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Bill Russell: All right, today in Health IT, it's Friday and I am joined by Sarah Richardson.

We are going to do our last Today Show of the week. And today we're going to take a look at Apple and how it's positioning itself as a leader in the future of health. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for 16 Hospital System. And creator of This Week Health, a set of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare.

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Use it as a foundation for daily or weekly discussions on the topics that are relevant to you in the industry. A form of mentoring, something that we are encouraging everyone to do. They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And that's it. We're ready to talk about the story. Sarah, welcome back to the show.

They're not going to see it because this is an audio only podcast, but you're sporting your 49ers attire. I guess we're getting close to the opening kickoff.

Sarah Richardson : We're getting close to opening of the season. I have a ridiculous amount of gear that I need to constantly wear and Drex and I are rivals in the NFC West.

So we'll see who buys more stuff this year. He's a Seahawks fan. I'm the 49er fan.

Bill Russell: All so we're not going to talk football this morning. I'm going to let you and Drex do that. We're going to cover the Apple story that you selected. Hey, tee it up for us.

Sarah Richardson : Yeah. So the thing that I love most about Apple, and I'll just throw this out there, is Apple's positioning itself with health features.

They're enhanced by AI. They want to make it a profit center. I always think about that in terms of, Apple making more money. But you think about the fact that you always have to have these constant revenue streams. When they start integrating AI into health monitoring, they create more personalized health insights for users.

Most of us experience that with the Apple health kit and the watch and other components today. But it can drive significant growth. There's a lot of potential for this technology to grow for the healthcare segment for them. It sets them apart technologically. It makes them a player in the health space and, again, it could create revenue streams for them.

So what I find most interesting about this article and why I care as a CIO, is its commitment to expanding its ecosystem and healthcare management, and what's most important about Apple, at least in my universe, is I already use everything of theirs and I trust them. So when you trust an entity with your personal information, that's a natural flow into the healthcare space.

Bill Russell: Whenever I read these things. make the distinction. And that is, what Epic, Oracle. they are for healthcare Apple is for health. And they are the platform for health.

And it's all those things you just said, we trust them. We give them our information. We put their watch on and it monitors our stuff and it collects all that, very personal information about us. And overlaying that with AI is really fascinating to me. you think about what, at least for me, what I'm using AI for right now is a lot of summarization.

A lot of, hey I'm looking at this very narrowly right now, and I'll say these are other things I should be considering, and it goes out and it gives me a wider lens. Apple has that perspective. They can look at a whole host of things if they can link up all those different apps that are within, their ecosystem, which they have proven to be able to do, and create a real health experience, which we've been talking about for many years.

I just think AI layered on top of it is going to give you insights, personalization, perspective, on our health. And don't we all want to be healthy?

Sarah Richardson : We want to be healthy. We also want the easy button. And while Apple's not going to suddenly, I don't believe, get into the pharmaceutical business, which tends to be the plan for most people in the U.

S., Apple's going to tell you, go stand up, go exercise more. They're going to, leverage what they already have on their existing devices to lead to insights that allow you to have proactive health care tools. That's going to integrate into their system. And so I say that cheekily, because my watch tells me to stand up.

What I find fascinating is I do stand all day, and then it doesn't realize I'm already standing. But It's amazing how many times I'll run up and down the stairs at home before I go to bed because I'm 10 calories short of my goal for the day. You set your own goals, but imagine if you start setting those goals with your health care provider.

Right now it's all pretty ambiguous. You set how many hours you stand, how many minutes of exercise you get, how many calories you want to burn. When that conversation or that interaction starts happening with your healthcare provider and you know specifically how much you need to have to be the best version of yourself from a health perspective, it's a game changer.

Bill Russell: here's what I will say. My personal experience is most of my healthcare providers have not wanted to engage me in my health. They don't want to know my weight fluctuations day by day. They don't want to know my heart rate fluctuations day by day. They don't want to know.

All the information I'm collecting. Apple cares about those things and they can provide insights on those things and whatnot. I agree with you that there's a transition like when I need health care, when I become sick, or when I need sick care, that information, when it becomes relevant, Apple is going to be able to feed that over and they go, Hey man, your heart rate changed like two weeks ago.

Like what happened two weeks ago? Oh I just got back from a trip. I was in Europe doing blah, blah, blah. It's oh, that's relevant. It's there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens in our health world that doesn't transition to our healthcare world, or we try to transition it through intake forms, right?

The intake form that asks you like 7, 500 questions, which are all available in our calendar. In our monitoring and all that other stuff. And so it would be nice if that transitioned. This is one of the things I've said for years that I think Apple could really help with is I think Apple should Essentially, the check in process, like they should automate the check in process. The same way you do Apple Pay, I think we should do Apple check in process for healthcare. Boom, and then it determines what relevant information goes over to the healthcare system, and it gives them all the information that they want about me.

My name, my age. address, my spouse, my phone number, my, and it just takes all of that process and just shrinks it down a lot. I know I've gone in so many different directions. I have no idea how you're going to bring this back. I'm curious.

Sarah Richardson : I know exactly how I want to bring it back. I think you need to have Tim Cook on the show and talk to him about the things that we believe would be the next frontiers for them.

And we have an audience that they could tap into that would significantly give them places where they could start some of this work if they haven't already. And. That may be a lofty perspective from some people. At the end of the day, it's not. Apple is a significant player for all of us. The more that we can make our lives as simple as Apple that could be a pretty fascinating conversation with Tim.

Bill Russell: so too. So this is a personal invitation to Tim Cook. And quite frankly, The next level down is fine with me, too. It doesn't have to be Tim himself, but if Tim wants to come on, that would be great. But, man, I don't know about you. I'm sitting here in my office. I'm looking around. I have five Apple devices within five feet of me.

your life like now?

Sarah Richardson : I have four of them within one foot of me right now.

Bill Russell: I think that is one of the relevant points. One of the relevant points is that Apple makes money on health. They don't have to worry about insurance carriers, they are literally one of the few companies that is totally fixated on me.

Now, they want to sell me a device to monitor this. They want to have my phone so I could view it on the road. They want my laptop so I can view it there. That's fine with me. I'm going to use those things anyway. And for other things, but because they're focused on me, they're constantly saying. What is the, they don't even say patient.

What does the consumer want with regard to health? And they're constantly innovating that space. That's what I love about them.

Sarah Richardson : And they want it to be simple. The thing that I find fascinating though, about using Apple to track a lot of your health capabilities is you also can't game the system.

You're not going to put your Apple watch on your dog to go get more steps. Like it actually creates.

Bill Russell: You've never seen somebody do that? No.

Sarah Richardson : It creates an honesty loop, for lack of a better term. You're accountable to yourself if you're using Apple HealthKit. There's no way to really get around that.

You either are or you aren't doing the things you need to be able to do. And if you do that in a way where you gamify it, and it makes you feel good about your decisions, fantastic. If you decide that you don't want someone reminding you to get up and move, then that's on you as well. If you want to live a longer, happier, healthier, independent life, then Those are the baseline things that need to happen.

It sure would be nice to have that partner that you trust in that mix already.

Bill Russell: Sarah, it's been a fun week. Fun doing these shows with you. I really appreciate it. I went to UGM this week and we'll be talking a little bit about that next week for sure. And take a look at that and, I don't know, maybe we'll do it again next week.

I'm looking forward to it.

Sarah Richardson : Make sure you wear your yellow hat at UGM.

Bill Russell: I will wear my yellow hat and I will close this out by saying Go Chiefs, because I know that Dan is a huge Chiefs fan and he'll want me say that. I know you're rolling your eyes. I love it. All right. Hey, that's all for today.

Don't forget, share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Use it as a foundation for mentoring. We want to thank Panda Health, who's investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Check them out at thisweekhealth. com slash panda. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.