Today in health, it, our hospitals getting flanked on all sides. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health set of channels, dedicated to keeping health it staff current. And engaged. We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders, short tests and artists. I check them out if this week health.

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, check it out, sign up today, go to our website top right hand corner. You're going to see. , our upcoming webinar. Go ahead and sign up there. Alright. So back from vacation, a lot of stuff going on. And so I went out, I did did my normal things. , Becker's hospital review website, fierce healthcare. It rom on healthcare and a bunch of other places. I go to read stories. This one jumped out at me, June 5th at 10:30 AM while I guess jumped out at me because it's new and it's.

It's their home health bidding and war heats up. Optum makes $3 billion unsolicited offer for Ametisus a M E D I S Y S. Probably should know that since it's a multi-billion dollar company. But I do not Amadeus this.

I'm going to keep trying to pronounce it. You can correct me later. A wild fun with it. , the home health bidding wars are heating up as United healthcare's Optum unit is making a big play for home health and hospice from AMA does SIS Amede this, this. Ametisus now I'll go with that. Just one month ago, Amadeus is agreed to be bought by another healthcare company, option care health, the provider of post-acute care and infusion services that deal valued.

, the company at 3.6 billion, the deal was expected to close in the second half of 2023, Optima has made an all cash offer of a hundred dollars per share. For the company, , to the board of directors on Monday morning, the deal represents a superior proposal. So they have entered into a confidentiality agreement with optimum so that they can start doing their due diligence.

If the deal had gone through option care, health is a provider of post acute care. And infusion services, the deal. , would create a massive provider of post acute care services encompassing more than 16,500 employees, 674 care centers. And 46 us states with a projected 6.2 billion. In annual revenue, the combination of the two will enable the companies to beef up capabilities and expand their footprint as care options, increasingly move into the patient's home. And that's what I'm going to focus in on.

On my, so what on this story often carries, said it's offered with is still compelling. And they hope they consider it. We will see how this sort of pairs out. Let me go back to that last sentence. The combination of the two will enable companies to beef up capabilities to expand their footprint. As care options, increasingly move into the patient's home.

My question always is. Do you believe that. Do you believe care will be delivered differently in the near future or in the future? And at what timeframe do you believe that that care will be delivered differently? One of my challenges in talking with healthcare professionals, especially with provider organizations.

Is, they keep trying to recreate the past instead of looking to how care is going to change in the future. Optum is looking at how care is going to change in the future. Amazon. Walgreens, Walmart, they're all looking at it. I had a post today that somebody commented that they believed 50% of all primary care will be delivered by a Silicon.

Based. Workforce. Meaning a technology-based workforce. We'll provide 50% of our primary care in the future. I don't know if that's true. But it's a compelling statement. Because even if 30% is the number, it fundamentally changes the business of healthcare. It fundamentally changes the, the work that you're doing today.

Because if 30% is going to come from technology, then we should be exploring. Those technologies around primary care. There's a reason we don't explore those technologies and it's because it impacts people. But it impacts employees. But it also impacts people in the community. And we tend to look at the person closest to us, meaning us first, those around us and those in our book club and in our soccer teams. And.

And our kids programs that cause we look at them first and then we look at the larger community. We need to reverse that. Unfortunately. We need to reverse that and think about ourselves last and think about the health of our community. Not only because it's best for our community and that's why our health systems exist, but also.

Because it's what's best for your business. The customers will determine what health care looks like moving forward. And if they want care in their home, if they want the drugs delivered to their homes, if they want online appointments, if they want. If they want these things that is going to be the future.

It absolutely will be the future. We've put up a lot of roadblocks to make sure that that doesn't happen, but that will be the future. I know for those roadblocks are coming down. Now you have large entities battling large entities, so it's not just the organization with the largest. , lobbying firm, that's going to win. There are large lobbying interests on both sides now. And so essentially there are people who are saying, look, we're lobbying against the hospitals, monopoly.

On care. And these are not a true monopoly, but close enough. In some of these markets and we believe that the cost of healthcare being a huge campaign issue going into next year is going to be the conversation. Once again. And every time we have this conversation. A little bit gets peeled away from the hospitals and health systems and gets opened up to potential other models. And it should.

By the way, it's not that the hospitals and health systems couldn't be doing these models themselves. They choose not to in a lot of cases. So when you look at this, this acquisition, And you look at the services that are going to be providing. My question is, do we believe that this is the way that care is going? Do we believe a lot more hope?

A lot more care is going to be delivered in the home. Do we believe that a lot more care is going to be delivered by these third-party entities? Especially, I. The other thing is when I look at this deal, The sec at some point has got to look at, , United healthcare and looked at Optum. And I'm a fan of what they're doing, but they've got to look at it and say, man, they're controlling an awful lot of the healthcare spend.

And I, I'm not sure this isn't getting into the Rockefeller oil monopoly territory. I mean, yes, it's different. Yes. It's, it's, it's not quite that. And they're not taking over hospitals per se, but they are. , latching on to significant amounts of the additional revenue that hospitals used to make. So I think this is worth taking a look at there. What's the silhouette for me as a technologist.

It is. That we should be looking at what the future of healthcare is looking at the technologies. Looking at the, , the modalities that the patients are looking for, looking at. The different ways that care can be delivered. We should be exploring them. We should have pilots going in a lot of different ways. We should be looking at technologies that reduces the overall cost of delivering care. And that has to come from labor.

Because it's our biggest cost, right? So we have to figure out we should be looking every year. We should be looking at. What does it take to reduce the, the amount of labor costs to deliver care in our health system by 20%? And you're going to recoil at that number and go, oh my gosh, it's a lot of money. It is a lot of money.

But it costs a lot of money to deliver care. Imagine the competitive advantage. If you could insert technology in a way to reduce the total cost of delivering care in your community by 20%. That would, that would drive your profit margins through the roof. For starters, if you chose to go that route, and if you choose to split it with the community, you could reduce the overall cost of care in your community by 10%.

Would that be welcome? Plus you'd be delivering care in a way. That consumers are saying they want it to be delivered. So my challenge for you today is what is the future of healthcare? How is it going to be delivered? And if you believe the future is through these additional modalities that, , AI will play a big part in how we communicate and deliver care effectively in the community.

And we believe that more and more care is going to be delivered at the home. My question to you is what is your plan? To make that transition.

All right. That's all for today. , check back tomorrow. We're going to go through an article I read last week. It was really compelling interview. And I want to break it down into two sections. I'm going to just have to tune it. It's going to be a good conversation. It really got me thinking about, , how I think about certain topics moving forward. And, , what I think the future is going to look like.

Around technology in healthcare. All right. , I think, as I said before, that's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week out.com or wherever you listen to podcast. This is incredibly helpful. We really appreciate you doing it.

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