listeners of The #HCBiz Show! can also use the code ‘HCBiz' for a massive discount on Patchwise Labs' 2018 Buyer's Guide: Social Innovation Technology for Healthcare. ... For full show notes: https://thehcbiz.com/selling-to-health-systems-part-1/

A great way to align your vision with the realities of the business of healthcare is to test your ideas and assumptions at conferences. Unfortunately, many of these events peddle hype and highly curated sales pitches rather than actionable intelligence that'll help you get things done (or get to the “No”, which may be even more important to you right now). Sure, you'll get valuable networking done in most cases, but we want you to get the most bang for your buck (and time) so you can get back to innovating and giving us great stories to cover. That's why we told you about the Expo.Health event last week. And this week we're sharing another event that'll be very much worth an innovator's time: HealthImpact East in NYC on June 12 and 13, 2019. Co-host Shahid Shah has been involved with this one since its start in 2011. If you're a fan of The #HCBiz Show, then you know that Shahid gets to the point very effectively. As the on-stage facilitator, you can count on Shahid to drive the conversation towards real-talk right away and to ensure it won't be all about the speakers on stage. HealthImpact is about discovery and enlightenment for everyone in the room. On this episode, Shahid tells us why HealthImpact East is a “no BS and no PowerPoint” event, how they keep it that way, and what you, the innovator, can expect to take away. Apply to attend here. Mentioned on the show: Perspectives on Working with Healthcare Systems for Digital Start Up Companies | Part 1by Shahid Shah and Brian Van Winkle NODE.health For full show notes visit us at: https://thehcbiz.com/healthimpact-east-nyc/ Also of note, this is episode #100! The #HCBiz Show has been a labor of love for the past three and a half years, and I can honestly say, it's been one of the best things I've ever done for my education and growth. Thank you all for letting me learn with you over the years.  Here's to 100 more! – Don Lee

Amazon has been a hot topic in healthcare for at least a year. And for good reason. With the acquisition of PillPak, the Haven initiative with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway, Alexa HIPPA compliance, and the announcement that they'll accept Health Spending Accounts (HSA), it's clear that Amazon has big plans for healthcare. When I was at the Healthcare IT and Marketing Conference (HITMC) in Boston last month, I got to talking about this with Jack Murtha and Tom Castles of Inside Digital Health and the Data Book podcast. To us it seemed like the industry was putting a lot of stock into everything Amazon was doing, or might do, and that many people see them as a potential savior for our dysfunctional healthcare system. We didn't question whether Amazon has the chops to shake things up in healthcare. Nor did we question the attention they're getting. We did wonder if the high expectations of them were reasonable. We wondered if that optimism bordered on silver-bullet thinking. And most importantly, we wondered if that could actually slow healthcare innovation down. So we decided to dig into that question in this collaborative podcast between Data Book and The #HCBiz Show! Read the full show notes here: https://thehcbiz.com/amazon-in-healthcare-with-data-book/

On this episode, we discuss the power of online communities like  #HCLDR, a new push for healthcare interoperability in Canada called Access 2022, and much more. Our guest is Colin Hung, CMO and editor at HealthcareScene.com, and founder of #HCLDR.   Online Communities:  #HCLDR is a weekly tweet chat (Tuesday's at 8:30 PM EST) that has been going strong for 7 years. It attracts an international audience of 150-200 people who generate 1,500-3,000 tweets and up to 12 million impressions. This community, plus others like #HITsm were a huge influence on my path in healthcare and Health IT. In fact, The #HCBiz Show! started as the #HCBiz tweet chat. These communities provide a surprisingly effective way to network and learn new ideas, and they lead long term relationships. Ultimately, they took me to Toronto for this interview.   Canada has national healthcare… and still struggles with interoperability!?!?  That's right! Interoperability is not magically “fixed” in a single payer system. Canada, just like pretty much everyone else in the world, struggles to get healthcare data where it needs to be. I won't get into that here, but you can hear all about why interop is challenging on last week's episode – The Path to Healthcare Interoperability – or read about it here. This is why Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) launched the ACCESS 2022 movement. Infoway helps to improve the health of Canadians by working with partners to accelerate the development, adoption and effective use of digital health solutions across Canada. And Access 2022 provided the backdrop for this #HCBiz interview. I drove up to Toronto on the day Colin was being filmed to help raise awareness for the Access 2022 movement. You can see the product of that in the video below – and you can even see this podcast being recorded around 1:33. I know… meta. https://youtu.be/BxIlHrhPwvQ   HITMC and Health IT Expo:  Colin and I also discuss the Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference or HITMC (happening right now in Boston!) and the Health IT Expo (July 31-Aug 2 also in Boston). I'll be headed to Boston for my first HITMC shortly after hitting publish on this post. Hit me up if you're there! And I highly recommend you check out the HealthIT Expo coming up on July 31-August 2. It's a practical conference that aims to send you home with actionable information – much like I always say on this show, things you can take home and put to work on Monday. Check out all of our coverage from last year's Health IT Expo here.   About Colin Hung:  Colin Hung is an award-winning marketing executive with more than a decade of healthcare and Health IT experience. He co-founded one of the most popular healthcare chats on Twitter, #HCLDR and he has been recognized as one of the “Top 50 Healthcare IT Influencers”. He is an active member of #TheWalkingGallery, #pinksocks, #HealthITChicks and #HITMC. Colin writes and blogs frequently. His work has been featured in a number of publications including the Journal of the American College of Radiology and HospitalEMRandEHR.com. Colin holds an Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. He is currently helping to build the HITMC Community and organize the new HealthIT Expo. His Twitter handle is: @Colin_Hung. Colin is the CMO and editor at HealthcareScene.com   See the full show notes here:  https://thehcbiz.com/hcldr-access2022-colin-hung/

We've effectively digitized medical record via EHRs, but the healthcare industry still relies heavily on paper for many of its workflows and supporting documents. On this episode, we talk with Bill DeStefanis, Director of Product Strategy at Nuance about how and why paper is still widely used in healthcare, how we can keep it secure, and how we can effectively integrate it into our digital workflows.   About Bill DeStefanis:  As Nuance's Director of Product Strategy, Bill brings more than 20 years of experience in the software industry to the position. He is responsible for defining Nuance Imaging product strategy and vision. During his time at Nuance Bill has lead product management teams designing solutions that automate document workflows. Before joining Nuance, Bill was held various product management positions in companies developing voice recognition and natural language processing applications. He holds an MBA from Suffolk University.   About Nuance:  We are reinventing the relationship between people and technology. At Nuance, we believe in the power of intelligent systems, and quite specifically what that power can do for you. Our innovations in voice, natural language understanding, reasoning and systems integration come together to create more human technology. Used by 90% of hospitals and 10,000 healthcare organizations worldwide, our AI‑powered solutions capture 300 million patient stories each year. We help unburden clinicians, radiologists and care teams with efficient new ways to capture clinical information, applying real-time intelligence for better decision making across the continuum of care. NOTE: Nuance Document Imaging is now a part of Kofax https://www.nuance.com   Join our Community! Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there.  Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

On this episode, we talk with Jason Helgerson, founder of Helgerson Solutions Group and Former Medicaid Director for New York and Wisconsin. Jason shares his perspective on Value-based payment progress and direction tells us who needs to get involved and how, and we discuss how to measure success. That is, how will we know if value-based payment has been adequately deployed, and more importantly, how will we know if it's working?   This episode is sponsored by VBP Forward: VBP Forward will host its inaugural conference February 20-21, 2019 in Buffalo, NY at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. The conference will bring together over 200 professionals who serve Medicaid and Medicare special needs or complex populations or have an interest in that value chain. Participants will gain insight into the next generation of value-based payment and will be provided with a roadmap for their path towards effective value payment for special needs populations. In addition to clinical providers, VBP Forward will have a track and focus on guiding community-based organizations down the right path for the collection of social determinants of health and how they can become not only an integral part of care delivery but also the revenue cycle associated with that delivery.   2:09 Engaging providers who feel left behind by the Value-Based Payments conversations. 3:18 In New York, 80% of all reimbursement for Medicaid must be under VBP contract by 2020. 5:36 Community Based Organizations are treating the same issues health systems are struggling with. What do CBOs and Health systems need to learn about each other to create new sustainable business models? 9:10 Breaking down the language barriers. 12:49 What has made early pioneers successful? Green and Healthy Homes Initiative God's Love We Deliver  15:11 How do CBOs explain to plans and health systems what the expected ROI will be? "Walk before you run." 18:07 Begin the dialog with payors early. You can see this as an opportunity or a threat, but the train has left the station. 21:40 When taking on risk, you're responsible for more than you were in a FFS model. This necessitates partnerships with CBOs. If you wait, you're going to have to take what's left. 22:45 What's happening outside NY? Examples nationally and abroad. England and NHS 28:15 What about Medicare and commercial payors? 31:15 Measuring success in a VBP future. What does success look like for the state, for CBOs, for doctors, and for patients? “I think at some point in the not too distant future, we will look back on how we treat people who are sick and with flu-like symptoms almost as bloodletting. Requiring them to leave their homes and go to a clinic to be treated when the technology exists to do bloodwork and other tests in the home; with new telehealth tools to be able to almost do a complete exam on those individuals without them having to leave the comfort of their home, which is in the best interest of the patient and the public's health, those models are not possible in the traditional FFS system. They are much more possible in a value-based world." "Consumers having more choices will be the real power of Value-Based Payments." 37:00 How close are we to knowing which clinical outcomes to measure? HEDIS measures taken from claims data measure process and not the true outcome. Patient-reported outcomes are needed to say if patients are getting high-quality services. Beyond healthcare measures, how do we measure the health and wellbeing of a community? 42:00 Helgerson Solutions – What do you do and who do you do it for?   About Jason Helgerson Jason Helgerson is an entrepreneur, investor, consultant and social change agent.  After more than 20 years of public service he has embraced the “gig economy” and launched a multifaceted private sector career.  Helgerson Solutions Group LLC (HSG) is focused on helping companies, providers, payers and governments make the move to value in health care.  Jason also advises Private Equity firms and Venture Capital funds that share his commitment to value-based health care.  Jason also works around the world as a Senior Advisor to a global management consulting firm. Before his move to the private sector, Jason was a nationally recognized leader in public sector health care.  Most recently he was New York's Medicaid Director, a role he held for over seven years.  New York's Medicaid program provides vital health care services to over 6.6 million New Yorkers and has an annual budget in excess of $68 billion.  Jason also served as the Executive Director for New York's Medicaid Redesign Team, nationally recognized as a 2015 Innovation in American Government Finalist by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  In this capacity he directed Governor Cuomo's effort to fundamentally reshape the state's Medicaid program in order to both lower costs and improve health care quality.  In 2015, Jason was also recognized as a Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine. Twitter: @policywonk1   About Helgerson Solutions Group HSG was founded to make the world a better place.  Its founder, Jason Helgerson, has made that his mission his entire professional life.  He has been a positive and successful change agent in every position he has held.  Most recently he was New York's Medicaid Director.  In that role he led the state's historic Medicaid redesign efforts which not only bent the cost curve but improved outcomes for Medicaid members. A 2018 Commonwealth Fund study found New York to be the most improved state in the nation relative to its overall health system performance and suggested that further improvement was likely thanks to reforms launched by Jason and his team. Prior to moving to New York, Jason was Wisconsin's Medicaid Director.  In this role he led the effort to expand access to health care to virtually all state residents.  He also helped lead a major cost-cutting exercise that brought down spending without taking benefits away from a single Medicaid member.  Prior to his Medicaid work, Jason held a series of positions in state and local government leading efforts to reform education, child care, public finance and, of course, health care. https://www.helgersonsolutions.com   Related and/or Mentioned on the Show:  DSRIP and VBP reform Green and Healthy Homes Initiative God's Love We Deliver Adam Boehler and CMMI MVP Healthcare   Join our Community!  Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there.  Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

On this episode, we talk with François de Brantes, Senior Vice President of Commercial Business Development at Remedy, about the future of value-based payment. François shares with us the importance of transparency, measurement, and responsibility and tells us why payment reform is such an effective lever to drive change. You'll hear about models that have been successful, how employers are driving change, and what you can expect from the next generation of value-based payment. In addition, François shares his insights on how we can account for the social determinants of health (SDOH) in our program design.  This section led to a significant "aha" moment for me and underscores the importance of incorporating community-based organizations (CBOs) more tightly with our traditional healthcare delivery system.   View full post and show notes on the web   François de Brantes will be a keynote speaker at the inaugural VBP Forward Conference in Buffalo, NY on February 20th and 21st, 2019.   This episode is sponsored by VBP Forward: VBP Forward will host its inaugural conference February 20-21, 2019 in Buffalo, NY at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. The conference will bring together over 200 professionals who serve Medicaid and Medicare special needs or complex populations or have an interest in that value chain. Participants will gain insight into the next generation of value-based payment and will be provided with a roadmap for their path towards effective value payment for special needs populations. In addition to clinical providers, VBP Forward will have a track and focus on guiding community-based organizations down the right path for the collection of social determinants of health and how they can become not only an integral part of care delivery but also the revenue cycle associated with that delivery.   About François de Brantes:  François de Brantes serves as Senior Vice President of Commercial Business Development at Remedy Partners. He leads customer development of the Medicare Advantage, Self-Insured Employer, and Commercial Payer markets. He has spent close to two decades working to transform the U.S. healthcare system by improving incentives for providers and consumers in order to encourage value-based decisions. Prior to joining Remedy Partners, he served as Vice President of Altarum, a national nonprofit. From 2006 to 2016, he was Executive Director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3), a not-for-profit company that designed programs to motivate physicians and hospitals to improve the quality and affordability of healthcare delivery. The organization, which merged with Altarum in December 2017, was responsible for the Bridges to Excellence® (BTE) and PROMETHEUS Payment® programs, which compensate and reward clinicians that focus on episodes of care and performance measures. Prior to HCI3, François was Chief Operating Officer of the eHealth Initiative (eHI), which promotes adoption of health information technology in the U.S. He led the development of eHI's HIE Value and Sustainability Model, a method to value services offered by Health Information Exchanges. Early in his career working in General Electric's corporate health care department, he was involved in many strategic programs that created, connected and supported Active Consumers, and defined market mechanisms to reward providers for better performance. François holds a master's degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Paris IX-Dauphine and a master's degree in Business Administration from the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. LinkedIn Twitter   About Remedy:  Remedy operates the nation's largest bundled payment network. Remedy is not only an operator of bundled payment programs, but actively manages and assumes financial risk with providers that are contracted for at-risk bundles. Remedy works hand in hand with the payer and the providers to deliver bankable savings by implementing double-sided risk programs. We believe that it's only by sharing financial risk that bundled payment operators can truly become partners with the payer and the providers in the transformation of the delivery system and achieve better quality and cost outcomes. All of the bundled payment programs that Remedy has participated in and implements are risk-based. https://www.remedypartners.com/   Related and/or Mentioned on the Show:  Quality of Healthcare in America Report   Join our Community!  Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there.  Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

Selling is hard. Whether you're selling an idea, service or product, you've got to get to the core of the issue quickly or you'll lose your audience. And the challenge is notoriously exacerbated by the risky, regulated and complex healthcare system you're selling into. That's why we're talking with Dom Cappuccilli from The Clean Sell. Dom's a storyteller turned sales guy who's been successful in both inside / direct sales and enterprise sales. Dom shares some of his most important lessons from the journey like: How to avoid common sales mistakes like over-reliance on your deck Why no-one cares about your solution and how to get to the core of their problem with needs alignment How to use relevance hooks to earn the right to share more Why you should always reach out to 5 or more people at a large organization (and no... they won't get mad at you) There's much more too. At the end of the day, Dom shows us that these aren't lame sales tricks to get what you want. No. They're tried and true methods in human communication and relationships and you neglect them at your own peril. This one was a lot of fun. Check it out! P.S. Dom shared an awesome quote from one of his colleagues that's worth pondering: "People don't buy from you because they love your product. They buy from you because they believe you understand their problems". - Dom's unidentified sales trainer :)   Timestamps: 2:03 – Dom tells us how he went from being a writer to getting recruited by ZocDoc, to helping companies build scalable sales efforts. 8:00 – Storytelling as a tactic for Aligning Value!  This is it, people! We always talk about it and it's finally here. This how you get buy-in from multiple stakeholders with multiple problems. 10:00 – Inside sales vs. Enterprise sales: With inside sales, you get about 12x as many chances to practice selling a month. This constant feedback is what you need to become an expert salesperson. Dom shares a story you HAVE to hear. 13:52 Dom's got both inside and enterprise sales experience at ZocDoc. The only people who survived got really good at pattern recognition. 18:12 – The same mistakes keep being made by enterprise sales people: Too much reliance on their deck. 19:51 – Enterprise sales is changing. A lot of times it's not that they don't think your solution is good enough it's that they can't agree internally on what the problem is. “You need to know the players but if you pitch what they each get out of it, often what they get out of it is in conflict with each other. What you need to do is help them build consensus that each of their pain points are a result of a problem that you can help them solve. “ 21:43 – The end-user is usually your foot in the door. You need to give them the tools to sell to everyone else. Facilitate consensus on the problem then consensus on the solution. A good pitch and getting people excited is just the beginning. Navigating enterprise sales is a project management function. 25:46 – Are you experiencing the pain points we can solve for you? What are those pain points costing you? Here is why these pain points are happening to you. If you sell different problems causing the pain point to different people in sales cycle there's no shared common insight that allows people to buy in an enterprise sale. 30:23 – Whoever you're selling to has 500 problems they have to solve every day. The one problem that I solve, I see 500 times a year and I can offer help in that problem because I know why that problem is happening to them. Just be valuable. 34:22 – Tools and tactics for inside sales. When trying to get attention, the key is relevance. What is the most relevant piece of information that you have on that person? 37:22 - Tools and tactic for enterprise sales. The principles are the same. Don't just reach out to one person. Whoever it's relevant for will respond. The relevance hooks are always different but I always reach out to at least 5 people. Follow up is huge. The second email has double the response rate of initial email.   About Dom Cappuccilli Dom Cappuccilli has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs to not only tell a better sales story, but also built many of their sales efforts from the ground up. He combines the power of a trained storyteller with the real world experience of an elite salesperson. In fact, he became an elite salesperson because he was a trained storyteller. After 10 years as a reporter, author and screenwriter, Dom found his calling when he rewrote the sales story of a fast-growing healthcare company and doubled their revenue in six months. From there, he quickly rose to be a sales leader at unicorn startup ZocDoc - currently valued at $1.8B - before going to Arches Technology where he created and sold an entirely new healthcare technology product to health systems. During his time in the startup and small business world, Dom met many founders and was amazed that almost all of them were succeeding in spite of their sales effort and strategy, not because of it. The Clean Sell was born soon thereafter and in time since its founding has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs to not only tell a better sales story, but also built many of their sales efforts, processes and teams from the ground LinkedIn Dom Cappuccilli Dom@TheCleanSell.com   About The Clean Sell We help founders & CEOs turn their subject matter expertise into a structured, scalable and simple sales process that fuels their growth. The Clean Sell is a B2B sales consultancy helping everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies to create a structured, scalable and simple sales effort in line with best practices. Throughout a company's lifecycle, there are key inflection points where a lack of sales knowledge and process can sabotage a business that should be thriving. We fill these gaps for our clients. No matter what stage you're in, we have the right solution for you. www.TheCleanSell.com Facebook TheCleanSell Twitter TheCleanSell   Related and/or Mentioned on the Show Whitepaper: The 7-Step Pitch The Clean Sell Blog   Join our Community! Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there.  Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

This episode is part of our in-depth coverage of the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems Consortium (HITS) 2018 conference in Nashville, TN that took place September 18-20th.  ... On this episode, we wrap-up our coverage of the HITS 2018 conference. We talk with HITS board members Dr. Kelly Reynolds and Savannah Hatt about what we learned at the 2018 conference, what's next for the HITS Consortium, how you can get involved, and what to expect from the HITS 2019 conference in Buffalo, NY.   Show notes: 2:32 A great time in Nashville 3:33 Summary of the insights you missed at HITS 2018 4:58 How clean is clean enough? 6:47 A Bundled Systems approach: Designing for Clean. 7:55 After measuring how healthcare facilities are achieving reductions in hospital-acquired infections (HAI), HITS has assigned quantitative values to infection prevention investments called Clean Credits. As you layer different interventions into your system, Clean Credits will quantify what your expected ROI should be. 11:55 A Systems Approach VS a Systematic Approach Standard Operating Procedures are important, but culture holds it all together. 14:40 EVS is a protector of ROI but not always given enough resources. Make sure that the staff knows how important their role is. 16:41 How can we design the ideal treatment room? Seamless walls. Sealed entryways. We need to connect healthcare architects and designers with infections prevention. The best time is during renovations but awareness is poor. 21:30 Bringing the C-Suite to the table. Nothing moves without the right decision makers. To become a priority you need to paint a very clear picture. 22:59 There were lots of discussions about the practical side of implementation. Lots of Infection Preventionists (IPs) in attendance this year at Workgroup meetings. Many discussions centered around workflow and concluded with a solution to empower EVS technicians and arming the C Suite with research. 25:20 You Need To Be Here! These conversations happen nowhere else. Dry biofilms. Seeing what's left behind. More applications for tracking pathogens, tracking mutations and antibiotic resistance. What can be present that we can't culture? Spores on wheels. How many environments does a food cart travel into? HVAC simulation model of containment and control. Waterborne pathogens like Legionella. Training programs at the conference. 31:27 The 8 Workgroups from 2017 presented on their ongoing research. Looking forward to 2019, Workgroups are encouraged to collaborate with each other for more interconnected systems solutions. THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO JOIN A WORKGROUP!!! 34:04 Plans for HITS Consortium 2019: Outreach beyond hospitals. Sponsors for research in the form of financial support, lab space, and scientific advisors for our Workgroups. 36:26 We've all be a patient before. We can all get behind infection prevention. Anyone who is interested can attend foundation dinners and other events. Help us get the research and its implementation. 37:50 When and where is 2019 – Aug 6-8 in Buffalo! We're expecting a big Canadian attendance for companies looking to do business internationally. Call to Action Come to the Conference Participate in Workgroups Volunteer!!! Donate financially Sponsor through other support    About Dr. Kelly A. Reynolds Kelly A. Reynolds, MSPH, PhD Associate Professor University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Dr. Reynolds is an Associate Professor in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Arizona's College of Public Health, and Director of the Environment, Exposure Science and Risk Assessment Center. She has over 29 years of experience as an environmental microbiologist and directing a research program related to infectious disease transmission, quantitative risk assessment, and public health policy and education. The relationship of fomite, hand and air contamination and pathogen survival characteristics relative to human health outcomes has been a common theme in Dr. Reynolds' research. During the course of her academic career, she has served as a principal investigator on numerous projects and published over 350 journal articles, book chapters and professional reports. Recent and related projects involved the risk of MRSA transmission via hospital personnel scrubs, evaluation of an infection control intervention for first responders, development of infectious waste disposal protocols, tracking environmental microbiomes in long-term care facilities and testing methods for decontamination of soft surfaces in healthcare environments. As co-founder of the HITS Consortium, Dr. Reynolds brings her expertise in integrating academic research teams with medical personnel, clinical diagnostic laboratories, patients, industries and other stakeholders for a multidisciplinary approach toward research, communication and management efforts in infection prevention. University of Arizona's College of Public Health Environment, Exposure Science and Risk Assessment Center at the University of Arizona   About Savannah Hatt, MPH Project manager for the Applied Research Center at NSF International HITS Board Member Savannah Hatt is a Project Manager in the area of sanitation and contamination control for the Applied Research Center at NSF International. Joining the team in March of 2016, Ms. Hatt is primarily responsible for managing client projects and for supporting development of new service offerings for the healthcare industry. She also acts as the conference coordinator for the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems (HITS) annual conference, which was first held in 2017. Ms. Hatt holds a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and a Master's of Public Health in epidemiology, and her graduate research focused on reducing healthcare-associated infections. NSF International   About Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems (HITS) The Healthcare Infections Transmission System (HITS) Consortium looks to promote public health by reducing healthcare-associated infections through the integration of best infection prevention practices. HITS will focus on the major pathogen transmission systems in the healthcare setting specifically; surfaces, person to person, water and air. Join us for this one-of-a-kind, multimodal event where researchers and experts from across disciplines will work toward identifying research gaps and applying data-driven methods in the field. Meet, greet and share ideas with the individuals and organizations who are growing and sustaining the industry, as we explore creative and innovative solutions to this global problem. Learn more: Web: http://www.hitsconsortium.org For questions or to join their mailing list, email: info@hitsconsortium.org Twitter: @HITSConsortium HITS Consortium on LinkedIn   Related and/or Mentioned on the Show HITS 2018: A Catalyst for Change in Infection Control - Conference preview with Dr. Christine Greene and Dr. Kelly Reynolds Why Healthcare Needs a Systems Approach with Jason “The Germ Guy” Tetro from HITS 2018 Bringing Science to the Art of Hospital Cleaning w/ Michael Rochon from HITS2018 Preventing HAIs at the Source w/ Al Wickheim and Laura Barker of Prodaptive Medical Innovations from HITS 2018 Clean Air and Patient Satisfaction w/ Samantha Kitchen of Radic8 Ltd from HITS2018 HCAHPS and the Patient Safety vs. Patient Satisfaction Conundrum w/ Christine Greene and Maurits Hughes from HITS2018   Join our Community! Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there.  Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

This is a crossover episode with David Shifrin from The Future of Health Podcast and Health:Further. We cover three main topics that have been coming up a lot on our podcasts:   Care Transitions Anytime a patient is moved from one care delivery location to another you need to have contextualized data exchange. If care coordinators don't have the right data, how could the patient? How can technology help educate patients and increase discharge instruction adherence? Telehealth for post-discharge follow-ups. Use telehealth for increased touchpoints and a better doctor-patient relationship. Bruce Greenstein former HHS CTO, says we must address high utilizers. When you fix big spenders, you free up money for innovation.   Clinical Decision Support How do you help providers be more effective at their job? A reliable, unbiased assistant to help evaluate data more quickly. Examples: ILÚM Health Solutions, VisualDX. Still skepticism around layering another CDS platform on top of an already problematic EHR platform. How do you design something that will fit into the business and the culture? The message is: this is a new way to deliver YOUR care. Binary Fountain – Analytics to find the most effective doctors. Align physicians with one another to encourage sharing of best practices but you need a solid culture to be able to have honest conversations. Dr. Jeff Thompson at Gundersen Health focused on their mission to foster their culture.   Business Realities, Culture, and the New Patient Journey Carrie Liken from Yext (appearing on bo/th podcasts) says the availability of data changes the way patients expect care delivery. The patient's digital expectations are set by Google and Amazon. Focus on your employees having the tools they need to do their job. Dig to find the incremental improvements. There are no silver bullets.    About David Shifrin I am a scientist, writer, and connector. I love data, but I know that it doesn't always speak for itself. Often, the difference between success and failure is a good narrative surrounding that data. My job is to create that narrative. At Health:Further, I produce, edit and curate content focused on healthcare innovation, working to build a community of people who share the goal of making healthcare accessible, affordable and sustainable. At Filament Life Science Communications, I help life science and healthcare companies create the marketing content they need to display their leadership and grow their audience. I also like three-item lists, with or without the Oxford comma. LinkedIn David Shifrin   About Health:Further Health:Further is an open community focused on the future of health. We are driven to pursue two difficult ideals: that health is a human right, and that health must be supported affordably and sustainably. We are providers, payers, politicians and practitioners. We are investors, innovators, artists and activists. We are all patients, and together, we will create the ideal future of health. Twitter Health:Further LinkedIn Health:Further Facebook Health:Further https://www.healthfurther.com/   About The Future of Health Podcast This podcast is where we come to hear from entrepreneurs, startup founders, healthcare executives, service providers, healthcare educators, and patient advocates to figure out what we can do to build a healthier society and use technology to care for real people. The Future of Health Podcast   Join our Community! Trying to drive change within your healthcare organization? Launching a new product? Having trouble getting decision makers attention and buy-in? We'll help you understand the whole picture so that you can align your innovation with the things decision makers care about. And then we'll help you execute. It's not easy, but it's possible and we'll help you get there. Sign up here and we'll keep you up to date on healthcare industry news with podcasts, blog posts, conference announcements and more. No fluff. No hype. Just the valuable (and often not-so-obvious) information you need to get things done. Sign up here   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

The social determinants of health (SDOH) are a hot topic in the healthcare industry. And rightly so: "Social, economic, and environmental issues have been shown to influence the length and quality of life by 50%, according to community health research. In comparison, only 20% is tied to the clinical care provided to community residents." Virginia Gurley, Sr. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at AxisPoint Health But SDOH is not a new concept - it's just modern terminology for something called Social Epidemiology. What's new, is the ability to apply SDOH data to expand existing predictive models of risk stratification. By identifying the patients that are at the highest risk both clinically and socially, you can help care coordinators get much more tactical and concrete about supporting the individual. On this episode, Dr. Virginia Gurley, Sr. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at AxisPoint Health joins us to explain how to put SDOH data to work.  Read the full post here: http://thehcbiz.com/ep82-sdoh-virginia-gurley/ ‎   The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.

If you're a medical practice, 4 major industry waves are rocking your boat. New demands bring new opportunities for fast practices that can quickly get physician alignment around a strategy that will maintain physician autonomy and increase reimbursement. Equally as important, the patient expectation has changed. They demand convenience and flexibility and want to interact with their care in new and innovative ways. Physicians can accept this, or ignore it at their own peril.  I'm fortunate to be joined today by Ken Comée, CEO of Carecloud who will shed some light on these 4 waves: Migration to a modern, cloud-based infrastructure Practice consolidation Value-based care Consumerism and the new patient expectation We break down what the 4 waves are, what they mean for practices and how practices can capitalize on the change. Enjoy!   0:56 What does CareCloud do and who do you do it for? 2:40 The smartphone has changed everything. What do doctors need to do to modernize? 4:00 Who are your customers? How has that changed as your company has grown? How has consolidation in the Health IT marketplace affected you? 6:08 The 1st Wave is a migration to a modern and cloud-based environment. It creates efficiencies and is needed for an interconnected, interoperable future. 9:30 The 2nd Wave is acceleration towards consolidation and rollups of physicians. You need IT infrastructure to rollup brick and mortar medical practices. 12:58 Hospitals need to re-evaluate what they are offering to compete with outpatient surgery centers. 14:33 The 3rd Wave is Value-Based Care. VBC means physicians are required to be more active in terms of outcomes. You must engage with patients earlier, more regularly, and over a longer period of time. Independent medical practices will be able to thrive if they can build an active and loyal patient base. 16:23 What do you see with people trying to prepare for a VBC future while still living in a Fee For Service now? Outcomes of medical care need to be thought of as if the consumer has options and can go somewhere else. They can. Attract. Serve. Retain. 20:00 What is the patient's experience with your practice from the first second they know you exist? Must have a holistic approach to end to end experience. Cloud infrastructure lets physicians thrive. 22:31 The 4th Wave is patient expectations and consumerism. Average out of pocket expense is going up and your patient experience could make or break you. I mean, Clipboards? Really? 25:50 Patients need to find info with as little friction as possible. Put your hours and prices on the web. Provide as much decision-making information as possible to prevent the patient from having to call and ask a question. 28:55 What do the 4 Waves mean for the practice listening? Every practice has different pain points. The Cloud can solve those pains and set you up for future growth. 31:22 What does all of this mean for CareCloud? Their platform is an all-in-one solution that can generate data that allows you to provide better care and proactive care for your patients. 33:55 What are the big tech giants up to? What are they going to do that impacts midmarket practices trying to stay independent? Amazon is going after the consumer experience. Their biggest impact is on facilitating the expectation of ease and simplicity for patients. Physicians need to be aligned with that. Amazon is doing it with their employees to show that it can be done. 36:29 Opening their own clinics? Amazon/Apple. Smart players are sometimes not the one that goes in first. They're watching innovative companies like Forward and OneMedical to see how they do and whether they should build or buy. 38:11 To use CareCloud, do you have to use both front and back office software? We're flexible. It's very easy for pieces to integrate with your current system. We ask, “How do we get you on the path to a cloud-based infrastructure with the least disruption so we can ensure success." 43:00 What is your biggest opportunity as a company coming from the 4 Waves? Interoperability. Carecloud is FHIR API certified. Going deep in cloud infrastructure means we can partner with Amazon and apply machine learning so practice systems get smarter. 45:02 Where can you find us? If you're a partner and want to integrate with our platform we have a robust partner program where you can download our APIs and work with them in real time. Our service and training side of the business is looking to expand. 46:19 What's your partnership model for apps on your system? Open system. Nothing but. We can't build everything. We integrate with care coordination, pop health, telemedicine, service or product side as extensions to our platform. Contact us for a discussion then apply. ...  About Ken Comée Ken Comée is CEO of CareCloud, the cloud-based software and services platform focusing exclusively on supporting high-growth medical groups. Ken joined CareCloud as CEO in 2015 after serving on the company's Board of Directors while an Executive-in-Residence at Norwest Venture Partners. Ken brings to CareCloud a track record of building high performing organizations and helping early-stage companies reach their full potential and value. Ken is a seasoned technology industry executive who has had a successful track record leading growth companies to achieve high-value strategic exists. Prior to joining CareCloud, Ken led several technology companies spanning the software, big data and analytics spectrum. Among these companies was Cast Iron Systems, a platform for integrating cloud-based applications from SaaS providers with on-premise applications. Ken managed Cast Iron's turnaround, successfully positioning the company for its sale to IBM, which bought the company to serve as a foundational element of its cloud strategy. As CEO of PowerReviews, which provided technology and tools for retailers and e-commerce companies to host product reviews on their websites, Ken orchestrated the company's acquisition to its largest competitor, Bazaarvoice. In addition to his roles as CEO, Ken has served as an executive advisor and on the board of directors for several new ventures, including BeyondCore, which was acquired by Salesforce.com, and Simpplr, a social intranet company focused on improving employee engagement. Ken's role as an advisor reflects his personal mission to help shape the next generation of CEOs. In addition to mentoring up and coming entrepreneurs, Ken also is committed to supporting philanthropies and non-for-profits that are making a meaningful difference in promoting health and quality of life. He most recently participated in the “Real Men Wear Pink of Miami” campaign to support the American Cancer Society. Ken earned his MBA from the London Business School and a BSc from Santa Clara University. A recent transplant from Silicon Valley to Miami, Ken enjoys spending his free time on the water and exploring South Florida. ... About CareCloud CareCloud is the leading provider of cloud-based revenue cycle management, practice management (PM), electronic health record (EHR), patient experience management (PXM), and telemedicine solutions for high-growth medical groups. CareCloud helps clients increase profitability, streamline workflow and improve patient care nationwide. The company currently manages more than $4.2 billion in annualized accounts receivable on its integrated clinical and financial platform. To learn more about CareCloud, visit www.carecloud.com. Links: Twitter: @CareCloud LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carecloud/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carecloud/ Website: carecloud.com ... Related and/or Mentioned on the Show The New Patient Journey and its Impact on Healthcare Marketing | Carrie Liken | Yext ... Subscribe to Weekly Updates If you like what we're doing here, then please consider signing up for our weekly newsletter. You'll get one email from me each week detailing: New podcast episodes and blog posts. Content or ideas that I've found valuable in the past week. Insider info about the show like stats, upcoming episodes and future plans that I won't put anywhere else. Plain text and straight from the heart :) No SPAM or fancy graphics and you can unsubscribe with a single click anytime. ... The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

Virtual Care. Telehealth. Telemedicine. Whatever you call it, there are very real benefits to patients and health systems when you do Virtual Care right. But there are many obstacles too. On this episode, we talk with Courtney Stevens, Director of Virtual Care at Henry Ford Health System and Brian Young, Director of Healthcare Solutions Marketing at Vidyo about how to develop a Virtual Care strategy, gain buy-in from clinicians and patients, deliver service and measure success along the way. They provide a comprehensive overview of the process from start to finish with actionable advice about what to do at each step of the journey. Highlights from "How to Launch and Grow a Virtual Care Service" 1:36 Henry Ford Health System is celebrating 100 years of helping patients! 3:00 Vidyo specializes in digital enablement. They manage a portfolio of capabilities that allow doctors to deliver care digitally. 4:15 Is it Telehealth or Telemedicine? Neither. It's Virtual Care. 9:58 What does virtual care mean at Henry Ford Health System and how has it impacted care? 14:45 Internal messaging is huge for getting staff through training and the inevitable hurdles. 16:08 Be the Myth Buster. Pay attention because the myths keep changing at each phase of the adoption curve even within the organization. 18:53 Valid concerns were raised that helped us improve our final product. Plan, do, check, ask cycles of learning are in our DNA! 20:40  Barriers to adoption are all about shifting mindset. "Personalized healthcare without borders." You need someone who can lead the charge. 27:15 Admin vs Clinician concerns. Battling the misconception of cost. Pay close attention to the impact on staffs workflow. Everyone needs to get involved and get trained. 29:55 Store and Forward Messaging Visits are kind of like an email. Patients can initiate care from home by entering information into a questionnaire. The provider will review it and gets back to you. 32:25 What's the use case for video? It starts with remote specialist access from hospital to rural communities. Stroke care is huge. 34:14 You need a regulatory strategy. How is reimbursement? Telehealth in Michigan has a parody of coverage law but no parody of pay so payors can reimburse visits at a different rate. So far, 38 other states have telehealth parody laws. We get into the details here. 38:52 The difference in reimbursement between in-person and telehealth is that you only get paid for the professional portion of the code, not the facility portion of the code. The clinic to clinic model is more widely accepted across government and commercial payers. 42:00 In 2020, all ACOs will be able to include 'home' as the originating site. Employers see it as a way to keep costs down. 43:20 There are so many great use cases where reimbursement doesn't even matter. So even for organizations that are skeptical of the reimbursement models should investigate ways to improve access, post-ops, care plan adherence, reducing no-shows, and more. Don't let reimbursement be your only factor. 44.37 Vidyo's tech. What are you doing for Henry Ford Health? How do you integrate? What does the patient see? 50:00 What is the feedback from patients? 52:46 How do you measure ROI? I think this is the most metrics we've ever had listed by a guest on this show. Get ready to write this down. ... Courtney Stevens, MsEM:  Director, Virtual Care at the Henry Ford Health System Courtney Stevens has been with the HFHS for over 10 years. She started at HFHS in Process Improvement as a management engineer, where she has applied her industrial engineering and project management skills to various projects to aid in health system integration and alignment. She transitioned to Customer Engagement where she helped to improve the customer experience through project management, data/root cause analysis, training, and process improvement initiatives. Courtney was integral in the development and deployment of various system-wide (over 24,000 team members) trainings, as well as a standard system approach to leadership rounding. As of 2016 Courtney accepted a leadership role in Virtual Care developing the strategy and standards for telehealth expansion throughout Henry Ford Health System's continuum of care. These applications, including remote monitoring, E-Visits, Clinic to Clinic telemedicine appointments/consults, MyChart Post Op Follow-Ups, and MyChart Mobile Video Visits, produced over 100 virtual visits/consults in 2015, over 3200 visits/consults in 2016, and over 4700 visits/consults in 2017, saving patients almost 67,000 miles or 86 days of travel and providers over 11,000 miles or over 50 clinic days of travel. Courtney has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Western Michigan University and Masters of Science in Engineering Management from Wayne State University. She also has 4 years of experience as a Senior Product Engineer at TRW Automotive Occupant Safety Systems in their driver side airbag and steering wheel division. Email: cstevens2@hfhs.org ... About Brian Young:  Brian Young currently works for Vidyo, Inc. as the Director of Healthcare Solutions Marketing. Brian is responsible for driving Vidyo's go-to-market strategy within the healthcare marketplace. As an expert in product strategy and strategic marketing Brian has spent the last 20 years helping healthcare providers, payers and patients use innovative technologies to become more interconnected, and to tell their stories. Brian currently resides in Chattanooga, TN with his wife and three children. ... About Henry Ford Health System:  Henry Ford Health System is a Michigan not-for-profit corporation governed by a 17-member Board of Trustees. Our advisory and affiliate boards comprising more than 100 Trustee volunteer leaders provide vital links to the communities we serve. Wright Lassiter III is the president and chief executive officer. As one of the nation's leading comprehensive, integrated health systems, we provide health insurance and health care delivery, including acute, specialty, primary and preventive care services backed by excellence in research and education. Founded in 1915 by auto pioneer Henry Ford, we are committed to improving the health and well-being of a diverse community. https://www.henryford.com/ https://www.henryford.com/services/virtual-care ... About Vidyo:  Our vision is to connect the world by video-enabling any application or idea. Vidyo delivers the highest quality cloud video conferencing service, on-premises solutions and platform-as-a-service for market leaders and innovative upstarts. Vidyo is used by nearly 400 health systems representing over 4500 hospitals. Vidyo web site Vidyo Healthcare 2nd Annual Vidyo Healthcare Summit, December 3-5, 2018, Scottsdale, AZ Making Telehealth Work for You, The Ultimate Guide whitepaper 2018 Trends in Telemedicine - Complimentary eBook Vidyo APIs allow you to rapidly embed real-time group video chat into your app ... Related and/or Mentioned on the Show:  CMS telehealth fact sheet (PDF) American Telemedicine Association National Telehealth Resource Center Center for Connected Health Policy Podcast: HIMSS18: Nathaniel Lacktman | Asynchronous Telemedicine | Foley & Lardner LLP ... Subscribe to Weekly Updates If you like what we're doing here, then please consider signing up for our weekly newsletter. You'll get one email from me each week detailing: New podcast episodes and blog posts. Content or ideas that I've found valuable in the past week. Insider info about the show like stats, upcoming episodes and future plans that I won't put anywhere else. Plain text and straight from the heart :) No SPAM or fancy graphics and you can unsubscribe with a single click anytime.  ... The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

This episode is part of our in-depth coverage of the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems Consortium (HITS) 2018 conference in Nashville, TN that took place September 18-20th. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned with air quality in the hospital environment. The obvious ones are related to patient safety, but as we move toward a more consumer-directed healthcare system and as CMS continues to incentivize a positive patient experience through HCAHPS surveys (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) and other programs, it's important to address patient perception too. On this episode, we're talking clean air and patient satisfaction with Samantha Kitchen, Director at Radic8 Ltd. Sammy explains how a well-placed air quality system can eliminate air contaminants, alleviate foul smells that leave a bad impression, and give patients peace of mind. A few highlights from our conversation with Radic8:  After becoming the gold standard for air sterilization in Canada, Radic8 is ready to bring us new tech from the UK that can reduce airborne viruses by 99.9999%. The primary challenge is still about educating hospitals. The message: you can control what you touch but can't control what you breathe. Radic8 is wall-mounted, circulating sterilized air within the room. This allows you to maintain air quality standards with no need to heat, cool or treat the air, bringing HVAC costs down. Radic8 helps with HCAHPS and patient satisfaction scores. The reduction in strange smells is huge for helping patients feel like they're in a clean environment. Home units are available too. With Hextio, Radic8 used the same hospital virus-killing technology and shrunk it into a compact, 12-inch unit that provides a direct flow of clean air to your child, workplace, or in a hotel. It's great to have large units in the hospital but people need this everywhere. Radic8.com looking for partners in the US ... This episode was recorded on site at the HITS 2018 conference in Nashville, TN. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. Thank you to HITS, Christine Greene of NSF International, Kelly Reynolds of the University of Arizona and Michael Diamond of The Infection Prevention Strategy for working with us on this conference coverage. It was a great event, in a great city, attended by true heroes of Infection Prevention and Control from all over the world. Be sure to check out the next HITS conference in August 2019 in Buffalo, NY! ... About The HITS 2018 Conference:  The HITS 2018 Conference was held on September 18-20th in Nashville, TN.   HITS 2018 offers a unique forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and promoting “hospital health”.  The 2018 HITS “Catalyst for Change” Conference is a working conference, bringing together research scientists, industry and healthcare professionals for an interdisciplinary and dynamic approach. We work together to understand and prevent the transmission of pathogens throughout the hospital facility through a collaborative effort that includes engaging in applied research.  The conference is accredited as a provider for continuing education units (CEUs) through National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) and National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE). Join us for this one-of-a-kind, multimodal event where researchers and experts from across disciplines will work toward identifying research gaps and applying data-driven methods in the field. Meet, greet and share ideas with the individuals and organizations who are growing and sustaining the industry as we explore creative and innovative solutions to this global problem. The full 2018 schedule can be found at https://hitsconsortium.org/2018-nashville/2018-schedule/ The HITS organizing committee has assembled world experts and key opinion leaders to share their knowledge and expertise. We host a research poster session to hear from those in healthcare about the research being conducted in their facilities.  We also incorporate workshop breakout sessions each day in order to provide a unique forum through which everyone can interact and be innovative as we work to identify potential solutions to key barriers and develop an agenda for change moving forward into the next year.  After the conference, members have the opportunity to become involved in one of the many research workgroups conducting research around pathogen transmission in healthcare. Check out highlights from the HITS 2017 conference: https://hitsconsortium.org/2017-hits-highlight-reel/ For media inquiries:  https://hitsconsortium.org/media/ For more information, please visit the HITS Consortium website: https://hitsconsortium.org/ or email us: info@HITSconsortium.org Checkout our conference preview episode: HITS 2018 A Catalyst for Change in Infection Control - Episode 67 w/ Dr. Christine Greene and Dr. Kelly Reynolds. ... About Samantha Kitchen:  Experienced Company Director with a demonstrated history of working in the environmental services industry. Strong business development professional skilled in Customer Service, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Marketing Strategy, and Public Speaking. Samantha Kitchen on LinkedIn ... About Radic8:  Radic8 is an independent air purification company based in the UK. With a strong belief that everybody has the right to clean air, Radic8 are passionate about innovating and distributing the very best technology in their field. The Infection Prevention Strategy named Radic8's Viruskiller Technology as one of its Top Innovations of the Year: 2018. Radic8 Website Hextio ... Related and/or Mentioned on the Show:  Check out all the #HCBiz Show! Infection Prevention and Control coverage. ... Subscribe to Weekly Updates:  If you like what we're doing here, then please consider signing up for our weekly newsletter. You'll get one email from me each week detailing: New podcast episodes and blog posts. Content or ideas that I've found valuable in the past week. Insider info about the show like stats, upcoming episodes and future plans that I won't put anywhere else. Plain text and straight from the heart :) No SPAM or fancy graphics and you can unsubscribe with a single click anytime. ... The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

This episode is part of our in-depth coverage of the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems Consortium (HITS) 2018 conference in Nashville, TN that took place September 18-20th. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) measures a patient's satisfaction with the quality of their care during their stay at the hospital. It measures things like staff communication and attentiveness, discharge information, food service, and the hospital environment. These are important measures and every hospital should strive for excellence in each of them (we talked about this in our last episode). However, and as is often the case in healthcare, the HCAHPS survey can have unintended consequences. Typically, the Environmental Services Department (EVS) is given responsibility for the hospital environment portion of the score. And this too makes sense. They're the ones cleaning the rooms, emptying the trash, and ensuring that the patient has a comfortable environment to heal in. However, the most important responsibility for EVS is to ensure the environment is safe and HCAHPS does nothing to measure that. There is no measure that grades the EVS staff on how well they prevent the spread of pathogens through the hospital. This becomes a problem when pressures mount to improve HCAHPS scores. It creates an environment where EVS staff are forced to focus on the perception issues, and with shrinking staff sizes, it often comes at the expense of doing their most important work. On this episode, we talk with Christine Greene, MPH, Ph.D., Principal Research Investigator at NSF International and President of HITS and Maurits Hughes, Director of Logistics and Support Services at Michigan Medicine about how to deal with the patient satisfaction vs. patient safety conundrum. It's a challenge that requires proper education for staff and leadership about the importance of EVS' role in the hospital and the alignment of EVS and other critical teams like Infection Control. It also requires a new attitude towards EVS staff. They aren't just custodians or housekeepers... they are Infection Prevention Technicians. We can do a lot for patients by elevating the stature of and support for the EVS team. HCAHPS and the Patient Safety vs. Patient Satisfaction Conundrum:  1:46 Measuring Environmental Services (EVS) with HCAHPS: What sounds good on paper doesn't always work in practice. 2:40 The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) measures a patient's satisfaction with the quality of their care during their stay at the hospital. The problem with tying patient perception of cleanliness to reimbursement is that it creates the conundrum of patient satisfaction vs patient safety. Contamination removal does not increase patient satisfaction. 4:55 Environmental Services (EVS) at Michigan Health are closely aligned with Infection Prevention (IP). In the 30 minutes a day EVS is in a patient room, staff must make the room look clean, remove the clutter of medical supplies, ensure trash doesn't get too full, all while trying to stay as quiet as possible to improve HCAHPS scores. 6:20 HCAHPS has nothing to do with patient safety. It sounds good on paper but doesn't really measure if the patient is actually safe. 7:30 EVS must partner with IP and use tools to help them measure if the staff is cleaning to necessary levels. Cut-backs on staff and resources mean each staff member is being expected to do more in a given day. The culture of cleaning excellence is compromised by not respecting the folks who do the cleaning. If these frontline employees are, "the tip of the spear against pathogens" how do we make sure they're treated, compensated, trained and supplied like it? 10:20 Remind employees that they are Infection Prevention Technicians (as opposed to custodians or housekeepers) and their role is to prevent the spread of infections and save lives. All services are hospital services. 12:22 The industry has not made investments in training for EVS. Getting the lab and IP staff to help educate the C-Suite would be huge. 13:20 How do you quantify the value that EVS brings to the organization? Michigan Health uses ATP testing, microbial swab testing, gel marking and special procedures in ED and other high priority areas to track EVS effectiveness. We share the results with leadership. 14:45 A "Bundled" approach to accountability. EVS, IP, and nursing staff are all responsible for taking action if a patient has an infection. Tests that determine if a surface has been wiped vs. decontaminated can help you better prioritize which processes need improvement. 17:30 A Quality Assurance program that uses the latest technology can help validate who infection control committees should focus on. 19:30 How do you get people to see EVS as a protector of ROI and prioritize cleaning at the level needed? 22:50 HCAHPS doesn't align with the goals of infection prevention and that's a huge disservice to patient safety. It leads to EVS focusing on the perception of cleanliness and quiet first, and safety second. The smell of the chemicals might be bad but we're not cleaning a fast-food restaurant, we're cleaning to save lives. To improve HCAHPS scores we need adequate levels of staff, training of staff, access to facilities and a team approach to preparing patients for a safe environment. 25:00 This issue won't manifest itself immediately and requires a long-term strategic prioritization or eventually it will prevent you from doing other things you're trying to accomplish. On the HITS Consortium and HITS Conference: “I think change will occur by getting more EVS and IP leaders involved in this sort of initiative but it is going to require us to change the paradigm and change the model of how EVS is perceived and managed throughout the healthcare facilities.” - Maurits Hughes ... This episode was recorded on site at the HITS 2018 conference in Nashville, TN. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. Thank you to HITS, Christine Greene of NSF International, Kelly Reynolds of the University of Arizona and Michael Diamond of The Infection Prevention Strategy for working with us on this conference coverage. It was a great event, in a great city, attended by true heroes of Infection Prevention and Control from all over the world. Be sure to check out the next HITS conference in August 2019 in Buffalo, NY! ... About The HITS 2018 Conference:  The HITS 2018 Conference was held on September 18-20th in Nashville, TN.   HITS 2018 offers a unique forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and promoting “hospital health”.  The 2018 HITS “Catalyst for Change” Conference is a working conference, bringing together research scientists, industry and healthcare professionals for an interdisciplinary and dynamic approach. We work together to understand and prevent the transmission of pathogens throughout the hospital facility through a collaborative effort that includes engaging in applied research.  The conference is accredited as a provider for continuing education units (CEUs) through National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) and National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE). Join us for this one-of-a-kind, multimodal event where researchers and experts from across disciplines will work toward identifying research gaps and applying data-driven methods in the field. Meet, greet and share ideas with the individuals and organizations who are growing and sustaining the industry as we explore creative and innovative solutions to this global problem. The full 2018 schedule can be found at https://hitsconsortium.org/2018-nashville/2018-schedule/ The HITS organizing committee has assembled world experts and key opinion leaders to share their knowledge and expertise. We host a research poster session to hear from those in healthcare about the research being conducted in their facilities.  We also incorporate workshop breakout sessions each day in order to provide a unique forum through which everyone can interact and be innovative as we work to identify potential solutions to key barriers and develop an agenda for change moving forward into the next year.  After the conference, members have the opportunity to become involved in one of the many research workgroups conducting research around pathogen transmission in healthcare. Check out highlights from the HITS 2017 conference: https://hitsconsortium.org/2017-hits-highlight-reel/ For media inquiries:  https://hitsconsortium.org/media/ For more information, please visit the HITS Consortium website: https://hitsconsortium.org/ or email us: info@HITSconsortium.org Checkout our conference preview episode: HITS 2018 A Catalyst for Change in Infection Control - Episode 67 w/ Dr. Christine Greene and Dr. Kelly Reynolds. ... About Christine Greene, MPH, PhD:  Principal Research Investigator at NSF International Dr. Greene is the Principal Research Investigator for the Sanitation and Contamination Control unit of the Applied Research Center at NSF International.  She has over 10 years of experience in epidemiological and laboratory research.   She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences and an MPH in Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her academic research focus has been on healthcare pathogen transmission, pathogen environmental survival, hand hygiene, disinfection and biofilms which has led to multiple publications. At NSF International, Dr. Greene has been making strides to improve public health in the areas of infectious disease prevention and control in clinical, dental and community settings. Her work serves to improve the accuracy of environmental mediated infectious disease transmission modeling, strengthens current guidelines to control healthcare-associated infections and provides new insights that will stimulate innovative approaches to reduce the risk of biofilm-related infections, pathogen transmission and curtail the environmental persistence and transmission of infectious agents. Dr. Greene is a member of the NSF International 444 Joint Committee Standard – Prevention of Injury and Disease Associated with Building Water Systems and serves on the ISO TC 304 working group 3 as the project leader for the healthcare hand hygiene performance and compliance standard.  She serves as a board member for The Infection Prevention Strategy.  Dr. Greene is a co-founder of the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems (HITS) Consortium – an organization that strives to break down silos in healthcare using a cross-disciplinary, systems approach to addressing the pressing issues around infection control. Email at cgreene@nsf.org ... About Maurits Hughes:  Maurits Hughes is the Director of Logistics and Support Services at Michigan Medicine. He's a dedicated executive with over 20 years of management experience in clinical and non-clinical environments.  Maurits Hughes on LinkedIn ... About the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems (HITS) Consortium:  The Healthcare Infection Transmission System Consortium is a not-for-profit organization serving the field of infection control and prevention. HITS takes a holistic perspective to targeting healthcare associated infections by including multiple disciplines in the conversation, including infection prevention, environmental services, construction and renovation, facilities management and engineering along with research scientists and industry experts. HITS focuses on the major avenues for pathogen transmission in hospitals:  hands, surfaces, water and air.  HITS provides the necessary, cross-disciplinary platform to share knowledge and engage in research regarding the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and promotion of overall hospital health. @HITSConsortium on Twitter HITS Consortium on LinkedIn ... Related and/or Mentioned on the Show:  The Patient Hot Zone w/ Darrel Hicks Check out all the #HCBiz Show! Infection Prevention and Control coverage. ... Subscribe to Weekly Updates If you like what we're doing here, then please consider signing up for our weekly newsletter. You'll get one email from me each week detailing: New podcast episodes and blog posts. Content or ideas that I've found valuable in the past week. Insider info about the show like stats, upcoming episodes and future plans that I won't put anywhere else. Plain text and straight from the heart :) No SPAM or fancy graphics and you can unsubscribe with a single click anytime. ... The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar

This episode is part of our in-depth coverage of the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems Consortium (HITS) 2018 conference in Nashville, TN that took place September 18-20th. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. Benjamin Franklin told us that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) cost U.S. hospitals as much as $45 Billion per year. We've covered many of the ways you can combat HAIs and we just spoke with Michael Rochon (also at HITS 2018) about how to improve our hospital cleaning procedures. Proper hospital cleaning and disinfection certainly satisfies the Franklin axiom, but what if we step back further. How did the contaminants get on the hospital surfaces in the first place? What if we could prevent some of that? Well, that's exactly what today's guests are doing. Many common healthcare procedures create sprays and splashes that spread contaminants to walls, ceilings, floors, and the clinicians' protective gear (Personal Protection Equipment or PPE). If you can prevent that spread in the first place, then cleaning becomes quicker and easier, PPEs last longer and you've really begun to take a stand against the spread of HAIs. On this episode, Al Wickheim and Laura Barker from Prodaptive Medical Innovations join us to explain how the STAL Shield & Stand, an engineered safety control, can provide much more than an ounce of protection against the spread of HAIs. Highlights from our interview: Prodaptive Medical Innovations, President Al Wickheim, Operations Executive Laura Barker Prodaptive Medical Innovations' foundation is based on the concept of providing innovative and simple improvements to existing technology. We try to make good, better. The STAL Shield & Stand is a dome-shaped device the size of a wallet that breaks the chain of infection transmission at the first link. This stops splashes, mists and aerosol sprays during medical procedures from getting onto healthcare workers, patients, and the environment. Cleaning out wounds, oral suction, suction catheters, incision and drainage procedures, wound irrigation, and medication installations can all benefit. A common reaction to this device is: "Well, duh!" The suction catheter is 100 years old. Doctors say, "Why didn't I think of this?"  Square and stand. All in one. Perforated diaphragm. Seals around a variety of instruments. This protects the worker and their PPE (personal protective equipment, anything covering their skin). The healthcare worker takes less contaminate away from the work site and that results in less self-inoculation. Feedback has been good but there has been a big resistance to change. It's an additional procedure and executives with budget restrictions say their hands are tied. It's hard to see the downstream results of reduced CMS fines but you can see reduced cleaning time and faster room turnaround time immediately! The research with Dr. Sattar for irrigation catheters found 99.5% reduction in environmental contamination and 95% contaminate capture at the site. This enhances the effectiveness of the PPE meaning less cleaning supplies, less water needed, less harsh detergents that will extend the life of your equipment, and less laundry. What do you think of the HITS conference? It's a revolutionary wave of innovation to address a global problem and we're loving being a part of it. What does the future hold? Our immediate goal is to expand our worldwide presence. This should be a global product and we have future products coming soon. ...  This episode was recorded on site at the HITS 2018 conference in Nashville, TN. Check out all our HITS 2018 episodes here, and look for more throughout the month of October. Thank you to HITS, Christine Greene of NSF International, Kelly Reynolds of the University of Arizona and Michael Diamond of The Infection Prevention Strategy for working with us on this conference coverage. It was a great event, in a great city, attended by true heroes of Infection Prevention and Control from all over the world. Be sure to check out the next HITS conference in August 2019 in Buffalo, NY! ... About The HITS 2018 Conference: The HITS 2018 Conference was held on September 18-20th in Nashville, TN.   HITS 2018 offers a unique forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and promoting “hospital health”.  The 2018 HITS “Catalyst for Change” Conference is a working conference, bringing together research scientists, industry and healthcare professionals for an interdisciplinary and dynamic approach. We work together to understand and prevent the transmission of pathogens throughout the hospital facility through a collaborative effort that includes engaging in applied research.  The conference is accredited as a provider for continuing education units (CEUs) through National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) and National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE). Join us for this one-of-a-kind, multimodal event where researchers and experts from across disciplines will work toward identifying research gaps and applying data-driven methods in the field. Meet, greet and share ideas with the individuals and organizations who are growing and sustaining the industry as we explore creative and innovative solutions to this global problem. The full 2018 schedule can be found at https://hitsconsortium.org/2018-nashville/2018-schedule/ The HITS organizing committee has assembled world experts and key opinion leaders to share their knowledge and expertise. We host a research poster session to hear from those in healthcare about the research being conducted in their facilities.  We also incorporate workshop breakout sessions each day in order to provide a unique forum through which everyone can interact and be innovative as we work to identify potential solutions to key barriers and develop an agenda for change moving forward into the next year.  After the conference, members have the opportunity to become involved in one of the many research workgroups conducting research around pathogen transmission in healthcare. Check out highlights from the HITS 2017 conference: https://hitsconsortium.org/2017-hits-highlight-reel/ For media inquiries:  https://hitsconsortium.org/media/ For more information, please visit the HITS Consortium website: https://hitsconsortium.org/ or email us: info@HITSconsortium.org Checkout our conference preview episode: HITS 2018 A Catalyst for Change in Infection Control - Episode 67 w/ Dr. Christine Greene and Dr. Kelly Reynolds. ... About Al Wickheim: Al Wickheim is one of the founders, innovators, and the CEO of Prodaptive Medical. He grew up near Sooke, B.C. doing a variety of shipyard duties for his Dad. Everything from wreck salvage diving off the rugged Westcoast of Vancouver Island to pile-driving and running a modest machine shop. Al spent a fair bit of time “underground' as a spelunker on the Island in his youth – sometimes forcing him into new and unexplored passages and territory. Starting with the local fire department as a volunteer for a couple of years Al next worked for BC Ambulance for 30 years, the last 18 as an Advanced Life Support Paramedic. He has been involved in several major projects for BCAS including managing the EMS outfitting for the B.C. Summer Games in 1986 and overseeing the preparation of 36 ambulances for the Commonwealth Games of '88. He was involved in the development and teaching of the recent H1N1 and Infectious Disease Control program for the employer and was a Level 11 CBRNE Tech. He worked for a Kenn Borek Air, a well established operation in Iqaluit and did numerous Med-evac tour on Baffin Island in Canada's far north, to as far as Thule, Greenland. Al is always seeking improvements and refinements, tireless to the end. As an ERU Tech with the Canadian Red Cross Al was in Nepal in 2015 and currently is the Community Coordinator for the JdF Emergency Program in Otter Point. Al's background of innovation and self-sufficiency has taken him through various ventures of construction, hazardous tree topping and falling, bull-dozer and excavator operations. Al and his family live on their farm in the rainforest of southern Vancouver Island where he does wilderness and big tree tours to remote regions of the Island. At home, he works on managing the adventures established and coming up with new projects at a fairly constant rate. He enjoys astronomy and, well, work. ... About Prodaptive Medical Innovations:   Prodaptive Medical develops and markets solutions to problems and shortcomings in clinical medical equipment. The partnership of two well seasoned emergency care providers with overlapping areas of expertise has resulted in the development of Prodaptive's first product to market, the STAL Shield and Stand. In 2009 Al Wickheim took an idea from concept to product addressing an obvious need to the biohazard concerns inherent in the use of the Yankauer suction device. SARS had struck a deadly blow in Toronto a few years before and H1N1 loomed. While initially designed as a shielding device, it was apparent that the STAL served numerous other functions as well such as a stand. As an adjunct to half a dozen medical instruments used in Aerosol Generating Procedures – AGP's, the STAL Shield's versatility and effectiveness makes it the preferred choice when it comes to at-source medical bio-hazard blockade and confinement. Other products are on the drawing boards and with input from practitioners, patients and manufacturing specialists Prodaptive Medical sees growth ahead where the status quo is no longer good enough. At Prodaptive ‘Making good better‘, is what we do. The STAL Shield & Stand was recognized as one of InfectionControl.tips Top Innovations of the Year: 2017 Prodaptive Medical is part of the TIPS Sudden Science program, which provides support and resources to advance their innovation into the market. www.prodaptivemedical.com The STAL Shield & Stand Prodaptive Medical on Facebook Prodaptive Medical on LinkedIn Breaking the Chain at the First Link - A critical evaluation and research paper on the STAL Shield & Stand's effectiveness on InfectionControl.Tips. ... About the Healthcare Infection Transmission Systems (HITS) Consortium The Healthcare Infection Transmission System Consortium is a not-for-profit organization serving the field of infection control and prevention. HITS takes a holistic perspective to targeting healthcare associated infections by including multiple disciplines in the conversation, including infection prevention, environmental services, construction and renovation, facilities management and engineering along with research scientists and industry experts. HITS focuses on the major avenues for pathogen transmission in hospitals:  hands, surfaces, water and air.  HITS provides the necessary, cross-disciplinary platform to share knowledge and engage in research regarding the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and promotion of overall hospital health. @HITSConsortium on Twitter HITS Consortium on LinkedIn ... Related and/or Mentioned on the Show: Dr. Sattar Episode on understanding the spread of infectious agents in the environment. Check out all of the #HCBiz Show! Infection Prevention and Control coverage. ... Subscribe to Weekly Updates: If you like what we're doing here, then please consider signing up for our weekly newsletter. You'll get one email from me each week detailing: New podcast episodes and blog posts. Content or ideas that I've found valuable in the past week. Insider info about the show like stats, upcoming episodes and future plans that I won't put anywhere else. Plain text and straight from the heart :) No SPAM or fancy graphics and you can unsubscribe with a single click anytime. ... The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media. Music by StudioEtar