Building a Better Future: Collective Efforts in Healthcare Improvement with Steven Low, President of KLAS Research, and Boyd Stewart, VP of Payer-Provider Collaboration at KLAS

[00:00:00] Hey everybody and welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. I'm super excited about this series

[00:00:07] that we're doing in collaboration with Class to recognize the top achievers in healthcare

[00:00:16] technology, class put together a list of top 20 emergency tech awards that they showcase

[00:00:24] that health. We were excited to meet many of the companies and really just wanted to

[00:00:29] collaborate in sharing the success and value that all of these companies are creating

[00:00:34] in the healthcare ecosystem. Join me in the series of interviews where we recognize

[00:00:39] the top 20 emergency tech awards, hope you enjoy learning about them because you could

[00:00:44] both learn what to do for your business but also as a provider and a payer learn how

[00:00:50] to scale solutions within your organization. Thanks for joining me and I hope you enjoy

[00:00:56] this interview. So excited to be here at the HIMS 2024 conference with two outstanding

[00:01:02] leaders. First, I want to introduce you to Steve Lowe, president of class research. You've

[00:01:07] heard him on the podcast before and we'll link up the episode that we did with them in

[00:01:11] the show notes. We'll also have Boyd Stewart with us, VP of payer provider collaboration

[00:01:17] and I'm so excited to kick off today's interview. Welcome to the interview gentlemen.

[00:01:20] Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you both here. Before we get things started,

[00:01:25] I'd first of all want to say congratulations on an extraordinary best in class event. Why

[00:01:31] don't you help the listeners and viewers understand what it was, the turnout and why

[00:01:35] it's so important to our society? Thank you by the way, it's great to be with you. The

[00:01:40] show is Monday night and for us, it's like a super bowl like event for class. We work

[00:01:46] all year to get ratings on every vendor that we can. That's relevant to healthcare, telling

[00:01:52] the accurate story of what's going on and when we publish an reporting February, you look

[00:01:57] forward to the event as a chance to celebrate with those who have succeeded in one and demonstrated

[00:02:02] excellence in our category. So this year, biggest event we've ever thrown most attendees,

[00:02:07] most segments and it was actually the most data we've ever collected for best in class

[00:02:11] report. Amazing. How many people showed up? 700 something. Wow. The ballroom was packed.

[00:02:16] Wow. In fact, we had this is I don't know. This has never happened in my time at class where

[00:02:22] we had actually a shortage of seats where last minute people wanted to come and we said

[00:02:26] we're out of standing room. So this is which is a great problem down. It is next year. We need

[00:02:32] a bigger ballroom. I love that. I love that. Well, congratulations. It's a testament to the

[00:02:37] data backed work that you guys do. The validation work, that really means a lot to the entire industry.

[00:02:43] So let's shift gears to class research and some of the important work that you guys are working on.

[00:02:50] Boyd, why don't you tell us a little bit about BP and pay your collaboration? Yeah. So I've been

[00:02:55] with Class 11 years and in those 11 years initially, I was working around Refs cycle and managed

[00:03:00] care management, those types of providers. And at the end of the year, I'd bring them all together.

[00:03:05] I'd bring together eight to 10 CFLs, VP's of Refs cycle, VP's of care management and give their

[00:03:10] feedback on the reports we've done. And you know what? You want a rough feedback? You talk to a

[00:03:14] CFO. They don't hold back and they help us design more importantly our roadmap and where they

[00:03:19] want us to go without fail every single year. The conversation would go to hey, keep measuring

[00:03:24] the Refs cycle firms, keep measuring care management and it's so helpful for us as we're doing our

[00:03:28] fees as we're making decisions and then the partnerships we have. But if you really want to help us,

[00:03:33] if Class really wants to get in the weeds and help us, you've helped us with Anthem. You'd

[00:03:36] help us with the humana with the blues plans we work with and any of the local regional national

[00:03:40] plans that we work with because they affect our bottom line in our business way more than our

[00:03:44] vendor partners do. And that's tricky because when we're measuring a vendor customer, the experience

[00:03:50] they have in California is relevant to someone in Texas and that relevant to someone in Tennessee.

[00:03:55] On a health plan perspective, it's very market based, it's very regional. And so what's happening

[00:03:59] in California has very little bearing on Texas. And so what we did is we brought together a group of

[00:04:05] health plan leaders, a group of provider leaders and some of the core vendors that are transformative

[00:04:09] in the middle and brought them together in a summit in the marching orders that we had from that

[00:04:14] group was three. They said keep convening. So we do that every May in Salt Lake City. Number two,

[00:04:20] as they said, can you report on the middle, the intersection between us? And that initially got

[00:04:26] me a little disenchanted because doing a report around the friction and the waste and just the

[00:04:31] distrust that exists there today isn't a super interesting topic. It's not a super helpful topic

[00:04:36] because everyone knows yeah, and they corrected me and they said no actually we want you to report on

[00:04:41] just success happening. We want you to report on the wins that are happening where both parties

[00:04:46] win because the things that will be sustainable and scalable are the ones where both the health plan

[00:04:51] and the providers say this is helping our business. This is helping our organization and we're

[00:04:54] going to move forward. And at the end of the day, we're putting patients at the center and not in

[00:04:59] the middle. That's really interesting, Boyd because that is where the narrative tends to go,

[00:05:04] right? All the negativity. But what you're saying is there's a lot of good happening

[00:05:09] and now we're shining a light with the work that you're doing there. Yeah, because the hope is

[00:05:14] that we call it the K2 collaborative because K2 as a mountain is one of the hardest mountains

[00:05:19] to scale. In our hope is if someone comes and presents and shares something that they're doing

[00:05:23] with their health plan or with the provider partner that someone else has inspired and says well

[00:05:27] maybe it's not the top of the mountain but that helps me scale a little bit higher.

[00:05:31] Love that Steve, were you going to make a comment on that? Yeah, just we thin that summer we highlight

[00:05:35] we call them points of light and it's highlighting those specific examples where we're trying to say

[00:05:40] like what's an instance of trust being built outcomes positive outcomes being achieved in this area

[00:05:48] like Boyd says it's been fraught with mistrust and waste but there are good things happening

[00:05:53] and as we start to shine a light because that's what we do. We want to shine a light on the good

[00:05:57] then it inspires other health systems, other health plans to think a little more creatively

[00:06:02] and engage with more trust. That's fantastic. Really appreciate that and it's exciting and for

[00:06:08] everybody listening and viewing we'll link up those efforts in the show notes so you could keep up

[00:06:13] and keep yourself informed on ways to do better in this space. Now him's it's been a whirlwind.

[00:06:19] There's so many things going on the talk of AI, large language models,

[00:06:24] cyber security out of all the things that you guys have listened and heard what's the one thing

[00:06:29] that's risen to the top as an insight that's worth taking home and sharing with the listeners?

[00:06:33] Maybe this is based on the vendors I work with the providers and the health

[00:06:36] funds I work with but the breach in clearinghouse this over the last couple of weeks is severely affecting

[00:06:42] health care. I talked to several health systems that said hey this is affecting us more than COVID

[00:06:47] did. Now it's not the public eye but as far as their business goes and some of those things,

[00:06:51] I mean there's some that are in single digits of days of cash on hand. Wow. And so any

[00:06:56] is this gets drawn out and we're talking about not being able to hit payroll, not even able to

[00:07:01] sustain the backbone of our US health care and that's our nurses and our workers,

[00:07:05] the registrants and all those there. And so it's severe and we also have talked to a lot of

[00:07:11] vendor partners that have come to the rescue and not tried to take advantage of the situation

[00:07:16] that's happened to one of our partners and one of our friends in health care but to come

[00:07:19] in and say hey we're going to come in and we're just going to help you today. We're not worried

[00:07:23] about a contract. We're not worried about long term contracts to convert you forever but we're

[00:07:26] going to support you today. Come what may. So on one hand you see the challenge and where do we

[00:07:31] come after this? What does health care look like a week from now, a month from now, a year from now

[00:07:36] and the way we do business with the health plans and providers. That's a question that comes up

[00:07:40] but then also there's this reassurance to say hey there's this family at the end of the day we're

[00:07:45] all US health care and we're here for each other. Yeah that's really great boy and on that topic

[00:07:50] and then well I'd love to hear from you Steve. Yeah when does this end? Like when do we turn the

[00:07:54] corner on this? Not as soon as people want. I think everybody's got a condition to hear about a breach

[00:08:01] because we hear about them all the time and then everybody moves on and a week later it's for done.

[00:08:06] This isn't one of us where there's I think there's an employee alluded to this, there's change that

[00:08:10] we'll see that's going to take months and probably the effects will be felt for a long time to come.

[00:08:15] This isn't like a quick fix unfortunately because of the nature of the breach. Yeah but there's

[00:08:20] no one's throwing stones. I think everyone from the health system to the health plans

[00:08:24] and the other vendors are saying that could have been us. Yeah that could have been us.

[00:08:28] Anybody who doesn't have to express sympathy is naive about their own vulnerability

[00:08:33] because everybody's doing everybody I was going to say doing their best maybe by everybody's trying

[00:08:40] to have a better cybersecurity posture and you see this happen to somebody who's really important

[00:08:46] to health care and there's sympathy. I think everybody feels some sympathy for what happened.

[00:08:51] Yeah yeah and there's heroes coming out of this obviously in cybersecurity there's villains

[00:08:55] right otherwise we don't need it but it's been amazing. I'll reiterate this the heroes that come

[00:08:59] out of this are these vendor partners that just have broken their backs and lost sleepless nights

[00:09:05] in order to support people that aren't even their pain customers. Yeah and in a lot of ways.

[00:09:08] Love that. No thank you, Jonathan Steve. What about you? Any insights that right to the top?

[00:09:12] I'm well now the conversation about AI is evolved. I think back to like a year ago him's

[00:09:18] and there was a lot of hype and excitement but I think so many people then still couldn't see

[00:09:25] how it was actually going to make a difference in the solutions and services being offered.

[00:09:28] How is it going to impact patients? This year the conversations I'm having I think the more mature

[00:09:33] vendors are starting to understand how to translate this into real tangible outcomes. So it's not

[00:09:39] just a hey we need to do something around this and it's not a fraughty discussion but what's the

[00:09:44] real outcome that's going to be achieved with a generative AI or a large language model?

[00:09:49] So the understanding has come a long way. I think around the industry and the conversations

[00:09:53] matured and for us a class it's exciting to say okay now how are we going to shine a light on

[00:09:58] real tangible benefits of AI being used in solutions? So it's not just how do we report on AI as AI?

[00:10:05] I know it's for a real application within healthcare. I'm excited to see those conversations

[00:10:11] they're happening here. That's fantastic. Yeah I'm excited about that too and for those of you

[00:10:16] unable to have been here that's why we do these podcasts for you to stay up to date and know what's

[00:10:21] going on. Our closing point here I love to hear from both of you on what you feel our listeners

[00:10:28] and viewers should act on so what call the action would you leave them with and what's the best place

[00:10:32] they can reach you? I would say I think we're all patients, we're all consumers of US healthcare

[00:10:39] and I would just be cognizant of the tools that your health system partners that your health plans

[00:10:44] put in place. These are the tools and solutions that we measure day in and day out. I'd say take

[00:10:50] an active role in your own healthcare. We're all employers or we're all patients, we're all

[00:10:54] consumers of this in some way and then speak up when it's not fulfilling the needs that you have

[00:10:59] and think creatively. I think there's a lot of activities right now in healthcare where they're

[00:11:05] listening to patients more than we ever have. We're listening to consumers and employers and other

[00:11:09] ones because this is something they've got to take the largest of all villages to solve the problems

[00:11:14] and challenges we have in US healthcare right now. Thank you for that boy. See, for me it's the call

[00:11:20] to action is ask great questions. I think especially an event like him there's conversations happening

[00:11:27] and you can people have their talking points they have their presentations and demos but I think

[00:11:33] being really thoughtful about the questions that we're asking of each other as partners in healthcare

[00:11:38] can drive the conversation to new depths and I think health questions and of course

[00:11:42] being with class research that's I think that's critical to our success but I think everybody in

[00:11:47] this space needs to be willing to just dig at least one layer deeper than they're used to or then

[00:11:53] that feels totally comfortable in the moment. It's about that great call to action Steve,

[00:11:58] boy, thank you both for being with us. For all the listeners and viewers, make sure you check out

[00:12:02] the show notes. We'll leave links on ways to get in touch with and learn more about class research.

[00:12:08] Thank you guys. Thanks so. Thanks so.