Podcasts about penn medicine

Dr. Leonid Emerel reviews the management of non-small cell and small cell lung cancer at the multidisciplinary cancer clinic in the Medical Arts Pavilion at Penn Medicine Princeton Thoracic Surgery. Dr Emeril reviews diagnostics, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and surgery, and the value of rapid access to the surgeons on staff.

If you're anything like me, you might find the process of what happens to patients when they visit a radiation oncologist somewhat mysterious. During my training, I didn't receive much education about radiation oncology, and I'm not entirely sure what some of the terms mean (hypofractionated means fewer sessions, right?). Well, today's podcast aims to clear up all these uncertainties. We've invited Anish Butala, the Chief of the Palliative Radiotherapy Service at Penn Medicine, and Emily Martin, a palliative care doctor and past president of the Society for Palliative Radiation Oncology (SPRO), to explain everything we should know about radiation oncology. Additionally, Evie Kalmar, who suggested today's topic, will join us as one of our guest hosts. Tune in and we will walk you through the patient's journey from the initial planning visit to the final treatment, discuss common indications like bone and brain metastases, hear about when to consider steroid therapy, and highlight radiation therapy emergencies.

In a medical first, a team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine has successfully treated an infant diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder by using a customized CRISPR gene editing therapy. The work, led by Penn Medicine's Kiran Musunuru and CHOP's Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, points to the potential to use bespoke gene editing therapies to treat others with rare genetic diseases for which no available medicines exist. We spoke to P.J. Brooks, deputy director of the Office of Rare Disease Research at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, about the breakthrough treatment, how the researchers were able to move from diagnosis to treatment with great speed, and what it would take to scale such an approach.

New Jersey's primary election is on Tuesday, and the Democratic side of the governor race is packed. KYW's South Jersey Reporter Mike Dougherty looks at the candidates on both sides. Philadelphia City Council and Mayor Cherelle Parker agreed on a $6.8 billion budget. City Hall Bureau Chief Pat Loeb tells us what was approved. Plus, we have updates on a SEPTA line closing, Penn Medicine ending gender-affirming surgeries for people under 19, a bill targeting AI deepfakes, and local students gaining national praise. 00:00 Intro 02:00 The NJ governor race is anybody's game 07:01 What's in Philadelphia's new budget? 13:26 SEPTA's new GM, and Chestnut Hill East Line closes for the summer 19:04 The fight over gender-affirming care for youth 24:59 PA bill addresses AI deepfakes, despite Trump bill to prohibit state AI laws 31:08 Philadelphia students honored in C-SPAN's StudentCam competition Listen to The Week in Philly on KYW Newsradio every Saturday at 5am and 3pm, and Sunday at 3pm. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 4: 6:05pm- On Thursday, the Trump Administration threatened to withhold federal funding from several sanctuary cities—including Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago—if they don't comply with federal law enforcement authorities seeking to crackdown on illegal immigration and the deportation of dangerous migrants residing in the country unlawfully. 6:15pm- While appearing on CNN, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller absolutely destroyed host Pamela Brown when she attempted to downplay border security and the deportation of potentially dangerous migrants who entered the U.S. unlawfully. 6:30pm- Friday marked Elon Musk's last day leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). President Donald Trump praised Musk's work, highlighting several instances of federal waste that were discovered under his leadership: $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education, $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City, $45 million for DEI scholarships in Burma, $42 million for social and behavioral change in Uganda, $20 million for Arab Sesame Street, and $8 million for making mice transgender. As a thank you, Trump presented Musk with a golden key to the White House. 6:40pm- Dr. Stanley Goldfarb—Chairman of Do No Harm & a Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss Penn Medicine's decision to stop performing sex-change surgeries on children. They will, however, continue to prescribe irreversible puberty blockers for children.

1 - Dom kicks off hour 2 with California's updated stance on a trans athlete competing in the women's state high school track meet. How are they going to divvy up the medals if this athlete places above the other competitors? What kind of message does this send to the rest of the field and athletes everywhere? 110 - Your calls. 120 - What is to be done about motorized bicycles and scooters after a child in Williambsurg was decked by a bike and hospitalized? Why don't they follow the rules of the road like cars? Why must pedestrians and motorists constantly battle with them? 130 - Should the Phillies retaliate against the Braves' Spencer Strider for plunking Bryce Harper? The debate ensues. 140 - Some breaking news regarding Penn Medicine! No more gender affirming care. Will CHOP follow suit? Your calls. 150 - Mikie Sherrill doesn't need a 20 million dollar to know what people need, because she “listens”. Will this be a good campaign strategy? Does Mayor Pete think porn will win male voters back? 155 - Is Harvard grossly miscalculating where they stand?

12 - What files should the FBI release first? The listeners speak out in Dom's latest poll. 1205 - Is the Epstein files bigger than the January 6th file? Is Dan Bongino telling the truth about it? Henry doesn't think so. 1215 - Side - good person who did a bad thing 1220 - More on the FBI and the cases that have great public interest. Is Kash Patel as buttoned up as Bongino is on this issue? 1230 - Dom continues on the validity of what Bongino and Patel are saying. 1235 - Whitemarsh resident Christine Balster joins us to celebrate the township reinstating their 4th of July parade. Which township leaders did not show up to their meeting last night, and does this suggest impropriety from them after all this? Why would the town not want to celebrate its own Revolutionary War heritage? 1240 - Your calls. 1250 - Finishing the hour with conspiracy… about mail-in voting! Your calls. 1 - Dom kicks off hour 2 with California's updated stance on a trans athlete competing in the women's state high school track meet. How are they going to divvy up the medals if this athlete places above the other competitors? What kind of message does this send to the rest of the field and athletes everywhere? 110 - Your calls. 120 - What is to be done about motorized bicycles and scooters after a child in Williambsurg was decked by a bike and hospitalized? Why don't they follow the rules of the road like cars? Why must pedestrians and motorists constantly battle with them? 130 - Should the Phillies retaliate against the Braves' Spencer Strider for plunking Bryce Harper? The debate ensues. 140 - Some breaking news regarding Penn Medicine! No more gender affirming care. Will CHOP follow suit? Your calls. 150 - Mikie Sherrill doesn't need a 20 million dollar to know what people need, because she “listens”. Will this be a good campaign strategy? Does Mayor Pete think porn will win male voters back? 155 - Is Harvard grossly miscalculating where they stand? 2 - Karoline Leavitt let the nation know where the Trump administration stands on the trade deficit. Did she sprint to the podium? Does Jasmine Crockett really think Trump would arrest her? 210 - We play a clip of a Sheriff confronting and arresting a man who threatened his life. The kicker? He's a Florida officer who went all the way out to Walla Walla, Washington to nab him! Then by surprise, Sheriff Mike Chitwood quickly joins us to give us the story. How did this whole ordeal start? How did Mike become a target? What steps can be taken to combat this online behavior? What is their local department doing differently from the rest? 225 - Dom thanks the listeners for rising up to save the Whitemarsh Township 4th of July parade. Your calls. 230 - Dom's Money Melody! 240 - Riley Gaines challenges Keith Olbermann to a race. Will he accept? 250 - The Lightning Round!

This episode features Alicia Gresham, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Physician at Penn Medicine. Alicia shares insights into the organization's strategic planning process, including how frontline team members are engaged to help identify new market opportunities. She discusses the evolving challenges in today's healthcare landscape, the ongoing shift toward outpatient care, and the implementation of employee education programs that support long-term transformation at Penn.

Depression, anxiety, and apathy are common symptoms that are often overlooked in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Nearly half of those living with PD are likely to experience depression or anxiety at some point, but these non-motor symptoms often go unrecognized and undertreated. Because their signs can overlap and mimic one another, it can be challenging to pinpoint exactly what someone is going through. Depression is known for feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness. Anxiety might look like constant worry, excessive nervousness, or getting upset easily. Apathy, which is sometimes mistaken for depression, is the lack of motivation or interest to do things you used to enjoy. These symptoms can greatly impact your quality of life and worsen other PD symptoms.  In this episode, we speak with Lauren Zelouf, MSW, LCSW from Penn Medicine's Parkinson's Disease & Movement Disorders Center, a Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence. She shares how to distinguish among these different symptoms, emphasizes the importance of recognizing the signs, and offers coping strategies for managing symptoms and seeking support. Follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform to be notified when there's a new episode! Let us know what other topics you would like us to cover by visiting parkinson.org/feedback.

Tackling the labor shortage in science and medicine requires valuing healthcare as a noble profession and using technology to streamline training. In this episode, Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, discusses the challenges of talent shortages amid a retiring baby boomer generation and a smaller incoming workforce, emphasizing the need for technology to fill the gap. He shares Penn Medicine's innovative initiatives, including flash radiation for cancer treatment and a startup providing maternal support, highlighting their commitment to both technological advancements and human connections. Kevin touches on the need to repair broken systems by speaking to the patients and fixing the issues, refocusing on clinical outcomes, and reimagining the delivery of care. He also underscores that embracing change management with intentionality is crucial for healthcare organizations. Tune in and learn how one of the nation's leading health systems is embracing bold strategies to improve healthcare delivery and workforce development! Resources: Connect with and follow Kevin Mahoney on LinkedIn. Discover more about Penn Medicine's University of Pennsylvania Health System on their LinkedIn and website.

Heritability has long been known to play a role in aortic aneurysm and dissection for individuals with the Marfan and Loeys-Dietz syndromes. Recent research at Penn Medicine and elsewhere has revealed the presence of genetic variants linked to these syndromes in non-syndromic disease. In this podcast, clinical genetics specialist Staci Kallish, DO, discusses this phenomenon, reviews ongoing studies to determine the risk for aortic aneurysm and dissection in the general population, and the protocols for candidates for genetic evaluation and testing in at- risk populations.

"Weight Loss Revolution: The Truth About GLP-1 Medications" hosted by Kathy Romano Last week, we heard the powerful personal stories of patients who've experienced these medications firsthand – their triumphs, struggles, and everything in between. Now we turn to the medical experts to understand the broader implications of these transformative medications. Three distinguished physicians each bring a unique perspective to the conversation: Dr. Anastassia Amaro, an Obesity Medicine doctor at Penn Medicine and director of Penn Metabolic Medicine; Dr. Rashna Staid, who brings over 25 years of experience in functional and integrative medicine; and Dr. Renee Anderson, a gynecologist specializing in how these medications interact with women's health during perimenopause and menopause. From the physiological mechanisms behind weight loss to concerns about long-term effects, we'll explore the medical realities that go beyond personal experience. Whether you're considering these medications yourself or simply want to understand what's driving this weight loss revolution, you'll want to hear what our experts have to say. Her Story is hosted by Kathy Romano!

In a conversation with CancerNetwork®, Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD, MA, MPHS, FACS, discussed the key findings from a study she published in JAMA Network Open, which demonstrated that most patients with inflammatory breast cancer do not receive all available types of guideline-concordant care they are eligible for. Additionally, data showed disparities regarding receipt of modality-specific therapy among patients who were Black, Asian, Hispanic, or other racial minority populations. Based on these findings, Fayanju highlighted potential next steps for mitigating these gaps in care for certain patients with breast cancer. These strategies included revising stringent inclusion criteria for clinical trial enrollment, which may disproportionately exclude racial minority populations who have higher rates of diabetes or other medical conditions. Fayanju also emphasized educating clinicians across different oncology specialties to recognize how different populations present with inflammatory breast cancer and better understand the context in which patients receive treatment. “I hope [the study] makes some people angry…Frustration can be a wonderful fuel,” Fayanju stated regarding her research. “[By] recognizing that there isn't as much guideline-concordant care receipt amongst all people as there should be and the hope that's provided when we achieve concordant care, we can mitigate and eliminate racial disparities. I hope [that] will motivate people to think about how we can get more guideline-concordant care to more people and how we can incorporate diverse populations in the development of guidelines for concordant care at the beginning. Then, how can we also develop treatments that achieve efficacious results across diverse populations?” Fayanju is the Helen O. Dickens Presidential Associate Professor, chief in the Division of Breast Surgery at Penn Medicine, surgical director of Rena Rowan Breast Center, director of Health Equity Innovation at Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I), and senior fellow at Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI), Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Reference Tadros A, Diskin B, Sevilimedu V, et al. Trends in guideline-concordant care for inflammatory breast cancer. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(2):e2454506. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.54506

When it comes to tackling fertility issues associated with cancer, “oncology clinicians are often reluctant to talk about this because it is really not our wheelhouse,” says Alison Wakoff Loren, MD, MSCE, chief of the Division of Hematology Oncology, director of Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation, and the C. Willard Robinson Professor of Hematology-Oncology at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia. Dr. Loren and colleagues recently updated American Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines for fertility preservation in people with cancer. She discusses the key changes with Robert Figlin, MD, interim director at Cedars Sinai Cancer Center in Los Angeles and the Steven Spielberg Family Chair in Hematology-Oncology. “This is a really important topic that I think sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the hecticness of a young person's cancer diagnosis,” Dr. Loren explains. Increased awareness among oncologists is a crucial step that can lead to faster referrals and interventions, she says. “You better be ready for the conversation,” she urges. Dr. Loren reported research funding from Equillium (Inst). Dr. Figlin reported various financial relationships.

April 9, 2025: Kate Gamble and Sarah Richardson discuss a class action lawsuit filed against Penn Medicine regarding its exclusive contract with Independence Blue Cross. The hosts explore how this exclusivity affects patient choice, healthcare access, and market competition in the Philadelphia region. The conversation highlights the growing national scrutiny of healthcare consolidation and encourages IT leaders to evaluate whether their partnerships and systems enhance or restrict patient choice.X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Electrocardiologist Matthew A. Bernabei, MD, examines the history of ablation for atrial fibrillation and its latest iteration, pulsed field ablation, or PFA. Now available at Penn Medicine, PFA uses an electrical field rather than radiofrequency or cryotherapy to treat the aberrant signals that are the source of Afib. Unlike other ablation modalities, PFA is cardio-selective, and thus poses little risk to structures near the heart, including the esophagus.Refer a patient:Call our 24/7 provider-only line at (877) 937-7366Submit via our secure online referral form

In this episode, Scott Becker covers seven major healthcare stories, from layoffs at Washington Health System and Penn Medicine to policy changes, hospital consolidations, and leadership updates—including Dr. Mehmet Oz's CMS confirmation progress.

I speak to Dr. Oluwadamilola "Lola" Fayanju, Chief of the Division of Breast Surgery at Penn Medicine.  Dr, Fayanju discusses the factors that have resulted in higher mortality rates for Black Women and the critical importance of early detection and knowing family history.  https://pennmedicine.org/BreastCancerCare  

As health systems seek solutions to workforce challenges, AI is emerging as a tool to ease the burden on nurses. At Penn Medicine, AI-driven innovations are being explored to streamline workflows, improve documentation, and reduce clinician burnout. Anna Schoenbaum, DNP, MS, RN, VP of Applications, Digital Health & Predictive Health at Penn Medicine, highlighted the […] Source: Properly Leveraging AI to Empower Nurses and Reduce Burnout Takes Careful Study & Deep Engagement on healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.

About Kevin Mahoney:Kevin B. Mahoney is the Chief Executive Officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, a cornerstone of Penn Medicine. Overseeing six hospitals, 13 multispecialty centers, and numerous outpatient facilities across Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, he leads efforts to advance patient care, medical education, and research. Since joining Penn Medicine in 1996, Mahoney has held key leadership roles, becoming CEO in 2019. He has spearheaded major initiatives, including the development of the 1.5-million-square-foot Pavilion and the integration of Penn Medicine's electronic health records system. A champion of health equity, he established a partnership with Wharton to invest in businesses addressing social determinants of health. Recognized among the most influential figures in healthcare, Mahoney holds an MBA and doctorate from Temple University.Things You'll Learn:The healthcare field faces a critical talent shortage due to retiring baby boomers and a smaller subsequent generation demanding innovative solutions. Cultural shifts are crucial to attracting talent to science and medicine, emphasizing the nobility of healthcare professions over purely financial incentives.Healthcare organizations must remain agile and adaptable, embracing new regulations and technological advancements while staying focused on what matters most: patient care.Artificial intelligence is a crucial tool for achieving precision medicine, enabling proactive healthcare interventions based on individual patient profiles.By repairing systems and improving clinical outcomes, healthcare systems can find ways to continue improving the landscape.Resources:Connect with and follow Kevin Mahoney on LinkedIn.Discover more about Penn Medicine's University of Pennsylvania Health System on their LinkedIn and website.

Become a mini geriatrician in our new Geriatrics series! Geriatricize your knowledge of caring for older adults with unintentional weight loss! You'll round out your history taking and weight gain plan by harnessing the age-friendly “5Ms”. We're joined by Dr. Eva Szymanski (@eva_szy), expert geriatrician at Penn Medicine. Claim CME for this episode at curbsiders.vcuhealth.org! Patreon | Episodes | Subscribe | Spotify | YouTube | Newsletter | Contact | Swag! | CME Show Segments Intro Rapid fire questions Case Defining Unintentional Weight Loss Applying the Geriatric 5Ms Framework Diagnostic Work-Up Addressing Ageism in Medical Decisions Defining Geriatric Syndromes Weight Loss Treatments Outro Credits Producer: Leah Witt, MD, Rachel Miller, MD, MSEd Writers: Abigail Schmucker, MD, Joseph Young, MD, Margaret Heller, MD, Alyson Michener, MD, Leah Witt, MD Show Notes, Infographic and Cover Art: Leah Witt, MD Hosts: Matthew Watto MD, FACP; Paul Williams MD, FACP    Reviewer: Molly Heublein, MD Showrunners: Matthew Watto MD, FACP; Paul Williams MD, FACP Technical Production: PodPaste Guest: Eva Szymanski, MD Sponsor: Quince Upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to Quince.com/curb for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Sponsor: Freed Visit Freed.ai and use code CURB50 to get $50 off your first month.  Sponsor: Mint Mobile Switch to Mint and new customers can get half off an Unlimited plan until February 2. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to MINTMOBILE.com/curb

Can listening to music assist patients' recovery in the perioperative period? On this episode of HSS Presents, Dr. Stephanie Cheng, an anesthesiologist and director of the Perioperative Integrative Medicine program at HSS, talks with Dr. Veena Graff, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist at Penn Medicine, about the use of music as medicine. They discuss the evidence on using soothing music as a complementary, nonpharmacologic method—pre-, intra-, or postoperatively—and how to implement it for surgical patients.

In this episode of The Brave Enough Show, Dr. Sasha Shillcutt and Dr. Lindsay Semler discuss:   The difference between Moral Distress versus Moral Injury and what it means to those of us in healthcare  How to process failure in our jobs and our lives  How to speak up even when you don't feel safe to do so.     Quote: “The majority of decisions we make every day in healthcare are ethical, moral decisions. They are the hard ones, and the ones where we must feel we have a voice.” Dr. Lindsay Semler      Guest Bio:  Dr. Lindsay Semler is the Executive Director of Clinical Ethics and Department of Medicine Faculty at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. She is also the Founder & President of Semler Ethics Consulting, LLC. Her background includes critical care and emergency nursing experience, as well as education, quality improvement, and leadership at UPMC and Penn Medicine. She was also the director of the system-wide Ethics program at INTEGRIS Health. Lindsay obtained her BSN and MSN from the University of Pittsburgh, Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with a focus on moral distress from Johns Hopkins, and the Advanced Training in Healthcare Ethics certificate from the University of Washington. She is certified as a Healthcare Ethics Consultant (HEC-C) and critical care nurse (CCRN). Her bioethical areas of interest focus on organizational and preventive healthcare ethics, addressing moral distress, and teaching future generations of healthcare providers.    Lindsay Semler, DNP, RN, CCRN, HEC-C   Executive Director | Ethics Service, Brigham and Women's Hospital  Co-Chair | Ethics Committee, Brigham and Women's Hospital  Faculty | Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital  Lecturer | Harvard Medical School  Member | Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School  Founder & President | Semler Ethics Consulting https://semlerethicsconsulting.com           Episode Links:  REVIVE Retreat Brave Ballance   Follow Brave Enough:   WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN Join The Table, Brave Enough's community. The ONLY professional membership group that meets both the professional and personal needs of high-achieving women.

American healthcare is well known for its extreme cost and worst outcomes among industrialized (such as the 38 OECD member) countries, and beyond that to be remarkably opaque. The high cost of prescription drugs contributes, and little has been done to change that except for the government passing the Affordable Insulin Now Act at the end of 2022, enacted in 2023. But in January 2022 Mark Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs that has transformed how many Americans can get their prescriptions filled at a fraction of the prevailing prices, bypassing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that control 80% of US prescriptions. That was just the beginning of a path of creative destruction (disruptive innovation, after Schumpeter) of many key components American healthcare that Cuban is leading, with Cost Plus Marketplace, Cost Plus Wellness and much more to come. He certainly qualifies as a master disrupter: “someone who is a leader in innovation and is not afraid to challenge the status quo.” Below is a video clip from our conversation dealing with insurance companies. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with External links to Audio (00:07):Hello, it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I have our special phenomenal guest today, Mark Cuban, who I think you know him from his tech world contributions and Dallas Mavericks, and the last few years he's been shaking up healthcare with Cost Plus Drugs. So Mark, welcome.Mark Cuban (00:25):Thanks for having me, Eric.Eric Topol (00:27):Yeah, I mean, what you're doing, you've become a hero to millions of Americans getting them their medications at a fraction of the cost they're used to. And you are really challenging the PBM industry, which I've delved into more than ever, just in prep for our conversation. It's just amazing what this group of companies, namely the three big three CVS Caremark, Optum of UnitedHealth and Express Scripts of Cigna with a market of almost $600 billion this year, what they're doing, how can they get away with all this stuff?Inner Workings of Pharmacy Benefit ManagersMark Cuban (01:03):I mean, they're just doing business. I really don't blame them. I blame the people who contract with them. All the companies, particularly the bigger companies, the self-insured companies, where the CEO really doesn't have an understanding of their healthcare or pharmacy benefits. And so, the big PBMs paid them rebates, which they think is great if you're a CEO, when in reality it's really just a loan against the money spent by your sickest employees, and they just don't understand that. So a big part of my time these days is going to CEOs and sitting with them and explaining to them that you're getting ripped off on both your pharmacy and your healthcare side.Eric Topol (01:47):Yeah, it's amazing to me the many ways that they get away with this. I mean, they make companies sign NDAs. They're addicted to rebates. They have all sorts of ways a channel of funds to themselves. I mean, all the things you could think of whereby they even have these GPOs. Each of these companies has a group purchasing organization (I summarized in the Table below).Mark Cuban (02:12):Yeah, which gives them, it's crazy because with those GPOs. The GPO does the deal with the pharmacy manufacturer. Then the GPO also does the deal with the PBM, and then the PBM goes to the self-insured employer in particular and says, hey, we're going to pass through all the rebates. But what they don't say is they've already skimmed off 5%, 10%, 20% or more off the top through their GPO. But that's not even the worst of it. That's just money, right? I mean, that's important, but I mean, even the biggest companies rarely own their own claims data.Mark Cuban (02:45):Now think about what that means. It means you can't get smarter about the wellness of your employees and their families. You want to figure out the best way to do GLP-1s and figure out how to reduce diabetes, whatever it may be. You don't have that claims data. And then they don't allow the companies to control their own formularies. So we've seen Humira biosimilars come out and the big PBMs have done their own version of the biosimilar where we have a product called Yusimry, which is only $594 a month, which is cheaper than the cheapest biosimilar that the big three are selling. And so, you would think in a normal relationship, they would want to bring on this new product to help the employer. No, they won't do it. If the employer asks, can I just add Cost Plus Drugs to my network? They'll say no, every single time.Mark Cuban (03:45):Their job is not to save the employer money, particularly after they've given a rebate. Because once they give that loan, that rebate to the employer, they need to get that money back. It's not a gift. It's a loan and they need to have the rebates, and we don't do rebates with them at all. And I can go down the list. They don't control the formula. They don't control, you mentioned the NDAs. They can't talk to manufacturers, so they can't go to Novo or to Lilly and say, let's put together a GLP-1 wellness program. All these different things that just are common sense. It's not happening. And so, the good news is when I walk into these companies that self-insured and talk to the CEO or CFO, I'm not asking them to do something that's not in their best interest or not in the best interest of the lives they cover. I'm saying, we can save you money and you can improve the wellness of your employees and their families. Where's the downside?Eric Topol (04:40):Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the reason they can't see the claims is because of the privacy issues?Mark Cuban (04:46):No, no. That's just a business decision in the contract that the PBMs have made. You can go and ask. I mean, you have every right to your own claims. You don't need to have it personally identified. You want to find out how many people have GLP-1s or what are the trends, or God forbid there's another Purdue Pharma thing going on, and someone prescribing lots of opioids. You want to be able to see those things, but they won't do it. And that's only on the sponsor side. It's almost as bad if not worse on the manufacturer side.Eric Topol (05:20):Oh, yeah. Well, some of the work of PBMs that you've been talking about were well chronicled in the New York Times, a couple of major articles by Reed Abelson and Rebecca Robbins: The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs and The Powerful Companies Driving Local Drugstores Out of Business. We'll link those because I think some people are not aware of all the things that are going on in the background.Mark Cuban (05:39):You see in their study and what they reported on the big PBMs, it's crazy the way it works. And literally if there was transparency, like Cost Plus offers, the cost of medications across the country could come down 20%, 30% or more.Cost Plus DrugsEric Topol (05:55):Oh, I mean, it is amazing, really. And now let's get into Cost Plus. I know that a radiologist, Alex Oshmyansky contacted you with a cold email a little over three years ago, and you formed Cost Plus Drugs on the basis of that, right?Mark Cuban (06:12):Yep, that's exactly what happened.Eric Topol (06:15):I give you credit for responding to cold emails and coming up with a brilliant idea with this and getting behind it and putting your name behind it. And what you've done, so you started out with something like 110 generics and now you're up well over 1,200 or 2,500 or something like that?Mark Cuban (06:30):And adding brands. And so, started with 111. Now we're around 2,500 and trying to grow it every single day. And not only that, just to give people an overview. When you go to www.costplusdrugs.com and you put in the name of your medication, let's just say it's tadalafil, and if it comes up. In this case, it will. It'll show you our actual cost, and then we just mark it up 15%. It's the same markup for everybody, and if you want it, we'll have a pharmacist check it. And so, that's a $5 fee. And then if you want ship to mail order, it's $5 for shipping. And if you want to use our pharmacy network, then we can connect you there and you can just pick it up at a local pharmacy.Eric Topol (07:10):Yeah, no, it's transparency. We don't have a lot of that in healthcare in America, right?Mark Cuban (07:15):No. And literally, Eric, the smartest thing that we did, and we didn't expect this, it's always the law of unintended consequences. The smartest thing we did was publish our entire price list because that allowed any company, any sponsor, CMS, researchers to compare our prices to what others were already paying. And we've seen studies come out saying, for this X number of urology drugs, CMS would save $3.6 billion a year. For this number of heart drugs at this amount per year, for chemotherapy drugs or MS drugs this amount. And so, it's really brought attention to the fact that for what PBMs call specialty drugs, whether there's nothing special about them, we can save people a lot of money.Eric Topol (08:01):It's phenomenal. As a cardiologist, I looked up a couple of the drugs that I'm most frequently prescribed, just like Rosuvastatin what went down from $134 to $5.67 cents or Valsartan it went down from $69 to $7.40 cents. But of course, there's some that are much more dramatic, like as you mentioned, whether it's drugs for multiple sclerosis, the prostate cancer. I mean, some of these are just thousands and thousands of dollars per month that are saved, brought down to levels that you wouldn't think would even be conceivable. And this has been zero marketing, right?Mark Cuban (08:42):Yeah, none. It's all been word of mouth and my big mouth, of course. Going out there and doing interviews like this and going to major media, but it's amazing. We get emails and letters and people coming up to us almost single day saying, you saved my grandma's life. You saved my life. We weren't going to be able to afford our imatinib or our MS medication. And it went from being quoted $2,000 a month to $33 a month. It's just insane things like that that are still happening.Eric Topol (09:11):Well, this is certainly one of the biggest shakeups to occur in US healthcare in years. And what you've done in three years is just extraordinary. This healthcare in this country is with its over 4 trillion, pushing $5 trillion a year of expenditure.[New CMS report this week pegs the number at $4.867 trillion for 2023]Mark Cuban (09:30):It's interesting. I think it's really fixable. This has been the easiest industry to the disrupt I've ever been involved in. And it's not even close because all it took was transparency and not jacking up margins to market. We choose to use a fixed margin markup. Some choose to price to market, the Martin Shkreli approach, if you will. And just by being transparent, we've had an impact. And the other side of it is, it's the same concept on the healthcare side. Transparency helps, but to go a little field of pharmacy if you want. The insane part, and this applies to care and pharmacy, whatever plan we have, whether it's for health or whether it's for pharmaceuticals, there's typically a deductible, typically a copay, and typically a co-insurance.Insurance CompaniesMark Cuban (10:20):The crazy part of all that is that people taking the default risk, the credit risk are the providers. It's you, it's the hospital, it's the clinics that you work for. Which makes no sense whatsoever that the decisions that you or I make for our personal insurance or for the companies we run, or if we work for the government, what we do with Medicare or Medicare Advantage, the decisions we all make impacts the viability of providers starting with the biggest hospital systems. And so, as a result, they become subprime lenders without a car or a house to go after if they can't collect. And so, now you see a bunch of people, particularly those under the ACA with the $9,000, the bronze plans or $18,000 out-of-pocket limits go into debt, significant medical debt. And it's unfortunate. We look at the people who are facing these problems and think, well, it must be the insurance companies.Mark Cuban (11:23):It's actually not even the insurance companies. It's the overall design of the system. But underneath that, it's still whoever picks the insurance companies and sets plans that allow those deductibles, that's the core of the problem. And until we get to a system where the providers aren't responsible for the credit for defaults and dealing with all that credit risk, it's almost going to be impossible to change. Because when you see stories like we've all seen in news of a big healthcare, a BUCA healthcare (Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), UnitedHealth, Cigna, and Aetna/CVS) plan with all the pre-authorizations and denials, typically they're not even taking the insurance risk. They're acting as the TPA (third party administrator) as the claims processor effectively for whoever hired them. And it goes back again, just like I talked about before. And as long as CMS hires or allows or accepts these BUCAs with these plans for Medicare for the ACA (Affordable care Act), whatever it may be, it's not going to work. As long as self-insured employers and the 50 million lives they cover hire these BUCAs to act as the TPAs, not as insurance companies and give them leeway on what to approve and what to authorize and what not to authorize. The system's going to be a mess, and that's where we are today.Academic Health System PartnershipsEric Topol (12:41):Yeah. Well, you've been talking of course to employers and enlightening them, and you're also enlightening the public, of course. That's why you have millions of people that are saving their cost of medications, but recently you struck a partnership with Penn Medicine. That's amazing. So is that your first academic health system that you approached?Cost Plus MarketplaceMark Cuban (13:00):I don't know if it was the first we approached, but it was certainly one of the biggest that we signed. We've got Cost Plus Marketplace (CPM) where we make everything from injectables to you name it, anything a hospital might buy. But again, at a finite markup, we make eight and a half percent I think when it's all said and done. And that saves hospital systems millions of dollars a year.Eric Topol (13:24):Yeah. So that's a big change in the way you're proceeding because what it was just pills that you were buying from the pharma companies, now you're actually going to make injectables and you're going to have a manufacturing capability. Is that already up and going?Mark Cuban (13:39):That's all up and going as of March. We're taking sterile injectables that are on the shortage list, generic and manufacturing them in Dallas using a whole robotics manufacturing plant that really Alex created. He's the rocket scientist behind it. And we're limited in capacity now, we're limited about 2 million vials, but we'll sell those to Cost Plus Marketplace, and we'll also sell those direct. So Cost Plus Marketplace isn't just the things we manufacture. It's a wide variety of products that hospitals buy that we then have a minimal markup, and then for the stuff we manufacture, we'll sell those to direct to like CHS was our first customer.Eric Topol (14:20):Yeah, that's a big expansion from going from the pills to this. Wow.Mark Cuban (14:24):It's a big, big expansion, but it goes to the heart of being transparent and not being greedy, selling on a markup. And ourselves as a company, being able to remain lean and mean. The only way we can sell at such a low markup. We have 20 employees on the Cost Plus side and 40 employees involved with the factories, and that's it.Eric Topol (14:46):Wow. So with respect to, you had this phenomenal article and interview with WIRED Magazine just this past week. I know Lauren Goode interviewed you, and she said, Mark, is this really altruistic and I love your response. You said, “how much f*****g money do I need? I'm not trying to land on Mars.” And then you said, “at this point in my life, it's just like more money, or f**k up the healthcare industry.” This was the greatest, Mark. I mean, I got to tell you, it was really something.Mark Cuban (15:18):Yeah.Eric Topol (15:19):Well, in speaking of that, of course, the allusion to a person we know well, Elon. He posted on X/Twitter in recent days , I think just three or four days ago, shouldn't the American people be getting their money's worth? About this high healthcare administration costs where the US is completely away from any other OECD country. And as you and I know, we have the worst outcomes and the most costs of all the rich countries in the world. There's just nothing new here. Maybe it's new to him, but you had a fabulous response on both X and Bluesky where you went over all these things point by point. And of course, the whole efforts that you've been working on now for three years. You also mentioned something that was really interesting that I didn't know about were these ERISA lawsuits[Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974.] Can you tell us about that?ERISA LawsuitsMark Cuban (16:13):Yeah, that's a great question, Eric. So for self-insured companies in particular, we have a fiduciary responsibility on a wellness and on a financial basis to offer the members, your employees and their families the best outcomes at the best price. Now, you can't guarantee best outcomes, but you have to be able to explain the choices you made. You don't have to pick the cheapest, but again, you have to be able to explain why you made the choices that you did. And because a lot of companies have been doing, just like we discussed earlier, doing deals on the pharmacy side with just these big PBMs, without accounting for best practices, best price, best outcomes, a couple companies got sued. Johnson and Johnson and Wells Fargo were the first to get sued. And I think that's just the beginning. That's just the writing on the wall. I think they'll lose because they just dealt with the big pharmacy PBMs. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're so busy at Cost Plus and why I'm so busy because we're having conversation after conversation with companies and plenty of enough lawyers for that matter who want to see a price list and be able to compare what they're paying to what we sell for to see if they're truly living up to that responsibility.Eric Topol (17:28):Yeah, no, that's a really important thing that's going on right now that I think a lot of people don't know about. Now, the government of the US think because it's the only government of any rich country in the world, if not any country that doesn't negotiate prices, i.e., CMS or whatever. And only with the recent work of insulin, which is a single one drug, was there reduction of price. And of course, it's years before we'll see other drugs. How could this country not negotiate drugs all these years where every other place in the world they do negotiate with pharma?Mark Cuban (18:05):Because as we alluded to earlier, the first line in every single pharmaceutical and healthcare contract says, you can't talk about this contract. It's like fight club. The number one rule of fight club is you can't talk about fight club, and it's really difficult to negotiate prices when it's opaque and everything's obfuscated where you can't really get into the details. So it's not that we're not capable of it, but it's just when there's no data there, it's really difficult because look, up until we started publishing our prices, how would anybody know?Mark Cuban (18:39):I mean, how was anybody going to compare numbers? And so, when the government or whoever started to negotiate, they tried to protect themselves and they tried to get data, but those big PBMs certainly have not been forthcoming. We've come along and publish our price list and all that starts to change. Now in terms of the bigger picture, there is a solution there, as I said earlier, but it really comes down to talking to the people who make the decisions to hire the big insurance companies and the big PBMs and telling them, no, you're not acting in your own best interest. Here's anybody watching out there. Ask your PBM if they can audit. If you can audit rather your PBM contract. What they'll tell you is, yeah, you can, but you have to use our people. It's insane. And that's from top to bottom. And so, I'm a big believer that if we can get starting with self-insured employers to act in their own best interest, and instead of working with a big PBM work with a pass-through PBM. A pass-through PBM will allow you to keep your own claims, own all your own data, allow you to control your own formulary.Mark Cuban (19:54):You make changes where necessary, no NDA, so you can't talk to manufacturers. All these different abilities that just seem to make perfect sense are available to all self-insured employers. And if the government, same thing. If the government requires pass-through PBMs, the price of medications will drop like a rock.Eric Topol (20:16):Is that possible? You think that could happen?Mark Cuban (20:19):Yes. Somebody's got to understand it and do it. I'm out there screaming, but we will see what happens with the new administration. There's nothing hard about it. And it's the same thing with Medicare and Medicare Advantage healthcare plans. There's nothing that says you have to use the biggest companies. Now, the insurance companies have to apply and get approved, but again, there's a path there to work with companies that can reduce costs and improve outcomes. The biggest challenge in my mind, and I'm still trying to work through this to fully understand it. I think where we really get turned upside down as a country is we try to avoid fraud from the provider perspective and the patient perspective. We're terrified that patients are going to use too much healthcare, and like everybody's got Munchausen disease.Mark Cuban (21:11):And we're terrified that the providers are going to charge too much or turn into Purdue Pharma and over-prescribe or one of these surgery mills that just is having somebody get surgery just so they can make money. So in an effort to avoid those things, we ask the insurance companies and the PBMs to do pre-authorizations, and that's the catch 22. How do we find a better way to deal with fraud at the patient and provider level? Because once we can do that, and maybe it's AI, maybe it's accepting fraud, maybe it's imposing criminal penalties if somebody does those things. But once we can overcome that, then it becomes very transactional. Because the reality is most insurance companies aren't insurance companies. 50 million lives are covered by self-insured employers that use the BUCAs, the big insurance companies, but not as insurance companies.Eric Topol (22:07):Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because if you look at these three big PBMs that control about 80% of the market, not the pass-throughs that you just mentioned, but the big ones, they each are owned by an insurance company. And so, when the employer says, okay, we're going to cover your healthcare stuff here, we're going to cover your prescriptions there.Mark Cuban (22:28):Yeah, it's all vertically integrated.Mark Cuban (22:36):And it gets even worse than that, Eric. So they also own specialty pharmacies, “specialty pharmacies” that will require you to buy from. And as I alluded to earlier, a lot of these medications like Imatinib, they'll list as being a specialty medication, but it's a pill. There's nothing special about it, but it allows them to charge a premium. And that's a big part of how the PBMs make a lot of their money, the GPO stuff we talked about, but also forcing an employer to go through the specialty mail order company that charges an arm and the leg.Impact on Hospitals and ProceduresEric Topol (23:09):Yeah. Well, and the point you made about transparency, we've seen this of course across US healthcare. So for example, as you know, if you were to look at what does it cost to have an operation like let's say a knee replacement at various hospitals, you can find that it could range fivefold. Of course, you actually get the cost, and it could be the hospital cost, and then there's the professional cost. And the same thing occurs for if you're having a scan, if you're having an MRI here or there. So these are also this lack of transparency and it's hard to get to the numbers, of course. There seems to be so many other parallels to the PBM story. Would you go to these other areas you think in the future?Mark Cuban (23:53):Yeah, we're doing it now. I'm doing it. So we have this thing called project dog food, and what it is, it's for my companies and what we've done is say, look, let's understand how the money works in healthcare.Mark Cuban (24:05):And when you think about it, when you go to get that knee done, what happens? Well, they go to your insurance company to get a pre-authorization. Your doctor says you need a knee replacement. I got both my hips replaced. Let's use that. Doctor says, Mark, you need your hips replaced. Great, right? Let's set up an appointment. Well, first the insurance company has to authorize it, okay, they do or they don't, but the doctor eats their time up trying to deal with the pre-authorization. And if it's denied, the doctor's time is eaten up and an assistance's time is eaten up. Some other administrator's time is eaten up, the employer's time is eaten up. So that's one significant cost. And then from there, there's a deductible. Now I can afford my deductible, but if there is an individual getting that hip replacement who can't afford the deductible, now all of a sudden you're still going to be required to do that hip replacement, most likely.Mark Cuban (25:00):Because in most of these contracts that self-insured employers sign, Medicare Advantage has, Medicare has, it says that between the insurance company and the provider, in this case, the hospital, you have to do the operation even if the deductibles not paid. So now the point of all this is you have the hospital in this case potentially accumulating who knows how much bad debt. And it's not just the lost amount of millions and millions and billions across the entire healthcare spectrum that's there. It's all the incremental administrative costs. The lawyers, the benefits for those people, the real estate, the desk, the office space, all that stuff adds up to $10 billion plus just because the hospitals take on that credit default risk. But wait, there's more. So now the surgery happens, you send the bill to the insurance company. The insurance company says, well, we're not going to pay you. Well, we have a contract. This is what it says, hip replacement's $34,000. Well, we don't care first, we're going to wait. So we get the time value of money, and then we're going to short pay you.Mark Cuban (26:11):So the hospital gets short paid. So what do they have to do? They have to sue them or send letters or whatever it is to try to get their money. When we talk to the big hospital systems, they say that's 2%. That's 2% of their revenue. So you have all these associated credit loss dollars, you've got the 2% of, in a lot of cases, billions and billions of dollars. And so, when you add all those things up, what happens? Well, what happens is because the providers are losing all that money and having to spend all those incremental dollars for the administration of all that, they have to jack up prices.Eric Topol (26:51):Yeah. Right.Mark Cuban (26:53):So what we have done, we've said, look for my companies, we're going to pay you cash. We're going to pay you cash day one. When Mark gets that hip replacement, that checks in the bank before the operation starts, if that's the way you want it. Great, they're not going to have pre-authorizations. We're going to trust you until you give us a reason not to trust you. We're not short paying, obviously, because we're paying cash right there then.Mark Cuban (27:19):But in a response for all that, because we're cutting out all those ancillary costs and credit risk, I want Medicare pricing. Now the initial response is, well, Medicare prices, that's awful. We can't do it. Well, when you really think about the cost and operating costs of a hospital, it's not the doctors, it's not the facilities, it's all the administration that cost all the money. It's all the credit risks that cost all the money. And so, if you remove that credit risk and all the administration, all those people, all that real estate, all those benefits and overhead associated with them, now all of a sudden selling at a Medicare price for that hip replacement is really profitable.Eric Topol (28:03):Now, is that a new entity Cost Plus healthcare?Mark Cuban (28:07):Well, it's called Cost Plus Wellness. It's not an entity. What we're going to do, so the part I didn't mention is all the direct contracts that we do that have all these pieces, as part of them that I just mentioned, we're going to publish them.Eric Topol (28:22):Ah, okay.Mark Cuban (28:23):And you can see exactly what we've done. And if you think about the real role of the big insurances companies for hospitals, it's a sales funnel.Getting Rid of Insurance CompaniesEric Topol (28:33):Yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, I really was intrigued because you did a podcast interview with Andrew Beam and the New England Journal of Medicine AI, and in that they talked about getting rid of the insurers, the insurance industry, just getting rid of it and just make it a means test for people. So it's not universal healthcare, it's a different model that you described. Can you go over that? I thought it was fantastic.Mark Cuban (29:00):Two pieces there. Let's talk about universal healthcare first. So for my companies, for our project dog food for the Mark Cuban companies, if for any employee or any of the lives we cover, if they work within network, anybody we have the direct contract with its single-payer. They pay their premiums, but they pay nothing else out of pocket. That's the definition of single-payer.Eric Topol (29:24):Yeah.Mark Cuban (29:25):So if we can get all this done, then the initial single-payers will be self-insured employers because it'll be more cost effective to them to do this approach. We hope, we still have to play it all through. So that's part one. In terms of everybody else, then you can say, why do we need insurance companies if they're not even truly acting as insurance companies? You're not taking full risk because even if it's Medicare Advantage, they're getting a capitated amount per month. And then that's getting risk adjusted because of the population you have, and then there's also an index depending on the location, so there's more or less money that occurs then. So let's just do what we need to do in this particular case, because the government is effectively eliminating the risk for the insurance company for the most part. And if you look at the margins for Medicare Advantage, I was just reading yesterday, it's like $1,700 a year for the average Medicare Advantage plan. So it's not like they're taking a lot of risk. All they're doing is trying to deny as many claims as they can.Eric Topol (30:35):Deny, Deny. Yeah.Mark Cuban (30:37):So instead, let's just get somebody who's a TPA, somebody who does the transaction, the claims processing, and whoever's in charge. It could be CMS, can set the terms for what's accepted and what's denied, and you can have a procedure for people that get denied that want to challenge it. And that's great, there's one in place now, but you make it a little simpler. But you take out the economics for the insurance company to just deny, deny, deny. There's no capitation. There's no nothing.Mark Cuban (31:10):The government just says, okay, we're hiring this TPA to handle the claims processing. It is your job. We're paying you per transaction.Mark Cuban (31:18):You don't get paid more if you deny. You don't get paid less if you deny. There's no bonuses if you keep it under a certain amount, there's no penalties If you go above a certain amount. We want you just to make sure that the patient involved is getting the best care, end of story. And if there's fraud involved as the government, because we have access to all that claims data, we're going to introduce AI that reviews that continuously.Mark Cuban (31:44):So that we can see things that are outliers or things that we question, and there's going to mean mistakes, but the bet was, if you will, where we save more and get better outcomes that way versus the current system and I think we will. Now, what ends up happening on top of that, once you have all that claims data and all that information and everybody's interest is aligned, best care at the best price, no denials unless it's necessary, reduce and eliminate fraud. Once everybody's in alignment, then as long as that's transparent. If the city of Dallas decides for all the lives they cover the 300,000 lives they cover between pharmacy and healthcare, we can usually in actuarial tables and some statistical analysis, we can say, you know what, even with a 15% tolerance, it's cheaper for us just to pay upfront and do this single-pay program, all our employees in the lives we cover, because we know what it's going to take.Mark Cuban (32:45):If the government decides, well, instead of Medicare Advantage the way it was, we know all the costs. Now we can say for all Medicare patients, we'll do Medicare for all, simply because we have definitive and deterministic pricing. Great. Now, there's still going to be outlier issues like all the therapies that cost a million dollars or whatever. But my attitude there is if CMS goes to Lilly, Novo, whoever for their cure for blindness that's $3.4 million. Well, that's great, but what we'll say is, okay, give us access to your books. We want to know what your breakeven point is. What is that breakeven point annually? We'll write you a check for that.Eric Topol (33:26):Yeah.Mark Cuban (33:27):If we have fewer patients than need that, okay, you win. If we have more patients than need that, it's like a Netflix subscription with unlimited subscribers, then we will have whatever it is, because then the manufacturer doesn't lose money, so they can't complain about R&D and not being able to make money. And that's for the CMS covered population. You can do a Netflix type subscription for self-insured employers. Hey, it's 25 cents per month per employee or per life covered for the life of the patent, and we'll commit to that. And so, now all of a sudden you get to a point where healthcare starts becoming not only transparent but deterministic.Eric Topol (34:08):Yeah. What you outline here in these themes are extraordinary. And one of the other issues that you are really advocating is patient empowerment, but one of the problems we have in the US is that people don't own their data. They don't even have all their data. I expect you'd be a champion of that as well.Mark Cuban (34:27):Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, look, I've got into arguments with doctors and public health officials about things like getting your own blood tested. I've been an advocate of getting my own blood tested for 15 years, and it helped me find out that I needed thyroid medication and all of these things. So I'm a big advocate. There's some people that think that too much data gives you a lot of false positives, and people get excited in this day and age to get more care when it should only be done if there are symptoms. I'm not a believer in that at all. I think now, particularly as AI becomes more applicable and available, you'll be able to be smarter about the data you capture. And that was always my final argument. Either you trust doctors, or you don't. Because even if there's an aberrational TSH reading and minus 4.4 and it's a little bit high, well the doctor's going to say, well, let's do another blood test in a month or two. The doctor is still the one that has to write the prescription. There's no downside to trusting your doctor in my mind.Eric Topol (35:32):And what you're bringing up is that we're already seeing how AI can pick up things even in the normal range, the trends long before a clinician physician would pick it up. Now, last thing I want to say is you are re-imagining healthcare like no one. I mean, there's what you're doing here. It started with some pills and it's going in a lot of different directions. You are rocking it here. I didn't even know some of the latest things that you're up to. This seems to be the biggest thing you've ever done.Mark Cuban (36:00):I hope so.Mark Cuban (36:01):I mean, like we said earlier, what could be better than people saying our healthcare system is good. What changed? That Cuban guy.Eric Topol (36:10):Well, did you give up Shark Tank so you could put more energy into this?Mark Cuban (36:16):Not really. It was more for my kids.Eric Topol (36:19):Okay, okay.Mark Cuban (36:20):They go hand in hand, obviously. I can do this stuff at home as opposed to sitting on a set wondering if I should invest in Dude Wipes again.Eric Topol (36:28):Well, look, we're cheering for you. This is, I've not seen a shakeup in my life in American healthcare like this. You are just rocking. It's fantastic.Mark Cuban (36:37):Everybody out there that's watching, check out www.costplusdrugs.com, check out Cost Plus Marketplace, which is business.costplusdrugs.com and just audit everything. What I'm trying to do is say, okay, if it's 1955 and we're starting healthcare all over again, how would we do it? And really just keep it simple. Look to where the risk is and remove the risk where possible. And then it comes down to who do you trust and make sure you trust but verify. Making sure there aren't doctors or systems that are outliers and making sure that there aren't companies that are outliers or patients rather that are outliers. And so, I think there's a path there. It's not nearly as difficult, it's just starting them with corporations, getting those CEOs to get educated and act in their own best interest.Eric Topol (37:32):Well, you're showing us the way. No question. So thanks so much for joining, and we'll be following this with really deep interest because you're moving at high velocity, and thank you.**************************************************Thank you for reading, listening and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this fun and informative please share it!All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary. All proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. I welcome all comments from paid subscribers and will do my best to respond to each of them and any questions.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and to Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.FootnoteThe PBMS (finally) are under fire—2 articles from the past week Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

U.S. Steel plans a rally today in Western Pennsylvania to support its acquisition by Nippon Steel, even as reports suggest President Joe Biden will block the sale. Western Pennsylvania oil and gas company PennEnergy will pay a $2 million penalty, and reduce pollution from its facilities, in a proposed settlement with the Justice Department. Penn Medicine is teaming up with billionaire investor Mark Cuban and his prescription marketplace company. New York City’s police commissioner says the gun found on the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO matches shell casings found at the crime scene. Luigi Mangione was arrested in Altoona this week. The Hershey Trust says not so fast to a bid to takeover The Hershey Company. It’s been a productive year for bridge repairs in Central Pennsylvania. Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The search for a woman who is believed to have fallen into a sinkhole in Westmoreland County has become a recovery effort after two treacherous days of digging through mud and rock produced no signs of life. Faculty members and coaches at Commonwealth University's Lock Haven campus plan to hold a "no-confidence" vote early next year on the school's  president.  Gun reformers in Pennsylvania say they will pressure state lawmakers to pass stricter firearms laws. Groups like CeaseFire PA want the state to match a federal ban on machine gun conversion devices. Penn Medicine is launching a new program aimed at preventing gun-related injuries in Philadelphia. Organizers say firearm injuries and deaths are reported every year because of improper storage. A shelter in Lancaster will now be able to assist homeless people with extensive medical needs. A Dauphin County man is in custody after police say he shot a rifle into his home while a woman was inside. Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In part two of our conversation with Dr. Mathias Basner, Professor at Penn Medicine and former head of Flight Physiology at the German Aerospace Center, we explore how sleep affects human performance in various environments - from everyday life to the International Space Station. Learn about groundbreaking research on cognitive performance, discover what astronauts can teach us about adapting to challenging sleep conditions, and hear fascinating insights about the future of sleep science. Whether you're optimizing your own performance or curious about human adaptation, this episode offers compelling insights into the science of sleep and performance. In this episode, you will hear: Optimizing sleep environments, including dark, quiet, and cool bedrooms. Impact of technology and screen time on sleep hygiene and strategies to reduce electronic usage. Sleep challenges astronauts face in space, such as microgravity and the 90-minute day-night cycle. Practical solutions for sleep in noisy or brightly lit areas, including air circulation improvements. Exploration of human adaptation in extreme environments, such as Antarctic stations and potential life on Mars. Resources from this Episode To find out more about Dr. Basner:  https://www.med.upenn.edu/uep/faculty_basner.html  Subscribe for more from Frequency:  https://frequencyspaces.com/subscribe  Find out more about Frequency: https://frequencyspaces.com/  Podcast Disclosure:  https://frequencyspaces.com/podcast-disclosure  Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Episode Credits If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Can AI do our jobs better than we can? Let's test it! You might have noticed that this episode got off to a strange start… who were those people talking anyway? That, my friends, was Google NotebookLM's best shot at recording this very podcast. In it, two AI-generated guests conduct an ironic “deep dive” into the topic we are discussing in this episode: whether AI will come to replace certain jobs and how it will change existing jobs in our healthcare system and beyond. For this episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Marylyn Ritchie, a Professor of Genetics and the Director of the Institute for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. An expert in translational bioinformatics, her research focuses on using clinical data to discover the genetic architecture underlying common diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease. In April, she was appointed Vice Dean of Artificial Intelligence and Computing where she works to develop and implement an AI strategy for the Penn Medicine health system. We also finally got a songwriter back on our guest panel. Collin Frisch is an indie-pop singer-songwriter who describes himself as “like Ed Sheeran, but less talented and better looking.” After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023, he took on the role of Creative Director at the Bridge Church near Trenton, New Jersey. We were so grateful that Collin could represent the right side of the brain in this conversation. Lastly, we welcomed our co-host Harris Bland back to the show! We turn a bit philosophical in this episode; while we discuss AI's potential to rewire and create jobs, we also talk about the undiscovered fields of medicine where humans must still blaze the path forward. Inevitably, our conversation turned into a reflection about which characteristics AI can't yet emulate, the very things that make us human and—for now—irreplaceable. Mentioned in the episode: -What eMERGE actually means:  -

Although a high-profile incident at one of its emergency departments garnered recent headlines, Penn Medicine has earned recognition for how it has prioritized workplace violence initiatives that focus on employee safety and well-being. Lisa Triantos, chair of the workplace violence committee at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, joins the ENA Podcast to talk about what's working amid a system-wide buy-in to find solutions and reduce incidents.

Listen to this powerful interview with Dr. David Fajgenbaum who has an incredible new memoir, "Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action". David's story is truly unique; it's a tale of learning to live, while dying: a universally relatable story about getting up and fighting back after life knocks you down.A former Georgetown quarterback nicknamed "The Beast," David Fajgenbaum was also a force in medical school, where he was known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled over a condition they had yet to even diagnose; floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for the equivalent of a game day overtime: a second chance.Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived, but only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease—an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world- class researchers to tackle them; instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he proposed to align them himself.More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, his hard work has paid off: a treatment that he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when forces of determination, love, family, faith and serendipity collide.David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc is one of the youngest individuals to be appointed to the faculty at Penn Medicine. Co- founder and executive director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) and an NIH-funded physician- scientist, he has dedicated his life to discovering new treatments and cures for deadly disorders like Castleman disease, which he was diagnosed with during medical school. He is in the top 1 percent youngest grant awardees of an R01, one of the most competitive and sought-after grants in all of biomedical research. Dr. Fajgenbaum has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 healthcare list, as a top healthcare leader by Becker's Hospital Review, and one of the youngest people ever elected as a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the nation's oldest medical society. He was one of three recipients – including Vice President Joe Biden – of a 2016 Atlas Award from the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Winner of the RARE Champion of Hope: Science award, Dr. Fajgenbaum has been profiled in a cover story by The New York Times as well as by Reader's Digest, Science, and the Today Show. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University magna cum laude with honors and distinction, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and MBA from The Wharton School. He is a former Division I college quarterback, state-champion weight lifter, and co-founder of anational grief support network.Order "Chasing My Cure" at bookstores nationwide or at http://www.chasingmycure.com/

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)'s annual general meeting; Anesthesiology 2024. Exclusive cutting edge conversations recorded at the conference with some of the key speakers, guests and delegates. The discussion highlights the growing use of the Impella device in anesthesia and critical care, particularly for high-risk patients with severe heart failure or cardiogenic shock. Presented by Desiree Chappell, Monty Mythen and Mike Grocott with their guest Asad Usman, Anesthesiologist, critical care specialist and physician with Penn Medicine, Pennsylvania.

Show SummaryOn today's episode, we're featuring a conversation with Victoria Ring, the National Alliance for Care at Home's Manager of Veterans Services. In this role, Tori manages the We Honor Veterans program, ensuring hospice and palliative care providers are supported and connected with the resources and tools needed to provide quality care that meets the unique needs of Veterans at end of life. Provide FeedbackAs a dedicated member of the audience, we would like to hear from you about the show. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts about the show in this short feedback survey. By doing so, you will be entered to receive a signed copy of one of our host's three books on military and veteran mental health.  About Today's GuestsVictoria Ring joined the National Alliance for Care at Home in 2023 and serves as the organization's Manager of Veterans Services. In this role, Victoria manages the We Honor Veterans program, ensuring hospice and palliative care providers are supported and connected with the resources and tools needed to provide quality care that meets the uniqueneeds of Veterans at end of life. Her focus is on fostering community connections, ensuring accessibility, promoting health equity, and advancing person-centered and holistic approaches to care. Victoria's deep rooted personal commitment to improving quality of life for older adults with unique needs is reflected in her daily support of We Honor Veterans.Victoria holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania with a Certificate of Specialization in Geriatric Social Work. Her experience includes graduate internships with Pennsylvania Hospital's inpatient proactive psychiatric service line and at Penn Medicine at Home, across their inpatient, outpatient, and bereavement teams. Victoria's prior experience includes employment as a Housing Case Manager, supporting households experiencing intimate partner violence to secure and sustain safe housing. Victoria has prior experience in facilitating public health education. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the Catholic University of America.Links Mentioned in this Episode We Honor Veterans Web siteMilitary History ChecklistPsychArmor Resource of the WeekCaring for Veterans Through the End Of Life: Healthcare Providers. In this healthcare provider course, you will gain the skills and knowledge to provide compassionate care to our nation's Veterans as they approach the end of their lives. We will examine the specific needs of Veterans and their families, as well as how a patient's military service can impact end-of-life medical care. You will learn how to provide dignified and respectful care that meets the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of Veteran patients. By the end of this course, you will be equipped to deliver compassionate and sensitive care to Veterans in their final days. You can see find the resource here:   https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/caring-for-veterans-through-the-end-of-life-healthcare-providers Episode Partner: Are you an organization that engages with or supports the military affiliated community? Would you like to partner with an engaged and dynamic audience of like-minded professionals? Reach out to Inquire about Partnership Opportunities Contact Us and Join Us on Social Media Email PsychArmorPsychArmor on TwitterPsychArmor on FacebookPsychArmor on YouTubePsychArmor on LinkedInPsychArmor on InstagramTheme MusicOur theme music Don't Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families.  You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com  

Renita Miller (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at Wharton) and Doctor Joshua Levine (Chief of Penn Medicine's Neurocritical Care) join the show to discuss why financial wellness and health must go hand-in-hand to build stronger communities ahead of The Wellness Empowerment Project Summit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Children's Hospitals & "Gender Care" A Family Life Newsmaker Interview A national health-care watchdog group is out with new statistics on the number of so-called "gender transition" procedures being done at children's hospitals. Do No Harm analyzed public insurance records to compile the number of children and teens who were treated using hormones, puberty blockers, and surgical procedures on sexual body parts. The organization also analyzed the amount of money paid by insurance companies to cover those costs. (Public funds such as Medicaid and state and federal government grants are also used for such purposes.) Beth Serio of Do No Harm told us nearly 2,000 underage minors in New York and Pennsylvania were recipients of such procedures in the most recent reporting period. She talks about the exponential growth in this trend, the financial and philosophical motivations for medical providers and hospitals to recommend "gender affirming care", and the complications which can result for patients and for the society. Three PA/NY hospital systems are listed in their national Top Ten List for millions of dollars raked in to perform sex change treatments for minors: Mount Sinai, New York University, and Penn Medicine. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, with 122 such patients, by far tops the list of providers described as what DNH describes as the "Dirty Dozen" in the United States. These links provide more information about Do No Harm, which takes its name from the millenia-old medical motto: DoNoHarmMedicine.org This latest research, headlined "Exposing the Child Trans Industry" Their Stop The Harm Database provides further information, plus an opportunity to look up your own local statistics. The Pennsylvania Family Institute [ PAFamily.org ] has an in-depth analysis of the local implications of these national trends.         #FaithUnderFire  10/17/2024  

This episode of ASTCT Talks dives into outpatient CAR T therapy, exploring logistics, challenges, and success strategies. Host Dr. Zahra Mahmoudjafari leads a panel of experts to share insights from their innovative programs. The panel features Robb Richards, Administrative Director of Cell Therapy and Transplant at Penn Medicine; Dr. Katie Gatwood, Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and Dr. Taha Al-Juhaishi, Associate Director at the University of Oklahoma's Transplant and Cell Therapy Program. Topics include outpatient program structures, toxicity management, and the evolving role of cell therapies beyond hematologic malignancies. About the Host:Dr. Zahra Mahmoudjafari is a board-certified oncology pharmacist and Clinical Pharmacy Manager in Hematologic Malignancies at the University of Kansas Cancer Center. She earned her PharmD and MBA from UMKC and focuses on clinical and operational management of cell and gene therapies. Dr. Mahmoudjafari is active in HOPA, ATOPP, and ASTCT and was honored with ASTCT's Pharmacy SIG Lifetime Achievement Award and ASCO's 40 Under 40 in Cancer Award. Meet the Panel: Robb Richards has over 20 years of oncology experience, with roles spanning private practice, IT, and leadership in healthcare systems. At Penn Medicine, he oversees CAR T therapy operations, expanding services into community hospitals. He holds degrees from Drexel University and St. Joseph's University. Dr. Katie Gatwood is a Board-Certified Oncology Pharmacist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she leads the PGY2 Oncology Residency Program and chairs the ASTCT Pharmacy SIG. Her expertise spans CAR T therapy, transplant conditioning, and GVHD therapies. Dr. Gatwood is an award-winning practitioner and has authored several publications on oncology pharmacy practice. Dr. Taha Al-Juhaishi is an attending physician and clinical investigator at OU Stephenson Cancer Center, Oklahoma's only NCI-designated center. He serves as associate director of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cell Therapy program and leads several clinical trials. Dr. Al-Juhaishi trained at Weill Cornell Medicine, VCU, and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Listeners will gain valuable insights into the complexities of managing outpatient CAR T therapy and strategies to enhance patient care.

Matthew Van Der Tuyn is a designer and healthcare innovation strategist. Matt is the Senior Director of Design and Strategy at the Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation at Penn Medicine. The mission at the Center is to serve as a catalyst and accelerator for initiatives that dramatically improve health outcomes, patient and provider experiences, and decrease the cost of care. Matt has had the unique opportunity to help build the Center's design, discipline, and elevate design thinking as a key tool in Penn Medicine's organizational toolbox. Matt's design process balances divergent and creative thinking to push beyond incremental solutions with the rigor of an evidence-based approach. We talk about becoming and being a designer in healthcare and Matt's practice. Listen to learn about: >> The unique challenges of designing and innovating in the healthcare space >> Problem-centric vs solution-centric thinking and action >> The importance of change management in the design process Our Guest Matt is a designer and health care innovation strategist. Matt's design roots are in information, product, and service design. His design practice began with visual arts, information design, and product design for luxury goods before deciding to pivot into design for social impact. With this new focus on using design to solve societal issues, Matt's work expanded into the design of services and co-design as a tool for empowering disadvantaged communities. Matt's guiding principle is that design is a mindset that anyone can leverage, and that the role of the “Designer” is to help others tap into this mindset to imagine new possibilities. In 2012, Matt made a leap into health care when he joined the newly minted Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation at Penn Medicine (CHTI). The mission of this new center was to serve as a catalyst and accelerator for initiatives that dramatically improve health outcomes, patient and provider experiences, and decrease the cost of care. Entering as the first designer on this new team, Matt has had the unique opportunity to help build CHTI's design discipline and elevate design thinking as a key tool in Penn Medicine's organizational toolbox. Matt's design process balances divergent and creative thinking to push beyond incremental solutions with the rigor of an evidence-based approach. Matt leads with the belief that the foundation of great design, and building a culture of innovation, is empowerment. That the greatest ingredient for innovation in any large service organization is the people on the front lines of service delivery who have the passion, insight, and opportunity to effect change. However, there are not often clear pathways for these staff to gain traction with ideas nor are there efficient ways for leadership to identify and support these frontline champions. Matt believes bridging this gap, through design, between high-level organizational objectives and the frontline staff with the answers, where agency is created for innovation, is the key to unlocking the true potential of an organization. Matt does not see design as a silver bullet, but rather a binder that can align the many, diverse, voices and skills needed for transformative solutions. In addition to design, Matt will quickly point to the various disciplines and individuals across Penn Medicine that he feels create the secret sauce that makes anything possible. From behavioral economists to data scientists, quality and safety experts to hospitality experts, Matt is a firm believer that everyone has something to contribute, if we center ourselves around a shared set of values that prioritize improving the lives of others. Show Highlights [02:02] Matt's love of the fine arts, and why he ended up in graphic design. [02:34] Evolving from graphic design into product design of dinnerware. [03:25] The book that helped change Matt's design path. [04:33] Grad school at the University of Arts in Philadelphia. [05:44] How Matt's grad school project with Penn Medicine led to the creation of the Center he works at today. [09:30] Being problem-centric instead of solution-centric. [12:45] The unique challenges of innovation work in healthcare. [14:26] One of Matt's big “a-ha!” moments. [15:29] An exercise Matt uses to help people move past assumptions and think creatively. [18:31] Looking for the people who really wanted the help. [19:34] Storytelling in Matt's work. [22:28] The need for rigor and evidence when designing for healthcare. [24:42] Matt encourages new designers to find ways to measure the success of their work. [25:44] Getting comfortable with the business and finance side of healthcare. [29:38] The importance of good change management. [30:55] Using behavior design to help people with change. [31:27] Conflict as a natural part of the design process. [35:57] Matt's advice for those wanting to work in healthcare design. [38:32] Books and resources Matt recommends. Links Matthew on LinkedIn Matthew at UPenn MedicinePenn Medicine: Center for Health Care Transformation and InnovationA Global Pandemic Turned Everything Upside Down. What Has Penn Medicine's Innovation Team Learned From That?   Book Recommendations Design Revolution: 100 Products The Empower People, by Emily Pilloton The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman DT 101 EpisodesHealthcare + Systems + Risk + Design with Rob Lister — DT101 E122 A Designer's Journey into Designing for Health and Healthcare with Lorna Ross — DT101 E45 Designing Health Systems + Creating Effective Design Workshops with Sean Molloy — DT101 E44

In this episode of DGTL Voices, host Ed welcomes Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine). Together, they explore Penn Medicine's mission, the strategic challenges the organization faces, and its commitment to becoming the most clinician-friendly health system. The conversation delves into how technology is reshaping healthcare delivery, the pivotal role tech leaders play in partnering with CEOs, and Kevin's unique leadership style. He shares valuable insights on the importance of authenticity, empathy, and collaboration in driving success in the healthcare industry.

Episode Title: Last Mile with RxMile Part Two: "RxMile Integrations and Success Stories"   Host: Kunal Vyas, CEO & Co-Founder of RxMile Guests: Adam Moon, Medical Pharmacy Matthew Shellenbarger, Director of Pharmacy Operations, Walberg Family Pharmacies Albert M. Giordano, PharmD, Convenience Pharmacy, Penn Medicine Episode Summary: Welcome back to the "Last Mile with RxMile" series! In this exciting part two, host Kunal Vyas dives deeper into the world of pharmacy innovation with special guests Adam Moon from Medical Pharmacy, Matthew Shellenbarger from Walberg Family Pharmacies, and Albert M. Giordano from Penn Medicine's Convenience Pharmacy. This episode, titled "RxMile Integrations and Success Stories," explores how RxMile's cutting-edge technology is revolutionizing the pharmacy landscape. Key Discussion Points: Integration Experience with RxMile: Our guests share their firsthand experiences integrating RxMile into their pharmacy operations. Learn how RxMile's seamless integration process is transforming the way pharmacies manage logistics and deliver medications to patients. Success Stories and Value-Add: Discover real-life success stories that showcase the impact of RxMile on pharmacy businesses and patient care. From improving delivery efficiency to enhancing patient satisfaction, hear how RxMile is adding value across various pharmacy settings. Future Plans and Innovations: Kunal and the guests discuss what's next for RxMile. Get an insider's look at future plans, upcoming innovations, and how RxMile plans to continue leading the charge in pharmacy delivery solutions. Tune in to hear from these industry leaders as they discuss how RxMile is shaping the future of pharmacy delivery, one successful integration at a time! Learn more right now: https://www.rxmile.com/ Listen now on all podcast platforms and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review.

In this episode of Take a Pain Check, Natasha sits down with Kent Messner, who shares his inspiring journey of living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from childhood to adulthood. Kent discusses his early diagnosis, the challenges he faced using crutches during middle and high school, and the impact of bullying on his self-esteem. He reflects on his time in a rehabilitation center, his pursuit of education, including an undergraduate degree and an MBA, and how his experiences shaped his career at Penn Medicine. Kent also shares practical tools and strategies he uses to manage his condition daily, from surgeries to physical therapy and chiropractic care. Throughout the conversation, Kent emphasizes the importance of advocacy and support, offering valuable advice to young people with disabilities. His story is a powerful reminder of the strength found in embracing differences and the importance of community in navigating life with a chronic illness.

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Oluwadamilola "Lola" Fayanju, a leader in breast cancer care and health equity. With a remarkable background that spans clinical excellence and innovative research, Dr. Fayanju holds the Helen O. Dickens Presidential Associate Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN) and serves as Chief of Breast Surgery at Penn Medicine. She also leads as the Surgical Director of the Rena Rowan Breast Center, directs Health Equity Innovation at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, and is a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.

In this episode, I was lucky enough to interview Mark Allen, Co-founder and CTO of Cobalt Innovations Inc. Mark grew up in Bluebell, Pennsylvania. He credited his wife's influence for igniting his entrepreneurial spirit. Initially working in tech as a software consultant, Mark eventually co-founded Cobalt during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform was developed rapidly in response to the urgent mental health needs of healthcare workers, with Penn Medicine as their first client. Cobalt provides healthcare institutions with tools to support their employees' mental health, offering services like one-on-one appointments, group sessions, and self-guided resources.Mark also shared insights into the challenges and rewards of balancing his role at Cobalt with his long-term consulting work at Transmogrify, a company he co-founded with Mark Spence. He emphasized the importance of strong relationships and trust in building Cobalt, particularly in securing their first customer through an established connection. Get inspired by Mark Allen's journey from concept to a thriving health tech platform in this insightful episode of The First Customer!Guest Info:Cobalt Innovations Inc.https://www.cobaltinnovations.orgMark Allen's LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-allen-721b751/Connect with Jay on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jayaigner/The First Customer Youtube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@thefirstcustomerpodcastThe First Customer podcast websitehttps://www.firstcustomerpodcast.comFollow The First Customer on LinkedInhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/the-first-customer-podcast/

ABOUT THIS EPISODEWhat is immunotherapy? How effective are they for neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs)? Dr. Jennifer Eads from Penn Medicine answers common questions about immunotherapy. She discusses the latest in CAR T therapy, DLL3, and vaccine therapy for NENs. TOP TEN QUESTIONS ABOUT IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR NENS:What is immunotherapy? How does it work? How does immunotherapy differ from other treatments? When is immunotherapy used? Which neuroendocrine cancers are they used for? What are the various immunotherapy drugs used for neuroendocrine cancer and how do they work? What are immune checkpoint inhibitors?What is CAR-T therapy?What is DLL3?What is vaccine therapy?What side effects might someone have when taking immunotherapy? How does it make me look (will I lose my hair)? How will it make me feel (will I be able to work)? Does immunotherapy cause someone to be immunocompromised? What monitoring needs to be done while on immunotherapy?How do you decide when to use immunotherapy, which to use, and for what patient?What do you see as the future of immunotherapy in neuroendocrine cancer treatment? MEET DR. JENNIFER EADS, MDDr. Jennifer Eads is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Abramson Cancer Center where she is a gastrointestinal medical oncologist focusing on the treatment of and research in patients with neuroendocrine tumors and gastroesophageal cancers. She is the Physician Lead for GI Clinical Research, overseeing the Penn GI clinical research portfolio. She is the Penn institutional principal investigator for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG-ACRIN) and serves as the Director of the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) for the Abramson Cancer Center. She has served as principal investigator for multiple phase I/II/III clinical trials, including as the national study chair for multiple cooperative group trials. She has served on the National Clinical Cancer Network (NCCN) neuroendocrine tumors guidelines committee, is a former member of the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) Board of Directors and is currently on the Board of Scientific Advisors for the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF). In 2022, she was named as the ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator of the Year.For more information, visit lacnets.org/lacnets-podcast/36For more information, visit LACNETS.org.

In this episode of SEE HEAR FEEL, Dr. Rosalie Elenitsas from the University of Pennsylvania shares her extensive experience in dermatopathology. She discusses her career journey, the importance of daily consensus conferences, learning from junior colleagues, and managing work-life balance. Dr. Elenitsas also offers valuable advice on building a support system, continuous learning, dealing with errors, and the significance of simple yet effective practices in both professional and personal life.00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction01:12 Personal Anecdote: Learning to Ride a Bike02:08 Advice for a Successful Career05:15 Work-Life Balance and Support Systems08:52 Dealing with Errors and Continuous Improvement13:08 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsDr. Rosalie Elenitsas, MD is the Herman Beerman Professor of Dermatology and Pathology and the Director of the Penn Cutaneous Pathology Services since 1999 at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Elenitsas has been a faculty member at Penn since 1991 and has been director of the Dermatopathology Fellowship Program since 1998; she recently transferred the directorship to Emily Chu just this year. She has published more than 200 manuscripts/chapters, and has given more than 100 invited lectures. She is associate editor of Lever's Histopathology of the Skin and the past president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Dermatology and past president of the American Society of Dermatopathology (ASDP). She received the Nickel Award for teaching in Dermatopathology by the ASDP, and has also been elected to the Academy of Master Clinicians at Penn Medicine, a coveted honor for practicing physicians in the Penn health system. 

Whether you're relaxing on the beach, taking a hike in nature, or hitting your favorite water park, we've heard it time and time again: Excess sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer, so protect your skin and apply your sunscreen. Of course, while some skin cancer risk factors are unavoidable, we all know there are proactive, preventive steps we can take—like applying sunscreen and limiting sun exposure—to decrease our risk. But what if you could do something that not only protects yourself from skin cancer, but also people around the world? Although numerous milestones have been made in skin cancer research and treatment, there remains significant room for improvement when it comes to treatment and care. Dr. Lynn Schuchter is director of the Tara Miller Melanoma Center at Penn Medicine and a former president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, or ASCO, for short. Having dedicated her career to caring for patients with skin cancers, Dr. Schuchter knows all too well how much progress still needs to be made in the field of skin cancer research and care. Today, Dr. Schuchter joins the Your Stories podcast to talk about the importance of prevention, patient-centered care, and the past, present, and future of skin cancer research and treatment.

July 4, 2024: Michael Restuccia, SVP and CIO of Penn Medicine, explores the complexities and triumphs of leading a major academic medical center's IT department for over 17 years. How does one maintain momentum and innovation over such a long tenure? Michael delves into the importance of building a strong, mission-driven team and fostering a collaborative culture, especially in a hybrid work environment. They discuss the challenges of balancing budgets, the evolution of electronic health records, and the cautious yet optimistic approach to integrating AI in healthcare. What qualities make a successful team member in such a demanding field, and how do you retain top talent amidst fierce competition? Michael also shares insights into how technology can reduce administrative burdens for clinicians, improve patient care, and drive operational efficiency. This conversation provides a deep dive into the strategic thinking required to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare IT.Key Points:Leadership ChallengesTeam BuildingBudget ManagementEHR EvolutionTechnology IntegrationSubscribe: This Week HealthTwitter: This Week HealthLinkedIn: Week HealthDonate: Alex's Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

As the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy continues to expand as an effective treatment for hematologic malignancies, understanding how to identify eligible patients early and implementation of an effective framework for identification can improve care coordination and better prepare community cancer programs for widespread use of CAR T-cell therapy. In this episode, CANCER BUZZ speaks with David L. Porter, MD, director of Cell Therapy and Transplant at Penn Medicine, about the challenges community oncologists face and the key role they can play in identifying and recommending eligible patients for CAR T-cell therapy.   “The single most important thing for a patient out in the community at a place that doesn't have familiarity or immediate access to CAR T-cells is to refer them somewhere that does and refer them soon and timely.” – David L. Porter, MD   Guest:  David L. Porter, MD Director, Cell Therapy and Transplant Jodi Fisher Horowitz Professor in Leukemia Care Excellence Penn Medicine- University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) Philadelphia, PA   This episode has been developed in connection with the ACCC education program Tips for Early Patient Identification for CAR T-Cell Therapy and Creating “Stickiness” with Community Providers for Optimal Care Coordination. This episode was made possible with support by Kite Pharma.   Additional Reading/Sources ACCC Oncology Issues Article If They RECUR, You Should Refer: A Community Oncologist Patient ID Roundtable Summary Essentials for Identifying Patients – Bringing CAR T-cell Therapy to Community Oncology Optimizing Care Coordination – Bringing CAR T-cell Therapy to Community Oncology

“What is it like to be a clinician with a patient who either comes because they're going to be dying or it happens in the treatment -  what is it like for the clinician? It's lonely in a way because there is a lot of parallel with what the patient is going through. To me, and as a field, I would like to think we could talk about this and write about it. My peer group at the time was terribly important to me - colleagues, people that basically would be with me in this. But in the end I was the one that went alone to the service at the funeral home and I went to my patient's luncheon, not to have the lunch but to talk to the family, and then I left - I didn't stay for the lunch, I thought that might be a little intrusive. There's nothing really to read about, talk about, pick somebody's brain about how do they experience this in their work or I don't really understand why we've been so quiet about this in our work.” PW   “You mentioned about being alone in it, and there is a way in which it's very true. I think a large part is that not many of our colleagues have had this experience. But on the flip side, maybe because I've worked with so many patients and I'm beginning to notice a certain consistency, but I've also had such an experience of close intimacy with these patients. There's a closeness that is to be had particularly in analytic work and work over time - but it happens quite quickly in the work with dying patients, and in that regard, I felt less alone in my work. In some ways in the rest of our work, because we maintain a careful distance in a way, a boundary with the patient, a frame - I feel with the dying patients, I feel like both of us are more in the room together.” MM     Episode Description: We begin with acknowledging the tension that exists between the literal and metaphoric aspects of the analytic relationship and how that is highlighted in the face of physical illness in either party. We focus on patients' illnesses both as they present upon initial consultation and when they develop in the course of treatment. Mark describes his years of work with cancer patients, and Peggy shares her experience with an analysand who, in the 6th year of her treatment, developed a terminal illness. We consider the emotional challenges associated with making home visits, the meaning of 'boundaries', feelings associated with fees, and the shared experience of love between patient and analyst. We consider the ways that the analyst's affective intensity may also be associated with earlier and feared illnesses in their own life. We close with considering the difficulties that our field has in honestly communicating this aspect of the heart and soul of psychoanalysis.   Linked Episodes: Episode 23: A Psychoanalyst Encounters the Dying – Discovering ‘Existential Maturity'   Episode 40: How Psycho-Oncology Informs an Approach to the Covid-19 Crises with Norman Straker, MD   Our Guests: Mark Moore, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who works in private practice in Philadelphia. He was the Director of Psychological Services at the Abramson Cancer Center at Pennsylvania Hospital from 2004-2014 where he supervised psychology interns and post-doctoral fellows during their psycho-oncology rotation and provided psychological services to cancer patients and their families. He is also currently a co-leader for a weekly doctoring group for neurology residents at Penn Medicine. He was the Director of the Psychotherapy Training Program from 2014-2020 at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he currently teaches courses on Writing, Assessment, Core Concepts, and a comparative course on Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He was a recipient of the 2020 Edith Sabshin Teaching Award from the American Psychoanalytic Association, and he runs a monthly teaching forum for faculty at his institute. Dr. Moore's clinical work focuses on health issues, notably chronic illness, losses, and life transitions associated with cancer, and the fear of dying. He has written several book chapters on topics including the concept of harmony in Japan, cultural perspectives on lying, conducting therapy outside the office, the experience of bodily betrayal in illness and aging, the experience of shame across the adult lifespan, and more recently about friendship.    Peggy Warren, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Boston. Originally from Chicago, she danced professionally with Giordano Dance Chicago from ages 15 to 21, which created a lifelong interest in the effects of creativity and mentoring on human development. Fascinated by cell biology, she received a master's degree in microbiology from Chicago Medical School and then an MD from Rush University. In medical school, she was chosen to be an Osler Honor Fellow in Pathology/Oncology, where she was first exposed to dying patients. Awarded the Nathan Freer prize for excellence in a medical student at graduation, she used the prize money to buy the Complete Works of Freud and began to learn about the power of the unconscious. After completing residency training in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, she pursued analytic training and graduated from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She was on the teaching and supervising faculty of the MGH/McLean psychiatry residency program for 30 years, the Boston Psychoanalytic faculty for 20 years, and won the teaching award from the Harvard Medical School MGH/McLean residency program in 2010. She has given talks on “Vaslav Nijinski: Creativity and Madness,” was a discussant with Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln and depression, lectured on the effect of twinships on siblings, was a discussant in the “Off the Couch Film Series,” (Boston Coolidge Corner theater), a case presenter “On the Dying Patient” at the 2017 American Psychoanalytic meetings, and is a faculty member of the American Psychoanalytic Association's annual Workshop on Psychoanalytic Writing. She has been in private practice in Boston as a psychoanalyst for 38 years.   Recommended Readings: Bergner, S. (2011). Seductive Symbolism: Psychoanalysis in the Context of Oncology. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 28,267-292.   Emanuel, L. (2021). Psychodynamic contributions to palliative care patients and their family members. In H. Schwartz (Ed.), Applying Psychoanalysis to Medical Care. New York: Routledge.    Hitchen, C. (2012). Mortality. New York: Hatchette Book Group.   Minerbo, V. (1998). The patient without a couch: An analysis of a patient with terminal cancer. Int. J. Psych-Anal., 79,83-93.   Norton, J. (1963). Treatment of a Dying Patient. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 18, 541-560   Didion, Joan: The Year of Magical Thinking. Vintage/Random House, 2007   Jaouad, Suleika: Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted; Random House, 2022.   Bloom, Amy: In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss;Random House, 2023.  

In this podcast, we detour away from purely clinical discussion to recruit a bit! We highlight what it's like to work as a primary care physician at Penn Medicine. Dr Williams speaks with Dr Joseph Teel and Dr Ada Emuwa about the dynamics of working in primary care for Penn Medicine. We highlight the common concerns physicians have about the field of primary care and how Penn is addressing those in a flexible work environment.

Thinking of transitioning from home health to private practice? You're going to love this episode of Private Practice Success Stories! I sat down with one of my Start program students, Alex Wynter. She's a speech-language pathologist with a private practice in Philadelphia, PA called the Wynter Wellness Group. She decided to start her private practice while working in home health. Alex loved the work she was doing in her community but wanted more freedom to do things on her own terms. In this episode, she talks about the obstacles she faced working in corporate healthcare and how having her own practice has led to more freedom and fulfillment. Alex also discusses the importance of non-clinical skills when it comes to multiple streams of income and how she also offers public speaking engagements, mentorship, and caregiver coaching.Alexandria has been treating the adult and senior population for 10 years, working for some of the top healthcare systems in Philadelphia including Penn Medicine at Home & Hospice Services with the Penn Medicine hospital network and Mercy Home Health with Nazareth Hospital.After her beginnings in home health 6 years ago, she realized the unique challenges and services needed by those living with chronic conditions. Often seen as "frequent flyers" by their healthcare team, with their concerns frequently swept under the rug as being "the usual complaints" she continued to see this population underserved. It's the exact reason she decided to work with adults & seniors with chronic conditions. Due to her special abilities to build authentic relationships with her patients and communicate with their healthcare team (including physicians, specialists, and other therapists), she has been able to help her patients see significant gains, not only with their speech therapy goals but with their overall health as well.In Today's Episode, We Discuss:The seeds you can plant now that can bloom into a successful private practice A peek into what it's like owning an adult-focused private practiceOne simple question you can ask your clients that will help your private practice grow exponentially The best way to get the support and encouragement you need when you start your private practice journeyThe power you have to choose your own adventure as a private practice ownerA realistic look at what it's like when you decide to leave your job and go all in on your private practice The one thing that could stop you from fulfillment as an SLP or OTThe key thing you have to remember when figuring out billing and insuranceI hope you enjoyed hearing from Alex and how she took the initiative to start her own practice. She is a perfect example of someone who expanded her practice through diversifying her income streams and focusing on non-clinical skills in addition to clinical care. If you would like to know more about our Programs and how we help support you - just like we supported Alex - please visit www.IndependentClinician.com/ResourcesWhether you want to start a private practice or grow your existing private practice, I can help you get the freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial abundance that you deserve. Visit my website www.independentclinician.com to learn more.Resources Mentioned: Visit Alex's website: http://www.thewynterwellnessgroup.com/Follow her on Instagram:

On Jan 30, 2024 we discussed a few things including the latest  state of AI in #healthcare and #pharma. Panelists include:Kash Patel is the Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Information Officer, Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey's largest and most comprehensive health network. Mr. Patel has more than 25 years of experience in technology leadership, ranging from start-ups to multinational corporations and is a seasoned leader in health care with a strong focus on innovation and building great teams. Before HMH, Kash was the Vice President and Chief Digital Technology Officer at Penn Medicine.Donna Conroy has 25 years' pharmaceutical industry experience as both a Fortune 500 pharma executive and entrepreneur. Her career has focused on bringing science to patients. First as a microbiologist, then at Schering-Plough, where she led sales and marketing teams and built a $1.2B line of business.Named one of NJ's Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs, Donna led SciMar's acceptance into the Merck Digital Science Studio 2023 cohort and 2021 acceptance into Microsoft for Startups. She is a graduate of Microsoft's prestigious Women in Cloud Accelerator and was named 2021 Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs.Rohit Vashisht is the co-founder and CEO of WhizAI, a generative AI-powered analytics platform purpose-built for Life Sciences and Healthcare. WhizAI was recently recognized by Inc Media as one of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the US. He has over 20 years of experience in enterprise software sales, product management, development, and strategy. As a tech entrepreneur, Rohit has built successful businesses and was CEO and co-founder of Sverve – an influencer marketplace that was acquired by Bloglovin and rebranded as Activate.#lifesciences  #drugdiscovery #innovation #podcast #AFewThingsPodcast