Featured episodes of Definitively Speaking

Health equity is a hot topic these days. There’s no question that certain populations have better and more frequent access to healthcare – not to mention sometimes dramatic variations in the quality of care. Health inequities drive roughly $320 billion in annual healthcare spending – money that could be better spent elsewhere if we could just figure out a way to address this issue. While there is no silver bullet to addressing health equity, Squire Servance, founder and managing partner at Syridex Bio, is trying to do his part. Syridex Bio is an impact-driven, life sciences-focused firm investing in therapies that address the needs of underserved communities. Squire joins Justin for the final episode of Definitively Speaking to explore the social and economic costs of healthcare disparity, the challenge of developing treatments for underserved groups, and why investing in health equity is both good business sense and just plain good.

Justin and Squire discuss the root causes of health inequity in the U.S. and examine how Syridex Bio harnesses capitalism to develop treatments for patient demographics that the market has largely ignored. They discuss the challenge of securing market access, the push-pull relationship between on- and off-patent drugs, and why it’s worth being optimistic about health equity.

Plus, Justin says goodbye to the incredible guests, listeners, and production team of Definitively Speaking as we bring this edutaining series to a close.

Most everyone agrees that basic healthcare is a human right, but having a right to care doesn’t necessarily make it easily accessible or reliable for everyone. Charles Nader, CEO and founder of Doc.com, is on a mission to deliver free basic healthcare to the entire world using a foundational philosophy of access, analytics, and transparency. Charles joins Justin to explain how artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and a business model inspired by brick-and-mortar pharmacies have enabled his company to provide free virtual care consultations to more than 600,000 patients from a platform that can function in any market—all while helping doctors provide the kind of patient-centered care about which they’re passionate.

Justin and Charles explore the challenges of creating a single universal platform for providing telemedicine around the world: Can you sustainably generate revenue from free care services? How do you navigate regulatory differences across state and national borders? And why should providers opt for blockchain data capture over traditional EMRs?

Hospitals might seem like the quintessential healthcare setting, but only about 11% of care episodes actually occur in these facilities, according to the National Institutes of Health. The other 89% of care is delivered through a complex continuum of outpatient settings that span everything from primary care offices to ambulatory surgery centers to long-term care facilities, just to name a few locations. Brian Drozdowicz, SVP and GM of acute and payor markets at PointClickCare, joins Justin to chat about the technological, legal, and incentive barriers to coordinating value-based care (VBC) across the healthcare ecosystem. Brian draws from more than two decades of leadership experience in healthcare tech to share his perspectives on VBC: how accountable care organizations are using data to improve outcomes at lower cost, why the rest of the industry always seems to be just one year away from activating VBC, and why 2024 may be the year that VBC truly, finally takes off.

Justin and Brian ask the questions that may hold the keys to unlocking VBC: Who’s responsible for providing visibility into patients’ journeys—payors, providers, or the patients themselves? What’s the secret to HCIT interoperability? Can healthcare learn anything from the financial industry’s approach to data privacy? Why are payors suddenly open to sharing data? And what big changes are in store for healthcare in 2024?