Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Larry Lacefield on Military Leadership, AI, and Improving the Patient Experience

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Larry Lacefield on Military Leadership, AI, and Improving the Patient Experience · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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- This is Laura Dierdahl with the Becker's Healthcare
1:00
- Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
1:02
- Larry Lacefield,
1:03
- who is a retired force master chief of
1:05
- the US Navy and a health care executive.
1:07
- Larry, it's a pleasure to have you on
1:09
- the podcast today.
1:10
- Oh, Laura. The pleasure's on line. Thank you
1:12
- very much.
1:13
- Absolutely. Now I'm excited to speak with you.
1:15
- I know we're gonna talk a lot about,
1:17
- some of your experience in the military
1:19
- and leadership and how you're thinking about health
1:22
- care opportunities ahead. But before we dive in,
1:25
- truly, I would just love to hear you
1:27
- talk a little bit about some of your
1:29
- experience with the
1:30
- US Navy,
1:31
- and how you've grown and developed. What does
1:34
- it mean for you? So,
1:36
- I'd love to just hear more about that
1:38
- and then how you transitioned into health care
1:40
- executive leadership.
1:42
- Absolutely. And thank you for giving me the
1:44
- opportunity.
1:45
- I was extremely fortunate,
1:47
- to join the navy,
1:49
- 1994
1:50
- as a navy corpsman,
1:53
- known to others as a as a general
1:55
- medic,
1:56
- and quickly was grabbed by some amazing health
1:59
- care mentors myself
2:01
- and brought into the fold
2:03
- is
2:05
- an operations
2:06
- type
2:07
- medical,
2:08
- I would say tactical medic by trade. So,
2:12
- what they found is my potential of problem
2:14
- solving would be best suited on the on
2:17
- the battlefield in deployment. So
2:19
- they put me through,
2:21
- special operations pipeline. I started as
2:24
- a navy diver corpsman, and so I got
2:27
- sent
2:28
- with the navy seal teams, navy explosive ordnance
2:31
- disposal teams
2:32
- all over the world and quickly
2:35
- was exposed to some amazing
2:38
- environments to test not only my skill set,
2:40
- but my ability
2:42
- to
2:43
- give and render health care in every type
2:45
- of arena on the globe.
2:48
- What that showed me then is I truly
2:50
- had a passion for medicine and the ability
2:54
- to take care of other individuals.
2:56
- After a few deployments,
2:57
- I came back and I went to Navy
3:00
- IDC school, which is very similar to a
3:02
- physician's assistance program, except
3:05
- that I was an I was an unlicensed
3:08
- healthcare provider, but I could provide care to
3:10
- anyone on the planet around the world to
3:13
- include. I've delivered babies
3:15
- in the middle of the desert to doing
3:17
- emergency surgeries, emergency dental,
3:20
- carrying my own formulary,
3:22
- and making sure that no matter who I
3:24
- was with, whether it was a foreign national
3:26
- or
3:27
- a US member, that everybody had the health
3:29
- care that they deserved.
3:31
- My
3:32
- final tour was as the force medical senior
3:36
- adviser at Naval Special Warfare Command
3:39
- where I provided guidance, mentoring, training, and equipment
3:43
- to all the Navy SEALs, Navy SEAL medical
3:46
- personnel
3:47
- across the
3:49
- entire world.
3:51
- That allowed me to not only understand
3:53
- health care operations
3:55
- at a very large scale,
3:58
- but to truly understand the impact that you
4:00
- have as a leader in health care
4:02
- as an individual
4:04
- health care provider, I was able to help
4:06
- many people.
4:08
- However, the decisions that the leadership team made,
4:10
- I was able to see at scale and
4:12
- and how much they could change the access
4:15
- to care, the availability to training to have
4:17
- better health outcomes.
4:19
- And from there,
4:21
- I was
4:23
- doing my transition
4:24
- out of the military, and I went through
4:26
- a program called the Honor Foundation where they
4:28
- take, special operations forces, and they kinda help
4:31
- mature your
4:32
- ability to speak and articulate your skill set
4:35
- from the military to the civilian sector.
4:38
- And I met the CEO
4:40
- of NuVasive, Greg Lucier, at a Harvard alumni
4:43
- event
4:44
- as they sponsored the transition program.
4:47
- And we started talking about what I'd done
4:48
- at naval special warfare and creating the first
4:51
- ever tier one paramedic
4:53
- course, that was not only certified, but met
4:56
- SOCOM's tier one capability
4:58
- to operate anywhere with any clandestine operation.
5:01
- And he was able to take that story
5:04
- and
5:06
- understand that his current issues that he was
5:08
- having with NuVasive and his NuVasive clinical service
5:11
- division
5:12
- would absolutely align with the leadership and the
5:15
- leadership
5:16
- style that I had, which was understanding large
5:18
- problem sets
5:20
- across very large geographical areas
5:23
- with different teams
5:25
- and bringing them together with one focus and
5:27
- vision. So they had recently acquired
5:30
- three different companies that were all competitors
5:33
- of NuVasive's competitor
5:34
- themselves,
5:36
- and they were having a very difficult time
5:38
- to get the team to align to meet
5:39
- NuVasive's new
5:41
- mission
5:42
- in their surgical
5:43
- support
5:45
- caregivers.
5:46
- They had difficulty with attrition, difficulty with training.
5:49
- The platforms were all,
5:51
- disconnected,
5:53
- and he'd asked me to come on board.
5:55
- And my first position outside of the military
5:58
- was
5:59
- a director for clinical services that soon turned
6:02
- into general manager of all invasive clinical services
6:06
- out in Maryland.
6:08
- We had around 600
6:10
- technicians that supported
6:12
- the orthopedic and spine surgeons across The United
6:15
- States.
6:16
- The goal was to get all the all
6:19
- of the acquisitions
6:21
- to
6:22
- not only work together, but understand that if
6:25
- they if they would work as a team,
6:28
- the focus that we would have could truly
6:31
- touch
6:32
- hundreds of thousands of patients instead of what
6:34
- they were used to on these much smaller
6:36
- organizations.
6:38
- So through leadership,
6:40
- that I had that I had had the
6:42
- privilege of getting mentored through in the military,
6:45
- I immediately started doing
6:47
- groundwork with all the senior leaders of those
6:49
- companies. And and by the end of the
6:51
- three years that I was at NuVasive,
6:54
- we had turned the
6:56
- basically four different teams into one cohesive
6:59
- unit under under the NuVasive clinical services division.
7:02
- And not only did we,
7:04
- set record goals financially,
7:06
- but the big win was
7:08
- we consolidated all training efforts, we consolidated all
7:12
- of the
7:13
- materials, logistics, and supply system to meet all
7:16
- the demands across The United States for each
7:18
- company
7:19
- and truly had better outcomes for
7:22
- for the patients, which was the was the
7:24
- real win. And
7:25
- after that
7:27
- was accomplished,
7:28
- Greg Lucier moved to the board
7:30
- and a new CEO named Chris Berry, who's
7:32
- a phenomenal leader himself,
7:34
- came in as the new CEO of NuVasive
7:36
- and asked me to take over
7:38
- global business transformation,
7:40
- which really meant how do you how do
7:42
- you take what you did with the NuVasive
7:44
- clinical service division and scale that across the
7:46
- entire organization?
7:48
- So as that
7:49
- happened, I moved to then Colorado
7:52
- to set up our center of excellence.
7:54
- COVID hit at that time, which impacted quite
7:56
- a lot of the elective surgery
7:59
- companies and and individuals, and we ended up
8:01
- then
8:02
- taking NuVasive and
8:04
- merging with Globus. So now Globus
8:08
- Medical is is Globus and NuVasive.
8:11
- And as they did that,
8:13
- Chris Berry and I were talking. There was
8:14
- a opportunity for me to move and take
8:17
- on my own,
8:18
- CEO
8:19
- role
8:20
- of a safety service company. And so I
8:22
- transitioned to a safety service company
8:25
- in Scottsdale,
8:26
- and that was a privately held
8:29
- company out in the Arizona region, but they
8:32
- were they were national at the time,
8:35
- and we ended up expanding into Canada
8:38
- and Mexico
8:40
- and grew that business
8:42
- a 150%.
8:44
- At that, that took me about two years,
8:47
- and it was an amazing experience for me
8:49
- to really understand
8:50
- the impact, not with leadership per se, but
8:53
- more on understanding the the leadership capabilities and
8:56
- understanding the the demands
8:59
- at the p and l level and the
9:01
- decisions that you make and how it impacts
9:03
- individuals' lives.
9:05
- And I think from that part
9:07
- of my career after the military,
9:10
- I really started to understand
9:13
- when you reach the executive level
9:16
- in any organization,
9:18
- the the the ability to lead is not
9:21
- just on doctrine or verbal guidance, but it's
9:24
- leading by actions and understanding from the lowest
9:27
- level of your team how those decisions impact
9:29
- them.
9:30
- So
9:32
- I think the fulfillment from that role was
9:35
- just absolutely massive for me personally.
9:38
- And when we when we had doubled in
9:41
- size,
9:42
- the owners decided they would wanted to sell
9:44
- to a private equity.
9:46
- So they have now since
9:49
- moved on and sold to a private equity.
9:50
- The the owners were very happy with that,
9:52
- and and they took very good care of
9:54
- me, but it allowed me to to branch
9:56
- out again. So my
9:57
- health care career continued
10:00
- and I ended up taking on
10:02
- a COO role for a health,
10:05
- technology SaaS company called HRC.
10:09
- About 2,000 individuals at that organization
10:13
- across
10:14
- multiple countries, mostly in
10:16
- Singapore, Philippines, Sri Lanka,
10:19
- and we had about 250
10:21
- US stateside. But our
10:23
- primary mission there was to understand
10:26
- the landscape of not just revenue cycle management,
10:28
- but the technology that it would take to
10:31
- make that process more efficient.
10:34
- And I think
10:35
- from that role,
10:37
- what I what I really took away, which
10:40
- was a a massive win for me, was,
10:41
- again,
10:42
- leadership impact on people. So now I'm I'm
10:45
- guiding people across multiple countries,
10:49
- and the culture differences
10:52
- truly
10:53
- were eye opening to me. Even though I've
10:55
- been in the Navy and I've been to
10:56
- multiple countries,
10:58
- when you're working with teams of a thousand
11:00
- in each one of these other countries and
11:02
- understanding them at at their
11:05
- fundamental level
11:06
- and what they are trying to achieve personally,
11:09
- the motivators are different.
11:11
- And I and I go back to it
11:13
- all the time that
11:14
- the leaders
11:15
- and their decisions and how they
11:18
- shape the landscape of the company and what
11:20
- they have the team focus on will change
11:22
- their
11:23
- ability to
11:24
- be be be fulfilled
11:27
- and understand what the mission and vision is
11:29
- and absolutely enjoy what they're doing. And and
11:31
- that, I think, is one of the major
11:34
- challenges that a lot of the leaders deal
11:36
- with now is how do we how do
11:37
- we convey through our actions
11:40
- that our
11:41
- primary focus is our people
11:44
- and that the decisions we make are truly
11:46
- to make our overall outcome better in health
11:48
- care. So how do
11:50
- we provide better, not only work life balance
11:52
- for individuals, but how do we make the
11:53
- patient experience better?
11:55
- And while I was able to learn from
11:58
- them as my individual teams in different countries,
12:01
- the cultural aspect of what they needed, it
12:01
- actually
12:14
- United States,
12:15
- are we truly understanding it from their viewpoint?
12:18
- And what is their process for
12:20
- getting the pre approvals and making sure that
12:23
- the overall process and access to care is
12:25
- there and then understanding how do they find
12:27
- those answers? And so, we were able to
12:29
- architect
12:30
- some pretty robust systems
12:32
- for
12:34
- different health care
12:36
- platforms that then provided them ease of access,
12:39
- ease of notification, and then overall ease of
12:41
- of getting their claims reimbursed, which overall ease
12:45
- the the the burden on the patient.
12:48
- And that experience for me was amazing. I
12:50
- think the
12:51
- the expansion,
12:53
- kept growing, and they wanted to increase another
12:57
- 2,000 people in India.
12:59
- And the
13:00
- the travel in Asia became
13:03
- quite intense.
13:05
- So I ended up transitioning from them
13:08
- just to to get back to to my
13:10
- family
13:12
- and spend more time with them. I married
13:14
- married for a very long time, have three
13:16
- children, and I think the the transition there
13:19
- was, for me personally, I had learned a
13:21
- tremendous amount. I really understood what my focus
13:23
- was, and it was to get back to
13:25
- the fundamentals of health care
13:27
- and also
13:28
- try to be home a little bit more.
13:30
- So
13:31
- while
13:32
- while excited as it was,
13:34
- that then brought me back to The United
13:36
- States where I now work for
13:38
- Blue L Source Government Services,
13:41
- and they're
13:43
- a government contract
13:45
- specialty company that does technology
13:48
- solutions for federal, state, local, and, like, commercial
13:51
- partners all around health care,
13:53
- supporting
13:54
- anything on
13:56
- global mission,
13:57
- veteran disability,
13:59
- or examinations
14:00
- of any sort,
14:02
- and that has been probably
14:05
- the most fun I've had in my transition
14:08
- out of the military.
14:09
- I came on board with them about three
14:11
- years ago, and I was asked to take
14:15
- on the Western Side Of The United States
14:18
- as they had a new project with the
14:20
- Department of Veteran Affairs.
14:22
- And we were able to
14:25
- complete the expansion across the Western United States,
14:28
- opened up right around 30 facilities
14:30
- and 300,
14:32
- healthcare
14:33
- professionals,
14:35
- to service, the veteran community in that area.
14:39
- We did that for about a year and
14:40
- a half, and
14:41
- the
14:42
- VA asked us to expand across The United
14:44
- States.
14:45
- So the last year and a half, I've
14:48
- been involved in expanding across the other half
14:50
- of The United States, opening up another
14:53
- 80 locations with around 900,
14:56
- health care professionals
14:59
- and another 300 support individuals.
15:01
- And we have now done our millionth
15:05
- appointment,
15:07
- to date, which is very exciting for me
15:09
- because it's it's been quite a journey and
15:11
- very exciting and
15:13
- the outcomes are are absolutely amazing. Our our
15:16
- quality,
15:17
- feedback from the VA and the veterans is
15:20
- is at the very highest level above 96%.
15:24
- And
15:25
- those things, like, when you talk about quality
15:28
- and customer satisfaction, which is also around 98%,
15:32
- Those are the things that are most important
15:34
- to me, and the team that we have
15:36
- absolutely loves what they do.
15:38
- And so I'm in a I'm in a
15:40
- wonderful location
15:41
- in in my personal life and
15:44
- can't be more excited about where health care
15:46
- is at this time. And that's kinda where
15:47
- we're at today.
15:49
- Wow. What a journey. And that's amazing to
15:51
- hear, you know, the results that you've gotten
15:53
- with,
15:54
- you know, the the health services you've set
15:57
- up. I think it's, incredible to have that,
15:59
- you know, 96%
16:01
- quality, 98%,
16:03
- satisfaction.
16:04
- Certainly,
16:05
- statistics that I know many of the executives
16:07
- who listen to us today would be,
16:09
- really excited to to achieve. And so,
16:12
- you know, how have you gone about being
16:14
- able to do that? What does it look
16:15
- like today to,
16:17
- marry that quality satisfaction and and, really,
16:21
- you know, achieve what your,
16:23
- patients in the community is looking for?
16:26
- It's a great question.
16:28
- I would say the the reason that we've
16:30
- been
16:31
- so successful in these last,
16:34
- few years is really our understanding
16:36
- of capacity
16:38
- and the demand that is required to then
16:40
- meet
16:41
- what not only the patient wants, but what
16:44
- the
16:45
- what the provider
16:46
- has available
16:48
- and being able to maximize that
16:51
- through
16:52
- not just technology,
16:54
- but making decisions and giving our
16:57
- our direct leadership the ability to flex on
16:59
- that. And what I mean by that is
17:02
- right now when you're when you're a patient,
17:04
- it is very difficult to even find access
17:06
- to care. A lot of times, it's very
17:08
- difficult. And depending on what you're trying to
17:10
- solve for, whether it's just
17:12
- preventive health care and you're trying to make
17:14
- sure you do your checkup or you actually
17:15
- have something that you would like to get
17:17
- resolved or you're doing a follow-up to to
17:18
- get in and understand what the capacity is
17:21
- in any organization, and that that is truly
17:23
- the difficult
17:24
- task for both sides. And I'm talking about
17:27
- our health care teams, and I'm talking about
17:29
- the patient and the family members that may
17:30
- have to be the caregiver and and also
17:32
- support that mission.
17:34
- So we we spent an enormous amount of
17:37
- time understanding what our health care examiners
17:41
- could provide that worked for them and their
17:43
- schedules,
17:45
- and then we did our diligence on where
17:47
- is the demand coming from understanding
17:49
- even by
17:51
- geographical location if there's if there's more no
17:54
- shows or or inability to make appointments.
17:58
- And we started
18:00
- capturing that data down to those points of,
18:02
- well, this is probably because it's Houston, and
18:04
- during these hours, there's more traffic and there's
18:06
- more delays and people end up canceling too.
18:09
- Really just culminating all the data that we
18:11
- could capture,
18:12
- and we'd had it for, you know, a
18:14
- year and a half to then really say,
18:16
- okay, we know
18:17
- historically that we're gonna have this type of
18:20
- of no show
18:22
- and this type of overflow. So we can
18:25
- let the we can let the patients almost
18:27
- select on demand
18:29
- where we know we're gonna have openings,
18:31
- and they would then prepopulate what they needed
18:34
- for whatever the specialties
18:35
- are that we're providing
18:37
- availability
18:39
- to. And then the examiners also
18:41
- can flex, and really, it's about having that
18:43
- capacity to understand that when it's going to
18:45
- become available,
18:46
- and how you show
18:48
- the patient
18:49
- what's available to them, and it's all based
18:52
- on what your examiners
18:53
- can do. So, you're building a symbiotic relationship
18:57
- on the healthcare journey,
18:59
- and it's really about capacity. And that's
19:02
- that's
19:03
- where the leadership in deciding how you're gonna
19:05
- use the technology matters because
19:08
- and I know that Becker spends a lot
19:10
- of time on, like, focusing on, like, AI.
19:13
- AI is only gonna be helpful if you
19:15
- understand how you're gonna direct the use of
19:17
- it. And if you if you don't do
19:19
- that,
19:19
- you're just gonna add another layer of complexity
19:22
- for your team to try and figure out
19:23
- how to use the technology. But if you
19:25
- take the time to understand what you're trying
19:27
- to solve for,
19:29
- then what AI allows you to do is
19:31
- you get to spend more time with the
19:33
- patient
19:34
- because you've alleviated not just the admin burden,
19:37
- making sure that the paperwork's prefilled out, making
19:39
- sure that that's followed up on, because all
19:41
- those can be tracked to your AI capability
19:44
- and they can send out those follow ups
19:46
- for you, which alleviates time for everyone because
19:48
- if it provides them the information that they
19:51
- need ahead of time, that's the patient, the
19:52
- provider, the the the support staff that's checking
19:55
- them in,
19:56
- then you have more time because the capacity
19:58
- that you've now evaluated,
20:00
- it's extremely valuable. It's what everybody wanted.
20:03
- The outcome becomes
20:05
- better for multiple reasons. One, you've you've wasted
20:08
- less resources trying to understand
20:11
- how you're gonna get the patient in, but
20:12
- you've also eliminated the extra burden of the
20:16
- admin and the follow ups and and the
20:18
- extra calls
20:19
- because AI can take care of it. So
20:20
- you have more time with the patient, which
20:22
- is what the patient wants anyways.
20:24
- And for any of us that actually have
20:26
- done
20:27
- the actual
20:28
- face to face with a patient, we want
20:31
- more time with them too because 90% of
20:33
- everything we're gonna do is coming from their
20:34
- history and their story.
20:36
- So if if we get that time back,
20:38
- we've just made the entire journey better and
20:41
- those decisions come from the leaders. It's
20:43
- like, the team will do
20:46
- whatever we ask them to do. What we
20:47
- want is to be happy because we're basing
20:49
- it on what they can do for us
20:50
- and what the patient needs to then get
20:52
- a better outcome.
20:54
- Got it. That makes a lot of sense.
20:55
- You know, really,
20:57
- seems to be a a strong way to,
21:00
- gain trust with the the providers and patients
21:03
- and and the community at large. Now before
21:06
- we wrap up in our our last couple
21:07
- of minutes here, when you look into the
21:08
- future of health care, what's most exciting to
21:10
- you, and what does it take to be
21:12
- a leader during the transformational time we're in
21:14
- today?
21:15
- That that's that's a good one. I think
21:17
- you might have picked up on a little
21:19
- bit. I I'm really excited that we're finally
21:22
- we're finally moving to the conversations about
21:26
- what can technology
21:27
- do for us. Right? So they
21:30
- the the AI, the automation, any of the
21:32
- digital
21:33
- tools, right, the platforms,
21:35
- how do we
21:37
- how do we turn that into
21:40
- creating value. Right? And and the discussions now
21:43
- are it's not what what we're worried about
21:46
- AI. It's the the real discussion is,
21:49
- how do we decide as leaders to implement
21:52
- this technology
21:54
- so we can truly organize and simplify
21:58
- health care for the patients and the clinicians.
22:01
- Right? So how do we, as leaders,
22:03
- take the burden
22:04
- away from our team and the patients? Like,
22:06
- think about all the times
22:08
- that the patient does, I don't know who
22:09
- to call. I don't know where I'm supposed
22:11
- to go, and at a simple text
22:14
- with the technology we have today, if you
22:16
- put your resource in it, it'll give it'll
22:18
- give the patient everything you need to know.
22:19
- Hey. Here. I want a reminder. You you
22:21
- send that. They they have the link. It
22:23
- feeds back. Here's your appointment. Here's your person.
22:25
- Here's the phone call. Here's the address,
22:28
- so forth. It also
22:29
- has the ability to update your team. Hey.
22:32
- You you had an appointment. It's been shipped.
22:34
- You have a new patient. Here here's the
22:36
- link to their to their history. So you
22:38
- can now get a jump on it because
22:40
- this is obviously a last minute change, and
22:42
- we wanna prevent as much stress happening for
22:44
- the examiner as possible because they wanna be
22:46
- prepared.
22:48
- So through that, I would say I'm most
22:50
- excited about
22:51
- actually having discussions on how we implement the
22:54
- technology.
22:56
- And as leaders,
22:57
- we are gonna be the final decision maker
23:00
- that makes health care better or worse by
23:02
- making it more complicated or much easier for
23:05
- the patients and the examiners. I say that's
23:07
- what I'm most excited about.
23:09
- I love it. I love it. That, is
23:11
- so great, and the,
23:13
- passion that you have for what you do
23:15
- is really shining through. Larry, thank you so
23:17
- much for joining us on the podcast today.
23:18
- This has been, a really fun and inspiring
23:21
- conversation, and I look forward to connecting with
23:23
- you again soon.
23:24
- Thank you, Laura. I greatly appreciate your time
23:26
- today.