In today's episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with the remarkable Joe Baffone, an expert in the healthcare industry. With a focus on busting through administrative toxicities that lead to financial toxins, Joe discusses their comprehensive tooling and tech-enabled services that manage financial assistance for provider organizations.

Join us as Joe dives into the impact of personalized immunotherapies, the challenges in managing patient care journeys, and the transformational role of data. We also get a glimpse into Joe's reading preferences and their book recommendations. Stay tuned for an enlightening conversation with this compassionate capitalist on changing the world through the power of data.

Show Notes

[00:02:34] Joe Baffone, CEO of Anexis Health, wants to revolutionize healthcare data.

[00:04:13] Leading advocacy groups and healthcare companies professionally.

[00:07:52] Equities of care: improving healthcare journey management.

[00:09:50] Automated, comprehensive healthcare management with patient access.

[00:16:24] Data is important, helps improve patient therapy.

[00:18:52] Eye-opening stories managing a growing team.

[00:23:27] Life altering diagnosis, overwhelming paperwork and fees.

[00:26:27] EHR systems make healthcare data sharing easier.

[00:28:50] HIPAA and privacy concerns collide with medical data, but de-identification and aggregates can help.

[00:33:19] FHIR APIs transforming data sharing in healthcare.

[00:36:41] Data is essential to prove world-changing ideas.

[00:39:55] Making a difference gives me satisfaction and fulfillment.

[00:43:54] Clinical roles in pharma, administrative challenges, suicide epidemic, blood markers can help act quickly.

[00:44:58] Logistical challenges in personalized immunotherapies affecting healthcare.

[00:50:48] Grant Cardone's book: Be Obsessed or Be Average

[00:52:13] Love reading, Bible daily, thought-provoking thrillers.

In this captivating episode of data driven, we engage in a thought

provoking discussion about equities of care and disparities in the health

care system. Our guest explains how patients

experience varying levels of care based on their unique circumstances,

an issue that undoubtedly impacts both the health care system and the

patients themselves. We discuss the administrative

inefficiencies and lack of effective management in healthcare systems.

Can data and AI really fix this issue? Listen

to find out.

Hello, and welcome to Data Driven, the podcast where we explore the

emergent. Right? It's no longer emerging. Fields of data science,

machine learning and artificial intelligence, and, of course, data engineering, which

is really the foundation for all of the good stuff that we're gonna talk about

today. How you doing, Andy? I'm well, Frank. How about yourself? I'm

doing alright. I'm still working on memorizing the season 7 kinda intro,

which is probably by the time this show goes out, it's It's been a

little different each time. So Sure. But it's all good. I I like

the, the emphasis on data engineering, of course. Mhmm. I'm

Naturally. But, totally

totally get that. And, I'm really excited about,

today's guest. Cool. Yeah. Me too. I I will add

that that before we talk about our guest, that the the emphasis of

data engineering isn't just for you. It's mostly for you. Well,

thanks, Frank. I appreciate that. The more work I've done in

in enterprises, the more I realized that, you know, this is

It is foundational. Right? And and and if you follow me on on my Red

Hat channels and things like that, you know, I have this this talk, you know,

red, rock stars and roadies. Right. Like, our office hours talk, by the way.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. And, you know, and I use the

example of Taylor Swift because my niece is a huge fan of hers. Right? So

people buy the tickets for Tay Tay. Right? But Tay Tay's concert

wouldn't be awesome. I'm not a fan. Right? So I'm not and they don't

hate. I don't fan. I'm very neutral. I'm Tay I'm Tay Tay neutral. Right?

And my my my Tay Tay Probability wave has

function is not collapsed yet. So, that's

a quantum computing joke, which you will get or you won't

get or neither, I suppose, which is another joke. Anyway,

it really comes up that that, you you know, it's important. Right? Like, the the

rock star is important. That's who sells the tickets, but Absolutely. The

performance can't go on without all the people that go in. So roadies.

Yeah. With that, I'm gonna we're gonna have a great conversation with Joe

Bethone, or Bethony. I'm not we'll get the corrected pronunciation in a

minute. He's the cofounder and CEO of Anexis Health, a leading health care

tech company That helps lessen Nice. Administrative and

logistical barriers across the patient experience, increase access to

care, reduce financial burdens at both Patient and provider

levels. His goal is to change the world by building a culture around health care

data that people wanna be a part of. Welcome to the show, Joe. Thanks so

much, Frank. Hey, Andy. Hey. Yeah. It's it's we had a

little bit of a chat in the virtual green room here, and we'll get to

that maybe at the, as the show progresses. But, just

wanna welcome you, Joe, to the show. The, the the

goals, the mission, of the company just sounds amazing.

It sounds what exactly is needed. Right? Yeah. So so

so tell us about how did you how'd you get here? Like, how'd

you How'd you get there? How'd you hit that

frustration point? What made you take the action, and then what your firm is

doing? Yeah. Yeah. I I think that it It took me

longer to get here than I than it should have. Right? I

think I'm more stubborn than I ever thought, And

maybe it just takes me longer to learn. I spent a lot of time in

the pharma industry doing a bunch of different things.

So the things that I did in pharma that relate to what I'm doing

today, were around roles I

played in the business of oncology. Alright. So

I did things like create payer focusing teams, facing

teams, led reimbursement Teams. I led

relationships in big health care companies. I

had the opportunity and the blessing To lead

our relationships with advocacy groups. And

that was probably one of the most meaningful experiences in my

professional career Because it got me

into this seat to watch people that dedicated their

entire Professional life. 2, advocating on

behalf of patients. In this case, cancer patients.

So it was extremely meaningful for me

To watch people or to interact with people and try

to play some kind of meaningful role in the

lives of those that were looking to impact the lives of

patients with a cancer diagnosis. So that was a really cool

opportunity. I did learn a lot through all of These

other experiences, another big experience was

leading relationships with large health care

companies. Large health care companies that supported and sold

into pharma. So what I learned was

there's a lot of crap out there. Right? And there's some good stuff.

And learning the ability to kinda

sift through things, learning the ability to say, hey, this looks really cool,

But how do you measure it? Right? There's a kind of a data story in

that. Right? Right. So ultimately,

I spent too much time because I'm Stubborn,

and I think that I learn quickly, but sometimes I refuse

to learn On other's terms. Right? And

so other's terms, the Andy God, in this case. Right?

Where there is a there there's a plan in play here. So, Ultimately,

I don't have any regrets, and, really, the honest truth is is I needed all

those experiences to help me as an operator. So I stepped out of

pharma. I did the operator gig somewhere else prior to this

and it was around data. It was around taking clearing house

data, bringing it in, And creating meaning and action

to that date. Meaning so it's clearing us data for

claims and remittance. And there's a lot of good data in there. Right? But

it's all how it's packaged. Right? So in the oncology space,

provider organizations are buy and bill. They have pharmacy dispensing software,

So they've got skin in the game. Certainly, the patient has skin in the game

and stuff not getting paid for it is getting paid for. Right? So we

ingested the data. We looked at it closely. We found out what was going

on with things that were being denied. Why was it being denied?

What are the things that we could do to impact Denials or

approvals or time to payments. Right? And that all impacts patient

care. So we took that data. We ingested We

created meeting in action. We created pretty pictures, and we sold in to

pharma. We help providers, right, help their patients.

So during that time, as an operator, we

were discovering and exploring other things to truly have an

impact on improving access to health care for

patients. And so at that time, in

that role as an operator With other partners,

we actually were working with another software company to start to build the

bones of our technology at Anexis Health today,

And that is assist point. We can get a little into a little bit more,

about that later, but that's the journey that led me to

Anexis Health. Do we wanna pause and banter or,

go through some questions, or you want me to tell you a little bit about

Anexis Health? Well, I'd like to know more about Anexis Health. I mean, there's there's

a lot to unpack what you said, but I think if we kind of if

you close the loop and kinda see what you do, that might that might make

the questions a little more clearer. Yeah. And I think to the audience and maybe

you guys, depending on how much time that, you

guys spent just looking at our website, Ultimately, there's a big

conversation going on right now around equities of care.

I don't know if you guys have heard about that, but ultimately,

Whether you call it equities of care or disparities of care,

there is a real issue in our healthcare system

where Based on specific circumstances,

patients are getting care or not getting care, or getting care

in a different way. Right? And it's having an impact on our health care system.

It's having an impact on patients. So it's it's really interesting

that this is a really hot topic. We actually started building

building this this concept of a company really before

this became a hot topic. So what we're solving for

is actually improving the

way the health care journey is managed. And our focus

is busting through administrative toxicities That often lead to

financial toxins. So how do we do that? Yeah. We

basically provide a comprehensive

Tooling through technology and through

services, tech enabled services, to manage

financial assistance start to finish For provider organizations.

So it could be a community provider, and we're in 14 different disease

states now. We started in in oncology. And, ultimately,

What we do for provider organizations as it relates to financial

assistance is 4 key pillars, search and roll, track, and adult.

So if you guys know anything about the health care space and revenue

cycle management, ultimately, what we do for financial assistance

is that complete cycle of management around financial

assistance, and and it does a couple things that are really important. Number 1,

it makes the providers whole Economically so that they can continue to treat

patients the way they need to. It takes a burden off

of the patient, so they get the health care they deserve.

And, ultimately, we're making this heavy administrative

process and function cleaner, Easier,

more automated, more comprehensive, and so that's 1 that's what we

started. Right? That was the the MVP that we created, And then

we started to develop other tools around access. And

so management of free drug is a really important thing in the

space. It's something that is needed to get patients on the

therapy that they need, but often, it's a net

negative To life science, to the provider, even to the patient

because of what's actually not being paid for wrapped around that. And so

we do a really good job of Managing that, making sure that where there's an

opportunity to convert patients to other assistance options to get

commercial drug, we do that as well. So those things

that we're currently doing right now, inclusive of making sure that

everyone has access to other services like travel, Lodging,

psychosocial, other other services are in one

destination, in one place. Now Why is

this a big thing? Because before we started doing this, really, we were the

1st to market with this provider centric comprehensive way of

approaching things. It was all spreadsheets. It was fax machines. It

was post it notes. It was free text notes in EHRs and rev

cycles. So it was a mess, And that was

our competition. Now our vision our vision of this organization

is to bust through in more administrative top systems

by providing the enterprise platform for provider

organizations. So it could be community providers, health

systems, institutions. The enterprise platform

we that that we wanna provide is focused on administrative logistics. So in

the health care system, provider organizations have Three key technology

enterprise platforms, the EHR, the electronic health record,

the revenue cycle management system, the cash register, And

and the intake engine and the pharmacy dispensing software.

All of those systems are not designed to manage

The administrative logistics of the patient's care journey. So as

a country, we talk about equities of care. We talk about managing the

patient experience in their health care journey, and we haven't

tooled the space to do that effectively. Right? And if

you think about it, Most of the if you guys have

individual experience or family experience or friend experience, getting

a diagnosis of cancer or some

disease that is associated with the sophisticated disease

states like gastroenterology, rheumatoid arthritis. I could go on and on. That's a

heavy piece of information to receive. Right? Oh, it's a life changing

event. Oh my god. And then they said, go figure it out. I think you

should get this, But go figure out all these scenarios, like, how you're gonna pay

for it? Is there help out there? Right? Are you going to have

to be at a certain, like when we talk about disparities,

Andy, you live in Farmville, Virginia. I don't know how close the the

the the really top notch next level

Center you would go to for a cancer diagnosis, but Yeah. Getting there

and getting there on a regular basis is something that we struggle with. Right? So

if you're in rural America or there's other scenarios around Urban America. Anyway,

there's a lot of administrative functions that aren't managed

effectively, and it's all one off. So the things that we wanna Really

carve out and manage from an enterprise approach

with provider organizations is the remote nature of patients that are

on oral therapeutics. The cell and gene space is

heavily laden with administrative logistics, the testing,

diagnostics, and genomic profiling space. So

by doing that, we're creating a technology network. We're pretty big

already with our current state. And by creating that technology

network, We create the ecosystem by which

services and data solutions flow through, and pharma invests

heavily in that To automate, to make sure there's fulfillment

to impact 3 key things. Getting patients on intended therapy,

Getting them on therapy quicker and keeping them on therapy because we know

from our data, when there is an a therapeutic

designed and there's scientific evidence around the impact it

has. And if you do those 3 things, you're gonna improve outcomes.

So That's what we're doing as an organization. I

I wanna tell you guys that I am a capitalist

at heart With a purpose to change the world. You said that earlier, and that's

something that we can be and can do. Well, that's

true. They're not mutually exclusive, and there's a lot There's a lot

of unpacking that. Right? And then and just as, you know,

thank God I never had a cancer diagnosis, but

just Doing stuff in the health care system. Right? Yeah.

Just doing anything in the health care system. You look at the mass

quantities of paperwork that has to go And I mean, not just

paperwork, like, in the term, but, like, actual paper that's still

used. Like, you mentioned post it notes and spreadsheets. About the

fax machine, Frank. Or the fax machine. It's crazy. And

it's, like, I'm just in my back of my head, like, that little

data engineer in me is Freaking out because, oh my god, like, that's

at least it's like there's n number, x number of formats,

and and and and it just And, you know, people

of this show know, like, that is that is a huge,

barrier. Like, that's a and that's a big

That alone is it will will block it. And you kinda look at it like,

can't this be better? And, you know, and I kinda see, like, oh, yeah. You're

still using fax machines. Wow.

Yeah. So so it's kinda interesting where when I

was talk talked to you about How how we start and what we're doing

around this equities of care thing. And

what's going on in this space is

It's very similar to Frank, Andy, how you describe

on, your website around the what's

going on with data Related to the old what

went on with oil. Right? So when we think about

equities of care, when we think about the health care Space.

What you guys describe around the data opportunity

is incredible. I think about it on a couple different levels. Number

1, You can tell I'm passionate about what I'm doing. Right? Absolutely. And

you can tell that hopefully,

you Stan, right, I'm on this program because data is really important to me. But

it's super important to me for a different reason than it is to you guys.

And I think But there's some similarities. Right? Where Oh, sure.

Data make data makes a freaking difference. Right? And so for me,

to sit here and tell you my story, Or to sell into life science, or

to sell into a provider, or sit on another podcast that I was

on yesterday and describe how we're impacting the market,

I have to have data to tell the story to be able

to prove that I can, actually, in my company, right,

can improve the likelihood that a patient's gonna get on therapy, and we do.

Right? To make sure that we're demonstrating with what we do, we're getting patients on

therapy quicker. We're getting patients on therapy and maintaining them on

therapy. So in everything we do, we're constantly analyzing

the data to demonstrate that we're doing those things. But, Frank, I

think you said something earlier, or maybe we're talking offline about, like,

the the whole idea of well, no. You just said it. Right? Like, the

cumbersome nature of the paperwork Process. Yeah. Right? I think

about some of the things that we do. Right? We wanna we wanna get rid

of the spreadsheets. We wanna get rid of the paper. But sometimes we

can't do it fast enough. Right? So We're constantly

iterating on our technology. So the iteration in our

technology has to include machine learning and AI and RPA.

And you know what? You don't invest in that heavily, if you don't understand it

deeply, then you're gonna spin and spin

and spin. And then, ultimately, my unit economics Don't improve because I got

people doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing, processing paper or

manually entering something in the system that should be

automated. So I, anyway, besides the fact that I'm really

passionate about what I do, when I started to read about you guys and listen

to some of your podcasts, you got me, you got me all fired up. Now

I wish you Oh, cool. This Friday because I was ready to roll. Oh, that's

awesome. Thank you. Thanks for that feedback, Joe. And I know I've had

a Couple of experiences that I could, you kinda

relate to what you're talking about. 1, I, worked for

Unisys for a couple years, And we did Medicaid,

systems, MMIS systems. And so you've got

kind of that it it's a bit of a fringe element or at least people

kinda think of it that way. It's not quite like,

the big insurance companies and stuff, and I I've done work on their data as

well, helping them with data engineering there. That's that's what I

do. But it was very eye opening to

see, You know, to see and hear the stories and

managing a team that grew to 40 people. That was new

for me as well, but the key was Picking a story and

going with that and saying it was a it was a pharmacy story. And

it was sometime in the future after we deploy this,

Some grandmother is gonna go and try at 10 minutes to 5 on

a Friday, afternoon, and Monday's a holiday. She's

gonna try and fill her prescription. And if she doesn't fill

it, she doesn't know this, but if she doesn't fill it, she's not gonna make

it till Tuesday. And so our job is to make

sure that that grandma gets her prescription in plenty of time before

the pharmacy closes at 5, and that she gets to live for

however long she's supposed to and enjoy her life and have her children and

grandchildren, you know, enjoy her life. And

Pausing in the middle of a presentation of that and just watching

the, you know, they, at this point, we were all remote

watching the faces on the screens And everybody kind of got that

and it resonated. And it's your the stories you're

telling, I I feel are in alignment with that. You're you're focused

on the outcome. And the outcome is people's lives are

better or longer or both. The other personal

story is my my dad passed away in 2019, and

he lived in Appalachia, so a couple 100 miles west of

here. And, you know, I've I've done,

I've been very honored to to be able to go and do

missions work in Honduras. I have few few mission trips down

there. And that area out there is not it

it's it's way closer to Honduras than it is to where I was. I've been

in Farmville. It's just It's neglected,

almost. And and people are struggling even now,

and they were back then as well. And but yet and still,

there were there were good hospitals there. There were doctors there that were caring. I

met with them, talked with them. They were doing their level best. But

When I mentioned that I did data after we had, had

built a little bit of trust, when I I worked on data, they they

kinda opened up to me, and they were describing Problems similar to what

you're solving. The EHR systems that they just

hit a blocker. And and this is not a complaint. Everybody's doing their

best. It just wasn't there yet. And

what you described sounds like a big part of the

solution that a a conversation I had with 1 of dad's docs.

So that's it's amazing. I think that there are companies out

trying to solve that. And the technology has gotten so

ubiquitous and connectivity, so ubiquitous and and the

tech's so cheap that it's while it looks

like a large jump from filling in the forms or typing in Excel

To working on a tablet, it's really not anymore. So Well, I

I I I I would take the contrarian point of view of that because, like,

it Okay. It

I I I wonder, like, it's very easy as a technologist,

right, to just assume everybody's gonna Comfortable with technology. Right? You're not wrong,

Andy, but it's just about the patients, mind you. My dad, Andy, my

tablet? No. Probably even the medical even the doc,

The medical field is a field that is driven has always been driven

by data. Right? Like Yeah. You know? But they are not Data

driven. And, you know, that's not a plug for the podcast, but, like, it just

it's like you know, for instance, right, and and a more lighthearted thing. Right?

This that's not life and death. Right? I have a Fitbit. I I I track

my heart rate. I I I, you know, I I track a lot of data

and track my weight. I go into my doctor and,

You know, I show it was like a group practice. I showed her, like, you

know, this is the data, like, you know. Because, you know, you look at my

profile, my age, my height, my weight, like, You know, but I'm like,

here's my resting heart rate. Here's all the data I have on my heart rate.

Yeah. And she just looked at me like I was insane. And I'm

probably you're definitely an you're not insane. But you are an anomaly, I think, that

you not only track it, but you present it, to your

doctor. So But, you know, you think of that you know, it just seems like

some doctors, I think, are more open to the idea.

Well, I guess there's multiple angles to this. This is probably why it's a difficult

problem to solve. Right? Because there there's there's Yeah. So many players, but everybody

has their own different systems. Right. And, you

know, I I just I just can't I mean, this is there's so much to

unpack. Right? Like, because I can't imagine Yeah. You're getting a some kind of

Bad diagnosis, and

that's a life changing event. And then you're thrown all of this stuff, like, you

know, like like like, all the things that That Joe had said, it's just like

Yeah. You know, how I mean, on a normal like, just a

like, I had a knee surgery, like, 10 years ago. I mean, the the knee

surgery, was 3 months from, you know,

doctor said you need to do it to what was done. And then, like, 3

years later, I'm still getting paperwork, Like, oh, this has to be paid. Like and

it's just like, I I just can't imagine,

like, it just I don't know. Like, that just blew my mind. Like,

3 years later, like, I I I I I half expect to get email

at mail at the new house, like, hey, you still owe us $5

and A $50 processing fee, which, again, like,

is so bizarre. It's it's interesting too

what's going on in the space, so So, actually, to both of your points.

Right? So we've come very far. Mhmm. I just think about some of the

things that the federal government does that's A colossal failure, and then I think about

some things that are favorable. So let's stay positive. Right? Sure. So as it

relates to system and it relates to data, You know, the

federal government launched this meaningful use thing

years years ago, and the health care system

battled. Providers battle over this, being forced

into using an electronic chart system,

right, versus This paper, you still go into

these practices and you still see they've got their manila folders up

on on the wall. And, ultimately, they

it was initially a carrot, and then it became a stick, and there was a

lot of complaining. And there was some heavy economic toll. Right? Because the

amount of money that the federal government was giving through meaningful use wasn't

meaning. Right? Mhmm. But provider organization struggle for what we're all

better for. We all are better better for it, and

we're better for it because of data. But we still struggle. Right? Because if

you're not capturing this data in a way Through or the data

is an input in fields? You guys know. Right? You're not

capturing structured data. Right? You're capturing Right. Free text notes. What the hell do

you do with that? And I don't care how good you think you are at

natural language processing. There's still people you gotta apply to it and still

ineffective. Right? Right. So I just think about that movement

and and how it's getting much better, and we are trying to force everyone to

think about forcing this in the field. Let's understand the fields. Right?

Because the next level of what the federal government has done

very positively, again, is interoperability. So meaningful

use became interoperability. Now everybody's talking about shell

sharing health care data that we used to put walls

around. And that's, yes, such crap They were putting walls

around that, and the primary reason was because people wanted to make money. Right?

Mhmm. So the federal government has decided that this health care data is the patient's

data. Let's figure out a way to share data through a standard

API approach. Right? And Right. Although we're way far from that,

It still has actually made the conversation easier. It's made it

easier for Nexus Health to do the data

thing To allow us to do what we do from a tech and services

perspective much easier and much better because I'm talking to these EHR

systems, these rev cycle systems, these pharmacy dispensing systems,

these data aggregators or institutions or whatever it may

be, and where they may have sat in a place where they're like,

no. You can't come anywhere near my data because I would have

monetized it, and they had no interest in changing the world. Right.

But then Right. To change the world by putting money in their pockets so they

could go spend it somewhere else. Right? So now I think the the industry is

looking at it a little differently, And it's opening

up. I think getting back to the original point that I wanted to make, though,

I think things are getting better. I think it's light new day

Different than it was, like, 10 years ago, but we still have basic challenges.

Right? Like, I think about one of the things that we're facing right now,

where I need to create a

better system by which we connect with charitable foundations

because it's really bulky, what we're solving for there. The charitable

foundations are a five zero one c three. They don't have the people, the time,

the FTEs to engage in some basic conversations.

Like, we make things really easy. And if anybody's listening from charitable

foundations, please contact Sunexis Health because we can make your life

easier. We could make you do better at what you do. You're gonna get more

money in because that we improve it, and we're gonna cost you less money by

the way you process things. But ultimately, people are resistant. There's not a lot of

time. So I'm trying to RPA things. Right? But if I've got an

unwilling participant because They think it's gonna be too much,

or they think there's gonna be security risks. And they're not even willing to

have the conversation that if I wanna do The really clean,

easy way without their participation, they got

stuff blocking my box. And alls I wanna do is the right

thing for the patient. Right? So, yeah, we can we can solve for that and

do that. But guess what? You know how much money we're Spending to solve for

this and iterate on this thing. And ultimately, every penny I

spend on that kind of crap, and it makes it more expensive for me,

Then it makes it harder for me to impact patients. So there's

Every cycle every cycle you spend doing that is a cycle you're not

spending. Sorry, Andy. I got you off. That's okay. No. And and you've got

some well intentioned regulation, HIPAA,

And and just other privacy concerns, just general,

personally identifying information type stuff that that's out

there. And it all collides, I think at at medical

data. So, you know, I while I understand some of

the resistance that you're seeing and I and I kinda get where it's coming from

and and agree with that Part of it, there's ways

to de identify data and and go after aggregates,

especially if you're Trying to do what you're trying to do. You're trying to smooth

out the system for everyone. You're not while while it will

benefit individuals, you're not going after individual data.

So and there's other things. Right? Like, you just gotta make sure. And you do

have to put some time into it. Right? Like, isn't excess help legit? Right?

Well, there's things that can understand if they're legit or not. Are you SOC

2? Are you HITRUST? Right? So there's things that we are

doing from a regulation perspective That make it easier for us to

trust those that wanna prevail in the data. So do you think

that people or organizations hide behind regulations

by saying, like, oh, that's that's HIPAA. We we can't do that, or

it's too much of a risk. Is that is that a thing? It was like

I think, we I think we can all agree that HIPAA has been has

its use. Right? It has its purpose, but I don't understand. Has that been a

has that been a have people used that as blockers? For Unequivocally,

yes, Frank. Unequivocally, yes. Yeah. And and I and

it might it could be It's anywhere. It's

anywhere. It it is and and I think about the segments of our business. Right?

So working with a large Health system

or institution. Right? And and my people are

dealing with 3 lawyers, 2 security

folks, 3 compliance folks, 4 regulators, and

Wow. They all have a really important purpose in this. Mhmm.

But If their purpose is to say no

and Mhmm. Say no, hiding

behind Regulations

and policies versus Yeah. Understanding the reason for that

regulation and Policy and being solution oriented? Oh my

gosh. Yeah. So it blocks or cost time and money at the

provider on the same thing in the life science world, Right? Where

you have lawyers that they're there to do the job. They they have to.

Right? Because no life science company OIG coming down on them for

whatever the reason, but you have to be solution oriented. You gotta look

at the organization. You gotta make sure that organization is

actually doing what it's saying it's doing, and there's

ways to test that and look into that, versus saying no. And and and that's

like, you can you can hear, Frank, The passion and my answer on that question?

Oh my gosh. I've spent so much time and so much money

getting through Those that sit in a seat that they're hiding

behind something because it's easier to say no than to work to a

solution. Yeah. That is that is true.

What are your thoughts about the fire? The, f

h I r. Is it pronounced fire or is it fear? Because I've heard both.

I say fire, and I'm using the authority on the way things are

said. But what's

fascinating is so so the previous job, I, you know, I

I was, technology architect for data and AI at at

at one of the MTCs, Microsoft Technology Centers, And I had never heard

of fire. Right? I've been out of the, electronic health record space

since 2006, and so I it was completely

new to me, and I would blow my mind. It shouldn't blow my mind, but

it was like, wow. This is actually a couple things blew Wow. People

actually in this space got together to work together? That blew

my mind. 2, it was both, Java's, JSON

and XML compliant, Which I thought was pretty pretty cool.

Has that helped? Is that is that been a good kind of kind of having

a common language for these systems to talk to one another?

Yeah. So I think, generally speaking let's just step back. So so fire,

I think there's a lot of conversation around it because that's how the federal government

has decided to put language around the standards. Right? The

standard for communicating. So fire API. So I think just the

API Approach is yes. It's

all good. Right? So let's standardize the way we're gonna share

information in a safe private matter. So, yes, it has changed the

game, but the whole discussion around FHIR and creating FHIR APIs and

standards of communication has opened the door

incredibly to this

idea that we should be really investing

in sharing data and we can't Sit in a

position of hiding behind something or just being scared to death. So Yeah.

I think that the the the conversation, And I think the

work being done and I think the work being done, and then, absolutely, the

application. Right? So whether we describe that we're Using

a FHIR API or we're using an API approach

that we've created the specs around or we're working with someone else's

specs, A whole idea that you can communicate between between

with these application programming interfaces is

Life changing. Right? Because there's still a lot of stuff that we're doing through h

l seven, ADT feeds. There's stuff that we're absorbing in a

flat file. Right? And I can't wait for the day that all of it is

through API. Why? Right. Because it's gonna be better. It's gonna be cleaner. It's gonna

be faster, And it's god, I hope gonna be less

expensive. Well, yeah. I mean, you're right. Go ahead, Frank.

Sorry. No. Anytime you say flat file, it's kinda like,

Yeah. I started to sweat. I said it. I start my palms are sweating.

Right? I I had those sinking feeling in my stomach. So I'll get the

task Andy's memory. We had a guest that made an analogy, and I only remember

part of it where it was basically Data data professionals

were, used to be kind of guardians or

gatekeepers, and now they're shopkeepers. I forget who said

that. That's Donald Farmer. That's what I thought.

I wasn't sure. So so we had a show, and he's like he kinda has

wax is very philosophical because data at one point was Hidden

within an enterprise. There were silos were considered normal. But I think

now what you're talking about with all these different parties, like Like you said,

they have to open it up. They have to be like a store almost. Obviously,

with HIPAA and things like that, there has to be some constraints, but Yeah. But

I think it's a mindset shift. My mindset shift. I didn't

say that. What I was gonna say. Yeah. It's definitely a mindset

culture switch. And I like you, I cringed a little bit

when I heard an EDI, you know,

specification. And I believe h l seven was one

of those. I've it's been a while, but, yeah, those were hard those

are hard to load. And I just did a recent blog post related

to that. I I titled it h, sorry, XM held.

XM held. This

is, you know, give me anything, something,

anything other than XML. But But that but as we're

having that conversation, The different formats and the ways that we, the company,

a data company so we're we're a health care solutions company, but we're a

data company at heart. Right? Right. So I think about

How we wanna be better every day around ETL. Right? So

extract, transform, and load. And and I just think about

the pain that we've been through, The process that we've been through,

but the whole idea is that if we're gonna do this data

thing right, Right? Yeah. And we are there's gonna be

individuals. There's gonna be companies that are gonna invest in this. Like,

there's a lot. There's a lot to doing this. There's a lot to being in

this game for us, right, as data people. And I'm

not a real data person. Right? I'm a I'm a I'm I'm

a I'm a change the world geek, and and so you guys ask questions, I

think, typically, in our website, like, what brought you to data? It's because

data is the only way that I wanna prove that we can change the world

and then how we do it better. But this whole idea that we've gotta invest

so much money And extract, transform, and load.

Right? I don't care. Like, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say this to demonstrate I

don't know what I'm talking about. But the amount of money we're investing in palaces

and lakes and Rivers and whatever the hell that is for ETL.

Right? It's crazy. Like, let's just get ourselves wrapped

around the fact that Figuring out the best way

to share data, figuring out the best way to ingest

data and be able to study it in a meaningful way Yeah.

Changes the world, and that's what I wanna do. And I that's why I love

what I see that you guys are doing. Right? Oh, thanks. Well, thanks.

Yeah. This is an awesome conversation. We can go on for another

hour, but, probably good times. Yeah. It's all fun at the

moment. Well, I'm on these guys

So you kinda touched upon the first question we asked, which is how did you

find your way into data? Did you find data or did data find you?

You know what? And and and I I let out some of the stuff that

I pre prepared, but, like, literally all good. Yeah.

Literally, I, for the longest time, knew I

wanted to change the world. I just didn't know how the heck I was gonna

do it. Right? Yeah. So as I started to think about things and I started

to look at things, data points are really like, I think

in bullet points. I think in spreadsheets. Not even knowing that I was a

data guy, I tell our data scientist lead all the time that,

you know, that's what I wanna do next. I want to learn how to be

a data scientist. Right? Because I'm nowhere near that. Like, I gotta go to probably

50 years of slow learner, 50 years of schooling to to be that. But it

was it was this this thing that's changed the world geek inside of

me that let me know I was constantly absorbing data

points. And so once I cited or

once God laid on my heart what I actually wanted to do. Right?

Then it became really clear to me

The data is the way to do it. Right? Data is the way to decide

what you wanna do. Data is the way to decide you is the way to

decide How you build it better, how you structure it. Data is the way

you prove what you've intended to do is working, and then

data will tell you what to ship and what to change to. So, Anyway, I

was brought to it, but I guess in my heart, I always was that kind

of data geek. I just need to learn a lot more to be as cool

as you guys. Oh, We're constantly learning

too. It keeps changing on us, Joe, so it's all good.

Our second question is which go ahead. I love the story. I love the

story in data. Right? Oh, yeah. There are there are stories in

every data point. Ab absolutely. And that's a really good way to

kinda get everybody on the same page. We've been listening to stories

since, you know, we were kids, so, you know, that helps.

Our our second question is, what's your favorite part of your current gig?

When I go back to the stuff I'm saying over and over again, it's making

a difference. Right? So It's good. I told you guys I was a

capitalist, through through. But it's not about

making money. I've done a bunch of different things in my professional life and

made money. Right? That I, Andy, when you're talking

earlier, I don't get satisfaction fulfillment

from my job, There's professional satisfaction

that comes along with your work, and, ultimately,

I get that satisfaction through making a difference. So I just feel like,

man, I'm and and I guess I shouldn't be putting this out there, but

at 57 years of age, I had no

intention or no idea that I'd be working the kind of hours that I'm working,

but I can't wait. I'm a real early riser, and it's because I can't wait,

it's not because I'm stressed out, it's because I can't wait to get to work

and make a difference. That's fantastic.

Awesome. So we have, 3 complete the

sentence, questions. When I'm not working, I

enjoy blank. Interesting.

Surfing. Cool. So you're on the East Coast you mentioned just a minute ago.

Yeah. Where do you surf? So I have a place in

Bethany Beach, Delaware, and so I'm storm chaser. I'm a hurricane chaser,

but I will you know, I'll I'll find ways to get to places

that have really good waves on a regular basis. Awesome.

Awesome. Our next our next fill in the blank,

is I think the coolest thing in technology today is

blank. The pace of change. I think that,

Andy, you guys were Frank both were talking about this

earlier, and I think we were talking about it through the conversation, like, the differences

that we've seen. And I think that, like, you you use the analogy

of oil. We can also use the analogy of the

industrial revolution and, like, how things change so rapidly.

Everybody talks about the technology revolution. I mean, I think we should be talking about

the data revolution, right, about what's going on and how fast it's

all changing. So I I think that, ultimately,

It's really cool. It's really cool no matter what frustrations I express,

no matter what, you know, ripping off on

about, you know, the fax machine. The pace of change is really cool right

now, and I'm wired that way. Right? Like Nice. I think I love

what I do every day because it's not predictable, and it changes

Very rapidly. It does. Yeah. So, Frank, we need

a new order for a t shirt. So, we've got Data is the

new oil That's right. And which, listeners can pick up and

help the show out. We need one for the, data

revolution now. I think Joe inspired me. Yeah. I think, I think I'll

be I'll be hitting up Photoshop later today. But

the, Or maybe even DALL E. Who knows? I may I don't even have to

do the actual artwork. So that's an interesting

point because there was there was something you talk about data and and how it

can transform it's Transform everything. Right? So one of the stories I heard was

this is regards to staph infections, and I forget,

speaking of rogue AI, Alexa, stop.

She's like, She I don't know how what I did to trigger her, but

the the short of it is is that there was a story about a, a

woman lost her child Because he had some kind of staph infection

or whatever, and she mentioned the notion of

data leakage. Right? So it turns out, Again, I'm getting the details

wrong. But, basically, if you track your heart rate or heart rate var

variability, There's a signal in that

in that data that there's some kind of massive infection,

but most times, you know, when you're in the hospital, they only check your

pulse but so often. So that I think that's a good example of how

data can transform medicine. And is

that is that something you've seen or heard of? Or

or just getting the fundamentals right is just so is the process right

now. So I think that, you know, I

was involved a little bit more on the clinical side at different

roles in pharma because But right now, I'm so focused

on the administrative and logistical challenge

associated associated with The

care journey, I would say, I'm sure. There's example

after example of that. Right? I think about some things that I've

seen, right, in terms of Very similar things

where, I just was exposed to something recently about

suicides, and the The the the

epidemic in the way certain groups are

deciding to to to do this, and

There's data in it. Right? Like, there's there's blood markers

that are telling for okay. What happened? And what are

we looking at? Why did that happen? That we can act more quickly.

Right? So Yeah. To to help that that that

person. So I think, absolutely, we probably could Bring somebody clinical

line and talk to that all day long. But I can tell you the thing

that I see that's really meaningful where and this will have an

impact on health care. Right? The cell and gene Area

is crazy with logistics. So these personalized immunotherapies, I don't know if

you guys have heard much about that, where basically, You're

having a patient go get blood drawn,

have their t cells spud off, or sending it to a manufacturing

Right. Then they're creating a personalized therapy for

that patient, then it has to be shipped to a treatment

which is not typically where the primary care is going on, and then that patient

has to have things set up for the logistics around the 30 day inpatient

stay, the care I just hit on a few things, but the

logistical challenges in all of that, if you improve

one thing that typically there's, like, 20 to 30 steps in

that And they all take dates. If you can use technology to

shrink those elements down, wow. These

things are Curing. These personalized immunotherapies, we're not

calling them cures yet, but I'm telling you, like, no evidence of disease. It looks

like it's curing patients Where they were on 4th line of therapy, and they were

gonna be dead in a month. It's having real impact, and

technology Process improvement

can really impact health care, and those are the things that we wanna study. When

I think about data, like, I wanna be able to study that Time in motion,

and how are we having an impact in the cell and gene space? I absolutely

love that. Just just that the whole concept of reducing the

steps. And if you can move you got somebody who's

been diagnosed and and given a month to live. You're

You're changing the you're moving the needle significantly if you

can stop it from being Monday morning and make it Friday

afternoon. I mean, that's significant, and

that's amazing. It sounds like, oh, you're shuffling papers. Well,

if you wanna look at it that way, knock yourself out. But I'll

guarantee you, you know, that person is having that starfish

experience where, you know, there's a kid on the beach picking up Starfish and

throwing them back into the water, and somebody walks up and says, you know, what?

You're this is useless. You're you know, they're just gonna wash back up

again. Doesn't mean anything, and a kid says it means a lot to that

one. He just chunked. For sure. Well,

actually, getting back and think about getting back back getting back to Trife's point. Right.

You think about these staph infections. Right? But let's think about it

in the word way of, like, a blood infection, like sepsis. So,

like, you get a blood infection, you're gone quickly. Right?

So identification, diagnosis, Improvement

in how things are being processed and identified through technology and

through data will have a Critical

impact on some of those things that are really truly urgent in the

moment. I I love it. Wow. We went down a rabbit trigger here

off our question. But that's that's what we do. I'm not even sure what question

we are. I think we kinda It's u and number 6.

Okay. I look forward to the day when I can use technology

to blank.

Totally off script, Brush my teeth and floss because that takes a lot of time

for me throughout the day. But beyond that, I I actually am

always, Jotting notes, and sometimes those

notes become more formal documents and outlines and

wireframes for The the next thing. Right?

I'm still a very young 57. I tell my kids I'm biologically

31. So I got 2 or 3 or more gigs in me.

And so I look forward to using technology

to solve for food deserts. I look forward to using

technology to solve for a comprehensive

approach approach to health care insurance alternatives. I think our

insurance industry our health care insurance industry is totally broken.

Right? The way we approach it, the way we just approach

insurance, right, through the standard brokerage approach, through the standard

markets approach, I think we need to open that up, and I think we can

open up through SMEs. Right? So subject matter

experts applied to technology. So those are the things

Besides flossing and brushing my teeth, I would love to apply type 2.

That's funny you made that because there was a TV show called Farscape,

Like, in the early early 2000. And and one of the one of the plot

points I forgot was, like, they they they have, like, little nanite,

robots that clean and floss your teeth for you. Forget that that came up. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea.

So our next, thought is we asked to asked that you

share something different about yourself. You already mentioned surfing.

So, but it, and we remind all our

guests, not just you, to, remember it's a family podcast, and

we wanna hang on to our clean rating.

I think that I don't

know how different this is, but I think my obsession

Is what makes it different? I am obsessed with challenging the

norm and expected behavior.

I think that I think that too

many of us in this world

I've settled in the fact that this is what

it's expected. This is what is the norm. This is what

we're told to do, and this is how we're told to do it. Yeah. I

think that there are more people That it could have

a major impact on others if they would in the right way.

Right? This is family friendly. I'm not talking to do things to to do

things that are Harmful or nefarious around challenging norms

and expected behaviors, but I think in a healthy way, my

obsession with it is sometimes unhealthy, but I think that's a little different

and maybe even a little off with me. Interesting.

You know, one of, Frank and I, follow,

success coaches, and and the one I'm thinking of, I know it went through

Frank's mouth whenever we hear the word obsess, is, Grant

Cardone. And he has a book called Be Obsessed or Be Average.

And it's, it was a very challenging, listen for, for

me. I know Frank Got a lot out of it as well. And,

I I don't think there's anything wrong with being obsessed. I I think,

yes, Like anything, it can be taken to an unhealthy

spot. But it I don't think that that spot out you know,

the word that popped into my mind first was extreme. But I'm not so

sure extreme is the definition of unhealthy there. I think there

are 2 different spots and I can hear the passion, in your

voice, Joe. And for those listening to the audio, you can't see Joe's

face. Here we are recording this as video, but then we usually Strip

out the audio because we got more listeners, listening than

watching. But I I get it. I can see

that in your it's a good passion. It's not unhealthy at

all in my opinion.

Interesting. Okay, Frank. I lost track now. No. No. No. No. I think it's you.

I think you're not And I'm going to do the audible one, then we'll ask,

the final question, which is where people can find out more. So do you do

you do audio books or or or, Or not. If you do, can you

recommend a book? So I I typically don't do audio.

I love to read, because I love words, But I

typically love to read to take me away,

because of my obsessed approach to things. I'm always

on. So I have one that I can

recommend that I read years years ago, and I still think it was one of

the the the the more Thought provoking take

me away books that I read, but I I do need to say first

that the book I recommend to everyone is the bible. So that's the

one that that I actually read every day and

I find important as it relates to guidance, advice,

And how I should be approaching things from a foundational perspective, but it

also reminds me daily of my failures in trying to accomplish that.

The other the book that I I would recommend,

is The Genesis Code by a pseudonym

John Case. And it's a biological thriller. So thought

provoking, some cutting edge, interesting blending of that could

be possible, Not possible type type stuff. Interesting.

Awesome. Audible is a sponsor of Data Driven. If you go to the datadrivenbook.com,

I'm sure I know that there's multiple readings of the bible. My

my, my wife uses Audible all the time because I see it come through. There

you go. Oh, very cool. Yeah. I I am the

heavy user. I I use my wife's credits because we're on the same account. So,

I don't know if that's that ranks in the share Netflix password thing, and somebody

from Audible's gonna give me a call. I don't know, but we'll find out.

That's what data science is all about. I have Hypothesis, I do it.

Mhmm. Sometimes I plan the hypothesis. Sometimes it just comes out of my

mouth. So on that note, before I say anything

else stupid, Share something. No. We did that. Where

can people find out more about you and your company? The best place to go

is our website, anexus, a n n e x

US. And by the way, a Nexus is

for connectivity in Latin, and you guys heard through the stories

today Yeah. That connectivity is really to what we do, so ennexushealth.com.

Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you, and we'll let Bailey finish the

show. Thanks for listening to Data Driven.

If you have any suggestions for future episodes or topics you'd like us

to explore, please reach out to us. We value

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