Lessons Learned

Dear Listeners,

I am so grateful to those of you who shared your reaction to the Marcus Osborne ‘Walmart’ episode last week. The responses ranged from agreement to ‘I knew this was coming’, to defensiveness, concern and even fear. 

As we listen to the voices beyond our comfort zone, many of us in healthcare are going to feel uncomfortable.  I’d like to move beyond that and challenge ourselves to ask, “What can we learn and how can we leverage these learnings to make proactive change?”

Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

1. Marcus Osborne, along with prior podcast guests have a very different understanding of consumerism and customer value proposition.  Coming from industries such as retail, entertainment, dig/tech - they have a more advanced, and I would daresay, humanistic philosophy of consumerism.  
2. While many of us believe that what healthcare needs is a fix, these highly successful entrepreneurs and execs hear the market calling for a more fundamental overhaul or redesign of healthcare delivery.  
3. In the past, there were major barriers to entering healthcare and not enough incentive for change from within. We’re at a tipping point and disruptive change is coming faster, bigger and bolder. New entrants, as well as legacy stakeholders, are increasingly motivated and highly capable of creating profound change.   

Transformation requires us to have our assumptions and sensibilities challenged. Disruption can catalyze us to create real change.  We have tremendous resources, no lack of innovative thinking and resilience, and incredibly dedicated, mission-driven professionals and staff.  What we need now is to adapt to a new consumer-centric mindset.

Along those lines, stay tuned for the November episodes, a two-part interview with David Contorno. David is a health benefits manager with over 20 years of experience. Like Marcus Osborne, he is direct and unapologetic with divergent perspectives. He’s smart, experienced, incredibly knowledgeable, and has a track record of success in designing and implementing radically different, value-based health benefits and employer health programs.  I suspect that he, too, will challenge your assumptions and beliefs.