Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

Pulse Check: Is Your Hospital's Tech on Life Support? | Follow the Brand Podcast with Erik Pupo of Guidehouse

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 5 • Episode 32

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Unlock the secrets of healthcare transformation with the cutting-edge insights of Erik Pupo, Director for Commercial Health IT Advisory at GuideHouse. Erik takes us on a fascinating journey through the dynamic intersection of healthcare and technology, shedding light on how AI, automation, cybersecurity, and cloud technologies are revolutionizing healthcare systems. From overcoming the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to embracing remote work, Eric shares invaluable strategies for maintaining operational efficiency and driving innovation.

Travel through Erik's remarkable career path, starting from his initial interest in law to becoming a leading figure in healthcare technology consulting. Learn about his early roles in product testing and programming, his experiences working with over 200 healthcare customers, and his leadership philosophies that focus on psychological safety and flexibility. Erik's approach to leadership goes beyond resumes, emphasizing the importance of understanding and motivating individuals to solve complex problems and drive tech innovation in healthcare.

Finally, we delve into the crucial issues of AI and cybersecurity in the healthcare industry. Erik discusses the limitations and potentials of AI, the significance of data quality, and the frustrations of cybersecurity investments undermined by simple attacks. Discover how GuideHouse excels in technology integration, clinical operations, and value-based care, and how their thoughtful product design and user input are reducing administrative burdens on clinicians. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in the intersection of healthcare and technology.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Follow the Brand.

Speaker 1:

I am your host, grant McGaugh, ceo of 5 Star BDM, a 5 Star personal branding and business development company.

Speaker 1:

I want to take you on a journey that takes another deep dive into the world of personal branding and business development using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips. Development using compelling personal story, business conversations and tips to improve your personal brand. By listening to the Follow the Brand podcast series, you will be able to differentiate yourself from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make it one that will set you apart, build trust and reflect who you are. Developing your five-star personal brand is a great way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge. If you have any questions from me or my guests, please email me. At grantmcgaw, spelled M-C-G-A-U-G-H at 5starbdm B for brand, d for development, m for masterscom.

Speaker 1:

Now let's begin with our next five-star episode on Follow the Brand. Welcome to the Follow Brand Podcast. I am your host, grant McGaugh, ceo of Five Star BDM, where we help you to build a five-star brand that people will follow. And today we have a truly exceptional guest who is leading the charge in healthcare technology transformation. Joining us is Eric Pupo, the Director for Commercial Health IT Advisory at GuideUp, one of the largest healthcare management consulting firms in the United States. Eric is a powerhouse in AI, automation, cybersecurity and cloud technologies, working closely with CIOs, ctos and CDOs to navigate the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

Speaker 1:

In this episode, we will uncover the secrets of effective leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore real-world success stories that underscore the importance of foundational IT investments and cultural shifts. How did Eric and his team ensure operational efficiency and improve patient outcomes amidst unprecedented challenges? Find out. Eric's journey is nothing short of inspiring. From testing innovative products to spearheading multi-million dollar healthcare projects, he embodies a leadership philosophy that champions experimentation, learning from failures and creating a culture of psychological safety and adaptability. Imagine the hand of the game from the game of thrones, but in the world of healthcare consulting, eric provides invaluable advice and actionable plans to guide organizations through complex changes. So prepare to be inspired by engaging stories and insightful anecdotes that highlight the power of technology in enhancing patient care. We will dive deep into the strategic implementation of AI in cybersecurity and healthcare and discuss how to build a strong personal brand in this dynamic field. So let's welcome Eric Pupo to the Follow Brand Podcast, where we are building a five-star brand that you can follow.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Follow Brand Podcast. I am your host, grant McGaugh, and today we're going to talk about some technology innovation. And we're going to talk to someone who has been immersed in healthcare and technology for a multitude of years and he's going to give us his eye view what he sees as digital transformation, digital transformation leadership, which is so important for today's healthcare systems as they now embark on these emerging technologies and it's so hard to keep up. You know, one day you're working with your digital front door and now the next day, you're talking about AI automation. You're like whoa, you know, I got to pump the brakes here just a little bit. I got to get my hands around this, my head around this, to see really where this is going. And that's why we talk to experts like Eric Pupo and that he's going to let us know his particular lens, how he sees things and how he can help our leadership to make the right decision.

Speaker 2:

So, eric, would you like to introduce yourself? Absolutely Thanks, grant, eric Pupo. I am the Director for Commercial Health IT Advisory at GuideHouse. We're the second largest healthcare management consulting firm in the United States. I help to run our technology advisory business across areas in cybersecurity, cloud, artificial intelligence, working directly with CAOs, ctos, cdos on a lot of their pressing IT strategy, operational challenges and thinking ahead about where technology is going in healthcare overall.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a mouthful. I tell you that's a lot. So we're going to unpack some of that and have a conversation. And let's start just about leadership. Leadership is so important. First, people want to know this. You never really hear about it. You always hear. You work with some of these companies and they tell you here's my new widget, here's my new process, here's my new way of doing things, and everything's great. But you don't really hear all the success stories around how these things actually impact patient care. And have they done it already? Or is it just an idea? What would you say?

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of times with success stories. People look for what we call a big bang in healthcare, and it's an industry that ab've worked in healthcare about 25 years, 26 years, almost now. Health IT can be very much just some foundational technology investments that you make sure you see them through and they continue to operate well. It's this behind the scenes thing that runs day to day that people focus on. So when I think about success stories a lot of times what I've seen that works really well is what can you build out foundationally? I had the opportunity to be a CIO at Columbia University Medical Center Very challenging role, very interesting role, because I would always be learning from what I call the customer, which is the 6, 7, 8,000 users you have and that you support as a CIO.

Speaker 2:

One of the things we had to go through was this transition to remote work and for many people they're used to it now, in 2018, 2019, 2020, it was still a little bit of a concept. Maybe people weren't used to. And what happens when you do that at a hospital level where you're dealing with a whole bunch of clinical frontline staff nursing teams, clinical teams you're dealing with a lot of administrative staff that is used to you day to day. I work in revenue cycle. I'm sitting in the hospital every day to then shift within a week or two to a fully mobile environment in New York City where it's not the biggest house you're going to be living in. This is not like a huge home office. We've got to get you shifted over in terms of equipment, in terms of software, in terms of the ability to support your job, stay connected, do so securely.

Speaker 2:

Those are the types of success stories I really gravitate towards with operational efficiency, because what we're able to do is not just shift over the staff but really influence patient outcomes, because we didn't really experience a blip in the level of service that we could provide to our patients many who had some really serious conditions, and then you had COVID into that. So we had to do quite a bit to support a patient population that was dealing with some really challenging issues and we had to make sure technology worked for our entire staff to do that. To do it, I think, in two to three weeks, like we did successfully, and then to sustain it beyond that point, I think, was a really big success story for us, and it's the kind of stuff I would really like to gravitate towards.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a success story, especially for the country. No one could. How do you prep for something like that?

Speaker 2:

It's hard. I mean we were going through an epic migration. For your listeners who might not be familiar with it, epic is it's a multi-year undertaking. I got a chance to work for an outstanding CIO, daniel Barchi, who's now at Common Spirit. At that time he was at New York Presbyterian, very well-organized, structured, did things the right way in terms of IT foundation. We're not just doing some fancy tech project. We really got to get the foundation down. It's a project, it's an investment. You got to do it right. So that helps tremendously. But you deal with issues where, for example, at some levels in Columbia, they weren't really supportive of remote work. So we had to shift from a mentality of one day in early January, where we're all working frontline, to now, all of a sudden, in late January, early February. We're shifting in a completely different direction and what you really have to see as a success there is technology. It isn't just about the success of the project. It's what behaviors, what part of the culture within the organization you're changing.

Speaker 1:

That's so important when you brought up culture and change, and going from a known factor of working within, let's say, a facility and that you already kind of know what the securities are, then you go into the unknown. You go into this remote world where you don't have all the control. Specifically, you're talking about cybersecurity and healthcare and I know that was a big challenge. It still remains as a big challenge today. This is something that you champion on a day-to-day basis and go out and talk to all the different CIOs, ceos, ctos about cybersecurity and healthcare. What are some of the big challenges of types of conversations that you're having?

Speaker 2:

I think one of the ones we have is, you know, bats out word culture Like what can we do internally within the organization to drive cybersecurity awareness? Because we can run tons of training classes. You know everybody, you know, I'm sure, some of your listeners. If you work at a corporation, you take HIPAA compliance training, training, awareness in those areas, all great stuff and it's got to last. You know, it's got to be stuff that's in your head where, if I'm going to make decisions I was just talking to a colleague about this you had three different healthcare cyber attacks in the last two, three months.

Speaker 2:

One was really cybersecurity hygiene driven. One was an employee downloaded malicious files, so it's like a phishing attack. And then one that just happened yesterday or really like last week was, was essentially got a third-party contractor that conducted a malicious act on a healthcare network. How do you defend against that? That's the kind of cybersecurity issue a lot of healthcare organizations deal with, because you can spend millions of dollars, put a lot of investment into a lot of security tools. There are tons of them to implement and to use, but you've got to have the culture that is then going to not just use those tools but use the right cybersecurity processes, the right approach to cybersecurity at the field level, people to people to make the cybersecurity posture effective, and a lot of organizations just struggle with that and to overcome it, it's awareness.

Speaker 2:

I think you really have to look at with your cybersecurity posture, how everything fits together, Because too many health systems I've seen spend a lot and they think spending is a driver of success or outcomes and it's not. You've got to look at all the pieces. How do they fit together? Some of those pieces are going to be non-technology pieces, and what am I spending? What are the outcomes I'm getting from that?

Speaker 1:

So important everything you just shared, and I have a great deal of respect for you as an individual and your depth and breadth of experience. Now you're at GuideHouse. You've been there a little over a year. Before that you were at AWS as a global principal practice, which is pretty successful. Tell the audience just a little bit about your experience. What I'm talking about is not just the last two experience. Take us back to college days. How did you get into this field and what drives you as a passion, to do what you're doing today?

Speaker 2:

Wow, yeah, I got lucky. I feel very lucky because for me when I was growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. I like to read, I like to research, I like to research, I like to write, um. And I thought, hey, that's my path. And then when I got to college, I was kind of unsure about that. It wasn't like, hey, I'm going to take that path, um, and then I really wanted to get more into the technology space. It was starting to take off and I just liked working with technology. Overall, I'm very much a techie, very much like working with technology day to day.

Speaker 2:

So I got an opportunity to just start off as a tester of technology products. It's a product many people don't remember, but it's called SkyPagers, where when you went from pagers, you know which were just hey, I've got to call somebody. It's beeping to the ability to type a response on a pager. I Beepin to the ability to type a response on a pager. I mean this was like pre-BlackBerry. This was a big deal for people and this was Motorola, and the reason the product didn't take off was they were marketing so much to healthcare, to providers and to staff. So I had an opportunity to test those and learn about. Hey, what is it in terms of healthcare industry? How?

Speaker 1:

do doctors use this? How would they use?

Speaker 2:

technology and it was a great stepping stone to then go into roles like a database administrator, programming roles, start to get into more consulting roles, which is what I do now. And what really was cool about that was I got an opportunity. I had an opportunity, I think, to like 200 plus healthcare customers all across the United States, even internationally, so you learn from every experience what works, what doesn't work. And then I've gotten an opportunity to work both in healthcare organizations organizations that serve healthcare and then in technology companies as well. So you get so much knowledge from that and so much technology knowledge. And I've worked with so many people that are far smarter than me in technology and I'm like a sponge. You just learn from them and you're able to learn so much of how to do things in technology, how to solve problems, how to create innovation because everybody talks about it, but like what really works be able to move those types of projects forward where I started, you know, just small projects and now managing multi-million dollar projects.

Speaker 1:

And the more you talk, the more I'm intrigued, because I've been mainly on, I would say, the vendor side of the ball. I'm a guy who's recommending the software, the hardware, potentially some human resources that could solve a business problem for my client. You've been on both sides of the ball and I'd like for you to talk to me as if I am a senior leader at a healthcare organization and I need to understand your philosophy. I need to understand you know, do you understand leading large teams, complex projects? I need to know what you I don't know what you know. Help me understand that so I feel comfortable by bringing you into my organization.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. And one of the things you learn with large teams is I'm not a micromanager. I like to empower people and I like to give them the opportunity to go out, do it on their own. I like builders. I like people that say you know what? Hey, here's a problem. I see it, I'm going to go build something, I'm going to try and see what I can do. So that's one of the things you learn with large teams. You've got to be able to delegate down to them. Let them fail, let them try, experiment, build different approaches, try to move forward and be successful.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you find some real gems. I've got an opportunity to work with many individuals that started as just consultants and have become great managers, leaders, partners or on that path now, and it's because you empower them to do that. Sometimes it doesn't work. You, you maybe don't have people that can handle or do that. So then you, what you try to do is you coach, you inspire, you motivate. On top of that of you know here are opportunities for people and to do that, you know, I believe in this, this principle.

Speaker 2:

Oftentimes it's called psychological safety, but what it really is, it's just your basics of management, of like let people speak up, let people be heard, let people, in terms of perspectives, provide various perspectives in terms of how to solve a problem, work in a large team to solve a problem for customers. Because what I've found is that I've seen it in health systems oftentimes you start out with a pre-hypothesis like hey, this IT team isn't operating very well, or this business unit has a lot of problems with technology, and we think it's a technology problem. No, it's a people problem and it's very much driven by. You know, with people, you got to motivate them to dive deeper and solve problems that way where they don't just start with a certain path and say this is the way we're going to do things. They're constantly flexible, they change their mind, they adjust, they're able to deal with complexity and ambiguity, and I like finding people that can deal with that. So I'm always.

Speaker 2:

The other thing with leadership philosophy is don't always be predisposed to hey on the resume. They've got to have the right skills or the right words on there. You've got to interview the person. You've got to know the person. You've got to see like, hey, is this person really able to handle challenges and ambiguity? And if they can, there's a lot of things about healthcare, that you can teach them over time, that they learn from experience. Were they able to deal with clients and deal with large projects very effectively?

Speaker 1:

and this is where you are now.

Speaker 2:

Yes, very big teams yes, big clients. Like I said, we're the second largest firm and we're dealing with 10 $100 million projects. We're dealing with a large team of 50, 200, 300 people. I get the opportunity to work with some really great leaders that help me because, again, I like to work with people that I can learn from that.

Speaker 2:

I'm challenged by, not people that dictate, not people that are you know, it's my way or the highway kind of people. I don't like that and a lot of people don't like that. But you think about it from a leadership perspective. What you want to be able to do in consulting is work with people that are great advisors and are great builders and collectively surround yourself both with them as leaders and then through your staff as well, and it's finding the right mix. Sometimes you're going to get it wrong, sometimes you're going to have difficult clients it happens all the time and sometimes we're not going to get it right. It happens all the time and sometimes we're not going to get it right. It happens all the times. But the ability to adjust and be flexible and come up with solutions for customers, no matter what, is a real bedrock. I think of a lot of what we do as healthcare leaders in consulting.

Speaker 1:

I had a question for you. Yeah, and I want you to be very candid about this is that, as a, let's say, I'm a CIO of a major healthcare organization. When do I need to hire a consultant? And maybe I may not know this, but I need to know when to bring in someone who either has more information, more knowledge, more experience around this particular type of project whether it's digital transformation, it's AI, it's cybersecurity. They need to know when to bring in someone like yourself, Ready to elevate your brand with five-star impact.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Firebrand Podcast, your gateway to exceptional personal growth and innovative business strategies. To exceptional personal growth and innovative business strategies. Join me as I unveil the insider strategies of industry pioneers and branding experts. Discover how to supercharge your business development. Harness the power of AI for growth and sculpt a personal brand that stands out in the crowd. Transform ambition into achievement. Explore more at FirestarBDMcom for a wealth of resources. Out in the crowd, transform ambition into achievement. Explore more at FirestarBDMcom for a wealth of resources. Ignite your journey with our brave brand blueprint and begin crafting your standout Firestar feature today.

Speaker 2:

Well, if you want somebody to, I think, do a few things. You know, I use this Game of Thrones example. It's kind of funny but, like, if you remember Game of Thrones, there's always this hand, the hand of the king. And why do you have that rule? Well, somebody that tells you sometimes that you don't want to hear, or takes a look at things and gives you a little different perspective and some people are afraid of bringing in people to do that.

Speaker 2:

And in consulting, management, consulting that's our job. We're advising you, we've studied, we've learned from experience um, there's often this bad name attached to it, sometimes like hey, just a bunch of powerpoints. You know, I don't like building like a huge elaborate powerpoints. I'd rather sit down with a beer for like an hour and talk to an executive and explain like hey, here's my perspective, here's what I've seen in 25, 26 years that works and doesn't work, and be able to drive to an action from that. So it's finding somebody that you can talk to that gives you a different perspective, challenges your ideas, tells you what you don't want to hear, gives you a little bit of a action plan forward.

Speaker 2:

It's one thing to talk, it's another thing. Can you then take that to pilot, to build something out. And a lot of times in consulting you're doing program development, you're changing the business. So it's not like I'm going to code something, I'm just going to change how your business operates. And if I can show you how that might work and oftentimes with technology advisory we do that where we actually take technology and show people how that would work. That's also why you want to hire a consultant is because you want somebody that can be side-by-side with you to do that and build with you and make it happen.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest questions that are being asked of you right now who's such an emerging technology field in the world of artificial intelligence?

Speaker 2:

and cybersecurity. I mean, what are?

Speaker 1:

what are these big asks that are coming out?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean a cool one and I run our healthcare AI team, so you know a cool one that I work with is we have partners that can go off and build what we call large language models, small language models, any type of model. They can build chatbots, agents, applications. They can do it all. What we focus on a lot is the strategy and governance of that, because one of the cool things I got to do in my career with aversive technologies is actually run teams that would go out with customers, either build that or advise on that. And I got a chance as an example at Accenture to run a healthcare blockchain team An extremely challenging and extremely fun experience. But also you learn a lot from that, because here's an example Everybody in 2000, let's say, 15, 16, 17, 18 was like we're improving everything in healthcare and blockchain and it was like I mean just because of a little like digital coin doesn't mean like this is the best thing to do for healthcare, it's not like that is the way you want to go and technology just solves all the problems of an industry, so like we would go out and try to find opportunities where it could work and where I'd be able to sell it and the point being, you're seeing all that with AI now.

Speaker 2:

It's gone through a hype cycle. You're a little bit in a trove of disillusionment now because people realize, hey, it can't do everything. And one of the parts of it that's a little bit hard for people to reckon with is it's like an engine, like a model. You're feeding it. You pre-train, train models and use data to do that. Some data is good, some data is really not good. If you train a model on not good data and you can use retrieval augmentation methods to try to get around that by saying, hey, I'm going to go out to some other data sources, even that In healthcare it's hard. I mean, there's not always good data for everything and especially within a healthcare organization, if you bring private artificial intelligence and try to implement that, you might not have good data to do that. Private artificial intelligence and try to implement that, you might not have good data to do that.

Speaker 2:

So we're going through that experience, as well as the experience with cybersecurity, similar focus on strategy, because there's just organizations that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to build really strong cybersecurity, posture strong cybersecurity teams to cybersecurity teams, to then be brought down by simple cyber attacks, which is very frustrating because it's like kind of the antithesis of an investment of like I spent millions of dollars and now I've lost all of that just because somebody did something wrong and downloaded a file they shouldn't have. So you look more in a lot of these technology areas at the challenges that relate to a process just as much as it relates to the actual investment in the technology how are you going to use it, what are you going to use it for, and then what is the outcome you expect? And that's really where many of these, I think, opportunities for us at GuideHouse in AI and cybersecurity come from Existing customers that have worked in AI, worked in cybersecurity, and want to do it better and want to learn from experience to do that.

Speaker 1:

That's so important, because who can afford to just lose millions of dollars? So if you can model these things and get a good percent, a good probability of success about what you're doing, now, like I said, don't just fall for the new shiny option, especially in a world of health care where time is of the essence and having the right information in the timely fashion is critical, and you cannot afford bad intelligence, bad intel. It could be, you know, it could be designed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I've seen like another thing that I get on a lot of great opportunities to do is work with other companies and a lot of tech startups, you know have asked me to provide opinions on products. You I get asked a lot of times to help advise on even board level, and oftentimes it's not like hey, be on the board, it's like hey, we just want an opinion. What do you think from your experience and I've seen things like products that are just terrible, like bad ideas. I saw this in a compliance area of like why are you building a product that 10 other companies in healthcare do already? There's no value to it. You're not doing anything new that anybody wants, and it's that type, I think, of challenge.

Speaker 2:

Also we're seeing now a little bit with, especially with AI. Everybody wants to get in that space, so everybody's coming up with solutions and marketing to try to get into the space and then you're seeing a lot of those with just either no outcomes, failed outcomes, no metrics to measure if you even had an outcome, and it's just not creating a positive perception of AI, where everybody now is like, hey, we want to do that. It's more now people are stepping back and saying I've got to rethink and think how I'm going to move forward with something like this.

Speaker 1:

I've got a question to ask you. Yeah, you may have the answer. I'm not sure. You've had a very rewarding career, got a lot of insights, if perfect world right, just a perfect idea that if you have the right product or service to solve a healthcare problem, maybe it's creative, maybe it's not. What would it look like and why?

Speaker 2:

That's a really good question. So I've seen so many products and services. Really good question. So I, I've seen so many products and services, so you know, one of the things I always like to see is is really a data-driven approach in terms of metrics and outcomes. You gotta have that and like not have things that are unrealistic in the context of the healthcare industry because I mentioned like, like you know, compliance. You know, as an example, something I saw at AWS and you know another example from there you know, like doing a product and not having metrics and outcomes that were realistic. You can't just pull it from like an IDC or a Gartner report. It's got to be like something from experience working in the industry and in the space. That is a realistic outcome because you don't want to create with your product or service, any type of disillusionment.

Speaker 2:

And I, I, you know cio, I focus on this and I focus on it also on the advisory side of a lot of cios is you're like, as a cio, selling products and services to a health system in a hospital and if you take that mentality of like everywhere, there's a lot of hospitals where everybody's like IT is just that back office, like they're a pain in the butt to deal with. They're slow, they don't get things done, and it's because there's not a service mentality of working with customers, which is the entire hospital health system. Point B what you want to see with a product is like is there a realistic metric or metrics and outcomes you're driving towards? And then, is there a realistic path in terms of the service you're building to actually go from what we call an MVP or mentally viable product to something that might be much bigger? So are you trying to get right to market and get something out there and create either like a win or a loss?

Speaker 2:

Are you trying to build up with customer loyalty, with features, with parts of a service that might work versus parts of a service that needs to take some more time to work with customers and to build with customers? It's how you approach it. I think that's very important. So I would definitely want to see that and we drive that a lot in our certainly our guide house solutions in healthcare Be realistic, because we have so many people in our company that have worked in healthcare. They can sit and look at something and say this is just a bad idea, it's not going to work, versus some ideas that turn out to be very, very good, and then it's just a matter of the timeline, the pace, how you build it out, what it ends up being.

Speaker 1:

Man, great, great answer to that great question. I'm going to give you the mic as we begin to wrap up here, Sure, and talk to us about, because a lot of people don't understand or they may not be aware. They've heard of different consulting agencies. You know the big four, the big seven, the, this, the, that, GuideHouse. Give us your understanding of GuideHouse and why you would be a great choice for a healthcare organization.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think our strength is our knowledge. We have so many people who are, having worked in hospitals and health systems, that have seen so many problems technology, operational, clinical that you would get, as hiring us, a perspective, I think, from so much experience that you can utilize and oftentimes, what we're trying to customers drive them to their own decisions. So we're not going to come in and say, hey, this is what you do. We're going to come in and say, hey, here are the options, here's what we've seen other organizations do successfully. So I think it's that depth of experience. And then I think what we also can bring in and what I've seen from the technology side is certainly very powerful is the ability of how to integrate technology into healthcare, because it's not like we're just experts in clinical operations or in value-based care, population health or care coordination Because we are.

Speaker 2:

We have people that have done that. What we add to that is people that have then gone out and built care coordination platforms. They built the data lakes, data warehouses behind that, built value-based care technology platforms, worked with great partners to do that, to roll it out to primary care, physicians, medical groups, smaller hospitals, into the rural space. We've pretty much covered all of that in terms of integration, and that's really what a transformation project and transformation solutions are about. It's not just implementing a technology. You've got to know the space, you've got to know what it is you're dealing with people involved, processes involved and then what are the successful outcomes that might come from a pop health program, a care management program? What does that look like?

Speaker 1:

So important to have the experience, to know how to apply the tech.

Speaker 2:

Tech for tech's sake is not going to do anything wrong it's not and and like I've seen it like even in spaces like behavioral health. Uh so my wife's a behavioral health therapist and she's not a a huge fan of technology in the mental space, but not because she's like it doesn't work. What she she brings up, which I love to use as a use case with everybody, is like hey, build stuff for me that makes sense. You know that I'm a therapist. I'm sitting here taking notes, for example, and you're just because you come to me and you say like here's like a pad, that I have a little electronic pen and I can write things. Well, did you think it out in terms of like, how am I do that? How do I secure that? What would I do in terms of sharing their information and how would I integrate that with an electronic health record or other data sources?

Speaker 2:

You got to think about with products and services how would somebody use them and you've seen a lot of great companies that are good at that of like, how would somebody actually use a product?

Speaker 2:

So, like, with technology, that's what experience brings you. You know, I can bring ideas to people on my teams in the clinical rev cycle operational space and say like, hey, this is something that you know somebody in the healthcare space is doing in technology and they'll look at me and say, well, it might work for them, but it's not going to work for 90 percent of the hospital cell systems we work with, because here's all the problems that they deal with that you've got to adjust for, and we see that with cloud, ai, cybersecurity, a lot of different technologies that we work with now, like even we talk about like virtual reality, augmented reality, and there's a lot of great ideas there, but a lot of hospitals you know that we know would not be able to do something with it because it would just sit on a shelf They'd have a vision pro They'd be like this is great for a week, and then they'd be like what do we do with this?

Speaker 2:

We don't have a program, we don't have a process approach of how to move forward with this.

Speaker 1:

I totally get that and I've talked to a lot of different health care professionals administrators, nurses.

Speaker 1:

I talked to a lot of different healthcare professionals administrators, nurses and a lot of times because of their experience with EHRs and whatnot, they're a little bit, you know, kind of turned off of tech because it didn't make their lives easier, it made it more complex. Here we are now in 2024, and we just started to tell you, hey, it would be a great idea if we could just automatically take the doctor's dictation in his notes and automatically put it into the EHR. Yeah, that would really help take some of that burden off of the clinician and make sure that it's accurate and that so they don't spend one hour with the patient, then two hours doing data entry. That type of thing has to stop and I like how you just eloquently all of our information technology professionals and startups and companies that are out there and understand when you're dealing with health. You really got to get their input. You can't just make something and then present it to them and expect them to figure out some kind of way to make it work. That's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

That's not and I wouldn't say you know, with technology experience like I was talking about, with the ability to find people that are hungry and smart, can deal with ambiguity and challenges, it's just as much. You know, we can take people that have worked in the healthcare industry for 10, 15 years and start to put them on technology projects. They've solved problems. They can step up and learn technology.

Speaker 2:

I, you know, have somebody I work with on our AI solution team that is a great leader and what she's been able to do is bring experience from the hospital level and the vendor level of completely outside of AI but very smart understanding how would AI actually work on a business problem. And that's what you want. You don't need a 20-year data scientist and God bless you if you could find one but that's not going to give you success or results. I'd rather take somebody who's 20 years in healthcare and sit down with them for a month and go over, like here's how artificial intelligence works, to come up with a solution, because they're going to know from experience of what has worked and not worked in the past how to approach it.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely no-transcript, potentially in R&D and that kind of thing. I tell you, Eric, this has been great and I want the audience to know how to get in contact with you Before you leave. You've got to give a shout-out to your friends at HIMSS and CHIME, of course, yeah.

Speaker 2:

No, the work that you and Kendall Brown do at South Florida HIMSS and the entire South Florida HIMSS leadership team. You know I wish for me. It's kind of sad because I travel for work a little bit and a lot of times it's just a short-term travel but still do some of it. So I'm not always able to be at all the South Florida HIMSS events, but it's some of it. So I'm not always able to be at all the South Florida HEMS events but it's one of the best, I think.

Speaker 2:

Professional organizations in health IT in the United States and I mean that personally because great camaraderie, great knowledge, you got a lot of vendors, you got a lot of doctors, you got a lot of leaders in South Florida that work at the hospital level, all together just having a good time what's professional associations are about. So that just having a good time to wait what's what's professional associations are about. So that's great. You know, I think, certainly with the work that I do with chime, there's so many great leaders at chime. You know, I just had a great conversation with mike mosquito, uh, just this past couple days.

Speaker 2:

Um, because I'm really excited he's doing the cso leadership academy out utah, uh, coming up july and I was like I'd love to go and just sit and learn from you, which is one of the best things you can do in health IT as well. It's guidance people. Even if you think you've 25 years, you've learned everything. Just go learn from other leaders every month. Try to find times to do that. Chime's another great one in terms of the opportunity to be able to do that as well.

Speaker 1:

Man, chimes, another, you know, great one in terms of the opportunity to be able to do that as well. Man, and you're right, and there's so many. Everyone has a different experience, different take. That's why I do the personal brand follow the brand, because not oh yeah, I've had 170 episodes. They're all different, they're all have different takes. Then this is going to be in our technology innovation, uh series and I guarantee not one person you'd be like wow, that wasn't just the same part. No, because your perspectives are going to be completely different from anyone else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned the word follow the brand because, like we just welcomed our intern class and I've been meeting with all our interns and like they're asked all the intern questions Like how do I, what can I do, how can I be you? Like all this great stuff, but what I teach them about is branding, because personal brand is so important. When you think about yourself, you think about if you're building a business, your practice. You know, I've talked a little bit about toxicity before, like working in toxic work environments, people that nobody wants to work with. They're just like as a leader, you know, oh my God, I don't want to deal with that person.

Speaker 2:

So I tell people like, when there's so many ways you can build your brand, your network, you have different perspectives and opinions, you're easy to work with, you are very much somebody in terms of like easy to work with, where you'll buddy up with somebody as part of a team and let all the team members have credit. Just think about doing that 10 times and how many new friends and new opportunities are going to open up for you. So build a brand for yourself and especially for me and healthcare technology. I've been able to do that and been very successful. But anybody can take those types of paths on branding and how they want to proceed forward with the way they're perceived by their co-workers and everybody else they get an opportunity to work with. Well, your perception.

Speaker 1:

My perception of you is very, very high. I have been able to understand your brand. I love what you do on LinkedIn. Put a lot of information out there for people to understand. It's about sharing knowledge, not just patting yourself on the back Some people. They get confused about what personal branding. Personal branding for me is about being a thought leader, leadership and putting information in front of people that they can take advantage of. This is the purpose of this podcast is to do that type of thing so we all can get better. I love that yeah and uh.

Speaker 2:

You know, certainly for people to reach out. They can reach out right on linkedin. I've built up tremendous number of followers by just being collaborative. People reach out. I'm always interested in taking calls and, you know, talking to people and networking, so that's the easiest way, and what I encourage everybody to do as well is do that as part of your brand. Build that following, build perspectives, connect with people, build up a core that you can rely on.

Speaker 1:

Man, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Follow Brand. I cannot wait again to see you in person. I want to see you at one of our HIMSS events down here we're going to be in October. We'll be in a great. You are definitely invited. Come to the stage and share some of your knowledge with all of us.

Speaker 2:

I'd love that. I'd love that. I'm sorry I couldn't make the golf tournament. I had to travel that day. I had to try all that today. We won't hold your feet to the fire for that one.

Speaker 1:

But I definitely want to encourage your audience, everyone out there in the GuideHouse world. They can tune in to all the episodes of Follow Brand at 5 Star BDM. That is the number five at Star B for Brand B for Development InfoMasterscom. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you, sir, appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks for joining us on the Follow Brand Podcast. Big thanks to Full Effect Productions for their incredible support on each and every episode. Now the journey continues on our YouTube channel Follow Brand TV Series. Dive into exclusive interviews, extended content and bonus insights that will fuel your success. Subscribe now and be a part of our growing community sharing and learning together. Explore, engage and elevate at Follow Brand TV Series on YouTube. Stay connected, stay inspired. Till next time, we will continue building a five-star brand that you can follow.