Episodes

  • ChatGPT: Where (and Where Not) to Apply it in Healthcare
    Jun 26 2023

    On this episode, we talk with Matt Hollingsworth, CEO of Carta Healthcare, about ChatGPT. 

    If you've been reading the headlines, and maybe even experimenting with Chat GPT yourself, but don't quite grasp what's going on, then this episode is for you.

    Mat gives a not-too-technical, high-level explanation of what's going on under the hood so that you have proper context for the discussion.

    Then, Matt outlines the potential benefits, and potential harms, of applying ChatGPT in healthcare.

    Finally, Matt shares his experience launching Carta Healthcare, including how he convinced VCs that software plus services could scale better than a pure SaaS offering in this space. 

    This is a good one. I'm honestly not sure in which part of this conversation I learned more.

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    46 mins
  • Medicaid Transformation: Past, Present, and Future with Alan Weil of Health Affairs
    Apr 12 2023

    Medicaid Transformation. 1115 waivers. Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) programs. Expansion. Contraction. We’ve been at this for a long time. Why isn’t Medicaid transformed already?

    Well… it turns out that this is really difficult work.

    First off, there are complex political and ideological issues. Even if we all agree that we want the best healthcare for every American – a conceptually easy outcome to rally behind – we don’t all agree on what that looks like, how to get there, or how to pay for it.

    Second, it takes a long time for policy levers to play out in the real world. That makes it exceedingly difficult to measure the success of our programs, which further exacerbates the first issue.

    Add in a bunch of multi-billion-dollar entrenched institutions, technology hurdles, and social determinants of health, and you are still just scratching the surface of the many issues that need to be addressed and aligned to “succeed”.

    But all is not lost. We’ve learned a lot over the past 30-40 years, and we’ve made progress in many areas. There are approaches and mental models that have led to certain levels of success. And today’s guest has been participating in and observing many of them over the past few decades.

    Today we talk with Alan Weil, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, the nation’s leading health policy journal. 

    Alan takes us through the history of Medicaid Transformation from the early 1980s on. We discuss the approaches taken, the thinking behind them, and the many factors that influenced their success. We explore the conflicts and hurdles, the friction and confounders, not to define a path forward, but to give the listener a more productive framing from which to build.

    This is admittedly a bit more of a philosophical discussion than what we usually have on this show. However, I feel we’ve taken a practical approach to the philosophical exploration and yielded actionable advice on how to adjust your frame.

    Please do let us know what you think!

     

    For full show notes and links, visit: https://thehcbiz.com

    And of course, find everything from Health Affairs at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/

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    49 mins
  • Should Patients Be Charged for Messages to their Doctors?
    Feb 9 2023

    Cleveland Clinic recently announced that they would begin charging for certain patient-initiated messages. This flies in the face of everything the industry is talking about when it comes to patient engagement and value-based care.

    At the same time, it is quite unreasonable to think that a doctor should be available for questions at any time, for free.

    How can we protect the clinicians' time AND provide the patients with the care and attention they need? 

    And why are we moving away from value-based care?

    Craig Joseph, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Nordic Consulting Partners, and Matt Lambert, MD, Chief Medical Officer for Curation Health join Don Lee to share their take.

    Craig's article that led to this episode: To charge or not to charge

    For full show notes and links, visit https://thehcbiz.com

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    36 mins
  • Take it All With a Grain of Salt
    Jan 13 2023

    Don and Shahid discuss NCQA's Health Innovation Summit (November 2022) and FHIR Dev Days (June 2022). They explore these events as examples of how to interpret what you hear at conferences, in industry media, and even on podcasts like this. 

    The discussion covers a lot of ground including:

    • What is NCQA?
    • What is HEDIS?
    • What does it mean to move from Electronic Clinical Quality measures (ECQM) to Digital Quality Measures (DQM)?
    • Can FHIR really do all that!?
    • Specified, but not implemented (this is important)
    • Why is it hard to innovate and sell innovations in the quality measure space?
    • How are health equity and social determinants of health factoring into quality measurement?

    It's a fun conversation, but... take it with a grain of salt. 

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    49 mins
  • The State of Blockchain and Web3 in Healthcare with Ray Dogum
    Dec 16 2022

    On this episode, we talk with Ray Dogum, MS, MBA about the state of blockchain and web3 technology in healthcare. Ray is the producer and host of the Health Unchained podcast where he discusses blockchain developments in healthcare with industry experts.

    There was quite a hype cycle around blockchain in healthcare that has died, but there is still real development being done and plenty of opportunity to create value in the future.

    We’ll break down the pockets of success that are happening today and talk about where things could be headed in the future.

    For complete show notes and links visit: https://TheHCBiz.com

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    52 mins
  • Can I Buy You Lunch (and tell you about my product)?
    Oct 20 2022

    Some people tell doctors that anything more than a cup of coffee is a conflict of interest. What about executives? Is it ok to take them out to lunch? What about a trip to the Super Bowl? Is there a line? Where is it?

    On this episode, Don and Shahid discuss a recent LinkedIn discussion where a healthcare executive called shenanigans on himself and his colleagues for accepting gifts.

    The gift is a symptom... not the underlying issue. 

    Tune in to find out what the issue is and how to fix it. Plus, learn why Don hates RFPs and how we can do those better too.

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    33 mins
  • The Business Case for Being Patient-First with Brian Sanderson
    Oct 5 2022

    There's no business case for doing the right thing in healthcare. Fortunately, being patient-first is the right thing to do and can be good for business too.

    Today we talk with Brian Sanderson, national healthcare management leader at Crowe LLP and author of the new book, The Patient-First Revolution.  In it, Brian provides a blueprint for hospitals to skyrocket net revenue by boosting patient experience (#HCBiz listeners can grab a free copy of the book here).

    Brian explains it's important to think about more than short-term financials. Yes... you need to operate efficiently and run a sound business… those are table stakes. The hospitals and health systems that take it to the next level will do so by playing the long game and being patient-first.

    This conversation continues our ongoing exploration of the Healthcare Delivery Organization Innovation Lifecycle Ontology (HDO-ILO). Brian helps us understand how to make the case for prioritizing patient-first practices and how to set and manage expectations within the organization. This, of course, is a critical early step for any healthcare innovation effort. 

    For full show notes and links, visit https://thehcbiz.com

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    46 mins
  • Building an Innovation Lifecycle Ontology
    Sep 16 2022

    It's easy to experiment with new tech and produce products that look and sound innovative. It's much harder to tie your innovation efforts to strategic objectives with measurable outcomes and then scale the solution across your organization. The former leads to "death by pilot". The latter makes a difference in people's lives.

    We need a more disciplined approach to innovation if we want to make a difference.

    In this episode (Ep. 201) we introduce the concept of the Healthcare Delivery Organization Innovation Lifecycle Ontology or HDO-ILO. That's a fancy way of saying that we are attempting to codify what we've learned over the past 200 episodes and through our decades of Health IT / Digital Health innovation experience.

    You can find the current draft here: 

    Healthcare Delivery Organization Innovation Lifecycle Ontology (HDO-ILO)

    Our goal is to help the industry move from a haphazard way of innovation to one that is more thoughtful, deliberate, targeted, measurable, and repeatable.

    And we need your help!

    There are several asks for the community throughout this episode. Please send us your ideas and experiences. We'll bring you on to share them with the #HCBiz community and we'll incorporate them (with credit) into the HDO-ILO.

    Let's innovate on purpose, and with purpose. Together...

    Find more at: https://thehcbiz.com/201-building-an-innovation-lifecycle-ontology/

    Watch this episode on YouTube

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    29 mins