This Week Health

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Paddy Padmanabhan and I catch up and discuss progress in digital health. We don't always agree but Paddy makes me think about what I believe about how Digital Health will play out in healthcare. Hope you enjoy.

Transcript
Bill Russell:

Today in health, it interviews from the chime conference in San Diego. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health. It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged. Just a quick reminder. I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into next week from the chime conference. And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio where we'll start looking at the news. Once again. Hope you enjoy this interview. Another interview from the chime fall forum and we have Patty Am I getting your name right? Absolutely.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

You're as close as it can. As close as you want to

Bill Russell:

be. Uh, I use Domo consulting, but really you are a digital health leader. You're you do a lot of conversations around digital health. A lot of publications write a lot of articles around digital health. So that's the topic I'd like to. Sure if you're offering that. So what's, so what's top of mind at this conference, you've had some conversations you've been here for a day or so, so,

Paddy Padmanabhan:

well, the F the first thing on everybody's mind is relief and having the opportunity to come out and meet people. I can say I can speak for myself that, uh, it's been a long time since we got out and got to meet our colleagues. And in many way, chime is like an extended family to many of us, the chime community. So it's wonderful to be here. So I would say top of mind, Uh, sense of getting back together for people and meeting your colleagues in person after such a long time after what we've all been through for the last 18 months or so? Well, business wise, I think, uh, you know, it seems to me from the conversations that I'm having that over the last 18 months, things have moved forward significantly from a digital transformation standpoint. Obviously the, the, the, the earliest. Was the pandemic itself, but then there, the early response to the pandemic, which was more of a crisis response has given way to a more thoughtful transformation approach that builds on whatever foundations were laid prior to the pandemic and whatever investments were made subsequent to the kind of, so we are moving now into a new phase is what I feel. And the general sense I get is there's a lot to be done and it's just. It's just the opportunity is huge.

Bill Russell:

So early on it was reactive, but we saw a lot of really cool things. We saw. We saw chatbots deployed for, uh, for diagnosis of COVID. We saw, um, uh, new, new kinds of, uh, tele-health, uh, modalities sort of, sort of pop up from a safety standpoint. We went to create that, that safe distance and whatnot. Um, but a lot of this stuff was done. Okay, we need this tomorrow. Now we'd been working on it for some years, but still we were able to stand some things up. I mean, how much are we having to go back and rethink some of the things we did in the pandemic and really laid down a, a digital, let's say a foundation for digital, or what's the foundation for digital already there

Paddy Padmanabhan:

from a technology standpoint? I think, uh, there's a lot that has been accomplished in terms of putting in the new technologies. And I'd say this. If I was to talk about the unfinished business or the work in progress, they would talk about two things. One is making all these technology pieces work together well, making it all seamless. And the other part of it is helping people adopt and use the technologies. I think one of the big concerns on the minds of my clients and others that I talked to is how do you get people to use it? And actually the more recent data seems to suggest that. Bit of a pullback and the use of the tele-health and the virtual care modalities or whatever reason, but, uh,

Bill Russell:

yeah. So are we worried about, so you and I go back and forth on social media and a lot of times it's, it's apple, Amazon, you know, the big players, what are they going to do? Are our health system still keeping an eye out for the Walmarts? The CVS is in the others,

Paddy Padmanabhan:

the competitive landscape for health city. Is the Walmarts of the Syria assists, the big corporations that are traditionally not traditionally, not healthcare organizations. And then you've got the big tech firms. You mentioned Amazon and Google apple, and then you've got the digital first, you know, healthcare providers. They go the one medicals on the Oak street, health of the world. What our health system. Why do I think they're more worried about the CVS and the Walmarts than they are, frankly, about Microsoft or. Amazon, maybe because Amazon's crossed the Rubicon from being a technology provider into more of a healthcare service provider. But as you know, I've written about this, you know, the outcome is far from foretold in terms of their success. At this point, they

Bill Russell:

do have a long view though. I mean, and the thing is Amazon doesn't have to be successful in all the things. I mean, they're going to be, it'll be interesting to see in the let's just call it the PBM space. Let's call it the, uh, the, the medication. I mean, th their acquisition seems like, seems like a pretty solid foundation from which to build on. It builds on their, their current capabilities and they can do those things. But is that really a tech player or is that more of a logistics play

Paddy Padmanabhan:

for that? You know, the Amazon bets are kind of all over the place. They are all over the place. I don't see a

Bill Russell:

where you at the health conference. I was not, but if you go through their booth, Hey, would you like to talk to Amazon care? Would you like to talk to AWS? Would you like what data would they were? Well,

Paddy Padmanabhan:

here's the thing that I'd asked you, this question, is there one individual in Amazon that you can think of who is kind of like the healthcare

Bill Russell:

person? Yeah. Yeah. There, there used to be, but he went to work for Phillips. So I don't know. Okay.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

I don't know that there is such an annuity, but I do know that there are several individuals who are all among themselves driving. Initiatives. Yeah. Amazon carries with somebody, the PillPack tenders with somebody else. God knows what else, you know, in Amazon.

Bill Russell:

Well, and that's what we're seeing. Yeah. Apple is Apple's the most recent one with the article and whatnot. And, uh, there doesn't seem to be, first of all, the CEO is the CEO of apple, correct? They're not the CPE CEO of apple health. Correct. So how much of his time is actually spent thinking about the, I've

Paddy Padmanabhan:

asked this exact same question in my writings, you know what. Healthcare is at best a part-time job for the CEO of any of these large corporations and mind you, the new look at the world from their standpoint, their opportunity in healthcare may be huge, but at the present moment, they may have much bigger things going on that are, you know, dominating their attention. But don't

Bill Russell:

the, the promise of those companies. Is with AWS. You have, you have a great, great access to that technology, the data technology, the AI with Google, you have access to that. I mean, clearly they've, they're phenomenal at the data side and whatnot. Microsoft is phenomenal at the data side, Microsoft, probably a different story because they're, they're just an enabler. Yeah. I don't think they have any healthcare aspirations per

Paddy Padmanabhan:

se. Well, their healthcare story is the cloud story. You know, the workplace collaboration story and

Bill Russell:

everybody who's here has a relationship.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

Everybody has a relationship with them. And then as they make acquisitions, like no-one's, I just came out of this session with nuance, you know? So who knows what that is? So they're in that session, that session was titled digital front doors nuance is, you know, in the digital front door space. So is Microsoft also in the digital front. That's right. So, uh, you could not, but then, you know, with all of these large companies, there's always multiple bets. You know, you talk about Amazon, Amazon has a half a dozen things. We've got Alex, or they've got Amazon care, they've got the cloud business, which is doing very well. They've got the PillPack business who knows what else is going to come up. And again, we've also seen a little bit of a pullback by these big tech firms. Recently, Google closed its healthcare business. Officially there is no health business, especially after David Feinberg left and went on to. And then now you've got apple, apple shut down their primary care business, which was anywhere meant to be a kind of pilot of some kind. Right. But Amazon's the one that's sticking it through. And then there are others who are, you know, who knows what Salesforce

Bill Russell:

is going to do for it. So we have to be clear just carrying the salvo, got up there last week and said, we're still, we're still in healthcare. We're doing this, we're doing this or that. So she rattled off the half dozen things that they are continuing to do. And her thing is, look, we're we're in information. And more people seek care from Google still today than anywhere else. And so they're trying to utilize their position to really direct people in the right, get the right information to them serve public health. It used to be when we started the pandemic, we had to go to certain sites to search this, some of these statistics. And I find now I can just go and say, yep, this guy, San Diego county tell me the COVID statistics said, Google. Hold it all together. That's what they do.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

Yeah. And again, like you said earlier on, well, it's a long game for, for these big tech firms. They have deep pockets. It doesn't mean though that they're going to stick with a losing proposition for too long. If something doesn't work, they'll probably kill it, take the learnings from it and put it into something else and then start the next iteration. And they have the, they have the, well, they have the money. And if they want to do something, they can stick around long enough to do it. I mean, just think of the amount of cash that apple is sitting by. It's just unbelievable.

Bill Russell:

All of them are sitting on top of the Fairmount. So if people are engaged, Dame-o consulting, what, what do you guys do for we?

Paddy Padmanabhan:

Uh, we help, we work mostly with CEOs, chief digital officers and C-suite executives who are responsible for the digital transformation of their organization. Very deeply focused on the health system space. So that's where most of our work is. So we'll help with digital strategy, helping develop digital transformation, roadmaps, prioritizing initiatives, building business cases for them helping with technology, partner selection, and also the ongoing governance of digital programs. So that's kind of what we do. We come at it from a technology standpoint, but in the context of digital transformation, which is very, very much tech enabled as we speak

Bill Russell:

the big and the lock is still.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

Uh, big unlock. Thank you for mentioning that the podcast, just a hindrance hit a hundred episodes. So kind of fantastic kicked about, I know how hard

Bill Russell:

that is by the way. That's not

Paddy Padmanabhan:

as easy as what people think. Yeah, I, yeah. And I've been really, really fortunate to have some great guests on the show. So yeah, I mean, these are a really thoughtful conversations. I learned a lot from those conversations and I hope that the listeners learn something. You know, I was, I was sitting with, uh, some people at breakfast today. I didn't know them at all, but they knew who I was because I listened to my podcast. So I'm probably the

Bill Russell:

same thing. Yeah. Thank you both.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

First of all, I thank you for all the work that you do. I'm an avid follower of all of your work on social media and continue to keep those snarky comments. Comment. It's been

Bill Russell:

exciting. I think it does help the industry. When we go back and forth, people see, Hey, there's potentially different challenges. The

Paddy Padmanabhan:

group thing, challenge the group thing. I'm reading this book called the contrarian, watch the buck, Peter Thiel. So you can be the country. I didn't know.

Bill Russell:

Well, if only I had as much money as Peter's deal, I think I could be contrary and on anything.

Paddy Padmanabhan:

We'll see. All right, thanks. Thank you.

Bill Russell:

Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews coming to you, that's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, you get the picture. We are everywhere. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health. VMware Hill-Rom Starbridge advisors, McAfee and Aruba networks. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.

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