Creating a New Healthcare

Friends, Many of us think of Uber as simply a much more convenient and comfortable alternative to taxi cabs, or as another great app on our smartphones. Underlying that reality is a deeper understanding that Uber is actually one of the most sophisticated business & technology platforms to date. Through the use of data, analytics and digital connectivity, it brings customers and vendors togethe...

Friends, Whether you’re 25 years old or 75 years old, when you walk into primary care providers’ offices in most places across the country, the care you’ll receive is pretty much the same. The people in the office are the same; the services are the same; the protocols are the same; the time slots you get are the same. Does that make sense to you? To state the obvious – a 65-year old, 75-year...

This is a singularly unusual and unprecedented episode. Aug 17th 2022, which is the day of the posting of this episode, is the 5th anniversary of the ‘Creating a New Healthcare’ podcast. I’m taking this opportunity to spend a few minutes reflecting on the journey – and to share those reflections with you. As always, I am interested in your thoughts as well, so please respond on LinkedIn and...

Friends, There is a quiet, maybe not so quiet, revolution happening in healthcare delivery. The transposition of healthcare out of the legacy bricks & mortar sites and into the home. Payers such as Humana and Optum, as well as retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy Health and Walgreens are spending tens of billions of dollars acquiring companies and capabilities to bring medical care into the home...

Friends, The first interview we conducted with Ben Kligler (see episode #130) was an introduction to a game-changing humanistic inflection in healthcare delivery called ‘Whole Health’.  If you haven’t listened to it yet, you must. What the VA is deploying on a national scale may be the largest and most significant positive transformation occurring in the American healthcare system. This interview...

Friends, I’ve listened to this podcast multiple times, in preparation for this write-up.  Each time I listen, I learn something new and continue to be blown away by what the visionary folks at Laguna Health are doing and building. The bottom line here is that our healthcare system is not designed to identify and address the contextual [life] barriers of care. As a result, patients and their famili...

Friends, Our topic today is nothing less than a new standard of care for a vulnerable segment of the population that has been subjected to highly fragmented, uncoordinated and grossly inadequate medical care. For those of us who have experience with older parents as well as for physicians and other providers of care – you understand how challenging, frustrating and heartbreaking this situati...

Friends, Our topic today is an overview of some of the most serious and consequential challenges facing our healthcare system and our public health, as shared with us by one of the most erudite, accomplished and ethically driven leaders of our era, Dr. Don Berwick. As always, our focus will not be on what’s wrong with American healthcare, but rather on solutions – on what is actually being d...

Friends, The topic today is one that is near and dear to my heart, and what I spend a fair share of my time working on. We’ll be focusing on the challenges that seniors face in navigating our complex healthcare system. This is a critically relevant issue for all of us in healthcare – now and for the next few decades. The population of Americans over the age of 65 is growing at a much faster...

Friends, The focus of this interview is on recognizing and addressing one of the most ubiquitous barriers to healthcare. I’ve heard it labeled as “the last mile of care”.  What we’re talking about is where the rubber really meets the road in delivering on the triple aim of healthcare outcomes, costs & experience. Medical encounters, diagnoses, referrals, clinical interventions, care plans and...

Friends, We open up this podcast talking about a yearning on the part of people for a different type of dialogue, interaction & relationship in the delivery of healthcare. In all of the interviews I’ve conducted over the past 5 years – underneath all of the discussions about value-based payment, reframed clinical and business models, advanced analytics and digital enablement, patient/cus...

Friends, Our guest today, Dr. Roy Schoenberg, is one of the most significant contributors and accomplished entrepreneurs in the domain of telehealth & virtual healthcare. In this episode, he’ll share some unique perspectives he’s gleaned from over 25 years as a trailblazer in telehealth. He’ll also discuss a transformational initiative that he and his colleagues at Amwell are introducing, as w...

Friends, Just about every major industry, with the exception of healthcare, has moved into the digital era. This is not my opinion alone. It is the collective perspective of the numerous guests that I’ve had on this podcast. And far from being a nice-to-have, these experts argue that in order for us to achieve the quality, cost effectiveness and experience that consumers expect, healthcare systems...

Friends, I’ve heard back from a few of you recently about some of the episodes we’ve had around employer health insurance & benefits. In fact, I was just speaking this past week with a physician colleague who listened to episode #125 with David Contorno, and he literally said that it blew his mind.  Well, I think you’ll find this episode illuminating and mind-blowing. The system of employee he...

Friends, The focus of this interview is an approach to primary care that is divergent from the mainstream approach. It’s different in a number of ways and it’s creating outstanding outcomes for patients, payers, and providers.  Our guest today, Dr. Chris Crow, has a compelling story to tell. He is an inspiring leader and a bold reframer of healthcare. I’ve had the privilege of speaking with him a...

Friends, Our topic this week is employer-based healthcare, which accounts for nearly 50% of all the  healthcare spend in the US. We’ll kick off the episode dispelling some surprising misconceptions about how healthcare insurance actually works; which explains, in large part, how the costs of care continue to rise way beyond other costs of living.  Our guest today, David Contorno is a nationally re...

Friends, This episode is about a domain of healthcare delivery that will undergo a fundamental transformation over the next 3 - 5 years. It is the most precarious and fragmented stage of care - post-hospital discharge and post-acute care transitions. It is a side of healthcare that is ripe for disruption, with the potential to greatly reduce readmissions, reduce total costs of care, and dramatical...

Friends, There are numerous critical healthcare reframes in this week’s episode. First, what Dr. Silverstein makes abundantly clear is that the senior leadership team at ChristianaCare is fully comitted to accelerating the shift to value based payment. Second, they are committed to greatly expanding the use of virtual care as a  primary mode of care. Third, they are focused on health outcomes vs h...

Friends, With the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous hospital systems across the country rapidly adopted the hospital at home model in an effort to deal with overcapacity.  Many systems are planning to continue this service - even after the pandemic. The reasoning is simple. It’s a much lower-cost alternative. It’s much more personal and customized care. It’s a lot more convenient and co...

Friends, This interview is about an organization that is creating a new healthcare category, and whose purpose is to solve the employer healthcare dilemma. But even more fundamental than that, they’re attempting to solve the core struggles that all healthcare consumers are facing.  Glen Tullman is the Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Transcarent.  Tullman is the former Executive C...

Friends, Welcome back to the first episode of the 2021 Fall season.  We are embarking upon the 5th year of the ‘Creating a New Healthcare’ podcast - and we have an amazing line-up of courageous, bold, entrepreneurial individuals that we’ll be hearing from this season.   In this episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Michellene Davis. The theme of this interview, which was recorded on Aug...

Friends, Our guest this week, Steve Nelson, takes us on a journey into a new category of company that is curating the collaboration between employers and providers. It’s an incredibly exciting adventure - actually a leap into the world of value-based care. The insights that he shares provides a lens into where healthcare is going - empowering patients & payers to navigate to healthcare that is app...

Friends, In this episode, Dr. Shantanu Nundy shares with us his thoughtful reframing of healthcare. His book, Care After Covid , is a practical exposé on the misalignment of healthcare - offering a guideline for how to reframe the healthcare system moving forward. What you’re going to love about this interview (and his book) are the stories that he shares - transporting us from an inner city clini...

Friends, Our guest this week, Dr. Robert Pearl, introduces a fundamental reframe in our understanding of healthcare transformation with his second book, ' Uncaring - How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients' . He convincingly argues that addressing the systemic functional challenges in healthcare is not sufficient. For transformation to occur, we also need to address the entrenched c...

Friends, The focus of this interview is on a 'greenfield' project that was under wraps for the past three years, and has only recently been revealed. Project Fulcrum was launched in the spring of 2018 by the CEO and senior leadership team of AdventHealth - one of the largest healthcare systems in the country. It’s bold purpose - “ to disrupt its legacy provider business model with consumer-driven...