High Stakes: Recent Episodes
Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock
This is the comprehensive feed for all healthcare podcasts from Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, including High Stakes, Kim & Tim: Running Through the (Red)Tape and DigitaLee. We answer the questions healthcare leaders are asking. High Stakes offers concise takes on the issues affecting healthcare providers today: strategic positioning, issue navigation, change management. mergers and acquisitions, marketing, digital transformation, patient experience, executive leadership and healthcare governance, and much more. At Jarrard Inc., we understand the stakes are high for healthcare executives. Every day, you are making bold decisions in a noisy, evolving industry. High Stakes puts you in the room with us and our more than 150 cumulative years of healthcare strategic communications experience so that you can not just survive but lead the transformation of our industry.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Amazon is a sprawling, complex company rife with prominent leaders, disparate initiatives, investments, plans, problems, things that work, things that don’t, with all those discordant messages playing out on the public stage. On the regular. Sound familiar? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Healthcare is playing Moneyball. It's a model that comes from baseball and uses a ruthless focus on analytics to help teams build lean, efficient squads that outperform their higher-spending rivals. But healthcare, like baseball, is science...and art. It’s the powerful combination that creates the care and the experience we all want when we seek care. The pursuit of efficiency can't lead down a road where no one wants to live. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Health systems have enjoyed the benefit of the doubt for a long time. That time may be ending. On one side are those who say, hospitals are “on track for their worst financial year in decades” and “will be forced to take drastic measures to reduce costs…including service line closures if not closing altogether.” On the other are those say “hospitals test the goodwill of Congress” as they endlessly ask for more federal dollars, even though “the industry has not been scrutinized as much as other health groups, despite being the primary driver of rising medical costs.” In this formulation, “some facilities would be just fine without lawmakers’ help." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Between regulatory hurdles and financial imperatives, getting a hospital merger or acquisition across the line is hard enough. But that’s just the start. A common aim of healthcare mergers is to integrate the organizations involved, yet bringing everyone together is its own jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are there on the table, but how to bring them together, undergo the difficult change management and create the big picture? Kim Fox and Tim Stewart sit down to discuss the challenges facing mergers and acquisitions after the transaction is closed, the role culture plays in bringing organizations together – or keeping them apart – and how healthcare leaders can best lead through the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lee Aase is a digital healthcare pioneer and a social media expert. Now, he's a healthcare entrepreneur as co-founder of HELPCare Clinic, a membership-based direct primary care clinic. His current work is particularly relevant for this conversation because we talk about why there hasn't been an episode of DigitaLee recently: Lee's recent back surgery. We discuss how the referral process went, the seamless handoff from his primary care physician to the surgery team at Mayo Clinic. Plus, thoughts on where digital comes into play with a good streamlined care continuum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week's conversation was prompted by the ongoing discussion in healthcare about what constitutes "Charity Care," as well as President Biden's recent reluctance to define the current economic environment as a recession. The issue in both cases is not that President or hospital executives are wrong about their respective definitions. Instead, it's that definitions don't always feel accurate even when they may be technically correct. Kim Fox and Tim Stewart discuss definitions in the context of hospitals and healthcare, politics, baseball and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Relatively recently, CMS, U.S. News & World Report, Lown Institute and, just this week the Joint Commission have signaled that how your organization is addressing health equity will be part of their dashboard for measuring and comparing hospital and health system performance. It’s a big push, long in the making. Energy has been building. According to a survey from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2019, one quarter of U.S.-based healthcare leaders surveyed identified health equity as one of their organization’s top three strategic priorities. In 2021, that percentage doubled to 58%. We seem to have reached a critical mass, a turning point, a moment to activate that energy. Doing so is integral to our collective missions. These steps add operational and financial urgency to today’s social crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Change is hard and, these days, it’s compounding. Big disruptions layered with small pivots have led to a tough environment where “one more thing” is a burden, not an exciting opportunity. In this environment, healthcare executives and hospital board members are challenged with walking a fine line – guiding their organizations through disruption while acknowledging the uncertainty, making decisions when the path forward is foggy, and processing their own exhaustion, too. Jarrard Inc. CEO David Jarrard and McDermott Will & Emery partner Michael Peregrine – both of whom have a deep interest in helping healthcare executives and boards navigate change – sat down to talk about the situation. They first acknowledge the challenge, then provide some historical context, then offer a few ideas for getting through it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase talk about the news that Netflix is cracking on their long-standing policy of going ad free. Then Lee gives an update on the rent versus own debate – and that’s with regards to blogs and social media, not the housing market, although that might be an interesting discussion too. Finally, they close by talking about Lee’s latest venture the HELPCare Clinic as an example of how digital tools can help personalize health care. Episode Links MM&M: Q&A: What ads on Netflix could mean for healthcare marketers
LinkedIn Newsletters
Dr. Dave Strobel
Tour of HELPCare Clinic
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase look at an article from Fierce Pharma that describes a marketing and ad agency building out a dedicated team to work on diversity in advertising. Then, they check in on the conventional wisdom around ways to ensure that content is broadly accessible and close by talking through the role of healthcare marketing teams and supporting the CEO. Episode Links Fierce Pharma: CMI Media Group launches new practice to help pharma reach out to diverse audiences
Otter.ai
Riverside.fm
Descript
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, David Shifrin and Lee Aase are both confused by CVS moving into selling virtual healthcare goods. Once they get past that, they look at provider organizations planting the flag in the metaverse, and then it's the second of our two-part digital ROI miniseries, this one on how healthcare marketers can position digital programming to justify the ROI. Episode links:
Healthcare Finance News: CVS Files Patent to Sell Goods and Healthcare Services in the Metaverse
Forbes: Amazing Possibilities of Healthcare in the Metaverse
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we have a full panel discussion with four top healthcare marketing and communications leaders discussing team dynamics and navigating the C-suite. It’s a conversation around how marketing leaders and their teams can use their seat at the table to not just be scribes for their hospital or health system but to serve as strategic leaders and advisors. The team today includes:
Susan Alcorn, of counsel here at Jarrard who previously spent time as chief communications officer at Rochester Regional Health and Geisinger Health System
Beth Toal, vice president of communications and marketing at St. Luke's Health System in Idaho
Michael Knecht, chief marketing and communications officer at RWJ Barnabas Health in New Jersey
Gayle Sweitzer, vice president of marketing and corporate communication at the University of Kansas Hospital
This conversation is a prelude to a panel discussion the group will be having on Tuesday, May 17th at the Health Care Marketing and Physician Strategy Summit (HMPS) in Salt Lake City. For more on the event, check out healthcarestrategy.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Like DigitaLee? Be sure to subscribe to the dedicated DigitaLee feed on Apple Podcasts. This week, we're looking at healthcare cybersecurity, reputation management – should you keep it in-house or outsource? And the first of a two-part miniseries on digital ROI for healthcare providers. We're looking at measuring ROI and how that differs between larger and smaller provider organizations. The story of the week is: 'On high alert': Hospitals wary of cyber threats from Russia-Ukraine war Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to DigitaLee, the podcast for healthcare marketers, where we look at the digital news, tools, tips and tricks for effective healthcare communications. This week, digital healthcare pioneer and now healthcare entrepreneur Lee Aase and David Shifrin are looking at digital-first healthcare - haven't we been talking about that for years, now? - whether more obscure social media sites like Parler that tend to attract subsets of wider society are worth healthcare's time, and how healthcare leaders and execs can balance the personal nature of social media with the value of promoting their organization's brand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week on DigitaLee: digital healthcare pioneer and now healthcare entrepreneur Lee Aase are looking at three stories that matter for healthcare communications and healthcare marketing: the Spanish language misinformation crisis, Meta / Facebook's recent dive and Apple privacy rules. Be sure to subscribe directly to DigitaLee by searching on whatever platform your listening on now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The conversation today is a segment of a longer one we recorded this week. In fact, we recorded in person, for the first time with all three of us together. However, considering the rapid devolution of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we’re bringing this segment as a standalone episode. We’re seeing a tension and getting questions from hospitals, health systems, healthcare leaders and marketing pros about whether they – or their organization – should speak out about the invasion. And if so, how to do it appropriately. So, we're weighing in on weighing in. As always, please subscribe to Kim & Tim, and be sure to check out all the content from Jarrard Phillips Cate and Hancock, as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we've got a story on how doctors use YouTube to connect with patients and work towards health equity, the value of YouTube as a platform for healthcare providers, and for our tip of the day it's whether hospitals and physician practices should consider using Twitter and LinkedIn polls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we're covering a story about the use of social media for finding health information, an overview of the audio platform Clubhouse, and considerations for how hospitals, health systems, doctor's offices and health services companies can build a good social media policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For healthcare providers, more and more high stakes moments take place online, or at least have a digital element to them. Because of that, Lee Aase and Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock have partnered to help healthcare leaders and marketing and comms pros keep track of what’s happening on the web and make sense of it all. Lee Aase just retired after a 21-year tenure at Mayo Clinic, where he most recently served as communications director for social and digital innovation. In those two decades, he guided Mayo Clinic’s pioneering adoption of social media and in 2010 founded the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, an industry-leading global network that helped healthcare professionals and organizations use social media effectively. Jarrard is a strategic communications firm focused exclusively on helping healthcare providers navigate challenging situations, whether it’s recasting their vision and values, partnering with another hospital, attracting and retaining clinicians or figuring out the best ways to increase patient volumes. The goal of this healthcare podcast? To bring a digital perspective to those issues and help healthcare providers effectively leverage all the tools at their disposal – and maybe avoid a few pitfalls along the way. Here’s what that’ll look like: every other week, Lee Aase and David Shifrin will meet to talk about three things: a recent headline covering digital healthcare, an overview of a digital or social media platform – that could be something like highlighting a feature of a well-known platform like Facebook or giving insight into one of the more obscure systems – and then a key tip to take back to your team. Ten minutes, twice a month, to help you get smarter about where to spend your time to give your hospital, health system, clinic or health services company the best possible digital footprint. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
NEW FEED: We've got Kim & Tim on a separate feed, so be sure to subscribe here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kim-tim-running-through-the-red-tape/id1607899100 This week the team shows up to talk NFL. Kim Fox, Tim Stewart and David Shifrin are all football fans so the news of recently-fired Dolphins coach Brian Flores' lawsuit against the NFL and three of its teams caught our attention. The NFL's response left plenty of room for criticism of several ridiculous missteps. There are underlying issues with race and diversity and hiring practices in the NFL. And then there are the communications errors in the immediate aftermath of Flores filing the lawsuit. As a bonus, we've got a bit of back and forth on Tom Brady's retirement - just how petty is the GOAT? Important note: there's a reference to a recent instance of alleged domestic abuse and sexual assault, so please take that into consideration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Kim Fox is a partner here at Jarrard and heads up our Regional Practice. Tim Stewart is a senior vice president in our National and Academic Practice. Here's what we've got for the conversation today: A quick intro about the Supreme Court's ruling on vaccine mandates, which partly clarified things but also added to the swirl of confusing healthcare laws, guidelines, suggestions and other ideas. That part of the conversation leads into a deeper chat about the pressure on the healthcare workforce, on the nurses and doctors who work inside hopsitals. We've got a pointed nod to some of the poorly crafted, very un-empathetic responses to a powerful video about the nursing shortage from the New York Times. If you've seen it, you know. If you don't go check it out. And then finally, what do we do about it? We look at how hospital leaders can work to turn the ship when it comes to the nursing shortage. What will it take to recruit and retain the caregivers needed going forward? A couple of times in the conversation Kim referenced a new national survey that we just released. It looks at perceptions of healthcare and hospitals among the public and also asks how the healthcare workforce is doing. Check it out at http://jarrardinc.com/january-2022-national-healthcare-survey/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last week, we did a quick poll of our audience to get your impressions on health misinformation - What the most significant pieces of health misinformation are and the platforms most responsible. We're rolling that feedback together with insight from our team into a special report that will be coming out shortly. Kim Fox, a partner at Jarrard Inc. and our Regional Practice lead helped to push us in that direction, So it was an easy step to get her and VP Tim Stewart, who's from our National and Academic Health System Practice, to riff on the issue. We cover Facebook, vaccines, politics, the difference between misinformation and disinformation, and hard stops. Stay up to date by subscribing at info.jarrardinc.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Earlier this year, we at Jarrard published a special report on health equity and diversity, equity and inclusion work within healthcare providers. Separately, but roughly in parallel, a team at our parent firm, The Chartis Group, in partnership with the National Association of Health Services Executives, developed a research piece on similar issues and created a health equity maturity model for healthcare organizations. Together, those pieces cover a huge amount of ground in some of the underlying issues, challenges, and also possible solutions for both delivering more equitable care to patients and also developing a more diverse and inclusive workforce. As I said, those reports were developed independently and so now, with a bit of time having passed since publication, we wanted to revisit the topic and bring together the teams that produced them for some combined insight. In this conversation, we spoke with LaTonya O'Neil and Dr. Mark Wenneker, lead authors of the Chartis report, and James Cervantes, who helps lead our Kaleidoscope DE& I work here at Jarrard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we're checking in with Reed Smith, our VP of digital here at Jarrard, to talk about a recent study showing that consumerism remains high on the list of providers' priorities but has slowed down just a little over the past year. Wonder why that might be. The theory we're working from is that digital tools and small things to increase patient satisfaction and drive consumerism forward might be a good way to also deflect some of the criticism that hospitals and health systems are taking. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review this podcast, and of course subscribe to all of our thinking at jarrardinc.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, a study was published in JAMA Open Network showing that rural hospitals acquired by larger systems between 2009 and 2016 had lower mortality rates in several areas between. It's a valuable dataset showing how consolidation and a relationship with another system can help to improve care. But before hospitals start running around, waving the study in the air as vindication, we thought it would be good to look more closely at exactly how it and positive data like it can be used most effectively for hospitals considering a deal, as well as really anyone who's advocating for hospitals. David Shifrin jumped on a call with Isaac Squyres, a partner at Jarrard in the Regional Practice and lead on much of the firm's merger and acquisition work, to get his thoughts. For more on rural healthcare, please check out a project we've been supporting called the Rural Healthcare Initiative (ruralhealthcareinitiative.org). And of course, subscribe to all of our thinking here at Jarrard by going to jarrardinc.com/pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Buckle up. This is Kim Fox, Tim Stewart and David Shifrin trying to figure out why people don't just take that extra little beat to think about how what they're about to say (or not say) is going to be received by the people hearing it. Check out all the best healthcare communications and marketing, plus a regular roundup of the stories that matter most to healthcare providers today, by subscribing at jarrardinc.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We published a special report looking at the rising tension between payers and providers. It has insight from our network and our team, as well as survey results from the public on where they pin the blame for the high cost of healthcare - insurance companies, hospitals, doctors or something else. We also spoke with Wendell Potter a former insurance company communications executive turned healthcare reform advocate and insurance company critic. Here, Justin Gibbs and David Shifrin debrief on everything they've been hearing during the development of this project focusing on the relationship between hospitals and insurance companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, we at Jarrard were very proud to announce that Lee Aase had joined us in an of-counsel role. Lee just retired after more than two decades at the Mayo Clinic where he was genuinely a pioneer in digital tools and social media for healthcare. He'll be working with Reed Smith, our VP of digital, along with our digital team and of course our clients to build their digital strategies for the future. We jumped on a call with Lee to ask a few questions about his perspective on healthcare and to generally introduce him to those who may not be familiar with his work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
MedCityNews published an article this week titled The Inconvenient Truth of Convenience. It points out that the remarkable convenience provided by telehealth can lead to negative consequences, as well. It then goes on to talk about other examples of this and what providers can do to limit the potential problems. As we were discussing this article, Yolanda James brought up her grandmother and also a story about a woman in Alaska. The point of this podcast is to take a topic that we're looking at in our weekly newsletter - In this case, telehealth -and then expanding the conversation to things that we can't really cover in 600 words. We had Yolanda jump on the podcast because her stories fit that bill perfectly. The question was ostensibly about how to use telehealth effectively. She shows throughout our conversation that that's not really the core issue.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
President Biden came out swinging against social media companies last week saying they were responsible, not just for the misinformation that's being posted on their sites, but also the consequences of that misinformation. Not long after, on CNN and a couple of other outlets, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy backpedaled a bit without exactly absolving the tech companies. So there's politics, social media, digital angst, misinformation and finger-pointing. It's a perfect recipe for Kim Fox and Tim Stewart to jump in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our CEO David Jarrard, and Partner and M&A lead Isaac Squyres confer on the flood of news this week – mostly critical – about hospitals and consolidation. That includes the frontline documentary called The Healthcare Divide and the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing digging into consolidation and antitrust. In that hearing all but one participant – so that’s bipartisan consensus – expressed concern about consolidation. Not a great if you're a hospital. Then, right after we recorded this conversation, the New York Times ran an article digging into the massive bills many covid patients face. It focuses on insurance companies rather than hospitals, but it’s not a big leap to see where the story could go. This podcast is a companion to commentary we provide in our weekly Quick Think email, which is only available to subscribers. It's a good conversation but you’ll get even more out of it with The Quick Think, so go to jarrardinc.com/pod to sign up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
CVS has joined Walmart by placing mental health professionals in a few of its HealthHUBs across the country, with plans to expand. It's much needed competition and increased access and de-stigmatization for mental health and should represent a win for consumers. At the same time, it creates some challenges for traditional providers and there are still a number of questions for CVS. Here, Jarrard Inc. AVP Dan Schlacter gives his take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Reed Smith, Vice President of digital strategy at Jarrard Inc. wonders why in the world healthcare providers wouldn't want to manage their online reputation. And then he explains how healthcare providers can manage their online reputation - things like Google and Yelp reviews. It's hard work but worth it to avoid getting swamped by negative reviews and, worse watching patients leave for another hospital or doctor's office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Over the last year, healthcare marketers have run from thing to thing to keep up with the constant changes at their organizations. There's been no time to pause for breath and look out past today. But that needs to happen now, especially as attention is returning to the patient experience and digital tools, along with patient acquisition and retention. So we caught up quickly with Reed Smith, our VP of digital strategy, to see what he's tracking is the industry shifts back towards consumerism, interoperability, telehealth and patient experience. And, internally, the need to review internal communications tactics and channels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Spring is here, vaccines are out of freezers and in people's arms, public venues are reopening and Krispy Kreme is handing out free donuts. Meanwhile, the CDC is still telling us to keep our masks on, the headlines look very pre-pandemic (and not in a good way) and new COVID-19 cases are twitching back up. So...are we allowed to be optimistic yet? In the latest with Kim Fox and Tim Stewart, we get real about "Hanxiety" and how far our obligation to others goes. We also talk about how our friends at hospitals and health systems can leverage the trust they have and help push us towards the bright sunny optimism that we're all looking for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're talking about price transparency. There's been increased attention on the topic as we come up on three months since implementation of the new CMS price transparency rule and as the industry and the media starts to shift away from the pandemic a bit to look at what comes next. We're seeing increased attention on whether or not providers are compliant with the new rule. And James Cervantes, associate Vice President in our National and Academic Health System Practice, has been looking very closely at the price transparency, interoperability and consumerism,and working with clients on communications around these issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we're catching up on healthcare mergers, acquisitions and partnerships with CEO David Jarrard and Isaac Squyres, a partner in our regional practice and leader of our M&A team. What does consolidation look like post-COVID-19 and under the Biden administration? David and Isaac are watching this issue closely, as is our network of brokers, transaction attorneys and strategy experts across the country. We recently surveyed that network to get a sense of the trends to expect in 2021, and the short version is that even as there will be a lot of legal and regulatory wrangling, it's more important than ever to have a clear purpose and a clear story to tell about the value of care that hospitals provide and why a transaction is the right thing to do. Scale for the sake of scale won't cut it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A couple of weeks ago, we ran a conversation between Molly Cate, founding partner and chief innovation officer at Jarrard, Dr. Mark Wenneker, a partner at The Chartis Group and primary care internist who leads Chartis' behavioral health practice, and Dr. Danny Mendoza, a psychiatrist with the Beth Israel Lahey Health System and an expert in behavioral health integration. In that conversation, we looked at some clinical principles healthcare leaders can apply to their teams, patients, and the public to allay fear in this bizarre pandemic world we've been living in. It was all rooted in a white paper that we published along the same lines. You can find that white paper at jarrardinc.com. But as we went through that first conversation, and as things continued moving forward in the vaccine rollout, it became clear that the principles applied to vaccine hesitancy as well. There's a whole second discussion to be had with Wenneker and Mendoza about some of the psychology behind hesitancy and how healthcare providers can sort of guide people rather than push them. This is that conversation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This conversation with Dorian Harriston, associate director of brand strategy at Cedars-Sinai, started out as an invite to talk about vaccine related outreach to minority and underserved populations. We do have a blog post that goes into some of Harriston's written answers to those questions, but this went much further, much deeper. We talk about how Cedars-Sinai has created an environment over the course of years to position themselves as a trusted, valued partner within the LA community. And really it's not community, but communities. That role as a community partner has allowed them to serve in unique ways during the pandemic. You'll hear a common theme from Harriston that effective communication is more about listening and letting others tell their stories than trying to push information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sometimes the title of a podcast picks itself. Today, our two favorite outspoken insiders, Kim Fox, and Tim Stewart, take on the vaccine rollout. It's been rocky, and there's plenty of blame to go around, but there's still time for hospitals, health systems and other healthcare providers to swerve around the potholes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We are living in a pivotal moment for healthcare organizations as they face an unprecedented, existential threat. Today’s healthcare leaders – from clinicians to executives – face a vexing challenge: how to successfully lead their organizations, patients and communities through a global pandemic. There is great opportunity in making changes to fulfill their missions and provide care and support to patients, the public and employees. A new approach to influencing and driving change is needed – an approach built from established clinical principles combined with effective communications practices. Since behavioral health clinicians work daily to reduce patients’ anxiety and help them feel comfortable in specific situations, we turned to this field for insight. In addition to asking for ways to address pandemic-inspired anxiety and fear, we have captured their actionable advice on how healthcare leaders can most effectively guide their organizations today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our CEO, David Jarrard, and Michael Peregrine of McDermott Will and Emery spoke in December about the relationship between hospital CEOs, their legal teams and their boards. The focus was on the increasing expectations for healthcare CEOs to be visible and out in the community as public figures, speaking to important issues of the day. Now, as we're well into the new year, Michael and David take stock of what healthcare boards need to be thinking about going forward and doing some internal reflection about their role and responsibility - even who needs to be involved on the board going forward. There's some tough love, there's some hard talk. But they're necessary conversations for healthcare leaders to have today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last week, word came out that Haven, the disruptive healthcare collaboration between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase was not going to disrupt anything. Three years after its inception, the project was shutting down. Despite everything else going on in healthcare, the announcement made pretty big headlines just as it had when it was launched. Why was it big news? And is there some larger lesson for healthcare to take from the failed project? Maybe the first question is, is Haven actually a failed project? What insights should we take from the whole three-year cycle? Over the course of a couple of days, we talked with several of our friends who work in different areas of healthcare to get their take: Lisa Bielamowicz, MD, president and co-founder of Gist Healthcare and a highly experienced radiologist; Marcus Whitney, partner at Jumpstart Health Investors with a particular interest in the role of technology and innovation in healthcare; Bryan Vartabedian, Director of Community Medicine, Texas Childrens Hospital The Woodlands and author of the 33 charts newsletter that explores medicine and technology (33charts.com); David Pate, MD, JD, the former CEO of St. Luke's Health System in Boise and of-counsel at Jarrard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
David Jarrard, CEO of Jarrard Inc. and Michael Peregrine, Partner at McDermott Will & Emery, discuss the changing environment for healthcare CEOs, the expectations on leaders to take a stand and how they can do that in a transparent way without stepping across legal lines. Hospitals and health systems are facing a new landscape today with social change and the COVID-19 pandemic, so the relationship between healthcare executives, their boards and their legal and communications teams is more important than ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The moment has arrived.
With the UK granting emergency use authorization and Europe and the US FDA close behind, doses of Covid vaccines will be rolling through healthcare providers’ doors in the blink of an eye. And, with healthcare workers at or near the top of the priority list, providers must lay the groundwork now with the media, the public and employees about how they will distribute the vaccine(s) once they arrive and address safety concerns that arise. We got David Jarrard, our CEO, and Justin Gibbs, Vice President in our Regional practice and leader of our firm’s Covid task force, on the line to talk about the communications imperatives that are facing hospitals, health systems and other healthcare providers right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We got a great response from on the last podcast featuring Kim Fox and Tim Stewart, so we asked them to come back for another round. In both healthcare and society we felt like there's been a strange tension between moments of optimism/hope and pessimism thanks to the slog of ongoing bad news and now the third surge of COVID-19. So, we asked Kim and Tim to talk about that. They are never people to sugarcoat things, and the resulting conversation is real talk for healthcare providers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A few weeks ago, we got a group together to spitball about the election with less than a week ago. We figured we'd do it again, putting ourselves on record, talking about what might happen when anything could happen. We'll know soon enough, or maybe we won't. In order of appearance the conversation included Tim Stewart, VP in our National and Academic Health System. Practice Justin Gibbs, VP in our Regional Practice and Isaac Squires, partner in our Regional Practice.
We'll continue to talk about the consequences of the election, especially since we should have at least some clarity soon. So be sure to subscribe to the high-stakes podcast on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When people feel helpless, they try to control whatever they can. That's what we're seeing today through the pandemic. Jarrard Inc. Partner Kim Fox and Senior VP Tim Stewart talk about this issue and where healthcare providers can offer some hope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The election is looming. There’s so much uncertainty, and if you’re listening to this on Wednesday, September 30, then you’re still probably like us, sitting on the couch, motionless, staring at your now switched off TV and some kind of empty glass in your hand trying to figure out what the crap happened last night. If anyone was hoping for clear answers to the uncertainty… that wasn’t it. And yet, healthcare leaders need to prepare their organizations for, uh, well, whatever it is that’s coming. We pride ourselves in looking around corners here at Jarrard, but even we aren’t 100% sure what’s coming. Still, we’ve got a lot of thoughts on the types of conversations that will be taking place around the election and healthcare. That includes some of the hotspots that will erupt – and by erupt I mean be part of the discussion among people actually looking at the issues, not erupt as in, well, last night. But really, behind the tension and heat around the election and the incoherence of the debate, it’s worth pointing out some areas where providers could temper their expectations. For example, the ACA isn’t going to be repealed, or Medicare for All enacted, any time soon – regardless of who wins. We got a group of our political junkies together to riff on what’s going on. Here, we’ve taken some highlights from that roundtable discussion. The conversation included – in order of appearance, our CEO David Jarrard, Vice President in our Regional Practice Justin Gibbs, Senior Vice President in our National Practice Tim Stewart, and Partner and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Phillips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Health disparities faced by communities of color across the country are no secret. Black and Latino populations face higher prevalence of and worse outcomes for many conditions. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people of color. The interplay between socioeconomic status and health is well-documented, access to care is challenge and bias – implicit and explicit – damages trust and creates barriers to care. It’s long past time for that to change, and we have a responsibility to build a more inclusive, equitable and accessible healthcare system. It all starts with belonging. In this episode, we hear from Marquise Stillwell of Openbox, Sonia Thompson of Thompson Media Group, Paul Matsen of the Cleveland Clinic and Matt Gove of Summit City MD on what diversity, equity and inclusion looks like in healthcare and how providers can make progress towards helping everyone feel - and be - seen when they pursue care. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This year, acceleration of existing trends happened across healthcare. Which, in turn, opened up the opportunity for providers to consolidate some of the positive steps they've taken and also reevaluate some things that still need improving That positions marketers of healthcare provider organizations to step in and lead the charge towards creating a new, better healthcare experience. In this episode, we hear from Marquise Stillwell of Openbox, Sonia Thompson of Thompson Media Group, Paul Matsen of the Cleveland Clinic and Matt Gove of Summit City MD on the role and mindset of healthcare marketing and communications teams today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Angie Caldwell is the Managing Principal of PYA's Tampa office. A significant amount of her work is around physician compensation, a topic that is right at the top of many, if not most or all, healthcare providers' lists of critical issues today as we sort through the financial fallout of the past few months. Here, Caldwell speaks with Jarrard Inc. CEO David Jarrard about physician compensation redesign, the shift to value-based arrangements - and resistance to it - and some issues running under the radar that providers need to bring to the surface. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Warner Thomas is president and CEO of Ochsner Health based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and he recently completed a six-year term on MedPAC. He has been with Ochsner for over 20 years, previously serving as president and COO. Between hurricane Katrina, the COVID-19 pandemic, and sitting at the table for discussions about Medicare and other federal healthcare policies, Thomas has comprehensive perspective on how the healthcare system became what it is today, and has a clear point of view for the future of healthcare. In this conversation for the Art of Change, Thomas talks with Jarrard Inc. partner and chief development officer Anne Hancock Toomey about that point of view. They discuss the importance of scale, the role of mergers and acquisitions, the value of a strong digital footprint, and the mindset of hospital and health system CEOs today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We just released the latest volume of Art of Change, our publication dedicated to unpacking how and why organizations change... or don't. In this volume, we explore healthcare mergers, acquisitions and partnerships for hospitals, health systems and health services companies. After speaking with almost 20 healthcare experts in law, finance, management consulting, investment and communications, we put together a series of articles outlining where we think the industry is headed. Here, Our CEO David Jarrard offers his thoughts on the Art of Change and gives some practical ideas for what it all means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're back in another serious moment as COVID-19 cases continue to ramp up. And the controversy and noise and frustration in so many areas of society and healthcare have ramped up right alongside the coronavirus pandemic. But at the same time, we're beginning to look back on those first three or four months. Two, three, even four months ago, we - and several of our partners across the industry - were talking about the importance of taking notes and keeping a record of what you're doing and why. Because, we said, some point in the future people are going to come asking questions. That future is here. Questions about use of federal relief funds, billing practices, testing, staffing changes, and so much more. Here, CEO David Jarrard talks about the collision of past, present and future and how leaders can look back while also looking forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The challenges for healthcare providers continue and they continue to evolve the messages that need to be delivered by hospitals and health systems are confusing, even counterintuitive. The public is asking questions about furloughs are taking place even as hospitals receive federal relief funds. Volumes are returning but operations are still altered. In short, traditional messaging has broken down a bit for healthcare providers. Issues like the cost of healthcare, social justice, COVID-19, patient experience and more are creating a swirl of difficult stories to tell. Here, David Jarrard talks to Tim Stewart, a VP in our National and Academic Health System practice about those awkward messages, why they're happening and how hospitals CEOs and board members should respond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There’s a lot of discussion about the long-term future of healthcare. But so much of our work is in and for the moment – next week, next month, next 90 days. Industry leaders are asking, “What do we have to do today?” To bridge the gap between what the industry practically needs today so it can fulfil its mission for the future, we convened four Jarrard Inc. partners who’ve been in the weeds to talk about what’s really going on in this new healthcare epoch. The idea was to sort through what we’ve seen and to consider what it looks like to make healthcare better today. Sharing their intel were:
David Jarrard, CEO
Molly Cate, Chief Innovation Officer
Kim Fox, Regional Practice Leader
Lauren McConville, National and Academic Health System Practice Leader
In an ironic twist for a publication focused on helping healthcare leaders drive change, our team was adamant that creating a sense of stability is imperative today for hospitals and health systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Academic medical centers have a reputation for innovation in education and research, but aren't necessarily considered to be the most nimble of organizations in terms of operations. Dr. Arick Forrest has shown that doesn't have to be the case. Forrest is the Vice Dean of Clinical Affairs and President of OSU Physicians at the Ohio State University. Here, he joins Jarrard Inc. CEO David Jarrard to talk about how OSU was able to move quickly and be a nimble organization during COVID-19, and then how that experience is informing the health system's operations going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A few weeks ago, Nancy Gibbs wrote a column in the Washington Post titled, Forget swabs. We all need to take a character test.. It caught the attention of our CEO, David Jarrard - so much so that more than two weeks later we were still discussing it. Here, we talk about the clarifying nature of crises and the way we're entering a time of testing for healthcare organizations...and the individuals leading them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Healthcare providers of all types are under pressure - financial and, in some cases, social and political - to restart elective procedures and get back to "normal" operations after COVID-19. But there are risks to that process if it's not handled well. In this conversation, Lauren McConville, partner at Jarrard Inc., and Sandra DiVarco, partner at McDermott Will & Emery, overlay some of the legal/regulatory and communications considerations hospitals and health systems need to mitigate risk and move quickly but responsibly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You could argue that AVIA exists for a moment like this. COVID-19 brought about a sea change in healthcare. After years of slow adoption, tools like telehealth saw exponential growth in days. The way health systems thought about delivering care changed out of necessity. It has been incredibly difficult on many levels, yet it has also opened up a massive opportunity for healthcare to shift into a new way of fulfilling its mission. This is where AVIA comes in. AVIA serves as a transformation partner for healthcare providers. They focus on driving capabilities that use digital tools to scale and advance care in new ways. And so, when it came time to understand what's going on with the digitization of healthcare in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, AVIA was the obvious place to go. Here, Jarrard Inc. partner Molly Cate speaks with AVIA president Linda Finkel and executive vice president Cynthia Perazzo about telehealth, healthcare delivery, digital tools and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cision just released their 2020 state of the media report. Between that, and the fact that there's always something to talk about when it comes to the media - especially in these days of COVID-19 - we decided to do exactly that. Tim Stewart - and a small bird outside Tim's home office - joined Jarrard Inc. editorial manager David Shifrin to look at trends in journalism and the relationship between reporters and healthcare providers. Tim is a vice president in Jarrard's National and Academic Health System Practice. He's got a good eye for what's going on in the media and he's well known around here for asking tough questions and considering root causes. In short, Tim is not one to take things at face value. Which is exactly what you want in a podcast... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What does online reputation management look like as the initial, acute phase of the coronavirus crisis recedes? Reed Smith is the VP of digital strategy at Jarrard Inc., and he's looking closely at the online reviews and feedback providers are receiving today. There are questions about safety, messages about PPE, things that providers did not see before COVID-19. And, while some of that feedback is coming from the general public, a lot of it is coming from employees. Hospitals need to watch carefully to understand what people are saying about them - internally and externally - supporting their employees and ensuring they're not squandering the goodwill garnered during the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jarrard Inc. just completed a survey in partnership with Public Opinion Strategies, surveying, American adults across the country to get a sense of their perception of the healthcare industry and how they will interact with it going forward. One of the major findings is that people are scared to go back to hospitals. That's not particularly surprising. But what is surprising is that healthcare providers and their families don't feel much safer than the general public. That's concerning for multiple reasons, and David Jarrard and David Shifrin get into those results to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The COVID-19 pandemic has put a massive financial crunch on healthcare providers across the board. Many rural and community facilities, struggling before coronavirus, are now on the edge. The decline in ED volume, the cancellation of electives, and the rise of telehealth have changed both models of care and the finances of rural providers. It'll be a tough road ahead, but there are some ways for these organizations to adjust their operations and also seek out new partnerships to help ensure they can continue offering care in their communities. In this conversation with Pete Lawson, we explore some of those challenges and opportunities. Lawson has more than 35 years of experience in both healthcare operations and mergers & acquisitions. He's spent time with both investor owned and not-for-profit health system, and has served as a hospital CEO and multi-facility corporate leader. Now, as a consultant and strategist, he brings his background on both the buy side and sell side to guide client hospitals through the transaction process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Difficult as it is, now is an important moment for healthcare leaders to begin examining what the future - of the industry and their organization - could look like. Dr. David Pate, recently retired CEO of St. Luke's Health System and of counsel at Jarrard Inc., and David Jarrard, go in depth on several topics that will help leaders prepare. It's an important conversation, as it provides vision about where healthcare providers could be headed along with some very practical advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Healthcare providers have been faced with difficult decisions regarding staffing throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Many hospitals, health systems and health services companies have pursued furloughs, layoffs and pay cuts in order to help ensure the viability of the organization going forward. When making these changes, ensuring the appropriate legal approach has been taken is necessary to minimize risk and liability. At the same time, clear communications is critical, both to mitigate risk and to be as compassionate and transparent with the affected individuals as possible. Here, Jesse Neil, partner at Waller, and Molly Cate, partner and chief innovation officer at Jarrard Inc., discuss some of these considerations and areas where law and communications overlap in dealing with FTE management and healthcare staffing issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Tony Briningstool is an emergency room physician and the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at American Physician Partners. A huge area of focus for Dr. Briningstool is on what we call caring for the caregiver – how to support clinical staff and build teams to reduce the incredible problem of burnout and moral injury among physicians. Those issues, of course, are of even greater concern during COVID-19. And so Dr. Briningstool spoke with Jarrard Inc. chief innovation officer and founding partner Molly Cate about how he and the APP team approach positive, proactive leadership and what COVID-19 could mean for the future of healthcare as it relates to clinicians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Questions and concerns about how stimulus funds are being distributed – and spent – are growing, changing with each new announcement from the government. How do hospitals keep up with a situation that seemingly evolves by the hour, especially when the situation isn’t just the medical realities of an evolving viral pandemic but also the response to it? We recently talked to Martie Ross, Office Managing Principal in the Kansas City office of PYA to break down some of the opportunities and nuances in the various stimulus funds coming online – and the situation evolved even in the 24 hours following our conversation after HHS began distributing some of the funds. Ross and her PYA colleagues have dissected some of the requirements around those funds here, but even now ambiguity remains. With all the confusion, frustration and scrutiny, what are some general considerations for providers to ensure that they stem the bleeding now and take advantage of opportunities to position themselves for the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We've seen a shift in the COVID-19 pandemic over the past few days. As social distancing and other efforts appear to be flattening the curve, hospitals are beginning to look towards what comes next. It's no longer just about dealing with the day-to-day operations of pandemic response but also about how to stabilize the organization, bring services back on line and develop an appropriate financial plan for the future. Our CEO David Jarrard has been thinking a lot about these issues in the context of how leadership - both the hospital board and the executive team - should respond to the shift and the questions they need to be asking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Offer help and take good notes. That’s the abbreviated recommendation by Carol Carden for hospitals and health systems looking to take advantage of new Stark Law waivers during COVID-19. As managing principal of valuation services at PYA, Carden has been closely watching what HHS activity means for physician compensation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As healthcare providers are undergoing a range of situations right now, with some entering their COVID-19 surge or in the middle of it, and others still steadying for it, the emotional strain on caregivers on the front line is continuing to grow. And so I asked our CEO, David Jarrard, to talk about how leaders can show care for those caregivers, remain connected with them, and help alleviate some of that tension that they're facing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Language matters, and it especially matters during a crisis like COVID-19. The language healthcare organizations use needs to reflect the culture and the mission of that organization. It might be words of war, it might be something else. The key is to reflect who you have always been in the words you choose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is part two of our conversation with Dr. David Pate, former CEO of St. Luke’s Health System and now serves on the Idaho COVID-19 task force. Here, Dr. Pate discusses the ways COVID-19 could reshape the healthcare industry and accelerate trends already underway. And, he talks about how hospitals, health systems and healthcare leaders can prepare. Most importantly, Dr. Pate sends a message to all the healthcare workers on the front lines caring for patients during this difficult and dangerous time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. David Pate retired as CEO of St. Luke’s Health System in Boise, Idaho at the end of January. A couple of weeks into retirement, he received a call from the Governor asking him to serve on the state’s COVID-19 task force. Since then, he has been focused on what’s happening with the pandemic, how to deploy resources appropriately and where things might be headed next. Here, he discusses the critical need for strong leadership and clear communication from hospitals, health systems and healthcare leaders in the acute phase of this crisis. This is part one of a two part conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As COVID-19 continues to spread, a lack of resources and medical supplies contributes to the frustration that many health systems in the US are feeling right now. That, along with the intensity and strain of the work facing so many physicians, nurses and support staff, could have a significant impact on patient care. As hospitals prepare for potential capacity issues, everyone is scrambling for extra beds, nurses, doctors, PPE… the list goes on. However, there’s an opportunity for health organizations to excel and overcome this challenging moment. Take the time to ask yourself and your staff, “Why did you come to work today?” Because that answer is what’s going to carry you through to the other side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is the third and final part of the conversation between our CEO David Jarrard and Emily Evans of Hedgeye Risk Management. Be sure to take a listen to parts one and two, there’s a ton of great insight there. Here, Evans and Jarrard talk about the stock market and areas of vulnerability for hospitals. In addition, Evans turns the tables and asks Jarrard a few questions about what our firm, Jarrard Phillips Cate and Hancock, is hearing from clients. As a reminder, we recorded this on March 11, so things may – and probably will – look different by the time you’re hearing this. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is part two of the conversation between our CEO David Jarrard and Emily Evans of Hedgeye Risk Management. If you missed part one, we'dhighly recommend going back and checking it out. Here, Evans and Jarrard talk about access to care, the political implications – including Medicare for All – public health and personal responsibility, and the opportunity for telemedicine, among other things. As a reminder, this was recorded on March 11 so things may have changed by the time you hear this. if you find it valuable – and you will – be sure to share it with your colleagues, and subscribe to High Stakes on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Things are developing incredibly quickly with the novel coronavirus COVID-19 and today we recorded a conversation between our CEO David Jarrard and Emily Evans, the Managing Director for Healthcare Policy at Hedgeye Risk Management. Normally we don’t date these podcasts but because things are moving so fast, we'll let you know that this was recorded on Wednesday, March 11. It was a long conversation so we’re running it in three parts. You’ll want to listen to them all – it comes out to 38 minutes total. In this first part, Emily and David talk about the loss of trust in institutions, the overall outlook for the next few weeks, and where PE-back groups fit in to the COVID-19 response. if you find it valuable – and you will – be sure to share it with your colleagues, and subscribe to High Stakes on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Houston Astros made every mistake in the book. It's not great for their fans or their organization, but it does give us a new angle to talk about crisis communications. In this conversation, editorial manager David Shifrin (Colorado Rockies) is joined by associate vice president Tim Stewart (Chicago Cubs) and vice president Steve Patterson (Detroit Tigers) to talk about lessons from a very strange cheating scandal in Major League Baseball and how they apply to healthcare - or any industry, really. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Carrie Liken is the Head of Industry for Healthcare at Yext, a technology company that helps organizations manage their brands online. For healthcare providers, Yext helps create, manage and analyze information that will show up to the right patients at the right time. According to Yext, most patients search for information about a doctor or provider online, but only a few look at the provider’s website before scheduling an appointment. That means healthcare marketers need to ensure that properties across the web – not just their own site – are in good shape. Here, Carrie talks to Reed Smith about a few keys points healthcare marketers and digital strategists should keep in mind. My favorite note? The one that surprised me the most? The upside down website. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the High Stakes Podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you’re listening now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pete Lawson has more than 35 years of experience in both healthcare operations and mergers & acquisitions. He's spent time with both investor owned and not-for-profit health system, and has served as a hospital CEO and multi-facility corporate leader. Now, as a consultant and strategist, he brings his background on both the buy side and sell side to guide client hospitals through the transaction process. Here, he talks about what's going on with distressed hospitals, particularly (but certainly not exclusively) in rural areas.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The severity of the coronavirus outbreak continues to grow globally. And with it, the buzz and media attention and fear. At the same time, it’s not yet a big issue here in the US. Hospitals here generally aren’t on the front lines of combatting the outbreak. In this conversation, our CEO David Jarrard speaks to senior managing advisor Aileen Bennett about the situation and that gap between the attention that’s being paid to coronavirus with what’s happening inside the wall of US hospitals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The business relationship between physicians and hospitals is shifting. It's thanks to new compensations models and new models for patient care, largely (but not exclusively) driven by the move towards value-based care. James Cervantes, associate vice president in the National Practice here at Jarrard Inc., brings a wealth of experience working on leadership structure, professional development and physician group management for hospitals and health systems. And, he's been watching the evolution of the physician-hospital relationship closely. Here, he talks about some of the changes happening in physician employment models, including compensation and care delivery, and how administration can best work and communicate with physicians during this evolution of the care team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On this J|Insights our CEO, David Jarrard, talks about a really interesting article titled Beyond burnout: Docks Decry ‘Moral Injury’ from Financial Pressures of Healthcare. It's by Melissa Bailey over at Kaiser Health News and was published on February 4. The idea of moral injury actually started in military and combat situations. It's this idea that it's not just stress and it's not just frustration with things being a certain way, but it's actually being in a position where you feel forced do something or not do something that, as a result of that action or inaction, leads to harm for someone. And we're seeing that as part of the massive burnout problem among physicians today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Some hospitals look like disaster zones during this year’s historically serious flu season. And now the US is bracing for the potential threat of coronavirus, generating significant fear (and, it seems, somewhat masking the news about the flu). Behind the scenes and away from the media buzz, many providers are taking drastic measures to handle increased patient loads and prevent the flu virus from spreading within their clinics and hospitals. And they are creating plans to prepare for and respond to a coronavirus outbreak. Visitor restrictions, security checks at entrances, all-caps warning signs, mandates to wear protective masks and even tents or makeshift intake areas are common. While these precautions are essential, we believe you can still deliver a great experience, even in the midst one of the worst flu seasons in decades. Here are nine ideas you can implement today that will help prevent the flu from spreading, keep employees motivated, mitigate fear and build trust among patients and members of your community. In addition, these communications tips can be adapted if and when your organization faces other frightening and highly communicable diseases such as coronavirus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The general outlook for healthcare remains positive…despite the election. That was the core message presented from the stage at the 2020 Council Panel: Wall Street’s View on Prospects for the Health Care Industry, put on by the Nashville Health Care Council. Sitting on that stage were three healthcare finance wonks, plus a popular leader in the healthcare industry who took on the role of emcee. Milton Johnson, retired chairman and CEO of HCA Healthcare moderated the discussion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Healthcare marketers have the tools they need. We’re neck deep in tools. 2020 is not the year of more tools. Instead, it’s the year of finally using tools the right way and connecting them to the bigger goal – not just taking them out for a spin and running test campaigns divorced from what our organizations are trying to accomplish. We see five areas where digital healthcare marketing needs to look at this year. As the year goes on, we’ll dig in and focus on specific tactics and best practices for each. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Founding partner and chief development officer Anne Hancock Toomey spent most of last week in San Francisco at the annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. And, like most of the 50,000 healthcare executives in town, she never set foot in the Westin for the actual conference. Instead, she spent 16-hour days traversing the hills of San Francisco to meet with those who are otherwise busy delivering superior healthcare, disrupting an antiquated model or financing and advising those in either of the former groups. It was exhilarating (and, yes, exhausting) to break bread with some of the brightest minds in healthcare. In nearly every conversation, she asked healthcare executives the same question: In 2020, what’s one offensive move health systems and providers should make and what’s one defensive move they must make given the headwinds and call for transformation in the industry? Their feedback grouped nicely into a handful of themes: taking cost out of the system, focusing on the consumer experience, forging smart partnerships upstream and down and scale, scale, scale. Here, Hancock Toomey and CEO David Jarrard discuss what she heard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our CEO, David Jarrard, reviews the first season of Art of Change and explains what he's learned from our conversations with healthcare leaders over the past year. We created the Art of Change because we felt the phrase itself captured the heart of our firm. Change done well is an art. And we began a voyage through stories and videos and illustrations to capture that art, asking, “What does it look like?” and, “What kind of stories could we create to try to capture that lightning in a bottle? One of the things I'm most delighted about in the series is how many leaders we've been able to talk to around the country who have demonstrated their great skill at the art of change. And they all do it differently. They all bring unique experiences and unique culture and understanding of their people and their environment to make the art of change happen in a way that works for them. So, one of my favorite learnings out of this series is that there is an art to change –There are some fundamental principles that make it successful. But in execution it can be as different as an oil painting to a statue. There are parts of the Art of Change that could have been written a hundred years ago because people are people, and change is change and people are going to be resistant to it. The fundamental principles are the same. But what we've developed over the last year is catching the art in the moment. It's like a piece of amber: This is the art today. If we wrote it five years ago, the principles would be the same but the environment different, and the nuances would change. So, for a leader today, it's less about understanding exactly what ROI or business considerations changed or what structure was followed then versus now. Instead, it’s an appreciation of the principles and how they apply to who the leader is. Not just for the year that they are about to embark upon but for today: “If there are ten rules to the art of change, what are the three that apply as I walk the halls this afternoon?” That's a great touchstone for anybody and how we hope you will use these principles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the previous conversation with our CEO David Jarrard, we talked about what's going on with the increasing scrutiny being placed on hospitals and health systems by the media, the public and politicians. We also talked about what healthcare leaders can do to prepare their organizations. Here, Jarrard discusses what those same leaders can do personally to prepare and perhaps even change the way they approach their job in order to lead their organizations through an uncertain year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's become apparent over the past few months that the perception of hospitals and healthcare providers as a whole has changed. Even in the last couple of weeks, numerous stories have appeared in the media placing healthcare providers under new levels of scrutiny - and appropriately so. On top of that, it's a presidential election year, adding an additional layer of pressure. Our CEO, David Jarrard, thinks that this trend will only increase in 2020. What is going on and how should healthcare leaders respond? Glad you asked... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
January 1 rolled around and election season kicked off. Ok, it was already well under way. But with the new year things are ratcheting up and the first primaries are just a couple of months away. With the increased scrutiny being placed on hospitals in general, and the many different political approaches to healthcare among the candidates in this cycle, how should healthcare leaders prepare and respond? Our CEO, David Jarrard, has some thoughts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper showing that hospital mergers don't do much to change several key metrics in quality and experience. And in the one place where the numbers do change - patient experience - they're worse. Under normal circumstances a paper showing little to no change in the key outcomes studied wouldn't get much attention. The problem here is that hospitals have long touted these metrics as reasons for a merger. It's more about the unfulfilled expectations - set by hospitals themselves - that made it a story. Here, our CEO, David Jarrard, explains what's going on and what healthcare leaders can do to make sure it doesn't happen in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Do you know your local FBI agent? You should. John Mason is SVP and CIO at Quorum Health. He joined Reed Smith, our VP of Digital, here at the office to talk about healthcare cybersecurity. In this conversation, John and Reed discuss:
Myths and misconceptions about healthcare cybersecurity and data breaches
Who within a healthcare organization is responsible for dealing with cybersecurity incidents (and it's not just the CIO and IT department)
Marketing and Communications' role in preparing for and responding to data breaches and other cybersecurity issues
What's keeping CIOs up at night (the internet of things and more)
And that FBI thing - you need to know local and federal law enforcement before your hospital or health system is breached
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jarrard Inc. has had the great privilege of working with Faith Family Medical Center for the past couple of years. They are a community clinic with a mission to provide the residents of greater Nashville who are uninsured or underinsured with affordable, quality primary medical care. While the numbers don’t come close to describing the impact of their work on people from across middle Tennessee, you can get a sense of how significant it is in the fact that they provide around eight million dollars worth of care each year on a two million dollar budget. We spoke with Dr. Parker Panovec, Faith Family’s chief medical officer, and CEO Laura Hobson to get a better understanding of how they use listening and storytelling to provide outstanding care to the Nashville community. Simply put, they don’t have the resources to be anything but efficient, which means the entire team is dialed in to their mission and to the needs of both the community and individual patients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The end of life can teach us a lot about leading in high-stakes situations. Dr. Michael Fratkin was a burned-out palliative care physician in an under-resourced clinical setting. Fed up with the way things were going, he “had enough crazy or coffee” in him five years ago to step out of the typical healthcare box and build something new. The result was Resolution Care Network, a palliative care organization that seeks to bring “capable and compassionate care to everyone, everywhere in the face of serious illness.” Fratkin’s job as a clinician can only be successfully accomplished through carefully listening to and understanding who his patients are, what they want out of life, where the gaps or challenges have been in the past and then creating a plan with them that takes into account both their personal and medical situations. He’s helping people make decisions at perhaps the most vulnerable time of their life, helping them live as well as possible during their remaining days. In addition, as the leader of a healthcare organization designed to carry out a profound mission on a shoestring budget, Fratkin has had to build and maintain a team united on common goals. Here are some of his insights on listening and stories that apply to any healthcare leader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Who knew a whiteboard cartoon character could change a hundred-year old organization… and the way people think about population health? Through both careful listening and clever storytelling, St. Luke’s Health System, an eight hospital, 200-clinic healthcare system based in Boise, Idaho, figured it out. And a simple solution is moving the health of an entire community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When Dr. David Pate retires at the end of January 2020, he will have led St. Luke’s Health System for a decade. During that time, the organization has undergone radical change and plenty of garden-variety change. Like any healthcare executive, Pate has been in the middle of constant evolution, making hard decisions on how to transform the organization and position it for a future built on value and patient-centered care. Today, he attributes St. Luke’s success to excellent collaboration among health system leadership and a willingness – by all stakeholders and at all levels – to listen. In addition, Pate individually and the organization as a whole have realized the value of distilling complex messages into stories to promote buy-in and create further collaboration. It’s a virtuous cycle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last week, several hospital groups filed lawsuits against HHS around the agency’s rule stating that payers and providers must reveal their negotiated rates. That rule was designed as part of the current administration’s push for price transparency. There’s been lots of excellent discussion about the lawsuits, and whether HHS even has the authority to create a rule forcing transparency around private negotiations. But the real issue isn’t CMS/HHS. It’s consumers. The bottom line? Patients don’t want to know hospital prices. They want to know how much it will cost them. If people know what’s medical care is going to cost them ahead of time, they’re more likely to pay. Even if the government's efforts to impose price transparency are unsuccessful, the core issue won’t go away. Consumers are not going to let it. So, however the legal situation plays out, hospitals and health systems shouldn't just sit by and wait until the dust settles. Here’s what Kim Fox, Partner and Regional Practice Lead at Jarrard Inc, says they can do today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This idea that healthcare is doing digital marketing is absurd. Hospitals and health systems are just doing marketing. The execution may be digital, it may be traditional. And the weight of one or the other will be based on whom you’re trying to communicate with and your goals and resources. But it’s all just marketing. It’s not that we shouldn’t have subject matter expertise within a hospital marcom department. But we’ve talked too much about digital versus traditional. We should focus on what we’re doing – trying to communicate in the most effective way to protect our audience and our patients– rather than making too big of a deal about how we’re doing it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Worrying about what people outside your hospital or health system think about you is important. Just as important? Ensuring your staff, clinicians and hospital leadership are on the same page. Done right, strong internal communications and message training will build a group of powerful advocates for your healthcare organization. Done wrong, they'll either be passive bystanders or - worse - devastating detractors. Make sure you have a clear and ongoing focus on internal communications and message training Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When it comes to healthcare, everyone’s talking about care team collaboration. But that’s not the only place where hospitals need to focus on team dynamics.As our colleague Reed Smith has noted repeatedly, marcom departments have historically been distant from other groups within a hospital or health system. Marketers have been back in the corner, executing campaigns and measuring what they can while comms teams have huddled up with leadership dealing with a story or issue. Neither team has been deeply involved in strategy. Best practices, however, put a good healthcare marketing and communications team right in the mix, helping leadership set priorities and enabling other employees to use communications tools effectively. We’re not the only ones thinking about this. There was a great deal of chatter about collaboration at the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network (MCSMN) conference a few weeks ago, and the conversation is continuing. Here’s what on our minds these days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You can’t underestimate the power of one person’s healthcare story. Aaron Campbell, CPXP, leads Jarrard Inc’s Patient Experience work. Here, he talks about three things chief experience officers, CEOs and other leaders at hospitals and health systems can do to communicate more effectively, gain the trust of patients and caregivers, and improve the patient experience. While Campbell spends his professional time focused on helping our clients develop, implement and improve their patient experience programs, he has also served as a caregiver himself. That personal role led to a tragic and painful experience in early 2019. It’s a story that highlights the devastation poor communication and a lack of emphasis on the “caring” part of healthcare can have on patients, their loved ones, and – potentially, the hospital’s bottom line. We’re grateful and honored that Campbell was willing to go on record and share this story with us. Learn more about Jarrard Inc's Patient Experience work here: https://jarrardinc.com/patient-experience/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your hospital’s reputation is some of your most valuable currency. You have to monitor it, manage it and maintain it well. Leave it alone and things will be said about your facility that you won’t like. To that end, we recently hosted Aaron Clifford, SVP of Marketing at Binary Fountain, at the Barn for a firm-wide lunch-and-learn After Clifford’s talk – and some great barbecue – he and our VP of Digital, Reed Smith, sat down to recap some of the highlights. First off, you have to know where to find your clinic or practice across multiple online directories and then ensure you’re accurately represented. Otherwise, someone looking for you could end up driving to an empty field. And no, that’s not metaphorical. Renting property can be cheap and easy, but what happens when the owner changes the rules? What should a healthcare marketing department emphasize when it comes to patient reviews and physician information? Those are the questions healthcare providers have to consider when deciding where to focus their online efforts. in this episode, Clifford and Smith discuss the relative value of “renting property” from third parties (Facebook, Google, etc.), versus “owning” it on your website. Like every other tool online, online directories have changed over the years, which is just one more thing for healthcare marketers to keep up with to ensure their organization can be found and that the information patients find is accurate. Clifford and Smith talk about the evolution of online reviews for healthcare. Finally, with the rising importance of HCHAPS scores and other modes of patient feedback, even healthcare transactions like hospital mergers & acquisitions can be affected by your online listings.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Headlines about hospitals in hot water over their financial assistance policies abound, and health system executives are looking around wondering if they’re going to be next. In an earlier post, we outlined five steps you can take today to prevent your organization from being on the receiving end of negative attention regarding your collections and financial assistance policy (or at least being prepared when it comes). If you’re reading this thinking “it’s too late, we’re already on the front page,” or your policies are being questioned, we have some thoughts for you, too. We sincerely hope your hospital or health system's policies never come under fire. But if they do, we hope this information will help you navigate the issue and come out stronger on the other side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The stories are everywhere: Health systems using collection agencies and the courts to receive payment for care provided to patients. Are you prepared? Possibly not. You’re working on multiple fronts – helping a complex health system succeed and serving patients as well as you can, including those having trouble with bills. But getting ready is worthy of your time. It’ll take some detective work. A hospital’s collection activities and financial assistance policies span multiple departments and may include outside agents – even those, like collections agencies, your organization no longer uses or has a relationship with. In addition, the information requested is often complex, so it is important to understand that compiling it may take some time. Take a close look. Even those of you at the most well-intentioned and mission-driven organizations are likely to find things you didn’t know or expect to see. It will be uncomfortable. Regardless, you should be prepared to explain it and either defend or change it. Here are five steps you can take today to ensure you understand how your financial assistance and collections could be perceived by others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The latest edition of our book Healthcare Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships: An Insider’s Guide to Communications has just been published by HealthLeaders. Just in time. So much has changed since the first edition was released in 2013 yet the need for clear, compelling communications and smart relationship management has never been more timely. Organizations that provide care – who touch patients and save lives – are facing elevated scrutiny and demands for greater (even uncomfortable) transparency as the need for making dramatic and difficult change grows. M&A remains a key strategic play for organizations looking to protect their mission, assure their viability and evolve to deliver tomorrow’s healthcare. A successful deal can leapfrog a health system forward; a deal gone bad can kill it. The stakes are high. You can learn more in this podcast from our CEO David Jarrard. You can also download a free chapter of the book to get started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The cold truth: The average tenure of a hospital CEO is somewhere around four years. That’s right, just four years. And the process of replacing a CEO for a health system of any size is no easy feat. A recent study cited by HealthLeaders* found that half of hospitals and health systems lack a formal CEO succession plan. Knowing that, we’d safely bet that – beyond the obvious introductions – robust CEO onboarding plans are few and far between. Yet without a good executive transition plan, healthcare organizations are at risk for rapid executive turnover. This, in turn, can cause frustration and loss of trust within the organization, lack of continuity in strategic initiatives, and a sucker punch to the bottom line due to transition costs. Learn more about Jarrard Inc's Executive Transition work here: https://jarrardinc.com/executive-transition/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Each year we’ve seen an evolution at the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network Conference that mirrors the evolution of the digital healthcare field. In the early days, if you look at it like the Gartner hype cycle, there was a big spike of amazement. Everybody was excited. Then everybody got depressed when Facebook’s algorithms changed, and marketing plans went out the window. Now we’re getting back to understanding where the actual opportunity lies. People are optimizing and finding the real value of digital tools. We’re venturing outside the strict confines of social media – how to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. – into conversations around the bigger picture. Conversations like how to manage digital efforts with a small team, how to integrate CRMs, how to measure marketing efforts. The emergence of those conversations indicates that healthcare is reaching a point of digital maturity where the tools are just tools within a larger strategic bucket. Today, unlike a couple of years ago, there’s not much delineation between CRM and social media, where one stops and the other starts. That’s allowed us to take a much more holistic view of our customer – whether it’s the patient or the caregiver or someone else – and assess how they want to connect with us across the board and not just on a particular social media platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We answer the questions healthcare leaders are asking. High Stakes offers concise takes on the issues affecting healthcare providers today: strategic positioning, issue navigation, change management. mergers and acquisitions, marketing, digital transformation, patient experience, executive leadership and healthcare governance, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices