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 Today in Health it this story is day one of the JP Morgan Healthcare 21 conference. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT a channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. VMware was the first sponsor of this week in Health it, and now they are the first sponsor of Today in Health.

it, uh, they've been committed to our mission of providing relevant content to health IT professionals since the start. They recently completed an executive study with MIT on the top Healthcare Trends, shaping it, resilience. This covered really how the pandemic is driving a unique transformation in healthcare.

This is just one of many resources they have for healthcare professionals. For this and several other great content pieces, check out vmware.com/go/healthcare. All right, here's today's story. I love the JPMorgan Conference. I will say that a lot over the next couple of weeks. Uh, I usually attend about 16 health system presentations.

Uh, and these are presentations they're giving to their bond holders and . Institutional investors. Uh, it's really enlightening. It really shapes how I'm, the, the lens I'm going into the year with. Uh, it is a glimpse into the boardroom. And, uh, one of the things I love this year is one edition is that they've added AQ and a at the end of the.

Uh, presentation. So you get about 10 minutes to, to push back a little on the presentation to ask for some clarification, and it is extremely helpful, even if I'm not the one asking the questions. Some of the questions have, uh, really shed some light on, uh, some of the directions that would not have gotten normally gotten covered in the presentation.

Um. You know, here's how I think I'm gonna cover this conference. There's just so much material and, and I'm gonna start with themes. This is what I did last year and the year before, is I start with themes and then I go into the individual presentations and highlight some, uh, interesting strategies or interesting approaches.

I, I don't really go into the financials, uh, of each health system. If you want to do that, you can hit, uh, there's, uh, you know, there's several websites you can hit to, to see the financials of these nonprofits. It's not, not that hard to pull up. Um. And that's probably what I'm gonna do. It's what I've done the last couple of years.

So, uh, you know, we're gonna start, we're gonna start with the themes. 11 presentations in day one, you had Advocate Aurora, Prisma Health, uh, mass General, Brigham, Intermountain, SSM, healthcare, Baylor Scott, and White. Uh, you then had lunch and Jamie Diamond, uh, what the speaks typically, and he did, uh, well actually, and, uh.

Uh, others joined him, uh, Northwell Health, common Spirit, Ohio Health, blue Shield of California. And then Spectrum Health closed out the day. Uh, if there was one overarching theme from the provider presentations, it was diversification. As you know, on this show, I just cover one story, so I'm just gonna cover one theme.

Um, you know, COVID hit the financials and actually. Uh, I'm hitting one theme, but it's the theme that was in every presentation yesterday. There's a drive towards diversification. It is, uh, the common theme across all these, uh, you know, how did you weather the storm? Covid hit the financials of every healthcare organization.

Uh, you know, the Caress Act funding was extremely helpful to fill. Really a three month hole in most financials. And it didn't take an MBA to see the hole in the financial performance. It was, it was, uh, it was obvious it was there. Uh, volumes are really back on good ground right now. Well, actually, I shouldn't say that.

Volumes are back. Like 95, 90 9%, some even, uh, over a hundred percent of their previous year's volumes, uh, but it's on shaky ground because you don't know with the post-holiday surge, if there's going to be an additional drive towards, uh, uh, you know, the non-essential surgeries being, uh, curtailed again.

So, um, . But they're back and, and the revenue lines are, are looking healthy once again. Uh, you know, some weathered the storm just fine. Uh, you know, the difference between the health systems that showed financial strength even in the face of the pan pandemic, uh, was really about diversification. If you had a large, uh, if you, if your value-based care initiatives had progressed pretty far, um, if you had a payer arm, uh, you tended.

To, uh, weather the storm better. Uh, you know, even if you had a research, a significant research arm, we saw that with, uh, with Mass General Brigham. They, they made a significant amount of money, uh, supporting pharma and other . Uh, entities during this, uh, uh, during the, uh, pandemic. Um, but the, but the systems that really had, uh, other sources of revenue, uh, other ways to, uh, to continue the, the, again, continue the revenue line, even in the face of the pandemic.

Those are the ones that weathered the storm well. In fact, they talked in their financials. They split it out and said, you know, here's our financials with, here's our FA financials without the CARES Act funding. And, uh, you know, the next group of people, uh, didn't really split it out. They just talked about, you know, here's our financials.

And you, you could tell the CARES Act funding was in there. And then there's another group of financials where they didn't talk about the financials at all, and you just get a picture for, um, you know, what's going on behind the scenes there. I mean, there's, uh, you know, this was a significant jolt to a lot of health systems.

Uh, a lot of 'em, you know, again, we'll talk about some of the other themes later this year. Uh, there's some, you know, cost strategies. They all did cost strategies. Uh, it's gonna be interesting. There was a, uh, a maturing of health systems this year. There was, uh, there's a lot of, uh, what I'm calling, uh, COVID capabilities that were added to health systems this year.

And by the way, these are not without risk. Uh, you know, a lot of health systems have tried to do insurance. Uh, successfully and unsuccessfully. And, uh, and some have tried to do this, uh, innovation arms where they're, they become investors and they become, um, incubators and startup, uh, entities. And some have done it successfully, some have not.

Uh, uh, and you know, so they are fraught with some risk. But that is what I think we're going to see over the next four years. I think we're gonna see significant, uh, diversification efforts. That's all for today. Another round of, uh, another round coming in. Uh, this is starting in like a half hour. Advent Health Ascension, Jefferson Health, Providence, Henry Ford Health Clinic, uh, ProMedica.

And we're gonna hear from Andy Slatt over the lunch. So I. A lot more to, uh, talk about coming outta the JP Morgan conference and, uh, I hope you'll keep coming back to hear, uh, more about the themes. In fact, I have, uh, what do, I have six themes going right now outside of diversification. So it'll be, uh, it'll be interesting to talk about.

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I. VMware, Hillrom and Starbridge Advisors. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.