Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Building the Future of Academic Medicine and Patient-Centered Care with Claudia Lucchinetti, MD

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Building the Future of Academic Medicine and Patient-Centered Care with Claudia Lucchinetti, MD · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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- This is Scott Becker with the Beckers HealthCare
1:00
- podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined
1:02
- by a brilliant physician leader. We're joined today
1:05
- by doctor Claudia Lucanetti.
1:07
- Doctor Lucanetti is both the senior vice president
1:09
- at the University of Texas at Austin. She's
1:11
- also the dean of the Dell Medical School.
1:14
- They have got some incredibly exciting things going
1:16
- on. My background, doctor Lucanetti,
1:18
- also spent twenty five, twenty six years at
1:21
- the Mayo Clinic,
1:22
- a brilliant, brilliant career. Doctor Lucanetti, can you
1:25
- take a moment and introduce yourself and and
1:27
- tell us about the Dell Medical School?
1:29
- Sure. So,
1:31
- my career, I've been here about three and
1:33
- a half years. My entire career started actually
1:35
- at the Mayo Clinic where I was a
1:37
- college kid doing research
1:39
- followed by a residency
1:41
- well, medical school in Chicago and residency
1:43
- at Mayo followed by essentially an entire career,
1:46
- my paraprofessional career at Mayo.
1:49
- At that time, I trained to be a
1:50
- neurologist.
1:51
- I was the chair of the department of
1:53
- neurology. I was the dean of clinical translational
1:55
- research, and I was a member of the
1:56
- Mayo Clinic board of trustees
1:58
- when I really had no intention of leaving
2:00
- Mayo as an amazing organization, still is, and,
2:03
- was, saw this really unique opportunity,
2:06
- never having contemplated to leave, but that was
2:09
- what I saw what was happening within Austin,
2:11
- Texas.
2:12
- So when they reached out at that time,
2:15
- I engaged because I saw a rare convergence
2:18
- of
2:20
- a world class dynamic university
2:22
- in the setting of a vibrant,
2:24
- tech
2:25
- ecosystem,
2:26
- vibrant town of entrepreneurs,
2:29
- and a great need,
2:31
- for bringing an academic medical center, frankly, to
2:34
- one of the largest, fastest growing metros in
2:37
- the country without one. It had a medical
2:39
- school, but the reality was, medical schools are
2:42
- where you train the doctors, but academic health
2:44
- systems are, you know, they're anchored by medical
2:46
- schools, but they're really where there's the convergence
2:48
- of research practice and education
2:50
- to really deliver care at scale.
2:53
- And what was unique about the moment was
2:55
- really, this
2:57
- opportunity to build
2:59
- and bring an integrated model of care during
3:01
- one of the greatest transformations the planet is
3:03
- seeing as it relates to technology
3:05
- and how to really bring that to enhance,
3:08
- improve, expand care within Austin and at the
3:11
- University of Texas at Austin.
3:12
- And so when I think about, here, this
3:15
- was a particularly important moment, I think, in
3:17
- health care and in academic medicine
3:19
- because at the one hand, we were simultaneously
3:21
- we're all facing enormous strain, workforce shortages, rising
3:24
- costs, fragmentation, chronic disease, while also standing at
3:28
- the edge of this extraordinary technological and scientific
3:31
- revolution, so to speak.
3:32
- And many are trying to sort of,
3:36
- retrofit
3:37
- or try to adapt all these changes onto
3:39
- twentieth century,
3:41
- you know, health care infrastructure.
3:43
- I had a chance to be part of
3:45
- building that out in a greenfield way,
3:47
- here at Austin and at the University of
3:49
- Texas at Austin. And what's so unique about
3:51
- this once in a generation opportunity is to
3:53
- build something fundamentally different from the beginning
3:56
- rather than continuously patching legacy systems built for
3:59
- another era. And I alluded to the fact
4:01
- I was drawn to Austin, this innovative city,
4:05
- but as I said, it lacked an integrated
4:06
- academic medical center.
4:08
- Many people leave Austin for complex and serious
4:12
- care to other cities.
4:13
- And, frankly, with the growth here, it was
4:15
- clear that there was this opportunity.
4:18
- You know, about one in four central Texans
4:20
- leave the region for advanced care, whether that's
4:22
- cancer care, cardiovascular care, neuroscience care. They're traveling
4:25
- to Houston, Dallas, or elsewhere.
4:27
- And what we're here building here is intended
4:30
- to change that trajectory,
4:31
- not simply constructing a hospital, but creating a
4:34
- next generation academic medical ecosystem
4:36
- designed around, frankly, intelligence, integration, discovery, and humanity
4:40
- from day one. So when you think about
4:42
- what would draw me away from an entire
4:44
- career
4:45
- at Mayo, it would be the opportunity for
4:48
- impact and innovation
4:49
- at a scale,
4:51
- where,
4:52
- I I couldn't have imagined a a greater
4:54
- opportunity.
4:55
- So that's what drew me here, and we're
4:57
- well on that journey, and I'm happy to
4:59
- talk about that, along the way here on
5:01
- our conversation.
5:03
- No. That's that's remarkable. Let's talk about a
5:06
- mix of different issues.
5:08
- All votes are large,
5:09
- but you, my background, are a neurologist.
5:13
- Mhmm. And I think neurology is a great
5:14
- microcosm for what is going on in health
5:17
- care. We've got this incredible growth of dementia,
5:20
- Alzheimer's,
5:21
- all things that are somewhat neurological
5:24
- related, at least in part, and at the
5:26
- same time, an incredible shortage of neurologists. I
5:29
- remember being on a podcast not long ago
5:31
- with the neurologist in Texas in the area
5:33
- that they were in, and I think there
5:35
- was one neurologist for 500,000
5:37
- patients.
5:38
- You know, I my dad's got dementia.
5:40
- Seems like the whole world has something.
5:43
- How do you how do we think about
5:46
- that supply demand imbalance
5:48
- using neurology as a great microcosm, but it's
5:52
- so
5:52
- you know, it's across many specialties.
5:55
- Thoughts there? How do you see that, and
5:57
- how do we address some of that? Well,
5:59
- there's there's a lot baked in there. First
6:01
- of all,
6:03
- you know, we talk about the silver tsunami,
6:05
- elderly population growing
6:07
- at a time that you're also facing still
6:09
- a shortage
6:11
- of doctors,
6:12
- let alone specialists.
6:13
- And as that population is growing, the prevalence
6:17
- of dementia
6:18
- is also growing.
6:20
- You don't have population growth in many parts
6:23
- of the world matching the, the growth that's
6:25
- being seen there. So you're you're having this
6:28
- mismatch of supply and demand of care.
6:31
- At the same time, you're seeing
6:33
- great advances being made, not only in the
6:36
- potential use of new diagnostics
6:38
- and therapeutics,
6:40
- but importantly,
6:41
- being able to have specialists be able to
6:43
- deliver that. Again, there's this mismatch of subspecialists.
6:45
- If we look here in Austin alone, I
6:47
- think there's one behavioral neurologist between between San
6:50
- Antonio and Houston.
6:52
- So there's a a a a a lack
6:54
- of sufficient, I think, subspecialty
6:57
- trained people to address the the broad needs
6:59
- within complex neurological conditions, including
7:02
- complex, dementia disorders.
7:05
- In addition to that, though, you have this
7:06
- rapid acceleration
7:08
- in technology.
7:09
- Things like,
7:11
- electroceuticals
7:12
- and bioelectronic
7:14
- medicine,
7:15
- thinking also about brain computer interface.
7:18
- So when you think about neurological deficits
7:21
- like stroke, for example,
7:23
- and the ability to see the advances that
7:25
- are happening in areas like BCI
7:28
- to help improve recovery,
7:30
- we have investigators
7:31
- here at the University of Texas at Austin
7:34
- who focus on leveraging the use of BCI
7:37
- to help patients move
7:40
- their wheelchair through electrical signals transmitted that can
7:43
- be picked up through the BCI to advance
7:45
- and and create independence in ways that we
7:47
- haven't. So you see now this marrying of
7:49
- technology alongside
7:51
- some of the greatest challenges in in neurologic
7:54
- diseases, rendering people immobile would be one of
7:57
- them. Or in addition to that, the role
7:59
- of electriceuticals and disorders such as movement disorders
8:02
- where there's tremendous problems with tremor or other
8:05
- things that that were continuous advance or in
8:07
- psychiatric disorders. So what's interesting is this convergence
8:10
- of
8:11
- increasing need,
8:12
- increasing technology,
8:14
- some new therapeutics,
8:16
- but then the the reality is that the
8:17
- care itself,
8:19
- is challenged. And so when we think also
8:21
- about the role of AI,
8:23
- isolation,
8:24
- homelessness,
8:25
- one's been also seeing some great advances in
8:27
- people thinking about how to bring robotics
8:30
- and humanoid robotics into the home environments.
8:34
- How does that play a role in helping
8:36
- to address some of the gaps even in
8:37
- just,
8:38
- loneliness, which sounds crazy. You don't think of
8:41
- a robot solving that. But it's been interesting
8:43
- to even see how people are beginning to
8:45
- use and test and determine
8:47
- how that might help, with care in the
8:50
- home, with basic needs in the home, keeping
8:52
- people in the home. So I would just
8:53
- say neurology is an interesting,
8:55
- representation of many of the challenges that we're
8:58
- facing and many of the opportunities that we
9:00
- have ahead.
9:01
- Doctor Lucanetti, just just brilliant. And and I
9:03
- apologize for digressing on the neurology side. Just
9:06
- a key key issue today for so many
9:08
- people in our aging population
9:10
- who are struggling with
9:12
- aging, younger people with Alzheimer's, dementia, older people,
9:15
- and so on and so on. So I
9:16
- apologize for digressing, but so thrilled to have
9:19
- somebody so brilliant on to address some of
9:21
- those questions that are so near and dear
9:22
- to so many of us. Talk for a
9:24
- second about what is being built there. I
9:26
- saw recently,
9:27
- the Dells made another huge gift to the
9:29
- medical school, and they've just been so supportive.
9:32
- Talk about what's being built there and also
9:34
- the strategy and how you look at the
9:36
- strategy for the long term of the Dell
9:38
- Medical School. Great. So we're building here a
9:41
- comprehensive
9:42
- AI native academic medical center that's really focused
9:45
- on the conditions that most profoundly affect human
9:48
- lives and health care systems. So we spoke
9:50
- about neurosciences, neurologic conditions, cancer, cardiovascular disease, transplantation,
9:55
- rare disease, and complex multiorgan illness. And what
9:58
- makes this especially powerful is the integration with
10:00
- the broader UT ecosystem
10:02
- where we're able to kinda connect engineering,
10:05
- AI, advanced computing, biotech,
10:07
- translational science directly into care delivery itself rather
10:10
- than operating them as disconnected innovation silos.
10:13
- And this matters, first of all, because the
10:15
- future of medicine is is really increasingly depending
10:18
- on convergence.
10:19
- The next breakthroughs aren't gonna come from medicine
10:21
- alone. They're gonna emerge at this intersection of
10:23
- biology, data science, engineering, computing, and care. And
10:27
- because I said earlier, we're building from the
10:28
- ground up, we have the ability to architect
10:30
- the system around the patient journey itself
10:33
- rather than around decades of accumulated operational
10:36
- complexity.
10:37
- So that means we're building a unified digital
10:39
- infrastructure.
10:40
- We're embedding AI and predictive analytics so we
10:43
- can better predict disease. We're ensuring that we're
10:45
- looking at how to create less disconnected moments
10:48
- and more seamless transitions in the care journey.
10:50
- We are integrating research directly into what we're
10:53
- building here. And, ultimately, the goal is to
10:55
- create a system that's capable of delivering world
10:58
- class care, but also accelerating discovery and training.
11:01
- I think it's important, though, to acknowledge what
11:03
- does this mean for patients. And I'm gonna
11:05
- get to this point because
11:07
- today,
11:09
- care is very disconnected.
11:11
- It is a series of disconnected moments, different
11:14
- appointments, different locations, repeating your story each time.
11:18
- In the model we're building, that experience becomes
11:20
- more continuous.
11:21
- So, like, imagine a woman in her fifties.
11:24
- She's busy. She's working. She's taking care of
11:26
- her family.
11:27
- She starts to feel more fatigued than usual.
11:30
- In today's system, she's gonna wait. She's gonna
11:32
- get a test. She's gonna wait weeks. She's
11:34
- gonna get referred somewhere. Each step is sort
11:36
- of disconnected. And and the system we're building,
11:38
- this looks different.
11:40
- Her data, her labs, her history, even maybe
11:42
- her wearable information or her ring or what
11:44
- it tells her, her her iPhone or apps
11:47
- or
11:48
- watch,
11:49
- is continuously being analyzed. Subtle changes are flagged
11:51
- early, so she could be proactively contacted. When
11:55
- she comes in,
11:56
- she has the whole team around her and
11:57
- a coordinated system where the imaging, the specialist,
12:00
- the care plan come together quickly.
12:02
- And then behind the scenes, all these advanced
12:05
- technologies are streamlining the diagnostics, the coordination, decision
12:08
- may making so that the delays are removed.
12:11
- The patient,
12:12
- can feel like they're actually getting their care
12:14
- around them. The system is orbiting them. And
12:16
- let's say they find cancer. Well,
12:19
- it's really important to catch that early. And
12:21
- here at UT Austin and UT Bell Medicine,
12:24
- we are integrating our care together with MD
12:26
- Anderson. So we're bringing world class cancer care
12:28
- comes from Houston
12:30
- embedded into this integrated model of care. So
12:33
- let's say she's seen in the course of
12:34
- appointment, she can immediately
12:36
- be connected to world class expertise such as
12:38
- through MD Anderson and part of our integrated
12:41
- plan. And then when she goes home, she's
12:43
- still connected. She's monitored, supported, guided. And so
12:46
- she's not navigating the system, but the system
12:48
- is taking care of her. To us, that's
12:50
- what an integrated model of care for the
12:52
- future looks like. It's a shift from fragmented,
12:57
- episodic care to something that's continuous,
13:00
- coordinated,
13:00
- proactive,
13:02
- personalized, and it really is centered entirely around
13:05
- the patient.
13:06
- How do you see this working and developing
13:09
- at scale
13:11
- where patients I because, obviously, when we get
13:13
- into shortages, supply demand shortages,
13:16
- it's often a situation
13:18
- where
13:19
- the people with commercial coverage, the people that
13:22
- can afford concierge,
13:23
- people that have had traditionally better access still
13:26
- continue to have access, although more challenging,
13:28
- but people from a health equity landscape or
13:31
- or or land lens
13:33
- that had a hard enough time before getting
13:36
- care. How do we do this at scale?
13:39
- Yep. So it leads to better health equity
13:41
- and better opportunities for those that can't afford
13:44
- commercial, aren't on Medicare, or can't do concierge,
13:47
- etcetera?
13:48
- Well, first of all, what we're building is
13:50
- for regardless of circumstance, it is not strictly
13:53
- for commercial paying patients, number one.
13:56
- Number two, patients, I mentioned, for very complex
13:59
- conditions often leave Austin to get that care
14:02
- if they can afford it or they're going
14:03
- completely without
14:05
- if they don't have the means to travel
14:07
- elsewhere.
14:07
- So already,
14:09
- Dell Medical School was birthed out of the
14:11
- community.
14:12
- The taxpayers deemed that it was important to
14:14
- fund a medical school. And through that, we
14:17
- have a very close relationship with Central Health.
14:19
- Central Health is really responsible for providing the
14:22
- care and the support,
14:23
- of the safety net population. We work hand
14:26
- in hand with them. Our doctors work within
14:28
- central health and FQHC facilities,
14:31
- federally qualified, health,
14:33
- institutions.
14:34
- In addition,
14:35
- we provide care across our teaching hospital, Del
14:38
- Seton Medical Center, as well as in our
14:41
- future planned hospital.
14:43
- It is a not only a,
14:45
- prerequisite,
14:46
- but
14:47
- if one were to build a system of
14:49
- care and it was cut off from those
14:51
- who are the most vulnerable and the greatest
14:52
- need, it would completely fly in the face
14:55
- of our mission to provide
14:57
- to the the strong, belief that all have
14:59
- a right to be as healthy as possible.
15:01
- Now the reality is that is a team
15:04
- sport. That is not something one entity, one
15:07
- university,
15:08
- one community hospital, one,
15:10
- payer can do, that requires
15:13
- coordination and collaboration.
15:15
- So when we think about this relationship with
15:17
- Central Health and with us,
15:19
- we think about what that means in the
15:21
- places we deliver care today and in the
15:23
- systems we're building for tomorrow.
15:25
- Our medical students are passionate about,
15:28
- really being able to serve the community. And
15:31
- in that regard, they often are doing they're
15:33
- they're working within the community closely with patients
15:36
- across all means.
15:38
- And in addition, they're actively doing research in
15:41
- this space. They're actively,
15:43
- participating
15:44
- in care environments
15:45
- because it's important to both understand what those
15:48
- challenges are across the spectrum of patients because
15:52
- otherwise, you will get a very biased
15:54
- view. So to your point,
15:56
- we also
15:57
- build financial models that have to
16:00
- understand that our goals are not to drive
16:04
- the margin as much it is to have
16:06
- a sufficient margin to drive the mission.
16:09
- And the mission is to advance excellent clinical
16:12
- care regardless of circumstance.
16:14
- It is to advance research, and it's it's
16:16
- advanced education. And so from that collective, we
16:18
- hold ourselves accountable, and that does require close
16:21
- partnership with the community,
16:23
- in a much broader way than just standing
16:25
- up a hospital because a hospital isn't the
16:28
- hard part. The hard part is how you're
16:30
- actually going to create systems of care to
16:32
- be able to create that access.
16:34
- And so we see that as a collaborative
16:37
- effort that will continue in the years to
16:38
- come and building on a strong foundation that
16:40
- has been in place for the last decade.
16:43
- I mean, your your point is so well
16:44
- taken that the hospital is not the hard
16:47
- part. It it's hard, but the much more
16:49
- important part, it's almost like a school. The
16:51
- building's not the important part.
16:53
- The teachers, the system, how you take care
16:55
- of students, how you take care of patients
16:57
- in this case is the hard part.
16:59
- Talk a little bit about Mayo Clinic for
17:01
- twenty six years,
17:03
- remarkable career,
17:05
- now dean of a medical school.
17:07
- Is it the chance of a lifetime to
17:09
- be dean of a medical school, or do
17:10
- you feel like you've had so many great
17:12
- chances? But is this just the the opportunity
17:14
- of a lifetime now?
17:16
- Well, I think the dean of the medical
17:18
- school is
17:19
- the part that really thinks about research and
17:22
- education and that mission.
17:24
- The role of why it was important for
17:26
- me when I was looking at this role
17:29
- and contemplating this role is that for me,
17:30
- it had to also be intimately tied to
17:33
- the deliver
17:34
- the delivery of the care the health system
17:36
- itself because oftentimes,
17:39
- those things are pitted against each other. Clinical
17:42
- care, clinical margins, clinical targets
17:45
- to the expense of research or education when
17:47
- in fact, research and education are investment in
17:50
- driving the kind of quality and excellence and
17:52
- innovation that really is at the hallmark as
17:54
- a foundation of an academic health system.
17:57
- So what is truly transformative here to me
18:00
- is that common well, for me, it was
18:02
- the ability to combine those things. And so
18:05
- in most systems, research and care are separate.
18:08
- It can take years for discoveries to reach
18:10
- patients. They say it can be up to
18:12
- seventeen years from some discovery could actually come
18:14
- and impact the patient.
18:16
- Here in what we're building, they're integrated. My
18:19
- roles are integrated. I am both the senior
18:21
- vice president medical affairs to oversee the health
18:23
- care strategy in this whole build while the
18:25
- dean of a medical school that has to
18:27
- have a line of sight toward the research
18:29
- and the tier one research environment here at
18:32
- this dynamic university and how to advance and
18:35
- and capitalize and work together on that while
18:37
- also training training the next generation of
18:40
- doctors to be prepared for world transformed
18:43
- by technology.
18:44
- So the hospital itself,
18:46
- I see it as not just a place
18:47
- of care, but a living
18:49
- learning system continuously generating insight.
18:52
- And discovery doesn't sit on the shelf. It
18:54
- moves directly into care. So through our partnership
18:57
- with MD Anderson, advances in care to cancer
18:59
- detection and imaging and therapeutics
19:01
- can be rapidly integrated into patient care here.
19:04
- At the same time, data, you know, in
19:06
- an AI native hospital, data from every patient
19:08
- interaction, whether in the hospital or at home,
19:11
- can feedback into research,
19:12
- improving how we diagnose and treat disease.
19:15
- And because we're building an integrated model not
19:17
- siloed by different specialties,
19:19
- we think about understanding the whole patient biologically,
19:22
- behaviorally, socially.
19:24
- So instead of, like, this pipeline from a
19:26
- lab to a clinic, you get a continuous
19:28
- loop of learning and improvement and patients benefit
19:31
- immediately.
19:31
- And I say that because,
19:34
- was this a dream? I never aspired to
19:37
- necessarily. I don't really think about the roles,
19:40
- what the title is, or I really think
19:42
- more about what's the opportunity.
19:45
- And this was truly
19:47
- a rare
19:49
- convergence, a once in a generation moment.
19:52
- First, you have this top tier academic ecosystem
19:54
- in a high growth city like UT Austin
19:57
- bringing this world class strength, engineering,
19:59
- AI, data science, system thinking. Second, you have
20:02
- this health system I told you that's being
20:04
- designed, not inherited.
20:05
- So who gets to have this chance to
20:07
- not have to retrofit AI and digital into
20:10
- legacy workflows, but build a health system where
20:13
- intelligence automation robotics
20:15
- are foundational with the exquisite focus on the
20:17
- patient.
20:18
- And this means that we can shift from
20:20
- a system that reacts to illness to one
20:21
- to support health.
20:23
- Third is this collaboration with MD Anderson was
20:25
- a game changer. It allows us to embed
20:27
- one of the world's leading cancer programs into
20:29
- this broader unified model. So in call oncology
20:32
- isn't siloed, but it's fully integrated.
20:34
- And then fourth, I said Austin, where you
20:36
- get technology, entrepreneurship,
20:38
- health care colliding at scale so you create
20:40
- a living laboratory
20:42
- for developing new tools of care. And then
20:44
- finally,
20:45
- the alignment of intent, the university, the medical
20:47
- school, the clinical partners, we all aim not
20:50
- to optimize what exists, but to define what
20:52
- comes next.
20:53
- That's where the Dell family's extraordinary investment isn't
20:56
- just philanthropic support. It's catalytic catalytic. It merely
21:01
- gives us the ability to move faster, think
21:03
- bigger,
21:03
- build that scale,
21:05
- that matches this opportunity. And it gives us
21:07
- a freedom to think long term,
21:09
- to design from first principles, to take on
21:11
- a challenge of this scale within the expectation
21:13
- that we don't just improve a system, we
21:15
- redefine it. So I would
21:17
- say, yeah, I wasn't necessarily
21:19
- searching for a dean role, but I saw
21:21
- the opportunity, the combination of talent,
21:24
- timing,
21:25
- partnership,
21:26
- what was happening in the world with technology,
21:29
- and then this catalytic Dell gift building on
21:32
- the initial investment of the first ten years
21:34
- of the medical school.
21:35
- That's what made this moment not just unique
21:37
- frankly in United States, but globally. And that
21:40
- was something that I am truly honored and
21:43
- privileged to be part of. And most academic
21:45
- health systems,
21:47
- you know, we are being built within the
21:49
- woven within the fabric of this amazing university,
21:52
- hand in hand working together with president Jim
21:54
- Davis
21:55
- and the university. And so that convergence is
21:58
- is truly an exceptional moment as well. Doctor
22:01
- Lucanetti, you've had this remarkable leadership career,
22:05
- really incredible.
22:07
- Advice that you would give to evolving leaders
22:09
- in this very changing time that we're in?
22:12
- Yeah.
22:13
- So one lesson leadership has taught me is
22:15
- that
22:16
- scale
22:17
- increases complexity, but it cannot dilute our mission.
22:20
- And so by that,
22:21
- we're going
22:22
- from
22:23
- small medical school, a footprint, and we're rapidly
22:27
- evolving into, you know, a large
22:30
- academic health system in a very small,
22:32
- short period of time. And health care leaders,
22:35
- you know, we operate inside extraordinary complicated systems,
22:38
- you know, gonna deal with operations, reimbursement regulation,
22:41
- workforce, capital planning. All these things are real
22:43
- pressures.
22:44
- But I sort of alluded to this earlier.
22:47
- If we lose our connection to our core
22:49
- mission,
22:50
- our patients,
22:51
- advancing research and discovery, education,
22:54
- and human real world impact,
22:56
- then an institution will lose their sense of
22:58
- purpose.
22:59
- So it's really important that the mission is
23:02
- critical,
23:04
- and the culture that you're fostering.
23:06
- And ours for us, the North Star remains
23:09
- patience.
23:10
- The second lesson for me, and I think
23:12
- it's probably what drew me to this, is
23:15
- I think transformational leadership requires
23:17
- comfort with ambiguity.
23:19
- You know, effectively, we're almost like a start
23:22
- up academic health system, and the future of
23:24
- health care
23:26
- is not fully mapped. We're being faced with
23:28
- a rapidly changing environment between AI,
23:31
- workforce disruption,
23:33
- changing demographics.
23:35
- We spoke about the silver tsunami, scientific acceleration.
23:38
- All of these forces are reshaping medicine all
23:41
- at once.
23:42
- And, you know, leadership in this era, you
23:45
- can't wait for perfect certainty.
23:48
- It you've gotta create kind of clarity amidst
23:50
- all of this uncertainty. And for whatever reason,
23:53
- I seem to thrive in that type of
23:54
- environment, and I seek out people who are
23:57
- builders, who are comfortable
23:59
- being uncomfortable.
24:00
- And I think if you are I I
24:02
- read a book once and this isn't my
24:03
- quote, but if you are not
24:06
- uncomfortable,
24:07
- you probably aren't leading because the reality is
24:11
- these moments do generate a level of, being
24:13
- uncomfortable, but that's what drives
24:16
- drives, I think, us toward transformational
24:19
- innovation.
24:20
- I think finally,
24:22
- great leaders are gonna build environments in health
24:25
- care where innovation technology
24:27
- coexist with humanity.
24:29
- Technology is not gonna be what transforms health
24:32
- care. I mentioned this before. Buildings do not
24:35
- transform health care. People do. The culture you
24:38
- create, whether your people feel inspired or connected
24:41
- to the mission
24:42
- or they're empowered,
24:44
- that determines whether institutions are gonna succeed. So
24:47
- for me, coming from a place
24:49
- like the Mayo Clinic where we always say
24:51
- the needs of the patient come first,
24:53
- that is in my DNA, and it is
24:56
- what I will continue to lead, with staying
24:59
- grounded in
25:00
- patient care and scientific discovery
25:03
- being essential. But at the institutional level that
25:05
- the work we're doing is really about improving
25:07
- human lives, and that remains the North Star.
25:10
- So I think at the moment,
25:12
- this is the hardest job job I've ever
25:15
- had, but also the most rewarding. And in
25:17
- many ways,
25:19
- my life sort of prepared me in in
25:20
- interesting ways. I mean, as a translational scientist
25:23
- in the lab, you're always dealing with uncertainty.
25:25
- You know, you're managing people, you're managing budgets,
25:28
- and then it's just a question of scale.
25:30
- But at the core,
25:32
- I'm a doctor, and I care about my
25:35
- patients, and I care about having an impact
25:38
- not just at the level of a single
25:40
- individual, but at a level of system of
25:42
- care that frankly has to go beyond
25:45
- Austin.
25:46
- We aim to create a differentiated
25:48
- destination
25:50
- medical center,
25:51
- And that comes with a huge responsibility
25:54
- to really, steward the public trust, to steward
25:57
- the opportunity,
25:59
- but it is incredibly exciting. We've been able
26:02
- to track
26:02
- fellow builders
26:04
- because this is really a unique environment because
26:07
- we are we are attracting builders, and Austin's
26:09
- always been about
26:10
- builders. You know, a lot of builders here.
26:12
- And Michael Dell has been a builder. And
26:14
- so I think having that combination, again, really
26:17
- creates a unique convergence, and I couldn't be
26:19
- more honored to be part of it.
26:21
- And the team I've brought, again, never been
26:24
- a one person thing. This is a team
26:26
- sport through and through. We have attracted from
26:28
- across the country the very best,
26:31
- and we work closely with partners.
26:33
- Central Health and and our and our community
26:36
- is at the core of who we are
26:38
- and what we do as well, and we
26:39
- can never lose sight of that either. Otherwise,
26:42
- we get back to what you mentioned earlier.
26:43
- We create systems of care that only some
26:46
- can benefit,
26:47
- which would fly in the face of the
26:48
- core mission we aspire to pursue.
26:52
- Doctor Lucanetti, it it is inspiring to get
26:55
- to visit with you and hear your clarity
26:57
- and your directness around so many issues.
27:00
- Congratulations on what you and the entire UT
27:03
- and Dell Medical School are doing.
27:06
- We're looking forward to watching the evolution, but
27:08
- just, literally fantastic. Thank you so much for
27:10
- joining us today on the Becker Self Care
27:12
- podcast. Thank you so much, Scott. Appreciate you
27:14
- having me.