The Backstory Jarrard Inc.

Welcome to The Backstory, with Anne Hancock Toomey, president and founding partner of Jarrard Inc. For nearly two decades, Jarrard – one of the nation’s top communications consulting firms for healthcare – has partnered with thousands of leaders across the country who are striving to make healthcare better every day.
But this isn't a podcast about healthcare, or politics or even communications. It's about authentic leadership.
The Backstory is about demystifying respected leaders who've had a lot of success along the way because of the kind of leaders they've chosen to be.
Each person Anne interviews is visionary, of course. They’re smart as hell, and they’re fierce about their business and their mission. They're also humble, kind and create the kind of environments in which people can thrive. They're not perfect. But they are real. And it’s the combination of those two things that makes each one of them great.
In every episode, Anne’s guest digs into who they are, where they come from and what's influenced them to be the person and the leader that they are today.
Which raises the question: Just who are these guests? We won't spill everything, but her first conversations include Pete November, CEO of Ochsner Health; Chris Roth, CEO of St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho and Sheri Shapiro, chief strategy officer of CommonSpirit Health.
Pull up a virtual chair and join us in these intimate, compelling conversations starting later this month. We’ll be dropping episodes on a biweekly basis, so be sure to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Karin Jeffers, CEO of Clinical & Support Options (CSO), discusses the founding of CSO in 1955 and the organization's mission to provide mental health services to families across Western Massachusetts. She highlights the evolution of behavioral health care and the progress made in reducing stigma, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jeffers also discusses the unique challenges and opportunities in Western Massachusetts, including the need for collaboration and recruitment of staff. She emphasizes the importance of integrating behavioral health care and the transition to value-based care. Jeffers shares insights on implementing change, the role of Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers, and the need for closing the gap in salaries and funding between mental health and medical care.
Key Takeaways

Clinical & Support Options (CSO) was founded in 1955 to address the mental health needs of families in Franklin County.

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped reduce stigma around mental health and increased willingness to seek help.

Collaboration and recruitment of staff are ongoing challenges in providing behavioral health care in Western Massachusetts.

Integration of behavioral health care and the transition to value-based care are important for improving outcomes.

Closing the gap in salaries and funding is crucial to recognizing the value of behavioral health care.


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Dan Beuerlein is a managing director at Brentwood Capital, where he advises health services companies on M&A and capital raises. While his expertise extends across sectors, he has a particular focus on autism services, women's health and fertility, and outpatient surgery. Here, Beuerlein and Jarrard Vice President Ellis Metz talk about the state of the capital markets today, the work PE and other investors need to do to better tell the story of their work and value in healthcare, and their perspective on Jarrard's recent national consumer survey on private equity and post-acute care.
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This Sunday, we’re unveiling our new survey (the first of its kind at Jarrard), which sought the opinion of more than 1,000 adults across the country about their perception of post-acute models of care and private equity’s role in healthcare. Over the past decade, industry segments such as urgent care clinics and post-acute rehabilitation have evolved from emergent trends to mainstream components of care delivery. And in parallel, the involvement of private investors in healthcare has grown. With this survey, we aimed to understand consumers’ baseline views of these care delivery and business models, particularly in an era of eroding trust in healthcare institutions.
In this week’s High Stakes podcast, we speak with Jarrard Vice President, Health Services Dan Schlacter about some of the survey’s headline takeaways. As one of the co-developers of the questionnaire, Schlacter sheds light on the implications of these insights.
Key points:

Broadly speaking, consumers’ perspectives on PE and “alternative” sites of care are not limited to leaders within those sectors. This survey is also relevant to hospital/acute care decision makers, particularly to understand which models or care people trust (and don’t trust) in the context of potential partnerships.

That said, one significant takeaway is everybody has room to improve. In Schlacter’s words, “there’s not a whole lot of trust out there to begin with.” Remaining up to speed with the various levels of trust across the industry provides a valuable innovation and partnership playbook for leaders of every stripe. It can also help them retain, or gain, the coveted trust of key stakeholders when it counts the most.

Speaking of “levels of trust”… government lawmakers and regulators are at the bottom of the barrel. At the same time, they have the power and jurisdiction to manifest change. Rather than doing so with an iron-fisted regulatory mindset, the public’s low view of these groups is an opportunity to adopt a partnership mindset between the government and private sector. Regulators can recognize that healthcare innovators, including investors, are driving positive change in the industry, and they can foster a supportive relationship to help accelerate new care models, ideas and partnerships that improve healthcare for everyone. 


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McDermott Will & Emery's annual two-day event convenes leaders and investors from across the industry to discuss emergent trends and topics impacting the healthcare investment world. This year, its timing couldn’t have been more appropriate. On Tuesday, just one day before the conference kicked off, the FTC, HHS and DOJ announced their shared investigation into private equity’s role in healthcare. This development, among others shaping the market – including the continued repercussions of large-scale cyber security incidents – made for lively conversation this year. Miami was buzzing.
In the mix from our firm were Sheila Biggs, VP Health Services and Ellis Metz, VP Strategic Partnerships. We caught up with them as they were leaving town - Sheila recording from the hotel lobby, to get a few of their observations.
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Is retail healthcare the disruptor, the partner, the gap-filler or something else? What’s the best way for traditional health systems to interact with retail healthcare providers? There have been stories in the healthcare trades about these questions, so Abby McNeil and Sheila Biggs joined the High Stakes Podcast to sort them out. McNeil is a vice president and deputy lead of Jarrard’s Regional Health Systems Practice. Biggs is a vice president and deputy lead of our Health Services practice.
Key Takeaways:

Don’t conflate “learning from retail” or “competing with retail” with “partnering with retail.” Sounds obvious, but some of the coverage we’ve seen has done just that.

Speaking of partnerships between acute providers and retail healthcare, it’s not clear whether those relationships will lead to their stated goal of increased access. They may lead to more referrals to the health system, but that’s different.

That said, it does appear that the growing number of partnerships is built on an acknowledgement that each segment of the industry has a unique skillset, so rather than try to replicate someone else’s strengths, why not just work with them? But again, the jury is still out on whether that will lead to improved access or care for patients.

When thinking about lessons learned from retail healthcare in the push for a more consumer-friendly system, it’s critical to look at root causes. For example, setting up an online scheduling platform does no good if there isn’t enough clinical staff to cover those appointments. Or if the physicians don’t want to use the systems and turn it off.

Similarly, the expectations of clinicians have to be a big part of the conversation when thinking about how to develop a more consumer-friendly experience.

Medical data – and the security of it – is an ongoing concern. Do patients want Amazon having all of their personal health information along with their consumer behaviors? Tread carefully.


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