What if you had the power to redefine healthcare, especially in rural areas? Join me in a captivating discussion with Dr. Christine Gaul from T-Mobile for Business as we shed light on the future of healthcare. We delve into how T-Mobile's network is positioned to transform healthcare, extending services beyond the traditional hospital confines and thrusting it into the realm of virtual care.
Our conversation transcends physical boundaries as we journey into the world of telehealth and the Internet of Medical Things. Imagine a world where wearable technology not only provides real-time feedback to patients but also empowers them to manage their own healthcare. We also tackle disparities in access to healthcare and the role of companies like T-Mobile and Sprint in bridging this divide, and the potential collaborations between healthcare providers and retail vendors to offer responsive healthcare services.
Discover how large datasets, AI, and wearables can offer real-time insights about patient health, and why healthcare organizations must integrate technology at a quicker pace to enhance patient care. Don't miss out on this dynamic discussion that promises to reshape your perspective on healthcare. Tune in and discover how we can use technology to shape the future of healthcare.
What if you had the power to redefine healthcare, especially in rural areas? Join me in a captivating discussion with Dr. Christine Gaul from T-Mobile for Business as we shed light on the future of healthcare. We delve into how T-Mobile's network is positioned to transform healthcare, extending services beyond the traditional hospital confines and thrusting it into the realm of virtual care.
Our conversation transcends physical boundaries as we journey into the world of telehealth and the Internet of Medical Things. Imagine a world where wearable technology not only provides real-time feedback to patients but also empowers them to manage their own healthcare. We also tackle disparities in access to healthcare and the role of companies like T-Mobile and Sprint in bridging this divide, and the potential collaborations between healthcare providers and retail vendors to offer responsive healthcare services.
Discover how large datasets, AI, and wearables can offer real-time insights about patient health, and why healthcare organizations must integrate technology at a quicker pace to enhance patient care. Don't miss out on this dynamic discussion that promises to reshape your perspective on healthcare. Tune in and discover how we can use technology to shape the future of healthcare.
Hey everyone, Evan Kirstel, super excited for this chat today with Dr Christine Gaul of T-Mobile for Business. Christine, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great, Evan. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for being here. I've been looking forward to this live stream for quite some time because of my passion for healthcare and healthcare technology, and I'm here to learn a lot from you. So you have, quite frankly, an incredible background and career in the healthcare industry. Maybe introduce yourself for the folks who are watching.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, evan. Hello everybody, my name is Dr Christine Gaul. I've been in healthcare for over 30 years, dating myself there, started out as a pediatric nurse and quickly knew that I wanted to be in leadership. So I went back and got a master's in healthcare management and was able to work in various settings. I worked in the inpatient, outpatient and home care settings. Throughout my career, in various leadership positions, I was able to build a couple of programs from concepts into full implementation, pivoted into research and benchmarking for a while working with pediatric ICUs around the country and then expanding internationally to really look at who is providing care the best and being able to look at ways that we could extend those best practices throughout the country to make sure that every child had the best possible access to care.
Speaker 2:While I was in that role, I decided to go back and get a doctorate in public health, because I really saw that population health was where we needed to be. Rather than treating disease once disease happened, let's look at trying to prevent disease altogether, and in that process, I defended a dissertation on mass casualty pandemics, believe it or not, back in 2014. And that really, I think, highlighted for me the importance of looking at health in a very different lens. The last three years has been very, very difficult for all of us, and when I got the call a couple of years back saying that T-Mobile was looking to make a great foray into health care and identify ways to leverage the great resources that we have in our incredible network to address the needs of patients wherever they are, I said I'm in. So here I am at T-Mobile as the head of health care marketing and I have the privilege to speak with people, thought leaders like yourself, executives, who are solving the pain points, and I'm so happy to be here today. Thanks for having me, evan.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for being here and taking time to talk and thank you for your service as a nurse and nursing leader. One thing we learned through the pandemic is the vital, vital role of nurses everywhere. Let's take a look at the state of the union, as it were, in health care. It's an industry that we don't particularly perceive as patient friendly. It's a challenging environment, to say the least, for patients, providers. The whole system has some inherent challenges. Is that my perspective, or is that the reality? Or what's with the perception, both positive and negative, of our industry at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know a very valid point. I would say that health care is one of those things that you really don't want to have to access. And usually during the darkest hours of your life are the moments that you have to access health care, so inherently it's something that kind of like going to the dentist is something you'd rather not have to access. With that said, you know, the pandemic really has shown the spotlight on some really incredible challenges.
Speaker 2:You know, as systems get stressed, as health care did over the last three years, very quickly it became evident where there were gaps or true barriers in care delivery. One is just the basic access the fact that there is such prominent variation in access to health care from urban to rural areas in particular, but also within urban areas there are health care deserts within suburban and even rural areas, very many health care challenges with people, not just transportation but the distance needed to travel. When I look at demographics, basically of you know where the providers are there's a market difference between urban and rural areas. When I look at primary care, which is what we access generally most in rural areas, there are only 50, 55 per 100,000 in rural areas versus 79 per 100,000 in urban areas. It doesn't seem like such a gap, but when you think about the fact that the distance you need to travel to get to primary care is often exponentially greater in rural areas, it becomes a barrier to care. But then when you look at specialty care and I'm grouping all specialists together in urban areas you have 263 per 100,000 of all types of specialists, but in rural areas that number drops to only 30 per 100,000. So think about if you're having chest pain and the only specialist within 100 mile radius is a dermatologist, you're not going to receive the care as timely as you need to. So that's just a real, obvious challenge that the pandemic really surfaced.
Speaker 2:Second workforce challenge is the stress and the demand for high intensity care has just exploded over the last three years and the pressure that that is placed on providers, nurses and the entire healthcare team has led to people making the challenging decision that you know what, they can't continue this.
Speaker 2:It has created a work in life imbalance that is just not sustainable. So I read a statistic Forbes predicts that by 2025, 47% of the workforce that was in place at the beginning of the pandemic will be leaving the professional together and clearly that poses another challenge for healthcare. When you look at operations for healthcare, that's another area. So you have hospital executives that need to figure out how to do more with less. They need to figure out how to transition patients much more agilely than we have before, because we can't just continue business as usual pre-pandemic. We can't have patients needing to come into the brick and mortar facilities, which is the most expensive and costly way and resource intensive way to access care. We need to expand how care delivery is happening. So you know virtual care has a beautiful place there, and that's again another reason that I think T-Mobile is positioned so well to help solve those access challenges and expand care delivery beyond the four walls of a hospital.
Speaker 1:Such an interesting point and during the pandemic we saw, for obvious reasons, a massive adoption of telehealth and telemedicine and best practices in those areas, and yet we're seeing some retreat or retrenchment around some of those services and some of the opportunities they presented. What do you think is the solution to some of the challenges facing the healthcare system rural hospitals, providers? You know technology plays a role, of course, but what is that role? What do you think?
Speaker 2:You know you're right about adoption of telehealth and the challenges of figuring out where it fits in the long term. Pre-pandemic, 1 to 2% of people in this country had access or tried telehealth, but that number rose well over a third of people in this country during the pandemic that tried it and they actually liked it. So we have a number of different factors, I think, that are coming into play. Number one is, with the next generation coming up into adulthood and becoming more of the base of the population, they have expectations that are much different than the boomers. They are consumers in every sense of the word and in healthcare that's no exception. They are expecting that, as they pay more out of pocket than previously generations had to, they're shopping for their healthcare and they want a hybrid.
Speaker 2:Every conversation that I have with healthcare leaders and I'm blessed to have that opportunity often is often speaking about the fact that not only is it the demand by the patient that is forcing us to look at ways to extend healthcare into telehealth opportunities, virtual care opportunities, just in time, mobile opportunities, but it's also the right value proposition for the healthcare system. Being able to enable their providers to care, provide care from anywhere is an increasing demand and providing care at the right level is just as important. It is less costly to do conducted telehealth visits than it is to bring somebody into a hospital do the registration consent, all of that, and then have the medical assistants put them in a room, do the history and then the provider comes and then all the documentation and billing et cetera. When that can all be packaged into a single telehealth visit for much less resource, demand and cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, such a great point. In addition to physical health, we're in clearly the midst of a mental health crisis as we get out through the pandemic, and it's been a real challenge to reach practitioners in mental health, psychiatric care and related services and that's been a real bright spot for telehealth, I think and access video consultations and access to providers over distances, across boundaries. You must see a lot of need for those services as well as the traditional medical services.
Speaker 2:Definitely, behavioral health is truly an epidemic in this country as well, and it has also brought up very acutely the fact that there is a void of providers and services in that area. So telehealth, for that reason that access reason alone, is a key factor, or building block, if you will. The other thing, though, I think with behavioral health services in general, that needs to be more than episodic. It needs to be holistic in order to actually get to the root causes of the things that are triggering certain behaviors and learning, enabling the care team to observe how a patient is living and where they might intervene earlier than before a crisis hits.
Speaker 2:Behavioral health buys.
Speaker 2:So when you look at the ability to use software and connectivity for a patient to have regular touches with their health care team and to use technology so that a patient can very agilely and without much effort, share important cues or data or feelings that can be collected and analyzed by the care team using things like software applications that can quickly point to trends that might be of concern, these are this is where we need to get there's a software program out there that, within 20 seconds of you and I talking, that software can score you and I on standardized tools that assess your level of anxiety and depression.
Speaker 2:So imagine if you're a provider and, without having to do anything and automatically, you get information within 30 seconds of starting a conversation. Boy, this person is very depressed or their anxiety is through the roof right now. I need to intervene differently or approach this conversation differently than I would have. Those are the kinds of tools that are going to enable people providers, care teams to practice at the top of their expertise and have more actionable information that's going to help them improve patient outcomes and target and customize the plan of care to meet a patient's unique needs.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's not just about voice and video and messaging with your provider. It's also about the internet of wearable things remote patient monitoring, hospital at home trends, monitoring the elderly for falls and other challenges at home, public safety in neighborhoods. What opportunities do you see emerging for this internet of medical things? Internet of devices?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a fascinating area I'm so excited to see. Virtually every month there's new technology being launched T-Mobile. We have an accelerator program where we actually partner with inventors who have solved for pain points in healthcare and other industries and we bring them into our labs with our expertise and our resources to help them further develop their product to go to market positioning, as an example. This is really a fascinating area, but one of the inventors I was able to join this accelerator round and this inventor had actually placed chipsets into a garment so that it was GPS enabled so that you could determine where movement was happening, that your limbs, where they were in space at any given time.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Primary use for that was high performance athlete, so that they could perfect their motion, perfect their swing, perfect whatever motion they were trying to achieve. But there was further application. As we talked about this, the workforce shortage is affecting therapists as well. This device actually would pair with a cell phone and give the user real-time feedback as they performed their exercises. Were they doing it according to the best form or did they need to correct and give real-time feedback?
Speaker 2:Imagine a physical therapist rather than having a 50-minute session, one-on-one with somebody face-to-face, being able to pop in and out of six virtual sessions with six different patients, be able to monitor what the dashboard was recording and then advise them on how they might need to correct or what they were doing well to continue. That's just one tiny example of how to extend the reach of providers and improve access to the top quality care for patients Clearly one of the things that I'm most interested in. I didn't share this when I was introducing myself, but I spent time in patient experience. What a better role than to allow a patient to have more control over their own care and over their own healing? Being able to give them the information they need to improve their health is just to me so very important.
Speaker 1:It's so empowering. I can speak personally, anecdotally. I have my Aura ring monitor sleep. I've got my Apple Watch from T-Mobile that monitors steps and even some insight into my cardio situation. They're really invaluable. It's allowed me to take more ownership of my health. Let me ask you we talked about the digital divide. We talked about the divide in health care between urban and rural. How are we closing those gaps? Are we making progress? Oot Mobile, in conjunction with the government, is expanding access to advanced connectivity services rural areas through not just mobile but through fixed wireless access. Are we making progress? Are you optimistic about closing these divides, both on the broadband side and the health care side?
Speaker 2:Definitely we have room left to grow in that area, but I am happy to say that we are well on our way. When T-Mobile and Sprint merged about three years ago, one of the promises made to the FCC is that we committed to reaching 99 percent of rural America by 2026. My last update from our engineering team that's developing and expanding that network is that we are well on our way. We are definitely committed to that. I think it's really important to recognize that. Beyond that, we need services and programs that allow people to use that device.
Speaker 2:You know one of the interesting things I wrote a white paper along with my colleagues at Charme Economics last year and in one of the images in that white paper there was a map of the country and it showed where there was connectivity. But then there was a second map that showed where people were actually accessing that connectivity and even in areas where the connectivity was strong, the adoption or the usage rate was much lower. So we have work to do as a society to address that, and one of those things that we're doing at T-Mobile is a project that I'm particularly proud of. It was stood up in response to the pandemic when schools were going virtual, and it was recognized very quickly that not every child had access to those virtual educational needs.
Speaker 2:So we stood up project 10 million and ultimately the admission criteria for that I guess I'm using a healthcare word but to be eligible to receive a free device and connectivity for the home, which obviously benefits the entire family, not just the students. You just needed to be eligible for the free school lunch program. So it broke down a lot of barriers and I'm really excited and proud that I work with an organization that has recognized that those basic societal needs are things that we can contribute to.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful mission-driven approach. So both of us are technologists and we love tech, but the solutions to our healthcare crisis aren't all technology-driven, of course. What other practical insights and approaches do you have to improving healthcare, for patients and providers alike?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question and very timely. It seems like every week we hear about a new merger or acquisition where players that are not traditionally seen as healthcare like Best Buy, walmart, cvs they are entering healthcare because it's such a big market and there's so much demand. So my thoughts about this is that the expertise for how to deliver top quality healthcare in a highly regulated environment remains with the traditional brick and mortar hospital systems and healthcare systems, but the ability to meet patients ie consumers where they are and agilely develop and stand up programs or services is definitely a strength of some of those retail vendors that I just talked about. So I think there needs to be some partnerships that are very unique and very forward thinking. We all have an opportunity to bring healthcare to where patients are, where people live and eat and sleep. And actually the ability the wearables you were talking about before, evan I think play a very important point here.
Speaker 2:When you think about healthcare pre-2020, the way it was traditionally you have a problem, you identify it, you go into the provider, it's an episode. You report to the physician what your symptoms are. You know what brought you in all of that, but it's just your vantage point. You know there's an interesting statistic that the office, dhhs DHHS Office of the Surgeon General said that only 12% of Americans are considered healthcare proficiency literate, and I also have read that the average literacy rate is equivalent to a third grade level for most people in this country. That isn't intended to be a slight, but you know, healthcare is a different language and it takes years for healthcare practitioners to develop the skills to recognize and assess what is happening with your own body or the patients that you're caring for.
Speaker 2:And I think that the opportunity to collect information automatically while you're conducting your daily activities is so important and such an opportunity, then, to integrate and aggregate and analyze all those data points so that you know when a patient comes in and fails to report a key event that led up to their visits because they didn't think that the two were connected.
Speaker 2:But the provider can look at various data points and say, well, what happened two days ago here? Oh well, I fell and hit my head Very important to why you're coming in now, because you are seeing double vision. You have double vision. So just a tiny example, but I think that that whole reporting aspect is so important and, again, being able to collect the data where you are and enable patients to access services as they're shopping, as they're waiting for their car to be serviced, is equally as important as when they need more urgent or elevated acute care. So I think that the future of healthcare is going to look much different, and it's up to all of us the leaders in healthcare, the thought leaders, the innovators to imagine that care delivery system that's going to be more agile and enable transitions of care that put the patient at the center of care, that they have more voice in their own care and that services are responsibly utilized at the right level of care.
Speaker 1:You're here. Well said, many of us were intrigued to hear that T-Mobile for Business have a health care practice. Tell a little more about your mission within the practice and your goals over the long term.
Speaker 2:Well, this is truly an exciting time. As I mentioned, I think, during my introduction, I joined T-Mobile because I saw that the next emerging forefront in health care is going to be mobile health care. I want to be a part of that. I recognize that T-Mobile, with the largest and fastest network, with the great resources and growth that we've experienced, was the place to be. The fact that I got the call saying hey, we need deep health care expertise to make this happen, was what I needed to say. Yeah, I'm willing to take a huge risk at shifting my career 180 to a very different venue for health care delivery. But, that said, where we are going and what I get to do every day, this is a hidden secret, but I have a really fun job. I get to meet with health care leaders in very different forums. Earlier this week, I had a virtual meeting with a solution vendor who is working on a connected ambulance project. That is going to be very exciting.
Speaker 2:Last week, I had the chance to meet several folks in Chicago at the Millennium Alliance, where we were talking about the hot topics of the day, and they all related to mobility. I conducted a roundtable at that same event where probably about 25 executives came and talked about some of their challenges. I was joined at that conversation by a group of people and I was joined at that conversation by our experts in the advanced network solutions, which is a team we have that customizes network and addresses connectivity challenges that fit exactly the challenges and the use cases and the strategic growth that an organization plans to do. At that conversation it was recognized by virtually everybody. Ai was a hot topic in that conversation.
Speaker 2:We were talking about how people were going to leverage these large data sets and, as wearables become more the norm, how do you take those huge packets of data that are just noise in themselves and integrate them, aggregate them and analyze them in a way that can then output actionable, meaningful steps?
Speaker 2:Obviously, you need a connected network to do that. You need devices to do that, but you also need software to do that that is reliably connected to the data sources and can real-time, or just near real-time, signal that a patient might be experiencing some trends in their data that signal a decline, even before it is obvious to that person or to their care team. I think just having those conversations is such a powerful place to be in healthcare right now. I truly believe that we're going to see, in the next three to five years, a real divide the organizations that recognize that they have to leverage technology at a faster pace and differently than they have before, so that their providers can expand their reach to access more patients and can practice at the top of their knowledge and expertise, rather than having to do these mundane things that should be able to be automated. That's where the value is going to be, and the organizations that make those steps are going to be those that I think are going to thrive in the years to come.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Well, I want to live vicariously through you. On some of those meetings those look like amazing discussions. So we're heading into the summer months. Every time I talk to you, you're traveling on the road. You're going to have some downtime this summer. A little bit of rest, Mobility, mobility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, you know we have to. I live in Wisconsin and we are hardy people all winter long and we value our few shining moments of summer. So Wisconsin a lot of people live on the water. I love spending time out there with family and friends. Lots of barbecuing and techniques and such. So I will definitely be connected, but in the elements where I want to be, so very good, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:What about you, evan? Yeah, well, I'm always resting, so I'm pretty much okay. But I think the message to all the nurses out there and practitioners and others in the healthcare system is please don't quit. We need you, just rest, don't quit. Rest. That's a great message. There must be other things you're looking forward to. In the fall We'll have to come back because you're so active within so many different healthcare communities. We'd love to get an update. Any last thoughts before we wind up this session?
Speaker 2:You know, evan, what you just said about nurses is like at the heart of where my concerns are right now. You know, as I think about the information, the knowledge void that could be created, as nurses who would have stayed at the bedside practicing with their incredible expertise are deciding to leave the industry. We need to do better. We need to do better for those nurses because they have incredible insights. You know, when I came up as a nurse I think the average tenure of nurses in my hospital was something like 18 to 20 years I was surrounded by just top quality expertise and my nursing colleagues just gave me all of their knowledge and expertise as I needed it. So I had a great upbringing professionally, so to speak. Now, today we're seeing, you know, that tenure has dropped significantly. But what we can do is leverage. We can leverage connectivity for those senior staff. We are seeing remote expertise being leveraged at the bedside by having those nurses who may have left stay on but in a remote role where they can actually be doing care, providing care at the bedside.
Speaker 2:And you know, I talked with one who said you know what? This is why I entered nursing to begin with. I'm able to address top needs of patients and solve problems and help the rest of the care team organize services and the plan of care so that that patient can return to health quicker. That's why I'm here. So there are endless opportunities for us and I ask everybody that's listening in to think. Take a step back and think about your own challenges in health care and how you might look at partners you may not have thought about previously. To partner with T-Mobile amongst them. Please do think about us when you're thinking about the mobility challenges that you need to solve, because we're leaning in and we want to be partners here with you, because together there's nothing we can't, there's nothing we can't achieve and, frankly, the health of this nation depends on it.
Speaker 1:Well, well, on that very hopeful and high note, we'll wrap up for today. Thank you so much for your time and your service, so much appreciated, and thank you everyone for watching. It was a really inspiring conversation and we hope to have many more. Bye-bye now.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, thank you, thank you.