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 Welcome to this Weekend Health It, where we amplify Great thinking to Propel Healthcare Forward. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this Weekend Health. It a set of podcast videos. . And collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders. This episode is an in-between episode.

You know, on Tuesdays we do, we do the news, we do Tuesday Newsday. I look at, uh, top 10 stories giving you my, my, uh, input on each one of those stories. On Fridays, we, we, in interview influencers from the industry who are influencing, uh, healthcare and health. It. And, uh, today, this episode is really both. I got to sit down at the JP Morgan conference, listen to your CEOs and CFOs, share their insights, accomplishments, strategies, financials, and uh, on Tuesday, I covered the themes from the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.

Today I cover insights from individual presentations. This episode is sponsored by health lyrics. I coach health leaders on all things health. It. Uh, coaching was instrumental in my success, and it is the focus of my work at, at, uh, health Lyrics. I've coached CEOs for health systems, startups, uh, CIOs, CTOs.

Uh, I'll probably cover them real quick, but . Uh, it, it is really good to, uh, catch up on that episode. Uh, the JP Morgan conference is in San Francisco, great Conference 27 health system. Uh, leaders c usually the CEO and CFO stand up and share, uh, their accomplishments, their strategies, and their financials for the year.

They have about 30 minutes to do so, and, uh, it, it is one of the more . Um, valuable conferences that I go to every year to, to listen to 27 straight health systems. Just get up there and share their, uh, their story and their financials is great. Uh, we talked about the different types of presentations, the, uh, merger presentation, the traditional player, the, uh, innovator presentation, uh, and then I talked about this Healthcare without boundaries type player and this

Uh, trust, uh, simplify, integrate, consolidate social determinants. Partnerships, uh, continue to be themes going into this year, and, uh, we added a few more risk and covered lives. Getting paid to keep people healthy was a new theme. Uh, technology was elevated, but the EHR took a backseat. Uh, I thought was interesting.

Asset light growth strategies, uh, experience, uh, consumers, uh, really the consumer in both directions. The clinicians and the, uh, patient was a, was a theme. Expense management, huge theme, uh, diversify revenues. I. Almost universally a theme. Uh, really strong balance sheets. It's been a good couple years, a good decade in the, uh, stock market.

So, um, uh, health systems, uh, have strong balance sheets generally, uh, applied genetics and gene therapy took, uh, uh, center stage really to the forefront at this conference. A lot of really heartwarming and great touching stories around that. And, uh, this whole idea that healthcare is being influenced by he who must not be named and, uh.

I sort of use that Voldemort reference, uh, but that healthcare strategies are being, uh, influenced investment strategies, um, are being in, uh, really influenced by new entrants or potential entrants into the healthcare space. So we're getting ready for them and we're trying to stay ahead of them. So those were the, the big themes this week.

I'm gonna go into the individual presentations, right? So. Um, I sat through, uh, 23 of the 27 presentations, and I'm gonna give you a little bit more color on each one of those. So let's just, uh, let's just get right to it. Uh, Intermountain was the, uh, first presenter, Mark Harrison will be undergoing. He's the CEO for Intermountain.

and he's gonna be undergoing, uh, bone marrow transplant in the next 60 days. And he was, um, you know, mark is a great presenter. Really, uh, really set the tone. And he, he, he talked about how, you know, he doesn't have to worry about. Uh, personal bankruptcy or not being able to pay his bills or not understanding his bills and all those things.

Uh, but that, uh, personal bankrupt, personal bankruptcies are the number one cause of that is healthcare. And, uh, and we have to do something about that as an industry. And he was, uh, inspirational in that talk and really, um, uh, and, and you, you, he really set a good tone for that. Uh, you know, doing the right thing in healthcare and doing the right thing for patients.

Um. . A couple of my takeaways from this presentation. One is Intermountain has pristine financials, and I use the word pristine on purpose. I mean, it, it is really hard to look at their financials and find fault. I'm sure if somebody really wanted to nitpick they could, but it's, it's, they're phenomenal Financials, I thought was, what was interesting is even though they had pristine financials, they are still doubling down on efficiency and, and, uh, I, they're, they are looking for ways to really improve their overall throughput and their overall

Um, uh, the services that they deliver and, and cost improvement. And that could be why their financials are pristine. They never really take their foot off the gas in that area. The, uh, the other thing I took away from this is they're, they talked about simple solutions and not massive technology solutions.

And as an example of that, they had a, uh, a conversation that I sort of got the impression that they sponsored this conversation. It was between, uh, uh, a gun rights, uh, group. And a, uh, group that was, uh, really opposed to guns and taking them off the streets and taking 'em out of, uh, really personal ownership.

So you had these two diametrically opposed camps. They brought 'em together to facilitate a dialogue and it was, uh, it was aired, it was on, uh, on a radio station. And even though they're, uh, complete opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what, uh, what could be done, the dialogue found common ground and, um.

You know, it might not be enough for some and it might be too much for others. Uh, but, uh, the common ground was things like education and gun locks. So they distributed, uh, free gun locks, uh, as, as a result of this. And, uh, I, I just applaud Intermountain facilitating the conversation and, uh, and, and working on those aspects, the social determinants aspects, which are, as we know, a larger percentage of overall health.

Uh, Bon Secour, mercy Health. So John Starcher is the CEO. Uh, he came from the Mercy . Uh, merger. I was gonna say acquisition, but it is a merger. So he came from the Mercy side and he now oversees the merger organizations. The, uh, my takeaway from this is, this is a merger done right. Uh, and I've talked about this before on the show.

They, uh, they picked the technologies within, uh, either 30 or 60 days. I don't remember the timeframe. And you know, when you think about it, we already know when two health systems come together, we already know what the EHR is gonna be. We already know what the selection on the ER p's gonna be. Um. You know, all you're looking for is there, is, is there a reason why this doesn't happen?

But still a lot of health systems take years to make these decisions and to make movement on these decisions. Uh, so they, they pick the, uh, technology winners really quickly. It keeps vendors from trying to position and change things. It's, it's just a far better way to go. They also, uh, announced the, uh, key leaders.

Within the first 30 days and the next level of leaders within the first 60 days. So you removed all that fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the acquisition, and I thought it was a, uh, courageous and bold way to, to go about doing it, uh, doing a merger and uh, and I think it was appreciated by the employees. So, um, you know, the, the good thing is

They performed well as you would expect, and they also identified the right metrics coming right outta the chute. It's like, this is how we're gonna measure if we're successful. They were able to maintain 3.8, between 3% and 3.8% operating income during the year, during a year that they're doing a major acquisition.

Not only are they did, did they have that major merger going on. Uh, they, uh, ended up, uh, acquiring is probably the wrong term, but they ended up, uh, taking on the responsibility for a, uh, health system in Ireland, which is another 750, uh, million. Ish, I think is the number I vaguely remember, uh, in, in revenue.

So they're, they picked up an overseas, uh, group of hospitals to manage. They also acquired three CHS hospitals in a market, and they, uh, started that work as well. So John set the foundation for, uh, growth, for rapid growth, and he put together a strong m and a strategy to make that happen. And I, uh, you know, in the, in the category of it can be done.

Uh, is, uh, Bon Core Mercy doing a merger and acquisition well. Uh, Baylor Scott and White, so Baylor Scott and White number one brand in the state of Texas, according to their presentation, uh, a couple of things. I pulled outta their presentation, a thousand people moving to Texas every day. So I happen to be wearing my

Uh, uh, sweatshirt, Baylor University sweatshirt. So it's not that I'm biased here, but I send a lot of money to, uh, to Baylor for, uh, my daughter's education. So, um, thousand people moving, making Texas their home permanent residency a day. So, um, strong growth in their markets. But, uh, the, the one thing I really took from this presentation, and I alluded to it in the last podcast, is their Austin strategy.

And their Austin strategy was to take their, uh, their health plan, and they entered the Austin market, which they were not really strong in. They entered the Austin market with their health plan first to establish a foothold. Then what they did is they followed it up with an asset light. Um, investment strategy.

So, uh, you know, so the care locations that they popped in there were asset light, so you think, uh, clinics and, and retail locations and, uh, some partnerships and those kind of things, and they were able to take that foothold from the health plan. And really blow it out over the course of 18 months. And now they have a really strong presence in Austin.

And I think, uh, at the recording of this, I think they are now starting to put, uh, the hospital infrastructure in place around that. So, um. You know, my thought on this is rinse and repeat. This is, it looked to me on the surface again, 30 minute presentation. This was five minutes of it. It looked to me like great strategy, great execution, um, and, uh, makes a lot of sense.

Rinse, repeat, do it again. And if other health systems have these kinds of assets, the, uh. The health plan to go into a market and a uh, uh, asset light kind of strategy. It seems to be a way to enter a new market without spending. Whatever, uh, you know, a billion dollars to acquire, uh, to get into those markets.

In fact, this could be a, uh, something that other health systems might start to be concerned about because if, uh, Baylor Scott and White and others figure out this way of moving into a market, it, uh, it, it really has some, um, it's powerful. Uh, they also gave me a great visual. The F one, there was a slide with an F one 50 and a Mustang ev, the electric vehicle.

And, uh, it, it's the, the age old thing of you gotta keep the old going, keep your fee for service business strong. Um, the old model going and invest in the future at the same time. So I like that. Uh, I like that visual that they shared. The next presentation, um, I, it was Common Spirit. It was Lloyd Dean, the CEO, and I like Lloyd Dean.

He's funny. He's engaging. Uh, but I was, uh, I was a little disappointed in this presentation, mostly because I didn't learn anything new. There was nothing new in this presentation. There was no financial shared. So I don't know how the CHI and Dignity mergers going, uh, I have no indication of that whatsoever outside of just conversations I'm having in the industry.

Um, and you know, it, I was disappointed just because coming from Catholic Healthcare, uh, I really believe. In its, uh, in its mission, I believe in its necessity, uh, in the markets that they serve. And, uh, I was just, uh, you know, I'm left to wonder how are they doing? How are, how's the merger going? Uh, it was, I don't know.

I, I mean, yes, I appreciate the fact that they're serving underserved markets. I appreciate the fact that they're living out their mission. I appre appreciate the fact that the culture bringing the cultures together is challenging. And so they announced some things like their COO is now . Uh, overseeing all of the operations, which quite frankly, if you go back to the, uh, SCO merger, I think they figured that out in the first 30 days.

If that was something that took them a year to figure out, then um, then we can assume that the merger is moving very slowly. So I was a little disappointed. Again, love Lloyd Dean. Love his, uh, uh, leadership in the industry, but . Uh, just would want a little bit more out of a presentation, especially no financials.

Uh, just left guessing. Uh, mass General Brigham was the next presentation. Dr. Ann Kansky. And, um, this is the former Partners Healthcare. So there was a, a couple things. One is I talked about this theme of Destination Healthcare and . Uh, mass General wants to be known as recognized as the place to go, not only the place to go within the Massachusetts marketplaces that they serve, but also, uh, internationally.

So they are destination location, uh, but not only are they a destination location at Mass General, but they're also . Uh, doing, uh, international growth as well, national and international growth as well, uh, through various strategies. So, um, you know, these brands, these strong brands in a specific market are looking for ways to enter new markets.

So there's a, a strong diversification of revenue, uh, conversation that was going on here. , uh, you know, the, uh, another diversification of revenue was around innovation. Uh, diagnostics, therapies, devices, uh, were all areas that they're in increasing their amount of, uh, revenue that's coming into the organization.

They also stood up a center for clinical data science. So in this analytics area, they see an opportunity to diversify revenues as well. Uh, I didn't capture the financials, but I, I vaguely remember . Um, I mean, I'm looking at my, I was looking at my notes and I, I really couldn't pull 'em out. I remember 'em being good, but not great.

Uh, given their brand and given where they're at, uh, I would expect them to be, you know, a, a, a tick higher than they were. So, uh, advocate Aurora, they are two years into their merger, strong financials, uh, but they still have a lot of work to do on the, um, on the merger itself. One of the things I pulled outta this, excuse me.

So one of the things I pulled outta this presentation was they're looking to create a living well metric. And I love the thinking around this. It's, it's sort of the next evolution of a population health metric. Um, how well are the people in your community living, um, not only from a healthcare standpoint, but you know, lifestyle standpoint, uh, behavioral health, um, you know, mental health kind of standpoint.

Uh, just some sort of metric that could say, how are we doing as an institution in helping our communities to live well, to live healthy lives, healthy being defined as not just physical health, but in, in a lot of different areas. I'm looking forward to them coming out with that metric. I'm gonna try to follow that closely and, uh, hopefully they'll, uh, publish some of that so that we can, uh, gain access to it.

I think it's a good metric. I, I think it's a good, uh, direction. To start looking at health systems and seeing how health systems can, are, can and are impacting the health of their community. Because if you're investing a lot of money in social determinants, in other programs, uh, uh, behavioral health within your communities, uh, you're gonna want to, first of all, you're gonna wanna measure that, are we being effective?

And then second of all, you're gonna wanna get credit for it. You're spending hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on these programs. Uh, you're gonna want to, you're gonna want to tout that. Um, you know, I just. I'm thinking off the top of my head here. Uh, next one, children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Uh, exciting presentation. Really well done. They, uh, this was the first one where they really talked about gene therapy centered for applied genetics. Um, uh, heartwarming stories, great stories about what they are doing. You know, people who were, are ti uh, who were general at kids who are generally . In categories that were not going to be able to be helped by traditional means.

Uh, through their research, through the, uh, work that they're doing in the Center for Applied Genetics, they were able to, uh, really hone in on a specific gene. Uh, do these, uh, gene therapies and then you see these kids living healthy lives. These are great stories. If my child were sick, um, I would really welcome the two, uh, children's hospitals that were here.

Uh, children's Hospital of Philadelphia is exceptional, and Seattle's Children's, uh, exceptional as well. So, uh, really exciting stuff going on there. They're also diversifying their revenue, uh, through research. Uh, the gene therapy. They're also, uh, diversifying in locations. They're going out into the county, uh.

So they have the, uh, the Center City Philadelphia location. They're going out into the county as well. Uh, I, the great presentation, um, you know, the, the, the, the two children's hospitals, uh, you, you literally had people tearing up in the, uh, in the presentations. Great stories and, uh, hopeful stories. I'm, I'm excited about what they're doing.

The next one was Northwestern Medicine. So Northwestern Medicine is, uh, is also a destination medicine strategy. They are, uh, really strong in the markets that they serve in the Chicago, Chicago land area. And then they, uh, uh. They also touted the number of people that are flying into Northwestern Me Medicine, uh, also looking to diversify their revenues.

Uh, they could probably be a little more aggressive given their balance sheet and where they're at and uh, and the programs they have and the reputation that they have. They could probably be, uh, a little more aggressive, maybe like, uh, a Mass General or the next presentation, uh, which was Henry Ford, uh, Henry Ford Health System.

So, um. . Yeah, I, so again, nothing, nothing bad to say about Northwestern. Just think with their resources and their expertise that they could start to be a little bit more aggressive, not in the Chicago area, but more with their brand on a, uh, on a global basis. So, um, Henry Ford, phenomenal presentation. I know you're gonna hear this.

Probably a little too much. Actually, there's, there's really only two presentations I was a little disappointed in, but Henry Ford was a phenomenal presentation, uh, global growth strategy. They're going to Saudi Arabia, uh, innovation strategy. So they're doing some, uh, really cool things in innovation. They have, uh, they're taking on risk.

Uh, they have a, a GM contract. Employer contract where they are, uh, partnering to reduce the overall cost of healthcare. Four gm and they took on that risk contract. Uh, they're doing things around social determinants and regional health, um, responsible growth, strong financials, uh, really exceptional presentation.

I, uh, you know. The kudos, hats off, whatever, whatever the right terminology is here. Uh, well done at Henry Ford. Uh, seemed to be firing on all cylinders and, uh, doing a good job. Now, the next, uh, health system, I have notes on, uh, NYU Langone, uh, Goodyear, uh, year over year financial performance was good. It, you know, again, not, they weren't in the stellar category.

They weren't even in the great category, but . Good year over year improvement and good financials. Uh, the one thing I wanted to highlight for our health IT crowd was they have a capacity command center. And think of this like air traffic control for the entire health system and the movement of patients and resources around the health system.

So, um. They didn't give a lot of details. How are they doing this? RFID, uh, uh, Bluetooth low energy? I don't, I'm not sure entirely how they're doing it. Uh, it's probably RFID if I thought about it. Um, but they're able to, from a command center, look at the flow of patients throughout the entire health system and determine where they should, uh, change things, add resource.

And this is like up to the second on the fly, they're able to make adjustments to make sure that the, uh, flow of patients through the health system works and works well. I was, uh, I was really impressed. I'd like to get more details on that. So if somebody from NYU Langone is listening, I would love to have you on the podcast and talk specifically about that capacity command center and some of the other, uh, technology things that you guys are doing.

Uh, looked very promising. I, and I love that idea. If I thought about it, we were doing that in individual hospitals. It would be interesting to have that capability. Across the entire health system to really optimize the location of assets across the board. Um, next one is Geisinger. I always look forward to Geisinger's presentation.

They're unique in the populations that they serve. They're, uh, they're a rural health system that, that really acts like a. A strong, uh, urban health system. They do really innovative things, taking advantage of the markets that they do serve. So last year we talked about they're doing primary care visits and they're collecting all this, uh, genetic data.

Um, they're allowing people to collect genetic data. That genetic data is, is then being used, uh, turning, turning it around and using it for AI and precision medicine to identify the right targets and, uh. And they started to show some fruits of that, uh, some fruit of that this year in their presentation.

So, uh, I think they're one of the more interesting, uh, AI and precision medicine plays in the country. I think they're, they're building out the number of people they have that information on. They're targeting AI on, again, um, not, not diagnosing patients, but looking at the, uh, all, all the, all the data that they have and identifying

Uh, identifying maybe a set of re uh, a registry of patients that they should reach out to, or they should, um, they should, uh. Recommend for additional screening. Again, I really like their stuff. They did have a hiccup in their health plan, affected their operating margin, but again, still solid performance.

It could have been a lot better if they didn't have that hiccup, but generally speaking, Geisinger's one, uh, continues to be one of the, uh, well run health systems in the country. Um, Seattle Children's was next. I alluded to this before. They, uh, you know, again, heartwarming stories. They partner with everyone.

So the key to a children's hospital is as many partnerships, uh, partnerships as you can within the markets. And, you know, they partner with UW Medicine, they partner with Providence, uh, St. Joseph Health, which is not just Providence. Um, they partner with everybody in the region. They're the destination for the region, for complex cases involving children.

Uh, they're doing, uh, they're really making headway in research and innovation. And quite frankly, very good financials, especially for a children's hospital. Very good financials. So, uh, they have the resources to continue to invest and hopefully, uh, continue to move that mission forward. Next was Jefferson Health.

So we heard from Jefferson Health last year. We had, uh, Dr. Klasko and Nasser is Nazami on the show. And, uh, I got to actually sit next to Nasser during this presentation where Dr. Klasko was up there talking and they, um. You know, the, the, uh, Jefferson Health story is they're, they're one of those innovation players that they have one foot in the current model, but they are heavily leaning towards the future.

They're, they're making betts on the future. They're looking to diversify their revenue in, um, you know, uh, telehealth, health plan expansion, investment in startups. They're looking for new revenue streams, additional revenue streams. We heard that on the podcast with Dr. Klasko. So that's nothing new to this audience.

The, uh, and he, he drove that home, uh, you know, some of their investments, like the Livongo investment, paid dividends this year because they went public. And that's really how those things play. Pay dividends is, is when those companies, uh, either get bought out by private equity or they get, um, or they go public, which is the big payout.

Uh, Jefferson Health is eating an elephant one bite at a time here. So they've acquired, uh, acquired or been handed the keys to an awful lot of health systems. That were on the brink of, uh, just not being able to scale up. They looked at the, they, they read the tea leaves, they looked at the future and they said, we're not gonna be able to scale up.

We need a partner. And they, they decided to partner with Jefferson. So they have a significant number of health systems and EHR work and consolidation work that they're doing. So, uh, so that takes, that takes a toll on the financials. So the financials are in the positive range, but just barely . Um, again, I love what they're doing.

I like how they're looking at the future. Um, and, uh, I think as I talked about earlier, with Bon Core Mercy, I'd like to see them move, uh, a little quicker on the operational side and, uh, be able to, to assimilate more of these hospitals quicker, I guess is the way I would, I would say it. But, uh, generally speaking, uh, Jefferson is still absolutely one of the health systems to watch, especially in this

Uh, what are the new revenue models going to be for health systems moving forward? City of Hope, new presenter, uh, first time presenter, cancer and, uh, diabetes center. Mostly cancer is what they're known for. Uh, I, in fact, to be honest with you, when he said cancer and diabetes, I didn't know they were known for diabetes.

They were right down the street here in uh. California. So, uh, I know they're known for cancer. In fact, uh, you know, some of the exciting things they talked about were their research that they do. They do a ton of research. Uh, they contribute that NIH funding, you name it. They're doing a ton of research. Uh, it creates an alternate revenue stream for them as well.

I. They also are, uh, touting their themselves as a, as a destination. You know, they got one of the major contracts last year. Amazon selected them as a care destination. That's a huge win for them. And, uh, when that happens, essentially what they're saying is. Uh, for our complex, uh, or probably for anyone who's diagnosed with cancer, uh, they're gonna get a second opinion or a flight down to City of Hope to, uh, to determine if they're on the right care plan or if it was a misdiagnosis.

And again, we've talked about this on the show before. Walmart's already doing this with Mayo, uh, for, uh, cancer, and they're doing it with Geisinger for something else. And it, it is that same kind of model that says . Uh, you know, the number of misdiagnosis on cancer is a little too high to take whoever the local player is.

So they're identifying these, uh, places that have focused in on cancer. Uh, good, good, um, model, good revenue, uh, diversification of revenue for them. You know, I didn't capture their financials per se. They're, um, I think the other thing, and they didn't even, I'm not even sure they talked about this, but, uh.

It's interesting to me. I think these specialty centers have an opportunity, and one of the things that City of Hope is doing is they're putting a cancer center right in the heart of Kaiser's, probably one of Kaiser's strongest markets in Southern California. And, uh, Providence, one of Providence's strongest markets in Southern California, and they're just plopping a cancer center right down in the middle of Irvine.

And, uh, I, and I think it's gonna be successful. I think it's a really smart strategy. People from Orange County in Southern California have been traveling up to UCLA and traveling up to, uh, Cedar-Sinai for years for that kind of care. And if you can get the same level of care at, uh, at the City of Hope in Irvine that you could driving out of the county, I think that is, uh, that is just a smart, smart, smart play.

Um. The last presentation on the day for Monday was SSM. This is going a little long, so I'm gonna pick up the pace a little bit here. So SSM, uh, good and good. And improving financials, healthy de self disruption was their, uh, key. They're implementing on a lot of different areas they're implementing on the health plan, growing televisits, uh, direct to employer program, home expansion.

Actually, it was really impressive the number of areas that they're seeing progress. This, this is one to keep an eye on. I did reach out to their CEO talk to her and, uh, we are going to, uh, try to have them on the podcast a little later. On in the year, um, Ascension. Far and away for me. Uh, one of the more interesting presentations, I was curious it, it, previous years they had the Tony and Tony show and, uh, the two Tony's, C-E-O-C-F-O, uh, this year had a whole new team.

They did succession planning really well. Almost the entire team came from within. So you have just operational consistency moving forward and based on their financials and their performance, you want that. , but my favorite part of the presentation was from someone who came from outside of their organization.

That's, uh, Eduardo Conrado, the chief Strategy and innovation Officer for, uh, JP Morgan. And I'm gonna have try, I already talked to him about having him on the show and he gave me the quote of the, the quote of the conference, which was, tech companies are figuring out healthcare faster than healthcare is figuring out tech.

So that's a great quote. Uh, he, he went in there and actually as the strategy officer, took over the IT organization so it falls under strategy and it should wow this as he was saying. I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. It definitely shouldn't be under the CFO. I mean, if it's under the cfo, that tells me exactly what, how you're thinking.

But if it's under the strategy officer, I'm saying yes, that makes so much sense. I can't begin to tell you how much sense that makes. Um. So he established new roles, product management, design, data science, software engineering, enterprise architecture. Um, he hired, uh, new workforce. He and ended up co-locating in Austin, Chicago, uh, as well as, uh, their St.

Louis location. Uh, he bifurcated the organization into run versus build, which makes sense. Uh, Garner's been talking about this for years. Running the business of modernizing the infrastructure versus, uh, delivering new innovation and services to the market. Uh, you know, why are they doing this? They researched it.

You know, 68% of 18 to 24 year olds indicate frustration with healthcare providers, lack of digital experience. And then he had a bunch of other metrics to back this up. 64% want programs to help them select the best treatment plan. 75% went online booking, 77% went to pre pre-register online. You get the picture.

They've done their research, uh, around the, uh, consumer journey, and they're making the right investment. They're making investments. Um, another thing he brought up, which I thought was fascinating, hospital at home, admitting patients into their home. I think about that, admitting patients into their homes.

So they're, they're setting up acute post-acute virtual disease management, uh, and wraparound services for live at home services. Uh, again, fascinating, uh, low asset way of expanding in the markets that you serve. Uh, partnering with world-class technology companies, and we know where this is going, um, because of the big conversation around ascension and, uh, Google and the privacy.

They just looked at it. The, um, the experience for the clinicians is not that great, and hospitalists spend 30% of their time searching for information rather than caring for patients. And so I, you can go out onto YouTube and see the Google presentation on the health record that they've created. Um, I got to see the Ascension presentation, which is an internal presentation that they, uh, shared at the conference.

Um, this is to to be clear, this is the Ascension Health Record presentation. Uh, Google is providing the, uh, services to help create it, but, uh, it is ascension's data ascension, uh, is controlling how that data gets used. It is not being used by the search engine. It is being used on the Google Health side to help

Uh, clinicians to be more effective. And here's a couple of things. So the presentation was great unified view of the patient's information. All the visits. It shows trends. Uh, search will instantly re return results, which you would expect with Google. Every record is searchable, including scan documents and handwritten notes.

Uh, new in information is emphasized. So if there's a new visit or new information about the patient, it's emphasized, it's brought out, uh, because you have designers designing this, right? . Um, it's designed for quick diagnostics, uh, dynamic charting to see new relationships and trends across the data, uh, mobile app to free the hospitalists from their desk.

Which is estimated to be 50% of the time during their shift, uh, notification on patient status changing because they're bringing in the telemetry data as well. So the, uh, nurses can be mobile and still see the change in the patient status and contextual searching and multi, uh, contextual searching, multi-device access, voice navigation.

So also in voice navigation of this record, uh, this is far and away the most . Effective HIE strategy in the country. And that's what they were trying to solve first. That's what they were trying to solve. They have 110 some odd hospital locations, uh, different EHRs across the board. They were able to bring this data together, the record I saw and how they were navigating that record voice navigation and whatnot.

Uh, it's, if this were our national HIE strategy, it would be . Uh, it, it would be exceptional. Now, they would have to break it off from Google for it to be acceptable as the national HIE strategy. I get that. And Ascension and Google have some work to do on the, uh, really the privacy aspects. They, it just was not handled all that well.

And they need to get out in front of it. They need to continue to talk to the patient community about, uh, what are the implications and how is this data, how is this technology gonna be used? Um, and that wasn't it. They're also redesigning care teams. They took a, a, a specific hospital, and they're redesigning care teams around the patient.

And, uh, really good results around that. They're looking to scale that up across their entire health system. And I know there are other health systems. So you look at Mayo's model and Cleveland's model, it's, it's, they've, uh, designed around care, the care teams around the patient, but a lot of health systems don't function that way.

They function in silos and, uh, this is a really aggressive . Uh, play for a traditional player and if they're able to do that across the board and really improve their quality metrics, could be interesting. Alright, so I have three more. I'm gonna go through them real quick. Uh, Providence, this was a confusing presentation.

It's, it's the best thing I could say about it. Uh, no real financials to speak of. They did share their EBITDA margin, but unfortunately IDA are real things. Um, and, uh, they're real numbers. So, and just based on where the EBITDA margin number was, I'm guessing they're in the red, this would be the second year in a row.

They're in the red. And, you know, again, you're talking about strategy and they got up and spent a better part of 15 of the minutes talking about a reorg. Um, and you know, the, the reorg itself is confusing, to be honest with you. They organize based on an internal lens versus an external lens. I'm not sure that's really gonna play.

Plus when you get a chance to stand up in front of investors and, um, and bond holders, I'm not sure talking about a, a reorg, really . Inspires confidence, um, unless it's just really over the top Anyway, they spend a lot of time talking about, uh, diversifying revenue, and the reality is they're already number one and two in a lot of markets, they serve, they're clearly not operating.

Uh, they're, they're not delivering on operational excellence across the board. If they were, and they're number one and two in the markets, as you've seen with these other health systems, their numbers should be . Uh, stellar, quite frankly, uh, I mean, holding the number one and two spot in a market gives you a certain amount of, uh, of pull in that market.

So operationally it would appear that they're not doing that well. Um, and they're also, you know, they're trying to diversify, spin out new companies and those kind of things, but the reality is they would have to really start dishing out like unicorn after unicorn in order for it to really have a material impact on their bottom line.

So I'm not sure I understand where that's going. Um, you know, if, if I were sitting in that, in that boardroom, I would say, can we just put together a strong operational focus for our organization, drive this thing back to, you know, the, the 3% operating margin that it should have across the board, if not higher.

And, uh, and, and instead of looking for our revenue and our margin outside of healthcare. Uh, let's, let's, let's get those, let's get this thing back to running the way it should. So, you know, they're five years removed from, uh, the major mergers, . and they seem to be running in place. I'd like to. So again, it was confusing.

I love these people. I, they are, uh, you know, they're, they're friends. Uh, they're smart people. They're absolutely smart people. Uh, but sometime the base, sometimes the basic blocking and tackling of running a health system is not sexy enough. And it needs to be, Providence needs to make operations the new sexy for them for the next, uh,

You know, next 24 months, if not for the next five years, uh, OSF, healthcare, decent financials, good strategy based on their markets. So I like organizations that look at the markets they serve and come up with strategies that are specific to those markets instead of the Me Too, you know, pulling from these others, uh, care at home, rural healthcare without hospitals.

Uh, I may even visit with them. I really liked the things they were saying. I think it was very appropriate. For those types of markets. And I know we have a lot of listeners in those kinds of markets. So, uh, good, uh, good presentation from OSF Healthcare. Uh, the final presentation that I'm gonna talk about is Mayo.

Uh, Mayo is mayo and they continue to be mayo, right? Phenomenal financials, phenomenal, uh, quality. And because they are mayo and they're given the benefit of the doubt, they turned over, uh, almost a, a, a significant portion of the presentation to, uh, John Halamka, who's been on the show a couple times. And he made his debut at JPM as the president of the Mayo Clinic platform.

And, uh, we did speak. He will be on the show again here shortly. I just have to get my schedule. He, he's actually, he doesn't sleep, as you know. He only sleeps four hours a night, so he's ready to be on the show tomorrow. I just have to get my act together over here, so we will have 'em on shortly. John talked about platforms, and this is gonna be one of the major concepts for the year.

Um, you know, it's the reason why we can't scale the . Uh, the things that we do or replicate our success across, uh, or at scale. And, uh, you know, too many people in healthcare jump to the end solutions and without really laying the foundation, uh, with these platforms. John shared an example of how they're, they're, uh, handling their data and they're building out a platform for data where they, uh, anonymized the data.

Uh, you know, when you think about platforms, you just think differently and you implement differently. So. They, they took their data, the, the raw data that they have, they move it into this, uh, platform. They anonymize it, they then move it into another platform. So, um, so their partners can access that anonymized data.

They're not accessing the raw data that would be bad. They're not even accessing the, the platform where they're doing the work to anonymize the data. They're, they're accessing really a clean room of data where they can get to, that's platform thinking. So now they can . Uh, now they have a way to engage a lot of partners very rapidly.

They have a program and a method for doing that. Uh, platforms are, are gonna be one of the most important elements for healthcare's, uh, systems to get right in the next 18 months. John shared a bunch, we're gonna have 'em on the podcast, so we will go into more detail. That's all for this, uh, this week. And that's really all from the JP Morgan conference.

Two, uh, great days hearing from your CEOs and CFOs. . , um, really cool strategies going on across the country. Uh, global growth, uh, is, is happening as well. So this year in your election year, when you hear how bad our health system is, uh, just remember that we are exporting it around the world. Maybe not the payment models, but we, and the complexity of it.

But we are exporting our quality of care around the world because it is sought after, uh, around the world. Uh, that's all for this week. Special thanks for our channel sponsors, VMware Galin Healthcare. Starbridge Advisors for choosing to invest in developing the next generation of health leaders. This show is a production of this week in Health It.

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Love for you to, to listen to it as well so we can talk about it. Uh, we're gonna be back again on Friday for another great interview with an industry influencer. And don't forget, every Tuesday we do the top 10 stories that are gonna impact health it. And we, I give you my take on it in 23 minutes or less.

Thanks for listening. That's all for now.