Creating a New Healthcare

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Rushika Fernandopulle MD, co-founder and CEO of Iora Health.  Rushika and his colleagues have spent the past 15 years building a model of healthcare that is primarily dedicated to optimizing people’s lives through better living – using Primary Care as the foundation.  His courageous approach has really set the vision for what Primary Care can and should look like; and numerous other innovative Primary Care redesigns have been built off of the groundbreaking Iora Health model. In this interview, Rushika will unabashedly discuss the critical success factors upon which he will not compromise.  He also shares stories which illustrate the simple elegance and amazing potential value of Primary Care.  Dr. Fernandopulle ends the conversation with one take-home ‘nugget’: do a team huddle each morning, and talk about your patients, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.  Are you up for his challenge?

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Neuwirth interviews Devin Gross, who very recently left EMMI, after many years of success at the helm, as CEO.   What becomes abundantly apparent in this dialogue is that Devin is not only a talented executive, but that he has also garnered tremendous insights into patient engagement during his 14 years at EMMI.  Topics covered include: (1) the value proposition and ROI of patient engagement; (2) the essential understanding of the differences between patient education, patient experience & patient engagement;  and (3) the two, very different, persona’s of the patient and consumer, and why each must be addressed in order for providers to be successful in a value based market.  This is a not-to-be missed episode for anyone who is interested in this most critical topic of patient engagement – potentially the ‘holy grail’ of valued based care.

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Joanna Strober, the CEO of Kurbo.  Kurbo is an online program that can be accessed via a digital app that provides motivational coaching and nutritional dietary guidance to children, parents and families who are attempting to improve their nutrition and optimize their weight.  Joanna – a long time investor in technology start-ups focused on families and children – was wholly dissatisfied with the options available to her in helping her own son lose weight.  As a result, she turned the Stanford Obesity Program into a consumer-oriented, kid-friendly app called Kurbo.  Since 2014, Kurbo has helped thousands of children and their parents eat healthier and achieve a healthier weight.  In addition to the physical benefits of weight loss, Joanna illustrates the social, emotional and behavioral benefits of these children learning how to eat better and maintaining a healthier weight.  One remarkable story that she shares with us is that the Singapore government – after a side-by-side prospective study comparing Kurbo to their own program – has instituted the Kurbo program in its entire school system – as a government benefit for children who are overweight or obese.   

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Dr. Par Bolina, Chief Innovation Officer at IKS.  Par is a physician & expert in Healthcare Informatics, Electronic Medical Records & Exam Room Ambulatory Workflow.  This episode focuses on one of the most critical and under-examined parts of healthcare delivery – the so-called “last mile” – the patient/provider encounter – where the rubber meets the road, and where healthcare value is directly created.  To be quite honest – this podcast episode is lengthy; but you won’t want to miss what’s revealed.   Dr. Bolina points out that our lack of investigation into and superficial understanding of the provider/patient encounter is what is leading to avoidable care gaps, suboptimal outcomes, inefficiencies, high costs, provider burnout, and less than optimal patient experience. Similar to a Jacque Cousteau, Bolina takes us on a deep dive into this largely unexplored domain, and opens our eyes to the ‘ecosystem of the encounter’ – what might be considered ‘the final frontier’ of healthcare delivery.  What Bolina reveals to us is that the provider/patient encounter is filled with real-time data that we could measure and use, to dramatically improve upon healthcare outcomes.  Dr. Bolina discusses ‘Scribbles’ – a ‘scribe on steroids’ redesign that he’s developed at IKS.  Scribbles is an asynchronous, virtual, off-site physician-scribe/coach who listens to the audio recorded encounters during off-hours, and provides the provider with daily, real-time feedback and recommendations to improve clinical care, documentation & coding.

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Hesky Kutscher, the CEO of CareDox.  Hesky is an experienced, bottom line entrepreneur who is also driven by a mission to radically improve the system of healthcare for school children.  In this episode, Hesky describes the CareDox digital platform which is a 4-way platform that connects school health to parents, pediatricians & payers.   CareDox has developed and is deploying a data-rich, analytic, digital platform to support, integrate and enhance the medical care of schoolchildren.  As Hesky describes, the application of this approach will result in improved outcomes of care & lower costs through preventive measures such as assuring vaccinations; alerting school nurses, parents & pediatricians of impending problems; and ultimately, through the reduction of preventable & avoidable emergency room visits & hospitalizations.

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Bob Matthews, CEO of Medisync & VP of Quality at PriMed Physicians.  Bob has been engaged in Population Health & Value Based Care since the early 1990’s and brings a practical wisdom, refreshingly honest insights, and ambitious goals to this increasingly important movement within healthcare delivery.  He shares how he has, along with his colleagues at PriMed Physicians, constructed a unique approach to chronic disease management that has led to significantly superior and consistent outcomes.  This approach, based on the principles of Six Sigma, makes it easier for physicians to practice good medicine and easier for patients to engage in their own care.  Bob teaches us the distinction between pathways, algorithms & processes; emphasizing that ‘a process is a way to make sure that we do the right thing, every time, for every patient, every day…  If you don’t have a repeatable process, you don’t have crap!”.  Bob drives home the point that embracing payment-for-value and the practice of outcomes-based medicine is the only viable option if we plan to be able to deliver medical care to all Americans.  

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Cathryn Gunther, a seasoned Pharma executive, who discusses her passion and award winning efforts to advance employee health at Merck; and shares a glimpse into Merck’s global population health initiatives.  We explore the overlap of employee health, community health & population health.; and discover the potential for employee health to serve as a channel for improving population health.  Cathryn leaves healthcare leaders with a wonderfully simple directive, “Make the healthy choice, the easy choice…”

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Tom Charland, CEO of Merchant Medicine and one of the leading experts in the On Demand/Urgent Care industry.  Tom reveals the customer oriented and data driven underpinnings that have led to the sky-rocketing growth of the Urgent Care sector.  He also explains how this business orientation can lead to consistently superior clinical care, as well as greater convenience and access, compared to offerings of lower acuity/lower complexity Urgent Care within the traditional Primary Care setting.  Tom views On-Demand care as complementary rather than competitive to traditional Primary Care, and describes how providers can and are integrating this into their practices and integrated delivery networks.

Introduction to a podcast series focused on sharing new perspectives in healthcare.