Creating a New Healthcare

Dr. Marschall Runge is the author of the new book, “The Great Healthcare Disruption,” but he’s also someone who has studied primary care both in the US and across the world, and while he agrees it is currently failing, he offers some hope that it can get better. 

In this episode, we talk about Dr. Runge’s research for the book that shows that the cost of healthcare per capita in the US is 2-3x what it is in other developed nations and yet our healthy life expectancy ranks 60th in the world! How is it that we are paying more for less? Dr. Runge believes there are lessons we can learn from other countries and ways to support the incredible and rapid development of effective means at treating chronic diseases that, frankly, we’re just not doing…but we could. And that, as he sees it, offers not just hope, but a framework.

Dr. Marschall Runge is a distinguished physician-scientist, a leader in academic medicine, and an advocate for the integration of advanced technologies into healthcare systems. He currently serves as Dean of the Medical School at the University of Michigan and CEO of Michigan Medicine. With numerous accolades and awards, Dr. Runge has earned a reputation as one of the foremost experts in healthcare innovation. His work in bridging technology and medicine has been pivotal in reshaping the modern healthcare landscape. Dr. Runge’s groundbreaking research has been published in top-tier medical journals, and he is a sought-after speaker at international conferences on healthcare innovation, technology, and policy.

Back in 2011, Sean Duffy had a vision to change healthcare. So, he dropped out of Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School to found this company, Omada Health, that brought healthcare to people instead of the other way around. 

Now valued at over $1 billion, Omada remains an innovative example of how to manage and treat chronic disease. But Sean’s not done yet. In this conversation, we talk about how we’re living in a time where we have the most innovative medicines ever created for metabolic disease. And, the most innovative technology landscape of all time. But the services landscape is absolutely failing, and so we have to look at how to redesign services and the business models that support those services so that we can realize the potential of those technology and treatment innovations. 

Sean has always been a visionary, but the way he sees the field of healthcare rivals the best quarterbacks in history. Sean is the Co-founder and CEO of Omada Health, a between-visit care provider that addresses cardiometabolic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, prediabetes, and obesity, as well as musculoskeletal issues. As a former MD/MBA candidate at Harvard, he also holds a BS in neuroscience from Columbia University. He has written extensively about digital health and the future of healthcare in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and TechCrunch, among other publications. Prior to Omada, Sean worked at both Google and IDEO.

You can’t boil the ocean, and wow, does the state of primary care sometimes feel like an ocean. And if a behemoth like CVS Health can’t do it, it’s no surprise that the rest of us in healthcare feel at a complete loss for how to right this ship.

But our guest today, Amy Compton-Phillips, Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer of CVS Health, takes a different approach. If ⅓ of Americans don’t have a primary care provider and even if they wanted one, there aren’t enough to go around, AND there is no pipeline to train and certify new ones, then how do we take the resources we do have and stretch them in different ways? That is the work we talk about today – how CVS Health is using their 900 clinics and 9,000 stores to step into that void and help more people access basic primary care, or, as Amy puts it, “giving people the tools they need to live their best life.” 

Amy has more than 30 years of clinical and operational experience, coming to CVS Health from her role as president and chief physician executive at Press Ganey, where she guided provider organizations and health plans through system-wide clinical transformation. Prior to Press Ganey, Amy served as president of clinical care at Providence, a national healthcare system, overseeing clinical operations across 51 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. A Board Certified internist herself, Amy serves as a medical analyst for CNN, where she communicated critical public health guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Welcome to a new season of Creating a New Healthcare! 

This season, we’re diving into primary care. That’s right, primary care. Because right now, we are sucking at primary care, and the problem has reached critical mass. AND, we are sitting on the precipice of a revolution in primary care – the ability to provide contextual care, the ability to assess precursors to disease, and the ability to treat those conditions far more effectively – they are all on our doorstep.

So, in this first episode, I sit down with my Producer, Jess Greenwood, to share my rationale on focusing this season on the revolution in primary care and what you, the audience, should be listening for with this season’s guests.

We’re quick to blame genetics for our health and wellness issues, but the reality is that genetics only makes up 18% of our health destiny. That means the rest is up to us. 

Our guest today, Dr. Grant Zarzour, has seen that first hand in his own family. When his son was diagnosed with moderate autism, he and his wife refused to accept the predictions for his future. They dove head first into the data and in so doing, revolutionized not just their son’s life, but their own. Now a relentless proponent of diet, sleep, and exercise for physical and mental health, Dr. Zarzour feels like we all have a hand in our own destiny. We just have to commit. 

Dr. Zarzour is a practicing hip and knee surgeon in Mobile, AL.  He is the president of the largest orthopaedic practice in Alabama. While treating thousands of patients a year, Grant has developed a passion for preventive medicine. In 2024, he founded Sperity Health, which offers personalized longevity coaching to help its members improve their diet, exercise, and sleep with expert MD guidance. Sperity Health’s mission is to lower its member’s risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia by up to 50% based on data and science.