Robert Meyer joined Phoenix Children’s in 2003 and is credited for the rapid turnaround of the hospital’s finances and its successful growth under his leadership.

This year, Phoenix Children’s opened a second hospital and plans to open a third next year.

In this new podcast, Meyer shares the strategy for Phoenix Children’s including:

• Unique aspects to expansion in the booming Phoenix area
• How the health system is leveraging partnerships
• Big risks that paid off during his career

Healthcare leaders often see utilities as a cost center. But what if they can be a source of savings?

Trane’s Christy Fetsch, Healthcare Vertical Market Strategy Leader in North America, joins the podcast to discuss how building upgrades such as automation can help hospitals reduce utility expenses while enhancing patient safety.

Fetch explains that HVAC, which represents about 65% of the utility spend in a hospital, is one area with massive potential for cost savings.

Additionally, she shares how one hospital network realized $4.7 million in energy savings by committing to vital infrastructure updates, ultimately freeing up resources to invest in patient care. 

Most technology innovation in healthcare has so far focused on clinical decision-making, overlooking operational functions. As a result, hospitals and health systems still face inefficiencies and waste, leading to financial constraints, poor patient health outcomes and high staff turnover.

In this podcast, featuring Rom Eizenberg, the chief revenue officer of Kontakt.io, we discuss how healthcare providers can leverage technology to unlock the patient journey — and everything else — to achieve operational efficiency.

Eizenberg will share why understanding how patients navigate the health system is fundamental to true transformation and the role of technology in realizing this goal. 

Direct sourcing has emerged as an effective staffing solution for hospitals and health systems as they continue to face labor shortages, competition for talent, and financial pressures. 

In this podcast, Richey Brownfield, vice president of enterprise solutions at AMN Healthcare, describes: 

• The key tenants to successful implementation of direct sourcing
• How to integrate direct sourcing into your organization’s current workforce management strategy
• Common challenges providers face when building out their direct sourcing solution and how to overcome them. 

In the year ahead, the value-based care landscape is expected to be more challenging for healthcare providers as new regulations from the federal government take effect.

A key strategy to manage and thrive in this increasingly complex environment is leveraging technology.  

In this episode, Dr. Matt Lambert, chief medical officer of Curation Health, will detail best practices for healthcare leaders to implement technology that will help ease the transition to value-based care, describing how automation and other applications can significantly help with risk management, care coordination and data. 

In addition, Lambert discusses the overall value-based care landscape and his predications for 2024.

Attracting and retaining quality clinical talent will remain a top focus for healthcare leaders in 2024.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Robert Crowe, founder of Matchwell and executive vice president of per diem and local workforce strategies at Medical Solutions, outlines strategies to better utilize the existing workforce while appealing to new local professionals.

He delves into considerations for leveraging AI in the hiring process, meeting candidates’ needs and creating a positive workplace culture, starting with recruitment. 

Listen to the full episode below. 

Value-based care programs are not immune to the challenges the healthcare industry experiences with data, as providers overwhelmingly struggle to leverage the right data, at the right time to realize better patient outcomes at a lower cost.  

To solve this issue, healthcare providers should take a data minimalist approach, which focuses on seamlessly presenting frontline caregivers with only the relevant, actionable data they need at the point of care. 

In this episode, Kevin Coloton, founder and chief executive officer of Curation Health, shares how providers can achieve data minimalism, describing the needed technology investments and collaboration with frontline workers. He also explains success stories from providers working towards data minimalism.

Today’s healthcare consumers expect a seamless experience free of confusion, frustration and delays -- barriers that affect not only the patient, but payer and provider employees as well.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Robert Connely III, healthcare market leader at Pegasystems, and Jennifer Zellinger, vice president of product development at enGen, share how they proactively engage patients and members across all channels of communication. 

They also discuss the potential for adaptive AI to help create customer-centric experiences with fewer operational silos, better care outcomes and lower costs. 

Automation and artificial intelligence can help healthcare organizations navigate staffing shortages while maximizing financial outcomes – if personnel are trained and skilled appropriately.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Susan Gurzynski-Wells, director of product management at HealthStream, discusses opportunities for AI to be leveraged in revenue cycle management, along with strategies for ensuring the workforce is prepared to use these technologies most effectively. 

She also shares critical insights about operationalizing AI in revenue cycle management, ensuring the smooth integration of new tools, and helping the next generation of professionals achieve their career aspirations.

Innovations in technology have enabled the creation of point-of-care ultrasound, which allows clinicians to gather images at the first patient assessment, improving care quality by reducing wait times for diagnosis.  

Despite the benefits of point-of-care ultrasound, wide-scale adoption hasn’t been achieved, with many providers still using traditional standards of care — for example, the chest x-ray for lung assessment. 

In this episode, Dr. Davinder Ramsingh, vice president of clinical research and product development at Butterfly Network, shares:

• The main barriers to widespread adoption of point-of-care ultrasound. 
• Clinical specialties that would benefit the most from point-of-care ultrasound including improvements to quality scores and patient experience. 
• Strategies to successfully adopt point-of-care ultrasound at your organization.

This podcast includes forward-looking statements regarding Butterfly Network’s standalone educational app, ScanLab, that is not yet available but will be coming soon to Butterfly users in the United States.

There is an ongoing war for talent in healthcare. Employees are reassessing how, where and how they work. In order to withstand the changing nature and uncertainty of today’s workforce, healthcare leaders must be agile. 

In this podcast episode, John Rothwell, senior vice president of enterprise and strategic solutions at AMN Healthcare, describes how healthcare organizations can create a workforce management strategy that responds to evolving demands. 

He also shares the important role of technology and partners to establish a workforce strategy. 

AdventHealth is redesigning its systems to be more longitudinal, holistic and effective at cultivating patient engagement early in the care journey.

This entails rethinking front-end primary care, as well as care delivered in the home.

David Banks, group CEO of AdventHealth’s primary health division and chief strategy officer, goes in-depth about this approach to advancing care delivery through a comprehensive, whole-person lens.

Banks also explains how AdventHealth has engaged its primary care physicians in the transformation.

The healthcare supply chain continues to face repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic, with shortages of vital raw materials leading to disruptions in pharmaceuticals and other essential products. 

In this episode, Jon Pruitt, senior vice president of CHC Supply Trust, joins the podcast to explain innovative practices community hospitals should implement to respond to supply chain concerns, emphasizing the importance of partnerships with distributors, group purchasing organizations and internal stakeholders. 

Pruitt is responsible for overseeing a comprehensive supply chain management strategy for Community Hospital Corporation, which partners with hospitals to help them remain community-operated and governed. 

Nationwide, hospitals and health systems continue to face serious staffing shortages, severely impacting patient care and the bottom line.

In this installment of Healthcare Insider, Dr. James Swift, chief executive officer of Pediatrix Medical Group, shares the key considerations for providers as they work to rebuild the physician workforce including how to leverage partnerships with medical groups and non-physician staff. 

The episode also uncovers strategies to improve the continuum of care.

Despite the healthcare industry implementing value-based payment models for well over a decade, healthcare providers and payers still face challenges in the execution and expansion of pay-for-performance programs. 

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Kevin Coloton, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Curation Health, and Dr. Matt Lambert, Chief Medical Officer of Curation Health, share practical tips for providers and payers to be successful in value-based care wherever they are in their journey – whether that be starting a value-based care program from the ground up or how to expand current efforts.

Coloton and Lambert also describe the common pitfalls to avoid as healthcare organizations continue on their value-based care path such as investing in a myriad of technology solutions in an effort to maximize insights from data. 

Over the last year, leading health systems are reporting negative financial results, largely due to rising expenses, shifting market dynamics and deteriorating payer mix. To respond, health systems must create opportunities for sustainable financial growth.

In this episode, Richard Bajner, partner and payer and provider leader of Guidehouse, explains the framework healthcare leaders should be applying to improve financial resilience. He also shares how leaders can balance short-term budget constraints while at the same time addressing larger macro trends.

As community hospitals across the country face inflation, rising costs and labor shortages, now is the time to implement innovative delivery models for long-term sustainability.   

Jim Kendrick, president and CEO of Community Hospital Corporation, shares how partnerships, enhanced staff training, and the Hospital at Home care model can improve the outlook for community hospitals. 

Kendrick also explains how the Rural Emergency Hospital designation impacts community hospitals and the trade-offs to consider. 

Too often, hospital leaders view IT simply as a business function.

But IT can meaningfully help organizations meet strategic business goals if leveraged appropriately, argues Brian Doerr, senior vice president of information technology and security and privacy officer at Community Hospital Corporation. 

In this podcast episode, Doerr explains why community hospitals and other providers should take an enterprise approach to IT, laying out a proven roadmap hospitals can adopt to begin their journey. 

Doerr also provides real-world examples from community hospitals that have transformed their IT and seen meaningful improvements. 

In this episode, Dr. Friedland discusses a recent surge of RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, how it affects the older population and what this means for healthcare providers across the U.S.

In this conversation, Leah Quartano Bowling, vice president for insurance and healthcare at Hitachi Solutions, offers strategies for harnessing the data necessary to deliver on value-based care contracts and shares how these insights can help shape provider incentives.

As medicine continues advancing and patient expectations evolve, the home is increasingly viewed as an optimal care setting. The many benefits of care in the home include that it increases convenience, minimizes access barriers, strengthens patient relationships, enables greater visibility into social determinants of health, and reduces the cost of care.

In this episode, Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, President of Humana’s Home Solutions Business, discusses strategies for integrating home care into more seamless care delivery for patients. Dr. Agwunobi covers how the nursing shortage has impacted staffing for these services as well as what he envisions for the future of home health.

Healthcare today is data driven with the proliferation of electronic medical records and digital tools. Leveraging the cloud is an effective approach for healthcare organizations to unlock the power of data. 

In this podcast episode, Logan Song, enterprise cloud director and chief cloud architect of Dito, explains the key functions of the cloud and how it can aid healthcare providers with better data collection, analysis and security. 

He also shares examples from a healthcare system currently benefiting from using the cloud. 

Limited resources shouldn't stop healthcare organizations from investing in facilities as care demands shift, infrastructure ages and environmental sustainability takes hold.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we explore how to balance facility investments with other pressing demands facing healthcare leaders.

Join industry experts Mark Kenneday, director of market strategy and development for healthcare at Gordian, and Charles Clay, director of support and ancillary services at Sutter Health, as they discuss:

• Why prioritizing facility investment is crucial, even with budget constraints
• Strategies to communicate the risk of inaction to financial stakeholders
• Practical advice for balancing ROI and mitigating risk

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated across our nation’s healthcare system, overwhelming providers and taking a toll on their financial sustainability. Add to that skyrocketing inflation, rising interest rates and the high cost of labor, it’s no surprise healthcare leaders are burning the midnight oil to find ways to improve margins and rebuild their organizations’ financial stability.

In this episode, Roger Weems, vice president and national market leader for advisory services at Premier, Inc., discusses how the company is helping providers solve their complex challenges and drive business forward through a holistic approach to margin improvement. Utilizing PINC AI™ technology and PINC AI™ clinical, financial, operational and supply chain data, healthcare organizations can tackle expense reduction and tap new sources of revenue to improve margins while continuing to deliver high-quality care.

The healthcare sector is a major contributor to the climate crisis, with studies showing the industry accounts for about 8.5% of total U.S. carbon emissions. Efforts to address climate change fall into the ESG framework, which stands for environment, social and governance. 

Over the last several months, Randy Oostra, CEO of ProMedica, a health and well-being company based in Toldeo, Ohio, has participated in the Healthcare Insider podcast to call for a new care delivery model. 

In this episode, Oostra shares why addressing climate change is a critical component to creating a new healthcare delivery model, explaining the business case for healthcare leaders as well as the impacts extreme weather events are having on vulnerable communities. Oostra also dives into how ProMedica’s ESG strategy is guiding their work in this area. 

*Editor's note: This episode was recorded before Modern Healthcare Custom Media's ESG Summit: The New Imperative event. 

Most hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers spend a significant amount of time and resources on securing contracts with anesthesia providers to help them provide essential patient care.

Shortages of anesthesia providers and higher healthcare costs overall make hiring internally, contracting, or re-contracting with an anesthesia group a costly endeavor. Despite these challenges, there is due diligence both facilities and anesthesia providers can conduct in advance of negotiations to save money and create long-lasting partnerships.  

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Dr. Josh Miller, physician managing director for Surgical Directions, shares thoughtful hiring tactics a hospital or ASC should deploy to make sure the anesthesiology group meets their unique needs and expectations. Miller also discusses the common challenges that come up when solidifying a contract and how to address them for long term success. 

The No Surprises Act is intended to protect patients from surprise medical bills. But North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) is raising alarm bells, worried it will worsen the nation’s critical clinician shortage and harm access to care.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Dr. John Di Capua, NAPA CEO, and Victor Zamora, NAPA Senior Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management, explain how the Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) process in the No Surprises Act slows down — or even reduces payments — for providers, incentivizing early retirements and adding excessive administrative burdens to already complex billing systems. 

Di Capua and Zamora explain why healthcare facilities across the country should be concerned by this policy.

They also share thoughts on how to address these challenges through training programs, greater efficiency and culture.

Randy Oostra, CEO of ProMedica, a health and well-being company based in Toldeo, Ohio, joined the Healthcare Insider podcast a few months ago calling for a new model of care delivery and what it will take to get there. 

Now, we are continuing the conversation. In this latest episode, Randy Oostra highlights the first and most important pillar of this new delivery model: universal access to care. 

Specifically, Oostra explains key policy changes that can be made to significantly increase access to primary and behavioral health services for rural and low-income populations. He also dives into the importance of addressing social determinants of health and how the work in this area needs to evolve.  

Stay tuned for the third episode with Randy Oostra in a few months where he will share the importance of addressing the climate crisis and investing in ESG. 

There is a global shift to decentralize healthcare — meeting patients where they are to receive the care they need.

In this new episode of Healthcare Insider, Ron Emerson, Global Healthcare Lead at Zoom, and Ron Strachan, the Principal of Optimize Health IT and CIO Advisor for Zoom, explain the benefits to decentralizing healthcare, diving into the most recent research showing its ability to lower costs and improve overall health outcomes.

Emerson and Strachan also explore key considerations to keep in mind as the industry shifts to decentralized healthcare including how it will impact clinical teams and cybersecurity. 

Excellent patient experience is a goal for every healthcare organization, but too often leadership fails to recognize the missing piece to achieving that is a happy workforce.

In this installment of Healthcare Insider, Paulette Anest, head of clinical and education solutions at AMN Healthcare, uncovers how the patient experience is improved through strategic talent planning, proactive scheduling and staff management, and deployment of scheduling tools. 

Historically, virtual care has been used to offer episodic, urgent care to patients through video or over the phone. But as Teladoc Health has found, it is possible to achieve true whole person care by leveraging an innovative care model powered by data and an integrated experience.  

In this episode with Dan Trencher, senior vice president of corporate strategy at Teladoc Health, he shares how virtual care can play a vital role in achieving longitudinal, personalized care for consumers that ultimately creates better outcomes.

Building an integrated technology system that streamlines workflow and processes is an important strategy for healthcare organizations to improve overall operations, cut down on waste and decrease clinician burden.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Dr. John Di Capua, the CEO of North American Partners in Anesthesia, commonly known as NAPA, and Jason Grant, the senior vice president and chief information officer, describe how the company recently successfully implemented and scaled a new integrated technology system that went beyond just IT, an effort leadership describes as Intelligent Transformation. Di Capua and Grant also explore how clinical staff have been impacted and the change management required.

During this episode of Healthcare Insider, Michael Besedick, engagement director at Surgical Directions, lays out how providers can expertly navigate the complexities of managing OR departments by leveraging advanced analytics. 

Many hospitals and health systems have aging infrastructure, which presents challenges as the industry invests in environmental sustainability initiatives.

In order to effectively establish a sustainability program, it's essential for healthcare leaders to critically evaluate their facilities portfolio.

Mark Kenneday, director of market strategy and development for healthcare at Gordian, lays out how to successfully build a sustainability program at healthcare organizations, including key considerations to make when considering facilities investments.

The pandemic exposed the flaws of the U.S. healthcare system as providers cope with crisis-level staff shortages and rising costs. In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Randy Oostra, CEO of ProMedica, a health and well-being company based in Toledo, Ohio, shares why now is the time for a new model of care delivery. He’ll explain what this model of care looks like and how leaders can begin today. 

The promise of virtual care is that it can help improve access to healthcare for low-income, vulnerable and rural populations. But patients still face accessibility challenges, such as technology roadblocks and communication difficulties. 

Stephany Verstraete, chief marketing and engagement officer of Teladoc Health, explains in this latest episode of Healthcare Insider how the company is transforming the healthcare experience to empower people everywhere to live their healthiest lives and to accelerate a future where all people are seen, heard and understood relative to their healthcare needs.

Today, four out of five adults do not have a strong relationship with a primary care physician. In addition, the number of those living with multiple chronic conditions is rising at an unprecedented rate.

In this latest episode of Healthcare Insider, Gorevic explains why a unified, connected virtual-first healthcare experience, informed by data science, is the best path forward to drive better outcomes.

During the pandemic, many health systems piloted hospital at home and remote patient monitoring programs. As more and more providers and patients have experienced the benefits of receiving advanced care in the comfort of their homes, adoption has continued to grow. And with additional studies demonstrating lower cost and improved outcomes, more healthcare executives are accelerating their efforts to deliver care into the home.

Leaders at academic medical centers are using their experience to evolve and improve their respective care at home programs.

In this new episode of Healthcare Insider, Dr. Tahir Haque, medical director at Biofourmis, and Khurram Mir, senior manager at the University of California Irving Health, discuss how their organizations are leveraging virtual care innovations and share their thoughts on the future of delivering advanced care in the home. 

In the newest episode of Healthcare Insider, Jeff Peters, founder and chairman of Surgical Directions, and Dr. Jason Klopotowski, a practicing anesthesiologist and physician consultant with Surgical Directions, share what’s behind the shortage of anesthesia providers and how to recruit and retain them. They’ll also explain the advantages and risks of transitioning to an employed anesthesia model.

Technology is now so advanced, physicians hundreds of miles away from a patient can provide a thorough examination and even give a diagnosis through a video call. This has the potential to drastically enhance access to care for patients, particularly those who live far from healthcare services.

In the newest episode of Healthcare Insider, Ram Fish, founder and CEO of telehealth technology company 19Labs, discusses how the advancements in remote technologies are enabling interactive, high-quality healthcare experiences for patients in rural areas, and even increasing their involvement in clinical trials.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of decentralized clinical trials, which involves offering services and technologies to improve convenience for patients participating in research.

Decentralized clinical trials have the potential to enhance patient participation in research overall but there are considerations health systems and pharmaceutical companies should keep in mind as they look to adopt these clinical trials. 

In the newest episode of Healthcare Insider, Bryce Davis, senior director of Veeva Engage at Veeva Systems, discusses these topics and more.

Provider burnout and staffing shortages, especially among nurses, are serious challenges for healthcare leaders right now.

What are the downstream impacts of provider burnout on staffing? How does burnout impact patient care and operations? What are short and long-term tactics to address burnout and staffing shortages across the health system?

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Kathryn Burg Plaza, principal in PwC’s Healthcare Provider Transformation Practice, offered her insights to these questions, focusing specifically on the nursing workforce. 

The pandemic has forced healthcare teams to work together differently, spurring the widespread use of virtual communication tools including video calls, instant messaging and virtual whiteboards.

But biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have been slower to adopt virtual collaboration despite the potential to connect and innovate better and faster.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we discussed the promise of virtual collaboration in biotech and pharma and how hybrid work is presenting new opportunities for innovation with Amelia Eudailey, healthcare industry lead at Zoom. 

Many health systems are optimizing specialty pharmacy operations as a strategy to improve patient care and drive margin growth. 

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, Cardinal Health’s Laura McIntire-Hansel, director of revenue cycle development, and Michael D. Brown, vice president of managed services, explore strategies for navigating complexities in the specialty pharmacy arena, such as getting authorization from insurers or connecting patients with treatment affordability programs.

They discuss a solution, remote claims adjudication, to free up pharmacists' time and improve patient care.

Listen to learn how health systems can better support their specialty pharmacies. 

Data is critical for providers to improve patient outcomes and perform successfully in value-based payment models. And yet, it still remains a challenge to get access to the right data, at the right time and in an ideal format because it's not well integrated into healthcare operations. 

Moreover, the emergence of interoperability, new technologies and a greater focus on social determinants of health presents opportunities for new data sources to be leveraged in the industry. 

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we spoke with David Freeman, general manager of healthcare analytics solutions at Quest Diagnostics, and Hayes Abrams, executive director of provider analytics, reporting and connectivity at BlueCross and BlueShield of Illinois, about the role of data in healthcare, how to better integrate it across an enterprise and the latest shifts that can disrupt the current data landscape. 

Healthcare leaders have long been aware that doing good in their communities is good for business. However, not all healthcare organizations are impacting their communities in an organized and measurable way.  

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we’re discussing how healthcare organizations are formalizing and publicizing initiatives around ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance, and how those efforts are impacting the communities they serve.  We’re joined by Trine Tsouderos, who leads PwC’s Health Research Institute, as well as Igor Belokrinitsky, a Principal at Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business. 

Click here for more ESG best practices and strategies from PwC.

The Quadruple Aim is a widely accepted approach by industry leaders to improve health system performance and quality of care, but it has become more difficult to achieve throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as providers deal with unprecedented new stressors. 

Even so, following the four principles of the Quadruple Aim — enhancing patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs and improving the work-life of healthcare providers and staff — is more vital than ever for healthcare leaders to successfully navigate current and future challenges. 

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we’re talking with Trisha Coady, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Workforce Development Solutions at HealthStream, about how healthcare leaders can continue to live the Quadruple Aim and sustain it moving forward.

It’s no secret that COVID-19 greatly accelerated the adoption and scaling of telehealth and virtual care. Yet some of the most important conversations on the future of health are not about the move to digital systems – they are about people. Looking ahead, optimized experiences will be a key differentiator in terms of long-term value for the health industry. But knowledge of what constitutes good health care experiences, and how to achieve them, is not widely shared or clearly understood. And yet, it is one of the most important strategy questions facing health systems today.

In this episode of Healthcare Insider, we’re talking with Rachel Hall, EY US Consulting Digital Health Leader, and Kevan Mabbutt, Senior Vice President and Chief Consumer Officer of Intermountain Healthcare, about the three shifts that will be required as the health industry reorients itself around a smarter health experience.