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The Midlife Spend: Memorial Hermann on Partnering with MIDI Health for Women's Health · The Strategy Catalyst Dispatch

0:05
Anika (2): Welcome to the Strategy Catalyst Dispatch, a podcast from the Strategy Catalyst team at the Health Management Academy.
0:12
Anika (2): I'm your host, Anika Rashid Senior Analyst, and each episode we'll explore The trends and insights shaping healthcare strategy today.
0:20
Anika (2): Let's dive in.
0:27
Anika (2): When we talk about women's health, what does that actually mean?
0:30
Anika (2): What does it conjure up in our minds?
0:33
Anika (2): While women's health has long been defined as care during the reproductive years, obstetrics and gynecology, many are waking up to the reality that this is a limited and insufficient scope.
0:44
Anika (2): A growing body of research is revealing just how much we've been missing by treating women as, in essence, smaller men.
0:51
Anika (2): But the reality is that what women consumers want is care that is both much more broad and much more tailored to them.
0:58
Anika (2): And let's be honest, women's health is also a trendy space to be in right now.
1:02
Anika (2): We've seen a lot of venture capital investment in the fem tech and women's health space in recent years.
1:07
Anika (2): Our members are often asking us where they should be making investments.
1:11
Anika (2): so today we're gonna dig into why and how health systems can strategically position themselves in the women's health space and gain competitive advantage in their markets.
1:20
Anika (2): For this, we'll hear from Memorial Herman who began to ask.
1:24
Anika (2): what would it look like to treat women's health as its own cohort, with sex specific care that spans service lines and a woman's lifespan?
1:32
Anika (2): What does it look like to capture that loyalty and spend in new ways?
1:36
Anika (2): Memorial Hermann has restructured their service lines to separate women's health from pediatrics, and they're also building strategies to embed sex specific care across cardiology, endocrinology, and beyond.
1:47
Anika (2): And they partnered with MIDI Health, a digital health startup for women and midlife focusing on perimenopause and menopause to address a major gap in care.
1:56
Anika (2): It's a market with unmet demand.
1:57
Anika (2): And Memorial Hermann saw an opportunity to build through partnership rather than building from scratch.
2:03
Anika (2): So in this episode, we're gonna dig into the strategic case for investing in women's health, how the MIDI partnership came together, and what outcomes Memorial Hermann has seen two years in.
2:13
Anika (2): So from Memorial Herman, I'm joined today by Kathleen Chu, associate Vice President of Corporate Strategy, and Jennifer Todd, vice president of the Women's Service Line.
2:23
Kathleen McHugh: Great to be with you.
2:26
Anika (2): Yeah, absolutely.
2:28
Anika (2): So Kathleen I wanna start off by asking.
2:31
Anika (2): what are some of the biggest trends to watch right now in women's health, whether that be demographics, workforce trends, reimbursement,
2:40
Kathleen McHugh: Sure.
2:41
Kathleen McHugh: So I think there's been a focus on the reproductive years in a woman's life.
2:46
Kathleen McHugh: However, as we all know, the birth rate is declining and it's gonna continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
2:53
Kathleen McHugh: we are seeing a new reframing of women's health across our lifespan.
2:59
Kathleen McHugh: with that, we're seeing more investment both commercially and in research for women's.
3:04
Kathleen McHugh: So we're seeing companies and products and studies now focused on gender specific sex-based healthcare for things that have plagued large portions of our population for a very long time.
3:17
Kathleen McHugh: Like endometriosis, menopause, PMS, and in addition to that, there's also a focus on things like.
3:24
Kathleen McHugh: Cardiovascular care and Alzheimer's, things that disproportionately affect women.
3:30
Kathleen McHugh: So it's a really promising trend and we're excited to be kind of a part of it with the work that we're doing with midi.
3:38
Anika (2): So it sounds like there is, definitely an emphasis on connecting women's health to some of those, other, health issues, like you mentioned, cardiovascular issues.
3:52
Anika (2): jumping off that, I also wanna ask, in the past we've often heard arguments that investment in women's health can help health systems generate patient loyalty and then influence downstream care utilization.
4:04
Anika (2): and maybe that, is part of the pieces when it comes to cardiovascular health or other, types of outcomes.
4:10
Anika (2): but that hard data has.
4:12
Anika (2): Often been difficult to come by.
4:14
Anika (2): would you Jenn agree with that thesis?
4:17
Jenn: wholeheartedly.
4:18
Jenn: Yes.
4:18
Jenn: there is some data out there.
4:20
Jenn: some of it's subjective versus, you know, objective.
4:23
Jenn: And for us as a system, the way that we look at it is, there is data to support that women make 80% of the household healthcare decisions.
4:32
Jenn: additionally, when you look at our workforce, 78% of our employees are women.
4:38
Jenn: and then when you look at the healthcare spin, especially on the managed care side, the highest healthcare spin is actually women in midlife.
4:45
Anika: Wow.
4:45
Jenn: you look at the number one user of healthcare, women use healthcare more than men, even when you take obstetrics out.
4:54
Jenn: they are the decision maker, they're our employee, when you look at employees in a lot of cases, that's also.
5:01
Jenn: A huge referral source.
5:03
Jenn: They're the ones that spend the most money and they utilize us the most.
5:06
Jenn: So that alone is, within our system, that's how we view it as more than enough to say, this is where the investment needs to be.
5:15
Jenn: not only for the betterment from a financial standpoint, but also just from the betterment of the community.
5:20
Anika (2): definitely.
5:21
Anika (2): I think what you said about, women being responsible for the highest spend, even when you take obstetrics out, um, especially in midlife, is really stunning.
5:29
Anika (2): are there any other system-wide strategic benefits?
5:31
Anika (2): worth thinking about.
5:33
Jenn: when we look at the system wide, I think similar to what Kathleen said earlier, as we continue down this journey, it's really taking women's health and viewing that as almost its own cohort within itself.
5:48
Jenn: So no different than you have, pediatrics, right?
5:52
Jenn: And pediatrics spans across.
5:54
Jenn: Multiple service lines.
5:56
Jenn: that's where we see this going from a women's standpoint.
5:59
Jenn: we often talk about that children are not little adults, women are not little men.
6:04
Jenn: so it's not gonna just be, Hey, you had baby, or, Hey, you had a hysterectomy.
6:08
Jenn: Now it's going to be really sex specific, clinical based care that is not only specific to the woman, but also specific to disease states.
6:17
Jenn: And so it's not just about your reproductive organs at that point.
6:20
Jenn: It's about you as a whole person.
6:23
Anika (2): I would love it if you could expand on that a little bit.
6:25
Anika (2): So women's health as, a service line.
6:28
Anika (2): What Has that traditionally looked like and where are you trying to go when you say you know, we want Whole Person Care.
6:34
Jenn: so traditionally, right, wrong, or indifferent, women's self has primarily been ob.
6:39
Jenn: Within ob it's been, how do you get the high risk babies?
6:43
Jenn: I think it's pretty well known for anybody that's in the industry.
6:47
Jenn: People will often say NICU is what pays the bills.
6:49
Jenn: and then in addition to that, when we look at that next phase, it's really around.
6:55
Jenn: Surgical of, are you having a hysterectomy?
6:58
Jenn: there's definitely certain things that have come about in the last, let's say 10, 15 years around urogynecology.
7:03
Jenn: so pelvic floor has gotten more of an emphasis.
7:05
Jenn: There are aspects specific to breast health, obviously, get your mammogram, those type of things.
7:10
Jenn: and then Gen O is the other one that has existed really within that space.
7:15
Jenn: So that's been the traditional viewpoint of what women's health has looked like.
7:21
Jenn: From an industry standpoint moving forward, we're talking about how do you take women's health and incorporate that into cardiac?
7:32
Jenn: How do you incorporate that into neuro, how do you incorporate that into endocrine?
7:36
Jenn: How do you incorporate that into gi, et cetera.
7:38
Jenn: And so when we talk about how do we treat women as a whole.
7:43
Jenn: We know that different things present in women differently than men.
7:47
Jenn: So women are now, like I said, think about them as their own cohort.
7:51
Jenn: No different than you think about pediatrics.
7:53
Jenn: when you think about pediatrics, it's been okay, you get a pediatrician and then what?
7:58
Jenn: You go to a children's hospital.
8:00
Jenn: But There are now subspecialist within almost every area of pd and so it's a similar.
8:06
Jenn: Concept.
8:07
Jenn: I'm not saying we're gonna have subspecialists in every area within women's, but it's a similar concept in the sense of pediatric patients are not little adults.
8:14
Jenn: The way we treat them has to be differently.
8:17
Jenn: Same thing within women's, they're not little men, so the way in which we treat them has to be differently.
8:21
Jenn: So it's no longer just about did you have a baby or a hysterectomy.
8:24
Jenn: It's about how do we clinically treat you to ensure that we're getting the optimal outcome on truly your genetic makeup.
8:33
Kathleen McHugh: an indicator of what Jen just outlined within our own health system, the women's and children's service line used to be combined until very recently.
8:47
Kathleen McHugh: so we were very focused on that longitudinal delivery to pediatric care and not the woman, standalone.
8:56
Kathleen McHugh: and so our executive team had the foresight to split them, recently so that we could really lean into this strategy that Jen is building out right now that she just described.
9:08
Anika (2): the context is really helpful and I think very indicative of where you've been and where you're trying to go and why it's important to bring sex specific care, to all the different.
9:17
Anika (2): Specialties and conditions that you're discussing where they haven't traditionally been considered and where women's and men's care has traditionally been basically the same, where there's a way to maybe do it better and get better outcomes.
9:32
Jenn: absolutely.
9:34
Anika: I would love to pivot to the partnership with MIDI Health.
9:37
Anika: How did that first come about and kind of what were some of the challenges that you were looking to solve with it?
9:43
Kathleen McHugh: in our organization, the strategy team gets to partner very closely with service line leadership during.
9:50
Kathleen McHugh: Our strategic planning process that we do annually.
9:53
Kathleen McHugh: and as such, I've gotten to work with Jen over the past few years on the Women's Plan and really during my onboarding, I got to know Jen and some of her passion around this topic.
10:05
Kathleen McHugh: And in some of our early discussions, she noted this big gap around the care for women in this period of their life.
10:14
Kathleen McHugh: And.
10:15
Kathleen McHugh: The services that we didn't necessarily have in place within the system.
10:19
Kathleen McHugh: did a lot of brainstorming around, how do we provide this with what we have?
10:24
Kathleen McHugh: and as we were doing that within our strategic planning process, the Strategic Partnership Alliance actually had a showcase, where MIDI Health presented.
10:35
Kathleen McHugh: and I was able to attend that.
10:37
Kathleen McHugh: And see exactly what the mini health platform was.
10:41
Kathleen McHugh: And Jen and I were able to get introduced to the leadership team and learn a little bit about what they were doing.
10:47
Kathleen McHugh: This was very early on in their journey.
10:49
Kathleen McHugh: So we actually got to be one of their, first health system partners and really build some of what they were doing together.
10:57
Kathleen McHugh: and so we can talk a little bit more about what that partnership looks like, but that really was how it began.
11:04
Anika: Love the shot out there.
11:06
Anika: so the next question I have is kind of why focus on midlife care.
11:10
Jenn: it's a gap in the market, and it's becoming more and more apparent and, right or wrong, there's also becoming more and more awareness around it, which is the conversation and also helping project out what this true need really looks like.
11:27
Jenn: Because I think the death of the need, we don't fully know yet.
11:31
Jenn: and because we don't have the appropriate research in order to be able to back it, as I stated earlier is that it's also one of the more lucrative, or the most lucrative from a financial standpoint.
11:41
Jenn: So that makes it pretty easy to start targeting.
11:44
Jenn: the other thing is that, we're a not-for-profit health system, and our mission is to create healthier communities now and for generations to come When you look at menopause what is starting to come out specific to menopause, in some ways it's similar to pregnancy.
12:03
Jenn: back in the day, and when I say back in the day, I'm talking, 50 years ago, 40 years ago, we believed that within pregnancy were.
12:13
Jenn: Certain things that would happen that were calls because of pregnancy.
12:17
Jenn: So case in point, gestational diabetes.
12:20
Jenn: and that, that was an episodic event that happened and as soon as you were no longer pregnant, was no longer a factor, et cetera.
12:28
Jenn: time, definitely came to know that in some ways pregnancy was almost a foreshadowing of what you were at greater risk for.
12:34
Jenn: So if you had gestational diabetes, the likelihood of having type two diabetes, your risk increased.
12:40
Jenn: The research is definitely not out its entirety.
12:44
Jenn: but we're also seeing the same similar thing within menopause.
12:47
Jenn: And when you start looking at what symptoms, women suffer from, et cetera.
12:51
Jenn: And so as we talk about.
12:54
Jenn: Financially it makes sense.
12:55
Jenn: No doubt there's a gap in the market, but how do you create healthier communities?
12:59
Jenn: Part of that is also being proactive, and so if there are things that are starting to present that are a foreshadowing of what your risk may be, how do we also invest in that to get ahead of it?
13:11
Anika (2): I think that's a really great point about being proactive.
13:14
Anika (2): we know that menopause is something that is going to happen in every woman's life and it has impacts for all of the rest of their outcomes.
13:22
Anika (2): and with menopause you're going through all these hormone changes.
13:24
Anika (2): it's kind of silly to expect that it, it wouldn't have those kinds of, impacts on the rest of, the woman's health span.
13:31
Anika (2): So could you tell me more about why you chose to work with a partner you know, with MIDI Health, a lot of it is telehealth services as opposed to developing those telehealth services in-house.
13:42
Jenn: yeah.
13:42
Jenn: great question.
13:43
Jenn: First off, going back to we know there's a gap in the market and the demand is greater than the supply.
13:49
Jenn: even now that we have this program and you know, it's taken off and they've done phenomenal things, we still have a greater demand than we do supply.
13:58
Jenn: as Kathleen noted is when we sat down and really started talking about how do we integrate other service lines into women's health, that's still our goal.
14:08
Jenn: so you look at it.
14:10
Jenn: Our goal is to have the higher acuity and to have, whether it's, whether it ends up being virtual, whether it's bricks and mortar, but the subspecialist within women's health.
14:20
Jenn: And so MIDI is a great front door and it's a great tool for providers to use.
14:28
Jenn: Because the other thing is too the time and investment that it takes when you're really with a patient and having to figure out aren't you sleeping and why are you sweating and why are you having headaches and why do your hips hurt so and so forth.
14:39
Jenn: most providers don't have the time to do that.
14:42
Jenn: for a either a well woman visit or an e and m visit, and next thing you know, it's 45 minutes later.
14:48
Jenn: that's from a financial standpoint, that's not exactly the best return on investment.
14:53
Jenn: so having that via telehealth obviously cuts the cost down and they have the infrastructure to do it.
14:59
Jenn: and so I think when you look at certain things, I think historically we have a tendency to want to own everything.
15:05
Jenn: And owning it is not always better, especially when somebody is already doing it and doing it well.
15:10
Jenn: So I'd rather us make our investment into that higher acuity and that downstream component they continue within their lane, and that way we become, really complimentary of one another and not competitors.
15:27
Anika (2): I think what I'm hearing is that the partnership with midi, is symbiotic.
15:32
Anika (2): It benefits both of you and it's great that MIDI has these capabilities in almost kind of a turnkey sort of way that then you get to retain those higher acuity cases you get, the data, and you both benefit from that partnership.
15:45
Jenn: Yeah, no, absolutely.
15:46
Jenn: And I mean, anybody that's even remotely listening to this that's ever had to build a performer, people wanna know.
15:52
Jenn: What's your return on investment?
15:54
Jenn: Kathleen and I sat down, we're like, how many endocrinology appointments do we think we're gonna get now?
15:58
Jenn: Of those, how many do we think we're gonna get of this, cardiac, so on, so forth.
16:02
Jenn: And that's been the other key component for us within MIDI, is who are you referring to?
16:07
Jenn: How often are you referring to them?
16:08
Jenn: And when I say who, I mean what specialties, because that helps guide us to know when we start thinking about, a holistic program, what specialties do we need to target first?
16:20
Jenn: in order to ensure that we're providing that care that we've talked about,
16:25
Anika: I think that's a great transition point.
16:27
Anika: what are some of the outcomes that you've seen your, your two years into this partnership?
16:31
Anika: How are you measuring the success and are there any numbers or outcomes that you can share?
16:36
Jenn: So the first one that was a little unexpected, is we launched it within our own employee health plan.
16:45
Jenn: so are a program that, underwrite our own health plan.
16:49
Jenn: And so, it's no different than us having to go to a UnitedHealthcare ask them to.
16:55
Jenn: Include a product.
16:56
Jenn: The adoption rate within our own employee health plan was one of the highest that we've ever seen.
17:03
Jenn: to the point that we've actually moved it up to a tier one benefit and it's now actually part of our portfolio.
17:10
Jenn: and when we're talking about employees coming on as a selling point,
17:15
Anika: Wow.
17:16
Jenn: not anticipate that.
17:17
Jenn: but I think that's also a really.
17:19
Jenn: Great indicator of how high the need is.
17:22
Jenn: So as I mentioned, 78% of our employees are women.
17:28
Jenn: So when you've got 35,000 employees, that's a very captured audience.
17:32
Kathleen McHugh: When we started our partnership with midi, they had been in the Houston market for just a few months.
17:37
Kathleen McHugh: So the number of patients that they had on their platform in the Houston market was in the, few hundreds.
17:47
Kathleen McHugh: Today about three years in the partnership, or just under three years into the partnership.
17:55
Kathleen McHugh: They're in the few thousands of patients per month that they have on the platform.
17:59
Kathleen McHugh: So you can imagine that's a, nearly 10 x that they've been able to grow at with it within our market on a kind of monthly visit basis.
18:09
Kathleen McHugh: In addition to that, for us at the system, given that we are their kind of continuity of care partner in the market, any patient that requires some sort of in-person care, whether it's imaging or specialty care, like seeing a cardiologist or.
18:27
Kathleen McHugh: Endocrinologist or, something of that nature.
18:30
Jenn: Even an ob right?
18:32
Kathleen McHugh: Or even an
18:32
Anika: Yeah.
18:33
Kathleen McHugh: So if they, if a patient does not have a, medical home with a primary care provider or an ob, we can serve as that partner for midi.
18:43
Kathleen McHugh: And so they ultimately send, around, nine to 10% per month.
18:49
Kathleen McHugh: Of those patients for some additional type of service that is needed.
18:54
Kathleen McHugh: So we've seen quite a bit of growth with them over the past few years in our partnership.
18:58
Jenn: One other thing too that I would
19:00
Anika: Wow.
19:00
Jenn: add, I had said earlier about when you start looking financially at how many patients do you need to see in an hour?
19:06
Jenn: 'cause as much as nobody wants to say it, it's still a business, right?
19:10
Jenn: We all have to keep our doors open.
19:12
Jenn: And, if we're not keeping our doors open, then we're not able to serve the community the number of actually that have started to utilize MIDI their own patients.
19:25
Jenn: So almost using them as even a triage and then they turn back around and send to them.
19:30
Jenn: but I think that also speaks to.
19:33
Jenn: How, the service that they're able to provide.
19:35
Jenn: And a lot of that's based on not only the fact that it's very tailored to a specific point, but it's the time factor.
19:41
Jenn: you don't wanna sit down and talk about, Hey, I feel like I'm going crazy.
19:45
Jenn: And they're like, yeah, I gotta go.
19:46
Jenn: I gotta go see my next patient.
19:48
Jenn: so think that's also been a factor that's helped with that continuity component.
19:52
Jenn: across the board, we've seen that in OB and in primary care.
19:57
Anika: so it sounds like there's been, a really big impact across the referral lines and also the time saved for the clinics and also time saved for the patient, in some ways too.
20:06
Jenn: 'cause the referrals are bi-directional, right?
20:07
Jenn: Because at first it was like, okay, what are you guys gonna send to us?
20:10
Jenn: How can we help?
20:11
Jenn: didn't expect to send probably as much back to them too.
20:14
Anika: jumping off of that, After the couple years of partnership.
20:17
Anika: So you know, with the bidirectional referral line, that's something unexpected that kind of came out of this.
20:22
Anika: are there any other things that you would say you've learned from the partnership or has anything else changed about the approach in the last few years?
20:30
Jenn: You know there the bidirectional, you mentioned that one.
20:32
Jenn: I think the other thing, historically it's been.
20:36
Jenn: A little taboo to talk about menopause.
20:38
Jenn: It'd say, it's just something you go through.
20:40
Jenn: It's something you have to live with, so and so forth.
20:42
Jenn: And so for something to take off that rapidly, there's gotta be also a word of mouth component.
20:48
Jenn: the amount that it took off and how quickly was a little surprising, because going back to thinking that people were gonna talk about it as much, and Clearly they were.
20:57
Jenn: And, it's a lot of friends referring to friends, et cetera.
21:00
Jenn: And I think exact even what we saw within our own benefits, you usually have an adoption rate that takes a little bit longer.
21:07
Jenn: adoption rate was beyond impressive, and especially for something historically we talk about.
21:15
Anika: I think again, like that just speaks to how big of a need there was in, in this space
21:22
Jenn: Yeah, and the only thing I'd say is that there is even this partnership is fantastic, but this is the tip of the iceberg.
21:29
Jenn: Like we got, we still got a long way to go.
21:32
Anika: in terms of, the long game, the long way that we have to go.
21:36
Anika: In your view, what does have to change for women's health to be meaningfully embedded across different service lines, clinically, operationally, culturally, what's some of that work?
21:47
Jenn: How do we count the ways?
21:50
Jenn: that's the thing that everybody's trying to figure out.
21:52
Jenn: a strategic standpoint, can I give a high level of overview of what needs to happen?
21:57
Jenn: Yes, absolutely.
21:59
Jenn: And I don't think anybody is questioning the what and questioning the why.
22:03
Jenn: It's the how, it's the how do we get there in a very timely fashion.
22:08
Jenn: and make sure that the work product that we are giving is meaningful.
22:12
Jenn: So let's go back.
22:14
Jenn: There's a couple of key events that have happened that have not only gotten us to where we are, but somewhat also argue, they've retroed us, as well Women historically until the late nineties were not included in any type of research.
22:29
Jenn: there was an article I actually read recently and even said the amount of female mice they use was disproportionate.
22:35
Jenn: I was like, we can't even make it into the mice study.
22:37
Jenn: So when you think about it though, is it takes about 20 years from the time you start a study to really produce a.
22:48
Jenn: here's the outcome, here's the best practice, et cetera.
22:51
Jenn: So if you think late nineties, right?
22:53
Jenn: That puts us into the late 2000 teens.
22:56
Jenn: And then guess what?
22:57
Jenn: COVID hits.
22:58
Jenn: one of the first ones to really come out with anything was heart.
23:01
Jenn: And it was about heart and pregnancy.
23:04
Jenn: So the first is having a correct number of women included in the studies.
23:10
Jenn: Even within the women included in the studies, ensuring that we have a range.
23:17
Jenn: so that we are looking at it not only from a sex standpoint, but also from an ethnicity standpoint, also from social determinants of health, so and so forth.
23:27
Jenn: bucket two is that without those studies, we don't have the proper training.
23:31
Jenn: Whenever we have doctors going into med school and then they go into residency and then fellowship, so and so forth, we gotta ensure that the way that we're training them also sex specific.
23:43
Jenn: so that would be bucket two.
23:45
Jenn: awareness.
23:46
Jenn: I think we're definitely getting past that, which is great.
23:48
Jenn: The other thing that kind of had put the whammy in for us was in 2002, there was a large study that was released and it was about hormone replacement therapy.
23:57
Jenn: That's why you're hearing so much about this right now because that study was overturned.
24:02
Jenn: So that hormone replacement therapy based on that study actually got the black box label.
24:08
Jenn: So that's as high of a risk label as you can get.
24:10
Jenn: Same one that goes on cigarettes.
24:12
Jenn: And now they've came back and said, It needs to be on a case by case basis, but we can't make this mass statement of it is going to negatively impact everyone that uses it.
24:23
Jenn: also seeing that a lot of these diseases, Alzheimer's, autoimmune, are disproportionately impacting women.
24:31
Jenn: How much of that is related to the replacement therapy for hormones?
24:35
Jenn: We don't know.
24:37
Jenn: it's a multi-component.
24:38
Jenn: We need the research so that we can train the folks so that we can truly have the impact because we have sex specific care that's proactive.
24:47
Jenn: but that's it in a nutshell.
24:49
Anika: Yeah.
24:49
Anika: I'm hearing it goes back to the research, it goes back to the training We also need the data and then also from a strategic leadership perspective, obviously there's a ton of focus on this right now, and you're also seeing dividends being paid from the focus on it right now in terms of outcomes for the community, but also return on investment for your system.
25:07
Jenn: I mean, even the return on investment, I couldn't agree more.
25:10
Jenn: I think that, that's the long game, do fullheartedly believe, and obviously we would never say this to our CFOs, but if you do the right thing you really are in it for what's best for the patient, the money will follow.
25:25
Jenn: As a system, we're in it and we're committed to it.
25:29
Jenn: and the other thing too, I'll say that you know, we have the luxury of being obviously in a very large city, lot of resources.
25:35
Jenn: and we're part of a very large system.
25:38
Jenn: The other thing is though, is that you've gotta have providers and clinicians that are equally as passionate about things like this as I am.
25:45
Jenn: Because this is not an easy, this is not a sprint, it's a marathon, right?
25:50
Jenn: And, beyond blessed with a lot of our physician partners, because definitely have got people that are equally, if not more invested, engaged and driven, to really make an impact.
26:04
Anika: Yeah, that makes everything go smoother.
26:06
Jenn: A hundred percent.
26:07
Jenn: and I know that's can be challenging in certain areas and we have many challenges, but that is one that we do have in our favor.
26:14
Anika: was there anything that you as a system did to kind of en encourage that passion or did that kind of happen organically?
26:24
Kathleen McHugh: I think on the providers, It was educating them and providing the opportunity to speak with providers at MIDI about the solution and answer clinical questions, and then some patience and allowing them to have time to come around to the solution and not.
26:46
Kathleen McHugh: For lack of a better way of saying it, force it down their throats.
26:50
Kathleen McHugh: I think ultimately MIDI had so much momentum in the market.
26:54
Kathleen McHugh: They had a lot of patients coming to them saying, Hey, I'm using midi.
26:58
Kathleen McHugh: and so ultimately they started to get on board because they heard some of the successes happening with midi.
27:07
Jenn: Independent of us too.
27:08
Kathleen McHugh: and
27:08
Jenn: I
27:08
Kathleen McHugh: I think.
27:09
Kathleen McHugh: we had to be patient with a lot of our providers, and ensure the resources were there for them, should they have questions, but we had to let it play out a bit naturally, so that they would come around to the solution.
27:22
Kathleen McHugh: And as Jen mentioned today, we're in a good place.
27:25
Kathleen McHugh: It's bidirectional.
27:26
Kathleen McHugh: Our obs very much.
27:27
Kathleen McHugh: See this as a.
27:29
Kathleen McHugh: As a tool, a place for them to send patients.
27:32
Kathleen McHugh: They're not going to lose their patients to midi.
27:34
Kathleen McHugh: It's just complimentary.
27:36
Kathleen McHugh: so we're very much there.
27:38
Anika: There.
27:38
Kathleen McHugh: but that didn't happen day one.
27:40
Anika: And so kind of slowly over time, letting that demand generate organically, they were able to see it as a complimentary effort.
27:48
Jenn: I wholeheartedly agree with that.
27:50
Jenn: and you know, we did the whole physician champions and all that good jazz, but.
27:54
Jenn: Almost letting it be their idea the other thing I would add though is that even greater than midi, just having people that are passionate about, this cohort specifically of women We're all busy, we're all being asked to do more with less.
28:10
Jenn: I don't think it really matters what industry you're in.
28:12
Jenn: I think that's probably pretty universal statement.
28:16
Jenn: doctors are also being asked to do more and more.
28:19
Jenn: That's not.
28:20
Jenn: Treating a patient, it's documenting this, taking this, doing this, did you document this 10 different times, 10 different ways, and 10 different systems.
28:27
Jenn: and so I think there's a lot of doctors out there that are very passionate about different things, but they're fatigued.
28:34
Jenn: in order to be able to get people passionate about this too.
28:38
Jenn: We gotta put our money where our mouth is, that we're not just giving them a bunch of lip services and this isn't the latest and greatest fad, and we're gonna talk about it and meet about it, and talk about it and meet about it.
28:47
Jenn: And then six months have nothing to show.
28:49
Jenn: And so I think that's another thing is that you wanna get people engaged, I don't think it's terribly difficult to do as long as you're.
28:58
Jenn: Really gonna deliver on what it is that you guys are talking about.
29:01
Jenn: And that's been, that's when it turns into the marathon.
29:04
Jenn: once they started seeing certain things start to go, and that's taken years in the making, that's also, a key component.
29:11
Anika: Just really honing in focus on quality, focus on delivery.
29:15
Jenn: Focus on the patient
29:18
Anika (2): Well, I think.
29:18
Anika (2): That's a really powerful note to end on.
29:20
Anika (2): I think for anyone listening, the takeaway here is the systems that invest now that build those partnerships and the infrastructure to treat women as their own cohort are gonna be well positioned.
29:29
Anika (2): As the research catches up and the care models evolve.
29:33
Anika (2): So your partnership with MIDI Health shows kind of what's possible when health systems identify a gap in care and find the right partner to fill it rather than trying to build everything in-house.
29:42
Anika (2): And then there's the results, obviously a growth in patients served.
29:45
Anika (2): High employee benefit adoption rates, the bidirectional referral relationship that benefits both providers and patients.
29:52
Anika (2): But as you said, Jen, this is still the tip of the iceberg.
29:55
Anika (2): There's still a long way to go.
29:59
Anika (2): So Kathleen, Jen, it's been great to have you both.
30:03
Anika (2): Thank you for such an insightful conversation about women's health and your partnership with MIDI Health.
30:08
Anika (2): Thanks for joining us today.
30:09
Jenn: Much appreciated.
30:11
Kathleen McHugh: So much.
30:13
Anika (2): That wraps up this episode of the Strategy Catalyst Dispatch.
30:17
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30:23
Anika (2): If you have other thoughts or questions, we'd love to hear them.
30:26
Anika (2): Email us at Strategy catalyst@hmacademy.com.
30:30
Anika (2): You can also find more of our resources on HM academy.com/strategy-catalyst.
30:36
Anika (2): That's it for this dispatch.
30:38
Anika (2): Thanks for listening.