Colin Hung, CMO and Editor of Healthcare Scene as well as co-host of the Healthcare IT Today podcast, shares his insights on how the pandemic has changed all of us and why social media is poised to lead the health IT community towards a brighter future. You’ll also hear Colin's top picks for healthcare thought leaders to follow, and what technologies he believes are rising to meet today’s challenges.
Title: A Bright Outlook for Humanizing Healthcare
Guest: Colin Hung, CMO and Editor of Healthcare Scene as well as co-host of the Healthcare IT Today podcast
Host: Christine Parent, Associate Vice President, MEDITECH
Colin: We've now shown hey, we can move this fast right, and hopefully, that will embolden some folks to take and try some new technologies and take some risks that may be previously they would shy away from because it would disrupt the status quo. So I think that's been hopefully it's going to be something we carry forward beyond the pandemic.
Christine: So welcome to another episode of MEDITECH Podcast the leader in healthcare technology empowering you to be a more informed healthcare consumer and provider. Hear the latest from our friends and colleagues in the US, Canada, and abroad on topics we think you should know about.
I'm happy to welcome Colin Hung, CMO, and editor of Healthcare Scene a health IT media outlet and co-founder of the HCLDR Healthcare Leadership Blog. A social media leader in the health IT community, Colin was noted as a top influencer in digital pharma by Pharmaceutical Technology in 2020, and Awards Magazine topped 30 Tech Influencers in 2021.
Today we'll hear more about Colin’s perspectives on healthcare and social media. Welcome Colin, glad you can join us.
Colin: Thanks a lot, Christine, really, really excited to be here!
Christine: Colin, you're actively involved in the healthcare community and you also list yourself as a health IT true believer on your Linkedin profile so tell me what is a true believer and what drives your passion for health care?
Colin: Yes, I am a health IT true believer. I think what drives me is exactly that statement, I really am excited about and passionate about the use of technology to help make health care better for patients, clinicians, and staff. As I look back across my career I think that's been the driving force a lot of times in what I do and the companies I work for. It's really to make sure that the right technology gets used in the right way, by the right people, implemented properly, and then really yields the benefits that we're all hoping for. I'm really, really excited about technology in general but lately, I've been really passionate about using technology to increase access to healthcare. I think that's increasingly been a problem, this was a problem even before COVID and I feel very fortunate because I live here in Canada and we have universal healthcare up here so access is a little bit less of a challenge but it's still challenging in some rural areas and certainly as health continues to go digital there's certainly access challenges in terms of you know, the necessary devices and broadband connections that are needed in order to access some of these new and amazing functions.
Christine: I think that's where technology is today that's kind of changed the conversation as you were saying with the last 18 months in the pandemic. I applaud you and I think I'm a true believer as well.
In your opinion what have been some of the biggest challenges to health care in the last year and do you believe this has improved the overall patient experience either now or in the future?
Colin: Yeah, I think it's sort of split, you know. I think there are certain things that have happened over the last 18 months that have definitely improved patient experience, for example, telehealth, the widespread adoption of telehealth by providers. Before the pandemic, there was sort of sporadic use, intermittent use of this kind of technology. A lot of physicians required patients to come in to be seen but because of the pandemic we all of a sudden adopted this telehealth and all of a sudden people realize oh this isn't as bad and in fact, it's really convenient. So I think that has improved the patient experience for many people not having to come in and drive in some cases hundreds of miles just to go get a script renewal or go get a checkup or something like that so I think from that perspective it's helped.
Of course, there's been a lot of challenges too. The two of the biggest ones that I think have hurt patient experience over the last 18 months is the number of physician practices that had to close because they had to go and join a larger institution or they just decided to retire really accelerated during covid. I think anyone who was getting that retirement zone I think decided you know what this is it, let's just call it. I think also from a financial standpoint you know that COVID proved, kind of exposed the gap on how unprofitable some of these practices really were and so they were forced to sell their practices and join larger institutions so I think the loss of the small practices is going to hurt access and it's going to hurt patient experience overall.
I also think one of the biggest issues that has come through COVID is of course been burnout. We're all burnt out, patients included but it's been particularly noticeable on staff and public health. After 18 months of battling this pandemic and the message is still not getting through and the number of people in the ICUs continues to go up and down. I think everyone is burnt out and that definitely has an impact on patient experience, I mean it's understandable. I think people can be patient with that but it definitely has hurt the overall experience we've had with our healthcare system.
Christine: It'll be interesting to see what the next couple of years really hold for us and what some of the challenges are around the staffing components and can technology augment some of that and where.
Colin: One good thing that did come out of the pandemic was that healthcare proved to itself that we can actually change pretty quickly. We adapted to telehealth in a matter of days or weeks. We implemented new privacy things in a matter of weeks. We spun up entire new facilities in a matter of weeks and before I think we had this thing in our head that healthcare moves slowly and we're like molasses and we're always behind the times but COVID showed to us that when properly motivated and unfortunately took a pandemic you know we can get stuff done. I think that does bode well for the future because I think we've now shown hey we can move this fast right and hopefully, that will embolden some folks to take and try some new technologies and take some risks that may be previously they would shy away from because it would disrupt the status quo.
So I think that's been hopefully it's going to be something we carry forward beyond the pandemic.
Christine: I think we will see that. I think that some of the apps that came out during this time and you mentioned virtual care you know we talked to our physicians and some of them were in their own doctor's offices learning how to do virtual care like you said overnight, almost their own IT staff in some cases.
I'm going to pivot a little bit now and go back to you being a thought leader and obviously, you got the accolades from some of the awards that recently came out. So just as a thought leader yourself how would you define a thought leader and what advice or tips would you give someone on what has elevated you to achieve this distinction?
Colin: Wow! It still sounds so strange to hear being referred to as a thought leader. You know because I always look at myself as you know here's this unknown person from Canada where he happens to work in healthcare IT, has some passionate opinions about things but first of all I have to say that I don't think being a thought leader is a title that you can bestow onto yourself. I definitely think it's something that others have to consider you to be, so in other words, you have to earn it. It's not a title that you sort of can just self-exit, designate and to me a thought leader is anybody who has a passion for or ability to share knowledge, opinion, ideas, and thoughts that are valuable or helpful to an audience. And the keyword for me is helpful. I mean anybody can spout opinions not as many can offer opinions and ideas that actually are helpful to a certain segment of the audience. So you have to have that, you have to have the passion to share that kind of stuff and then you have to have a platform up which to share it. Some you know use the stage, actual presentation some use platforms like social media like Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, some use podcasts and so forth. You need the combination of something valuable to share and then a method to share it and then it's just a matter of being consistent. I think you asked me what has helped me you know become a thought leader I think it's really the consistency. I've been doing this now for about seven years on Twitter, actually maybe even longer and it's just consistent. I'm on there every day. I tweet, I post things, I interact with people and so it's you know being consistent and being there over that amount of time has just you know made people notice that oh, I have some interesting things to say and then some things that have been helpful. I think that's one of the biggest keys is just being consistent. It doesn't happen overnight. It does take time to build up the reputation and to build up the following.
Christine: I do know you read a lot so I know that you follow a bunch of different other thought leaders, so can you share with us who are some of your favorite thought leaders that you follow either in healthcare or even outside of healthcare?
Colin: Oh, this is going to get me in trouble because I'm going to forget some people's names but yeah there are some people that whenever they tweet something out or post something on Linkedin, I'm like right there you know reading their stuff and one that comes immediately to mind is Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (@healthythinker) on Twitter. She's a healthcare economist so her perspective is wholly unique and also she's just an amazing and accomplished writer so I look at her stuff not just for the content but actually for the style and the way she composes things. I'm a big fan of Jane's. Dr. Rasu Shrestha over at Atrium Health is also a thought leader physician and hospital leader that I look to for inspiration, he's a dear friend as well so he's someone that I look to. Nick Adkins who is the founder of the grassroots pink socks movement is also inspiring. My colleague John Lin you know a lot of things that he posts are very useful and I'm just going to rhyme a few off with Jared Johnson, Joy Rios, Matt Fisher, Dan Dunlop, Grace Cordovano, Jen Horonjeff, LAlupusLady, all these people like I follow and I just love their stuff.
Christine: Who has been one of your favorite podcast guests on your own Healthcare IT Today podcast and I’m going to use the phrase from one of your latest podcasts who is rising in healthcare?
Colin: Yeah, we have a lot of fun on our podcast, we actually try to model ourselves after like sports shows. What's rising and falling, who's on the ascendant, who's on the decline. More like technologies, what are technologies that are ascending, what are on the decline. We try to have some fun rather than just do straight-up interviews all the time but some of my favorite interviews have been patient advocates. I find them to be first of all very refreshing, they have a very unique perspective, they're super passionate and so basically just have to ask one question and then they can go for like 10 minutes, The stories they tell and what they do is just so amazing. I'm always inspired by having conversations with them so these are people like like I said Grace Cordovano, Jen Horonjeff, Amanda, Barbie Ingel, all these people are fantastic. Also, some of my other favorite interviewees and podcast guests are retired folks because then they give you sort of the real story because they have no political agenda anymore and so they are really super honest and super forthright which is obviously what you want in a podcast so those make for great guests.
In terms of what's rising? You know we talked about this recently as well you know we look at the retail health phenomenon, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, we see that is a threat but also an opportunity for healthcare and we see that definitely growing. There's also been a lot of movement around remote patient monitoring and so RPM is definitely on the rise. In terms of popularity and the need for it as more and more people want to be at home rather than in the four walls of an institution, of a facility so those two in particular I think are very hot these days.
Christine: Excellent, I think the patient stories are always ones that really are great to get out there as well.
So, Colin is the co-founder of the healthcare leadership blog in hashtag HCLDR Tweet Chat what do you see as the future of the health IT community in social media be it posting, audio, zoom, video chats, what is that future?
Colin: Well, I can't really talk about HCLDR without giving a shout out to my co-host of many years Joe Bobian out of Houston, he's helped me run HCLDR and help manage the community for many, many years now so shout out to Joe, thanks, couldn't do without you. Frankly, we're both surprised that we've been around for nine years. We didn't really think we would go this long but we're so grateful and thankful that we have and I think you know part of the reason why we've been so successful is we've remained consistent on Twitter. We talked about that before but there's been some really cool technologies that have come and gone over the years that we've tried and dabbled in. One of them was Blab and now today it's Clubhouse and that kind of technology. There's a lot of stuff that some friends are doing on virtual reality and hosting virtual reality meetups. There's certainly a lot of things with live video and zoom chats. All of these technologies are fantastic I think you have to really find one that works for you and your community and I think that's the key, it's the community versus the technology. We could all literally hop on the phone and would still be a community. I'm very excited actually about some of the VR stuff. I mean it's not something that I've tried too much but I've tried it enough that I'm pretty excited to see where that goes. I can certainly see the appeal in terms of having that visual component in addition to the audio and that sort of immersive world so that to me is some pretty exciting stuff happening in the VR world.
Christine: So we often encourage our customers which are healthcare providers to share their stories with us. So what type of stories do you think are the most important story or topics for healthcare organizations today to be sharing?
Colin: Oh, that's a great question. I think for me the most important stories that people can share even before the pandemic and certainly now during the pandemic is success stories like good news stories. I'm a big believer in positive deviance which is this theory that says okay let's look for people that are making it work or have done it successfully and let's hear their story and take the elements of what worked for them and maybe we can apply it where we are. So I think success stories whether that's a technology success story, a personnel success story, a personal success story are the ones that need to be shared the most. I mean, we need good news in healthcare, let's be honest. A lot of the news that happens in healthcare is not the greatest and so I think success stories just resonate more and they have a longer tale in the sense that they're much more useful even years after they the story has happened because people will look at it and draw more inspiration even if they can't copy exactly what was done in that success story. So I don't mean just to talk about like oh, here's the fantastic results and talk about the stuff that happened beforehand. How did you get buy-in? Who did you have to convince? What did you say to convince your peers that this was a good idea? Who did you get on board? All these kinds of things. How did you involve patience in this initiative? All those things are very valuable and part of that story so I love those kinds of stories and I hope more of your clients can share those.
Christine: There is a lot to be learned and a lot to be shared and experiences to put out there. So many of us experience the value of connecting. You mentioned your platform and connecting with your community, with others on social media, what about those individuals that aren't on social media today? What advice would you give a clinician or care provider on joining social media? Where do they start?
Colin: I think at the beginning when I first started in the social media community we were all very, very passionate about every clinician should get on social media it's so valuable, it's a great education, it's a great way to connect with people, and then I think as the years went by we kind of realized well maybe this isn't for everybody. I would say this to someone who is thinking about or considering social media that is, just try it. You don't have to be a doctor, you don't have to be a nurse on social media, you can just be you and find places that are interesting and find niches of healthcare that are interesting for you. No one expects you to be their physician on social media and if they do those are people you just don't follow back and don't interact with. But, there are plenty of people out there who are just interested in sharing ideas and sharing opinions and bouncing off and getting feedback on ideas. So I think my recommendation, my advice to anybody would be just give it a try. Do what's comfortable for you. Try the platform that you think would make the most sense for you whether that's Twitter or Clubhouse or Linkedin or TikTok even. Just go ahead and try it and have fun with it. Look at it as more of an experiment. Look at it as more of a helpful tool that can be an adjunct to your day as opposed to a necessary part of your day. It shouldn't be hard, social media shouldn't be something that's hard. Even better, especially for clinicians these days there are actually some closed social media platforms that you can use, Figure 1 even I think Doximity has one. So there are some private ones where it's not visible to the public so if that's a real concern about you know sharing PHI or anything like that or being too forthright there are some closed ones which are only open to, sorry only available to clinicians and people who are in the same kinds of practice. I think there's plenty of opportunities these days to get involved in social media.
Christine: I love what you said, just pick one and have fun even if it's just following different either people that you're you're interested in their content. I know that the CDC, you know that a lot of people went on Twitter and started to follow some of the different recommendations and guidelines that were coming out during the past 18 months and they were relatively new to social media as well.
Colin: Yeah and I think there's that sort of a misnomer that being on social media you have to be like one of the Kardashians and post every 10 minutes. Being on social media could be just consuming stuff and posting like once a month, that's okay. You know there’s no sort of bar that you have to cross and say oh if you're on social media you have to post this many times. No, you just go with what you feel is comfortable and there are a lot of people out there as you said that just like to read stuff like from the CDC or from their local public health departments. There's lots of great information out there on social media.
Christine: This was a great, great time Colin so thanks again for joining us. So we always end our podcast with a fun question to gain a little insight into the more personal side of our guests. I hear you love to cook and I also love to cook when I have the time on the weekends. One of my favorite meals to cook is Yellow Thai Chicken Curry especially on a cold, cold New England winter night. So what is one of your favorite meals to cook if you mind sharing that with us?
Colin: Yeah, I think this is somewhat surprising for some people to learn because I travel so much but I do love to cook especially I like to barbecue and do those things. The Canadian barbecue season is very short so I have built an area where I can barbecue throughout the year even in the snow I will go out and barbecue. But funny enough, my favorite thing to cook is actually like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. I actually enjoy cooking the turkey. That's because a few years ago I discovered how good a brined turkey can be so I've found a way to brine very large turkeys, very small turkeys, and I brined them for like 48 to 24 hours ahead. I understand some of the chemistry a little bit but all I know is that when I put it in the oven and put the time in it cooks way faster and ends up being way juicier than any other method I've ever tried so. Every year for the last few years I've gotten comments on how good turkey is whenever I make it so it is one of my favorite things to cook but mostly because of what goes around it. The fact that there's going to be a big family gathering and there's going to be lots of friends in the house and then so to me that always makes that meal a little bit more special.
Christine: Excellent, so thanksgiving at your place in 2021?
Colin: There you go! There you go, we might have to mask up but you know totally, totally game for that.
Christine: So thank you very much, Colin, it was a pleasure having you on our podcast and I'd like to thank you for sharing all the tips about social media and continue what you're doing, you're making an impact in healthcare.
Colin: Well thanks for having me Christine, it's been a pleasure.
Christine: Thanks for tuning in. In our next episode, we'll chat with two physician leaders at the Aga Khan University and Hospitals as they discuss how their organization helps ensure all patients across East Africa in South Asia have equitable access to quality care and their vision for how an integrated EHR can help fulfill their mission across their region and beyond. Stay informed and subscribe to MEDITECH podcasts and be sure to check out our resource page for links from this episode. We'll talk to you next time.