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Arti Masturzo comes from a family of doctors.

A board-certified physician in internal medicine, Masturzo grew up in a village in India, where her grandfather was a doctor in a small village.

Today, Masturzo is the chief medical officer of CCS, a provider of care programs and home-delivered medical supplies for patients with chronic conditions. She served as a vice president at Humana, and she’s worked as a medical director at St. Elizabeth Healthcare in Kentucky and UC Health in Cincinnati.

Masturzo describes herself as a passionate advocate for value-based care. Even with her vast experience, she has gained new insights into healthcare as a patient.

In the spring, Masturzo shared that she is battling breast cancer. In the latest episode of Data Book, a podcast from 

, she talks about her journey and the patient’s perspective of the healthcare industry.

“It's been truly transformational, for someone who bleeds healthcare and really wants value-based care, for someone who wants healthcare to change for the better,” Masturzo says. “And sometimes things happen for a reason. I needed this insight. And this insight has truly changed me as a person, professionally and personally.”

“And I would say, from a healthcare executive standpoint, I would sum it up as: it is really scary to be a patient,” she continues. “The care is extremely siloed. The incentives are not aligned for my best health. The people doing the work are burned out, exhausted. And there is no one reaching across the table from payer and provider, health system, patient, all the other supporting, ancillary things that you need. There's no connection.”

Masturzo says she’s been getting exceptional care from her doctors and nurses, and some of those treating her are friends and former colleagues. But she also shares the problems that could impede patient care and add stress to an already difficult time.

While healthcare apps are making it more convenient to schedule appointments or see test results, Masturzo also said patients shouldn’t learn about a suspicion of cancer on the app, as she did.

“There is an app that gives me data results before my doctor sees them, which is, by the way, very scary, if you're not a doctor,” Masturzo says. “I learned that I had cancer before my doctor did, so if that tells you something. I'm a physician. So I can process this, right? How does someone who doesn't have a medical background, or doesn't have an advocate with them, get through this?”

Masturzo talks about the need to move toward value-based care and away from the fee-for-service model.

“We are all doing one-off care when we do health care,” she says. “It is not a well-orchestrated thing as it should be. And the quarterback, the person who really should be quarterbacking isn't really connected to all the other things that are happening, isn't paid to be connected to all the things that are happening, because it's a fee-for-service world. And this doesn't work.”

Masturzo discusses the need to consider all of the social drivers of a patient’s health, including economic challenges such as food and housing insecurity, to loneliness, which can be a problem for anyone regardless of income.

Her advice for physicians is simple. “Just put yourself in my shoes,” she says.

And she reminds everyone of the importance of regular screenings.

“Don't skip your cancer screenings,” she says. “I was this close to not getting my mammogram this year, because I had a normal one and thought, ‘I'm not at risk.’ So don't skip your cancer screenings.

“And then for those who are patients, I would say: Advocate for yourself.”

In a fascinating discussion, she talks about the fears patients have; the need for better and more empathetic communication; the importance of meeting patients’ emotional needs; having help available when a patient needs it and not just at a support group that meets every few weeks; designing technology and apps with the perspective of patients and doctors; the words patients need to hear and the well-meaning questions that shouldn’t be asked.

Arti Masturzo, the chief medical officer of CCS, talks about her diagnosis of breast cancer and how the healthcare industry needs to do better for patients.

Lessons from a doctor fighting cancer: ‘It’s really scary to be a patient’ | Data Book podcast

James Quarles says he wasn’t necessarily looking for a healthcare role.

After previously serving as CEO of Strava, the social network for athletes, Quarles is now a venture chair at Redesign Health, which has launched 50 healthcare startup companies in less than six years.

In the latest episode of Data Book, a podcast from 

, Quarles talks about what healthcare startup companies should be doing as they try to bring new solutions to market.

“We build healthcare companies,” Quarles says. “That is what we're in the business of doing. And we don't do devices. We don't do molecules. I think everything that's in the middle of enabling clinicians, payer, provider tech-enabled services, that's where those 50 businesses largely lie.”

He says his time as CEO of Strata helped prepare him for his current role. “That was just a very neat place to learn about digital wellness,” he says.

Health tech companies need to design products with equity in mind

In a lively conversation, Quarles talks about the ingredients of successful startups, what founders should be doing, and some common mistakes that should be avoided.

Quarles stresses the importance of having a narrow focus and not attempting to bite off too much in the development of a young company.

“I always say startups die actually of indigestion, not starvation,” he says.

Quarles outlines the continued challenges for funding for digital health startup companies, and the importance of developing solutions that can be scaled. He highlights the need for designing technology that can be integrated into healthcare solutions and designed for very specific uses. Echoing other healthcare business leaders, Quarles says 

some tech solutions aren’t being designed with clinicians in mind

Quarles also sheds light on how Redesign Health decides when a company is worth backing. The company researches proposals and then helps recruit founders to launch health tech companies.

“It's this art honestly, combined with science, and trying to figure out when do we have enough signal to say it's a big market, and we think we can make a difference to it,” Quarles says.

While the concept of disruption is popular in business, Quarles says there’s a need to work with hospitals and payers in overcoming their challenges.

“I think there's great problems to solve with incumbents who just are in the system,” Quarles says. “Big health systems have lots of problems and challenges. The payers have large challenges. And so, for as much as there's this concept of disrupting the system, I think we all like to build with the system.”

The former CEO of Strava is now a venture chair for Redesign Health, which has launched dozens of companies. He talks about the ingredients for success and some all-too-common mistakes. 

James Quarles of Redesign Health talks about starting healthcare companies | Data Book podcast

Adrienne Boissy focuses on empathy and values.

“I’ve got a big fire in my belly for reducing suffering and creating more joy,” she says.

Boissy is the chief medical officer of Qualtrics, a software company that helps organizations learn more about their customers in order to build better experiences. She’s a neurologist who takes care of patients with multiple sclerosis at the Cleveland Clinic, where she worked for years as the chief experience officer.

In the latest Data Book podcast, she talks about the importance of organizations living their values. As she notes, hospitals can cite empathy as a core value, but they must demonstrate that to their patients and workers.

“As healthcare tries to differentiate itself, in today's world, with a lot of different competitors, and a lot of different models of care, you're seeing people double down on experience as a differentiator,” she tells 

She also talks about the importance of demonstrating empathy to patients, which includes ensuring they are able to get appointments with doctors without waiting for months.

Health systems also show empathy by ensuring patients can get the care they need and aren’t foregoing treatment because they can’t afford it or they’re worried about medical debt. 

One in three patients postponed care because of the costs

, according to a recent Qualtrics survey.

In a wide-ranging interview, Boissy discusses the need to treat employees well to improve patient care and the bottom line. She talks about the dangers of toxic leaders, who can siphon the joy out of workers and the impact on patient care. And she talks about the growing desires for consumers to have the same convenience in healthcare as they get from other industries.

If hospitals and health systems want to create a better experience, Boissy says leaders must drive that change.

“I think it starts with the values of the organization,” she says, “and executive leadership being crystal clear about: Who do you want to be?”

The chief medical officer of Qualtrics, Boissy talks about organizations living their values, improving access, and how empathy provides a great return on investment.

Adrienne Boissy of Qualtrics talks about the patient experience | Data Book podcast

Sanjeev Agrawal says hospitals can no longer view efficiency as a luxury item.

Hospitals are going to need to become more efficient and excel at operations in order to stay afloat, said Agrawal, the president and chief operating officer of 

“I believe hospitals are facing in 2023, the 1999 moment that airlines faced, where you've got to become operationally excellent, or you either will get acquired or worse, you might not survive,” he says. “I understand why hospitals are so far behind because they're so under invested in what is the key driver of competitiveness in every other industry.”

In the latest episode of the Data Book podcast, Agrawal talks about the need for hospitals and health systems to turn to technology. LeanTaaS provides software solutions for hospitals to expand their capacity to schedule more surgeries and serve more patients. LeanTaaS works with more than 175 health systems and 625 hospitals, and about 5,000 operating rooms.

“Think about LeanTaaS as a company that helps hospitals optimize the use of constrained capacity.”

, a company that provides automation solutions for health systems. And he discusses why hospitals need to embrace technology, and how they serve more patients and reduce stress on their staff.

In our latest episode, the president of the healthcare technology company talks about the need to embrace technology so hospitals can survive.

Sanjeev Agrawal of LeanTaaS says efficiency is a 'requirement' for hospitals | Data Book podcast

Artificial intelligence is being touted as having the potential to revolutionize healthcare.

Joe Zabinski says that the future may not be too far away.

“In terms of how close we are to this having widespread adoption, I think we're closer than most people realize, because so much of it goes on behind the scenes,” he says.

Zabinski, the senior director of AI and personalized medicine at OM1, is the guest on the latest episode of the Data Book podcast.

He sees AI as having great promise in helping diagnose conditions and identify patients who are in the greatest need of screenings for certain areas.

“That's a very promising area for AI to help out with diagnosis,” he says.

Zabinski talked about the ways AI can change healthcare, and how artificial intelligence could be used to improve health equity, or potentially worsen disparities if it’s used incorrectly. He also talked about the potential of ChatGPT to change the industry, and could eventually help physicians and researchers. 

He also talked about the need for more health systems to move toward automation to handle some administrative tasks, especially in light of staffing shortages.

Artificial intelligence and its potential to change healthcare

In the latest episode, he talks about how artificial intelligence can change the practice of medicine, its promise and some thorny ethical questions.

Data Book podcast: Joe Zabinski of OM1 talks about AI and ChatGPT

Tom Cotter spends time thinking about things that would keep some people up at night.

Cotter is president and executive director of Healthcare Ready, a nonprofit organization that works with the health sector to ensure sufficient supplies of pharmaceuticals and other needed supplies for disasters. He talks about the organization’s work in the latest Data Book podcast.

Healthcare Ready was founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and coordinates information sharing between the healthcare sector and supply chain entities.

In light of shortages of key drugs such as albuterol and children’s ibuprofen in recent months, Cotter says, “We need to understand where's the data that is useful for decision makers to take action.”

“I think people think there's more visibility and transparency than there actually is in the supply chain, especially in the healthcare sector,” Cotter says.

Cotter says the supply chain “is more of a supply web. And there's a lot of interdependencies.”

“I think what we need to now do, in general, you know, at a high level, is make sure we're institutionalizing the lessons learned from the past couple of years, and not just from COVID-19,” he adds.

In our latest episode, Cotter talks about his nonprofit organization that helps the health sector prepare for emergencies, and the need for more data to manage the supply chain.


Data Book podcast: Tom Cotter of Healthcare Ready on preparing for disaster

Medical debt is an enormous problem, as more than half of all U.S. adults have gone into debt because of medical or dental bills, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In our latest episode of the “Data Book” podcast, we talked about medical debt with Ryne Natzke, the chief revenue officer of Sphere. Sphere is a technology company that works with health systems on patient billing systems.

Ryne discussed the difficulties for patients. And he says medical debt could be considered a social determinant of health.

“Medical debt is the largest overall contributor to personal debt,” Natzke says.

We also talked about the challenges for providers. Healthcare providers, which are facing tremendous financial pressures in the pandemic, also need to collect as much as possible from patients, Natzke adds.

“Hospitals don’t love having all this money sitting out there uncollected,” he says.

We talked about how health systems can sustain their operations without leaving their patients with catastrophic debt. He talks about the need for health systems to use technology to help determine which patients may be facing financial hardships due to their medical costs, and how to help them. 

But systems also need to give patients the human touch, and allow them to reach a person when they truly need assistance.

Reminder: You can subscribe to Data Book on Apple, Spotify, Google, iHeart Radio and virtually everywhere you get your podcasts.

In our latest episode, Ryne Natzke of Sphere talks about how providers need to take different approaches to ensure they are getting paid without leaving patients with heavy debt.

Data Book podcast: Medical debt and the impact on patients and providers 

In our latest episode of the Data Book podcast, Justin Norden talks about the emergence of ChatGPT and what it means for healthcare.

Norden is a physician who teaches about digital health at Stanford Medicine. He’s also a partner at GSR Ventures, an investment firm focusing on early stage digital health companies. In this conversation, he talks about how AI is going to eventually touch every part of the healthcare journey.

Growing up in a family of physicians, he graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine. He became fascinated with the idea of merging technology and healthcare. He helped start the Stanford Center for Digital Health.

As Norden says, “You can’t spend that long in Silicon Valley without starting a few companies of your own.” He was CEO and co-founder of Trustworthy AI, which was acquired by Waymo, Google’s self-driving vehicle company. He also worked on the healthcare team at Apple. He’s been at GSR Ventures for nearly four years.

ChatGPT could be the fastest-growing consumer technology project ever, Norden says.

When asked about ChatGPT’s implication for healthcare, Norden says, “That is the million, if not billion dollar question.”

Justin teaches about digital health at Stanford Medicine and is a partner at GSR Ventures. He talks about the potential of ChatGPT, the ethical questions, and how AI will transform the industry.

Data Book podcast: Justin Norden talks about ChatGPT and AI in healthcare

In this episode of the Data Book podcast, we talked with Ajay Khanna, the CEO of Tellius.

Tellius, a technology firm, operates an AI-driven decision intelligence platform. Khanna talks about machine learning and artificial intelligence, and its potential to help healthcare organizations gain new insights into their operations in areas ranging from hospital readmissions to supply chain challenges.

Khanna also talks about "decision intelligence," which he describes as bringing the what, why and how together. With AI, and decision intelligence, organizations can gain better insights into trends, such as why patients are choosing a certain medication.

And he talks about the steps needed for healthcare organizations to move forward and embrace new technologies. "It's a culture change," Khanna says. But it's also about gaining greater ease with AI and other new technologies.

In the latest episode, Ajay Khanna explains how healthcare organizations can use artificial intelligence to gain new insights into their business. 

Data Book podcast: Ajay Khanna, Tellius CEO, talks about 'decision intelligence'

Kevin Olson certainly knows about multi-tasking in a crisis.

Olson is the chief information officer of Jupiter Medical Center, one of the top hospitals in south Florida. In this episode of the Data Book podcast, Olson discusses managing digital transformation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been a unique challenge that I think we’ve never faced before,” Olson says.

He talked about the challenge of his role in the COVID-19 pandemic, while meeting the needs of caregivers taking care of patients and being agile to tackle important tasks.

Olson also discusses dealing with cyberattacks, a problem that has affected many hospitals. The medical center has worked with partners to fortify the medical center’s defenses.

“We’ve had an unprecedented amount of cyberattacks going on,” he says.

Olson stressed the importance of senior leadership and the board in changing the culture and getting everyone in the organization to take cybersecurity seriously.

And he talked about making it easier for consumers to engage with the healthcare system, and why patients of all ages are embracing technology.

Kevin Olson is the chief information officer of Jupiter Medical Center, one of south Florida's top hospitals. He talks about digital transformation, cybersecurity and helping patients. 

Data Book Podcast: Talking with Kevin Olson of Jupiter Medical Center

Physicians, and tomorrow’s doctors, are struggling with their well-being, a new study finds. Experts call for changes to encourage doctors, residents and students to get the help they need.

Doctors aren’t the only ones battling burnout. Many medical students are hurting.

Boston Medical Center and University of Chicago Medicine ranked high in the Lown Institute’s list of racially inclusive hospitals. Leaders share their insights. 

Health equity is a journey, and these hospitals are leading the way

The think tank ranked the hospitals that fared best in opening its doors to all. The institute also identified metro areas with high segregation.

These are the 10 most racially inclusive hospitals in America, Lown Institute says

The voluntary program is designed to help hospitals curb their emissions and expand their work to combat climate change. Leaders also point to potential cost savings.


Joint Commission offers hospitals certification for sustainability

The health system and the retailer have seen good results in remote care management. Best Buy has been aiming to make a mark in healthcare. 


Geisinger and the Geek Squad: Expanding home care with Best Buy Health

Michael Dowling, the president and CEO of Northwell Health, offers an interesting perspective on the top threat to healthcare organizations.

It isn’t a rival in the market or the changing economic climate.

“The status quo is your biggest competitor,” Dowling says. “Complacency is the biggest danger.”

, Dowling describes what it takes to be a leader that inspires teams to succeed.

Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling: 'Leadership is about building hope'

As head of Northwell Health, Dowling leads an organization with 21 hospitals,  hundreds of sites of care, and annual revenues of $16 billion.

“When I look forward, despite difficulties and financial pressures, et cetera, I see enormous opportunity to improve,” he says.

He’s a big proponent of setting lofty goals.

“It’s a lot better to aim high and miss the mark than to aim low and achieve it,” he says.

“Leadership is about aiming high,” Dowling says. “And when you get to your target, raise the bar. That's what leadership is about: constantly raising the bar. You'll inspire people to go above and beyond what they think is possible.”

“When you push that way, it's amazing what people will find out they can do that they didn't think they could do,” he adds. “COVID proved that. We gotta prove it in non-COVID times.”

Dowling has also taken a leadership role nationally 

in encouraging other health system leaders to join the fight to reduce gun violence

The longtime head of the New York hospital system says leaders should constantly raise the bar. 

Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling: ‘Complacency is the biggest danger’

 - David Higginson has some advice for hospitals and health systems looking to use machine learning.

Higginson, the chief innovation officer of Phoenix Children's Hospital, offered 

 at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition. He described how machine learning models helped identify children with malnutrition and people who would be willing to donate to the hospital's foundation.

 and offered some guidance for health systems looking to do more with machine learning.

"I would say get started by thinking about how you going to use it first," Higginson says. "Don't get tricked into actually building the model."

"Think about the problem, frame it up as a prediction problem," he says, while adding that not all problems can be framed that way.

"But if you find one that is a really nice prediction problem, ask the operators, the people that will use it everyday: 'Tell me how you'd use this,'" Higginson says. "And work with them on their workflow and how it's going to change the way they do their job. 

"And when they can see it and say, 'OK, I'm excited about that, I can see how it's going to make a difference,' then go and build it," he says. "You'll have more motivation to do it, you'll understand what the goal is. But when you finally do get it, you'll know it's going to be used."

He talks about how machine learning improved patient care and the hospital's financial performance, and offers a few tips for health systems.

David Higginson of Phoenix Children's Hospital on using machine learning

 - The HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition is taking place in Chicago this week, and as many as 40,000 people will be attending. 

The HIMSS 2023 Conference is bringing tens of thousands of people to Chicago, and here are a few suggestions on learning, dining, and one mistake to avoid. 

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