In this episode, we discuss revolutionizing the healthcare industry with a patient-centered approach with Darrell Moon, the CEO of Aspirational Health Care. Darrell shares his insights on how shifting from a reactive to a proactive healthcare model not only makes economic sense but also deeply respects the human aspect of healthcare.

We discuss the concept of Lighthouse Leadership and how it can guide and inspire others to lead, much like a lighthouse guides ships through dark waters. Darrell also delves into the success story of the Southcentral Foundation in Alaska, which transformed its healthcare system by asking patients what they wanted and focusing on their life aspirations.

This innovative approach has led to better health outcomes, higher patient satisfaction, and lower costs. If you're interested in how empowering individuals can transform our approach to health and wellness, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice. Join us for an engaging conversation that could change the way you think about healthcare.

Key Takeaways

(00:02:32) - Concept of Lighthouse Leadership

(00:06:07) - Origin of Aspirational Healthcare in Alaska

(00:10:13) - Success of the Alaska Model

(00:14:18) - Challenges in Traditional Healthcare Systems

(00:18:55) - Advice for Healthcare Leaders

(00:20:26) - Future of Healthcare Competition

(00:24:31) - Aligning Healthcare with Business Objectives

(00:27:34) - Benefits of Aspirational Healthcare for Team Environment

Memorable Quotes

"The reason hospitals buy primary care practices is not because they make them money. In fact, they lose money. Hospitals and healthcare systems purchase those clinics and providers to be a funnel source into their imaging centers, ambulatory surgical centers, and hospitals to fill their beds."

"Aspirational healthcare was pioneered by an innovative group in Alaska, led by Kathryn Gottlieb. They asked their 70,000 native Alaskan people what they wanted from healthcare. They didn't want a paternalistic system; they wanted a healthcare system that became a guest at their table, journeyed on their path of life, and helped them accomplish their life's aspirations."

"The key to rolling out an aspirational care model is to invest in the front door, advocacy of healthcare, and primary care. It's about creating relationships with people, taking time with them, focusing on behavior, and wrapping the system around the customer."

Book Mentioned

The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea - https://amzn.to/3XA5czd

Connect With Darrell

Website - https://aspirationalhealthcare.com/2024-conference

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AspirationalHealthcare

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/aspirational_healthcare/

Connect with Suzette

Website: https://www.wildheartsrising.com/

Suzette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzettewest

Suzette on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.rising.wild.heart

🎙️

Podcast production and marketing provided by FullCast

00:00

Suzette: Welcome back a players to the a player adventure Podcast where we explore the journeys of Transformative Leadership. In today's episode, we explore the concept of an aspirational healthcare model. Our guest for this episode exemplifies heart coherent thought leadership through his insightful advocacy, which educates on how everyone wins when systems focus on empowering patients, providing front door proactive health care, and managing aspirational life goals as part of a whole person solution. His approach aligns perfectly with the values of heart coherent leadership, where leaders become like Lighthouse Sherpas, guiding, inspiring, and empowering others to become leaders in their own right.

Suzette: I'm your host, Suzette West, and today we have an exceptional

guest who is redefining the healthcare industry. Joining us is Daryl Moon,

the CEO of aspirational healthcare. Darryl is pioneering a shift in

Healthcare Management from a system that reacts to illness to one that

proactively fosters health and vitality. This makes economic sense and

deeply respects the human aspect of healthcare. Today, Darryl will share

his insights on Lighthouse leadership, the innovative, aspirational

healthcare model and how empowering individuals can transform our

approach to health and wellness. It's an episode packed with

transformative ideas and inspiring Lighthouse leadership lessons perfect

for anyone looking to make a real difference in their field. So without further ado, let's dive into the conversation with Daryl Moon. Daryl, welcome to the show.

Darrell: Thanks, Suzette, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me

on your show,

Suzette: I would like to begin with a brief explanation of the concept of

Lighthouse leadership so the audience knows. So, Lighthouse leadership is

the type of leadership that guides, inspires and empowers others to lead,

much like a lighthouse guides ships through dark waters. Before we dive

deeper, I want to ask you your thoughts on this concept. How does the idea of leading a team on a mission to positively impact the human experience resonate with your approach at Aspirational Health Care.

03:22

Darrell: Well, I love your description of Lighthouse leadership. Clearly,

03:28

Darrell: I love what Margaret Mead said. Never believe that a few caring

people can't change the world for indeed, that's all whoever have.

03:39

Darrell: And I believe that any system that has not maximized its ability to

meet the customer's needs can be inspired by those who simply identify

ways to better delight the customer, and that can happen in any industry.

And clearly, I'm a big fan of Edwards Deming, the philosophy of identify

your customer, figure out what's going to delight them, measure the

processes the most impact delaying the customer and then get the people closer to the process to improve the process. That that transformable leadership approach to focusing on the customer's needs has impacted every industry in America. It's had a it's had an impact on every industry, and started off in the auto industry, but has really now become a part of everything we do. The whole net promoter score four star or five star ratings on Google. I mean, all of that is about how are we measuring and how are we accomplishing delighting the customer, and I think Lighthouse leadership is a great description of a leadership style and method to move that forward.

Suzette: Wonderful. Yeah, I agree. My second question, tagging on to

what you just said. How does aspirational healthcare empower patients to manage and take control of their health.

Darrell: You know, I can't. I am not the pioneer of aspirational healthcare,

but I love to talk about the story of those who are so aspirational care was

pioneered by innovative group of people in Alaska, led by a very innovative woman by the name of Katherine Gottlieb, who was given the opportunity to create a whole new healthcare system and her team had the brilliant idea of going to their 70,000 Native Alaskan people that they provide healthcare to, and asking them what they wanted from healthcare.

05:38

Darrell: That is a very novel approach in healthcare. That's not how we do

healthcare. Healthcare is built on this idea that the human body is this

miraculous, complicated organism, probably the most in the universe. And so people go to school to learn about this amazing body, and then those who learn about it say we're the holy institution of medicine where all the wisdom lies, come be the benefactors of our great wisdom, and we'll diagnose you and we'll treat you, and if you don't do what we tell you, we'll say you're non-compliant, and that's healthcare. And it's like, that's not healthcare, that's sick care. And she had the, you know, the the brilliant idea of saying, “Well, why don't we ask the customers what they want?” And what they said they wanted was not that they said we don't want a paternalistic healthcare system. It just tells us what to do. What we'd love tohave isa healthcare system that became a guest at our table, journeyed on our path of life, became familiar with our life's aspirations and brought their amazing wisdom and intelligence and education on how the body worked to help us accomplish our life's aspirations. And that was really the beginning of this, what is now considered internationally and nationally as the premier model of healthcare in the world.

07:02

Suzette: That's awesome. And so basically it's like Partnering for vital

health, partnering up, partnering up instead of feeling instead of, because I have to tell you, I do hear from friends and family who complain about their current health care because they feel like they're just cattle right now, and they're not really listening. They don't listen to what's going on, or they don't believe them, or, you know, and that's that's not the spirit of partnership. And what you what I'm hearing you explain, is this spirit of of partnership, which to me is very appealing, because if now, if we're partnering up to keep me healthy, I feel like I have a team member on my side, and the goal together is, is my good health?

Darrell: Well, and I would even go one step further. The healthcare system

wants our goal to be good health. We on the other hand, although that's not

a bad goal, generally have goals of accomplishing things, you know, having an amazing family or amazing career, or accomplishing some amazing things within our industry, our goal is a few people have their primary goal is to manage their body.

08:21

Darrell: What we want is someone to partner up with us who understands

our goals of accomplishing things and simply weaves their education, their understanding and their wisdom into helping us reach our goals. Does that make sense? Not forcing us to make managing our body our goal that that should be reversed. It should be help me manage my body to reach my goals.

Suzette: Could you share an example of how this model has significantly

impacted a patient's life or health outcomes?

Darrell: Well, let me describe an entire population, then I'll go into a

specific person. So this group of 70,000 Alaska Native people, when this

journey first began, had the worst population health in the world. Their

Heda scores were some of the lower than 5% worst in the world, and they

were receiving health care from the federal Indian health care system, who acknowledged that they didn't provide really good health care, and they said to tribes around the country, you can build your own system, and we'll fund it if you would like to. So this innovative group said, called the South Central Foundation, said, Hey, we can't make this any worse than it is. Let's implement a whole new model of healthcare. And they went to the customer to ask them what they wanted. So by implementing this behavioral focused, relationship based, healthcare system built around the customer.

09:48

Darrell: They have accomplished what no other healthcare system in the

world has accomplished. They're the only ones who have been awarded

the President's Malcolm Baldrige Award for quality twice.

10:00

Darrell: They're internationally recognized as the premier healthcare

system in the world. Countries of all of the world, traveled to Alaska to learn about this amazing system. They've moved their total population scores now up above 75% in many cases, 90%

10:17

Darrell: and the part that I think is so amazing, other than the fact that they can reach 98% satisfaction is they can do all of that at half the cost of what we generally spend in this country on health care. To me, it's like Earth shakingly successful,

10:34

Darell: and everybody should be gearing health care around this model,

because it's good for everybody. It costs less, better outcomes, better

health, happier providers, happier customers, is like everyone should be

gearing their success around this. Now to give you an example of a person,

10:54

Darrell: imagine an Alaskan Native father or grandfather who has diabetes or is pre diabetic and goes to see their provider. Well, instead of the provider being focused on what the provider wants them to do to avoid diabetes and to better manage their health, they become focused on what does grandpa want? Well, what Grandpa wants is to teach his grandkids how to hunt and fish and pick berries. And what's important to grandpa is retaining the finger that the feelings in the tips of his fingers, so when he picks the berries, he knows how to pick the berries and which berries to pick. He wants the feelings in the bottom of his feet to be able to know the ground as he walks on. And so in order to effectively be a grandpa, to teach his grandkids how to fish and pick berries,

11:47

Darrell: the provider says, let's focus on the following things, to maintain

the feelings in the ends of your fingers and the bottom of your feet. The

focus isn't about managing the feelings. The focus is on the goal of the

grandpa to teach his grandkids how to fish and trap and pick berries. And

it's about, how do I help you maintain your health so you can accomplish

your goal? That would be a specific example.

Suzette: How do CEOs and business owners benefit from the aspirational

healthcare model, and what is the investment in implementing it? Is it a is it hard to implement?

Darrell: It Is not. And that is what is so amazing, is people think that all the

time and say, Well, they did, you know, maybe 25 years, and having an

13:51

Darrell: So I used to run hospitals. So I can say this, I ran 10 different

hospitals all over the country, and mostly for the largest hospital system in the country. Well, the reason hospitals buy primary care practices is not

because they make them money. In fact, they lose money. Same thing with specialist clinics. Hospitals and healthcare system purchase those clinics and providers to be a funnel source into their imaging centers and their ambulatory surgical centers and into their hospitals to fill their beds. So

14:22

Darrell: what happens is these providers who are now owned by the

hospital and the hospital administrators, and feel like pawns of the hospital administrator are required to get so many relative value units every day, meaning tests, procedures, exams, see so many patients, and so there's a system of seeing a patient for only a few minutes to quickly diagnose and provide a treatment plan, which is often here's a prescription or here's a referral to a specialist, and it's designed specifically not to create health but to

14:53

Darrell: be a funnel source into the higher levels of the healthcare system,

like specialists, and then into the hospitals and imaging and all that kind of stuff.

15:00

Darrell: Well, about 20 years ago, these providers started saying, I don't

16:36

Darrell: social, physical, nutritional, everything about their health and well

being. So he could be a part of helping him become better. Become better. Well over the last 20 years, many providers across the country have set up these private practices where they take memberships to the degree to which now employers can simply say to their employees, we're not going to force you into a new form of primary care. If you want to keep going to our insurance company's network of primary care providers, and you've been going there, you want to stay there? Fine. You can stay there. You'll pay your co pays, you'll pay your deductibles, like you always have, but I'm willing to now pay for you to go into a independent primary care provider who treats you like a customer to keep you healthy, and by paying 100% of that membership, you don't pay any co pays or deductibles. And now I'm investing in someone who's invested in you. And what that has shown is that, yes, you're spending more money in primary care, but because you're spending money in primary care that's preventative, the number of hospitalizations plummets. The number of need to go on specialty medications that are so expensive plummets. The need for MRIs. And it's not because all of a sudden nobody needs them. It's because you're not in a system that's designed to move people up the channel and into those expensive levels of service. And so it's amazing how companies are seeing their total health care costs drop by 30, 40, 50%

18:10

Darrell: by simply saying, I'm going to invest more money in the front end.

And have you experience health care that's designed to help you reach

your dreams, goals and aspirations, not to make money providing you

services.

Suzette: So for healthcare leaders who are inspired by your model but

might feel hesitant or unsure about stepping up to lead change, what

advice would you give them?

Darrell: Well, I'll give you some advice I heard at the conference recently,

that was probably the best word of advice for healthcare leaders that I've

heard in a long time.

18:47

Darrell: I went to this conference and this speaker, who's from Providence

healthcare, a big healthcare system up in the northwest, put up on the

board three boxes, and he basically described what I just described to you. Harry said was, there are Providence primary care clinics. We lose money in those. Here are Providence own specialty clinics. We lose money in those here are our Providence owned hospitals, imaging centers and

ambulatory surgical centers. We make a lot of money there. And then he

had these arrows, preferred referral flow from the primary care to the

specialist, from the specialist to the hospital, he goes. That's how health

care works. That's how we all know it works. And I was dumbfounded that

somebody was willing to put it on the board. It's like we all know that's how

it works, but few of us would ever admit that that's how it works. So I raised

my hand and I said, the largest employers in America, literally, the biggest

jumbo players in America have figured you out and are sending their

employees to independent front door primary care clinics and not your

clinics. And his response was, Darryl, nothing could be better for the

American people. I was floored. I'm like, that's amazing that you would say

that.

20:00

Darrell: Well, his whole presentation, his next slide was, hey, we're losing

our front door. We're losing primary care. Primary care practices are being

rolled out by Amazon. Amazon buys one medical he said his whole

message to the folks in the room was, we are losing our control over our

funnel source, we in the healthcare system have to start looking at

competing based on providing good quality care at a good cost. The future of healthcare is going to be based on our ability to compete; to do effective, efficient care with great outcomes. And I'm like, there is no better message that a healthcare leader could hear today than that, because the truth is, the employers are starting to take control, and employers are going to use systems that send their employees to healthcare that's aligned to keep them healthy and when they need hospitalization...because of the new transparency laws, they will be sending them to providers who get great outcomes at a great price. And if you don't morph into focusing on creating good quality outcomes at a good price, you are going to be out of the competition,

21:14

Suzette: as it should be. So what steps would you recommend to someone

in who's a leader in healthcare and who wants to take a more proactive

leadership role in shaping the future of healthcare. What would you what

steps would you recommend to some to a leader like this?

Darrell: So let me answer the question this way. I just gave you that

answer for healthcare leaders. Let me tell you who really needs to make

changes? Who's in a leadership role? The real change needs to happen

among the people who spend the money on health care, because the

power in changing the health care system is in the hands of who holds the money and who spends the money, and it's the CEOs and business

leaders of America who are buying health care for their employees who

need to wake up, they're the ones who need to be inspired and realize that they're buying a bad product at a bad price from an entire system that's completely aligned to work against them. And it's not very hard to change that, and one of the most simple things they can do to change it is, first of all, ask, for the first time in their career, the question, Why am I spending 20% of my total cost of doing business offering healthcare benefits? That's a lot of money. The average amount of money that employer spends on employees every year is $14,000 per employee. That is not what the employee pays. That's not the employee portion. That's what the employer spends. And very few employers have ever taken the time to ask themselves the question, Why am I spending this money and what do I

want? Well, obviously, if they think about it, they're spending the money to

attract and retain top talent if they want a great employee, they know that if they don't offer benefits, they're not going to come. But they look at

healthcare as a purchase to be made, and they simply send it to a

department of benefits who then goes out and finds a broker who's willing

to sign a broker letter of record with the employer, and then bring them bids from all the different insurance companies in the area. Well, therein lies the problem with healthcare because one, they've not defined their objectives. They've not created the measurements to see if they're actually accomplishing their goals. They're not holding that benefits department accountable to reach those goals, and that benefits department knows that as long as they hire a prestigious broker who's well known in the community and does what everybody else is doing, they can't be fired. Well, if they're aligned to reach the business objectives, they will go out and sign a fee-based contract with a broker who's willing to make their work for that employer based on accomplishing the business objectives of the employer, and therein lies the secret to how you change healthcare. Get those who represent you to the healthcare system to work and be incented to help you reach your business objectives, not just the opposite, because right now, the entire benefits advising industry, with a few exceptions that I'd be happy to send you to as people who see the light, but the entire industry trend is their friend, and that's a word that gets used in the broker industry all the time. The more the health care costs go up, goes up, the more money we get to make. Well, people think, well, the insurance companies are the Watchdogs. They're the ones who are trying to rein in the cost, because they get to make more money, the more they can say cost. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. If you understand the whole Affordable Care Act, you'll understand that when that was passed, insurance companies, the only way they get to make more money and to send profits to their shareholders is for healthcare costs to go up. And of course, if the entire healthcare system, whether.

25:00

Darrell: It's pharmaceuticals, primary care, specialty care, hospitals. The

more services you render, the more money you get to make. So it starts

with the buyer saying, I don't want that. I want to buy a system that's going to help me reach my goals in my business, and I'm going to align the system so it gets rewarded based on me reaching my goals, not having thewool pulled over my eyes to think that the only way to buy health care is to sign a broker letter of record with someone who gets to make more money when I don't get what I want.

25:32

Suzette: Yeah, not very aligned, is it?

Darrell: No. So the real leaders we need to wake up is the business

leaders who buy healthcare that will then wake up the healthcare leaders torealize that, I guess I need to compete, just like every other industry has to compete based on custom quality.

Suzette: So I understand you have a CEO Summit coming up in

September. I would really love to learn more about that.

Darrell: So this amazing, best in class healthcare system in the world, in

Anchorage, Alaska has opened their doors and allowed us to schedule a

conference on their campus, in their beautiful Learning Institute Center,

where we're inviting up to 150 CEOs from across the country to go to

Alaska, be blown away and see how healthcare really can work learn the

easy buttons to implementing. And by the way, it's not just about signing a

fee-based contract with a broker. What's amazing is that the easy buttons have been created to make it very simple for an employer to implement this. We're going to be teaching them what those easy buttons are, and then the afternoons and evenings of each of the three days will be networking with other CEOs on these unforgettable Alaska wilderness

adventures. We're like, we're going to fly them to the top of a glacier and a

helicopter. It'll be amazing touring and scenery for those that don't want to fly in a helicopter, but it'll be an amazing experience for CEOs to learn how healthcare truly can look, while also experiencing the front door of Alaska.

Suzette: So that brings to mind a question, how might the aspirational

model of healthcare benefit the cultivation of an A player team

environment?

Darrell: You know, it is so interesting how one of the primary things that a

CEO focuses on is creating a culture at work to really develop their

workforce and to create a loyal world class workforce. And of all the

strategies that a CEO can employ to create a loyal, productive workforce,

it's to invest in the personal dreams, goals and aspirations of their

employees. I know business leaders that are so enlightened that they will

reimburse employees for going out and developing their personal hobbies and skills that have nothing to do with the business. It's like, Well, why would an employer be willing to reimburse somebody up to $600 to go learn how to sing when their job is an accountant? Most businesses would look at that and go, I'm not going to go help them build their singing skills. I need to build their accounting skills. But a really enlightened CEO goes, you know, if I invest, there's a book called The Go Giver. Love the book. It's about the principle that will create amazingly successful personal life, success and professional life success is this idea of giving more than you expect to receive. If you invest in the personal dreams, goals and aspirations of your workforce and your the individuals that dedicate a huge part of their life to your success, if you'll invest in their success, nothing is more effective at building a loyal, world class, productive workforce than an employer who sees that the best investment they can make is in the personal goals, dreams and aspirations of their employee. Well, I just described to you about a healthcare system that does the very same thing,

and I just described to you the best system to create a world class, loyal

workforce. It's all one in the same and also give you a loyal world class

workforce

Suzette: Exactly! And I was hoping you would say that. I knew you were

gonna say. I just had this feeling that, yes, this had to come out. So we had

to tie the two together that you want an a-player team, we have to invest in

that. It doesn't just happen. It's an...we invest in it. We cultivate it, we grow

it, we care for it, we give it the best tools and the best resources to to

cultivate the kind of culture where people can thrive, not just survive, right?

Darrell: It's interesting how some of the best brands in this country have

reached that brand reputation by simply.

30:00

Darrell: Putting their own employees at the top of their organizational chart. Costco is a great example of a company that has created an amazing culture at work by saying to their employees, we're not ashamed to say that you are a primary customer, and we know that by treating our employees as our primary customer, our members will be treated well when they cometo the warehouses. Disney's another example where their cast members are their focus, and they've created this amazing entertainment experience for the people who go visit their amusement parks by making their cast members their primary customer. And there's many examples of companies that have accomplished incredible brands by investing in the personal success of their team members.

30:48

Suzette: Well, ladies and gentlemen and Dear audience, dear listeners,

Darryl has a conference coming up, actually, to Summit, as he mentioned

earlier. And if you'd like to find out more information about that, we have

this website you can go to, it's https://www.aplayer.show/ceosummit, and

you will get all of the information about this event that is happening in

Alaska, and it just sounds like it's going to be a really be like the the terrain

in Alaska is just gorgeous. I mean, I can't, I can't, I've heard that from so

many people. I've personally not been but I do hope to go someday. But it

it's certainly going to be, it sounds like it's going to be an enlightening

event, that if you're a CEO, if you're a founder of your business owner, you

definitely want to be there, because you're going to be in good company...

Lighthouses, wall to wall, like you can't be in a better room, right? It's going

to be all lit up. So I am just really grateful that you took the time to do this

interview with me. I'm you're my second podcast guest, and I I'm just really

excited to meet leaders who are out there making their vision happen,

really bringing the vision to life, going out there and making a positive

impact, because we need, we need more of that right now.

Darrell: Thank you so pleasure. Appreciate you bringing me up.

Suzette: All right, cool. So look for the links in the show notes. I'll also

include a link to the book The Go Giver (Amazon affiliate link to the book:

https://amzn.to/3XA5czd). So anyone is curious about that book, we'll put

that in the show notes as well. This is Suzette West, your host and guide

for the a player adventure podcast. Once again, thank you for joining us,

and until next time, this is Suzette signing off