Contributor: Heather Aspras, WG’08

Back in May, I had the good fortune of going to the first in-person WHCMAA board meeting in more than two years. It was wonderful getting to see June and a lot of my fellow board members in Colonial Penn Center! The value of what the WHCMAA offers was reinforced in the State of the Clubs report, which indicated we have several times the average number of paid members per club. Read more.

This eclectic standing column features insightful musings, words of wisdom, life lessons, and stepping-stones to business success. This month's philosopher is Michael Rovinsky, WG'86, President of Integrity Consulting Group, a healthcare consulting firm he initially founded in 1998.  Read more.

Contributors: Sean S. Zabaneh and Kevin M. Moran, JD’19

Healthcare businesses should pay close attention to the antitrust implications of so-called “wage fixing” and “no poach” agreements, which generally refer to agreements between competitors regarding the hiring and/or compensation of their employees. 

The recent high-profile prosecution of DaVita, Inc. — one of the world’s largest dialysis providers — and its former CEO for allegedly engaging in no-poach agreements should serve as a clear warning sign.  Read more.

Contributor: Rich Butler, MS, USPTA

(Fife and drums playing) Over two centuries ago, long before Coach Belichick dominated the NFL, there was an event by the New England Patriots that changed history. On April 19th, 1775, while the British were returning the 20 miles from Concord to Boston, Patriots from Lexington, Concord, Acton, Sudbury, Bedford, and Lincoln, to name a few, displayed remarkable feats of aerobic endurance in their attempt to do battle with the British Regulars heading east. Patriots covered 15-20 miles as they chased the British. The militia were the most fit and athletic from each town, fully capable of enduring the physical demands of that day. According to their Apple watches, the minutemen burned 5,300 calories that day and had an average BMI of ~21.3.  Read more.

Contributor: Anne-Maree Cantwell, MD and MA’86, WG’86 from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute at Wharton

What is a viable solution to delivering mental health care treatment to more patients with fewer providers? Can technology, with the use of the internet and 5G wireless networks, help solve the problem? If platforms and apps offering remote services are an option to address the gap, are these digital solutions effective in reducing the severity of mental health disorders? What might be the role of artificial intelligence in bridging the looming gulf in supply and demand? Read more.

Contributors: Deanna Banks, Tim Frischmon, and Jessica Homann

The Big Quit. The Great Resignation. The Great Reshuffle.

No matter what you call it, the challenge is the same. With unexpected resignations and expedited retirements rapidly increasing across the executive ranks, healthcare organizations struggle to find been-there-done-that executives. Healthcare’s changing future is colliding with an unpredictable talent landscape. Disoriented in this unfamiliar terrain, organizations and executives must develop an agile mindset to evolve and redesign pathways to enter the C-suite. Read more.

Contributor: Vidya Murthy, WEMBA’42 

There has been a flurry of activity in policy and legislation in the last 6 months focusing on healthcare cybersecurity - the implication of which could fundamentally change the landscape. Looking down the road five years, the regulator and consumer of medical devices will continue to mature in both assessment of risk and willingness to tolerate deviation from a baseline. If device manufacturers do not earnestly begin adopting better cybersecurity practices for devices, they will face a delayed release to market. Read more.

Contributor: Ian Tong, MD

For the last nine years, one could say I have been deeply involved in the world of digital healthcare delivery. In fact, some people might even go so far as to say I am a national expert. However, the point of this article is not to display my “deep knowledge,” but more so to make a humbling admission about my ignorance. I cannot figure out why some of our leaders and lawmakers refuse to see the value of telemedicine, or what I call virtual care? Read more.

Contributors: Lauren Cricchi and Roy Beveridge, MD

Though studies, articles, and podcasts abound discussing the importance of “providers” taking on financial risk in order to really make the transition to value-based care work, there is a level of granularity missing in current public discourse. To accomplish this, the term “provider” must not only be differentiated between hospital-based health systems, physician groups, facilities, and clinicians, but segmented amongst clinicians by specialty as well. Even where “specialists” and “primary care” physicians are differentiated, there is still a level of distinction missing within the world of value-based care to truly understand the individual physician experience. Read more. 

Contributors: Wren Keber, Lisa Soroka, and Z. Colette Edwards, WG’84 MD’85

Early in the pandemic, many organizations reported that health plans and payers were benefiting from the drop in utilization. This may have been true for a short period, when pauses in elective surgical procedures reduced medical expenditures, and fear of con-tracting COVID-19 in clinical settings prompted patients to avoid emergency rooms and/or reconsider or postpone diagnostic, chronic, and routine care. As utilization has rebounded, payers are grappling with the widespread impact of pent-up demand, increased utilization, and a population with more co-morbidities due to a delay of necessary care. In order to plan well enough for anticipated endemic and post-COVID costs, health plans should consider several tactics as they plan for the future. Read more. 

Contributor: Linda Roszak Burton, ACC, BBC, BS

Current research has established that the cultivation and sustainability of gratitude practices have a multiplier effect on building quality relationships and promoting more pro-social behaviors. Gratitude is often called the “social glue.” Foundational to much of the research is the finding that gratitude triggers several forms of reciprocal gratitude. The Law of Reciprocity implies being on the receiving end of gratitude creates a psychological need to reciprocate. And this reciprocity has benefits for individuals, organizations, and patients. Read more. 

Contributors: Jason C. Pradarelli, Carey H. Gallagher, and Jennifer Tomasik

In a previous edition of The Wharton Healthcare Quarterly, we proposed the workforce crisis represents an “unignorable moment” — a critical point that is public, irreversible, systemic, and challenges the identity of an organization or a field. We contended that new planning assumptions and solutions will be needed to deliver care safely and effectively. For those responsible for addressing this unignorable moment, we introduced three guiding principles: (1) slowing down to speed up, (2) leveraging the power of stuck, and (3) using resistance as feedback.

In this article, we expand on these principles to create systemic value from the fragile current state of the healthcare workforce. Read more.