Improving Outcomes and Lowering the Cost of Care

What's up, everybody? It's David, host of Highway to Health podcast series. Thank you for being here. If you've tuned in to previous episodes, you know it's a passion of mine to bring on experts around the health care industry. And we discuss how we're making improvements to the access to health care, the experience while getting that health care, and then obviously the outcomes for our patient and provider communities. And, you're gonna like who we have on the show today. He's a chief commercial officer at Health Catalyst, and Health Catalyst is an outcomes improvement company. So it's a perfect time, perfect guest, and you're gonna love this episode. Kevin Freeman, welcome to Highway to Health. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you for being here. Great. We got the good studio today. This is awesome. Yeah. I'm a Dallas guy, so seeing that seeing Dallas and the skyline is great. Well, only the best only the best for you. We're We're gonna get started in a minute. It's a traditional mine. It's it's a one of my favorite questions to ask our executives is the healthy habits mentally and physically that they've built into their daily routine. You're a busy guy like we all are, but, you know, priority or responsibility of ours is to perform at a high level for those that depend on us. So what have you done to, you know, implement a a routine that works for you? That's a great it's a great question. And being busy is often the excuse, right, to to try and to focus on yourself. And I think focusing on yourself is the most important part of being really good at what you do with with with whatever that is. You know, we have a saying at Health Catalyst, at least in our group, you family work are the three core values that we try to live by and, you know, you're be good for you and take care of you. Mental, you know, health's a real thing and Yep. You know, make sure you're taking care of that. When you're good for you, you're good for your family, then you're really good at work. And it should be in that order prioritized. So we we try to prioritize, at least in our group, just the the family kind of centered, focus and whatever's important to to our team members. Outside of just me personally, the gym. I get up every morning when I'm when I can. I'd say five or six days a week when I'm at home and get in the gym and I've got my routine of getting a lifetime fitness early, maybe hitting a couple emails, getting the gym in. It's it clears my head. It's a it's it's a stress reliever for me. One hundred percent. Let's me work on me before, you know, before we focus on the team members. And like I said, focus on you first before anything else is the most important part, whether it's physical health or mental health or that's all important. It's important for our family too. We're pretty, Yeah. Pretty, healthy family. Good. So they keep me checked up, keep me in line. They will, man. They'll keep you accountable. But it's almost like when you're on the plane and they tell you to put your mask on first before you help anybody else with their oxygen mask. Because if if you're not there, you can't help anybody else. And That's right. Our our health has to be the same way where we have to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. So I like that you family work. That's a good thing to live by. Alright. You've been in health care a long time. I'm I'm gonna say a long time. Yeah. Don't put the years out. Just say a long time. Long time long time covers it fine. Alright. Alright. A decently medium level time you've been in health care. More than others and less than some. Yeah. One hundred percent. But that that leads to some great experience. And, you know, what how does this experience pay off for your providers? Even you yourself, but also health catalyst. You know, this crazy industry that we're in, it changes all the time. How do you lean on that experience? Yeah. It's you know, health care is a is a moving target. So it's I think experience matters from the perspective of understanding that that's a real thing. Yeah. Not going in expecting things to be the same. Meeting with clients on a quarterly basis is important to understand what those things are and being really good listeners. So I think being a good listener almost beats experience when you're coming when you're working with clients. Yeah. It it's important to listen, but it's also important to kind of internalize and understand what they're going through so that you can shift your strategy or, you know, upgrade your strategy, from year to year to to stay, you know, in line with what they're what they're working against. Yeah. I mean, anticipation's a big thing, where you almost you not that you can guess or predict what's gonna happen next, but anticipating that something is gonna happen, and then listening intently to understand what those challenges are. I bet you walk into a meeting sometimes with an idea and it is completely different by the time you walk out. It is. Yeah. Or or it's it needs to be adjusted. Right? It may not be completely different, but it may be a little bit different where, we we say at Health Catalyst, we wanna be data informed. We're a data company. And in a lot of the decisions we make, we like to lean in on being data informed. We try to be data informed when we get there, but we also try to be really good listeners when we get there and not have a, you know, hundred percent confirmed hypothesis, and try to drive the meeting, but be good listeners. Health catalyst, our experience of being, in health care and with in health care data for fifteen plus years and having over three hundred use cases of outcomes improvement that we've been able to deliver to health care puts us in a unique position to listen. Right? So when we listen, we can apply those three hundred use cases often to say, we've had other clients with, you know, similar things that they've they've tried to work against and this is how we helped them. Yeah. History of delivery. Right. Delivery of the challenges. Yeah. Delivering delivering value. Right. Right? It's, it's an, you know, when you think about clients and keeping clients long term, you always hear people say if clients like you, they'll stay with you. Yeah. And it's not true. Right? They'll they can they can like you, but if you're not providing value and they have so much money to spend, they may like you and they may still like you when you're not partners, but you have to deliver value in order to keep that partnership in place. Especially in health care because that bucket of money that you just talked about isn't very big and it's shrinking all the time. It shrinks all the time and, there's gotta be some sort of return on investment. And they've they have to answer for the money that they spend just like any other business. So how do we add value and make sure that, you know, we we need to articulate that value better. That's what we're trying to do as an organization is not leave the health system out there to say, what what is HealthCatalyst doing for me? Or what are my other vendors doing for me? We're bringing that value to them to say, hey. Over the last quarter Right. Over the last six months, over the last year, this is what we've done. Here's some data that says, here's what we should work on next. Let's talk about it. Yep. That's cool. Kind of driving to a solution not with a solution, you know, where based on data, here's what we know and it highlights some challenges or some obstacles that you might be Right. Anticipating. I think, you know, I touched on this experience topic and this history of delivery because you guys are in a space. Health Catalyst is in a space right now, which is growing in popularity and gaining a lot of interest from all kinds of companies that aren't natively health care based or health care focused, but notable names. Call it big tech. Call it enterprise tech. Call it whatever you want. But there's been an elevated level of focus and interest in this space. And I would anticipate that your experience, your history of delivery might give you, an opportunity to differentiate. How does how does that experience help you position yourself and HealthCatalyst when dealing with some of these huge names that might be more familiar to the average provider? Yeah. That's that's a great question. And and we love more vendors and more, you know, big tech coming into health care because we're we're a mission driven organization. You know, we're really in it to drive health care forward. And that means more vendors and more ideas. The more ideas, the better. We do wake up every day, and this is all we do. Like, we're a health care company. We have data to back up our ability to add value to help clients, you know, move the ball forward. It's a interesting space now because with all the tech coming in, I think the it gets the messaging gets a little cloudy. Mhmm. And people are trying to really figure out, like, you know, what is Microsoft doing? What's Snowflake doing? What's Databricks doing? All great companies, all great partners of ours. But then how do we combine the best of breed technologies across Sure. HealthCatalyst and all these other vendors? I love them I love the, saying better together. I think there's a better together story between us and other big big tech vendors. Our expertise of being in data, expertise you know, the health care data model for fifteen years in in helping clients achieve outcomes improvement. I love going to shows because if somebody comes by my booth, they'll say, what are you doing? I'm I'm not gonna say data analytics because you probably went to fifty boops. Sorry. I just said that to you. That and AI. Yeah. That and AI. Yeah. But what I love to talk to people about data just being data. Right? So if you surface data, that's great. But if you don't have the data literacy and the wrapper of health care improvement to put that data to work, just data. Right. So how do you how do we teach our clients, educate them from a data literacy data literacy perspective to, take that data throughout the organization and solve multiple use cases. Yeah. I like that's a stance of strength because, I mean, like, if you if you listen to Elon, if you ask Elon Musk about, you know, these these new vendors, manufacturers of electric vehicles, he'll say something similar. Good. You know, that's great. We need more advancement. We we need more ideas. And I trust that Tesla will be the strongest, the leader, the authority in this space. And so when I hear him say that, it sounds very similar to how you discuss, you know, these new these new ideas that are coming into outcome improvement and data literacy because, look, this isn't a new bag for for health catalyst. Y'all been doing it a long time. Yeah. We have. Yeah. And it's and we and we love our partners and with the new platform Ignite that we just released, you know, this this past year, we're we wanna go in and take those best of breed technologies, any investments that health care, or our clients have made, and not not do a rip and replace. We wanna build upon that. We wanna build upon those investments. And how do we work with those other investments to to drive value quicker for your organization? Well and I think that would probably lead to some positive flexibility in your solution. Because if you're going in and trying to rip everything out so that you can bring in your solution instead of playing nice with others and having good partners, that might put a limit on how quickly you can drive value. It might put a limit on who you can drive value with. How important is being a flexible solution to HealthCatalyst and the providers you work with? It's super important, especially even more so, I think, think, in health care as they've made investments. They're they're in contracts. They have partners. They have relationships that they've established with other vendors. The more we can take those investments, not throw them out and partner with them, figure out what's working about that investment. You know, is there is there a one plus one equals three between Health Callus and that investment that you have? Let's talk about how we how we make it that better together message. How do we is there a better together message when we get there? Yeah. I do think our expertise coming in and actually putting the data to work is unique to us. It it helps drive value to our clients, not just from a project one project or it could be one project, could be one solution. It could be five or six solution that HealthCatalyst provides across an enterprise, but adding adding value for not just one year. But we have some clients that have been partners for ten plus years, and we're always working with them and sitting down with them to see how we can continue to move the ball forward with them. They wouldn't be there either if if they were unsure of the return or the value that you were bringing. So that's a really, really strong sign. You know, and flexible solution, I think of, you know, these these providers that, you know, I've experienced with in my past, they're all on they're all at a different stage of their journey. Some of them are more forward thinking, innovative, mature digitally, and others are at the other end of the spectrum just because of, you know, the nature of of the business. I would imagine a flexible solution would help you meet those providers wherever they are in their digital maturation journey. Yeah. I think that the flexible solution does for sure. You know, with Ignite so initially, you know, our investment from the on the tech stack side was was pretty heavy from a professional services perspective. We've shifted that model, to where if a client wants to build their own on our stack, they can. If they want more project based work, we can do that. I mean, we're there to help and assist. And I think that's the key part is the tech's the tech. So having the tech in or having a flexible solution is awesome. But having the experience to actually drive value over fifteen years with, you know, three hundred plus use cases and multiple clients, sitting down with them and understanding where they're at in their journey, we've got that experience and expertise to help them along that, you know, wherever they sit in that, whatever that journey looks like. Is there a data literacy void in in the provider community? Yeah. I think so. And I think there I think there's a lot of really smart people in health care. Yeah. Right? They're just a that's a one of the great things about working in health care. We have a lot of smart clients. But the but they're busy on lots of things. Yeah. Amen. Right? So we wanna be able to take help them take that data and push it throughout the organization and teach that data literacy throughout the entire organization. That's a lot that's a lot for them to pick up and try to do. Sure. At Health Catalyst University, we do that for them. Okay. So we'll bring in any any stakeholder with the data because data's data. Right? So if so and so's got data, what are they gonna do with it when they get it? How do they look at it and really understand it and the complexities of it? We're there to help them help them learn that. I mean and the more stakeholders that are data literate inside the organization, the more value they're gonna get from their from their data strategy. Tell me a little bit more about Health Catalyst University. Health Catalyst University is, amazing. And, they we partner with clients all over the country on lots of things, whether it be, you know, initial I'm just getting into data. I don't know anything about it. I don't even know how to drive a car kind of thing. Right? I don't know how to drive data. So walk me through the initial steps. What should I be focused on first? So way down here all the way to I'm pretty good with it. But I want enhance, I wanna be better. How do I drive it even Sure. Even more forward? And so we have through the university, we use Amplifier to, like, go and give tests and they're really tough tests. We take them internally sometimes. It's like chutes and ladders. You get a score wrong, it takes you backwards and it takes you hours to so you don't get to get out of that that test without understanding data. Like, it will not let you do it. And and I think having that rigor and we identify you know, we sit down with clients and and try to identify areas of where they could use some help. Are there curric curriculums we can help build for them? Yeah. Right? Externally that we've got our own internal curriculums to help, but there's, you know, curriculums they want us to help build for them, we can do that too. I think, I think education is probably one of the most, you know, call it enablement education, whatever you wanna call it. You know, oftentimes, we get we get lost in this solution solution solution mindset, and that's what we're that's what we're discussing. That's what we're talking about. We're using that kind of jargon. There's a problem here that is unconnected, disconnected, to that solution. And sometimes we're speaking different languages. Education's gotta be at the core of what we're doing in health care, especially when we're, you know, a solution. Hundred percent. Yeah. And it's it's the education, like we talked about earlier, whether it's, learning data and what's important and what I should be looking at. But I think education just in general, as people is what am I doing now that I need to stop doing? Right? So what are you learning through all of the work that you're doing that, hey, this is working, this is, and we only have so many cycles. Right. So applying learnings is is also super important. Also learning. Yeah. Where where we can save time. What's not working? Where do I just What's not working? Let's stop doing that. And then you can double down where where it matters. So when I when I hear flexibility, when I hear education, when I hear these things, you can't you can't do this as a company unless you have a really strong idea on on on what your mission is and then being driven by that mission. You you've said mission driven a lot. What does that mean to you personally? It means a lot to me, and I've been in health care now for a long time. I'm not gonna say years like we talked about. And and health care is a special place. I mean, if you're just as a person. Right? Health care is important to us as people, and the patient is important. And we had a company, Vottaware, that we, sold to Health Catalyst in September twenty twenty. And so we're fortunate enough to to get into the Health Catalyst family. And getting there just in the very beginning and listening to Dan Burton, our CEO, and, you know, it just was this nice positive, you know, supportive team member focused place. And and mission driven, like, you know, we talk about the patient being important and the patient the mission of the patient being important. And how do we, as a company, help pull the cost and waste out of health care that drives that expensive health care price to patients? Right? And that the cost structure's still something that health care struggles with and One hundred percent. Bunch of our clients struggle with. And we try to help with identifying those areas we can help improve that. But we wake up as everyday health care driven, mission centered people, and we build our teams around that. We want team members that are mission driven because when you sit in front of a client and I I honestly believe health care people who work in health care or people who work at our clients are mission driven people. One hundred percent. They're in it for the mission. And we wanna easier things they could be doing. There's easier things they could be doing. They could help care money somewhere. Health care is hard. Yeah. There's a lot it's hard. But I also think that it's important. Yeah. Right? And they wake up every day and they're like, this is important to me. You feel good about going to work. That's how I feel about health care. When I get up every day and I go work on myself. Right? My body and physical you know, all the things, and health care just being available for every human being, whatever that looks like is it's it's important. So that that's what it means to me. Yeah. Access to that care experience Access to care. And then outcomes. And, none of those things are possible if if this cost structure doesn't get under control. We have to eliminate a lot of the waste and the mismanagement, to get there, to get where we wanna go. Yeah. We got a lot of smart people on it. We got smart people with the client. We got smart people in in the, partner world or vendor world with HealthCatalyst and all the other vendors. But but it is. It's it's learning and and applying and, you know, really digging into, you know, know, where do we start and what's our what does outcomes improvement look like for me as a healthcare organization? Yeah. And keeping that front of mind makes data more than just data. Right. It's it's a a means to an end, which is getting patients what they need by helping the pro provider be more efficient. That's right. What's the one thing you want our listeners walking away understanding? If they could take one thing away from today. One thing away from today. I think the one thing that you know, all the work we do in health care is important whether you're on the partner side or the or the, you know, client side. And, I'm a mission driven guy. Our organization's mission driven. The more we work together across all vendor partners, all organizations, consulting companies, you know, competition's good. Competition makes everybody better. Yeah. There are better together stories in some of this and how we can, you know, help move health care to that place where Yeah. You know, cost management becomes better, you know, those types of things. But, yeah, it probably be that that we're health catalyst in, you know, me personally, mission driven. We love what we do. We love our clients. We love the work that they do. We love to participate. We know we can be better. We wake up trying to be better every single day, and, we'd love to hear feedback on how we can be better from our clients, which they're great about giving to us. But yeah. Yeah. It's I love health care. I love the mission. I love the people. Love our team. You reminded me. It's exciting. You reminded me of something I heard at, I think it was VIVE earlier this year. The Phillips CEO got on stage and at that time, he's brand new. Mhmm. And he's standing in front of hundreds of people, exhibitors that have the newest, shiniest solution. They're there to evangelize about how they can disrupt and change health care. The first words out of his mouth were, none of y'all are gonna change health care. And he just let it sit. And he goes, because none of y'all wanna talk to each other. None of y'all wanna work together. And you know what? He's right. And, hearing coming from, you know, what I've learned from you today is there's a better together approach. There's a need for flexibility. And, let's let's collaborate. Let's work together. Let's be flexible. And then let's educate you along the way. And maybe maybe we can get there one day. Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. And it's, the better together story benefits clients. Yeah. Right? So Which benefits the patient? Clarity is important, and all of us delivering that clarity in our message with our clients and our meetings with our clients is critical to path forward. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. This was great. Yeah. This was fun. We'll have you back. Alright. Appreciate it. Bye.