You’re the Leader

Meet Elazer Edelman

Elazer R. Edelman, M.D., Ph.D., is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Attending Physician in the coronary care unit at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Key Insights:

Dr. Edelman works at the intersection of the physical sciences and medicine to improve healthcare.

Key Intersections. Dr. Edelman believes that clinical work, scientific research, and engineering must all come together to keep the medical profession on track.

Explaining and Receiving Feedback. Physician-scientists have an obligation to explain their methods and then to listen carefully to feedback to ensure widespread understanding.

How to spur Innovation? Create communities where people feel safe and secure saying that they don’t know—and then let them investigate. 
 

This episode was made possible by our partnership with Edwards Lifesciences.

Relevant Links:

Read more about Dr. Edelman

Learn about the Brigham and Women’s Hospital 

Meet the Guests:

This episode features three leaders previously interviewed on The Gary Bisbee Show. John Glaser, Ph.D., is an Executive in Resident at Harvard Medical School and recently published “Advanced Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.” Kevin B. Mahoney is chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, a pillar of the Penn Medicine enterprise. Sean Lane is the CEO of Olive and CEO of Circulo Health. Previously, he was an Intelligence Officer for the National Security Agency. 

Key Insights:

Many of healthcare’s key leaders are making a deliberate effort to understand the uses of A.I.

• No Gimmick. In the race to produce technology that “wows,” the market may be flood with flashy products that don’t produce better results. Leaders need to be discerning about A.I.

• Who Buys A.I.? According to John Glaser, nobody buys A.I. – instead, people buy products that have been made more reliable and effective by their incorporation of the new technology. 

• What is A.I. for? Ultimately, A.I. is useful to the extent that it frees up human capacity, so that healthcare can be more human than it ever has been. 

Relevant Links:

Listen to John Glaser’s full episode

Listen to Kevin B. Mahoney’s full episode

Listen to Sean Lane’s full episode

Meet Warner Thomas

Warner L. Thomas is president and CEO of Sutter Health, a Northern California based not-for-profit integrated health system that cares for more than 3 million patients in one of the most diverse and innovative regions of the country. A grounded-yet-visionary leader, Thomas has demonstrated the capability to navigate the dynamic healthcare landscape at every level — from outstanding patient care to organizational strategy to public policy at both the state and national levels.

Key Insights:

Warner Thomas believes that communication and transparency are key to an organization’s success.

Can we prepare for everything? Warner Thomas worked in a leadership position during Hurricane Katrina and concluded: “there will always be things you don’t anticipate.” 

New Leadership. When starting a new leadership position, make an effort to communicate with every level. Talk to nurses, to clinicians, to support staff. 

Training is key. Mr. Thomas believes the workforce challenge facing healthcare can only be solved by creating a dependable talent pipeline.
 

This episode was made possible by our partnership with Edwards Lifesciences.

Relevant Links:

Read more about Sutter Health

Read about Warner Thomas

Meet Dan Brillman

Dan Brillman is the Co-founder and CEO of Unite Us. Dan graduated from Yale University in 2006 and worked in finance and consulting before joining the Air Force Reserves as a combat pilot, where he still serves today. Dan Co-founded Unite Us in 2013.
 

Key Insights:

Dan Brillman Co-founded Unite Us in 2013, and has a decade of success to show for it. 

Create the Standard. In a chaotic field, innovators have to be the agents who bring order.

How to Overcome Fragmentation? Unite Us put years of work into understanding various sectors and systems in order to make access close to effortless for individuals. 

Blurring Boundaries. Dan says our understanding of “Health” is blurring, as we come to better understand social determinants – and this is progress. 

Relevant Links:

Read more about Dan Brillman

Read about Unite Us

Meet Amir Dan Rubin

Amir Dan Rubin has focused his career on transforming health care. Through One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered model, he serves on a team dedicated to delighting members with better health and better care, while reducing total costs. Previously, as an EVP and divisional CEO at UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division, he oversaw a number of areas focused on helping to make the health system work better. Amir also previously served as president and CEO of Stanford Health Care in Palo Alto.
 

Key Insights:

Amir Dan Rubin is leading the way as Amazon’s One Medical forges new paths in the healthcare economy.
 

Customer First. One Medical brings Amazon’s strategy of “working backwards” to the medical economy. 

Integrated Support. Amir suggests that it’s crucial to make the patient feel supported, but it’s equally important to make clinicians and team members feel that they are supported.

Is there Market Opportunity? There’s “total unmet need” – from questions of access to managing chronic disease, there are many places to improve healthcare. 

Relevant Links:

Read more about Amir Dan Rubin

Read more about One Medical

Meet Kevin B. Mahoney

Kevin B. Mahoney is chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, a pillar of the Penn Medicine enterprise. He leads health system operations, spanning six hospitals, 11 multispecialty centers and hundreds of outpatient facilities in Philadelphia, Delaware and New Jersey.
 

Key Insights:

Kevin Mahoney’s decades of leadership in healthcare have taught him the importance of innovating.

Fearless Convictions. If you stand by your principles, as you continue to listen to others, people will naturally pull towards you. 

How to Keep Innovating? Be clear about how things are working in the present, but always be reassessing and asking, “Could we do it better? Is there another way?”

Collegial Competition. The presence of just one innovative thinker can be contagious, and often encourages others to attempt innovation themselves. 

Relevant Links:

Read more about Kevin B. Mahoney

Follow Kevin on Twitter

Meet Russ Richmond

Russ Richmond is a physician entrepreneur with experience building digital health companies such as Laudio, Advanced Practice Strategies (APS), Objective Health, Verisk Health, and D2Hawkeye, as well as counseling large payors and health systems while with McKinsey & Company.

 

Key Insights:

Dr. Richmond’s company, Laudio, brings all of the major hospital workloads together for frontline health system managers.
 

Solving Labor. Dr. Richmond understood, early on, that labor and labor productivity would be the major issue for health systems.

A Workflow Interface? Laudio brings 7 or 8 major workloads together, and also suggests the next best actions, to help guide managers.

Start Early. Dr. Richmond suggests that if you have an idea for an entrepreneurial venture, it’s best to start as soon as possible.
 

Relevant Links:

Read more about Russ Richmond

Learn more about Laudio

Meet Sina Chehrazi:

Sina Chehrazi is an entrepreneur and business executive with experience across the various stages of the entrepreneurial process. Sina serves as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nayya, a platform that uses AI and data science to personalize the way people choose and use their benefits.

Key Insights:

Sina Chehrazi advocates for a leadership that is genuine with the team and with customers.

● How to Improve Healthcare? Sina explains that if you want to change healthcare, you have to start by following how the money flows. 

● Confidence. Customers who know what they’re investing in are more likely to jump in with an innovator.

● Integration. Nayya aims to be the hub that connects and personalizes a consumer’s health life. 

 

Read more about Nayya

Follow Sina on Twitter

Meet Richard Winters

Dr. Richard Winters is a practicing emergency physician and executive coach at Mayo Clinic. As director of Leadership Development for the Mayo Clinic Care Network, Dr. Winters facilitates retreats and delivers programs that train leaders at healthcare organizations worldwide.

Key Insights:

Dr. Winters practices Emergency Medicine and coaches leadership in the medical industry.
 

Uncertainty. Dr. Winters says healthcare is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – and leaders must become adept at thriving in such situations. 

Why Physician Autonomy? As organizations scale, agility is required. Trusting employees to make the right call based on their own judgment improves overall quality.

Nuance and Compromise. Unlike in the ER, the board room requires constant negotiation and compromise. Making change is a process and requires careful language. 

Relevant Links:

Read more about Dr. Winters

Order a copy of “You’re the Leader”

Meet Josh Makower

Josh Makower, M.D., is the Boston Scientific Applied Bioengineering Professor of Medicine and of Bioengineering at the Stanford University Schools of Medicine and Engineering, and is the Director and Co-Founder of the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, and Founder of Stanford’s Biodesign Policy Program.
 

Key Insights:

Josh holds over 300 patents, and believes that innovation is a process than can be taught. 

How to improve global health? Josh believes that innovation can be learned deliberately, and that those who practice it according to his process, will get good at it. 

Two Modes. The innovator must first consider all possibilities, even “wild ideas,” and then switch gears, to identify dead ends as rapidly as possible. 

Teaching Policymakers. In addition to teaching aspiring innovators, Josh believes that educating the next generation of policymakers is a crucial undertaking.
 

This episode was made possible by our partnership with Edwards Lifesciences.

Relevant Links:

Read more about Josh Makower

Read more about Stanford’s Biodesign Policy Program