July 16, 2021: Rob DeMichiei, Board Director, Strategic Advisor and Former CFO is back with Bill. What does digital transformation mean in 2021? What is the current CIO CFO conversation? Economists are predicting negative margins through the end of the year. What kind of impact will that have? Could there be IT motives for mergers and acquisitions moving forward? Smaller health systems are throwing up their hands at cyber attacks at this point. They just can't make the investments necessary to protect themselves. What is the path forward for small to medium size healthcare systems? Who should they be partnering with? And can a large health system truly own the patient end to end? 

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Key Points:

• Economists are projecting negative margins through the end of the year. For larger health systems, that's not that big of a deal. But for the smaller players, that's a significant conversation. 
• I think you're going to see a widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots
• It’s going to be very difficult to survive with hyper-competition and so M&A is the way to guarantee the future
• Where are the new innovative charity care programs? Where are the new bold $50 million or $100 million investments in community health and in charity care? 
• 5 Questions Boards Should Be Asking About Digital Transformation - Harvard Business Review 
• AXIOS: How America’s Top Hospitals Hound Patients with Predatory Billing 
• 1/3 of Hospitals Nearing ‘Danger Zone’ Denial Rate, Survey Finds - Healthcare Innovation