In this episode, Kerry interviews Dan Peres, President of Modern Healthcare, about the challenges and innovations in the healthcare industry. They discuss topics such as shifting models of care, the role of AI, the importance of patient-centricity, and the challenges of staffing and labor. In addition, they discuss the need for strategic decision-making and collaboration among healthcare leaders.
In this episode, Kerry interviews Dan Peres, President of Modern Healthcare, about the challenges and innovations in the healthcare industry. They discuss topics such as shifting models of care, the role of AI, the importance of patient-centricity, and the challenges of staffing and labor. In addition, they discuss the need for strategic decision-making and collaboration among healthcare leaders.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Meet Dan Peres
02:31 Navigating the Complexities of Healthcare Industry
10:40 Shifting Models of Care by Meeting Patient Demand
17:55 Strategic Decision-Making and Collaboration in Healthcare
24:33 Addressing Staffing and Labor Challenging for Better Patient Outcomes
ABOUT DAN
Dan Peres is a media and marketing leader with high-impact editorial experience and a record of creative ingenuity in brand positioning, customer acquisition and audience development. He joined Ad Age in July 2020 as Editor-in-Chief and was promoted to Associate Publisher of the brand in October 2021 and then President of Ad Age in June 2022 (retaining his Editor-in-chief title as well). Peres added Modern Healthcare to his portfolio in January 2023. His oversight includes editorial operations, sales, marketing, and events for the brands.
Connect with Dan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-peres/
ABOUT KERRY
Kerry Perez hosts the Elevate Care Podcast, dedicated to driving innovation in workforce technology, total talent management, and workforce staffing needs.
As the Vice President, Enterprise Strategy at AMN Healthcare, Kerry Perez leads the design and implementation of enterprise strategies to fuel growth and achieve market leadership.
With over 15 years of experience in various healthcare roles at AMN, including recruitment, marketing, innovation, strategy, and mergers and acquisitions, Kerry established AMN's Diligence and Integration Management Office in her previous role. There, she oversaw the strategic and functional integration of new acquisitions to enhance value.
Guided by principles of customer obsession, ambitious thinking, and tangible results, Kerry's personal and professional mantra is "Be a Somebody who Makes Everybody Feel Like a Somebody." Committed to mentoring emerging leaders and building high-performing teams, Kerry holds Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Economics and Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Elevate Care delves into the latest trends, thinking, and best practices shaping the landscape of healthcare. From total talent management to solutions and strategies to expand the reach of care, we discuss methods to enable high quality, flexible workforce and care delivery. We will discuss the latest advancements in technology, the impact of emerging models and settings, physical and virtual, and address strategies to identify and obtain an optimal workforce mix. Tune in to gain valuable insights from thought leaders focused on improving healthcare quality, workforce well-being, and patient outcomes.
Learn more about the show: https://www.amnhealthcare.com/podcast/elevate-care-podcast/
00:02
Welcome to Elevate Care. I'm your host, Kerry Perez, and I'm joined here today with Dan Peres, President of Modern Healthcare. Dan, welcome to the show. Hey, Kerry, I'm really happy to be here. Anything about your intro that you want to add to? The only thing that I would add is that I'm a relatively new observer to the health care space.
00:33
My knowledge or depth of knowledge around healthcare was really limited to that as a consumer of healthcare or the father of consumers of healthcare or the son of parents that are consumers of healthcare. So this last probably, let's call it 16 or so months for me has been.
00:59
a real crash course into a extremely complex industry. And I've loved every minute of it. You know, so as you were learning about the opportunity for modern healthcare coming into quite the circumstance post COVID, did you have any trepidations about getting into the space? Or did you look at it as a fun kind of challenge? Oh, I looked at it as a fun challenge. I don't think I knew what was really in front of me though, if I'm being honest.
01:29
It's a super complex industry and, and it's, it's, it's an industry that I believe is at an inflection point. There's, you know, there's a lot of change happening right now in healthcare. And I suspect health, you know, healthcare is constantly evolving. There's, there's always regulatory changes and, and new policy changes and, and technological advancements.
01:52
It's a media brand that covers the healthcare industry. And I have been over the course of the last year or so meeting with CEOs of health systems, meeting with payers, meeting with folks from startups, meeting with executives from GPOs and staffing agencies. I mean, really, it's really been, I've...
02:20
I've cast a wide net so I can try to get as broad an understanding of this industry as I possibly can. So before we maybe dive into some of the content of what you've learned from these people, I'd be curious with your self-proclaimed new entrant into the healthcare space, any unique observations you have from a person entering into this space? Yes. I mean, I think there are so many issues.
02:50
facing healthcare right now as a business. So it's been really interesting to come in as an observer, because modern healthcare is not a part of the healthcare industry, right? We're the media industry, but we are observers of this space. And it's been really interesting to look at all of the various challenges that are facing this industry, all of the incredibly innovative.
03:18
solution that people are bringing to the table to face those challenges. So it's a, it's a unique perspective, Carrie, because I'm able to look at the challenges and look at the solutions, but I'm not facing those challenges and I'm not trying to implement those solutions. So it's a real interesting sort of kind of outside perspective that really allows me and us at modern healthcare. To kind of.
03:48
what we're seeing and talk about what we're seeing, but not actually have to roll our sleeves up and dig into it. That's interesting. I'm curious if there's any challenges where on the surface you're like, well, that should be easy to fix, but then you kind of dig in and it's a little bit more complex. Like, oh, or is everything like right off the bat looks very complex? Well, right off the bat, it mostly looks complex.
04:15
You know, one of the single greatest issues facing healthcare today are the, um, uh, are later issues around labor and staffing. And so in theory, you, you should be able to say, oh, well, just hire more or just, you know, find a contingent workforce. I think that's, that's much more complicated than that. Right.
04:40
Everything else that I'm hearing is I have conversations with the executives in this industry. There's no simple solution to, I think, the main challenges that are facing healthcare executives today. So yeah, you're preaching to the choir with the staffing and labor challenges, obviously something that AMN is kind of living and breathing. What else are you hearing from healthcare executives that's kind of keeping them up at night? Maybe they're top three, three to five.
05:10
Gosh, I think the impact of AI and technology or technological advancements or developments more broadly on healthcare is certainly number one, right? Use cases within the top three, right? Use cases for artificial intelligence.
05:36
in healthcare, certainly very important. How healthcare is shifting its model, or the model is sort of evolving from.
05:52
care delivery models that really up until a couple years ago were very brick and mortar based, but are now more at home based or based through virtual care and telehealth. We obviously saw the pandemic accelerate a lot of that. Certainly, as I mentioned, the staffing shortages and burnout that we're seeing with healthcare workers.
06:20
I can keep going. Cybersecurity, data privacy, certainly there. The rise of non-traditional healthcare providers. We've seen a lot of news around the retail providers in recent weeks. There was certainly Walmart seemingly exiting the space and others. So I think there's a lot going on.
06:48
when you're talking with healthcare executives, are they having any troubles prioritizing or do they feel pretty clear about, here's what we tackle first, second, third? Because there's only so much room, only so much resources, margins are slim, you really have to kind of choose. Yes, I think, so yes, margins are slim. I think it's really critical to sort of emphasize that.
07:14
And that's a really great point, Kerry. These are razor, razor thin margins, right? And so there's a lot to prioritize, right? So there's a lot of plates spinning, or whatever cliche you wanna use, they all tend to go, I'll stick with this sort of circus, you know, a lot of balls in the air, or a lot of plates spinning. I think most people are trying to prioritize this sort of brick and mortar.
07:43
care options versus at home care options seems to be a huge priority for providers. I think finding the right use cases for AI is also right up there. And then I think kind of next to that, managing any kind of workforce or staffing shortages in the workforce. I think that those are the...
08:07
The three, there are certainly others. I'm not suggesting that there aren't others, but those are the three that I see kind of continually kind of making their way to the top. So let's maybe kind of break those down. The first one sort of moving outside of maybe the brick and mortar, kind of shifting sites of care, shifting models of care. Tell me a little bit about how maybe patients are kind of helping to drive that narrative.
08:33
I think that it's a far more patient centric or consumer centric industry than maybe it's, it's been, uh, in maybe ever. Right. So, so the, the more often than not the, I'm going to use the word consumer in, in this case, the, the, the consumer has had choices that they have not previously had, and so there will always be a need, you know, for, for better or worse to go into a hospital setting.
09:02
and receive some sort of treatment of some kind, right? I mean, typically if you're gonna go deliver a baby, you're gonna wanna do that, most people anyway, in a hospital setting. And there are a number of acute medical conditions that you really need to go to a hospital to have addressed, right? However, there are lots of things that...
09:23
Again, in this case, I'm going to use the word consumer that the consumer faces where they have a choice. She, he are able to say, Hey, do you know what? I actually want to try to deal with this at home, or I want to try to deal with this just down the street from where I live versus going versus going to a hospital. And, and I think the, the, the provider, whether they're the, the, the large health system or more local or community providers.
09:50
need to bring solutions to the table for that consumer. How are you going to sort of deal with this at home or how are you going to deal with this a little more locally? And they have prioritized that, but it's the consumer that has the choice now to say, hey, do you know what? I prefer to deal with this virtually or hey, is there a way that I can deal with this, you know, on my phones, you know, or whatever the case may be. So I think that there's a lot of demand has been put on.
10:18
providers to find alternate delivery outlets, if you will, so that care models are different, right? And monitoring is different and all of these things that people, if given the chance, would prefer to do from the comfort of their own home. And do you think health systems are embracing it? Are they, is it cause a little bit of fear,
10:48
you know, co-opetition with sort of big retail, or is everyone still trying to figure out how everyone plays together? I think if you're not embracing it, then you're gonna lose, in my opinion. I think you have no choice but to embrace it. You have no choice but to innovate. And I think we see here that the most innovative health systems, the most innovative providers, the most innovative leaders are gonna be the ones that ultimately win.
11:17
And I think, you know, if, you know, the flip side of that, you're just sort of staying with the model that, that, that you've had, uh, for years or decades, even that you're, you're not, you're not going to endure, you're not going to evolve, you're not going to grow. Um, and so innovation here ultimately wins. And we see that, or we're seeing this again, as observers, uh, with kind of.
11:44
built within the health system or strategic partnerships, but there has to be an awareness that in order for us to modernize, in order for us to keep up with what the consumer interests and needs and demands are, you absolutely have to innovate and in some instances be pioneering. So to answer your question, Kerry, I think certainly fear comes with that.
12:13
Right. You know, but you have to be willing to, to go for it. And are you seeing that sort of attitude and they'll shift to maybe try before there's a perfect sort of, you know, understood outcome, are people willing to take a little bit more risks maybe now than they were before? Some people are right. And, and, and this is where, you know, we see some organizations are more innovative and, and, and more comfortable with, with.
12:42
with risk and then we see others follow and which is great. This has happened since the dawn of time, right? Malcolm Gladwell would agree, you know, that tipping point. Yeah, there are some people that are gonna be like, oh great, this is where we're going and we're gonna take this idea that maybe someone else has created and we're gonna shape it to better suit our organization. That's great, right? That happens all the time. And then again, there are the people, the real late adopters that are,
13:12
and then get risk here, because we talked about, Kerry, how thin those margins are for a lot of these organizations. So you really have to be nimble and move with agility here, or you're gonna ultimately lose. So that was the first topic that you mentioned. The second one was more around AI. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm tired of talking about AI, even though it is just like such the burgeoning thing that's going on. But curious from your perspective, like,
13:40
the maturity scale of knowing a health system or any individual you talk to, knowing that they need AI, but being clear on what they need it for and the ability to sort of easily adopt it or weave it through their current model. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, excuse me, that's a great question. I mean, and I agree, it sort of creeps into to nearly every discussion in some way.
14:11
I'll say here, I'm not suggesting that you're saying this, but, you know, I don't, I don't view AI as some shiny object that, you know, we'll, we'll be here and then we'll go away. I actually truly believe that, that this is transformative technology, globally across all industries and, and we will be interacting with AI and, and, and all of its various iteration, really from this point forward, understanding how
14:41
what the best use cases are for AI within healthcare is just now happening. And so what we're observing is that there are great applications for AI on the administrative side. There are great applications that allow clinicians to focus more time on patient care. And I don't foresee a time.
15:11
when AI is dictating a patient care. I don't see that. I think clinicians are as important than ever and will be, but I think what we've seen, or what we are seeing anyway, is that AI is enabling caregivers, doctors, nurses, technicians, to focus more time on...
15:38
patient care and positive patient outcomes. So a lot of the administrative things, note taking, things like that can be done with AI. I also think AI can help clinicians communicate where they typically haven't been able to, right? You search a series of either symptoms or.
16:06
or things that you're seeing in your community hospital that you haven't seen before, you're not quite sure how to approach, and you can find that a clinician, however many miles away in Boston, let's say, came across the same sort of set of symptoms, and it allows you to sort of very, very quickly connect with someone on something where you haven't been able to do that before. So I think.
16:34
The use cases again are really just starting to crystallize, just starting to come into shape. But there's a lot of backend stuff that happens at hospitals or in larger health systems that I think AI will really, really help with. And again, the administrative tests that really help support clinical decision-making, that help...
17:00
enhance the patient experience, you know, but hands-on clinical care will, will doubt be replaced certainly in my lifetime. I really appreciate that insight and I completely agree. I mean, I use AI in daily life. AMN has it in our, in our own products and I'm glad that, you know, it's here to stay with, with, you know, with the appropriate application.
17:25
what you described with that sort of democratization of information, that's always been, I feel like, something super key for me. There's so many intelligent people finding things every day, so many clinical trials are going on, so much, you know, personalized medicine. To be able to share that and have it readily available, I think, is a game changer. So thanks for calling out that point in particular. One last thing, maybe on that topic, you know, there's a lot of
17:54
new companies, new point solutions. What's your perspective on maybe decision fatigue or paralysis when it comes to a health system making the decision on like what technology to go with or what partnership to go with? That's a great question. And, you know, one could argue that, you know, 90 some percent of these sort of new
18:22
Solution oriented startups that are trying to get in front of providers, you know, may not be here, you know, a year from now. I am a capitalist. I'm an, I try to be an optimist. So that, that is, is, you know, a relatively sort of pessimistic viewpoint, but I actually believe it's a realistic viewpoint. You know, there's so many solutions that are being brought to the table. So many.
18:47
digital solutions specifically, right? And it's hard for the decision maker at the health system to determine what to go with and which meetings to take, and is this gonna be valuable, and does this solve a problem that we are actually facing? I think it's really important to start with the problem, not the solution, right? And so I think you have to identify, okay, what are our challenges? What problems do we need to solve? And then,
19:16
work to either create that solution or more often than not, find a partner who has the solution to this problem versus coming at it the other way, right? Which is, oh, cool, this is a cool product. Does this solve any of my problems? And I think, again, I think, you know, you have to really identify what your issues are, what's standing in the way of growth.
19:45
where is your community and where are your consumers and what do they need? And then seek out that solution. And so lots of providers are just being cold called on a very regular basis, right? If you ask the sort of people that work on innovation teams, what does your inbox look like? They'll tell you that it's just jammed with people trying to get meetings to present.
20:14
their business, their idea, their product, their software, whatever the case may be. And that's great. And I wish all of those companies a ton of luck. But I think you're going to find that you're going to make the strongest connection when you are solving the problem that someone has identified they have. And I think you can.
20:42
start with diagnosing within your own organization, okay, what do we need to address here? What problem do we need to solve? That makes sense. And even within an organization, there's lots of different decision makers. So before maybe a CIO could make a specific technology decision and a CMO could make a different labor staffing decision and a CFO has a different sort of maybe holistic view.
21:12
Are you seeing any sort of shifts there of decision-making changing or coming together in unique ways as people are looking at maybe holistic platforms or interoperability of end to end? Thoughts there? Yes, I mean, I think it's all kind of merging together, right, and interoperability is one of, I think one of the biggest buzzwords, you know, right now, right? I mean, it's incredibly, incredibly important. And so...
21:38
I think silos that you just talked about are being broken down and things are a little more porous because they're really reaching across the whole organizations. And so whereas things were siloed before and like, Hey, I deal with this and this team deals with this and this team deals with this. I think the demands that are on, on certainly providers now, it really suggests that, that you have to be fluid.
22:07
across the organization and can't simply look at a problem or a solution and its impact on one area of your business. You really have to look at it across the board. So these leadership teams, right? You talked about a CIO and a CMO and a chief medical officer and all of that now really have to come together under the CEO, of course.
22:36
and look at what their needs are, where they need to be investing in new platforms or, or, you know, how are they going out to their partners, whether it's Epic or anyone else, and the, the, the EHR space, you know, what do we really need to be doing to better serve our community here? And I think that that reaches across the organization.
23:02
And you're seeing that strategic shift happen. People are kind of getting in line with, you know, knowing that that has to kind of come together. Yes. I mean, from my, in my opinion, right. I want to stress this. It's just one man's opinion, but I have a unique vantage point. The, the best led organizations are those organizations that are kind of structured so that they are here. Everyone's communicating.
23:28
No one's going rogue. Decisions that are being made from a supply chain standpoint, from an investment standpoint, from a growth standpoint, from a staffing standpoint, are all looking and working together. And hopefully, right, and this is where it comes back to me as a consumer, hopefully they are all putting patient outcomes at the top.
23:55
at the top of that list, right? So like in order to better serve our communities, in order to better serve our patients, in order to see the best patient outcomes, we need to be investing here, here, here, and here. And we need to be structuring this way. Look, I believe in a good margin. I believe in healthy businesses, but you know. But you believe in healthy people.
24:23
I do, I do. And so let's put patient outcomes at the top. And I think there are a lot of organizations that are doing that. Love that dialogue. Maybe that last point you're talking about before, and then you referenced again, sort of staffing and labor. And of course, you know, that's where AMN plays in a lot of ways. What's new? What are they talking about? What are we seeing? Well, it's interesting, because I actually think all of the things that we've talked about today are linked.
24:52
Right? I really do. I think the advancements in technology and artificial intelligence and hospital executives focusing on at home or virtual care, I think staffing, I think all of the, I mean, so, you know, a clinician burnout, all of these things, I think, I think are linked, you know, and, and so I, you know, we talk.
25:17
You know, or I have conversation a bit with, with providers that talk about, you know, strengthening the culture within their organizations, making sure that, that, uh, attraction and retention are there from a staffing standpoint, finding ways, uh, to limit that burnout, right? Well, AI helps, right? We just talked about, um, uh, the, uh, the, um,
25:44
the way that AI can enhance clinical care, right? And help with a lot of those sort of more administrative things that clinicians, doctors, and nurses are dealing with day in and day out, with each patient that they encounter, to allow more kind of hands-on patient care. So they're all, they really are all linked. And so I think...
26:12
You know, this is, this is a real challenge for health systems and hospitals of all, of all sizes, making sure that their teams are happy, that their teams have a work life balance, that their teams have the help that they need to, to optimize patient outcomes. Right. Uh, and so I think at the end of the day, that
26:41
That is this, that's the tip of the spear here, right? This is the most important thing, right? We have to make sure that we have the, there that emergency departments have emergency physicians that, you know, we see it a lot around behavioral health. Are there enough caregivers within the behavioral health space? Are there enough nurses? Are there enough technicians? Are there enough people there to sort of operate machinery and do the tests that are needed?
27:09
Are there enough people in the laboratories? Laboratory medicine is a huge part of this. And so anything that technology can do to help alleviate some of this burnout that this industry is seeing in really huge waves right now, I think will go a long way to helping. And then...
27:36
sort of unrelated, but just worth noting is I have had a number of conversations about, where health systems are looking to build relationships with clinicians when they're still even in college, before they go on to medical school or nursing school or whatever that case may be, and start to support their local communities more, the local programs, nursing programs and medical schools.
28:03
and build these relationships with clinicians at a very early stage and help kind of cultivate those relationships with that clinical talent that they're gonna need to staff their organizations. Yeah, I've heard a lot of that recently too. It's great to corroborate that. It is tough to kind of keep running. You know, there's a reason maybe sort of specialized staffing exists because there's a lot of costs that go into setting up the staffing agency. From your perspective,
28:33
How's that working? And are there challenges that, you know, maybe I would have thought are there that aren't, you know? I think, I think you, you're right. I think the, the costs associated with maintaining contingent work for it as we, as hospitals sort of moved through the pandemic had been crippling. Right. And so I think, you know, successful organizations are turning to
29:02
companies like AMN and others, not just for contingent workforce needs, right? But really for workforce solutions and strategic planning around how they retain within their organizations and how they grow their organizations. And so I think a lot of people are turning for broader strategic help and, and
29:30
guidance and advice from outside organizations because it did get very expensive. And we have talked now several times about how lean those margins are. And so you want to manage a healthy business. You may have to change the way you're looking at it. And so whether it's
29:56
building it like inside, like you're talking about, Carrie, or just offering some different, some much needed, I think, strategic input or guidance, I think is critical to how these larger health systems grow and maintain a healthy bottom line. We'll be covered a lot of ground. Anything that we didn't touch on that you think you'd like to mention? Oh, gosh. No, this has been a really great, you know.
30:26
conversation. I think there's always things that are coming up, you know, and this is what's so complex about this industry, right? Just as we see that they've got one thing sort of figured out and settled on comes the new set of challenges, the new set of regulatory issues, the new set of technological advancements.
30:52
It's, I think, never a dull moment, and it's a really exciting industry to observe. No, I'm grateful for the conversation. I think we covered a lot of ground. Me too, Dan. Thank you. So, you know, anything that you wanna plug, what's coming up for Dan, what's coming up for Modern Healthcare that you'd like our listeners to know? Well, I appreciate that. I would recommend people take a look at Modern Healthcare, subscribe to Modern Healthcare.
31:20
We are doing our level best to stay ahead of the curve and to keep up with the breakneck pace that this industry is moving. And we have an incredibly talented newsroom of reporters and editors who are authorities across lots of different parts of this industry. So give us a look if you haven't already, please.
31:46
Dan, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation. I feel like we could have kept going for hours. So thank you once again, and thanks everybody for listening. Catch you next time on Elevate Care. Thank you for joining us today on Elevate Care. If you found this episode valuable, please consider sharing it with a colleague and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. You can learn more about this episode and our show on our website at amnhalfcare.com.
32:12
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