The Good. The Bad. The Funny. The week of July 28
The GOOD
Health (general)
Northwell Hospital, in NY, bought a film studio to promote its brand.
Boss move or vanity move?
When I worked in journalism, PR felt like the enemy of factual, objective journalism but that was before we all lived in our own algorithms.
As a result of the algorithmic echo chambers we live in, we’ve seen how easily misinformation and fake news can spread. This was most prominent during Covid. I feel, now, it’s important for ethical organizations who are committed to providing awareness, to tell their story in a way that’s honest and factual.
“Some of our competitors first had their hospital charters signed in the 1750s by King George. [They’re] long, storied institutions, academic medical centers, and Ivy League associations,” Ramon Soto, the SVP and Chief Marketing and Communications officer, told Healthcare Brew. “We’re about a 30-year-old brand, so we wanted to look at really different ways to engage with consumers and take the healthcare journey with them. We were enamored with entertainment and how entertainment engages with consumers.”
Assuming Northwell isn’t planning to produce the latest version of Housewives (Hospital Housewives of Manhattan anyone?) I see this as GOOD NEWS and look forward to seeing what they produce.
Health Equity
Earlier this summer, I listened to the Lost Patients podcast, produced by KUOW, the local NPR affiliate in Seattle. The podcast details how our mental health system was erected on faulty ideas about mental health and how it was stripped down to the point where it can’t serve the needs of patients and the public. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 31 % of people who were homeless in 2023 reported having a serious mental illness, which is more than double the percentage of the general population that has serious mental illness.
Read about the investments the Biden administration is making to improve mental health across the board. Thank you to Solome Tibebu for sharing this.
Health Tech
Olympic athletes are using AI-synced wearables to help them get an edge on their competition. How does this apply to health? Rest assured your healthcare providers are looking at this technology to understand how they can leverage it to improve patient outcomes. Many physical therapists I worked with already use some of this technology to better understand how patients are progressing.
Wearables can untie the patient from the clinic because the data can be sent directly to the provider, who can then assess their recovery path.
As personal wearables become more and more common and healthcare continues trending towards a whole-person approach, it’s feasible you could share your own personal fitness data with your care team. If you think about it, we already share our medical history with providers. It only makes sense that we could someday share our fitness data with our care team, so they can make more targeted recommendations.
It will be interesting to watch if data collected from our personal wearables will be shared with our healthcare providers. It could bring an even more personalized approach to patient care. Perhaps even eliminating archaic measurements like the BMI.
Read more about how AI is helping Olympic athletes.
BAD
DEI backlash … again.
When there is representation in healthcare, people feel heard and outcomes improve. Black and other non-white physicians are also more likely to work in underserved communities – including rural, predominantly white ones.
Perhaps it’s helpful to look at our workforce through the same lens we do patient care. What I mean is, just as Social Determinants of Health cannot be untied from structural racism and discrimination, we cannot untie the impact of discrimination from our workforce. The same determinants that impact our health, also impact our life outcomes.
Read more about how DEI rollback at medical schools in red states is being impacted.
The FUNNY
Do you ever feel like we are living in a post-factual world? Or that real life is stranger than fiction? I’ve been feeling this way since 2016 and here’s more evidence to support my confirmation bias. Earlier this week, an OH Supreme Court determined “boneless” chicken wings do not need to be boneless, as advertised.
If you show up in 49ers gear at my next Super Bowl party, you’ve been warned.
Read about the decision here.
Stephen Norris is a proven strategic network development and management expert with a strong track record of driving growth and profitability. He has extensive experience in building and expanding provider networks within the healthcare industry. Norris is skilled in contract negotiation, relationship management, and data analysis with a demonstrated ability to lead and motivate teams to deliver exceptional results. He has a deep understanding of the healthcare landscape and a passion for health equity through improving patient outcomes.
