Episode Transcript
“Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. In this series, we explore the challenges facing health care systems across the country from improving access to equitable care, building a sustainable workforce, and discovering innovative ways to deliver high-quality, low-cost services in rural and underserved populations. Each episode examines how Sanford Health and other health systems are advancing care for the unique communities they serve.
In this episode, Courtney Collen with Sanford Health News talks with Dr. Vin Gupta, Chief Medical Officer of Amazon Pharmacy and keynote speaker at the 2024 Sanford Health Annual Meeting on the topic of leading through change and uncertainty to create the next breakthrough.
Courtney Collen:
Dr. Vin Gupta, thank you so much for joining us this morning, and welcome to Sioux Falls.
Dr. Vin Gupta:
Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Courtney Collen:
What are the top three opportunities you see when it comes to finding solutions to the most complex challenges in health care and society now and into the future?
Dr. Vin Gupta:
You know, Courtney, it is the essential question we have to ask the entire U.S. health care system, and everybody involved: In the care of patients, how can we do better? Especially coming out from the wake of, or the very peak of the pandemic.
What we’ve ignored is that there has been a baseline chronic epidemic of chronic disease undergirding all of American society. It’s a challenge that has its roots in a lot of issues, but I think number one, the biggest opportunity is people often don’t know they have illness when it first sets in. And so how do we empower patients with better diagnostics so that they know when they have early-stage hypertension that they can get treated soon?
And that leads me into the second opportunity, which is we’ve seen such an emergence of telemedicine at home health care efforts. If you can compare better diagnostics that if you can let somebody know that there’s a problem early on in their illness, whether it’s a chronic disease like hypertension, better diagnostics for cancer. Courtney, I’m a pulmonologist. 5% of people that are eligible for a lung cancer screening test, like a CT scan, actually take advantage of it. People don’t get, utilize the diagnostics that they have available to them right now, but better diagnostics coupled with these at-home health care services, hopefully will allow us to really intervene earlier when somebody has disease, to keep them out of the hospital, to keep them out of the four walls of an inpatient facility like exist at Sanford and maybe within the outpatient environment.
And then lastly, I’ll just say generative AI. We were all talking about how artificial intelligence can help augment the clinician experience. I think it’s going to help us with burnout. I think it’s going to help us with documentation of notes and also reduce misdiagnosis. So there’s a lot of opportunity there.
Courtney Collen:
Thank you for the insight. That’s really eye-opening.
Dr. Vin Gupta:
Yes. It’s pretty extraordinary.
Courtney Collen:
Where have we made progress, Dr. Gupta, when it comes to innovation and success in health care technology? Where does work remain? How will this shape policy and strategy moving forward?
Dr. Vin Gupta:
You know, what we’ve seen already is that now 30% of primary care visits are virtual. People are now normed to experience health care with the doc that they may love within the comfort of their home. And so now our behaviors for health care have changed dramatically in just five years. I’m Chief Medical Officer of Amazon Pharmacy. 10% of pharmacy scrips are delivered direct to home. 90% people still go into the retail environment, which is difficult, especially if you’re sick and pick up their medications.
A survey was recently done showing that a third of people waste on average 13 hours every single year waiting in line at the pharmacy. So when we think about what’s taking root, how we can make it more convenient, how we can make the health care experience more engaging for patients, and maybe reduce risks for medication on adherence, what we’re seeing take root here is, is real traction in virtual telemedicine and services that are direct to doorstep that like getting your medications direct to doorstep. This is not just convenience. This is not just consumerism and health care. This can improve health care outcomes. Yeah.
Courtney Collen:
That’s great to hear. Change is hard, Dr. Gupta, for most people, let alone large organizations like Sanford Health or Amazon. What does it take to get everyone on the bus moving forward in the same direction? How can we motivate our teams to embrace change and innovation?
Dr. Vin Gupta:
You know, I often think that. I’ll say this, at Amazon, one of the criticisms I would have of my own company is that we often build products and services, especially in health care, with the best of intentions but without an understanding of what problem we’re trying to solve. And often in traditional health care, I see patients 30% of my time and in the four walls of an ICU. And we’re rooted to think that we know better because we’ve gone to school more than say somebody else that’s trying to do the right thing but might be an engineer or might have a different skill set but is really focused on the customer or the patient experience.
That’s why I’m so glad to be here today at Sanford because, as somebody that has feet and roles in both sides of health care, I think we need humility more than anything else. If we’re really talking about meaningful, durable change. We’re not just talking about disruption for disruption’s sake. If we’re talking about change that’s going to have traction and scale, both sides need humility. We both have to be open to conversation. But no one knows better.
And that’s the problem I’ve seen too often, especially in traditional health care, that we think we know better. We’re patriarchal in that there’s only one way to do things. And at a place like Amazon, they often build products and services with the best of intentions without clarity on if they’re actually solving a real pain point or a problem for a patient or provider. That’s why we need to come together.
Courtney Collen:
What excites you most about the evolving health care landscape and the potential for the next great breakthrough?
Dr. Vin Gupta:
You know, I think people are talking about health care. The average American is talking about health care in a way that maybe we were not four years ago, Courtney. That the pandemic, if there’s a silver lining to the last four years of crisis, is that now we are much more aware of our own health. What it means to be medically higher risk and what it means to receive care in different types of environments. Like, like again, your home. And oh by the way, different tools to, and different ways to reduce cost of care.
It’s a lot cheaper sometimes just to buy a medication through say, cost-plus drugs that Mark Cuban is innovating on than using your insurance co-pay. People are understanding now that health care innovation means something for the bottom line, their pocket, and also for convenience, ultimately for their own health care outcomes.
That is what’s given me a lot of hope here, that we’re not having to convince corporate administrators of what the right thing is to do. We’ve gone directly to the people. The people have seen the change that’s happening before their eyes. They’ve seen the ways in which the health care system has struggled that the last four years of the pandemic and they want change. And that is now going to cause a demand for a different way to do things. That’s what’s giving me hope.
Courtney Collen:
What is one thing you want us to take away from your conversation on the stage and your visit here in Sioux Falls?
Dr. Vin Gupta:
I think everybody likes to talk about the future of health care buzzwords. Like AI, it’s sexy to talk about. And what I’m going to focus on today are actual true innovations that are scaling as we speak, that represent real opportunity for Sanford, for Amazon, for all of us to come together to do what’s right for patients. But we’re not going to talk about the abstract today.
We’re going to talk about ways in which we can help the Sanford health care system grow, grow in a way that’s fiscally sustainable, that’s going to be able to reach your patients in a scalable way. By 2030, we expect that there’s going to be less health care workers for the demand that’s going to exist in a place like Sioux Falls.
So how can Sanford grow and meet that challenge by 2030? It’s going to be through technology, but it’s not going to be through abstract ethereal conversations on technology. It’s going to be about what I’m going to talk about today, the movement towards at-home health care, meaningful integration of generative AI in the electronic medical record and better diagnostics.
Courtney Collen:
Dr. Vin Gupta, thank you so much for your time, your insight, your leadership, and all that you do in the medical industry. Thank you.
Alan Helgeson (announcer):
You’ve been listening to “Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. Hear more episodes in this series or other Sanford Health series on Apple, Spotify, and news.sanfordhealth.org.
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Posted In Corporate Services & Administration, General, Leadership in Health Care, News, Rural Health, Virtual Care
