March 29, 2024 • 60 mins
Taylor Swift isn’t the only one coming back stronger than a 90s trend…it’s season 2.0 of your favorite (and least dry) health tech podcast. In this kickoff episode, Sarah is mysteriously MIA while Elliott interviews Dr. Geeta Nayyar about her new book, Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare’s Misinformation Illness. Plus, the great great great grandparent of ChatGPT helps solve some of the industry’s biggest mysteries, and Elliott recaps the best (and worst) of the digital health’s spring fling, ViVE. Pop in that eight-rack, and get ready to Tech It to the Limit, one more tiiiiime!
Amazon.com: Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare's Misinformation Illness eBook : Nayyar, Geeta: Kindle Store
33% Of Gen Zers Trust TikTok More Than Doctors, New Survey Shows (forbes.com)
Original music by: Evan O’Donovan
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Tech It To The Limit, the humorous and surprisingly informative podcast that
(00:22):
makes digital innovation and healthcare as entertaining as it is relevant.
I'm Sarah Harper.
And I'm Elliot Wilson, and we're here to pull back the curtain on the world of digital
transformation in healthcare.
Don't worry, you don't need a medical degree to join in on the fun, just a sense of humor
and a penchant for all things health tech.
So buckle up folks, it's time to Tech It To The Limit.
(00:52):
What's up Elliot?
What's up Sarah?
It is episode one of season two.
Wow, good job getting those in the right order.
Wait, thank you.
We are back.
This is very exciting.
I can't believe it.
It's been months.
It has been months.
It feels like I need to put my podcast training wheels back on.
(01:14):
You're doing a great job so far.
30 seconds in.
Crushing it.
Well, welcome back to season two of Tech It To The Limit folks.
We're so grateful to have you here.
It's been a couple of months off for Sarah and me, and we are back and better than ever.
Yeah, we are absolutely.
I was going to say, you look better than ever.
(01:35):
What have you been up to?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, I just got back from LA where I had an amazing time at Vive.
Awesome.
I was sticking off the spring conference season, so that was really, really exciting.
Pop pop.
Yes, it was a lot of fun.
I didn't enjoy the red eye back, but I really enjoyed the conference.
It was an incredible few days.
(01:58):
The people were amazing.
The people watching was even better.
The energy at that conference is just fantastic.
Just lots of people that are really excited to kind of fix the healthcare mess that we
have put ourselves in.
So I really enjoyed it.
Awesome.
What were some of your takeaways?
Oh, wait, we don't call them that on this show.
(02:18):
Sorry.
No, we don't.
What were some of the nuggets that you gnaw on later on your red eye home?
Oh, nice water bottle.
So, thank you.
Product placement.
Product placement.
That's five on it.
I got to say, it was on fleek to be disillusioned with AI at this conference.
(02:41):
We're entering the Valley of Despair.
That's right.
We are.
We're nowhere near the slope of Enlightenment at this point.
But for sure, everybody's kind of disillusioned.
It was really hot, really heavy, and now everybody's kind of like, they're kind of getting wise
to ready for this.
This was one of the fun phrases I heard.
Everybody's kind of getting wise to the shiny hammer syndrome.
(03:03):
Shiny hammer syndrome.
How does that differ from the shiny optic syndrome?
But a hammer is you buy the hammer, then you go looking for nails.
So it's the shiny hammer syndrome.
Oh my gosh, that is such a good little analogy.
I love.
Isn't that great?
New three letter acronyms.
Ooh, all right.
Abounded.
One of my favorites was measurement based care.
(03:24):
Ugh, barf in my mouth.
Sorry.
It's not value based care.
It's not fee for service.
It's measurement based care.
What exactly are they measuring?
Well, I assume outcomes.
Let's hope.
But it wasn't entirely clear.
How high the stack of money is growing on my desk?
Yeah, for sure.
But I got to say, I wasn't, I was actually surprised that there weren't a lot of new
(03:47):
players out there.
It was a lot of the same technology that's been out there.
You know, a lot of folks trying to just the same thing that they have.
And they just slapped AI on the side of it for a lot of vendors.
So I was kind of surprised that I did see some new fun startups that I liked that I won't
go into them on this show, but they're pretty, they're pretty cool ones, but not a ton new
(04:08):
from the big players.
So it's like the senior prom.
You've seen it all before.
You've been there, done that.
Yeah, kind of, kind of, kind of.
Maybe I'm just jaded.
But two other things real quickly.
One, there is no one way to create an innovation shop.
So I thought there was some really cool panels from provider organizations that are trying
(04:29):
to figure out how to create an innovation shop and mold innovation into their, their
business strategy.
And there's lots of different models and I thought that was pretty neat.
But the other thing was ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI.
Nobody is looking to buy.
Providers are not looking to buy new technology.
VC is not looking to give money to new technology until you can show and prove an ROI and quickly.
(04:56):
So that was a real big takeaway.
And let's not look at AI to replace clinicians.
Let's look at AI to find the lowest hanging fruit.
That is essentially on the ground that you can walk around and pick up.
Can we talk about prior authorization?
Right.
So, you know, that's those were some of my biggest takeaways from the show.
(05:16):
Awesome.
That's great to hear.
And it's kind of interesting that we're already entering that like phase of disillusionment
with AI.
You and I both work in this space.
And I think the shiny hammer syndrome is the best description I have heard of sort of this
overabundance of tech and it's not I don't want to just like paint it black for AI.
I think I think the market is pretty well saturated with solutions right now.
(05:41):
So anyway, yeah, I appreciate your sharing that, you know, I hope you enjoyed the spring
fling.
That is five, you know, you know, it was exactly what it was.
That's exactly what it was.
It was, but nothing, nothing could get me more excited than our first guest that we
have on season two of Tech It to the Limit.
(06:01):
We have Dr. Ghita Nair, who is a former CMO of AT&T and Salesforce brilliant doctor started
at the forefront of when we were just transitioning to EMR's really got into tech had a lot of
really fantastic learnings talked about her new book Dead Wrong.
Wait, we talked about her new book.
(06:23):
Oh, I thought we were going to, but something was missing in our interview.
So I can't put my finger on it.
What was it?
Me.
Hi, I'm the problem hits me.
Where were you?
What happened?
You know, I was otherwise indisposed.
The, the real reason for my absence shall not be disclosed on this podcast because I feel
(06:46):
like it would be very shaming to us both.
But I just want to say that if anyone feels like scrolling through LinkedIn and checking
out the Tech It to the Limit page this month, you can answer the poll question where in
the world was Sarah Harper during Dr. G's interview?
You can cast your vote on LinkedIn later this month.
(07:09):
Here are some of the options.
Where was she?
She was thanks to her mad joystick skills.
She got tapped to pilot the Odysseus Lunar Lander.
Thank you Atari 80s for finally paying dividends or maybe she was munching down on a
Big Mac or maybe I lost another embarrassing bet or maybe AI still haven't solved time
(07:31):
zones and we're both working parents and really tired all the time and calendars that
don't sync on their own.
So thanks Google and Microsoft.
We really appreciate it.
So you pick listeners.
Where was Sarah during the great Dr. G interview?
Okay, listeners.
Well, this has been super fun catching up with you, Elliot.
I am, we're going to pause for a quick break from one of our fake sponsors.
(07:54):
This on the fake for all you listeners out there.
I know they're convincing, but they're not real sponsors.
Yeah, take a listen.
Listen to them for real.
And then we're going to come back.
We have a very special guest for our next segment.
We are actually going to be hearing from the great grandfather of chat GPT.
(08:14):
Stick around.
We'll be right back.
Calling Dr. Good old days.
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(08:37):
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(08:57):
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(09:19):
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(09:42):
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(10:03):
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Throwback file cabinets sold separately.
Well welcome back to Tech It To The Limit.
(10:23):
Here we are again.
We have a special new friend with us for the first time.
It is the great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparent
of chat GPT.
Who do we have with us as a guest, Sarah?
The Magic 8 Ball.
All right.
So how does this work?
(10:46):
So what are we doing and how does this work, Sarah?
If you don't well you're an elder millennials so you do know but if you aren't an elder
millennial, then we will explain it to you. The magic eight ball can answer any question you ask it as long as it's a yes or no question and you're okay with a vague, non specific and unhelpful answer. So this magic eight ball is is it is not magic. It's a floaty thing inside some liquid inside an oversized eight ball. But
(11:17):
sounds exactly like chat GPT. Yeah, that's you know. So Elliott, you and I are going to take turns asking chat PPT's Greek, Greek, Greek and father some questions about the future of the healthcare industry. How's that sound sounds amazing. I cannot wait to do it. Who gets you're going to do the first question or do I
You choose.
Oh, thank you.
(11:38):
Friends first.
Very good.
Magic Ape All.
Will provider organizations ever figure out
how to tap the data goldmine of patient wearables?
You may rely on it.
Yay!
Praise.
Thank goodness.
By Hallelujah, we're saved.
(11:58):
Now we just got to figure out when the data comes in,
whether it was actually the person wearing it
or their great grandson who was wearing it for the day
and screwed up all the data that feeds, you know?
And do we have a sign release of an information form
for that person?
Yeah, right.
Anywho.
All right, I'm going to ask the next question.
(12:20):
Go.
Is healthcare single-handedly keeping the fax machine alive?
Thanks, Dr. G, for that one.
Cannot predict now.
Again, unhelpful.
Unhelpful.
So unhelpful.
But honestly, can we just say, get rid of the fax machines?
(12:42):
Don't you think it's time?
I think we can say that.
It's whether or not that the people in charge of the fax
machines can actually do the things necessary
to stop using them, right?
Like learn how to use the internet.
Do you think that CFOs have stock in Xerox?
Is Xerox still in existence?
Or RICO?
(13:02):
RICO sounds like a really tough dog name.
No, I think actually, OK, I think this is actually
a really good question, Elliot, because I think it points to
just such a classic example of how difficult it is
to implement technological change in healthcare.
If there are people still using fax machines and pagers,
(13:26):
which there are millions still using fax machines,
and it's not for lack of internet or 5G network,
it happens in a city near you, OK?
Then that's evidence that it's extremely difficult
to implement change through technology in our industry.
(13:47):
For sure.
All right.
Magic A-ball, magic A-ball.
I am a surgeon.
You're a podcast host.
I am a podcast host and a surgeon, and I don't like robots.
Will I become obsolete?
(14:08):
It's decidedly so.
Oh!
Adapt or die.
I added that for effect.
You heard it here, folks.
You heard it here.
Get on your Da Vinci or get out of the game.
Who said that?
Innovator die?
That's a thing, right?
(14:29):
It's something I learned in business school, for sure.
Everything I learned in business school,
I learned in the kindergarten.
In the kindergarten, I love it.
Always use your definite articles in an awkward manner.
All right.
Magic A-ball.
Is CMS that centers for Medicaid and Medicare services?
Centres is plural.
(14:51):
Learn that the hard way.
You can run out of money before I retire.
Which hopefully will be soon.
Don't count on it.
All right!
I'm going to have some freaking benefits.
All right.
That's fantastic.
Great news.
I'm just going to go out and spend my whole nest egg now.
(15:14):
Just because A-ball said that I'll be covered.
Yeah, for sure.
Thank goodness.
I'm going to go out with that now.
I think you should go on a vacation.
Maybe we should send a case of Magic A-ball
to the Congressional Budget Office.
And they'll have it figured out.
Better than the decisions they're making now.
Okay.
(15:35):
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will someone ever develop an app
that integrates with the EHR
and is user-friendly?
Very doubtful.
Yeah, kind of agree.
Sad but true.
I feel like I changed my voice when I'm speaking
as the Magic A-ball.
(15:56):
Are you picking up on that?
Yeah, definitely.
It's like the Darth Vader that's been unleashed.
Okay. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Did Obamacare actually help improve access
and affordability?
Outlook good.
For all you Democrats out there.
Obamacare will one day have a positive connotation.
(16:21):
Sorry.
Maybe. Maybe.
Magic A-ball. I have a sore throat.
Do I need to be seen by a clinician?
It is certain.
Go to the emergency room.
No.
Yeah, that's right.
(16:42):
Well, if CMS is going to pay for it,
right, it prepares.
Okay, let's not go down that debate rabbit hole.
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will policymakers ever grow a pair
and invest in solutions that solve social determinants
of health, like schools and gardens?
(17:03):
It is certain.
Yet another good decision that's definitely coming
out of Washington. I got pumped.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I feel like that's something that's going to have to wait
until the octogenarians aren't there anymore.
Good word. Word drop.
And like maybe after the boomers are gone,
we might invest in things like that
(17:24):
because we need some millennials in power.
I think you're like borderline stereotyping right now, dude.
I'm not. I'm not like trying to be ages.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying that values are different between generations.
Slow-not in agreement.
General. Generally. Generally.
(17:45):
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will AI replace me?
Cannot predict now.
Ooh. I don't like that answer.
I love your face.
Ooh, that makes me really nervous.
When can you predict that, Magic A-ball?
Oh my goodness.
I only can do, I only can do yes or no questions.
(18:09):
Oh. All right, Magic A-ball. Fine.
I mean, I don't think AI is going to replace us. Period.
I think that, right, I think it's pretty hip to say,
AI will not replace you, but people that use AI will replace you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right?
Yep. That's like the YOLO of this year.
(18:33):
I don't know when YOLO was the thing,
but like everyone was saying it.
And I'm like, yeah, we know. Okay.
But it seems like everybody is saying that.
It's true.
I'm guilty. I've said it a time or two, you know, in the elevator.
Mm-hmm. You got to say something.
You're trapped with somebody that you just,
you can't talk about the weather anymore.
(18:55):
Okay. Right. Last question.
Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Is Arnold Schwarzenegger coming for us all?
Yes. Definitely.
Oh my gosh. My magic A-ball said the same thing.
No way.
He's definitely coming.
So it doesn't really matter. Oh my gosh.
CMS is going to pay for my benefits.
(19:18):
I think that's actually more likely that he's coming for us
than CMS paying for everything.
He's so true.
Oh my gosh.
Hey, I think it's time to hear from another one of our fake sponsors.
Oh, I love it.
Well, stick around everybody for Tech It to the Limit.
When we come back to the show,
it will have our interview with Dr. Gita Nair.
G!
(19:39):
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Well,
(21:50):
greetings listeners and welcome back to Tech It to the Limit.
We're so excited for our first episode of the season.
This is our return with season two of Tech It to the Limit
featuring the one, the only, Dr. Gita Nyer,
known affectionately by her fans as Dr. G.
She is a globally recognized healthcare technology leader,
(22:13):
the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book,
Dead Wrong, Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare's Misinformation Illness.
It's a post-pandemic look at the rise of misinformation in the digital age,
and I have to say a fantastic book that I just finished reading recently.
She's widely sought after thought leader and appeared on multiple media outlets such as CNBC,
(22:36):
CNN, CBS, and Yahoo Finance.
She is a true health tech grand slam,
but she doesn't just expose industry problems.
Dr. G serves up digitally enabled solutions with the ease of a Williams sister
returning Sarah Harper's backhand.
Welcome, Gita. May I call you Gita?
(22:57):
Of course, of course. Thanks for having me, Elliot.
Do you play tennis? I have to ask because it...
We don't play tennis. I don't play tennis, but we do research our guests,
and we try to make our introduction special for them.
So I hope that landed. It did. It did. I loved it. I loved it. Thank you for that. That was very cute.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for joining us.
(23:20):
We like to ask all of our guests on Tech It To The Limit as a first question.
Get it out there. What's your favorite dad joke?
Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, you have not met my dad. I love my dad,
but I had so many dad jokes. Now you're going to make me pick one.
Well, let me give you some context before I tell you the joke.
So my mother is triple train board certified in ophthalmology,
(23:46):
OB-GYN, internal medicine, started HEMONC, but had me and dropped out of HEMONC.
My dad is an ICU pulmonary critical care doc,
81 years old, still around from the unit.
So when I call my parents in my late 20s with early 30s to tell them that I was going to be the doctor for the chief medical officer at NT,
I literally heard like the phone drop when my dad like gave my dad the snooze.
(24:10):
And it was because my dad was like, okay, so me and your mother immigrated to America.
We went through not just one training to train, you know, to come to the US to go to train all over again,
put you through medical school, put you through college, got you in.
And now you work for the phone company.
He's like, I just, I would like a refund.
He's like, I don't know why we came to America for this.
(24:32):
It was so, yeah, needless to say my dad has no idea what I do to this day.
It was West Virginia they immigrated to, right?
Yeah.
So it's like, first we go to West Virginia, then we're in Miami, we go through all of this and you're telling me you're not even going to round on patients like I do all my life.
Very, very much. Yes. And I actually know what's interesting is I just did the opening keynote for the American Hospital Association Rural Health Conference.
(24:58):
Yeah.
Literally. And I opened with that. I said, listen, my family owes are beginning in America to rural health because in the 1970s, there was a huge physician shortage in rural America.
So my parents got their green card to come to back the West Virginia and practice.
And that was actually where I was born.
Yeah, I mentioned.
Yeah, I know I was I was I was reading. I mean, the book is full of really personal stories like that that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
(25:24):
So I got feel like I got to know your, your family a little bit in your daughter as well.
So, so that's really special. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Well, let's just jump right into some of the questions where we've got a few here that we'd love to go over with you.
You mentioned AT&T. So you began your career in medicine, but then you eventually made this leap to be CMO at Salesforce and AT&T.
(25:49):
I mean, these are two giants in their respective fields.
So tell us about your journey. Why you decided to move toward technology and away from I wouldn't say away from medicine, but as a primary focus, move toward technology.
And what lessons can healthcare professionals learn from the technology world in their practice?
(26:11):
You bet. So first of all, it was a complete happenstance, right?
Because I went to medical school because I love science. I love medicine. I love patients. I continue that continues to be my my passion.
So I trained at a time when in our residency, we went from paper to digital.
So the whole EHR kind of transition and move happened to my class of medical students and residents.
(26:34):
And so very much firsthand, I saw paper, what paper can do, and I saw what tech could do.
And they didn't always line up, right, as we continue to see today. So there were benefits, there were pros and cons to both.
But really what launched my career in health tech was being in the right place at the right time.
It was at George Washington University, which was an all scripts site at the time, the first all script site in the ambulatory side.
(26:57):
And I remember everyone hating it. Doctors hated it. Patients hate it. Like it was just a hot mess.
No.
And I was just this bright, I was she tailed doctor who, you know, was just saw the future, right?
I was like, this is going to be an analysis. Can we tell us how we communicate?
Like I saw it all very clearly. And I walked over to the CIO's office and I literally not in the door and I was like, Hey, I know you don't know me, but I'm Dr. G.
(27:22):
I'm in the medicine department. And here's the thing. Like, I think I know what you guys are trying to do with this thing, but you're just doing it like so baffled that everybody hates it.
And I could help you. I know why they hate it. Like it's messing up the workflow.
It's like, I live it. I live it. And this is before like the rise of physician informaticists.
(27:44):
That's how the HR revolution started. It was nothing. It was just tech being thrown at doctors and nurses.
So, this CIO was amazing and he was just like, I have been waiting for Dr. Like you.
And that was really the launch of my career. But it was very much from this place of just good medicine, like I felt like good medicine could happen.
(28:05):
could happen, but it was this huge disconnect
between technology and healthcare delivery.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
And so then you're in these large organizations,
these very tech forward organizations at this point now.
And how have you seen them approach technological problems
and engagement with their customers
(28:28):
that are lessons that you would take back
to the healthcare delivery organizations?
To say, if you thought about customers or consumers
differently, this is how you might accelerate your velocity
or something like that.
I mean, I'm making that up, but what do you think?
So all of these big tech companies, all of the retailers,
all of these new companies or new entrants to healthcare
(28:49):
that we see, the biggest asset they bring
is they understand customers.
They understand customer service.
They understand how to do customer acquisition,
retention, build brand loyalty in this way
that healthcare just doesn't know.
We talk about the patient, they talk about
before you're my consumer, before you're my patient,
how am I getting in front of you?
(29:11):
How am I building brand trust, loyalty, et cetera.
So I think that's probably the biggest thing
that healthcare can learn from a lot of these companies.
They also have very deep pockets
and very big visions as a result.
And they see the opportunity in healthcare,
which is incredibly exciting.
On the flip side, what healthcare delivery
can teach some of these companies is healthcare.
(29:32):
Because that's really where we've seen the lack of success
in these new entrants to healthcare is it's,
the closer you can get to the patient,
the closer you can get to the doctor and the care team,
that's really the places where you make
the biggest difference, right?
And just like what I was describing to you,
even in the EHR space, we didn't understand that.
(29:53):
The industry that came to medicine didn't understand that.
They understood tech, but they had no idea
that they may have solved one problem
and created five new ones.
Whereas any doctor or nurse could have told you,
if you do that, you're gonna know that.
And so that's where we have to, as an industry now,
we have enough lessons learned.
And as we think about particularly artificial intelligence,
the closer you can get to the patient,
the closer you get to the doctor, the nurse,
(30:14):
who are the closest to the patient,
that is where you will find the answers.
And so having that clinical leadership,
bought in early, being part of the strategy,
the building of products, product implementation,
it's just so critical throughout the whole entire process.
You know, we've talked about that on this pod before
about is that special patient-physician relationship,
(30:38):
that clinical encounter moment,
how close can you get to that is where the magic happens.
And I think that's kind of what you're getting at here.
You really gotta zero into those moments of interaction
and be able to scale it too.
That's a really great nugget of wisdom
to share for both sides to each other.
So that's great, thank you.
I kind of want to talk about your book.
(31:00):
If that's all right.
One of your first stories that you started with
was around the AIDS epidemic from the 80s.
And it's personal to me for a couple of different reasons.
One, I'm a gay man that was coming into my own right
as an adult, mid-90s to the early 2000s.
The other reason is my uncle died of AIDS
(31:21):
right around that exact same time.
But it was a very personal beginning to the book for me.
So I was kind of gripped right from the beginning.
You-
Thank you for sharing that, Elliot.
Thanks for sharing that.
Oh, absolutely.
Thank you for including that as one of the first stories.
I found that patient story to be very moving.
Your book starts with kind of like a framing of the question
(31:42):
and then moves into, well, what the heck can we do about it
in the latter chapters?
And that's kind of where I want to focus
this part of the conversation here.
Sure, I actually want to start with the patient Jerome,
especially for your audience who maybe doesn't have the context.
But the reason I wrote this book is really
(32:02):
because I trained at a time, I was in my residency
in Washington, DC, and it was the height of the HIV AIDS
epidemic.
And you have to understand, especially as a newly minted
doctor, I mean, you are just so gung-ho about patient care,
and you're all about saving lives.
And why would you not be?
And at that time, literally every other patient
(32:23):
that walked into the emergency room was what I tried
to just walk in dead.
There was nothing you could do.
They would walk in with full-blown AIDS,
and then they would die.
Two weeks later, one week later, very little time.
And all of us, the physicians, the residents, the nurses,
it was such a demoralizing time that every other patient you
(32:43):
saw, they'd walk in, you'd see them,
and you knew they were going to die shortly after.
So you can only imagine the traumatic piece to that.
And what really struck you, especially
as a young 20-something-year-old,
was that these were preventable deaths.
These were people who were misinformed, disinformed.
Their church told them this.
Their politicians told them this.
(33:03):
And it was exactly what you said.
There was so much confusion about the science.
And there was so much confusion.
When I mentioned the patient Jerome,
there was so much confusion about, well, I'm not gay.
How could I possibly have AIDS?
So people were dying this death that was so preventable.
And at that time, Elliot, all of our attendings,
all of our professors told us, you're going to remember this
(33:27):
time.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
And you're going to be better doctors.
You're going to end up becoming better doctors.
So got through that period in life and history,
here we were in March 2020.
I'm seeing patients at University of Miami.
And what are we telling our medical students in our residence?
This is a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
(33:48):
And yes, we know there's a lot of confusion.
We know there's a lot of preventable death.
It was such a deja vu moment for me
that this is why I wrote the book.
Hey, this fire, somebody keeps setting this fire in health care,
whether it's fertility confusion,
whether it's confusion about vaccines,
confusion about you name it.
There is someone that's got ginger, turmeric, or supplements.
(34:10):
They're happy to sell you.
And that's where the cultural piece comes in.
That's where the cultural piece comes in.
Because if you don't understand the cultural lens
by which people receive and relate to science and information,
that's the disconnect.
And in the HIV AIDS population at that time,
it was primarily the African-American community
(34:32):
and church that had a certain angle, had a certain...
This is how, this is what is important about your behavior.
And this is what will protect you against this disease.
COVID was very similar.
And so understanding that, and then healthcare in general.
Healthcare in general, look, people,
(34:52):
science is confusing, so many things are confusing in life,
but science can be confusing
if you don't have a science background.
So we have to do a better job as healthcare leaders,
making it relatable and reachable.
And there's nothing wrong, Elliot, right?
With saying, look, I'm an Asian woman.
I prefer to talk to an Asian woman.
I mean, the number one question I get
when I go to my daughter's school is,
hey, Dr. G, do you have a female OB-GYN you recommend?
(35:15):
Do you know a male urologist that my husband could see?
Right?
So there's nothing wrong with that.
And maybe...
No, I mean, I started to interrupt you there,
but from my perspective,
I'm on the hunt for an LGBTQ physician for my PCP,
for my next PCP,
because they're gonna understand things about me and my life
that are gonna make for better clinical care.
(35:37):
That's exactly it.
And so healthcare at the enterprise level,
we have to start doing that.
We have to understand that the digital apertures are there.
The technology's not the problem,
but how are we deploying them differently
in different communities
and making sure that we hit those human factors?
Because if we don't, it just goes over your head, right?
It goes over the head of the consumer
(35:58):
and it leads to this propagation
or it leads them to places that they feel do relate
and understand them that are perhaps not science forward.
And also not accountable for their care, right?
So if I'm gonna give you advice,
I also am accountable to you as your physician
or a physician in the world talking about these things.
So yeah, I think that is spot on.
(36:20):
Culturally competent care,
it's not just about how do I medically take care of you better,
but also how do I communicate about science,
about medicine to you,
because that's going to have an impact
on your ability to absorb that.
That kind of falls into that same concept
around health literacy, just in general.
So in your book, you delve into that rise of misinformation
(36:44):
in the digital age
and its impact specifically on patient health literacy.
Help us define health literacy for our listeners
and share some practical strategies
that healthcare organizations can use
to navigate that landscape.
So to me, health literacy,
and you know, there's that adage, right?
You can feed a man a fish for a day
(37:06):
or you can teach a man how to fish
and feed them for a lifetime, right?
That to me is what health literacy is.
It is empowering the everyday person
to be able to have a certain fundamental knowledge
about their health
and then have the ability to interpret health information
to make good decisions, right?
Ideally in partnership with the doctor,
but you know, in everyday world to know what is the right way
(37:29):
and what are the right sources to find information.
In the book, chapter eight in particular,
I used a use case from the Cleveland Clinic.
Cleveland Clinic's chief marketing officer, Paul Mattsen,
felt that there was an issue with the Cleveland Clinic's trust,
particularly in the local community.
And he said, what do we do best as a Cleveland Clinic?
It's our docs.
But surprise, surprise, by the way,
(37:50):
every healthcare organization should feel the same way
because truly it's about the talent,
the doctors and nurses, the care team.
So he said, how do I get that out there in the world?
And he went and he talked with his clinical leaders
and he said, look, you guys do this every day.
You're talking about colonoscopy, mammograms, all this stuff.
And we have black doctors, we have white doctors,
we have Asian doctors.
Let me put them on camera.
I'll make sure they comb their hair.
(38:11):
But I'm not gonna ask my doctors to be marketers.
This is probably perhaps one of the beautiful things
he first acknowledged.
He said, I'm not gonna ask them to be marketers.
I'm not gonna ask them to learn TikTok.
I'm gonna do all that.
I'm the marketing officer.
I'm just gonna turn the camera on, let them be doctors,
figure out what they talk about every day,
what makes them tick, what are the top three things
they think every patient should know in XYZ specialty.
(38:32):
And then he developed this partnership with YouTube
and he started to make these evidence-based facts snackable,
what I call snackable, like relatable,
and again, in the attention span of today, right?
The three seconds, 30 seconds or less thing
you need to know today about mammograms.
And he did this in such a beautiful way
that his clinical staff didn't do anything
(38:54):
except these clinicians.
And marketing did their part
and scale this at an enterprise level.
And it drove appointments.
It drove appointments, it drove brand loyalty,
it drove patient acquisition and retention.
And that is the ideal strategy for an enterprise.
It is that cross C-suite partnership
with clinical leadership, marketing, the CIO.
So it's the CMO, the CIO, and the other CMO,
(39:16):
the medical officer, tying it all together
because at the end of the day,
every organization is driving patient acquisition,
retention and brand loyalty,
whether you're a life sciences company, a payer or provider.
And so that is really what I thought was brilliant
about the Cleveland Clinic's approach
was that they let everyone stay in their lane,
(39:37):
but then they tied it together
to this enterprise level of really driving trust,
which is what everyone's trying to do in healthcare.
Yeah, I think that's wonderful.
And the results clearly speak for themselves.
I mean, even before Cleveland Clinic was well known
and respected, but now locally, they're trusted.
And I think that's really, really important.
(39:57):
And I love the idea of a snackable education content.
On this podcast, we call them nuggets of learning,
little learning nuggets that we like to snack on.
So love that concept.
No one's reading medical journals, Elliot, right?
So I guess I wanna-
I mean, I am, but I'm a dweeb.
You're a super dweeb.
So my point is health literacy
(40:20):
should not be reading the New England Journal of Medicine.
It should be snackable.
It should be in third grade to sixth grade level language.
And it should be done in a fun, engaging, inspiring way.
Right? That's what we're competing with.
59 million Americans churn to social media
for healthcare decisions,
(40:42):
because those apertures are relatable, snackable,
reachable, inspiring.
So if healthcare organizations are not in that space,
we leave this huge gap open
for misinformation to thrive.
That's perhaps the biggest takeaway or lesson learned
is the Cleveland Clinic said, uh-uh,
I'm gonna partner with YouTube.
YouTube's worth that.
I recognize that's where my consumer is, right?
(41:04):
And YouTube also said,
you know what, you guys are the science nerds.
Break it down for us, right?
Why not?
It's a magical partnership and more of us need to do that.
59 million Americans churn to social media influencers
for their health information.
They are not talking to their doctor.
They may not even have a doctor, right?
And they're not going to just Google.
(41:25):
They are going to TikTok.
They're going to YouTube.
They're going to Instagram, right?
No, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think you're exactly right.
Be where they are.
Don't try to get them to come to you.
Be where they are.
Be in front of them where they are.
So that's fantastic.
Look, we created an amazing, historic mRNA vaccine
(41:46):
in nine months flat around the globe.
And then what happened?
We couldn't get anyone to take it.
We spent so much more time and energy trying
to win the trust of the everyday consumer
around the globe to take the vaccine.
That was a myth.
We should have known that from the beginning,
knowing everything we know about anti-vaccine sentiments.
(42:08):
It was a complete myth to create an innovation in the lab,
but not be able to make it a reality in reality, right?
Fast enough and in time.
And so in many ways that was such a perfect example
of where science misses.
We're really good at the science stuff,
but it's humanity.
It's that last mile.
That's what makes the difference.
(42:29):
That's what gets the science in the hands
of the people that need it.
And we have to start doing it in parallel.
We have to understand that.
We will continue to innovate.
And the organizations that do this in parallel
and really understand the human factor,
they're going to be successful with AI.
They're going to be successful with social media.
They're going to be successful with brand loyalty
(42:51):
and patient acquisition.
They're going to be successful in value-based care, right?
That's where we all fall down.
It's that last, last mile.
Case in point, right?
Those vaccine cards didn't help anybody.
Well, since you mentioned it,
and it started to get its real buzz,
(43:11):
probably after you had already drafted your book.
I mean, not that it wasn't being worked on before,
but let's talk about artificial intelligence, right?
That started, and ChatGPT came out,
what was that, December 2022,
it started to get the hands of the public
and everybody going crazy about it.
And so I imagine your book was already drafted by then,
or at least well on its way.
(43:33):
So since then, since the writing of your book,
artificial intelligence has played more and more
of a crucial role within modern healthcare.
And so I'm wondering, can you provide examples
of where you're seeing AI currently improving patient care?
And then to the human factors
that you were just mentioning before,
(43:54):
what ethical or privacy concerns need to be addressed
by developers and providers as AI becomes more and more
integrated directly into patient care?
Sure, so listen, I am just as excited about AI as everyone.
I think that the potential is incredible.
I think it's limitless.
And I truly believe medicine is gonna change
(44:16):
over the next few decades as a result, as will many industries.
What we have to do is exactly what we did not do with the EHR
and exactly what we didn't do with social media.
We have to look at AI and understand the human factor.
If we're talking about changing care delivery,
the more and more we can understand
(44:37):
about where biases are baked in,
where AI will solve health equity versus make it worse,
right, is really critical.
And right now the low hanging fruit with AI,
we're still learning what it can do.
It would be a mistake to say that we completely understand it.
But right now there's an incredibly low hanging fruit
that could literally overnight save billions of dollars.
So whether it's documentation, prior authorization,
(45:00):
clinical decision support, drug discovery,
these are the areas to focus on right now.
Replacing doctors and nurses with AI,
that's not the right place to focus
because the technology is not there.
And people ultimately dealing with personal issues
like their health don't want a robot
on the other end of that visit.
(45:20):
They want to know that they have a human,
they can trust, understands them, relates to them,
all the things we just talked about culturally.
And then yes, if that doctor, nurse has access
to the best technologies like AI
to help them with clinical decision,
to help them with therapeutic choices,
the ability to make a precise decision about their therapy,
that's fantastic, right?
(45:42):
But the idea that we are going to replace doctors and nurses
anytime soon with AI is really just a lot of hype
and I think a miss when we are surrounded by low hanging fruit
that really plagues the industry
and hinders the industry from good patient care.
So I also like to say that remember,
our industry is single-handedly
keeping the fax machine alive.
So there is a reality here of what is truly happening
(46:07):
in everyday medicine and where we got to go.
Hopefully the pagers have paged their last page,
but fax machines certainly do still stick around.
I think you're spot on.
I think clinicians, obviously me, patients know
that there's going to be value in AI.
I think just from a basic understanding of it,
but they do, they still need that human connection
(46:30):
in the intimate moment of that clinician
and patient encounter.
I mean, you just said it.
You're looking for a physician from the LGBTQ community
because you feel like they'll understand you.
Now, if someone said, well, I programmed AI
to be LGBTQ friendly, I mean, how do you feel about that?
Knowing how bad GFGPT is at talking to me generally,
(46:51):
it's probably just a bunch of yes queens added in
to every time they kind of respond to me.
So that's how I would feel about it.
But to your point, I do want my physician to be armed
with the best clinical decision support algorithms
that are out there to help them come up with their decision
faster and more accurately.
And no different than wanting your doc
(47:12):
to have the best stethoscope, the best CT scan,
the best MRI, the best facility,
the best resources available to them, right?
The best pharmacy.
I mean, this is just again, one more tool that we have,
an incredible tool at that,
but it's not our first time, DaVinci robots, right?
Like there's so many things.
That's the cool thing about medicine
is that we are constantly innovating.
But to me, we have to be really cautious
(47:32):
with the hype versus the reality.
To me, it's no different than all of these other tools
that we've had for a long time.
And they just make us better, faster, smarter docs.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
That's great.
Speaking of like emerging technologies and changes
and technical innovation and things like that.
Last question for you here.
You advised a lot of companies
at the forefront of the digital transformation
(47:53):
in healthcare.
So from your perspective, from your vantage point,
what are some of the emerging technologies
or trends that you think are going to have
the most significant impact on the industry
within say like the next five years?
AI aside.
Well, AI of course, that's without any debate.
I think that the second and third,
close second and third,
(48:14):
the wearable revolution is here today.
Everyone has a ring, a watch, maybe tomorrow earrings.
I don't know.
That is measuring everything, right?
From heart rate to sleep to mental health.
I think that trend will continue.
The organizations that can pair that
with telemedicine or pair that
with actually understanding and interpreting that information.
(48:34):
Because right now we have consumers measuring a lot of stuff
that's actually not very useful.
But if you can put it in the hands of a patient with ASIP
and figure out, do they need to be on blood thinners?
Do they not?
Or can we simply monitor this in the home?
I think that that piece of continuing to move into the home,
continue to move to where the consumer
is actually experiencing their health,
(48:55):
which is not within the hospital.
But finding those data points of where does some of this technology
bring down the cost and drive the outcome?
We're able to ask these interesting questions
that we simply didn't have the luxury of before, right?
Does the time that, the amount of time that you sleep,
how does that affect your mood?
(49:15):
And whether you need an anti-depressant or not, right?
So to be able to actually change therapies and outcomes
and drive down costs, that becomes very interesting
as we see more and more things put
into a remote patient monitoring environment.
I love, like, there's a couple of different companies out there.
We've talked about them on the pod before for wearable clothing
(49:36):
that are sensor-enabled or wearable specific devices
that, you know, whether in an inpatient or an outpatient context
can just provide additional data points
that AI is reviewing on the backend
because no human could review that much information all at once.
Yes, and drug discovery, I know you said I can't say AI,
but the drug discovery piece,
(49:57):
I think we are going to quicker, better, faster.
I mean, what this is going to do to the therapeutics space
is unbelievable.
I think it's truly unbelievable,
and I think it's going to be, again, among the most impactful.
But truly, those are the spaces where I think the biggest change.
And I hope to see us do something with regards
(50:19):
to mis- and disinformation and social media.
Again, largely unregulated space,
primarily regulated by social media companies
at this time, but I think that that will continue
to have relevance either for the good or the bad
is yet to be determined by us
and what we as health care leaders decide to do.
All right, so the last thing,
you mentioned a couple of times in the books
(50:39):
what it means to do no harm.
And you say sometimes doing no harm is, you know,
not doing anything,
because it might not be the right course of treatment.
But sometimes doing no harm is absolutely taking every action
that you can, and you say a couple of times,
this is one of those times.
So what call to action do you have to our listeners,
(51:02):
other than go by dead wrong and read it?
Who damn was I reviewing?
Who damn was I reviewing?
What's the call to action might you have for our listeners
to help battle misinformation and disinformation?
Sure.
Number one, I think that understanding your organization's
mis- and disinformation strategy, again, I'm not naive.
(51:23):
I know that no one has one,
but mis- and disinformation is tied
to the patient engagement strategy, right?
It is tied to the patient acquisition retention strategy.
It is tied to the value-based care strategy.
So these strategies exist within your organization,
but I think raising your hand and understanding where is it
that you are understanding that you are competing
(51:45):
with social media.
You are competing with Bad Tech,
who doesn't understand culturally where your consumers are,
where your patients are.
So I think calling it out and understanding it,
these chances are there are pockets of it being done
within the hospital, likely not in a cohesive C-suite way,
but also not being done from the human side, right?
To your point, having someone text you, you know,
(52:09):
Gas Queen is not really helpful, right?
It's a cheap attempt.
It's a lazy attempt at understanding a certain population.
So I think pressing on that and really pressing
on the C-suite engagement.
It's not just the chief marketing officer's job.
It's not just the CIO's job or the chief medical officer's job.
It's really everyone's job.
And ultimately, every one of us, whether we're payers,
(52:31):
like science companies, tech funders, it is about the patient.
So if you're not hitting this issue, you are missing it.
Just like the vaccine, just like making this crazy innovation
in healthcare and then not being able to get anyone to take it,
that's the miss that we continue to see
in different spaces in healthcare.
What a great place to leave us.
Thank you so much for that call to action.
(52:52):
Gita, thank you so much for joining us.
The book is Dead Wrong, Diagnosing and Treating
Healthcare's Misinformation Illness.
I have read it cover to cover.
Really appreciate it.
I also want to just point out something
that Dr. G shared with me about it.
The illustrations within the book were all drawn by her daughter,
whose picture you can see in the book,
and they are quite excellent.
(53:13):
So thank you for sharing that with me, Gita.
And thanks for joining us here on Tech It to the Limit.
Thank you so much, Elliot.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
And we're out.
Thank you so much.
My daughter and a medical student,
I didn't know how to throw that in there in this.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
What's it say?
Thank you so much for the interview.
Well, welcome back.
(53:37):
Oh my gosh, that was a great interview.
A lot of fun to do that interview.
But since you weren't there, I want
to know what were your nuggets?
What were your hot, steamy, tasty nuggets
that you took away from the conversation?
Hot, steamy, tasty nuggets.
Well, yeah, it was actually really kind of cool
being a fly on the wall for this interview.
By the way, I thought you did a great job flying solo.
Sad I missed it.
(53:57):
But really, really interesting to be almost like a listener
this time instead of a host.
I loved her call out about needing
to make evidence behind medicine snackable.
I just loved that word, right?
And to tie that into your organization's
miss and disinformation strategy.
I did a little bit of research on the side
(54:19):
about her quote around 59 million Americans turning
to social media for health information, which was shocking,
but also not really.
In fact, I found an article on Forbes,
which we can put in the show notes that says that 33%
of Gen Zers trust TikTok more than doctors, which
was kind of terrifying.
(54:39):
But the top one in five Americans,
so it's not just Gen Zers, one in five Americans reportedly
consult TikTok before going to their doctors for treatment
advice.
And the top reasons that are cited for consulting social media
first is accessibility, affordability, and approachability.
So everything that you and Dr. G hit on in that conversation
(55:01):
of going to where the customer is,
I love that nugget that you added in there,
and making sure that your miss or disinformation strategy
is integrated with your patient engagement one.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So then my other nugget, I'd say I'm just
going to have two.
They're big, rather large nuggets.
So I just ate two.
(55:22):
The human factor, you guys talked a lot about this,
kind of making sure that when you're designing
any type of innovative solution, any type of technology,
not to forget about that last mile of innovation
translation, whether it's health tech or vaccines or AI
deployment, your information campaigns
(55:43):
need to engage with your end users
in culturally competent ways.
And if you don't really understand your customer
and what's motivating them and what's scaring them
and who else is talking to them, then
you aren't going to be successful with whatever innovation
you're bringing to market.
(56:03):
So I just love the whole discussion, Elliot,
and really kind of stoked that our listeners get
to hear from you both on season two, episode one.
Great way to kick off our sophomore year.
What were your nuggets?
Well, were my nuggets.
I had a few.
It was a fabulous conversation.
And she is so personable and enjoyable
(56:25):
to have a conversation with.
I could probably stand, hang out with her for hours
and just chat.
I took a couple of different things away from the conversation.
I just want to top it on maybe one or two of them here.
The first one is actually something
we talked about at the top of the show around low hanging
fruit and what you can go after.
She mentioned that low hanging fruit with regards
(56:46):
to health care technology to implementation or selection
doesn't mean replacing doctors and nurses and other clinicians.
Let's find all the ways that our health system is broken
that have nothing to do with direct clinical care.
Because that's actually what's burdening the people
that we have left is all the other stuff
(57:07):
that they've got to do instead of doing clinical care.
So let's solve for providing the most intimate experience
and the most enjoyable experience for patients
and providers in that moment.
So go outside, go into the orchard,
pick the apples off the damn ground,
because that's where they are, whether it be prior off,
or staff scheduling, or all kinds of different things
(57:29):
that can be implemented that ease clinical care.
But don't worry about replacing doctors and nurses.
We're so far from that side of it.
So that was one.
The other thing that I thought was interesting,
and it wasn't necessarily a nugget that she called out
specifically, but just the part of the conversation
(57:50):
was this theme of parallels.
Both in her book and in our conversation,
the first one being the very obvious one
between the AIDS epidemic and COVID,
which was the whole impetus for her book to begin with.
We had such misinformation about the AIDS epidemic
that many people died from it,
and we had such misinformation and intentional disinformation
(58:12):
with the COVID pandemic that tons of people died from it
that shouldn't have died from it.
So I thought that was interesting,
but then it also paralleled between the EMR deployment
and where we are with AI right now,
which I thought was really interesting.
What lessons did we learn from the debacle
that was the EMR rollout that we can take forward
(58:33):
to how we're approaching artificial intelligence
and other healthcare technology
and combating disinformation and misinformation.
And she talks about that in her book,
and I thought those parallels were really powerful.
Yeah, awesome.
I love it.
So listeners, we'd love to hear what your favorite nuggets were
from the conversation, so please follow us on LinkedIn,
(58:55):
reach out to us, drop a comment, drop a message,
follow Tech It To The Limit,
visit us online at TechItToTheLimit.fun.
Listen to us and subscribe to us,
smash that subscribe button wherever you get your pod,
whether it be Spotify or Apple Podcasts or anywhere else.
Leave us a review.
That really helps us with the algorithms
and tell a friend if you liked us, tell an enemy
(59:18):
if you hated us, but for goodness sake, tell someone.
Tell someone.
Someone, anyone.
Sarah, take it away with our HealthTech haiku for the month.
Eight ball shakes, so wise.
Answers in cryptic disguise.
Chat DPPs, first guys.
(59:40):
Well, thanks, Elliott.
It was amazing to connect with you again.
Can't wait for the rest of season two of Tech It To The Limit.
See you next time.
See you next time.
See you next time.
See you next time.
(01:00:21):
Check us online at TechItToTheLimit.fun.
And don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter,
Instagram, and across the event horizon.
See you next time on Tech It To The Limit.
Welcome to Tech It To The Limit, the humorous and surprisingly informative podcast that
(00:22):
makes digital innovation and healthcare as entertaining as it is relevant.
I'm Sarah Harper.
And I'm Elliot Wilson, and we're here to pull back the curtain on the world of digital
transformation in healthcare.
Don't worry, you don't need a medical degree to join in on the fun, just a sense of humor
and a penchant for all things health tech.
So buckle up folks, it's time to Tech It To The Limit.
(00:52):
What's up Elliot?
What's up Sarah?
It is episode one of season two.
Wow, good job getting those in the right order.
Wait, thank you.
We are back.
This is very exciting.
I can't believe it.
It's been months.
It has been months.
It feels like I need to put my podcast training wheels back on.
(01:14):
You're doing a great job so far.
30 seconds in.
Crushing it.
Well, welcome back to season two of Tech It To The Limit folks.
We're so grateful to have you here.
It's been a couple of months off for Sarah and me, and we are back and better than ever.
Yeah, we are absolutely.
I was going to say, you look better than ever.
(01:35):
What have you been up to?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, I just got back from LA where I had an amazing time at Vive.
Awesome.
I was sticking off the spring conference season, so that was really, really exciting.
Pop pop.
Yes, it was a lot of fun.
I didn't enjoy the red eye back, but I really enjoyed the conference.
It was an incredible few days.
(01:58):
The people were amazing.
The people watching was even better.
The energy at that conference is just fantastic.
Just lots of people that are really excited to kind of fix the healthcare mess that we
have put ourselves in.
So I really enjoyed it.
Awesome.
What were some of your takeaways?
Oh, wait, we don't call them that on this show.
(02:18):
Sorry.
No, we don't.
What were some of the nuggets that you gnaw on later on your red eye home?
Oh, nice water bottle.
So, thank you.
Product placement.
Product placement.
That's five on it.
I got to say, it was on fleek to be disillusioned with AI at this conference.
(02:41):
We're entering the Valley of Despair.
That's right.
We are.
We're nowhere near the slope of Enlightenment at this point.
But for sure, everybody's kind of disillusioned.
It was really hot, really heavy, and now everybody's kind of like, they're kind of getting wise
to ready for this.
This was one of the fun phrases I heard.
Everybody's kind of getting wise to the shiny hammer syndrome.
(03:03):
Shiny hammer syndrome.
How does that differ from the shiny optic syndrome?
But a hammer is you buy the hammer, then you go looking for nails.
So it's the shiny hammer syndrome.
Oh my gosh, that is such a good little analogy.
I love.
Isn't that great?
New three letter acronyms.
Ooh, all right.
Abounded.
One of my favorites was measurement based care.
(03:24):
Ugh, barf in my mouth.
Sorry.
It's not value based care.
It's not fee for service.
It's measurement based care.
What exactly are they measuring?
Well, I assume outcomes.
Let's hope.
But it wasn't entirely clear.
How high the stack of money is growing on my desk?
Yeah, for sure.
But I got to say, I wasn't, I was actually surprised that there weren't a lot of new
(03:47):
players out there.
It was a lot of the same technology that's been out there.
You know, a lot of folks trying to just the same thing that they have.
And they just slapped AI on the side of it for a lot of vendors.
So I was kind of surprised that I did see some new fun startups that I liked that I won't
go into them on this show, but they're pretty, they're pretty cool ones, but not a ton new
(04:08):
from the big players.
So it's like the senior prom.
You've seen it all before.
You've been there, done that.
Yeah, kind of, kind of, kind of.
Maybe I'm just jaded.
But two other things real quickly.
One, there is no one way to create an innovation shop.
So I thought there was some really cool panels from provider organizations that are trying
(04:29):
to figure out how to create an innovation shop and mold innovation into their, their
business strategy.
And there's lots of different models and I thought that was pretty neat.
But the other thing was ROI, ROI, ROI, ROI.
Nobody is looking to buy.
Providers are not looking to buy new technology.
VC is not looking to give money to new technology until you can show and prove an ROI and quickly.
(04:56):
So that was a real big takeaway.
And let's not look at AI to replace clinicians.
Let's look at AI to find the lowest hanging fruit.
That is essentially on the ground that you can walk around and pick up.
Can we talk about prior authorization?
Right.
So, you know, that's those were some of my biggest takeaways from the show.
(05:16):
Awesome.
That's great to hear.
And it's kind of interesting that we're already entering that like phase of disillusionment
with AI.
You and I both work in this space.
And I think the shiny hammer syndrome is the best description I have heard of sort of this
overabundance of tech and it's not I don't want to just like paint it black for AI.
I think I think the market is pretty well saturated with solutions right now.
(05:41):
So anyway, yeah, I appreciate your sharing that, you know, I hope you enjoyed the spring
fling.
That is five, you know, you know, it was exactly what it was.
That's exactly what it was.
It was, but nothing, nothing could get me more excited than our first guest that we
have on season two of Tech It to the Limit.
(06:01):
We have Dr. Ghita Nair, who is a former CMO of AT&T and Salesforce brilliant doctor started
at the forefront of when we were just transitioning to EMR's really got into tech had a lot of
really fantastic learnings talked about her new book Dead Wrong.
Wait, we talked about her new book.
(06:23):
Oh, I thought we were going to, but something was missing in our interview.
So I can't put my finger on it.
What was it?
Me.
Hi, I'm the problem hits me.
Where were you?
What happened?
You know, I was otherwise indisposed.
The, the real reason for my absence shall not be disclosed on this podcast because I feel
(06:46):
like it would be very shaming to us both.
But I just want to say that if anyone feels like scrolling through LinkedIn and checking
out the Tech It to the Limit page this month, you can answer the poll question where in
the world was Sarah Harper during Dr. G's interview?
You can cast your vote on LinkedIn later this month.
(07:09):
Here are some of the options.
Where was she?
She was thanks to her mad joystick skills.
She got tapped to pilot the Odysseus Lunar Lander.
Thank you Atari 80s for finally paying dividends or maybe she was munching down on a
Big Mac or maybe I lost another embarrassing bet or maybe AI still haven't solved time
(07:31):
zones and we're both working parents and really tired all the time and calendars that
don't sync on their own.
So thanks Google and Microsoft.
We really appreciate it.
So you pick listeners.
Where was Sarah during the great Dr. G interview?
Okay, listeners.
Well, this has been super fun catching up with you, Elliot.
I am, we're going to pause for a quick break from one of our fake sponsors.
(07:54):
This on the fake for all you listeners out there.
I know they're convincing, but they're not real sponsors.
Yeah, take a listen.
Listen to them for real.
And then we're going to come back.
We have a very special guest for our next segment.
We are actually going to be hearing from the great grandfather of chat GPT.
(08:14):
Stick around.
We'll be right back.
Calling Dr. Good old days.
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Hibak compliance and executive functioning skills not guaranteed.
Throwback file cabinets sold separately.
Well welcome back to Tech It To The Limit.
(10:23):
Here we are again.
We have a special new friend with us for the first time.
It is the great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparent
of chat GPT.
Who do we have with us as a guest, Sarah?
The Magic 8 Ball.
All right.
So how does this work?
(10:46):
So what are we doing and how does this work, Sarah?
If you don't well you're an elder millennials so you do know but if you aren't an elder
millennial, then we will explain it to you. The magic eight ball can answer any question you ask it as long as it's a yes or no question and you're okay with a vague, non specific and unhelpful answer. So this magic eight ball is is it is not magic. It's a floaty thing inside some liquid inside an oversized eight ball. But
(11:17):
sounds exactly like chat GPT. Yeah, that's you know. So Elliott, you and I are going to take turns asking chat PPT's Greek, Greek, Greek and father some questions about the future of the healthcare industry. How's that sound sounds amazing. I cannot wait to do it. Who gets you're going to do the first question or do I
You choose.
Oh, thank you.
(11:38):
Friends first.
Very good.
Magic Ape All.
Will provider organizations ever figure out
how to tap the data goldmine of patient wearables?
You may rely on it.
Yay!
Praise.
Thank goodness.
By Hallelujah, we're saved.
(11:58):
Now we just got to figure out when the data comes in,
whether it was actually the person wearing it
or their great grandson who was wearing it for the day
and screwed up all the data that feeds, you know?
And do we have a sign release of an information form
for that person?
Yeah, right.
Anywho.
All right, I'm going to ask the next question.
(12:20):
Go.
Is healthcare single-handedly keeping the fax machine alive?
Thanks, Dr. G, for that one.
Cannot predict now.
Again, unhelpful.
Unhelpful.
So unhelpful.
But honestly, can we just say, get rid of the fax machines?
(12:42):
Don't you think it's time?
I think we can say that.
It's whether or not that the people in charge of the fax
machines can actually do the things necessary
to stop using them, right?
Like learn how to use the internet.
Do you think that CFOs have stock in Xerox?
Is Xerox still in existence?
Or RICO?
(13:02):
RICO sounds like a really tough dog name.
No, I think actually, OK, I think this is actually
a really good question, Elliot, because I think it points to
just such a classic example of how difficult it is
to implement technological change in healthcare.
If there are people still using fax machines and pagers,
(13:26):
which there are millions still using fax machines,
and it's not for lack of internet or 5G network,
it happens in a city near you, OK?
Then that's evidence that it's extremely difficult
to implement change through technology in our industry.
(13:47):
For sure.
All right.
Magic A-ball, magic A-ball.
I am a surgeon.
You're a podcast host.
I am a podcast host and a surgeon, and I don't like robots.
Will I become obsolete?
(14:08):
It's decidedly so.
Oh!
Adapt or die.
I added that for effect.
You heard it here, folks.
You heard it here.
Get on your Da Vinci or get out of the game.
Who said that?
Innovator die?
That's a thing, right?
(14:29):
It's something I learned in business school, for sure.
Everything I learned in business school,
I learned in the kindergarten.
In the kindergarten, I love it.
Always use your definite articles in an awkward manner.
All right.
Magic A-ball.
Is CMS that centers for Medicaid and Medicare services?
Centres is plural.
(14:51):
Learn that the hard way.
You can run out of money before I retire.
Which hopefully will be soon.
Don't count on it.
All right!
I'm going to have some freaking benefits.
All right.
That's fantastic.
Great news.
I'm just going to go out and spend my whole nest egg now.
(15:14):
Just because A-ball said that I'll be covered.
Yeah, for sure.
Thank goodness.
I'm going to go out with that now.
I think you should go on a vacation.
Maybe we should send a case of Magic A-ball
to the Congressional Budget Office.
And they'll have it figured out.
Better than the decisions they're making now.
Okay.
(15:35):
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will someone ever develop an app
that integrates with the EHR
and is user-friendly?
Very doubtful.
Yeah, kind of agree.
Sad but true.
I feel like I changed my voice when I'm speaking
as the Magic A-ball.
(15:56):
Are you picking up on that?
Yeah, definitely.
It's like the Darth Vader that's been unleashed.
Okay. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Did Obamacare actually help improve access
and affordability?
Outlook good.
For all you Democrats out there.
Obamacare will one day have a positive connotation.
(16:21):
Sorry.
Maybe. Maybe.
Magic A-ball. I have a sore throat.
Do I need to be seen by a clinician?
It is certain.
Go to the emergency room.
No.
Yeah, that's right.
(16:42):
Well, if CMS is going to pay for it,
right, it prepares.
Okay, let's not go down that debate rabbit hole.
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will policymakers ever grow a pair
and invest in solutions that solve social determinants
of health, like schools and gardens?
(17:03):
It is certain.
Yet another good decision that's definitely coming
out of Washington. I got pumped.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I feel like that's something that's going to have to wait
until the octogenarians aren't there anymore.
Good word. Word drop.
And like maybe after the boomers are gone,
we might invest in things like that
(17:24):
because we need some millennials in power.
I think you're like borderline stereotyping right now, dude.
I'm not. I'm not like trying to be ages.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying that values are different between generations.
Slow-not in agreement.
General. Generally. Generally.
(17:45):
All right. Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Will AI replace me?
Cannot predict now.
Ooh. I don't like that answer.
I love your face.
Ooh, that makes me really nervous.
When can you predict that, Magic A-ball?
Oh my goodness.
I only can do, I only can do yes or no questions.
(18:09):
Oh. All right, Magic A-ball. Fine.
I mean, I don't think AI is going to replace us. Period.
I think that, right, I think it's pretty hip to say,
AI will not replace you, but people that use AI will replace you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right?
Yep. That's like the YOLO of this year.
(18:33):
I don't know when YOLO was the thing,
but like everyone was saying it.
And I'm like, yeah, we know. Okay.
But it seems like everybody is saying that.
It's true.
I'm guilty. I've said it a time or two, you know, in the elevator.
Mm-hmm. You got to say something.
You're trapped with somebody that you just,
you can't talk about the weather anymore.
(18:55):
Okay. Right. Last question.
Magic A-ball. Magic A-ball.
Is Arnold Schwarzenegger coming for us all?
Yes. Definitely.
Oh my gosh. My magic A-ball said the same thing.
No way.
He's definitely coming.
So it doesn't really matter. Oh my gosh.
CMS is going to pay for my benefits.
(19:18):
I think that's actually more likely that he's coming for us
than CMS paying for everything.
He's so true.
Oh my gosh.
Hey, I think it's time to hear from another one of our fake sponsors.
Oh, I love it.
Well, stick around everybody for Tech It to the Limit.
When we come back to the show,
it will have our interview with Dr. Gita Nair.
G!
(19:39):
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Well,
(21:50):
greetings listeners and welcome back to Tech It to the Limit.
We're so excited for our first episode of the season.
This is our return with season two of Tech It to the Limit
featuring the one, the only, Dr. Gita Nyer,
known affectionately by her fans as Dr. G.
She is a globally recognized healthcare technology leader,
(22:13):
the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book,
Dead Wrong, Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare's Misinformation Illness.
It's a post-pandemic look at the rise of misinformation in the digital age,
and I have to say a fantastic book that I just finished reading recently.
She's widely sought after thought leader and appeared on multiple media outlets such as CNBC,
(22:36):
CNN, CBS, and Yahoo Finance.
She is a true health tech grand slam,
but she doesn't just expose industry problems.
Dr. G serves up digitally enabled solutions with the ease of a Williams sister
returning Sarah Harper's backhand.
Welcome, Gita. May I call you Gita?
(22:57):
Of course, of course. Thanks for having me, Elliot.
Do you play tennis? I have to ask because it...
We don't play tennis. I don't play tennis, but we do research our guests,
and we try to make our introduction special for them.
So I hope that landed. It did. It did. I loved it. I loved it. Thank you for that. That was very cute.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for joining us.
(23:20):
We like to ask all of our guests on Tech It To The Limit as a first question.
Get it out there. What's your favorite dad joke?
Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, you have not met my dad. I love my dad,
but I had so many dad jokes. Now you're going to make me pick one.
Well, let me give you some context before I tell you the joke.
So my mother is triple train board certified in ophthalmology,
(23:46):
OB-GYN, internal medicine, started HEMONC, but had me and dropped out of HEMONC.
My dad is an ICU pulmonary critical care doc,
81 years old, still around from the unit.
So when I call my parents in my late 20s with early 30s to tell them that I was going to be the doctor for the chief medical officer at NT,
I literally heard like the phone drop when my dad like gave my dad the snooze.
(24:10):
And it was because my dad was like, okay, so me and your mother immigrated to America.
We went through not just one training to train, you know, to come to the US to go to train all over again,
put you through medical school, put you through college, got you in.
And now you work for the phone company.
He's like, I just, I would like a refund.
He's like, I don't know why we came to America for this.
(24:32):
It was so, yeah, needless to say my dad has no idea what I do to this day.
It was West Virginia they immigrated to, right?
Yeah.
So it's like, first we go to West Virginia, then we're in Miami, we go through all of this and you're telling me you're not even going to round on patients like I do all my life.
Very, very much. Yes. And I actually know what's interesting is I just did the opening keynote for the American Hospital Association Rural Health Conference.
(24:58):
Yeah.
Literally. And I opened with that. I said, listen, my family owes are beginning in America to rural health because in the 1970s, there was a huge physician shortage in rural America.
So my parents got their green card to come to back the West Virginia and practice.
And that was actually where I was born.
Yeah, I mentioned.
Yeah, I know I was I was I was reading. I mean, the book is full of really personal stories like that that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
(25:24):
So I got feel like I got to know your, your family a little bit in your daughter as well.
So, so that's really special. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Well, let's just jump right into some of the questions where we've got a few here that we'd love to go over with you.
You mentioned AT&T. So you began your career in medicine, but then you eventually made this leap to be CMO at Salesforce and AT&T.
(25:49):
I mean, these are two giants in their respective fields.
So tell us about your journey. Why you decided to move toward technology and away from I wouldn't say away from medicine, but as a primary focus, move toward technology.
And what lessons can healthcare professionals learn from the technology world in their practice?
(26:11):
You bet. So first of all, it was a complete happenstance, right?
Because I went to medical school because I love science. I love medicine. I love patients. I continue that continues to be my my passion.
So I trained at a time when in our residency, we went from paper to digital.
So the whole EHR kind of transition and move happened to my class of medical students and residents.
(26:34):
And so very much firsthand, I saw paper, what paper can do, and I saw what tech could do.
And they didn't always line up, right, as we continue to see today. So there were benefits, there were pros and cons to both.
But really what launched my career in health tech was being in the right place at the right time.
It was at George Washington University, which was an all scripts site at the time, the first all script site in the ambulatory side.
(26:57):
And I remember everyone hating it. Doctors hated it. Patients hate it. Like it was just a hot mess.
No.
And I was just this bright, I was she tailed doctor who, you know, was just saw the future, right?
I was like, this is going to be an analysis. Can we tell us how we communicate?
Like I saw it all very clearly. And I walked over to the CIO's office and I literally not in the door and I was like, Hey, I know you don't know me, but I'm Dr. G.
(27:22):
I'm in the medicine department. And here's the thing. Like, I think I know what you guys are trying to do with this thing, but you're just doing it like so baffled that everybody hates it.
And I could help you. I know why they hate it. Like it's messing up the workflow.
It's like, I live it. I live it. And this is before like the rise of physician informaticists.
(27:44):
That's how the HR revolution started. It was nothing. It was just tech being thrown at doctors and nurses.
So, this CIO was amazing and he was just like, I have been waiting for Dr. Like you.
And that was really the launch of my career. But it was very much from this place of just good medicine, like I felt like good medicine could happen.
(28:05):
could happen, but it was this huge disconnect
between technology and healthcare delivery.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
And so then you're in these large organizations,
these very tech forward organizations at this point now.
And how have you seen them approach technological problems
and engagement with their customers
(28:28):
that are lessons that you would take back
to the healthcare delivery organizations?
To say, if you thought about customers or consumers
differently, this is how you might accelerate your velocity
or something like that.
I mean, I'm making that up, but what do you think?
So all of these big tech companies, all of the retailers,
all of these new companies or new entrants to healthcare
(28:49):
that we see, the biggest asset they bring
is they understand customers.
They understand customer service.
They understand how to do customer acquisition,
retention, build brand loyalty in this way
that healthcare just doesn't know.
We talk about the patient, they talk about
before you're my consumer, before you're my patient,
how am I getting in front of you?
(29:11):
How am I building brand trust, loyalty, et cetera.
So I think that's probably the biggest thing
that healthcare can learn from a lot of these companies.
They also have very deep pockets
and very big visions as a result.
And they see the opportunity in healthcare,
which is incredibly exciting.
On the flip side, what healthcare delivery
can teach some of these companies is healthcare.
(29:32):
Because that's really where we've seen the lack of success
in these new entrants to healthcare is it's,
the closer you can get to the patient,
the closer you can get to the doctor and the care team,
that's really the places where you make
the biggest difference, right?
And just like what I was describing to you,
even in the EHR space, we didn't understand that.
(29:53):
The industry that came to medicine didn't understand that.
They understood tech, but they had no idea
that they may have solved one problem
and created five new ones.
Whereas any doctor or nurse could have told you,
if you do that, you're gonna know that.
And so that's where we have to, as an industry now,
we have enough lessons learned.
And as we think about particularly artificial intelligence,
the closer you can get to the patient,
the closer you get to the doctor, the nurse,
(30:14):
who are the closest to the patient,
that is where you will find the answers.
And so having that clinical leadership,
bought in early, being part of the strategy,
the building of products, product implementation,
it's just so critical throughout the whole entire process.
You know, we've talked about that on this pod before
about is that special patient-physician relationship,
(30:38):
that clinical encounter moment,
how close can you get to that is where the magic happens.
And I think that's kind of what you're getting at here.
You really gotta zero into those moments of interaction
and be able to scale it too.
That's a really great nugget of wisdom
to share for both sides to each other.
So that's great, thank you.
I kind of want to talk about your book.
(31:00):
If that's all right.
One of your first stories that you started with
was around the AIDS epidemic from the 80s.
And it's personal to me for a couple of different reasons.
One, I'm a gay man that was coming into my own right
as an adult, mid-90s to the early 2000s.
The other reason is my uncle died of AIDS
(31:21):
right around that exact same time.
But it was a very personal beginning to the book for me.
So I was kind of gripped right from the beginning.
You-
Thank you for sharing that, Elliot.
Thanks for sharing that.
Oh, absolutely.
Thank you for including that as one of the first stories.
I found that patient story to be very moving.
Your book starts with kind of like a framing of the question
(31:42):
and then moves into, well, what the heck can we do about it
in the latter chapters?
And that's kind of where I want to focus
this part of the conversation here.
Sure, I actually want to start with the patient Jerome,
especially for your audience who maybe doesn't have the context.
But the reason I wrote this book is really
(32:02):
because I trained at a time, I was in my residency
in Washington, DC, and it was the height of the HIV AIDS
epidemic.
And you have to understand, especially as a newly minted
doctor, I mean, you are just so gung-ho about patient care,
and you're all about saving lives.
And why would you not be?
And at that time, literally every other patient
(32:23):
that walked into the emergency room was what I tried
to just walk in dead.
There was nothing you could do.
They would walk in with full-blown AIDS,
and then they would die.
Two weeks later, one week later, very little time.
And all of us, the physicians, the residents, the nurses,
it was such a demoralizing time that every other patient you
(32:43):
saw, they'd walk in, you'd see them,
and you knew they were going to die shortly after.
So you can only imagine the traumatic piece to that.
And what really struck you, especially
as a young 20-something-year-old,
was that these were preventable deaths.
These were people who were misinformed, disinformed.
Their church told them this.
Their politicians told them this.
(33:03):
And it was exactly what you said.
There was so much confusion about the science.
And there was so much confusion.
When I mentioned the patient Jerome,
there was so much confusion about, well, I'm not gay.
How could I possibly have AIDS?
So people were dying this death that was so preventable.
And at that time, Elliot, all of our attendings,
all of our professors told us, you're going to remember this
(33:27):
time.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
And you're going to be better doctors.
You're going to end up becoming better doctors.
So got through that period in life and history,
here we were in March 2020.
I'm seeing patients at University of Miami.
And what are we telling our medical students in our residence?
This is a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
(33:48):
And yes, we know there's a lot of confusion.
We know there's a lot of preventable death.
It was such a deja vu moment for me
that this is why I wrote the book.
Hey, this fire, somebody keeps setting this fire in health care,
whether it's fertility confusion,
whether it's confusion about vaccines,
confusion about you name it.
There is someone that's got ginger, turmeric, or supplements.
(34:10):
They're happy to sell you.
And that's where the cultural piece comes in.
That's where the cultural piece comes in.
Because if you don't understand the cultural lens
by which people receive and relate to science and information,
that's the disconnect.
And in the HIV AIDS population at that time,
it was primarily the African-American community
(34:32):
and church that had a certain angle, had a certain...
This is how, this is what is important about your behavior.
And this is what will protect you against this disease.
COVID was very similar.
And so understanding that, and then healthcare in general.
Healthcare in general, look, people,
(34:52):
science is confusing, so many things are confusing in life,
but science can be confusing
if you don't have a science background.
So we have to do a better job as healthcare leaders,
making it relatable and reachable.
And there's nothing wrong, Elliot, right?
With saying, look, I'm an Asian woman.
I prefer to talk to an Asian woman.
I mean, the number one question I get
when I go to my daughter's school is,
hey, Dr. G, do you have a female OB-GYN you recommend?
(35:15):
Do you know a male urologist that my husband could see?
Right?
So there's nothing wrong with that.
And maybe...
No, I mean, I started to interrupt you there,
but from my perspective,
I'm on the hunt for an LGBTQ physician for my PCP,
for my next PCP,
because they're gonna understand things about me and my life
that are gonna make for better clinical care.
(35:37):
That's exactly it.
And so healthcare at the enterprise level,
we have to start doing that.
We have to understand that the digital apertures are there.
The technology's not the problem,
but how are we deploying them differently
in different communities
and making sure that we hit those human factors?
Because if we don't, it just goes over your head, right?
It goes over the head of the consumer
(35:58):
and it leads to this propagation
or it leads them to places that they feel do relate
and understand them that are perhaps not science forward.
And also not accountable for their care, right?
So if I'm gonna give you advice,
I also am accountable to you as your physician
or a physician in the world talking about these things.
So yeah, I think that is spot on.
(36:20):
Culturally competent care,
it's not just about how do I medically take care of you better,
but also how do I communicate about science,
about medicine to you,
because that's going to have an impact
on your ability to absorb that.
That kind of falls into that same concept
around health literacy, just in general.
So in your book, you delve into that rise of misinformation
(36:44):
in the digital age
and its impact specifically on patient health literacy.
Help us define health literacy for our listeners
and share some practical strategies
that healthcare organizations can use
to navigate that landscape.
So to me, health literacy,
and you know, there's that adage, right?
You can feed a man a fish for a day
(37:06):
or you can teach a man how to fish
and feed them for a lifetime, right?
That to me is what health literacy is.
It is empowering the everyday person
to be able to have a certain fundamental knowledge
about their health
and then have the ability to interpret health information
to make good decisions, right?
Ideally in partnership with the doctor,
but you know, in everyday world to know what is the right way
(37:29):
and what are the right sources to find information.
In the book, chapter eight in particular,
I used a use case from the Cleveland Clinic.
Cleveland Clinic's chief marketing officer, Paul Mattsen,
felt that there was an issue with the Cleveland Clinic's trust,
particularly in the local community.
And he said, what do we do best as a Cleveland Clinic?
It's our docs.
But surprise, surprise, by the way,
(37:50):
every healthcare organization should feel the same way
because truly it's about the talent,
the doctors and nurses, the care team.
So he said, how do I get that out there in the world?
And he went and he talked with his clinical leaders
and he said, look, you guys do this every day.
You're talking about colonoscopy, mammograms, all this stuff.
And we have black doctors, we have white doctors,
we have Asian doctors.
Let me put them on camera.
I'll make sure they comb their hair.
(38:11):
But I'm not gonna ask my doctors to be marketers.
This is probably perhaps one of the beautiful things
he first acknowledged.
He said, I'm not gonna ask them to be marketers.
I'm not gonna ask them to learn TikTok.
I'm gonna do all that.
I'm the marketing officer.
I'm just gonna turn the camera on, let them be doctors,
figure out what they talk about every day,
what makes them tick, what are the top three things
they think every patient should know in XYZ specialty.
(38:32):
And then he developed this partnership with YouTube
and he started to make these evidence-based facts snackable,
what I call snackable, like relatable,
and again, in the attention span of today, right?
The three seconds, 30 seconds or less thing
you need to know today about mammograms.
And he did this in such a beautiful way
that his clinical staff didn't do anything
(38:54):
except these clinicians.
And marketing did their part
and scale this at an enterprise level.
And it drove appointments.
It drove appointments, it drove brand loyalty,
it drove patient acquisition and retention.
And that is the ideal strategy for an enterprise.
It is that cross C-suite partnership
with clinical leadership, marketing, the CIO.
So it's the CMO, the CIO, and the other CMO,
(39:16):
the medical officer, tying it all together
because at the end of the day,
every organization is driving patient acquisition,
retention and brand loyalty,
whether you're a life sciences company, a payer or provider.
And so that is really what I thought was brilliant
about the Cleveland Clinic's approach
was that they let everyone stay in their lane,
(39:37):
but then they tied it together
to this enterprise level of really driving trust,
which is what everyone's trying to do in healthcare.
Yeah, I think that's wonderful.
And the results clearly speak for themselves.
I mean, even before Cleveland Clinic was well known
and respected, but now locally, they're trusted.
And I think that's really, really important.
(39:57):
And I love the idea of a snackable education content.
On this podcast, we call them nuggets of learning,
little learning nuggets that we like to snack on.
So love that concept.
No one's reading medical journals, Elliot, right?
So I guess I wanna-
I mean, I am, but I'm a dweeb.
You're a super dweeb.
So my point is health literacy
(40:20):
should not be reading the New England Journal of Medicine.
It should be snackable.
It should be in third grade to sixth grade level language.
And it should be done in a fun, engaging, inspiring way.
Right? That's what we're competing with.
59 million Americans churn to social media
for healthcare decisions,
(40:42):
because those apertures are relatable, snackable,
reachable, inspiring.
So if healthcare organizations are not in that space,
we leave this huge gap open
for misinformation to thrive.
That's perhaps the biggest takeaway or lesson learned
is the Cleveland Clinic said, uh-uh,
I'm gonna partner with YouTube.
YouTube's worth that.
I recognize that's where my consumer is, right?
(41:04):
And YouTube also said,
you know what, you guys are the science nerds.
Break it down for us, right?
Why not?
It's a magical partnership and more of us need to do that.
59 million Americans churn to social media influencers
for their health information.
They are not talking to their doctor.
They may not even have a doctor, right?
And they're not going to just Google.
(41:25):
They are going to TikTok.
They're going to YouTube.
They're going to Instagram, right?
No, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think you're exactly right.
Be where they are.
Don't try to get them to come to you.
Be where they are.
Be in front of them where they are.
So that's fantastic.
Look, we created an amazing, historic mRNA vaccine
(41:46):
in nine months flat around the globe.
And then what happened?
We couldn't get anyone to take it.
We spent so much more time and energy trying
to win the trust of the everyday consumer
around the globe to take the vaccine.
That was a myth.
We should have known that from the beginning,
knowing everything we know about anti-vaccine sentiments.
(42:08):
It was a complete myth to create an innovation in the lab,
but not be able to make it a reality in reality, right?
Fast enough and in time.
And so in many ways that was such a perfect example
of where science misses.
We're really good at the science stuff,
but it's humanity.
It's that last mile.
That's what makes the difference.
(42:29):
That's what gets the science in the hands
of the people that need it.
And we have to start doing it in parallel.
We have to understand that.
We will continue to innovate.
And the organizations that do this in parallel
and really understand the human factor,
they're going to be successful with AI.
They're going to be successful with social media.
They're going to be successful with brand loyalty
(42:51):
and patient acquisition.
They're going to be successful in value-based care, right?
That's where we all fall down.
It's that last, last mile.
Case in point, right?
Those vaccine cards didn't help anybody.
Well, since you mentioned it,
and it started to get its real buzz,
(43:11):
probably after you had already drafted your book.
I mean, not that it wasn't being worked on before,
but let's talk about artificial intelligence, right?
That started, and ChatGPT came out,
what was that, December 2022,
it started to get the hands of the public
and everybody going crazy about it.
And so I imagine your book was already drafted by then,
or at least well on its way.
(43:33):
So since then, since the writing of your book,
artificial intelligence has played more and more
of a crucial role within modern healthcare.
And so I'm wondering, can you provide examples
of where you're seeing AI currently improving patient care?
And then to the human factors
that you were just mentioning before,
(43:54):
what ethical or privacy concerns need to be addressed
by developers and providers as AI becomes more and more
integrated directly into patient care?
Sure, so listen, I am just as excited about AI as everyone.
I think that the potential is incredible.
I think it's limitless.
And I truly believe medicine is gonna change
(44:16):
over the next few decades as a result, as will many industries.
What we have to do is exactly what we did not do with the EHR
and exactly what we didn't do with social media.
We have to look at AI and understand the human factor.
If we're talking about changing care delivery,
the more and more we can understand
(44:37):
about where biases are baked in,
where AI will solve health equity versus make it worse,
right, is really critical.
And right now the low hanging fruit with AI,
we're still learning what it can do.
It would be a mistake to say that we completely understand it.
But right now there's an incredibly low hanging fruit
that could literally overnight save billions of dollars.
So whether it's documentation, prior authorization,
(45:00):
clinical decision support, drug discovery,
these are the areas to focus on right now.
Replacing doctors and nurses with AI,
that's not the right place to focus
because the technology is not there.
And people ultimately dealing with personal issues
like their health don't want a robot
on the other end of that visit.
(45:20):
They want to know that they have a human,
they can trust, understands them, relates to them,
all the things we just talked about culturally.
And then yes, if that doctor, nurse has access
to the best technologies like AI
to help them with clinical decision,
to help them with therapeutic choices,
the ability to make a precise decision about their therapy,
that's fantastic, right?
(45:42):
But the idea that we are going to replace doctors and nurses
anytime soon with AI is really just a lot of hype
and I think a miss when we are surrounded by low hanging fruit
that really plagues the industry
and hinders the industry from good patient care.
So I also like to say that remember,
our industry is single-handedly
keeping the fax machine alive.
So there is a reality here of what is truly happening
(46:07):
in everyday medicine and where we got to go.
Hopefully the pagers have paged their last page,
but fax machines certainly do still stick around.
I think you're spot on.
I think clinicians, obviously me, patients know
that there's going to be value in AI.
I think just from a basic understanding of it,
but they do, they still need that human connection
(46:30):
in the intimate moment of that clinician
and patient encounter.
I mean, you just said it.
You're looking for a physician from the LGBTQ community
because you feel like they'll understand you.
Now, if someone said, well, I programmed AI
to be LGBTQ friendly, I mean, how do you feel about that?
Knowing how bad GFGPT is at talking to me generally,
(46:51):
it's probably just a bunch of yes queens added in
to every time they kind of respond to me.
So that's how I would feel about it.
But to your point, I do want my physician to be armed
with the best clinical decision support algorithms
that are out there to help them come up with their decision
faster and more accurately.
And no different than wanting your doc
(47:12):
to have the best stethoscope, the best CT scan,
the best MRI, the best facility,
the best resources available to them, right?
The best pharmacy.
I mean, this is just again, one more tool that we have,
an incredible tool at that,
but it's not our first time, DaVinci robots, right?
Like there's so many things.
That's the cool thing about medicine
is that we are constantly innovating.
But to me, we have to be really cautious
(47:32):
with the hype versus the reality.
To me, it's no different than all of these other tools
that we've had for a long time.
And they just make us better, faster, smarter docs.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
That's great.
Speaking of like emerging technologies and changes
and technical innovation and things like that.
Last question for you here.
You advised a lot of companies
at the forefront of the digital transformation
(47:53):
in healthcare.
So from your perspective, from your vantage point,
what are some of the emerging technologies
or trends that you think are going to have
the most significant impact on the industry
within say like the next five years?
AI aside.
Well, AI of course, that's without any debate.
I think that the second and third,
close second and third,
(48:14):
the wearable revolution is here today.
Everyone has a ring, a watch, maybe tomorrow earrings.
I don't know.
That is measuring everything, right?
From heart rate to sleep to mental health.
I think that trend will continue.
The organizations that can pair that
with telemedicine or pair that
with actually understanding and interpreting that information.
(48:34):
Because right now we have consumers measuring a lot of stuff
that's actually not very useful.
But if you can put it in the hands of a patient with ASIP
and figure out, do they need to be on blood thinners?
Do they not?
Or can we simply monitor this in the home?
I think that that piece of continuing to move into the home,
continue to move to where the consumer
is actually experiencing their health,
(48:55):
which is not within the hospital.
But finding those data points of where does some of this technology
bring down the cost and drive the outcome?
We're able to ask these interesting questions
that we simply didn't have the luxury of before, right?
Does the time that, the amount of time that you sleep,
how does that affect your mood?
(49:15):
And whether you need an anti-depressant or not, right?
So to be able to actually change therapies and outcomes
and drive down costs, that becomes very interesting
as we see more and more things put
into a remote patient monitoring environment.
I love, like, there's a couple of different companies out there.
We've talked about them on the pod before for wearable clothing
(49:36):
that are sensor-enabled or wearable specific devices
that, you know, whether in an inpatient or an outpatient context
can just provide additional data points
that AI is reviewing on the backend
because no human could review that much information all at once.
Yes, and drug discovery, I know you said I can't say AI,
but the drug discovery piece,
(49:57):
I think we are going to quicker, better, faster.
I mean, what this is going to do to the therapeutics space
is unbelievable.
I think it's truly unbelievable,
and I think it's going to be, again, among the most impactful.
But truly, those are the spaces where I think the biggest change.
And I hope to see us do something with regards
(50:19):
to mis- and disinformation and social media.
Again, largely unregulated space,
primarily regulated by social media companies
at this time, but I think that that will continue
to have relevance either for the good or the bad
is yet to be determined by us
and what we as health care leaders decide to do.
All right, so the last thing,
you mentioned a couple of times in the books
(50:39):
what it means to do no harm.
And you say sometimes doing no harm is, you know,
not doing anything,
because it might not be the right course of treatment.
But sometimes doing no harm is absolutely taking every action
that you can, and you say a couple of times,
this is one of those times.
So what call to action do you have to our listeners,
(51:02):
other than go by dead wrong and read it?
Who damn was I reviewing?
Who damn was I reviewing?
What's the call to action might you have for our listeners
to help battle misinformation and disinformation?
Sure.
Number one, I think that understanding your organization's
mis- and disinformation strategy, again, I'm not naive.
(51:23):
I know that no one has one,
but mis- and disinformation is tied
to the patient engagement strategy, right?
It is tied to the patient acquisition retention strategy.
It is tied to the value-based care strategy.
So these strategies exist within your organization,
but I think raising your hand and understanding where is it
that you are understanding that you are competing
(51:45):
with social media.
You are competing with Bad Tech,
who doesn't understand culturally where your consumers are,
where your patients are.
So I think calling it out and understanding it,
these chances are there are pockets of it being done
within the hospital, likely not in a cohesive C-suite way,
but also not being done from the human side, right?
To your point, having someone text you, you know,
(52:09):
Gas Queen is not really helpful, right?
It's a cheap attempt.
It's a lazy attempt at understanding a certain population.
So I think pressing on that and really pressing
on the C-suite engagement.
It's not just the chief marketing officer's job.
It's not just the CIO's job or the chief medical officer's job.
It's really everyone's job.
And ultimately, every one of us, whether we're payers,
(52:31):
like science companies, tech funders, it is about the patient.
So if you're not hitting this issue, you are missing it.
Just like the vaccine, just like making this crazy innovation
in healthcare and then not being able to get anyone to take it,
that's the miss that we continue to see
in different spaces in healthcare.
What a great place to leave us.
Thank you so much for that call to action.
(52:52):
Gita, thank you so much for joining us.
The book is Dead Wrong, Diagnosing and Treating
Healthcare's Misinformation Illness.
I have read it cover to cover.
Really appreciate it.
I also want to just point out something
that Dr. G shared with me about it.
The illustrations within the book were all drawn by her daughter,
whose picture you can see in the book,
and they are quite excellent.
(53:13):
So thank you for sharing that with me, Gita.
And thanks for joining us here on Tech It to the Limit.
Thank you so much, Elliot.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
And we're out.
Thank you so much.
My daughter and a medical student,
I didn't know how to throw that in there in this.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
What's it say?
Thank you so much for the interview.
Well, welcome back.
(53:37):
Oh my gosh, that was a great interview.
A lot of fun to do that interview.
But since you weren't there, I want
to know what were your nuggets?
What were your hot, steamy, tasty nuggets
that you took away from the conversation?
Hot, steamy, tasty nuggets.
Well, yeah, it was actually really kind of cool
being a fly on the wall for this interview.
By the way, I thought you did a great job flying solo.
Sad I missed it.
(53:57):
But really, really interesting to be almost like a listener
this time instead of a host.
I loved her call out about needing
to make evidence behind medicine snackable.
I just loved that word, right?
And to tie that into your organization's
miss and disinformation strategy.
I did a little bit of research on the side
(54:19):
about her quote around 59 million Americans turning
to social media for health information, which was shocking,
but also not really.
In fact, I found an article on Forbes,
which we can put in the show notes that says that 33%
of Gen Zers trust TikTok more than doctors, which
was kind of terrifying.
(54:39):
But the top one in five Americans,
so it's not just Gen Zers, one in five Americans reportedly
consult TikTok before going to their doctors for treatment
advice.
And the top reasons that are cited for consulting social media
first is accessibility, affordability, and approachability.
So everything that you and Dr. G hit on in that conversation
(55:01):
of going to where the customer is,
I love that nugget that you added in there,
and making sure that your miss or disinformation strategy
is integrated with your patient engagement one.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So then my other nugget, I'd say I'm just
going to have two.
They're big, rather large nuggets.
So I just ate two.
(55:22):
The human factor, you guys talked a lot about this,
kind of making sure that when you're designing
any type of innovative solution, any type of technology,
not to forget about that last mile of innovation
translation, whether it's health tech or vaccines or AI
deployment, your information campaigns
(55:43):
need to engage with your end users
in culturally competent ways.
And if you don't really understand your customer
and what's motivating them and what's scaring them
and who else is talking to them, then
you aren't going to be successful with whatever innovation
you're bringing to market.
(56:03):
So I just love the whole discussion, Elliot,
and really kind of stoked that our listeners get
to hear from you both on season two, episode one.
Great way to kick off our sophomore year.
What were your nuggets?
Well, were my nuggets.
I had a few.
It was a fabulous conversation.
And she is so personable and enjoyable
(56:25):
to have a conversation with.
I could probably stand, hang out with her for hours
and just chat.
I took a couple of different things away from the conversation.
I just want to top it on maybe one or two of them here.
The first one is actually something
we talked about at the top of the show around low hanging
fruit and what you can go after.
She mentioned that low hanging fruit with regards
(56:46):
to health care technology to implementation or selection
doesn't mean replacing doctors and nurses and other clinicians.
Let's find all the ways that our health system is broken
that have nothing to do with direct clinical care.
Because that's actually what's burdening the people
that we have left is all the other stuff
(57:07):
that they've got to do instead of doing clinical care.
So let's solve for providing the most intimate experience
and the most enjoyable experience for patients
and providers in that moment.
So go outside, go into the orchard,
pick the apples off the damn ground,
because that's where they are, whether it be prior off,
or staff scheduling, or all kinds of different things
(57:29):
that can be implemented that ease clinical care.
But don't worry about replacing doctors and nurses.
We're so far from that side of it.
So that was one.
The other thing that I thought was interesting,
and it wasn't necessarily a nugget that she called out
specifically, but just the part of the conversation
(57:50):
was this theme of parallels.
Both in her book and in our conversation,
the first one being the very obvious one
between the AIDS epidemic and COVID,
which was the whole impetus for her book to begin with.
We had such misinformation about the AIDS epidemic
that many people died from it,
and we had such misinformation and intentional disinformation
(58:12):
with the COVID pandemic that tons of people died from it
that shouldn't have died from it.
So I thought that was interesting,
but then it also paralleled between the EMR deployment
and where we are with AI right now,
which I thought was really interesting.
What lessons did we learn from the debacle
that was the EMR rollout that we can take forward
(58:33):
to how we're approaching artificial intelligence
and other healthcare technology
and combating disinformation and misinformation.
And she talks about that in her book,
and I thought those parallels were really powerful.
Yeah, awesome.
I love it.
So listeners, we'd love to hear what your favorite nuggets were
from the conversation, so please follow us on LinkedIn,
(58:55):
reach out to us, drop a comment, drop a message,
follow Tech It To The Limit,
visit us online at TechItToTheLimit.fun.
Listen to us and subscribe to us,
smash that subscribe button wherever you get your pod,
whether it be Spotify or Apple Podcasts or anywhere else.
Leave us a review.
That really helps us with the algorithms
and tell a friend if you liked us, tell an enemy
(59:18):
if you hated us, but for goodness sake, tell someone.
Tell someone.
Someone, anyone.
Sarah, take it away with our HealthTech haiku for the month.
Eight ball shakes, so wise.
Answers in cryptic disguise.
Chat DPPs, first guys.
(59:40):
Well, thanks, Elliott.
It was amazing to connect with you again.
Can't wait for the rest of season two of Tech It To The Limit.
See you next time.
See you next time.
See you next time.
See you next time.
(01:00:21):
Check us online at TechItToTheLimit.fun.
And don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter,
Instagram, and across the event horizon.
See you next time on Tech It To The Limit.
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