Building for Health with Dr. Bobbie Kumar and Vituity's Cat Sartin

Does healthcare have a problem with too much technology? In this episode of For Startups, By Physicians, we talk to healthcare professionals Dr. Bobbie Kumar and Cat Sartin for their take on the latest healthtech. Find out how physicians really feel about technology in the workplace and learn what startups should consider in order to make technology work for both providers and patients. 

Make sure you like and subscribe to "For Startups, By Physicians" wherever you get your podcasts. And keep up with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Medium at @InflectHealth, and on the web at InflectHealth.com.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Lindsay Kriger: Hey everyone. This is Lindsay Krieger, director at Inflect Health, the innovation hub of it Tuty, where we strive to be a catalyst for better care. I'm thrilled to be hosting four startups by physicians where we share insights and guidance to healthcare startups and technologists looking to create the future of health.

[00:00:18] Lindsay Kriger: As a physician-founded firm, we have connections with clinicians and intimate knowledge of what they need and how. We will be interviewing our executives, frontline providers, and industry leaders to help your business be effective and scale. Thanks for joining and let's get going.

[00:00:34] Lindsay Kriger: Hey y'all, I'm excited to be joined today on our podcast with two southerners. I have Cat Sarton and Bobbie Kumar here to talk about building for health. So we know that if you build it, they might not come. And what we're really focused today on is bringing technology into the healthcare setting and some of the challenges that come along.

[00:00:58] Lindsay Kriger: Not only change [00:01:00] management, but also building believers amongst the healthcare professions that technology can make their life better. There's so much training as we know that goes into clinical medicine and there's not a lot of. Training and adaptation in terms of what technology can do for the profession.

[00:01:18] Lindsay Kriger: So we're here to have an in-depth conversation. Thank you both so much for joining. I'll turn it over, Bobbie, just give us a little bit about yourself and welcome to the podcast. 

[00:01:28] Bobbie Kumar: Awesome. Thank you, Lindsay, for having me. So I am Bobbie Kumar. I'm a family physician by training. I continue to practice. I have done primary.

[00:01:38] Bobbie Kumar: Urgent care, hospital medicine, post-acute transitional care management, and also doing telehealth. And I also serve as director of clinical transformation for inflect. A lot of the programs and initiatives that I've been a part of have been trying to solve the overarching problem of how do we deliver better care to patients where they're So I'm really excited to talk [00:02:00] more about the topics you've already discussed and bring that physician perspective. My goodness. I've had a lot of experience being on the consumer side as well and having to tap into healthcare from a caregiver, so I'm really excited to talk about some of these things.

[00:02:14] Lindsay Kriger: Thanks. Absolutely, Cat. Tell us about you. 

[00:02:18] Cat Sartin: I hate going after Bobbie because she has knowledge, experience. But I'm Cat Sarton. I have the privilege of serving as the practice sign leader for outpatient medicine for Vituity and Jovi Health. My background is has been in healthcare for the past 15 years and in different functional areas.

[00:02:34] Cat Sartin: And so I call myself a lifer. I love it. I wanna stay in some of the roles that I've carried in the past have been in commercial operations, how to bring. Sales and marketing to the consumers who are actually patients in this environment. I've ruled out urgent care sites and done strategy in that urgent care, primary care space.

[00:02:53] Cat Sartin: And I worked for big and small organizations and as large as Optim, United Health Group and [00:03:00] Vituity. 

[00:03:01] Bobbie Kumar: Happy to be here. Thanks. 

[00:03:03] Lindsay Kriger: One thing that Cat and I share in common that I loved learning about was that we both have actually worked under the IT vertical in some of these big organizations. So that's pretty unique.

[00:03:14] Lindsay Kriger: I think a lot of people that are in healthcare have a more traditional path, and when you work for the IT vertical, you really see some of the. Challenges and opportunities from a different lens. 

[00:03:25] Cat Sartin: Yeah I agree that it is an area which is transferrable across any industry, but one that I was particularly interested in learning the language behind, so how enterprise projects run, what does the speak, because those stakeholders oftentimes don't get a seat at the strategic table unless they're in very mature and involved organizations. But that really is the secret key to how you scale any business or any industry. 

[00:03:52] Lindsay Kriger: Yeah, definitely. So let's just get right into it. Do we think there's too much tech in healthcare? Is there just [00:04:00] too much stuff? Too many apps, too many products, too much? How is the industry feeling about just the influx of technology that's come in the last 10 years?

[00:04:10] Bobbie Kumar: I can say from the physician's perspective, I feel that there's a sense of being overburdened. The sheer volume of applications, and I take a step back to say, physicians actually don't have the opportunity to see what is actually out there and available to them to use to improve their workflows and their processes, and the ability to preserve the time that they have with the patient in front of them.

[00:04:34] Bobbie Kumar: So yes, to answer your question, very bluntly, overload of technology, but there's a very large discrepancy when you pair that to the un. overall underutilization of this technology. People don't want to adopt it when they don't know how it serves them best. And when there are 10 different options to solve one problem, they want none of them.

[00:04:56] Bobbie Kumar: Yes, exactly. And to have to spend the time to [00:05:00] learn how these solutions can actually make an impact. That's time that physicians don't have. If you look at the country right now, you have 300. Million people that are requiring care, and yet there's only what, 500,000 practitioners, primary care physicians that can see all these patients.

[00:05:19] Bobbie Kumar: We don't have the time to vet out every single piece of technology that can serve us best, so we rely on. Our healthcare administrators, our leaders, what we see in news and media, and actually sometimes even patients, bringing that technology forward so that we can serve patients better. So yes, there's an overload and there's also a very strong underutilization of these products.

[00:05:42] Cat Sartin: Yeah, and I'll say yes and no. There are schools of thought that businesses in the space that I am familiar with, the urgent care and primary care markets. That tech first abilities are marketing slang that people used to differentiate themselves, but who are the platforms really truly benefiting, and are they really [00:06:00] just table stakes at this point?

[00:06:01] Cat Sartin: E M R, patient portals, online registration, e-prescribing, telehealth. They were innovative in their time, but we've long moved beyond that from a consumer experience standpoint. At the same time, to Bobbie's point, in order to meet the quadruple aim that we're all gunning towards of reducing total cost of care improving clinical quality, improving provider satisfaction and patient satisfaction technology is simply the central operational catalyst for that.

[00:06:24] Cat Sartin: And full stop on that. To answer your question, I'll take the opposing argument here. No, there's not a tech overload and we're really only on the cusp of it. However, the question might be reframed to "who are the recipients and are they your customers?" 

[00:06:38] Lindsay Kriger: Yeah, and I think that's a great reframe, Cat.

[00:06:41] Lindsay Kriger: There's a lot of tech out there, but as we know, let's just take EMRs. It's a simple example that was technology brought forward 20 years ago, but it's not innovating anymore, and. People are innovating around, but they're not innovating [00:07:00] within anymore. And so how do we as entrepreneurs, as technologists, get to the root of some of the opportunities here, rather than just piling more on, because to Bobbie's point, there is a new huge issue with adoption. So more doesn't necessarily mean more utilization. 

[00:07:16] Cat Sartin: I've heard the analogy that EMR systems are really just billing systems that are, they're masked as other things. And if you look at some of the larger ones, I might agree with that they're not overly, they're not patient friendly. The adoption rates are low. What are they really designed to do? And that's collect dollars and and code and future reimbursements. 

[00:07:36] Lindsay Kriger: Yeah, and we could have a whole another podcast on reimbursement, which we're not gonna get in today. But maybe we'll flip the conversation to adoption. From the consumer perspective, we know that physicians have a lot on their plate, and adoption is low.

[00:07:49] Lindsay Kriger: What do we think about adoption from the consumer perspective? What are consumers really wanting and how can we build health for those consumers? 

[00:07:59] Bobbie Kumar: So for, I [00:08:00] know you guys named this, but obviously our listeners don't. But I recently had twins and no matter how many patients, babies I have managed myself in my practice, I still feel like a complete dad when it comes to my own children

[00:08:13] Bobbie Kumar: And it never fails that on a Friday evening there's some sort of disaster that's occurring with one of the babies. And I have the opportunity to go into an application on my. And text my care team at the pediatrician's office. And I can't tell you this year, volume of times that it's been after five o'clock after business hours, and my pediatrician is the person who's responding back to me that evening within minutes.

[00:08:37] Bobbie Kumar: And so for me, from a consumer perspective, it's access. And I say that as a double-edged sword because I also. Recognize that physicians are overburdened with having this unfettered access from patients, but from being in that position where you need support and you need help and ha being able to just with a click of a [00:09:00] few buttons on my phone to reach my physician.

[00:09:04] Bobbie Kumar: To help me and guide me through the next steps is so valuable and I can't stress how much I feel like that is probably what drives it from a consumer perspective is just having the direct ability to manage care, whether it's for yourself or for somebody else, and not have to jump through hurdles and barriers to achieve.

[00:09:26] Lindsay Kriger: So it's interesting what the consumers want is almost at direct odds with what the doctors want, which is to go home at five o'clock and spend time with their own families, yes. And their own babies, they have to take care of. 

[00:09:37] Bobbie Kumar: Yes. I, it was a co. It was, I, as I'm typing the message to my pediatrician, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she's at dinner at seven o'clock at night, I really don't wanna do this, but I'm just gonna see it. Maybe it'll just sit there until Monday and no, she responded and it made me love her all that much more. But more importantly, recognize just how important it is for somebody. [00:10:00] Myself having a clinical background for what those people who don't have clinical backgrounds have to experience. 

[00:10:04] Lindsay Kriger: Cat, what do you think consumers, aside from access, what do you think consumers are craving the most?

[00:10:10] Cat Sartin: I think in the broadest senses, consumers, patients, whatever you wanna call they're human beings at the end, and so there's this kind of inherent desire for. Connection and trust and having community and tribe. And so I think that there's something to building around that and how you can double down on your efforts to improve that just from core inherent desires.

[00:10:35] Cat Sartin: From a purchasing as also a parent also are a working mom, et cetera. It is access, convenience simplicity. I think Bobbie was really underlying like this. How do we make things simple? There's so many information inputs that we receive every day, every second of every day. It's how do we digest that, how?

[00:10:55] Cat Sartin: Get to the answers faster. Because it's time has become such an essential [00:11:00] resource to everyone. And I'd also say that we have elevated as consumers, our expectations, and that's been brought forth by people and disruptors in the industry. We look at NPS scores and instead of comparing 'em to your own industry, you look at the Amazons and the Apples and the, you name it out there the Disney's, the Ritz Carlton's service as a whole has been elevated.

[00:11:22] Cat Sartin: And so people are really looking to those as like the benchmarks. Even other industries or products or services they use in their lives that are not consumer hos, hospitality facing or such. 

[00:11:32] Lindsay Kriger: One thing that I find very interesting in our work is this focus on the consumer, this obsession over the consumer.

[00:11:40] Lindsay Kriger: And we've all read those stories, Steve Jobs, and using that word obsessed about the end user. What about the clinicians? No one's obsessed with the clinicians. So how do we address that? What does that look like? Because everything that we're talking about, Driving utilization, adoption, and change really to the [00:12:00] consumer.

[00:12:01] Lindsay Kriger: We know how to do that. Build a sexy app, have 24 7 service, deliver it the same day. We know the things that consumers want, but if we're talking about the people providing those services. It's an elevated role in society. Like we, we have to acknowledge that being a clinician, being a physician, it's always held this role in society, but things are changing and so how do we bring that change to the people providing those very needed services.

[00:12:28] Bobbie Kumar: Walk in our shoes and bring us to the table. When you're developing the product, you mentioned end user and use the term. And I think oftentimes companies feel like they're the same. When real in reality, the end user is probably the physician, the consumer may. The patient or maybe the physician.

[00:12:45] Bobbie Kumar: So my point being is there's two distinct groups when you're trying to come up with the product. And we as physicians and advanced providers shouldn't be in that user testing phase only. You should be part of the development [00:13:00] phase. So gosh, come to a clinic and see how one physician manages to wrangle 30 patients in a day.

[00:13:06] Bobbie Kumar: Type in an E M R, answer phone calls, do prescription refills. And try to be out by 5:00 PM to be there for whatever other things that matter to them outside of their job or in the hospital. There was a time when people had pagers. Now we have cell phones where medication requests, updates on patients are being just rapidly texted to your phone.

[00:13:27] Bobbie Kumar: Your phone is going off, you're seeing patients. Patients are coding, like it's, it can be busy, but more importantly, it's all of the non- patient facing activities that when we try to build solutions around, the idea is that, yes, we're trying to help physicians, but we're not tapping into their advice on how to build these products, or we're not leveraging their experience enough to make these solutions more viable.

[00:13:53] Bobbie Kumar: So I come back to just walk in our shoes for a day, shadow, come, go to a clinic, go to a, an urban [00:14:00] high volume center where you have patients in a revolving door in and out. And you can see how these solutions can actually make an impact for the physicians and the advanced providers who are seeing patients on a day-to-day basis.

[00:14:12] Lindsay Kriger: Yeah, I don't think many people would do well in those environments. You also have to be really gutsy to. Want to enter into such a complex world. There's so many amazing technologists and founders and innovators that wanna solve this problem. There's a lot that look at the problem, the healthcare problem.

[00:14:29] Lindsay Kriger: They go, Ooh, that's complicated. And so we obviously as Inflect Health wanna invite people in to be part of that process. And yeah, they can take you up, Bobbie, on coming to work with you one day. 

[00:14:41] Bobbie Kumar: By all means, I welcome it. 

[00:14:42] Lindsay Kriger: Imagine the notifications you're hearing from our outlook account that's one of 17 applications that are going up at any given time for a position. All right. Let's switch gears a little bit to just talking about products that have helped both from. Both ends of the spectrum, right? What [00:15:00] have doctors really started to love that technology's brought to them, and what have consumers really loved and how can we build on those success stories?

[00:15:07] Lindsay Kriger: Any favorites out there? 

[00:15:09] Bobbie Kumar: Both from a consumer and physician perspective? Sorry, Cat, I'm gonna jump in first because it just came to my mind. I love the idea of patient queuing, and this has been, I feel like a game changer for say, urgent cares where it was you walk in the door, you get in a line, you're in a queue, and you're just waiting.

[00:15:26] Bobbie Kumar: I love that there are applications that help to set expectations for wait times. They're adopting it across emergency rooms. You can go online and see what the expected wait time is in the emergency room. I know that there are probably many ER docs who don't like that ability, but from a primary care, urgent care perspective, I love that.

[00:15:43] Bobbie Kumar: If a patient walks in with a terrible laceration, that's now gonna take me an hour to dedicate. That I can let the people who are in line downstream sit in their home and wait until I'm, they're ready to come in. I think that is a patient satisfier. It's [00:16:00] also a physician provider satisfier to not have angry patients in your lobby and have people who are more appreciative of the time that you're spending with them. So I. That has been one thing that I feel like I am surprised that has not taken on more adoption across the industry. It is, I think it has been a game changer overall. 

[00:16:20] Lindsay Kriger: And Bobbie, I know that telehealth is such a hot topic, COVID, yada, yada. I know that you've done a lot of virtual care the last few years. Tell us from your perspective, has that been, do you feel like you're able to provide quality care? Do you think the technology is really there to be able to do that? Tell us a little bit more about just VIR Virtual Care in general and what technology could do to enhance your experience.

[00:16:45] Bobbie Kumar: Good questions. When I had done primary care, it was the expectation that in my practice I would be taking phone calls through the weekend and at night for my own patients. And so when a patient, or say a parent of one of my patients call with [00:17:00] a concern, It may be that I am talking to them, diagnosing them, and prescribing treatment, but instead of an EMR and video telehealth platform, I'm doing this over the phone and I'm calling a pharmacy to do this prescription point B, that virtual health has been a part of primary care practices for years.

[00:17:19] Bobbie Kumar: Right now, we add the video component and we want care to be as, to be equivalent as being in person and I think we can get very close to that, if not there, through the use of technology. So using remote patient monitoring devices, using the ability for diagnostics, using the ability for point of care testing even in the home so we can provide this type of care.

[00:17:45] Bobbie Kumar: Virtually more effectively. I'm currently in telemedicine. I feel like it's very similar to what I was already doing in primary care, and now having the ability to connect via video, which gives an added layer of that relational [00:18:00] component. But I think that there's so much opportunity to make that experience more robust.

[00:18:06] Bobbie Kumar: And you know what Cat was talking about, having this trusting relationship with the provider that you're working with, because they have not just. Valuable information, but ongoing longitudinal information pertinent to your personalized care. And I feel like that is the direction that healthcare is probably gonna go in and technology is going to be the key integral piece to bring it there.

[00:18:29] Bobbie Kumar: Yeah. 

[00:18:30] Lindsay Kriger: Great insights. Cat, my original question was, let's see if I can remember. It was, what technologies have been successful from the consumer perspective or from what you've seen in industry and how should we continue to follow on those successes? 

[00:18:44] Cat Sartin: I like services and products. Intend to favor the ones that, that well meet me where I am and I can fit into to my life naturally.

[00:18:54] Cat Sartin: Thinking of someones that are really outside of my specific field, but like when Warby Parker came out, [00:19:00] just the idea that you could try on five pairs of glasses and now you might be able to walk into a store and that's really how we select and purchase a pair of glasses. You go eat, try on 35 pairs of glasses and stare in a mirror.

[00:19:12] Cat Sartin: And the fact that can be translated into augmented reality or use technology to leverage that expedite delivery, really, you don't have to take all this time out. I think things like that are really underrated and how it can fit into your life in following your natural behaviors of what you would do.

[00:19:28] Cat Sartin: Noom is a app, a weight loss product that, or behavioral product. I really like how they incorporated psychology around it. It's not about focusing on the numbers or the scales or do this or don't do this. It's about, What are you doing in your life and becoming more educated about your decisions and it's really making these longer strides and behavioral change.

[00:19:50] Cat Sartin: So I really like things like that. I live in a world where we have so much access to information. It's like we can educate and read about things on our own. We just need a little [00:20:00] bit of guidance or a little bit of accountability. But to me, the successful products that I am naturally drawn to, that I find value in are those that, that kind of fit into.

[00:20:10] Cat Sartin: Natural habits. It's funny you said you're talking about telehealth, Bob, because I love te. The fact that I don't have to drag my four year old and sit in an office for an hour and a half, see a physician for something that is likely an eye infection, but you're not sure, and there's this risk of stuff.

[00:20:29] Cat Sartin: That stuff is really valuable to me in my time. The challenge is I grew up in a time where that didn't exist, and so I'm not naturally imprinted to think about that as my first go-to. So oftentimes like I'll go to the doctor, I'll set up an appointment, I'll go and do that, and then later be like, oh, why didn't I use.

[00:20:46] Cat Sartin: My telehealth program. So it's funny how imprinted we are at a young age and now we've got these natives who are being born learning how to use an iPad and cell phones, and so it won't be challenging for them to sit on that cusp of [00:21:00] digital adoption. 

[00:21:01] Lindsay Kriger: And that speaks to the change management aspect of consumers, is that, how do you say no, don't come see me. Just use this app in a way that's also empathic and patient centered and focused on community and all things you guys talked about. Because if somebody said that to me, I'd be like, okay, so you just want me to text you? That's an opportunity too, I think in the languaging and the messaging and focusing on that connectivity piece.

[00:21:28] Lindsay Kriger: This has been really insightful. I'd love to end. Just a piece of advice that you guys would have to founders or technologists or people outside of the health industry that really wanna make a difference and wanna get those solutions going. What would you leave them with as some advice? 

[00:21:43] Cat Sartin: I think the biggest piece of advice I can say is just to take off your tech hat. Take off your healthcare hat, your provider hat, or any other coverings that inhibit your ability to view the experience from a truly end user or civilian or consumer [00:22:00] standpoint. Patients are people, and people often remember how services or products make them feel. And so the, there's a lot going into to the details and the words, and oftentimes it's really the sentiment that they leave with that it's hard to put your finger on, but just really being empathetic to probably said, walking in their shoes.

[00:22:18] Cat Sartin: Understanding from their lens and their perspective and being as objective about it as you can. And if you can't do it, then go out and ask. You will never go wrong by asking your customers directly what is most meaningful to them. So I would say, yeah, take off that. Take off the hats. Put on new hats.

[00:22:37] Bobbie Kumar: Not to throw my esteemed colleagues, other physicians under the bus, but I know that we can. Delayed adopters of technology, but if tech companies and startups and those who are developing these devices, processes, softwares, whatever the solution is that they really put emphasis on [00:23:00] preserving the ability to retain the trust and the relationship between the provider and their patient.

[00:23:06] Bobbie Kumar: I feel like the solutions, when they put that as the crux of the problem that they're trying to, You really can't go wrong and you really do get the buy-in from the key stakeholders, physicians especially because at the end of the day, there's the reasons as to why people went into medicine.

[00:23:25] Bobbie Kumar: They are, there are a multitude of them, but it is about serving that patient and being able to. Serve to the best of our abilities within our scope of practice and beyond. And so being able to leverage technology to do that piece better, I think is what I take back to everybody is those are the solutions that we need.

[00:23:45] Lindsay Kriger: Great. I'm inspired. I always wanna make things better for people who care. And I know both of you care so much about what you do, the people you work with, the consumers and patients and colleagues that you have. So thank you so much for being here [00:24:00] today. Thank you for being part of Inflect Health and all the other roles that you play within our larger Vituity umbrella.

[00:24:07] Lindsay Kriger: And look forward to talking more about these things in the future. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us. And again, I'm Lindsay Kriger, director at Inflect Health. Here at Inflect, the future of medicine care and health delivery is not just right for disruption. It's increasingly personalized, accessible, and human.

[00:24:26] Lindsay Kriger: Make sure you like and subscribe to For Startups by Physicians wherever you get your podcasts. And keep up with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Medium at @InflectHealth and on the web at InflectHealth.com.