📍 Today in health, it we're going to talk about events. Events have become overwhelming. In this industry. And I want to talk about what I think makes events. Different and great. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system. And creator of this week health. Instead of channels and events dedicated to transform health care, one connection at a time. We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Notable service now, enterprise health. Parlance. Certified health. And Panda health.

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All right. It's Friday. And as Friday is my day to just do stream of consciousness. And that's what I'm doing. No notes. You're just getting stream of consciousness. This is something I think about often. At this week health and the 2 29 project we are trying to create. Events that add value to the health care leader and to partners.

We're trying to figure out a way to do both, to bring those two groups of people together in a way that is constructive, but also to build rooms of people that add value to healthcare where real problems are being discussed and solutions are moving forward. That's what we're trying to do now. Everyone will say they're trying to do that, but my experience would tell me that's not really their core purpose and objective. I would say in 95% of the cases of the events I've been to it's money. Money drives events.

There's an awful lot of money in. The event industry, and that's why. It continues to thrive. And you continue to get invites in your inbox to come to them. So let me tell you what I think creates a distinct event. And this is an original with me. It's come in on our surveys from our 2 29 projects events it's coming from conversations that I've had.

In fact, it's early on directs was giving me a variation of this phrase. Lean Milligan has given me a variation of this phrase. And as I said, we've seen it on surveys. And the phrase is, .

People want to be in rooms with people like me in org, like mine, with challenges like mine who are willing to learn from and lean on each other. It's variations of that phrase that keep coming back to me, it's like bill build these rooms and we will come to those events because so many of the events. Lack value because either first of all, the large events are just too. There are colony.

There are carnivals too loud. Even if you have a great message to get out there, you can't get it out there. If your health system has done something great, it's hard to get it out there to people that can actually pick it up and do something with it. So you have to create the right atmosphere for it.

So that's one of the things that you have to do from the get go. And it's one of the reasons we have smaller events. We have 15 person events. The next thing is to get the right people in the room. I know I will be the first to tell you. I've learned a long time ago. I can learn something from everybody.

And I found some of my best hires in the most odd places. And so I try to go into rooms where there's a diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, diversity of healthcare system size and all those other things. But I will say that what's lacking in our industry in our quality of our meetings is the opportunity to get into rooms with people like me, meaning title and oh, And like mine. Responsibilities like mine in orange, like my meaning.

We have the similar set of resources from which to call on and the similar set of challenges. I had 16 hospitals. I was managing over a various states. And it's a different job. It's a frenetic job and it's a very different job than somebody who's over a single hospital. It just, it flat out is now I don't know that it's easier or harder. But it's a very different job and it's a different set of problems. That you're dealing with. And so we say people like me in orange, like my meeting. Organizations that have similar resources, similar approaches, similar challenges, maybe it's a number of hospitals.

Maybe it's geography. It could be any number of things, but it's organizations that are like-minded with challenges like mine. So I don't want to be throwing out my challenges to people and they're looking at me like, ah, I've never had that one before. And that doesn't really do me any good.

I want to have dynamic discussion around the problems. I want to throw out my problem. Have somebody say, yeah, I've had that problem before. Oh, I know what you're going through. Oh, I understand that. So it's people like me, an org, like mine. With challenges like mine. Who are willing to learn from and lean on each other.

And so here becomes one of the ways that I think healthcare leaders. Can change their approach to events. One is to approach them with humanity. If we actually put you in a room. If we go through the trouble and the challenge of putting you in a room. With people like you in org, like yours. With challenges like yours. One of the best things you can do is show up with humility. Like you can learn something from the person across the table from you. That is such, such an important thing.

In fact, we've changed. The way we do our prompting within our events because we don't have any talking head presentations. We don't have panel discussions. We just have 15 people. Like you sitting around the table, talking about your challenges. And we facilitate those conversations. And , we had to change it.

And the reason we have to change it is because there is a propensity within healthcare to talk about all the great things that you've done. And even when you're talking about the places that you've failed or struggled to talk about them in a way that somehow elevates your standing. And we wanted to figure out a prompt that would get people past that. Where they would start from a place of, Hey, I'm struggling. Has anybody else had this challenge?

In fact, I wonder, , one of the questions I was asking people when we were designing the 2 29 project is what's the best part of the larger conferences.

And they would say, oh, that's easy. It's when a group of us go to a bar together. And we have a conversation, so they've gone out and they found people like them in orange. There's. With challenges like theirs and they section off and they go to a Starbucks or they go to a bar and they have a conversation. But in my experience, I wonder how good those conversations are.

If there isn't a prompt or someone who's willing to be humble at that table. So that there is that kind of good back and forth and dynamic discussion. So one of the things I would coach healthcare leaders on is if you get into one of those rooms, Take a position of, I can learn something from the people across from me. You may not like the word humble. Use, whatever words you wanna use but just approach it.

Like they, they have some answers that you want to get out of that. And there's going to be value in that conversation. Let me tell you the challenge of putting together events where it's people like me in orange, like mine with challenges like mine. Because at some point. You have to do it by invitation only. Because if you don't do it by invitation only, and people have asked me why are your events invite only by the way, it's open to everybody. Reach out to us, send us a note if you're like, Hey, why haven't I been invited, send me a note.

I've had people now in the last couple of months, say to me, it's I came to one, but you haven't invited me to another. And it's you know what? Just shoot me a note. And we will get you on the list of people that we invite to these events, but just know this. We were trying to put you in rooms with people like you in orange. Like yours with challenges like yours.

And it's interesting because some of the smaller health systems are like, wait, I want to hear from these large health systems and I go, okay, great. Then go to the conference because they're going to have a panel discussion with BJ Moore and Daniel Barchie and Mike Pfeffer.

And they're going to have all those people up on stage. You could go listen to him. But if you're going to sit across from them and they're going to talk about their academic medical center and the challenges they're having with research, and you're going to look at them like we don't do research.

There's no value in the conversation for them. So you can hear from them at those other conferences, but we are striving to put people in a room who can go, Hey I have this problem and the people in that room can immediately go. Yes. I know exactly what you're talking about. Now we understand that there are shared problems across certain sets that, that, that actually go across all of healthcare. And we are looking to create events that that meet that need, like for instance, directs is a security events. We put CISOs in the room and we're not as as picky about healthcare system size because you're dealing with the same things.

And we found that the smaller health systems are still dealing with the same things. It's the same kind of attack that can hit a one hospital system that can hit a. A hundred hospital system now. . We are aware of the fact that resources are different, but it's interesting to watch those conversations because what you'll have in the smaller system is generally the person who's sitting there talking about strategy and tactics is a person whose hands are on the keyboard. They're actually going into that Z scaler, that Palo Alto device and that. And configuring the Cisco devices and then the CrowdStrike stuff.

They know that at a very deep level where if you get an assist, so from a very large system, they may not be at that level. And that's okay because they have very good discussions, very good conversations. So we do recognize that there, there are some areas and we are. Expanding our events to try to look at that.

So let me give you an idea of. Of what we're going to try to do. Moving forward. Yes. We're going to continue to do our traditional summits where we do that by title and somewhat by system size, but we're going to start to change how we do the invite process so that we can make sure that we get enough of a group of people in that room that are people like me, or it's like my challenges like mine.

We're also going to be kicking off topical summits. And we're starting in a DC. I think it's in September and we're going to do a topical summit on AI and data. So data is the foundation for all artificial intelligence projects. And so it will be AI next generation analytics and data is what we're going to be talking about in DC.

And we're doing those invites by system. We're actually inviting the system and saying, Hey, if we would like to invite you, but if you can make it please invite. The person. That can speak to strategy and tactics for your house, with some on these topics. And so we're starting that in DC.

We're going to continue doing that. We're going to try to do west coast, east coast on some of these topics, and we will expand those going into next year. And then the last thing we're doing is a, what we're calling a system to systems summit. Where we have a summit and we will handle the logistics, bringing people together and all that other stuff. But three to four systems that are of similar make that would like to get together and bring three or four of their key leaders.

And. Whoever agrees to be the point at the system can that we will get them together and they could determine what the best topics of discussion are.

I did this at St. Joe's a couple times where we got together with multiple systems. And it wasn't just me. It wasn't just me, the CIO getting together with the other CIO that has value, but it was limited value. We had sessions where we had analytics teams get together, security teams get together and we did things we shared what we were learning, what we were working on, that kind of stuff. I found them to be of great value.

And I would like to have some of our sessions next year. Be along those lines, helping systems come together. And have their leaders share more details. In fact, what we might do is have some of the people on site and some of the people be remote via zoom and they can listen in and have conversations.

So as you can tell, we're still trying to figure this out. But our goal is to build those rooms that you're looking for rooms, where you can get into that. You're like, Hey, these people are people like me with oars, like mine, with challenges like mine who are willing to share. And. Learn from each other and lean on each other. When we have challenges.

So that's what we're trying to do. This was a Friday session stream of consciousness. And hopefully all that makes sense. If you're interested in any of this stuff. Shoot me a note bill at this week. health.com. You can hit our site, the this week health.com and go to the 2 29 project.

There's a form to fill out there. Let us know you're interested in the a 2 29 project and things that are going on there. And you can also, you know what, the other thing you can do is you can subscribe to our email list and we will make sure that you are kept up to date on the things that we're doing over here.

That's all for today. It's Friday. That's it. Don't forget. Share this podcast with a friend or colleague, if you disagree with anything, if you, Hey, you know what, if you think I'm heading in the wrong direction or. Have some things wrong, please share it with me. As I tell people this over here is an experiment.

We treat it like an experiment. We do a lot of tests and pilots and we see what works, what doesn't work. We do a lot. I have a lot of discussions. We do surveys when we do things to see what people like, and don't like, And we change. Love to have you be a part of that. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Notable service now, enterprise health parlance, certified health and 📍 Panda health.

Check them out at this week. health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.