Is Social Media and AI DESTROYING Your Medical Practice?

This week, we have a special episode. I am joined with Josh Braziel (Rural Health Network of Oklahoma), Tiffany Gibson (New Nurse Academy), Dr.Jayne Morgan (Hello Heart) and Dr.Emmanuel Isang (Cardiologist) as we all discuss all about the BIG impact of Social Media to Healthcare and how it can impact your Medical Practice as we move forward to the future.

Video link to all the full episode:

• Josh Braziel - https://youtu.be/szAMuTswjC8
• Tiffany Gibson - https://youtu.be/jKtPZ_0oXf4
• Dr.Jayne Morgan - https://youtu.be/OXeCkjZpEfs
• Dr.Emmanuel Isang - https://youtu.be/DsujZ7Nt-Fk

YouTube Video Link to the podcast episode: https://youtu.be/OzfFET8RFhE

Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn @synsormed.

Learn more about what we do at SynsorMed at www.synsormed.com.

Transcript

Introduction to Tiffany Gibson

Theo Harvey: I'm so honored today to have an amazing nurse entrepreneur, Tiffany Gibson. Tiffany, how are you today? 

Tiffany Gibson: I'm doing well. I'm actually in a really good mood today. Thanks for asking. 

Theo Harvey: Oh, that's awesome. 

The Role of AI in Healthcare

Theo Harvey: Let's talk a little bit about technology, AI, artificial intelligence. That's the big buzzword in healthcare.

Big thing for organizations right now, they're looking at artificial intelligence to maybe look for clinical opportunities. We don't believe in that. We believe maybe it can help with personalization. So could you make it more personalized communication channels to engage patients, but not clinical decision making?

We don't think that's relevant as yet because there's just too many issues of AI as a nurse and hearing about AI and how it's going to potentially take your job and do what you do. Yeah, exactly. I would be curious. What are you hearing at the higher levels? And do you see the usefulness of AI and what you think it can or can't do for nurses as they kind of navigate this?

AI's Impact on Nursing

Tiffany Gibson: One, I want to say, I think it's funny how everyone is concerned about AI when AI has been around for a while. If you've ever interfaced with any company online and saw that chat feature at the bottom of the screen, that was AI. If you've ever called an automated service line and You had to speak your answer and it kind of put you into an algorithm to determine what response it gives to you.

That was AI. So AI has been around for a while. It being in healthcare the way it is now is fairly new and novel, but it's been around for a while and it's Been successful in other industries. And so I am not afraid that AI is taking my job because it cannot think like a human , right? Um, we still need people to manage and run the ai, but what I think it can do is cut down time.

I'm a fan of chat, GPT and what AI looks like for me in my world is creating. smart sets where instead of me writing out a whole letter, I can say, you know, create a message for this patient regarding a conversation we talked about, you know, and, and send the email and have it summarize it. Um, that just saved me 10 minutes of my time.

Thank you so much. I can go ahead and use that 10 minutes for someplace else. I think AI is very much a tool for efficiency. It's not a tool for replacement. And so if we know how to maximize and use it properly, we can be more productive or, you know, have more efficiency and maybe decompress some of the role, you know, the task of the nurse, because we're using it for standard ordering, or we're using it for smart set communication or adaptive communication and streamlining ways that we operate.

I think AI can help. with that. Nothing to be afraid of. But you know, people don't like change and people don't like the unknown. And if they're unable to fully conceptualize something, you know, there's a little bit of fear in that. 

Theo Harvey: Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, I have a background in engineering and AI used to be called machine learning algorithms.

To your point, Facebook, every time you open Facebook and I recommended a friend or some ad to you. That was AI. So we've always been around AI. Just ChatGPT exploded because it was a new interface to AI that we never experienced before. Right. And so, so that's how I kind of looked at it, but also for healthcare, I think that people have to think of it as like a really smart intern.

It doesn't know everything, you know, when it comes to the functionality of your job and really the value, what you bring to the job, but it can do things like you said, you know, help you Get things done faster, can automate certain tasks, but also it can even help with research or even get you started with care plans and do different things that you may take you a while to kind of set up, but they can at least get you started and you can take it to the last because really, let's be honest, 80 percent is the 80, 20 rules, 80 percent of something is just the setting up, getting all ready.

That last 20 percent makes all the difference. And that's where you bring your uniqueness, your expertise, and that's where AI can kind of help you get to the 80 percent and you focus that time on that 20 percent that's going to give you the maximum value for that project. So to your point, and it's not to be afraid of, but it's something to be aware of and all nurses and healthcare organizations start to, you know, utilize it and not be afraid of it and kind of move it forward, speaking of moving forward, I mean, you're doing some innovative things.

Building a Personal Brand in Healthcare

Theo Harvey: things, not just for building your business, but also in social media. And that was a big thing. We're seeing a lot of nurse influencers, doctor influencers out there in social media. Why is that important to build your brand as a nurse or just a health professional, healthcare professional in this new age of social media and speaking the value that you can bring to the audience, what does that mean for you and why do it now?

What's the goal? How should nurses think about it? 

Tiffany Gibson: I want to start with the disclaimer that I don't think I see myself as an influencer, I see myself as an educator. The word influencer has so many different nuances that it sometimes makes me cringe because that is a job. Influencing is a job on social media and to me this is not a job, this is just my passion and my life's work.

I was born to be an educator. period. Nursing is not my first degree. I've always been educating. I've always had a knack for taking complex topics and making them consumable for the end user. Whether or not I was at the bedside and I was a nurse and I was basically helping parents understand what the provider was saying.

Because people would say, yes, of course. And then a doctor leaves and they're like, what? So I've always had that knack of just kind of translating complicated things and just making it relatable. So I'm an educator and I like to talk. And so public speaking is never an issue for me. Instagram was the perfect platform for me.

I can share my two cents, I can be radical, and it takes 20 seconds and then I'm off doing something else. 

The Importance of Social Media for Nurses

Tiffany Gibson: However, I do think one, just having a personal brand outside of Working outside of the profession. It's just good for a person period. It just helps you with understanding what is your mission and vision in life.

And not necessarily saying you're running yourself like a corporation, but having some standards, having a goal, having something to work forward to having metrics for yourself and saying, this is who I am. So that when someone asks you, tell me about yourself, you're not listing all titles. In TASC, I'm a mom, I'm a nurse, I'm a this, I'm a that, like those are titles in TASC that doesn't tell me who you are at all.

I guarantee you, 9 out of 10 people, if you ask them to introduce themselves or tell you about themselves, they're going to rattle off a list of how they serve other people. That still does not tell me who you are. And so having a personal brand lets people know who you are. And when you go to my social media, you have a sense of TIFF.

I am a nurse. I'm in nursing leadership, right? And I do nursing differently. Yes. I also like to have a lot of fun and I'm very much abrupt and I speak my mind and there's no qualms about it. And then I also have this very much spiritual out of this world, universal divine part to me that I share as well.

And you can tell that from my Instagram, from my social media. Now, All of my social media platforms look different because there's different audiences on those platforms. So LinkedIn TIFF doesn't look the same as Instagram TIFF doesn't look the same as TikTok TIFF and that's on purpose because those platforms are different and you want to maximize the differences, but the brand is all the same, which you see is what you get.

And if you meet me in person, it's the same. It's not a persona. I think, one, nurses have an identity outside of their title and their profession. I'm Tiff. I'm not just a nurse, but there's a lot of nurses who are super proud. of their degree and their profession. And so on social media, that's what they lead with because they're very proud of it.

But I don't want them to forget that behind the degree and the credentials and the title, they are a human, they're a person, and there's a lot more to them than them showing up for work and taking care of others. Having that personal brand or having a brand period just shows people your mission and your promise.

And that's what it is. Why is this needed now? Because social media technically is still fairly new in the grand scheme of things. There's still lots of different platforms that are still popping up and gaining traction. It's a way to communicate in this day and age. And so when you have that presence and you're connecting with others, and nursing has a big community on social media, Your brand just shows your mission, how you show up in the world and your promise.

Theo Harvey: Now, I will say there's this story about the digital natives and versus folks that didn't come this honestly, like I grew up, there was no internet. Right. And so this is new, but then there's folks like my brother and sister who are like 12 years younger than me. They grew up with this, my kids, this is all they know.

And so I think, you know, social media is a new way of communicating. And it's just like anything, you know, any tool, TV was new at one time. Radio was new. You have to learn the medium, right? The more you get on social media and build your presence. And I like what you said, you bring your, your full self to it.

Then guess what? You attract the people that like you and get to know, like, and they eventually trust you. And you'll be amazed at what doors opened up. I'm sure you can count countless times. For instance, this is how we connected on social media. Countless times that you'll find new opportunities that are just on the other side of you being the authentic self.

And being consistent out there on social media. And so building that brand is really just associations. And then, you know, I'm looking at your background. So you're a Delta, you see, I went to FAMU, Florida A& M. So those are things that we're bringing to the table, even as we're still in a professional environment, but then people who are.

Associated with those types of things. Oh, I like her because she's a Delta. I like him because he went to FAMU. And I think, you know, that's so key that you have to build that presence out there, especially in this new era, because that's the new way of communicating. And that's the new way you're going to find new opportunities.

We highly encourage all of our nurses to be out there on social media and build their brand as well as others, because it's just a new way of communicating. But more importantly, I think even doctors, they want to admit it. Yes. Yes. They do research and find things on social media and connect with folks that way.

Yeah, we're highly big pushers for like communicating and being out there on social media and building that brand, especially in healthcare, because there's so much information out there and just having the right people you trust and building that trust with your community. It's going to be. Even more important for the future.

Right. So I commend you for being out there. Wow. This is amazing. Tiffany, this has been a great conversation. I mean, where can people find you and get your resources that can help them? 

Tiffany Gibson: Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, sharing my two cents at Tiffany Gibson. I am on Instagram and Facebook and Tik TOK. I think I'm still on X.

I'm not sure. Or you can just type in Tiffany Gibson. finds me. I enjoy connecting with the masses. I enjoy the community that social media brings there as humans. We are social beings. We like community. We like to find our tribe and to build and grow and learn with our tribe. One thing I don't like about social media is the commiseration.

And I see that often in the nursing world. To me, I'm always trying to find a solution. If I'm if I'm not part of the solution, then I'm part of the problem. And if I'm sometimes that means I'm, if you're not saying any media has amazing pros an a lot of people just by u so in my little corner of to just show nurses how t at work and in life and t that's the new nurse mind Academy.

Theo Harvey: Hey everyone, we success secrets. 

Challenges in Rural Healthcare

Theo Harvey: I'm Theo monitoring company that helps healthcare organizations. I'm super excited to have a guest. We're going to talk about rural healthcare and its importance in how it's shaping the future of healthcare. So I'm like to introduce Josh Brazel. He is the CEO of rural health network of Oklahoma, a nonprofit consortium made up of 23 Oklahoma healthcare organizations.

Josh's experience includes. 18 years of rural public service leadership and 20 years in information technology and information systems. He's been involved in infrastructure planning and implementation projects ranging from the Department of Justice, multiple issues and things around HRSA, FCC, grants. In addition to his duties at Rural Health Network of Oklahoma, Josh currently serves on a board of directors for the Telehealth Alliance of Oklahoma, the Remote Area Medical of Oklahoma, and has previously served on the Institutional Council of the American Telemedicine Association.

Well, Josh, that's a mouthful, but how are you doing today? 

Josh Braziel: Doing very well. How about you, Theo? 

Theo Harvey: I'm wonderful. I'm wonderful. So I wanted to bring you in on this podcast today to talk a little bit about rural healthcare, right? The stats are interesting right now. Over a hundred rural hospitals have closed over the past decade and nearly 700 additional rural hospitals, which is.

Over 30 percent of all rural hospitals in the country are at risk of closing in the near future. So talk to me about why is health care in rural communities so important? What are you seeing now? What's happening in rural communities? 

Josh Braziel: So that's a topic we end up discussing several times a week.

different rural communities. This week it came up in Stroud, Stratford, Hugo, Oklahoma. I was having talks to talk about that exact same topic. And there's a whole, well, I was going to say there's a system, every system is built to funnel everything upstream. A rural place like Oklahoma, our economy, all our services, they're funneled to the big city, or or out of state.

So everywhere policy's made, all the decisions and the thought centers, we don't make the decision process. So every bit of everything is designed to funnel there, and it's almost like there's a mindset that if you want quality health care or access, you move to a city because that's where it is. But factually, there aren't that many cities.

Everyone doesn't want to be there. Even if there were, there's still going to be folks working the land, out hunting, recreation. If you have a catastrophic accident, up in the hills of Pushmataha County. A heart attack. You can't wait three hours for transportation to show up and and four more to get to the heart hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma City.

There needs to be local and rural health care. I do a lot of telemedicine. That helps a lot. It's great for access, but I need that ER. I'm not going to get my tablet out and find the right specialist if I'm unconscious or Or injured a long way from town. Anyway, I could get on a soapbox and go on, uh, go on there forever.

I'll let you talk some, though, since it's your show. 

Theo Harvey: Well, you know, when I looked at the data, right, it looks like land mass of America, roughly 90 percent of all land in continental United States is landmass. areas, and it's still estimated around 60 million people or one in five typically live in these rural communities.

And so it's kind of like, why is this vast population of individuals when it comes to healthcare, which is vital is getting left behind. Right. I know there've been talks about innovation, like maybe working with a dollar general or other, you know, small retailers in. to provide health care. But unfortunately, a lot of those got shuttered, right?

And I'm wondering, obviously, with the closure of these large, you know, health care systems in rural communities, we're saying telehealth is a potential option. Matter of fact, that's kind of how telehealth evolved, right? The need for communities to have access to health care. So because of the distances, they wanted to provide telehealth options and that propagated.

throughout recently because of the need for, you know, access to care in cities. But I'm just curious, as you've been in this area for such a long time, what are you seeing that could potentially work when you kind of think about the problems that that's faced with it, telehealth as a solution, partnering, what are your thoughts around how can we help with that?

Communities that really are in bad shape right now. 

Josh Braziel: I wish I had a real magic bullet. I can tell you the directions that we're going and the things that we are doing because I think that's our path forward. So the rural hospitals, they're in a pinch and there's a number of factors. If you think, I mean, if we narrowed it just down to say like MRI, if you're in a rural area, with a high poverty rate, there's a number out there.

And if your payer mix looks a certain way, you can't have an MRI because CMS is going to pay a certain rate and you have to have a mix of different payers. So if you don't have that, you don't really get to operate one. Then you're just sending all your patients to a large area where the mix allows that.

There's so many things that are along those same lines. So we've got to get innovative out in rural. We've got to save money however we can. And we can do a lot of that on the technical side. We can do a lot of that on the facility side. There's some advantages we have. labor costs. I always joke that we've got plenty of parking.

So if you want a positive, we got plenty of parking out in rural space. We can always meet, but the folks who are successful surviving and thriving right now, they're doing it as a group and they're constantly mindful of that. And the bottom line, it's a, a break over point about 80, a hundred beds to the whole thought process and way of doing business is, um, it changes there.

Smaller than that, you're in constant contact with folks in your consortium group, friends in the industry, and you're honestly always got a pulse on that bottom line. You want to keep your facility open. And there's a double edged sword in rural health care. So you have that hospital there. It's hard to find a MD or, you know, D.

O. to come out and practice in a very rural area. And with that next generation, it's going to be even tougher. So, there's a whole loop there. The doctor needs to be able to send their patient somewhere. They can make that local. That's a positive too. But it sets you up on the next round. If your hospital isn't in existence, you're going to have a harder time attracting those folks.

And, you know, talking about a very rural community, especially one with those same compounding problems, poverty and the payer mix, the way they are, then it makes it even more important. If you lose that facility in your rural area, and you know, there have been a number of reasons, even when the big systems come in, or especially when the larger systems come in, they fly that banner, try and do rural health care with an urban mindset, and a lot of times even that doesn't work out, then the community's left to decide if they're going to shutter that hospital or try it again on their own when, when the large system leaves.

So you do lose that facility. Of course, it's an impact to the health care you can deliver, but you're pushing the cycle even farther down the poverty track because rural community hospitals, a big and important employer, economic driver for the town and the region, really. 

Theo Harvey: And so that's the other side of the corner of.

The data, right? We talked about, Hey, these are areas where you can try innovation and get outcomes, but then there's that data requirement. And to your point, they just don't have the resources to collect all the data as required. It was a big push. Remember when EMRs first got pushed out, meaningful use, right.

And we worked with a lot of providers trying to understand, like, how can they understand how to use the EHRs more effectively and get the data that he doesn't have the cycles and time to do all that. Right. And so that's where the EMRs have to kind of pull that data. And help them with that. They brought in consultants to kind of guide them in that path.

So similar sounds like in real health care, right? Where you're trying to figure out how to make that look simpler for them. Even the things that we do practices, whether they're specialty or primary care, they just have a very little time. Right. And so all these different mandates and solutions and technology, it has to be bolted with services, right?

It can't just be here's some technology. Good luck with it. Here's some AI widget, right? That's the big buzzword AI. It's going to solve everything. Not necessarily right. Cause I don't know about you. I've been playing with AI is it takes a lot to even come up with the right prompts and all this stuff to even get it to a point where it's halfway useful.

And even then you're still like, ah, this is not exactly what I want. So these are the things that I think that people have to realize that healthcare is always going to be services that has to be backed by technology, but services leads the forefront. And so, like you said, your team coming in, helping rural health centers and other communities, figuring out how you guys come up with an action plan to meet the mandate together.

So they're not just all alone. Cause they're just not going to do it on their own. So that makes sense. 

Telehealth and Technological Innovations

Theo Harvey: So I want to kind of pivot a little bit, you know, let's talk about yourself as a technologist, as a consultant. I mean, look, you were in the forefront of telehealth. Before anyone knew how to spell it.

Right. And so I would just be curious, someone saying, Hey, I was at a recent insurance conference, the AHIP last week, and a lot of Medicare advantage commercial plans, you know, they said utilization went from a hundred percent during pandemic down to 20%, right. And so utilization for telehealth has dropped tremendously, you know, after, you know, people are going back, seeing the doctor in person and we're still running into the same issues.

Right. Now the staff is just overburdened. People are missing appointments. You know, it's just the same kind of workflow. From a consultant standpoint, what are you seeing are some best practices to have a successful telehealth program that can be useful and sustainable for the future? 

Josh Braziel: These days being cost conscious, that's a plus there.

There are many more options than there ever were. You can spend a tremendous amount of money just on the technology side, but there's technology that will. And if you don't go in with the world's largest spend on the front end, and I'm just talking about hardware and technology wise, I think spending in planning, getting your workflow down, doing discovery of exactly what you want to do.

I mean, going through the process and planning, I think it's hugely important. Very old concept of I'm going to put enough budget number on this and go my facility a large box of telemedicine and bang We're going to drop it in so telemedicine is going to work. That's far from true You can't run the programs that way and a lot of them were in the beginning and i've seen lots of closets and basements full of Very expensive telemet hardware.

So 

Theo Harvey: yeah, I think you brought me in a couple here and there. 

Josh Braziel: I've shown you some of those, you know, they are, they're out there and in the facilities, universities and grantees who don't advertise that they've got them too. I've seen them and borrowed parts back and forth that's built into that business.

So I think if you have an eye on the, on the bottom line and a good plan, Going into it, showing ROI over time and the tangible financial and service deliverable benefit to what you're doing. That's a successful telemed program to me. And I think any common sense management group, even docs, even folks that are skeptical.

When you can lay it out in a simple way with a good plan and show your improvements, to me, that's, uh, that's the key to success. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. So basically going in with a clear understanding of the business case and what ROI you want to achieve, understanding the technology implementation pieces of it, and then last but not least, having a way to continually improve.

the process over time. So ROI, understanding the infrastructure, and then finally getting the continuous improvement, you know, those three steps, it sounds like it really benefit anybody's telehealth program, right? Where you enroll healthcare or in urban centers, you know, as you look to kind of continue to scale this out, because we see the benefits.

Patients want dual options, right? And we're going to see more and more of that. One of the things just reading on stuff, home dialysis is becoming more important. We're talking about GLP ones, right? All the, you know, people getting weight loss drugs, you know, trying to deliver it to people's homes.

Obviously what we do remote patient monitoring. So I think telehealth care at home is still going to be vitally important. I think putting together a structure and infrastructure in place to kind of handle that is key for everybody. Now, this has been great conversation, Josh. Where can everyone reach you if they have questions about just, Hey, I have a telehealth program.

I don't know where to start. You know, what's your expertise? Can you help me? Where can they reach you or find you and all that? 

Josh Braziel: So, Email me, uh, josh at rhnok. org. I know this perfectly neutral midwestern accent can, can throw folks sometimes, so it's the acronym for Rural Health Network of Oklahoma, rhnok.

org. I'm not a social media animal, I think probably from my time and working with those folks and technology, but I do answer email like, like someone older than me. So I'm good there and that's a good main channel of contact. 

Women's Heart Health with Dr. Jane Morgan

Theo Harvey: I'm so pleased today to have Dr. Jane Morgan on the podcast today to discuss women's health, specifically around heart health.

Dr. Morgan, how are you today? 

Jayne Morgan: Good morning, Theo, or good afternoon. I guess we made it. It's 12 noon. 

Theo Harvey: That's wonderful. For those that don't know, Dr. Jane Morgan is an accomplished cardiologist and the Executive Director of Health and Community Education at the Piedmont Healthcare Corporation, located in Atlanta, Georgia.

She plays a pivotal role in addressing health literacy and disseminating information both within the organization, which employs 47, 000 individuals, and to extension people. external stakeholders. She has been involved in expensive background and clinical trials and cardiac research. Dr. Morgan has made significant contributions to patient care and medical advancement throughout her career.

Her expertise encompasses not only the assessment and treatment of various cardiac conditions, including heart diseases, arrhythmias, and heart failure, but she's also highly regarded for her exceptional skills in the interpretation of complex medical data. So we're so pleased to have you today, Dr.

Morgan. Uh, what are your thoughts about home health, right? Providing technology, maybe a blood pressure cuff that you receive data from, or just having someone that can visit the patient at home and coordinating that, what are your thoughts about those innovations, right? A part of that coordinated care, when you look at the patient and especially pregnant women, 

Jayne Morgan: love it.

I'm a big advocate of it. And we need more of it. And I'm starting to see different groups starting to pull that together. But I think that is so important, especially for rural communities that may live more than an hour from a medical facility. It may not be feasible to have multiple visits back and forth.

I'm a big advocate for moving some of this care at home, either digital or virtual. or an in person support visit to the house and making certain that these patients are doing fine. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. And I think that's key, right? Technology and utilizing it to the effect that can impact patient care is so important.

Another innovation in technology now, definitely. 

Jayne Morgan: And it's really important. And one of the things that's really important is to make sure we can manage and monitor your blood pressure. at home. Blood pressure is going to be a really key indicator, not only of recovery, but future disease and future risk and where you are and what that management.

That's why a cardiologist is really essential to make certain that you understand what those risk factors are and you're managing it. Blood pressure control is going to be essential. So monitoring it either with an app or via some digital device. Or, I'm okay with someone coming to your house with an old fashioned blood pressure cuff and just insufflating, pump, pump.

However we need to get it, I think that's fine. But blood pressure is key. And as we move more and more into how are we going to manage blood pressure? How is it going to be socialized and made available to the masses? These are all questions that we have to begin to answer. And maternal mortality is one of these issues that needs to be resolved.

and managing blood pressure and managing blood pressure remotely and, uh, giving the patient the ownership and empowerment to manage it is going to be key. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. I recently had the opportunity to go to the American health insurance conference, the national conference, where they had individuals, all the payers right across the country, talking about the importance of understanding hypertension is such an indication of a lot of other chronic conditions.

Manage that. nationwide, right? And get those numbers out of control. Uncontrollable hypertension is getting out of control, especially when we had a pause during the pandemic. And so now this is an opportunity to get back into this area of understanding how we can get hypertension under control. And we talked to a lot of, uh, payers as well.

It's such an important factor that part one, the heat is measurements. is uncontrollable hypertension. And so weighted, you know, weighted indicator that to help them meet certain qualifications to meet his measurements. And so I think payers understand the importance of it. The government understands the importance of it.

The Hidden Epidemic: Unidentified Hypertension

Theo Harvey: You as a provider, as a clinician, understand the importance of it. And 

Jayne Morgan: Theo, you are absolutely correct because It's not only the blood pressure that is poorly controlled, it's the unidentified blood pressure. It's people who have high blood pressure and we estimate that it's more than 50 percent of the population.

I know we're a little bit off of maternal mortality, but let's just talk about hypertension for a second. It's estimated that 50 percent of the population has unidentified blood pressure. Hypertension. So they don't even know they have it. So therefore it can't be treated. And listen, you can only treat 100 percent of what you diagnose.

Like we can't treat something we haven't diagnosed yet. And so there's all that opportunity out there as well. 

Maternal Morbidity: Long-Term Risks and Monitoring

Jayne Morgan: Then the last thing I'll say about maternal mortality is that there's something called maternal morbidity as well. The female actually doesn't die. She recovers. But long term, we now know that female, that mother has an increased risk of heart disease, especially as she enters perimenopause and menopause years and her estrogen levels began to decrease in those estrogen levels that are protecting the heart during all, um, of our younger years.

When you get into midlife, those estrogen levels start to decrease. That is an incredibly, uh, challenging, difficult and risky time for someone who actually has not had maternal mortality. Thank goodness. It was a save. Had maternal morbidity, had complications survived them, but long term has higher risk and absolutely needs to be monitored even more closely as she enters into perimenopause and menopause.

And that can be as early as 35 years of age. So just because she's still having menstrual cycles and they're still regular, you still may be entering into menopause, perimenopause between 35 and 45 years of age. So you've got to have these discussions with your physician as well. Your obstetrical history Is important for the rest of your life, no matter what doctor you go to that doctor is not asking you your obstetric history as she or he turns to leave the room, you can say, excuse me, doctor, would you like to know my obstetrical history?

And then you need to volunteer that because that history. We'll let the doctor know what your risk is or isn't of heart disease regarding just your pregnancy history can give us a window into that. So make certain that if you're not asked, you volunteer that information at every single physician's visit as you let them know what your obstetric history is, even if it was normal, that needs to be noted in your charts.

I love it. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. And definitely. And a lot of the providers that we talked to always ask your patient and taking that moment of time to have those conversations with your patients around this because it's so critical to your point. 

The Power of Social Media in Healthcare

Theo Harvey: One thing I do want to talk about. We talked about innovation and just technology.

delivering to patients, but one of the great technology innovations is social media. And as a clinician yourself, I think you've taken advantage of it with, if you haven't seen her great stairwell chronicles during covid and just communicating your expertise. Why is that so important now for experts like yourself to be out there on social media and communicate the truth around health care and innovations and how patients can be more of an advocate for themselves.

Any questions? So what are your thoughts around leveraging social media as 

Jayne Morgan: And in full transparency, I backed into it. I was all, I was on social media platforms before COVID, but was using them for social things, right? Who's getting married? Here's some photos. Let's have fun. Where's the party? And then during COVID, I was named as the executive COVID task force for the Piedmont healthcare system.

And I just want to say something about Piedmont. We are the largest healthcare system. In the state of Georgia, uh, 47, 000 employees, 23 medical campuses. We are huge. And in leading that COVID task force, it became rapid, rapidly apparent to me. That especially by the time we hit that second wave, that misinformation was going to be the biggest challenge.

The Stairwell Chronicles: A Social Media Success Story

Jayne Morgan: And that's how I started the Stairwell Chronicles. So the Stairwell Chronicles, is a series where I literally sit on the steps of my house. That's my house. Those are my stairs and where my clothes and I literally talk with you. It started out just covid things about covid things about the vaccine. But in a very short, abbreviated way, each one is only about 60 seconds long.

It's just one minute, you listen to me, I ask a question, I answer it in 60 seconds or less. In a very easy to understand format, like your sister, your aunt, your hairdresser, your neighbor. We're just having a conversation. And I give you that information. It started with COVID, but developed a cult following and was fairly effective.

People send tended to like that conversational format and the brevity, I think, to be honest. And it now on this side of COVID, I've gone back to my roots. I talk a lot about heart disease and then my passion, women's health and my background, clinical research. I talk about all of those things. And then if you ever see me on news media, I talk about a plethora of other topics as well.

So those will be on my social media. But if you come to my social media, I'm really talking about medicine and giving you information all the time. And you can choose to internalize it or not internalize it. It's just something I don't make you do anything with it. I just put it out there and you can make a decision about it.

And I'm happy to interact with you in the comments. So there you go. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. I think more clinicians need to realize the power of social media and the impact it can have for individuals, any patients, other providers to give them the latest and greatest information in sound bites, they can do better research on later and be more informed.

And so we have a lot of voices out there now, social media that don't have the background. Yeah, that's a 

Jayne Morgan: good point. You be careful who you're listening to. They may or may not have the background, regardless of what they're calling themselves. And regardless of what they're talking about, they actually may not be the real deal.

So make sure you're following the real deal. 

Theo Harvey: Exactly. Dr. Morgan, this has been a great time. Great, informative, insightfulness, definitely around, you know, maternal health and the future and how we can help. Impact that. What can people find you? What's the latest that you have as you're working on? Let the people know.

Jayne Morgan: Thanks Theo. Listen, everybody, you can follow me. I'm on all the social media. I'm on Instagram at Dr. Jane Morgan is D R J a Y N E there. Y is in there. That's the number one thing that people miss. So it's D R J a Y N E M O R G. Dr. Jane Morgan. I'm on Instagram. You can find me on, uh, tick tock on X on threads.

And on LinkedIn, I'm Jane Morgan, MD, J A Y N E M O R G A N M D. I would say Instagram is probably where I do the most. And I might post some personal things from time to time there as well. So it's maybe a little bit more, less to creativity, but please follow me on whatever platform you wish. My next thing, my next chapter is really.

Continuing the focus on menopause, on women's health, on health equity, on research, and then also really doing a drill down, deep dive into hypertension and how hypertension actually interconnects the brain. all of these to end up with that excessive cardiac mortality. So more to come. You'll hear more and more from me about high blood pressure and why it's important for everything for women's health, for menopause, for maternal mortality, for clinical research, for women's health, for health equity.

It's going to be the tie that binds us all together and you'll hear more and more about it. 

Meet Dr. Emanuel Ising: From NFL Dreams to Cardiology

Theo Harvey: I'm back again with another great medical innovator. I'm here with Dr. Emanuel Ising, and we're going to go into details around hypertension and heart health and how it can help you grow not only your medical practice, but help your patients get better for the future.

So Dr. Ising, welcome to the podcast today. 

Emmanuel Isang: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How are you doing? 

Theo Harvey: I'm doing wonderful. I'm doing wonderful. So if you don't know, Dr. Emmanuel, he's saying he's doing a wonderful work out there on the internet and Instagram. He's over 7, 000 Instagram followers. He's on YouTube around 3, 500 subscribers.

He does a great work about communicating the value of health. As well as helping you guide your patients through the journey of just taking care of themselves and explaining difficult topics around heart health. Dr. Isang, anything else you'd like everyone to know about you and your background? 

Emmanuel Isang: Yeah, um, for most of the people who don't know, Dr.

Isang was originally born in Nigeria and Moved to America when I was six years old. And my dream probably when I was around 14, 15 was to end up playing football in the NFL. And that came, you know, to a tragic end in 2001 with a leg injury. And ever since then, it was my dream to always be able to help people because of the orthopedic surgeon who helped me.

So from there, I kind of knew I wanted to be a doctor and it took a few more years to realize which type of doctor that I wanted to be, and I was grateful to be able to come back to my home program to. 

The Importance of Prevention in Heart Health

Emmanuel Isang: Complete my cardiology intern medicine residency and then cardiology fellowship and then I've been out practicing for two years now So I'm super excited and to kind of summarize it as Prevention is the most important thing that we can do for our patients and for ourselves and just understanding that prevention is a lot cheaper a lot better Financially healthier than treatment so if there's one thing that I want people to know me for is the importance of just Preventing heart disease itself.

Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. Like we talked about, you're out there in social media, mass of following. Do you feel like doctors should be on social media? Is that part of that outreach strategy in your mind? Make patients aware of how to take care of their health? 

Emmanuel Isang: Yeah, I personally. I think doctors should at least consider it.

Social media is not for everybody. And it's very complex too, so in one sense, you probably can and not even have to show your face. Because I think the biggest fear is imposter syndrome. That's one of my biggest fears too, is how I look in front of other people. And there are just some people who don't want to utilize that.

Social media and that aspect, but they can create content that just provides educational resources. 

Leveraging Social Media for Medical Outreach

Emmanuel Isang: So in one way or another, we should do a better job because I see brand new patients, 30 minutes and returning patients, 15 minutes with social media, with a post, I can reach viral posts, a million people.

So you can touch the lives of so many different people within 10 to 15 seconds via social media. So I think in one way or another, we should be utilizing it more. There are going to be some people who want to be the face of the social media. Some people just want to be the text, but in one way or another, we should be utilizing it more and just trying to educate people because as much as I'm telling people to exercise and watch what you're eating and don't smoke.

You have the tobacco industry that's pushing something else. You have the fast food industry that's pushing something else. So the only way that we can fight is just to push as much, if not even more than they are. 

Theo Harvey: We tell our doctors that we work with is imperative to kind of get your message out there.

Not just for awareness, but also branding and also to help you communicate, you know, some of your insights and utilize these platforms. Right. They're free. Right. But to your point, because they're free, they're not easy. Right. And being consistent to utilize it. Just curious, what made you start down this path to get into social media?

What was your impetus? I talked to a lot of doctors all the time and a lot of them, they just feel like they have no time, right? They got to see patients, they're independent, they have to run their practices. What made you flip the script and say, Hey, you know, I'm just going to be dedicated to making this something that's part of who I am.

Emmanuel Isang: It was one of those things where people were asking me the same questions over and over. What's causing my palpitations? What's a good blood pressure number? I think the biggest one is how can I, people love the word reverse, how can I reverse heart disease? So instead of answering 20 million people the same question, why not create content that you can just say, hey, go look at this.

I've talked about this extensively and this is what you need to look out for. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. And how's that help with just exposure? Do you feel like that's helping you get your message out, but also expose you to new opportunities that you didn't see happen before by being on social media? 

Emmanuel Isang: I think absolutely.

I think the best, one of the best cases is this one person that I met on social media. She goes out of her way to message me at least once a year because she had actually had high blood pressure and nobody could figure out why, but she was just being okay with it. I think I made a post about other potential causes of high blood pressure.

pressure to look at the kidney arteries, look at the adrenals, look at hormones. And she actually did it and actually had a blockage in her kidney artery that ended up putting in a stent and opening it up. And basically she went from being on four medications for, for high blood pressure to just being on one.

So the message can be, is heard. And I think over the years, I think I really went hard in 2019 now in 2022. So. It's been a couple of years and it opens up to new opportunities such as this one too, which I was very excited because I've been doing the same thing consistently for the past few years. And I've always been thinking about what can I do next?

How can I provide more care or how can I expose these health conditions more? And the more you post, the more you're present, the more opportunities that you're given. 

Theo Harvey: How much time do you feel like it takes out of your day, you know, or your week? Are you spending like an hour at a time a week to kind of get this out?

Do you have a team? If you're talking to like your colleague and saying, Hey, how do I start with social media? 

Emmanuel Isang: It's a team of one right now. And I think that's where I'm going to need to pivot eventually because it becomes a lot, but it's also easy because one of the things that I have is a book of just topics.

And whenever I get an inspiration, I just write it down. Or if I see. someone who's made a message one way, I'll flip it to something cardiac or health related. So I probably utilize about 45 minutes a day on it. I'm trying to be able to scale that down more. I think the best way to be able to do it is just put out a time where I can just Do everything all at once and then schedule the post to be made automatically.

But I'm not in that phase yet. I should be, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, consistency is key. We saw explosion of, uh, doctor influencers, right. During the pandemic. And that was helpful, right? Because it was an unknown time and something that we've never seen before worldwide pandemic.

I I've seen some doctors take a step back a little bit from that, but now it's even more important because. A lot of these other voices, right? They're not medically trained, right? Are speaking out and giving their opinions. And we saw during the pandemic, a lot of misinformation went out there. And so I'm encouraging other doctors and we do help them also with social media as well, because that is so key to get your name out there, communicate and bring value.

And to your point, just a hesitation. Even I was hesitating. I started just what, two years ago. I'm not. a medical doctor, but you know, I'm a business person, but it's always that first step to do it. Once you get used to it, to your point, I got all these ideas, I can put them out and ways to communicate the value out there.

And I think that's so important. 

Emmanuel Isang: One of the things that I found or the setbacks or the roadblocks. It's within. It's my own thoughts. I think I'm not going to post this. I'm not the right authority figure for it. But then when I post something about something similar and then somebody gets good knowledge from it, they'll message me.

It's like, thank you for posting this. I've sent this to my husband for him to go get looked. So I feel like what I feel about what other people feel about me is what I internally feel about myself. So I need to just go open and get over that hurdle and just press record. 

Theo Harvey: Everyone has their own perception of reality, but it's really not reality.

It's just what your perception is. And so to your point, you just get over that and just do it. Like I said, I've gotten flamed before on the internet and I told my team, ah, don't worry about it. It is what it is, so just keep moving. So you just put the information out there and try to help as many people as you can with a good intention and heart.

Also work out. So, so yeah, that's great advice. Definitely for a lot of medical professionals that I talked to and the importance of doing it because I think this is the new way of just communicating with people. Now, I grew up in a generation where you just talk to people one on one, had conversation.

But now, you know, even I notice myself, I'll watch someone's content. Then I'll go down a rabbit hole and I said, Oh, yeah, he's good. And eventually I'll come back and reach out to them. Right? It may have been like months later. All that time I've been, I listened to their philosophies, their understandings, and I said, Oh, you know, a lot of stuff he's talking about something I agree with.

Just like that young lady you mentioned, I bet she was probably following you for months or weeks before she actually reached out. Right. And then you have helped her so much that now she's reaching out every so often. I mean, you're almost like a trusted advisor at that point. So I think that's really important.

So let's talk about the connection of healthcare and you talk about physical help. You know, you were a football player when you kind of talk about that, the younger generation of just doing outreach. What are some of the key things that doctors can tell the patients to stay healthy around their heart?

Obviously, there's the standard 30 minutes of walking and eating healthy. Are there simple, like three simple things that doctors could just take every time where their primary care? Or, you know, a specialist, what are the things you feel like are easy for people to assimilate and do? People are 

Emmanuel Isang: unhealthy for several reasons, or there are several things that they're putting into their bodies that's leading to them not being healthy.

They're eating excess calories. They're drinking excess alcohol. They're smoking. So for me to tell them to just stop everything for your heart, which they should. I start to emphasize choosing one thing at a time because it's going to be hard for them to break every single habit all at once. But if they can find one, break that or get close to breaking that and then get into the next.

And even with nutrition, you know, if they're having those late night snacks, just got to cut it out or switch to something else, more protein and less processed. Just finding one thing that they can do to get the results that they want, but also understanding that it didn't take one day for you to be in horrible shape.

It took consistency and making the wrong choices. And with that, you're going to need the same consistency in making the right choices. I was the biggest example for my own self because I was trying to lose weight. And I would put in 30 minutes to sometimes even an hour. But I would only do that one every two weeks.

And I was just burning myself out trying to lose weight in a short period of time. But I put myself in the test saying that I was only going to work out for 15 minutes every single day, but I would do it every single day. And when I did that in a span of about six to seven months, I lost 20 pounds. That was my goal.

I didn't want to lose that much weight cause I didn't need to, but I wanted to show that, show myself that it's. possible. You know, the guidelines are 30 minutes, but if you can only allocate 15 minutes, that's pretty much all what you need. That we're just monitoring what you're eating and monitoring when you're eating.

A lot of people are having a snack and then an hour later having a snack and then an hour later having another snack. Yes, it's not that many calories, but you're spiking up your insulin levels, which is good for removing the glucose out of the body, but does have detrimental aspects in regards to calcium buildup, plaque buildup and heart disease.

So just understanding those small steps and being consistent can make big changes, but you have to give yourself time. Yeah. 

Theo Harvey: There's research in that area where they talk about like building a habit and staying consistent. And like you said, the small things that you can do. Every day. And then I'd play tricks on myself.

I try to do pushups every day. It's one day. That's it. Not two days in a row. So I try to be consistent with that every day, you know, to your point, it does build a sense of stableness, but also like you said, yeah, I see a lot, you know, more strength, you know. I can do more, I can only do maybe 40 at a time.

Now I'm doing way more now. So I'm like, Hey, you know, listen, I've been doing it for about three months, you know, pretty consistent. So I agree. I think that's the key to consistency to that factor. Like you mentioned, you were a football player. I played basketball. You did your two a days, right? When you were younger and went all out.

And yeah, I was doing my suicides back then. It was a lot easier. But yeah, as you get older, trying to figure out those consistencies. And if you don't have 15 minutes, then. You don't have a life, so you can do 15 minutes. Uh, I like that aspect of it. So when you do speaking engagements or where you go out and outreach, what's some activities you see that work well when you're trying to reach out to the populace to talk to them outside of, yeah, social media helps, but like when you're in your, your area there in Tennessee, how are you kind of reaching out to individuals to talk about these things?

Emmanuel Isang: Um, usually we'll have an event, but I think the event that works the best or the way that people are engaged to the best is just an open ended conversation where I find one topic and we talk about hypertension and kidney disease, but I only talk about that for like maybe five to 10 minutes, but the event is open for 30 minutes to an hour.

So people are just, whatever questions is bothering them and sometimes goes out of the scope of the point of the talk. But Still giving people just the opportunity to ask any questions and all questions possible. I do find that when we have events, the ones that people show up the most is the ones that you're being able to, you know, you have to give them a freebie.

So the freebie is free glucose scanning or checking the blood pressure. And when you utilize that, you give them what they want. To be able to provide them what they need. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. And I think that's marketing one on one. You definitely have to give people something, help them before you help them kind of sense, right?

You know, Hey, here's something free to help you, you know, check your blood pressure or glucose. Oh, by the way, there's more help here that you can get as you kind of enter into that. So we see that a lot as well. 

Innovations in Cardiovascular Health

Theo Harvey: When you think about the future of some of the innovations that are happening in technology.

What are you most excited about when it comes to like cardiovascular health? There's preventive things that we can do, but when you look at medicine and where it's going, not just with medications, if you want to talk about that or technology itself, like I mentioned, you know, we do a lot with remote blood pressure monitoring.

We both were sports guys. People don't pay attention unless you keep score blood pressure. You know, people are checking the blood pressure every day. So, oh man, we dip down what I need to do, you know? So, what are your thoughts about innovation technology and how that can help change the tie toward better heart health.

Emmanuel Isang: I think the best way to answer that is with a patient that I just had. So I was seeing her for the past three months for, she was having abnormal heart palpitations, skip beats, and we couldn't figure it out. So I put her for a heart monitor for seven days. I couldn't capture it. So Thought good that I was going to capture it in 30 days, still couldn't capture it.

And I remembered that I have a device called a CardioMobile, which is basically an EKG that you have at home. It's about this big and you put your fingers down on it. And it'll give you an EKG at that time. And I think within two months of her buying that, she was having the symptoms again. Thankfully, she was awake.

And then we were able to find the abnormal heart rhythm that she had called SVT. From that, I was able to send her to one of my partners who does an ablation to basically, potentially get rid of it permanently. So if it wasn't for her getting that cardiomobile, we probably would have never been been able to diagnose what her symptoms, what her issues were.

So it's pretty awesome that, you know, in the past to be able to get an EKG, you had to come to the hospital. They had to put all these electrodes on you. It was frustrating. They would leave some on you and you would find them when you were taking showers. But now at home, you can basically. Get your own EKG, you can actually save it and you can send it to your doctor and they can make medical decisions based on 

Theo Harvey: that.

Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah, we're seeing, obviously, the advent of artificial intelligence become more relevant. And so, it's the early days, clinical decisions with it, but in certain cases, looking at data sets, radiology is being able to find things better than a radiologist, right? And so, to your point, the data, capturing it at where the patient lives, And then being able to kind of utilize the data to find trends can really help be an assist to the doctor.

So I could definitely see technology with artificial intelligence embedded, assisting you and making those decisions faster. Right. And saying, Hey, based on the data, because from my understanding, you guys do a lot of case study work and medical school, right? So your percentage of a 75 year old man who has this condition, he's going to have X, right?

Based on statistics. Right. And so that's what artificial intelligence can do to kind of help accelerate that. And so we're seeing more of that. 

Emmanuel Isang: There are some softwares that are tracking your age, risk factors, and your EKG. And from that EKG, they can predict if you're going to have heart disease 

Theo Harvey: in the future.

So definitely, these are some of the great things that are happening. So this is great. 

Conclusion and Future Directions

Theo Harvey: Dr. Yusang, I think this is insightful for how to communicate these types of things for patients, but also for doctors themselves to kind of take the heart. And we talked to a lot of medical practices, and this is kind of what this podcast is really about, to educate them on ways to communicate to their patients, but also to put themselves out there with their expertise.

So what's next for you, what do you have out there or anything you want to communicate and promote? 

Emmanuel Isang: Nothing yet. I think eventually what better way to help people, especially people of color who look like me, then to tell my story in a form of a book, the obstacles going through from football to football injury to becoming a doctor.

So that's one of the things that I want to do eventually within the next. Hopefully within the next year, um, like I mentioned before, I think two or three years ago, I wrote a, an ebook to just kind of help people with the seven most common questions people ask me regarding high blood pressure, palpitations, chest pain, heart disease and prevention.

But the biggest one is just educating people on all platforms. 

Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. Yeah, definitely. If you have it, you know, send us a link and we'll put it in the show notes. So people can get a copy of that for their own usage. Uh, Dr. Insane, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Everyone. Thank you for listening to the latest podcast on how you can talk to your patients more, help you grow your medical practice and understand the latest innovations and technologies and ways to communicate out there in the new health normal.

So what's going on in healthcare. So thank you for your time, sir. And you have a great one. Absolutely. Thank you.