AUDIO Epi 13. Book Talk. Healing The Sick Care System. Why People Matter. Meet The Author, Gil Bashe

AUDIO Epi 13 release "Healing The Sick Care System: Why People Matter. Meet The Author, Gil Bashe" IPZO facto, Innovation: No Way But Forward podcast episode 13, discusses the author's unique and profound insights on how and why the mission of healing matters. Improving the healthcare system requires balancing patient care with business operations. Gil Bashe introduces the term "Health System Kinetics". 
Fixing the sick care system starts by prioritizing humanity over balance sheets. Learn how to align healthcare missions with patient needs. This discussion addresses the fundamental issues within the modern sick care system. If you are a healthcare professional, administrator, or patient advocate, this analysis explores why current health management models often prioritize throughput metrics over actual healing. We examine the critical disconnect between institutional efficiency and the human element of medicine. We break down how accurate information drives better medical decision making for everyone involved. By focusing on the true healthcare mission of sustaining lives, we can shift the narrative away from purely financial gains. Understanding these dynamics is essential for anyone looking to improve patient care outcomes within complex medical environments.This approach ensures that the medical business remains sustainable while keeping the patient experience at the center of every choice. The patient is the customer, empathy is the way towards healing our sick care system.
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For more information, see https://www.finnpartners.com/news-insights/why-i-wrote-healing-the-sick-care-system/
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➡️ Connect with us!
Gil Bashe, Chair Global Health & Purpose at FINN Partners. Editor-in-Chief Medika Life. Author of "Healing The Sick Care System: Why People Matter" https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbashe

InnoPathwayZ (IPZ) https://www.linkedin.com/company/innopathwayz-llc/
Zina Manji, Founder & Principal, Regulatory Strategist, InnoPathwayZ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zina-manji/
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#innovation #healthcare #improvinghealthoutcomes #healingsickcare #prevention

Because with healthcare Innovation, there is No Way But Forward!

Transcript

Healing the sick care system. Why people matter. 

But we all would be patients at some point, all of us. See, we share this humanity.

We focus on the balance sheet separated from its mission. And if we understand that the mission is about sustaining those lives, healing people, figure out the accuracy of information of which people make decisions. Hospital systems are saying, look, this will improve our throughput. The doctor has saved an hour of time. What will happen to that hour? In a fee-for-service business, see if you can see two to three more patients a day. 
mentioned, it's not about it, it's about us, right? 

everybody who is involved in the system to look at themselves at in the mirror and just say am I bringing out my best self? Well the patient's experience is a hundred percent true.

Try to imagine not everybody has a caregiver who's moved the world. I worry for people. 

about page 133, Rise of Technology in the Fall of Empathy. 

cannot shrug and say the system is too big to change. We must not stand idle.

The human dynamic must be restored to the self. We must return to the calling that drew so many into medicine in the first place. Not something to fight disease, but to serve people. That communication and collaboration are fundamental to getting us out of this sick care, no cycle. Current system is restricting away continuity of care. And we're gonna diminish results. We know that. We're pained that we've gotten to this place and we want it to be better, and it starts with caring. We have to reignite. We have to kindle the caring gene within us and stop turning a blind eye to what we know is this epidemic of preventable illness.

That will save this country a small fortune. 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 medicines, investment in innovation, training and educating people, and making smart, sometimes difficult choices where a need is greatest. The mission and the business are inseparable. So why is the mission so often sidelined? 

Well, hello. Welcome to the next episode of ipso facto. I'm your host, Zina Manji, founder of InnoPathways. And today is my very first podcast series now starting to interview authors of books that have launched.

And I'm so excited to start my first podcast with an author with Gil Bash. Gil has been in the industry for a while, but most importantly, he has seen several different angles of our healthcare industry. And so I'm really excited to talk to Gil about his book, healing the sick care system, and why people matter. So there's going to be a big part of our of our conversation. And just to do justice that I have actually read through lots of parts of this book, I'm honored. 

I have to get your copy. You should sell the version of your copy. 

There is a lot of, a lot of rich information here. And so I take a page out of Ryan Holiday to say, don't treat books as pristine, but really engage with them, mark them up, you know, really embrace them. So this is the, you know, a tip of my hat, so to speak to Ryan Holiday, because I think it makes a real difference when you actually, you're not just reading the book, you're engaging it. So thank you.

Gil, we'll welcome you to the stage here. And if I may ask you, Gil, to, I think you would do more justice to introduce yourself to the audience, if you wouldn't mind telling this audience a little bit about yourself, and then we'll, we'll get into the book. 

First of all, it's a pleasure to be with you, and I think that we could flip roles and do a podcast with you, Zena, that your background as a pharmacist, as someone who has been dedicated to women's health, been inside a big pharma, really supporting the consumer's access to world-class over-the-counter products, your support for health technology, your life with health technology. All of this really speaks to a journey of import and a world-class voice on this topic. So to be in conversation with you today is a real privilege.

Thank you. Regarding my background, I've obviously been involved in the industry for quite some time, actually about 40 years, and I've worn many hats other than my Life is Good cap, which is my go-to headgear. Of course, life is good. 

Heh heh. 

But right now, I am very, very privileged to be the chair of global health and purpose at Finn partners. It's a very unique organization agency. It's one of the world's largest independent communications agencies. Overall with 35 offices and 1300 people led by Peter Finn, who I think is a really extraordinary human being.

I might add Peter has a book coming out in a few months that I've had a chance to read and it's, it's a book on leadership and I think it's a must read book. He's a very purposeful person. I will say that while my background entails many different chapters as a health provider, as someone who was a health industry lobbyist, someone who's an entrepreneur. I've started agencies successfully I've turned around large agencies. I've been a CEO of, of, of one of the world's largest or the world's largest health communications agency. I was in private equity for a time. It was very, very instrumental in my sort of worldview of money and humanity. I've been a chair of the American Heart Association regionally in the Northeast region. I'm on the American diabetes board I'm on the Galleon Foundation board. I'm on some corporate boards. So, I have the vantage point of seeing health from many different angles, probably what people cite most is I'm the parent of a child with a rare disease. And I think that seeing the health system through her eyes has been illuminating for me you know when we're in this as a business. We kind of see this in terms of the financial obligations of our business to other businesses. When you're in it as a parent, and you see humanity bumping up against humanity. You see a different face of the health system, sometimes a very beautiful face, sometimes quite honestly, a very ugly face. The book seeks to capture, not only my experiences through stories and examples through the journey of the health system, but also other people's experiences. And I look at this I think the reason the book became a bestseller is certainly not because of me or, or my life is good cap, or my credentials. I think it became a bestseller because it speaks to people. I speak to people's hearts. I mean, it covers the intellect component of it. But I think it touches people from a feeling standpoint from a psychological standpoint. And I think that was needed at the right time at the right place. 

Yeah, 100%. Gill and I actually feel that, you know, the book, reading the book was going on a journey. And, you know, taking through several different aspects of the healthcare system, I think the way you sewed it together was very enlightening. I think, you know, each chapter is like a build on on top of the other chapters, but it's also a reminder of what was mentioned before, but now look at it from a different aspect.

And, you know, when, when in recent experience, I mean, I'll, I'll point the audience to episode number nine, which was my first podcast with a patient advocate, also with a rare with the rare disease, herself, her in her family, including her children. So this was really enlightening and looking at how patient advocates are contributing to our knowledge. And also, in her case, how we're developing, because she's part part of that development process now, and really advocating for how products are developed. But, you know, learning from her on, you know, her challenges of going through the healthcare system and the diagnosis is here, we have a very rare disease situation as well where nothing's known, you're really starting from scratch. 

Yeah. 

and it took the curiosity of a young doctor to say, this doesn't seem right, this doesn't seem right, and taking the time to become that detective and kind of look into it. So as I'm going through your book, I'm having that in mind as well as my own experiences and other loved ones and how they're going through, how you're holding your breath to see is a prior authorization going to go through, finding doctors that okay, they're great doctors that have been with you, but now your health plan doesn't cover them, trying to find another doctor and so all crazy isn't it. 

It's crazy. 

it's insanity. Exactly.

And, you know, through life, and we were talking about this a little bit before we started here was, you know, back in the day, and you go through this as well, your doctor was part of your community, they knew you, they knew your, they made a character. 

They're almost paraphrasing the book in a way, you know, well, yeah, that was also when, if we if we look at the genesis of innovation, not until the 19 mid 1980s, the the treatment for most things was bedrest. And when you think about it, how did we treat cancer in the in the 60s or 70s? Well, if it was a solid tumor, we operated, tried to remove that the tumor as best we could. And then we hope for the best.

If someone had a heart attack, what was the treatment bedrest, right? Almost all treatment for all serious illness was bedrest, which is like maybe if you don't move, you won't die. But but in the 1980s, we started to all of a sudden introduce real serious drugs for high blood pressure, for high cholesterol, for depression, for all of these ailments. And as more and more medications came online, and we studied sort of the the the body structure, in more detail, suddenly, we see in the 1990s, the rise of specialties, specialists, you know, all of a sudden, you know, GPFPs had a role, they were diagnosing, they were initially treating that which they could. But all of a sudden, by the year, you know, the new millennia, the year 2000, suddenly, the GPFP is referring you to everybody else. They're no longer the vision of your body, or of your soul, or of your yourself. They're like, you know, you need to see an interventional cardiologist, if you have an arrhythmia, you need to see an electrophysiologist, you know, if you know, if you if you if you have some concern about ejection fraction, your function of your heart, you need to see, you know, a new med doctor, and all of a sudden, their air traffic control. Now, let's get to the next step of that.

Now you can't get in to see them soon enough. So what happens? The rise of the walk in? No, no sort of like pay for visit clinic, that you sort of say, I've got this funny rash on me. And they say, Oh, here's a pharmacist and get that. Now they don't even probe into the underlying cause of why do you have that rash in the first place? Is it an allergic reaction? Is it actually an early sign of leukemia? I don't know. But it's essentially a I feel I got something done. I was concerned about the rash. I walked in. I they said it's probably topical eczema. And I got a corgosteric cream and it seems to have gone away. Hallelujah. But they know nothing about you. They don't know your medical history. I don't know if the allergy so medicine, from what you were talking about is becoming more and more transactional.

I need something done. What's the fastest, most efficient way, or you had a relationship with a cardiologist, but your new health insurance plan directs you to another cardiology practice that has really very little personal history with you. Maybe you bring your medical records with you. But they're kind of starting of no fresh, they want their own shot of you. So the concept of longitudinal continuity of care, which is what you enjoyed once upon a time, it's gone. 

And what goes with it? Well, a relationship goes with it, right? When you switch doctors, no more relationship, no more commitment. It used to be like I have doctors who followed me for decades. And they look forward to seeing they actually look forward to the visit. Because it's a check in about people who have followed each other's journeys for decades. We're losing that.

I write in the book, I remember as a kid, you were talking about remembering them, the milkman delivering milk to your stoop once upon a time. I remember the pediatrician, when I wasn't well, like with the mumps or something, would actually come to the house. Come home. Yeah, come to my house and bring a little toy and sit on the bed and examine and chat with me. And, you know, and I had some comfort in knowing Dr. Brody from my town, I'd see Dr. Brody on Main Street. Now, more and more, that's kind of like evaporating from the American scene. And as a result of that, it's not just that familiarity that we lose. More importantly, we lose, we're losing that continuity of care. Now the system says, Oh, but don't worry, Zena, don't worry. There's electronic medical records, that that continuity, your record is your continuity of care. But that's like saying, hey, you know, you can you can go out with many people in a relationship. Don't worry, your profile online, your dating profile, that's your continuity relationship. 

relationship 

Yeah, but no, it's not. No, it's not your continuity of relationship. The relationship is the continuity of how you grow who you are. But so we're devaluing relationships with devaluing continuity of care.

And we're saying the machine or the information that will be the replacement for continuity of care. And I think it's a an assisted, augments continuity of care. It's not a replacement for continuity of care. A relationship is. And doctors once felt they had some commitment to heal you. Now what happens is the doctor wants to help you, and you mentioned this earlier, and they think you need a certain diagnostic test. What happens? They have to call up your insurance company and get prior authorization. What happens when the insurance company says. 

No. 

Then they argue, and if they really believe, they say, I want to speak to a peer. And this happened to me. 

Hmm 

urologist wanted to do something and get a peer. He's explaining it. My urologist, by the way, who retired because of all this, was a chair of department of urology at a hospital.

And he's arguing and the guy says, no, we're not going to prove that. He says, what sort of urologist are you? My urologist says, he says, I'm not a urologist. I'm a dermatologist. And so he said, hey, you treat pimples. I'm trying to help this patient. What's this all about? That's how we've got, we've got, it's at ridiculous level now, where an expert can't make a decision for your life. And is that working for us? I'm not so sure it is. 

Yeah. And I think, you know, the sense I get from the book is, well, a couple of things. I want to go on the tone of the book because everything you just mentioned and everything that everyone is experiencing. So no matter if you are a healthcare professional, whether you're a patient, whether you're a payer, you're going to see yourself in this book, right? That's very true. You're going to see your part of it in this book. So this book isn't just for somebody who is a healthcare professional or working in the healthcare system. We are all patients. We all know patients. We are caregivers. So this book is for everybody.

And Why People Matter is part of the title here. And everything you just mentioned, what you've experienced, what everyone's experienced that you alluded to, and how we went from that relationship to now online, not even relationship, but your data speaks for you. You don't speak for you. It's how our culture has also been transitioning that way, you know, with everyone communicating virtually. I mean, we met in person before as well. And that was a much different interaction, much more meaningful to me, actually, because I met you just after giving my very first keynote, and you were so kind in the in support of that and having that in person interaction with you. 

Stay there. 

was, it gave me a lot of support and a lot of encouragement. And I think that can't be replaced, you know, technology cannot replace that human touch.

But narrowing down on the tone of this book, and with your child and your child's experience, going through this system in particular, trying to fight for time in the system in this ridiculous transactional way that we've become, the tone of this book is not one of anger. When I start talking to people about the healthcare system, I can't help but I have to stop myself from going on a rant. Right. And especially now I'm advocating on Capitol Hill and I see all these patients who can't help but get angry and say, okay, on, you know, whoever you're talking to legislators or their staff say, please do something that you know, just pass this. It's very easy, very easy, just just pass this will make tremendous amount of difference. More recently, for endometriosis and how we are coding for excision surgery, for example, just very, very simple things can be done that that can help. But I have to I have to train myself to tone down the anger and talk about that bring forward that empathy that you talk about, look, collaboration, you know, bring forward, hey, let's collaborate together. This is an issue. Did you know this many women, you know, experience endometriosis goes for years without diagnosis. Also advocate for Alzheimer's patients as well. You know, another another angle there, and another sense of urgency there as well. But your book is not a rant. It's not anger. What I really found really enlightening. And that's where I was able to learn is, let's think about what's actually happening here. And you bring forward empathy, you talk about the system and how the system is misaligned. And that was the first enlightenment I got out of this book is you really feel I felt this system is horrible, you got to just tear it down and start over. Now, how can you start over? And wherever you are in the healthcare system, I think a lot of people are feeling this when you feel something's broken, you want to just torch it all and we think it can be fixed. We can't do that more. And you know, exactly right. And the way you talk about that, and I'd like you to kind of share, if you will, on how did you get to the tone of the presentation of your book and figuring out that misalignment. 

You know, first of all, you're incredibly observant about what I was trying to convey and I thank you profoundly for for that. And it's not a rant. It's a it's a hopeful book. It's an observant book and it's a hopeful book. And I say quite bluntly, we cannot we cannot say, hey, the health system will be on pause for six months while we refurbish the structure. That's impossible. That's really impossible. But there are certain things we can do.

And, you know, you've mentioned this before in our in our pre pre podcast conversation. Part of it is self awareness in any relationship when people are have more awareness about their behavior and they care about the relationship. They they start to make shifts. There is something that happened to me earlier in my career that is not mentioned in the book, but it plays a role. It does play a role. Many, many years ago, I was a young president of an agency that was doing quite well. And and I was sent away by the parent company to an executive retreat of people who would lead the big company in the future. Part of the requirement to do this was a 360 degree review of the people participating, myself included, was given 15 surveys to give out to five people who reported to me, five people in the big company who were at my level and five people who were more senior. And just cut to the chase, what was clear when I got the results down were the people who I really needed to marshal their support, people who reported to me felt felt a disconnect. The people who are my level felt like this guy's a great guy. People I reported to thought like, you know, he's a mastermind of business, but. But the gap was that that I wasn't really making the connection to people who reported to me in that I was. There was a superhuman component to me that they felt like they could never catch up and and I did something very bold. I actually had all the survey results photocopied and I gave them out to all the employees in the company and I circled the ones that that I felt I really needed to get my act together on in red. And I told everyone in the company how I perceived myself and how you perceived me were different. But your perception is the right perception. Your reality of me is the reality. When I'm doing these things that trouble you, tell me, I really want you to tell. And they did. And after that, the company, which was doing well to begin with, did exponentially well. I mean, we were recognized as really one of the outstanding agency communities in the business for years. And I started to realize that through vulnerability and through transparency, good things will emerge.

The challenge is that we in the health system, we don't share a common metric. 

Yeah. 

you know hospitals have a metric that's different than payers. Government payers have a different metric than is different from private payers. Health innovators have a metric that's different than this and we each kind of report to a different group.

If you think of major corporations in the health innovation field, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and so forth, that are really saving lives profoundly. Who evaluates them? The shareholder.

That's how a CEO is evaluated. Shareholders are happy. Great, I'm doing the right thing. Okay, put them aside. Private payers, the big private payers that are publicly traded. Who decides if they're doing a good job? Is it the customers like you and me who pay in with our employers in many cases to become customers? We buy insurance effectively from these major companies. Are we the customer? No, shareholders again.

There are nothing wrong with that, by the way. There's nothing wrong with shareholders, heaven forbid. They provide necessary capital. It's essential. For the government, who matters? Well, if you're an HHS, the secretary matters, right? If your secretary of HHS is happy or not, that's what matters. Now there are dedicated, loyal public servants who view the patients or the public as their customer, but they're hard pressed.

They've got to toe the line to some extent. So if we look at the system, it's far removed. It's far, far removed from who matters. And so what I propose is a system called Health System Kinetics. And so Health System Kinetics makes us say, what is the centerpiece of this system? Well, it's us.

It's people are at the center. And then you have to say, who's central to keeping those people well and healthy and happy? Well, it's health professionals. I mean, that's who makes all the decisions, diagnoses, treatments, follow on, and so forth. And then the system sort of expands out. And I said, you have to prioritize the system by who touches the reason the system exists in the first place. Why people matter? People, people. And so if you look at the system as it exists objectively, people don't really matter. The system matters.

The system is the customer of the system, not people. And I don't know about you with your insurance company. I have a very good insurance company. But still, I get letters from them. And I'm a writer. I'm a business leader. I have to write and communicate. I get these letters from my insurance company. I don't know what wrote them or who wrote them. Is it a lawyer? Is it a large language model? I can barely understand them. They're not written for people. And I'm a pretty savvy guy. And I sort of say, gee, if I didn't know a lot about health, I'd be struggling to understand this. One funny story that's not in the book, unfortunately, happened afterward. My daughter had a very, very serious operation about almost two years ago. We had to fly out to California, actually, to have that done. That is in the book. And I get a letter a year and a half after the operation from my insurance company, asking me to explain why a neurologist was in the operating room. 

And could I please send the files? And I was saying to myself, well, I didn't choose the surgical team or who was in the operating room. I certainly didn't keep the surgical files. It's a year and a half after the operation, in a AI-driven world on operations, what took you so long to ask me who doesn't know the answer to your question?

Even if it was actually a copy of a letter sent to my provider, It didn't say this is a copy of a letter that your provider has received. We just, because it's your life, we just want you to know. Matt doesn't, doesn't come across that way. Um, also it's like dear provider and it's clear who the doctor's name was. And you have approved the surgery. You know, it's, it's a complex surgery. You know, you're cutting around or near nerves. So you could probably figure out why a neurologist is in the operating room, because if they say, can we cut this? And the, and the doctor says, no, then obviously you want to do it and you can robotically to avoid it. But I get communications from our insurance company. I'm saying, am I a widget or am I a customer here? I'm paying a lot of money for health insurance. I don't feel I'm being treated warmly at times. I am always feeling like, um, this guy is game in the system at times. At times I feel great kindness and you know what the difference is when I feel like they're gaming the, they feel like I'm gaming the system or kindness. Here's the scariest part that I think we can correct. It's actually not the company or their policy. It's people. Some people look, probably look at the phone and say, holy mackerel, this guy has a lot in his hands. This kid is sometimes very sick. Um, probably worries a lot. Let me be kind. And sometimes they look at the file and say, holy mackerel, this guy's kid has been to a doctor a lot of times costing us a lot of money. No, let me squeeze them. Who makes the decision? Not the CEO of the insurance company. The, the, the individual and their supervisor set the tone. And that's why I think we could figure out the system quickly. I think that if you're again, going back to health system kinetics, who's in the center, people matter. I think anybody who says, Hey, we're in a customer facing position. And if we were a restaurant and we treated our, our customers shabbily, they would never return to this restaurant here. They don't have that choice that they're stuck in the insurance plant where they're stuck going to this hospital system. They shouldn't feel like it's, I'm stuck. They should feel like what a relationship they evaluate. And that's the problem. It's become so transactional that we've lost the sense of continuity of care and the relationship that strengthens care. So doctors no longer feel that they have to really connect with you as a person to a person. You are a body part. You're your, you're a woman or you're your kidney. Um, you're no longer the whole you you're a piece of you now. And that we can correct by getting people to realize that piece of you that they're treating is pretty damn important to you. And I better treat that piece like it's the whole you because it is. 

Yeah, and I think it is bringing that cute human aspect into how we relate goes back to those relationships. It's a couple of things here.

You describe in the book very well, I think in a really easy to understand way of what you're talking about with the transactions. And I think to me, it was how I also was able to learn how does the humanity kind of disappear? How do people just become focused on a body part? How does that make sense? And going away from kind of the whole person. And now there's a lot of discussion about whole person care and whole person health care. But how did we go from the prior way that medicine was practiced with knowing the person to becoming a body part? And the best best way this probably for people who are on the younger side may not have seen this, but the I love Lucy episode with the conveyor belt and the chalk chalk. 

Imagine that in the book, actually. 

Exactly. And that was, I think that really brought it home for me what you were describing, is that transactional, as that conveyor belt goes, it goes quicker and quicker, right? It speeds up and they can't keep up with packing the chocolates, right? But in order to keep up with packing the chocolates at a certain speed, they can't think about how they're wrapping it or, you know, who was it for? They got just chocolate wrapper, chocolate wrapper box, chocolate wrapper box. You know, you got to just focus on that to get the system, feed the system. You use those words about the system feeds itself. 

Yes. 

So I'd like to pause on that on can you talk more about how you because look you're you're you were observing the health care system you are also very much into it on a personal basis with with your daughter with with your family's health. You've seen it from all sorts of side you started out as a medic um as well you've been on the policy side you've seen all different angles and so I think that gives you a very unique perspective but at the same time we're talking about your your own humanity your own human relationship with the health care system.

How are you able to tease that away and have the clarity of it's it's it's just this relationship focus here and getting getting I know I can only describe it as and I want you to describe it but how did you take the anger and all of that away and and just very calmly be able to say the problem is that the system is serving itself it's feeding itself it's serving itself no longer serving humanity no longer serving the patient in fact the other enlightenment here was the patient's not even the customer that's also a huge so I'd like you to figure out how you got there. 

Well, first let me just say, here's the good news for all of us. I think people in that system, from the C-suite down to the person who is moving files around on computers, they actually do want to do a good job by people. And we're always people, we're sometimes patients, but we all would be patients at some point, all of us. See, we share this humanity of illness. You know, to this stage, I've been in the business for quite some years, and I'm very privileged to be in the health sector. But I haven't met anyone yet who got out of life alive. And because of that, I think it's time for all of us to step back and say, we're working in, we're building each day the very system that will care for us or be uncaring toward us in the future. This is a given.

This is a given. All of us, God willing, will grow old. All of us will need more medical care. Many of us will need added support and long-term care. Some of us, hopefully fewer, will need memory care facilities. All of this is true, all of it. And right now, starting today, starting now, we are actually building the system that will care for us and those people who are closest dearest to us. We've got to get that in our heads. This is not about someone else. This is about each of us. That's one component. Two, most of the challenges that people connected to, and I've been shocked at how this book has resonated with the market. I think there's 400 people signed up to a webinar I'm giving tomorrow on the book. There were 300 some odd signed up for another one I gave the other day. And I'm saying to myself, how is this possible? I mean, I'm kind of like taking them back. How is it possible? Hundreds of people, thousands of people are captivated, as you've gone through every page of this book, captivated by this book. I think this book speaks profoundly to each one of us somehow. And that it's not just that we're unsatisfied or upset or angry or you use the word rant, ranting. We're pained. We're pained that we've gotten to this place and we want it to be better. And so we're looking for someone outside of ourselves to make it better. Some leader, some government leader, some doctor. And by the way, shout out to John White, who's the new CEO of the American Medical Association. I think if anybody can get the AMA on track, it probably is Dr. John White. But my sort of direction, and you kind of said this, is each one of us can play a role here as a customer of health, as a provider of health, as an administrator of health, as a policy person of health, each one of us. And I give a great example in the book that I think captures that each one of us, when affordable care was up for debate in the last administration of President Trump, it came to the Senate floor for vote. And the Republicans certainly had the votes in number. John McCain, Senator John McCain, the late Senator and certainly Vietnam War hero, was dealing with brain cancer at the time. Republican from Arizona, excuse me, he voted to retain affordable care. 

Yeah. 

to the party's wishes. How? Why? He understood what his life would have been like without health insurance, good health insurance, at least on the critical care level. And so he voted his life, he voted his life, not his politics. And that's what gives me and which should give everyone hope.

We have to connect with the fact that all of us will depend on the system. Now the other flip side of all this is how do we pay for it? 

Yeah. 

Right? Okay. How do we pay for it? And the book, through narrative and story, does address that.

You see, the great vast majority of what's draining us economically is not serious illness, like rare disease. It's preventable disease. It's non-communicable disease that we've turned a blind eye toward. And so, when we say, okay, we're going to save money on the school budget, we're going to get rid of the PE, the physical education program. We're going to limit it, the after-school initiatives. Okay, we save some money, right? We save some money. When we say, you know, we don't have to have a real nutritious lunch. After all, kids really would prefer a chocolate chip cookie and a soda. Why don't we kind of alter the menu a little bit? So that ketchup is a vegetable. 

Yeah. 

And we start to do that. What we start to do is build into our system, sick care. Yeah, right. But we have a sick care system. And I talked about that in the book as a child of looking at my father had a service station gas station, and mechanic ship was an auto mechanic. And young people would cross the street wasn't in a great neighborhood would cross the street. And for breakfast, they'd get a candy bar and a soda. And, you know, as a kid, I just observed that as a high schooler and college kid, I observed that as a health profession, I said, wow, it's actually breeding type two diabetes, like we figured it out how to Americans and welcome them to the field of diabetes will will will will recognize that these kids don't have a lot of money. Their parents are hardworking people. I'm having to run to work, not having a chance to prepare a breakfast, perhaps, and giving the kids some money. And the kid is using that money to buy something tasty. No, certainly, soda and candy, candy bars tasty.

But what's the long term impact of training that the palette toward no sugar? Yeah, it's an addictive substance. So, yeah, I basically am yearning, urging everyone, not just in the health field. But if you're on a school board, if you're in a town, mayor of a town, and you're having to make decisions, draw the line, draw the line and realizing you're investing in the health and well being of this nation, and other nations, health and well being, we spend 20% of our GDP on health, 20%. That's two to three times more than most developed nations. And yet we're dying five to 10 years earlier than most developed nations, that as a business person, I'd say is a pretty terrible return on investment. And, and so the book sort of says, this really isn't about more innovation, or more money, training, it's a folks, we need to get our our house in order. It is about making wise decisions that protect the well being of generations of Americans. And it starts with caring. It starts with caring. We have to reignite, we have to kindle the caring gene within us, and stop turning a blind eye to what we know is this epidemic of preventable illness that will save this country a small fortune. That's one we have to stop debating issues that are secondary, and get to the real heart of the matter, which is, we want healthy families, healthy children that become healthy teens, come healthy young adults that grow into old age with with with health. And then when they start to fall apart, as we all will, it's it's not because they've lived 15 or 20 years of illness between their demise, and the onset of sickness. My father-in-law, who I mentioned in the book, was a role model for me. He was not just a great world class physician, who sort of like mentally trained me. But he was a role model. His father died at 55 of heart disease, and an older brother who died of heart disease young. And he obviously was genetically predisposed to heart disease, and changed his diet, exercised daily, you know, sort of like checked himself. Now, you could say, oh, he's a doctor. No, even doctors smoke and are overweight and whatever, right? 

He decided he would take a stand. And so I look at him as a life role model, not just a sector role model.

By the way, he was Commissioner of Mental Health for a large New York State County, Westchester County. And it wasn't like he wasn't in the policy game either. He was. And he was a great clinician. He was also a chair of a department in a New York City hospital system. And he was a clinician, first and foremost, saw patients till he was 95. And I said to myself, observing him was like having a Ph.D. in what could go right. 

Hmm. And I think that speaks so well writ large in the book about how you were able to get to the point, as you say, to observe, to ask why.

Why is this happening? To go underneath what's happening on the surface. Okay, why is this happening? Why are people making these decisions? Why are things being said this way rather than that way? You're also, you know, questioning things as they're happening as well to you and you're able to, you've trained yourself to kind of think and question, you know, what's the cause and effect? Where did this go? And if I may, it seems like a lot of the source does come from relationships. How are we treating people? Are we treating people with dignity? Are we asking questions with dignity, right? Whichever way it goes, whether it's a patient engaging with their doctor or doctor with patient, nurse or healthcare system. Sorry. 

I said I should co-author my next book with you. You really get it. 

Any collaboration with you would be absolutely fun. 

honor. It would be an honor. 


It would be a great joy and I think that comes down to the heart of the issue because you also talk about dignity and hospice care dignity as well. And so when you and I think that was it because you talk about your wife, your child, you know, she's grown, but your child also, you know, also advocates on her care and has been on the front line and also is a writer herself and has observed things also, although experiencing things very harshly at the same time.

She's also been able to look at things on a rational level as well as even so I think you're also been in this environment of what's happening here. Let's let's figure out why this is happening at the same time that you're going through very difficult situations. So I want to point out a few things because this is a theme that goes throughout your life. When you mention, I'm just going to mention some page numbers for the sake. 

copies of the book here. 

Oh, good. For example, on page 45, you talk about keeping your humanity, keeping your humanity. And I think that's where you experience this on the field as a medic. When you're dealing with crisis situations, how you are approaching the individual who's in crisis, you have to to be a true medic, you've got to take away from your mind, what the color of the person is, what's ethnicity, where they're coming from, which side of the situation they may be on, but that this person is in crisis. I'm using my keep your humanity to to serve, because that's the purpose of the moment. And you talk about when you lose your humanity, you are you lose everything, right?

So I think that was kind of the genesis of your, your deepness of your, your true North compass, coming into Genesis, when you're going through these crises. And this is kind of, there's that thread all the way through the book, but comes, you know, using that same compass. 

You know, we, in business particularly, I see this quite a bit, people want to be judged by their savvy business decisions, the balance sheet decisions, and certainly having had the opportunity to be in private equity, I really learned quite well that the role of people in private equity is to protect the interests of the limited partner, people who put money into the fund. And they really look at the balance sheet and free cash flow and so forth. I think that there are two balance sheets in every healthy business. There is the business balance sheet, the economics, and the people balance sheet, people's experience, their well-being. Are we doing right by the employees and the customers? And I think for people, business people to really look good, they focus a lot on the business balance sheet. And they think that the people balance sheet is a soft balance sheet, makes them look kind of soft and weak. And that is, I think, creating a great disconnect in our society.

I do want to go to the book for a second and give an example. AI is a great tool. We're still trying to figure out the accuracy of information of which people make decisions on. And that's essential. But hospital systems are saying, look, this will improve our throughput. You'll be able to get data about the patients sooner. It can help in diagnoses. And we get to answers faster. That's great, right? Isn't it wonderful? Even precision diagnostics. For you, it's wonderful. It's great. Now, the question is, the doctor has saved, you know, 90 minutes a day on average of time, an hour of time. What will happen to that hour? Will it be we want you to spend instead of 12 minutes with a patient, prefer you spend 20 minutes and deal with these other issues as well. Or it's like, hallelujah and a fee for service business. See if you can see two to three more patients a day. Now, that's a decision that has to be made. One is throughput profitability. One is throughput specificity. Which one are we going to choose? Who makes the decision? Why do we make those decisions? In the context of the book, I say strengthen human ties. Get to the bottom of things. Find out more. Find out more about the patient. Find out why this is happening in their life. Find out if the weight related issue is genetics. Sometimes it's genetics, by the way. You can eat lettuce and it turns into cholesterol and pounds. I meet people like that. It's not about their diet. It's about their genetics. Sometimes it's about their behavior. Is there something we need to do? Talk about what you eat. Talk about how you do. Do you buy processed food? Are you on the run all the time? Too difficult to make a nutritious meal? Okay, what's the game plan then? Doctors, the reason GPFP, primary care, is becoming irrelevant is that they're economically hard-pressed. They get, by the way, $90 a visit on average for a primary care visit. $90 of which that has to cover all the costs, EMR, all of that. How do you make a living as a solo practitioner in primary care? Well, you've got to see a lot of people each day and you've got a lot of people waiting in your waiting room as a result of that. 


The system games the system. The system will always win, but the system will always win.

The reason I choose empathy throughout the book is if we said to ourselves, what's my purpose in being in this profession? Why did I want to be a pharmacist? Why did I want to be a pharmacist? Why did I want to be a nurse? Why did I want to be a doctor? How do I go back to that place in light of what I know? If the system said, why is it that 50% of our nurses are claiming they're burnt out? Why is it that 55% of our doctors are claiming they're burnt out? Is that going to work for us? Is spinning the wheel on trying to struggle to hire nurses and recruit nurses from the hospital down the street so they have a shortage? Is that working for us? Are we making nursing an attractive profession? Are we making hospital pharmacy an attractive profession or community pharmacy an attractive profession? Are we making being an internist on the floor of a hospital system an attractive profession? And if the answer is yes, hallelujah. But since the answer is no, and we know that based on the stats, we have to step back and say, well, is it that we don't have Pizza Fridays for the staff? Like it would be really great if we bought them all pizza. I don't think the problem is Pizza Fridays or we bought you a new little toy to clip onto your uniform, or we have swag, new hospital swag for all of you. I don't think they're burning out because there's not enough swag. I think they're burning out because there's not enough respect and care. 


Yeah. 


And I also think that I observe when a nurse says to me, my father-in-law is a very, as I mentioned, very prominent physician, 12 of his last 13 days, he was in a teaching hospital in the bed. And a nurse asked me a question and I said, you know, I know that's in his EMR. And she said something so key to me, I don't have time to read his EMR. Yeah. Well, what good is an EMR if the nurse isn't given sufficient bandwidth to read the patient's EMR? What happens when she's taking two 12-hour shifts each day, has a day off, and then two other 12-hour shifts, and then she's moved to another floor. Where is the continuity of relationship? It's gone.

We actually have stripped it out of the system, maybe by design. I don't think so, but maybe by design. So I am observing all of that. And I brought it together because I think that hospital leaders, industry leaders, patient community or advocacy leaders need to advocate for the same exact thing. We need to center our efforts around people who matter. And if you're in the system as a patient, you really are a priority sort of concern to get you out of the center and back into the general population healthfully.

If you're in a care facility, you know that either you're there because people who love you aren't close by or feel that's the best or safest place for you or just can't deal with the issue. And therefore, you're the caregiver, not just the health professional. It's a caring touch. And all of this has to be considered of saying, we know that there's a burnout of doing that every day. How do we protect those people? Well, maybe people who are on the hardest professions like long term care or memory care, maybe we have to build in more downtime for them even. Maybe there is fewer hours per day, but replacing people and hiring new people, that's not working for us. It's very expensive.

And so we've got to train it. I will mention there's a system I've observed, I know I travel the world where people who are elderly and healthy and independent in their own homes. Some systems say it's cheaper for them, the system, to send in a caregiver for six hours a day to go shopping with that person, help with food prep, do some household cleaning and chat. Human company, to move that person to a long term care facility, to keep them... Makes sense. Right. And that's what we really want also. We want components. And we want company. So I would just say our system needs leaders and participants in the system who are looking at the role of the health provider as to sustain, preserve humanity.

People matter. Why? People matter. Because they always matter. 


Yeah, yeah. And when you're, when you're talking about and so well said, Gil, and it is all about people, and we have to keep that as our North Star, any, any engagement, any type of new procedure, administrative process, new innovation that you're designing, hiring people, whatever it is, what it, how is it, how are people being served? How is this serving the patient? How that the patient's the customer? How is it serving? If there's a tech or procedure that's meant to help the practice of medicine? How is it serving the healthcare professional? How is it serving nurses? You know, we talk about a lot about removing a friction, having seamless, you know, how does your new innovation? How does that integrate with workflow? You know, we talk about all these things. I think if you talk about it all, that's one thing. If you're if you're measuring against business metrics, you're going to fail, ultimately. But if you measure against how is it serving, then that integration happens because you're serving the user so that the intent can be delivered. And the intent of any new process or any new innovation should be that it's serving for better, towards better health. So keeping that front in mind at making that the North Star, I think, as you say, it is, it is as simple as that.

And you mentioned some examples. And some examples are, for example, you mentioned, like, nonprofit organizations, you know, that are in care, or small hospitals, that focus, that focus on the community, that focus on care, care delivery, they're actually able to bring forward some prevention, some early detection aspects that actually reduce costs, as you were saying, there's actually proof of this, rather than a big hospital system are actually a lot of wastage, right? 


Yeah, look, this has been proven in studies time and time again, and there's no need to debate this whatsoever. We know this from outcome studies, we know this from peer review studies in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is all given.

We're doing in our current system is we're stripping away continuity of care, and we're going to diminish results. We know that. So why are we still doing it? Yeah, that's that's the interesting question. And that goes back to the premise that you raised quite correctly, which is the the system is almost operating separate from its mission. And there's a piece on the book. I hope you wouldn't mind if I read just. Yeah, absolutely. This is very it's sort of a paragraph. It's precious to me. It's 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 medicines, 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?

We focus on the balance sheet. Separated from its mission. And if we understand that the mission is about sustaining those lives, healing people, then we have to recognize we have to recognize that we have to bring the mission back into the business and integrate it. I will say this that I mentioned, I think, a few times. Charles Merck is where he writes in 1950s at a speech at the West Virginia School of Medicine, I think was actually at the school pharmacy. He said, we have to remember medicine is for the people. And so it wasn't as if our industry always sort of said, wait a minute, we've always been about our business. I think the proudest moments of our industry as an industry was when we felt we did something great for people. And some examples of that are, look at Merck's donation of Ivermectin for river blindness in areas of that. The drug was still making billions of dollars in animal health to prevent heartworm and other serious diseases. But it also could help people prevent blindness in certain regions. Those are the moments where our industry rises to the moment to show its greatness about people mattering.

It's still made money. Money is important. I'm not against profit, heaven forbid. I'm for purpose and profit aligned together. 


Yeah. 


And so what I think has happened is that CEOs feel very proud about their profit, and they have to feel equally proud about their purpose. And companies that have, you know, have strong sort of purpose-centered aspects and profit-centered aspects, those businesses tend to perform better over time. That's just not my wishful thinking. Again, the data show that.

You have more inspired employees. You have the best people seeking to want to work there and stay there and ensure the company's sustainability and success. So why don't we create a health system that values mission and business as being interwoven and aligned? Now, part of that is hospitals often run at a two percent profit margin. That's way for thin. That's way for health insurers running a much larger profit margin. Now, they may have to say, look, we have more and more rural hospitals closing, tertiary care hospitals closing. That's not good for this nation or for those people. So it may mean an alignment of business priorities. It may mean something I talk about in the book, collaboration between companies and hospital systems and state governments saying, you know what, we usually operate this way in these cities. Here in this state, we're going to operate differently. We're going to create a collaborative model that we think that can bring our best in. And there are health systems that are collaborative and are publicly traded, very good health systems that do that. So it's not like the impossible dream. It means leadership, again, leadership that has a sense of awareness of what is cooking here. 


Yeah. And I think that's a big takeaway from this, is that all of us can make a difference. And you mentioned, it's not about it, it's about us, right? And it's a big part of your life. 


Absolutely. And so I bring this down to the fact that it's about humanity. I think that the book has been successful. I think that the book has been successful. It's a two part statement. I think it's been successful.

And I think the reason it's successful is I'm actually not attacking the health system at all. It's an encouraging book. It's a supportive book. I'm asking everybody who is involved in the system to look at themselves in the mirror and just say, am I bringing out my best self? Am I bringing out my self interest or my interest in helping the people that I'm pledged to serve? And it means, and I will give examples of this very quickly. I had a lot of instances of doctors who I didn't name in the book who I saw interactions with that were less than ideal. But I also saw that it wasn't their training or their skill that was less than ideal. It was their approach to the patient. One example I gave is a conversation with a world class doctor based in New York. I'm in the room. My daughter's in the room. My wife is on the phone. And it's a serious conversation. And my wife says she spoke to a patient advocate about this issue. And the doctor cuts her off mid-sentence and says, who are you going to believe, me or a patient? That's a quote, by the way. That's an exact quote. And I'm sitting there. My daughter, who is a patient of this doctor, is there as well. And I'm saying to myself, does this guy realize what he's just said? I mean, he was trying to assert his authority over my wife's conversation with a patient advocate. But he's also saying to my daughter, everything you tell me is secondary to what I think. Well, the patient's experience is 100% true. There is no saying, well, that's like saying no, Zena. I know you feel that way, but that's not right. You're not right. How can you say your feelings aren't right? And so I just looked at that and said, this is just not the doctor for us. Luckily, that led us to an excellent doctor who was for us. That's in the book by name. So I look at these situations and I say, the system is made up of people like this. It's not made up of policies that always direct us this way. It's made up of people who are making decisions. Instead of saying, I'm about to make a decision or say something that impacts someone's life. Is that going to work? Is that going to work? Or my daughter was crying at the time, not because of what he said, because of his decision before that. And she was looking at a life, a short life on a feeding tube. Because he kind of had his mindset. The other doctor we went to said, no, I can address that. I have a high degree of confidence. I will address that successfully. And he did. And she's eating like everybody else now. But the first doctor didn't sort of say, look, I'd like to do this. I'd like to try this. It's safer. If it's not working within X amount of time, we're going to go to the operation. But he was like, kind of shrugged his shoulders at her. And that made her feel hopeless and crushed at the moment. My wife, I credit quite a bit, made a heroic move and continuing to press home a solution. 


But try to imagine not everybody has a caregiver who's going to move the world. And that scares me. And I worry for people. I worry for people who don't have that. 


Yeah, when how, how many people would question the doctor in that case, right, it is, it is, or think, you know, that's just that one doctor's opinion, let me go get another opinion. Let me educate. 


we don't want to upset the first doctor. That doctor may be angry at us. Well, it's not your job to make the doctor like you. It's your job to keep yourself alive in a transactional world, in a real world.

In a transactional world. where doctors care, they might say, you know, I wish I had the skill to take care of this. I don't have knowledge of the skill. Let me look up and speak to some colleagues about people who I think would really do the great job. Instead, what they do is they protect their ego and then keep it close to home. That's not their job. Their job is to champion the patient. But if you see a lot of doctors who treat people, and again, my daughter's a case in point, treat people for incorrectly. And I mean, a lot of people have been misdiagnosed and treated for those diagnoses. Probably it's because the doctor was dead sure. An example that's not in the book, unfortunately, happened after the book. My daughter was complaining about intense stomach pain recently. And we were worried it was maybe scar adhesions from that other operation I've been talking about. We took her to an ER. And what happened was a one doctor just said, no, I think it's transient will pass. Another doctor said, no, it's appendicitis. If we don't operate now, she's gonna be back here in like a few weeks. He was right.

Two doctors, one chair of a department, another younger whipper snapper says, you got to operate. He was right. So my daughter says after the operation, she was the F word. She says, I hope you're going to tell your boss that he was an effing idiot. And he says, well, younger doctor, he smiled. He says, I'll find my way to explain that to him.

Yeah, there's a people and they have to come to grips with the fact that they're not God. 


Yeah, exactly. And I think you speak about this aspect a little bit as well.

There's a lot of neuroscience involved as well, where how care is given, how patients understand care and engage with their care. You also talk about terms of innovation and this is around about page 133, the rise of technology and the fall of empathy. And this is what you were talking about earlier, is that AI, for example, is not a replacement. It's meant to assist. But now what do we do with the extra time, let's say, that we have because it's an assist. Well, that doesn't mean you push the conveyor belt faster. 


want to some extent. I'm looking, I, you know, I mark the page myself. You know, as a piece of this, we're in the middle of the page on 133, I say, we cannot shrug and say the system is too big to change. We must not stand idle.

The human dynamic must be restored to the center of health. We must return to the calling that drew so many into medicine in the first place, not simply to fight disease, but to serve people. And I'm so I'm so Wow, you really mark that up. That is impressive as hell. I really think that this calling and we've seen people throughout the generations who've had the calling to help Mother Teresa is a great example of that. Of course, there are many, many incredible know, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. There are many, many people who just felt this incredible calling to help people.

And, you know, I do talk about this as a combat medic in, in little sections of the book, of my caring for people who whose language I do not speak or faith I do not share or uniform was not mine. Flag was not mine. And yet I felt this overwhelming urge and need to protect and save their lives under fire that that I've, I felt as, as a faith based person, certainly for if we're all created in the image of God, it doesn't mean that someone of a different faith was created in some other, you know, other being created them. I believe that the life is holy, is precious. And so the moment I take that mission upon myself and combat medics that we carry armaments, we carry guns and equipment, it's not like the old World War two movies. But our first and foremost responsibility is to protect life and save life.

And I know I look back at that core moment of my entering into the active health profession of saving lives friend and foe, and triaging, according to the wound, and evacuating according to the severity of the wound. And I said, Look, if I could operate with a clear head under extreme conditions, no one's firing at me now, there are no shells going off there. I don't have to be worried about being run over by a tank, no moving rapidly through the field, I can make thoughtful analytic decisions, I'm going to do my best to preserve people's lives. And I believe fundamentally that it all starts with communication.

That's why I began the book in the introduction with a communication story of great import. No, I, I talked about Apollo 13, the notes, the spaceship breaking down. And I say to people, what was the one system that didn't break down? I mean, the heating broke down, the propulsion broke down, the oxygen system was impaired, all of this, this is a nightmare situation. These three astronauts, they could communicate back to mission control, and mission control was able to communicate with them. And this happened without the ability to communicate, they probably would have died in space. 


So we have a clear example that communication and collaboration are fundamental to getting us out of this sick care, no cycle. And, and we don't have to do everything at once. But the one thing we could start to do now, today, during this podcast, is to be kinder, and more considerate of each other, of saying, what does this person need from me right now?

And I've seen this time and time again, example I don't give in the book, I don't think I did, was I had a friend in Toronto call me, his sister was very sick with a very rare form of cancer. And the doctors at this hospital said they knew that a major company, I don't mind giving them a shout out, Hoffman the Roche Roche, had a drug in clinical trials for this cancer. And they felt this was her last shot. And I at that point, I knew the CEO of Hoffman the Roche Roche. Great guy, Bill Burns. And I called him. He picks up the phone. He says, hey, Gil, I'm up here, actually at Mount Everest in base camp. I'm about to make the climb. What's up? I said, Bill, I'm sorry to bother you. But I explained to him the story. He says, I'll get on it. And they had to move the drug from one country to another. And they made it happen. She's alive. She's alive, alive. People matter. Why? He cared. He could have said, I'm not picking up the phone for anybody. Right? I'm going to I'm excited about my vacation at Everest. That's it. He cared. He cared. I think that people care. I really do. That's why I'm not critical. It's not a rant. I'm hopeful. I think people care. I think they have to wear their carrying on their sleeve. I think they have to drive their business decisions through the carrying. And I also think that shareholders have to understand that they have the privilege of investing in companies that combine purpose and profit. What a great use of your resources to do something that benefits humanity. And you benefit as well from a business standpoint. We can do it. We can do both with more thoughtfulness. We don't have to say they're equal. We don't have to say its profit and purpose are equal. We have to say, I have to stand. I have a sustainable company. It must be sustainable, but there must be a rationale for its existence. And that's why when we began, I said, I'm very proud to be part of Fin Partners because the organization was created with a purpose and for purpose. And it lives that mantra that it is one of its values is to make a difference in the world. And I think that's why it has been able to grow to be one of the top five independent agencies in the world, not because we're just smart and dedicated business people, but I think we are purpose centered. And I think the people who join us understand that they're there in this enterprise for a reason. We are on a great adventure to help companies championing ideas, innovations and care. And at the same time, not forget why we're doing this. We're doing it for people. 


Yeah, absolutely. And that comes across so clearly.

And also you, you, you talk about trust and the calling and bringing people back to that calling of why they went into health care, whatever side it's on that that building of trust and as well as that goes into what you also talk about in terms of technology and the data that comes from technology, trusting that data, the accuracy of that data, and the trust for the system that's built on purpose means as well that that data is going to be used to serve you, not weaponize you against some sort of procedural, you know, headache that, you know, silos you out, but rather to engage with you on those prevention aspects and how you can serve. So it all does come back to humanity. And, you know, I mentioned to you, and I mentioned on a LinkedIn post when I was on the hill, advocating for endometriosis, I had, I had this book in my in my bag. Because there was, it was a first thought, I wanted to talk to people. 


bag by the way I'm really my one thing I have to do it would be a real honor and privilege in an upcoming hit lab event or something of that nature where I'll be down in DC in April for a book talk I hope you'll let me sign your book I know you have much writing in there I hope you'll add let me write my signature in the book for you. 


I've got a spot for you. I'm honored. I've got a spot for you this time, absolutely. Here we go. Your book is precious to me. 


I'm looking forward to putting some words there. You really are an incredible inspiration. Your whole journey, I don't know if our listeners recognize how your life journey has dedicated you to be kind and thoughtful about people, but just the fact that when your family had to leave Uganda, sort of Edie Amin made an impromptu decision. Thank goodness you got out under his tyranny.

You made your way to America with a small community. The kindness of that community helped your family establish yourselves. You went into a healing profession, a helping profession. As a pharmacist, you dedicated yourself to women's health issues. You still are dedicated to women's health issues. You're a pharmacist is really a frontline professional when it deals with dealing with people's questions. I find them to be among the most helpful of health professionals. We feel safe with pharmacists. We can ask them almost any question. They're thoughtful. They are very, very centered around people. They matter. You feel it. Everything about you, your transparency about your journey is like it's a book. 


You're very kind, Gail, and this is extremely meaningful, and you've charged me up with a lot of energy reading your book as well as this discussion on continuing on my journey. Because, like you say, it matters, and aligning purpose with what you do, that alignment is the best way you conserve and contribute.

Because, as you say, coming here in the way that I did, having had a successful life and having had a life in the first instance, it's my duty. I have to give back, and I have to serve, and I have to serve the institutions that got me here, including the UN and other institutions that all came together to help us. And so now it's, you know, this is how you take that, what was shared with you, and take it forward. And that's, you know, I see that in you as well, Gail. So thank you for being that role model and charging me with that focus going forward. So thank you so much, Gail. It's been a... 


It's been an honor. It's been an honor. Absolutely. 


pleasure. 


It's been an honor. I'll tell you, when two people who want to do good things unite, we draw on more people. And that's the change.

The change begins when one person connects with another person. Thank you very, very much. I'm really honored that you invited me today, allowed me to connect with you and your audience. I leave this call, this podcast, feeling actually equally inspired to you. Thank you. 


Thank you, Gil. And so once again, I want to show people the book, you must have heard about it already, Healing the Sick Care System, Why People Matter by Gil Bash.

And Gil, buying this book itself is an action in and of itself. 


And by the way, all author royalties go to charity. All my royalties are going to health charities.

So I want you to know that I did not write the book for profit, I wrote it for purpose. And the purpose is to inspire hopefully and to help other organizations do fine work. So if you buy the book, know that you're helping yourself, I hope and certainly helping others. 


Yeah, I can give, I can bear witness to that. So pick up a copy, it will help you in many ways of understanding our system, advocating for a system, being mindful and empathetic about people in our healthcare system, encourage them to meet their calling, as you as well are going on your journey.

And I think overall, that sense of shared humanity, that mission, there, that does have a business impact, and it's a positive one. And if I may say, Gail, what I've learned from you is actually not that hard. 


Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye. 


much. All right, take care.