Healing The Sick Care System

What if the fastest way to fix American healthcare is the simplest: put people back at the center. Sitting down with Gil Bashe—chair of Health and Purpose at Finn Partners, editor of Medical Life, and author of Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter—we unpack the paradox of a nation that spends more, trains the best, and still delivers poorer outcomes than its peers. Gil brings hard numbers, lived stories, and a clear blueprint for moving from fragmented “sick care” to coordinated care grounded in relationships and results.

We explore the rising frustration across every corner of the system: patients feeling sidelined by delays and denials, clinicians burning out under prior auth and paperwork, payers caught between risk and regulation, and innovators struggling to communicate value. Gil argues for a mission-first mindset where business supports care, not the other way around. He shares how continuity of care, team-based primary care, transparent data-sharing, and measurement that values function and time-to-therapy can rebuild trust while bending the cost curve.

With a global lens—from integrated systems like Clalit to policy lessons shaped by his work across countries—Gil highlights what the U.S. can adapt without importing entire models. We also get tactical on artificial intelligence: where AI can reduce cognitive load, triage more effectively, and streamline documentation, and where governance, bias checks, and explainability must anchor deployment. Along the way, Gil previews the growing bookshelf of patient-centered reform and reads a striking paragraph from his book that reframes health as mission plus discipline.

If you’re hungry for practical hope, this conversation delivers clear steps and a human compass: pay for relationships, simplify the rules, open the data, and design technology that frees clinicians to care. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a lift, and leave a review with one change you’d make tomorrow—what would put people first where you work?

Transcript

Setting The Stage At HIMSS

SPEAKER_00 0:01

And I am at hymns with a legend, Gil Bash. Gil, how are you? A legend. I wouldn't go as far as to say a legend. Actually, I'm sitting across from a legend. Oh, flattery will get you everywhere. No, no, no, no. I'll tell you the the the sense of building community and audience and voice within the health innovation sector. You are really one of the role models here when we take a look at that.

Gil Bash Introduces His Roles

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Well, I I appreciate that. And we're pre-hymns, so pre-excitement and buildup. So we have a good quiet time here in the media room. How do you describe your work these days? Maybe introduce yourself to the folks viewing listening.

The Book And Its Provocative Title

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Thank you very, very much. You've mentioned the name Gilbash, and I'm privileged to be chair of Health and Purpose at Finn Partners, one of the world's largest independent communications agencies. I'm here on another platform though. Finn actually owns and independently has a hands-off approach to Medical Life, our health opinion and news platform. And I'm I'm privileged to be the editor of Medical Life. So I'm really here on that role. And of course, I'm here as an author of the of I guess I could say it now, a a new bestseller called well, show it everybody here. Yes. Healing the Sick Care System, Why People Matter. That's a surprise bestseller.

What’s Broken Across Stakeholders

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Let's hold that up a bit. Healing the Sick Care System. That's such an intriguing title.

Spending, Training, And Poor Outcomes

Why People Matter As A North Star

Clinician Burnout And System Friction

Stories That Power A Movement

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Tell us about the title because that's so shocking and um I don't think anybody, I don't think whether you're a doctor or a nurse or a pharmacist or a patient or a payer or a pharmaceutical company or a policymaker, um, I don't think anybody is happy with our healthcare system right now, quite honestly. I think if you're a patient, you certainly feel uh undercared for. If you're a physician or a nurse or a pharmacist, you feel burnt out. If you're a payer, you feel despised. If you're a life science company, you feel misunderstood. So I don't think anybody feels it's working for us, right? Other than that, it's a great system. Well, you know something? It is one of the finest systems in the world in some ways. But it's also costs uh two to three times more than most developed nations. 18.7% of our GDP goes to healthcare. But we have some of the best trained clinicians in the world. In fact, most physicians, whether it's emerging nations or developed nations, want to come here to do their specialization in the United States. So we've got great training. We spend a ton of money, we're the fountain of innovation for the rest of the world, and yet our life expectancy is not up to par. As a matter of fact, it's number 32 in the developed nations. So something's really wrong here. Now, part of what this book explores that's made it so popular is the subtitle, Why People Matter. And when you think about it, why does the system exist in the first place? For us. And yet we sort of feel that we're disenfranchised, and in fact, our doctors often battling with our payer to get pre-authorization for something they think we need. And yet the payer makes the determination of whether we need it or not. So doctors often in the book talk about saying, I can't stand it any longer. I don't want to be a doctor any longer. They get to a certain point in their career, and a lot of them who quit and I interviewed said, I love medicine, I love seeing patients, I cannot stand dealing with the system. So the book kind of explores this and then gives us a hopeful path out of this swamp. And that's what's made the book so popular is I'm not just looking at the problem, I'm sort of shining a light of how do we get our asses out of this mess.

A Wave Of Patient-Centered Books

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Such an important piece of work. And tell us it's a bestseller, which is unusual. We're in an industry conference, it's mainly industry insiders like ourselves, and yet this has gotten such traction. Do you think there's a movement maybe brewing?

Rebooting Relationships And Continuity

Global Lessons And AI On The Horizon

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Evan, you're spot on. You know, there's a batch of books coming out right now. The person who did the forward to the book, Tom Lowry, he's really, really known for his history with Microsoft initially as being the national director of AI from Microsoft. And then he left, he created Second Century, but he wrote a very, very powerful book, which is available here, called Healthcare Nation. And it's the, I would say it's almost the precursor to my book. And he did the forward to my book. I'm grateful to him. Tom's great. Yeah. He is great. There's two books coming out. One book by Matthew Zachary by Wiley is called We the Patient. And another book that's coming out by Christopher Kearney, who really is a he's a brain cancer survivor and is immersed in our community, health information technology. He has a book coming out. And so I think we're seeing a shift in conversation back to why the system exists in the first place. It exists for people, why people matter. So there is a trend going on right now. And I think that people are starting to feel like, hey, wait a minute, the system was created for us in the first place. And yet we are starting to feel like you're debating around our well-being, and we're not even at the table. So I think there's a movement afoot to reboot the system back to a time, certainly with my white beard, I remember, where physicians actually had a relationship with us and they had continuity of care. And so they they knew us for years. Now try to imagine any physician, any of us have, where we have a relationship for a decade or longer. It's hard to imagine that. By the way, I had two physicians this year who, quote, retired. Oh. They didn't want to retire. They just said, don't want to do this anymore. I retire. Now, what sort of system is a workable system where doctors don't want to be doctors any longer? Or you can assassinate an insurance executive on the streets of New York and even though you're a murderer, and that's there's no justification for murderer, develop a fan club of people who send you money for your defense and even take out billboards supporting you on highways. That says something about our satisfaction or really our dissatisfaction. The book goes into that through stories. That's what's made the book so popular. It's not that I sort of like explore the genesis or the problems, it's that I tell a myriad of real life stories that people share and what's happened to them, including my own families. I have a child with a rare disease. And we share this openly and also bring in the physicians who are engaged in this to take a look at this and end on a very, very hopeful, hopeful note.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

We have to be hopeful, despite uh I'm a natural pessimist, many of us are. Come on. And you you have a really unique global perspective with Finn. You have offices and clients. 35 offices and deep connections to many countries, including Israel. What can we learn from other countries? It seemed like in the U.S. we don't learn from anyone sometimes.

A Mission-First Health System

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Is that well it's interesting? I'm privileged on Wednesday to moderate a panel with Hal Wolf, who's the president and CEO of HIMS, along with two luminaries. I call the the the person who's really the philosopher of AI, which is no Isaac Cohen, and then Ron Baltsier, who's from Clalit, one of the great health systems of the world, who's really a pioneer in applying AI. And the four of us will be on stage in Venetian E, by the way, it's one of the big, big rooms here, talking about the value aspects of AI, sort of the do's and the don'ts and the worries. So we're going to get into that at that conversation. And you're right, I think that somewhat being a globalist, I've I worked for the Australian government for years. I lived in Israel for a decade. So I've had all of these different life experiences. I was a lobbyist for the life science industry in New Jersey, which is the sort of like the medicine chest of this nation. So I've had all these different experiences that have given me, I'll say, broader perspective. I'm grateful for it. People used to say, What are you doing with your life? You know, doing all this stuff. Now they say, Wow, all that expertise. That's the white beard, my friend. You get to have wisdom when you have the white beard. Beforehand, I was just a cute kooky kid, but now it's wise.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Well, you're a man on a mission, you have been for so long. Hold up the book again and give it give us a parting thought, uh, maybe an anecdote.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Uh, how about I give you uh just a quick paragraph from the book that I think is I love it. Audio book coming? Are you gonna read this?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yes, yes, there is an audio book coming, and they I thought that they would get Brad Pitt or someone well known, but they they actually say my voice is pleasant.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

I think you have a very comforting voice. Absolutely.

Hope, Humanity, And A Mic-Drop Close

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Well, Evan, I wanted to get you, but you were priced way too high. Oh, I don't know. You can use my AI voice. Okay, ready? This is this is actually the first paragraph in chapter one. Health is both a business and a mission. Let's flip that notion for a moment. When you see the health system first as a mission, it still demands structure and resources. It requires equipment and medicine, investment and innovation, training and educating people, and making smart, sometimes difficult choices where need is greatest. The mission and the business are inseparable. So why is the mission so often sidelined? And that's, I think, the challenge we face right now. We we want to be cared for. And actually, most people who get into the business of health nurses, pharmacists, um, nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, doctors, specialists, even people who are working as administrators and even the support staff in hospital systems, they want to help. They really want to help. And and to some extent it's squeezed out of them over time. We've got to get back to that people helping people type experience. And I think that's when we recognize people matter, we're gonna have a healthier health system. Thank you for allowing me to speak with you.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Well, thank you for what you do, and that's a mic drop moment. So we'll pay uh uh bid you farewell and have a extraordinary hymns. Thank you, Evan, for everything you're doing here.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Thank you, and for being uh a bit of a mentor to me, I'll say. I appreciate that. Thank you. Bye, everybody.