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  Today in health it not a technology story, but a relevant story about driving down the cost of healthcare. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT at channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. I wanna thank our sponsor for today's Sirius Healthcare.

They have been a phenomenal sponsor for the better part of two years. And they came to me and said, we really appreciate your mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. The rest is history, as they say. If you believe in our mission and want to support the show, please shoot me a note at partner at this week in health it.com.

I haven't seen anything that's really blown my socks off yet, so once I do, we'll start reporting out on that. But until then, I'm gonna share this story and I think this is a really interesting story. Because it, it speaks to how we're really gonna drive down the cost of healthcare. This comes from Forbes.

Walmart's new private label insulin brand will save money for diabetes patients. Walmart has launched a private label brand analog insulin with a steep discount savings of 59% and 75% respectively on the current cash price of branded insulin products when not using insurance. It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

About 34 million Americans live with diabetes, which is nearly 10% of the US population. Only 70% of those people are being treated. Diabetes is the fastest growing chronic disease in the United States. I. Here we see the leadership of Walmart's management to solve this serious health problem. It enables Walmart to provide health and wellness to all Americans, especially those who live in medically underserved areas.

The insulin will cost about $73 per vial, or about $86 for a package of pre-filled insulin pens. Savings are reported to be approximately $101 per branded vial of insulin, or $251 per package of branded Flex spends. CNBC indicated that as the number of people with diabetes climbs, the cost of the a hundred year old drug has soared rather than fallen and has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers as it should, really doesn't make sense.

Walmart. Walmart worked directly with Novo Nordisk to ensure that the savings will be passed on to Walmart customers. Dr. Cheryl, I. Pegas, EVP of Walmart Health and Wellness pointed out that the private label brand had the same quality, same safety, and same efficacy as other analog insulin. According to Barron's price, hikes have added billions to the sales and insulin's dominant suppliers, which include Eli Lilly, and

They have faced competition from generic biosimilars in Europe. Walmart is developing a strong presence in health and wellness. As we've talked about on the show, it has opened about 20 freestanding wellness clinics near Walmart Super Centers that offer dental cleanings, annual checkups, as well as urgent care.

Walmart also bought the telehealth company, me, MD, to provide healthcare virtually, which is expected to be a big boom. For customers living in underserved outlying areas, Walmart pharmacies will start selling the new product. . This week. Sam's Club will sell it in July. Alright, so that's the story. What's my so what on this?

Not a technology story, as I said, but my so what on this? The door's wide open healthcare providers, payers, none of the traditional players are making bold moves like this to reduce the cost of healthcare. In walks Walmart. Amazon transparent and others who are going to chip away at the cost of care. Is this even a consideration at the board level for health providers?

That's my question. I remember a year when our CEO of a Catholic Health system, she walked in and she said to us, I. And this was following one of our most profitable years that we needed to cut, I think a hundred million dollars out of our cost structure over the next three years because we were making our money on price increases, which was directly opposed to our mission and hurting the community we were founded to serve.

Is this happening today? I wonder if this is happening today. I'm just wondering if any leader is standing up and saying, look, we need to reduce the cost. We're gonna cut our costs not to increase our profit level, but to pass that on to the community to actually lower the cost of healthcare. I'm just wondering, nothing profound here to say.

I'm just wondering. That's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Apple, Google Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, you get the picture. We are everywhere. We wanna thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders.

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