Episode Transcript
Alan Helgeson (announcer):
“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, host Courtney Collen with Sanford Health News talks with Ceci Connolly, president and CEO of Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP). Ceci is a speaker at the 2024 Summit on the Future of Rural Health Care.
Courtney Collen (host):
Ceci, welcome to Sioux Falls. It’s so nice to have you here.
Ceci Connolly:
Courtney, thank you. It is nice to be back in Sioux Falls and at the Summit.
Courtney Collen:
You were joining us this morning for “Shaping the Future: Policy, Politics, Advocacy in a Dynamic Environment.” That was the topic. I’d love to hear your takeaway or a couple of takeaways that you want to drive home with our audience here.
Ceci Connolly:
I had a couple. One was especially listening to my colleagues from the AMA (American Medical Association) and then the Pennsylvania association focused really on nursing home assisted living, et cetera, is that the workforce shortages in health care continue and will likely get worse if there are not more creative solutions brought to bear.
We know that, for instance, the typical physician needs seven to 10 years of schooling and training. We don’t necessarily have a decade to solve some of the crunch that is out there when it comes to caregiving, so I love when government gets out of the way a little bit and enables the creative entrepreneurial spirit to take over.
My colleague Zach from Pennsylvania, my home state, was talking about the way in which they trained up certain nursing technicians, and by starting with a very lower level, take an online course, then go into a nursing home, get a little bit of training experience, and kind of work their way up, the way that they’ve started easing some of those demands because we know that we don’t always need an M.D. for everything. But we need many more people on our health care teams. And so I loved hearing about some of the really nice experiments that are going on out there in the country.
At the same time I was listening, thinking to myself, I really hope that government – state or federal – doesn’t start kind of mucking around with this.
Courtney Collen:
Well, thank you so much for the insight and for sharing that with us. Do you have a hot take that you’re going to take home?
Ceci Connolly:
Well so I don’t know if this is so much a take, but you know, I got fairly riled up hearing from my good friend Dr. Scott Gottlieb on some of the pharmaceutical industry perspective, because I think that that is still really the piece of our American health care system that is operating in a black box, especially when it comes to pricing. And yes, they go through FDA approval for safety and efficacy.
But his comment that the price is what the market will bear is troubling when you think about the pricing, and again, this black box of how the heck did they come up with a thousand dollars a month for a GLP-1, for instance? It’s just not sustainable. So that’s one that really continues to alarm me, and I wish that the pharmaceutical industry would begin to give some thought to how we as a country are going to afford their very exciting innovations.
The other thing I just love is hearing Bill Gassen talk about the integrated approach, because that’s really our whole philosophy at ACHP.
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Courtney Collen:
Thank you so much for that. What innovation or action, Ceci, do you think will move the needle in the next one to two years?
Ceci Connolly:
I’m probably going to say, you know, I’m going to say virtual care for mental health. And so that’s not so much one innovation, but it’s really taking two elements and starting to bring them together in a very powerful way that has the potential to address one of the biggest unmet needs in our country in a way that patients are very enthusiastic about.
I think in the early days, we didn’t know how patients were going to feel about virtual care of any kind. And some of it varies by age or circumstances, but what is fascinating to me is that for so many people struggling with some sort of behavioral or mental health issue, they’re very, very comfortable. I think they feel it’s a very private setting. It’s convenient. They might be interacting from their own home. They’re not going out to some facility somewhere in downtown that says, “mental health clinic” or something like that kind of screaming out loud. And so I’m extremely excited about the potential there.
Courtney Collen:
Wonderful. What is the biggest misperception in rural health care would you say?
Ceci Connolly:
You know, in rural health care, it is probably just sort of this notion of behind the times and stalled and stuck, you know, kind of stuck in your ways. You’ve been doing it that way forever. And it’s really, honestly, because not many people, especially on the coasts and places like Washington, D.C., are getting to rural communities to see it for themselves. But I certainly know from my travels here and many other states I’m thinking about, we have Presbyterian in New Mexico is another wonderful member of ours. We have members in the Pacific Northwest.
And you and I get to travel around and what you see is the old cliché: necessity is the mother of invention. And I love the ingenuity that we have seen in places such as Sanford. I mean, you certainly know this Courtney, but Sanford has been pursuing the virtual care, care at home options for such a long time, made such big early investments. And I really think and hope now it’s going to pay off.
Courtney Collen:
Yeah. We’ve got our virtual care center opening in just a few weeks.
Ceci Connolly:
I was here when they were shoveling the dirt.
Courtney Collen:
Yes. I was too. And we’re so grateful and thankful of Sanford’s continued commitment to virtual care.
Ceci Connolly:
Yes.
Courtney Collen:
And you mentioned, mental health, that’s going to be huge. AI in health care, Ceci – how do you feel about how it’s impacting health care? Is it overhyped? Where do you see the impact most?
Ceci Connolly:
So, absolutely early days, and I’m going to suggest that with so many other things in health care, there’s kind of this early, oh, it’s all going to happen super fast. And it won’t because health care moves slowly.
I think that the obvious places where we will see benefit is first of all, around streamlining any kind of administrative tasks, chores. It has the potential to help consumers. For instance, when you go to your health plan or hopefully it’s an integrated system and you’re logging on, AI can help you get to the right place to answer your questions and take care of your services. It can kind of direct and move and navigate you through these mazes much more quickly. You need to refill a prescription, boom, you’re over here. You need to see a specialist. Oh, you’re going into this place. That’s terrific.
And then I do think for clinicians, there will be the ability to bring information to the bedside quickly. That said, I don’t see AI getting in the middle of the very sacred, trusting doctor-patient relationship. Yeah. That’s not going to happen too quickly. And as a former journalist, I can be pretty obsessed with accuracy. And so I do have some concern about how we all as consumers are really going to know which sources to trust along the way.
Courtney Collen:
Well, we are grateful for that insight. Thank you. I did not know you were a former journalist. That’s fantastic.
Ceci Connolly:
25 years!
Courtney Collen:
Well, the industry is lucky to have you, that’s for sure. I’d love to hear about a book you’re reading right now, or maybe what’s in your queue. And also is there a book that is influential in your career, thus far?
Ceci Connolly:
So I’m going to say with respect, I’m a voracious reader. I have been since I was a kid. But my reading habits have probably shifted a little bit. So I’m still a major news consumer every single morning. It’s typically three newspapers, lots of the health care newsletters, you know, all of that good stuff. I am still old-fashioned enough that I sit with a newspaper and I turn the pages.
Courtney Collen:
I love it. I’m the same way.
Ceci Connolly:
Because that’s how you come across the interesting stories that would never be in your health care feed. Absolutely. Right?
Courtney Collen:
Is there a go-to publication you love most?
Ceci Connolly:
Well, I mean, my former and my husband’s employer, the Washington Post has to be right there on the list. But we also get the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, so we’re pretty equal opportunity on our newspapers.
But when it comes to books, the first thing that I’m looking for now is good writing. And I guess it’s because of my background as a journalist, I have less and less patience for mediocre writing. So one that I read recently that I loved, and it was purely because of the writing, was a book by Anne Patchett called “Tom Lake.” It is set in Michigan during the pandemic. It is cherry-picking season, and it is just incredibly well-written. The other one, which, I had COVID once, I was down for a few days and I plowed through “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese and that is an absolutely dazzling, brilliant book. You need some time, sure. It’s a tome, but wow, what a marvel it is.
Courtney Collen:
And coming from you, it’s probably two great ones to add to my list, journalist to journalist. Ceci Connolly, president and CEO of Alliance of Community Health Plans, thank you so much for your time and for again, being here at the third Rural Health Summit in Sioux Falls.
Ceci Connolly:
Thank you for having me, Courtney.
Courtney Collen:
Thank you.
Alan Helgeson:
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, Health Plan, Leadership in Health Care, News, Rural Health, Virtual Care
