Bright Spots in Healthcare Eric Glazer

 
Katherine Gergen Barnett, MD, Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Cheryl Harding, patient and community advocate, join Eric to share how Boston Medical Center is utilizing storytelling to build trust and connection between the hospital and its community partners. Katherine and Cheryl discuss the impact medical mistrusts has on health outcomes and health disparities.
 
They also tell how th "Storytelling to Build Medical Trust" project was born out of the desire of BMC to improve the health and well-being of Black and brown community members. The project puts a face to the statistics and allow community members to explain why they lack trust in the overall healthcare system.
Hear how this unique project has brought the medical and local communities together and how empathy and trust can help advance health equity and narrow health disparities.
About Katherine
Katherine Gergen Barnett, MD, is a family medicine physician and the Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Dr. Gergen Barnett is also a clinical associate professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Her primary clinical interests are behavioral health, preventive medicine, nutrition, trauma-informed care, gender-affirming care, women’s health, reproductive care, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and group medical care. Dr. Gergen Barnett’s research focuses on innovative models of care to address chronic medical conditions and physician burnout and engaging community partners in creating feasible solutions to increase health and wellness and to address medical distrust in traditionally marginalized communities. Dr. Gergen Barnett is involved in local and state health policy addressing health inequities and national policy addressing primary care delivery and is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe, Boston Public Radio, and various television outlets.
 
About Cheryl
The founder of a Boston nonprofit, From Roots to Wings, Cheryl continues to be a strong voice for the underserved and underrepresented to ensure that everyone gets access to information, services and opportunities. 
 
About the Project
“Storytelling to Build Medical Trust” focuses on highlighting the experience and wisdom of community members, who shared in video interviews their negative interactions with the healthcare system in the hope that the healthcare industry would finally listen. The project is jointly led by Boston Medical Center, Everyday Boston, and the B.L.A.C Project, in partnership with Transformational Prison Project, We Got Us, and EmVision Productions. The project was funded by Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute and MA-CEAL. Learn more at https://www.storiesformedicaltrust.org.
 
About Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center is a non-profit 514-bed academic medical center and safety-net hospital in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the Boston Medical Center Health System, the hospital provides primary and specialty care to residents of the Greater Boston area. Boston Medical Center is a founding partner of the Boston Medical Center Health System, which is focused on creating a coordinated, equitable, value-based continuum of care to deliver world-class care to patients and health plan members. Find out more at www.bmc.org.
 

Elevance Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, and the Business Group on Health and Socially Determined discuss how plans can provide a more holistic and effective healthcare journey for members by gaining insight into all barriers to caring for your members, including social risks such as food insecurities, housing instabilities, financial strain, health literacy challenges, and lack of transportation.
 
Our expert panel explores the value of quantifying the impact of social risks and shares strategies and actions that health plans can take to improve health outcomes, reduce health disparities, decrease costs, and track measurable results. 
Link to report on Elevance's Whole Health Index (WHI) mentioned during show: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.23.0015
Guests:
Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, Chief Health Officer, Elevance Health
April Richardson, MD, Vice President, Clinical Services, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina
Ellen Kelsay, President & CEO, Business Group on Health
Trenor Williams, MD, CEO & Co-Founder, Socially Determined
 
https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/innovative-strategies-for-health-plans-to-mitigate-social-risk/



This episode is sponsored by Socially Determined
Socially Determined provides social risk data, analytics, and expertise to healthcare organizations seeking to understand how Social Determinants of Health and social risk factors impact the communities they serve. Our analytics platform, SocialScape, provides actionable insights into community-level SDOH risk exposure and individual-level social risk factors, and their impact on health care utilization, cost, outcomes, and equity.

Allison Bryant, MD, MPH, Associate Chief Health Equity Officer, Mass General Brigham (MGB), joins Eric to discuss how the health system ensures its innovations are accessible to everyone, particularly those from marginalized communities. Allison elaborates on MGB's unique approach, viewing its mission as providing healthcare and as a catalyst for improving equity of outcomes for patients and the communities it serves.
 
Topics covered include:
Community health
Bridging the digital divide
Equity in maternal health
United Against Racism (MGB’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement)
 
About Allison
In her role at MGB, Allison works to eliminate longstanding inequities in patient care and outcomes. She is a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Harvard Medical School and is the Frederic D. Frigoletto, MD Endowed Chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She received degrees in biology, public health and medicine from Harvard University, where she also completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology and fellowships in maternal/fetal medicine and the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy. She previously served as the vice chair for quality, equity and safety for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mass General.
 
About Mass General Brigham
Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals.



Mass General Brigham
https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/
 
United Against Racism: https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/united-against-racism

Esteemed leaders from CVS Health, Florida Blue, Highmark, and Vori Health delved into the impact of health equity on chronic care. They not only shared strategies and solutions to enhance healthcare accessibility but also shed light on specific programs they have successfully implemented to bridge the health equity gap in chronic disease prevention and treatment. 
 
Guests:
Joneigh S. Khaldun, MD, MPH, FACEP, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer, CVS Health
Kelli Tice, MD, Vice President, Medical Affairs & Chief Health Equity Officer, Florida Blue
Nebeyou Abebe, Senior Vice President, Social Determinants of Health, Highmark Health
Mary O'Connor, MD, Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Vori Health
 
https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/navigating-the-intersection-of-health-equity-and-chronic-care/
 
Links to programs mentioned during the episode
Advancing Health Equity | CVS Health: https://www.cvshealth.com/impact/health-equity.html
CVS Health launches Community Equity Alliance to improve health outcomes in underserved communities: https://www.cvshealth.com/news/health-equity/cvs-health-launches-community-equity-alliance-to-improve-health-outcomes.html
Spoken Rx - Prescription Reader | CVS Pharmacy: https://www.cvs.com/content/pharmacy/spoken-rx
Highmark Community Support Platform: https://highmark.findhelp.com/
   
 
This episode is sponsored by our partner, Vori Health
Vori Health is a specialty medical practice delivering a virtual-first musculoskeletal (MSK) solution to help members get back to their lives faster. As the only nationwide MSK practice with doctor-led care teams, Vori Health is the most convenient way to access appropriate care for back, neck, and joint pain without bouncing around the healthcare system. Whether members need a diagnosis, non-opioid prescription, personalized physical therapy, or health coaching, they can turn to Vori Health for evidence-based care and effective end-to-end support. This holistic model reduces unnecessary surgeries, enables faster recoveries, and lowers MSK spend with up to a 4:1 ROI. For more information, visit www.vorihealth.com.
 

Dan Fishbein, President of Sun Life U.S., joins Eric to discuss Sun Life’s commitment to supporting holistic care for mental health and how it leverages digital technology to enhance the overall delivery of mental health and caregiver support to all clients. 
 
The conversation also touches on how Sun Life is helping patients navigate a challenging healthcare system. It’s using data and analytics to identify trends and unmet needs and AI to summarize health records quickly to improve health outcomes.
 
In addition, Dan elaborates on Sun Life’s redefined role as a healthcare benefits provider and its collaborations with various healthcare organizations to help promote health and well-being. 



About Dan
As president of Sun Life U.S., Dan has transformed the company into a leader in health-related benefits and services that connect to the broader healthcare ecosystem to help people access the care and coverage they need.
 
Since joining Sun Life in 2014, Dan has overseen several successful acquisitions that have grown the company and its capabilities, including DentaQuest (2022), PinnacleCare (2021), Maxwell Health (2018), and Assurant Employee Benefits (2016). Since 2014 Sun Life U.S. has grown three-fold to $8 billion in revenues, offering more than 50 million Americans group benefits and services through employers, partners and government programs. It serves a block of in-force individual life insurance policyholders. 
 
Before Sun Life, he served as Aetna’s President, Specialty Businesses and held several other senior leadership positions during his 16-year tenure. He previously served in leadership posts at New York Life and MassMutual.
 
Dan earned a bachelor’s degree and a Doctor of Medicine from Boston University. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and Maine Medical Association. Dan is also a past chair and active board member of Spurwink Services in Portland, Maine, and serves in an advisory capacity on the board of Collective Health, an insurtech start-up based in San Francisco.
 
About Sun Life
Sun Life is a leading financial services company that helps clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda.
 

 
Leaders from Ballad Health, Baystate Health, Stony Brook Medicine and Purple Lab share how health systems can take a more sophisticated and consumer-focused approach to attracting new patients. 
 
Our expert panel leads a thought-provoking discussion on the importance of seeing patients as healthcare consumers and understanding how they make decisions, what motivates them, and how, where, and why they engage with the broader healthcare system. 
 
You will discover innovative patient acquisition strategies and best practices you can implement in your organization to break through the market clutter, differentiate your health system’s offerings and create a message that resonates with customers.
 
Themes covered:
Consumer Centricity & The Patient Journey
Personalized, Data-Driven Marketing
Health Equity
 
Guests:
Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH, MBA, System Chief of Hospital Medicine and Regional Chief Medical Officer/Regional Quality Officer, Baystate Health
Timothy Brown, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Stony Brook Medicine
Molly Luton, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Ballad Health
Ted Sweetser, Vice President, Strategy, Healthcare, Purple Labs
 
Bios: https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/how-top-hospital-systems-are-capturing-new-patients/



We are proud to have Purple Lab as the sponsor of this event. Their support is Instrumental in bringing you this insightful discussion.
PurpleLab is a health tech company that puts valuable healthcare insights in customers' hands, enabling the healthcare industry to drive better outcomes through access to real-world data. https://purplelab.com/