Navigating Change in Healthcare: A Conversation with John Odberg
Today, we engage with John Odberg, an exemplary figure in leadership, innovation, and impact. As the co-founder of Pricinia Health, John has dedicated his career to transforming the management of type 2 diabetes, a chronic condition that significantly affects millions globally. This episode delves into John's extensive journey through entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation, emphasizing how his strategic insights and operational excellence facilitate thriving amidst complexity. We explore the profound implications of his work, which not only aids organizations in navigating change but also empowers individuals grappling with chronic diseases. Through our conversation, we uncover the essential relationship skills and mindset necessary for effective leadership and the pivotal role of patient engagement in achieving health successes.
The dialogue commences with an introduction to John Odberg, a notable leader in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. With a career marked by diverse roles—including founder, CEO, and professor—John embodies a wealth of experience that spans various industries. His insights into leadership and strategic management are particularly valuable as he navigates the complexities of organizational growth and conflict resolution. A significant aspect of the conversation centers around Pricinia Health, which he co-founded alongside Dr. Dustin Williams. This organization is dedicated to transforming the management of type 2 diabetes, a chronic disease that has long posed challenges for patients and healthcare providers alike.
John's narrative unfolds as he reflects on his journey through leadership, highlighting a pivotal transition from a transactional approach to one that prioritizes relational dynamics. He discusses the importance of understanding personal connections and emotional intelligence in fostering an environment conducive to peak performance. This introspective analysis reveals the transformative nature of leadership, as John emphasizes the necessity of accountability, trustworthiness, and vulnerability within professional relationships. The conversation also delves into common blind spots in leadership, particularly in first-line management, showcasing the need for a more nuanced understanding of team dynamics and individual motivations.
The episode transitions into an exploration of Pricinia Health's systematic approach to diabetes management, known as the START protocol. John shares compelling success stories from pilot studies, illustrating how personalized care and patient engagement can lead to remarkable health improvements. By focusing on small, incremental changes, the protocol demonstrates that effective chronic disease management is both attainable and sustainable. This conversation not only highlights John's visionary leadership but also serves as an important call to action for a reimagining of healthcare practices. It advocates for a shift toward an empathetic, patient-centered model that prioritizes collaboration and innovation in addressing chronic diseases.
Takeaways:
- The episode features John Odberg, a multifaceted leader known for his innovative approaches to healthcare and chronic disease management.
- John emphasizes the importance of making informed decisions in life, particularly regarding relationships and personal values.
- The discussion reveals how John's career in healthcare led to the founding of Pricinia Health, focusing on transforming type 2 diabetes management.
- Listeners learn about the START protocol, which emphasizes systematic therapeutic alignment and personalized care for patients with chronic diseases.
- John notes the significance of training healthcare providers to meet patients where they are, enhancing their engagement in treatment.
- The episode underscores the goal of affecting a billion lives positively through improved health outcomes and innovative healthcare solutions.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Pricinia Health
- USC
Transcript
Today's guest is a true force in leadership, innovation and impact.
Speaker A:John Odberg is a founder, CEO and board director, advisor, professor and investor.
Speaker A:Trusted by organizations to navigate growth, conflict and change.
Speaker A:With a career spanning industries and disciplines, John brings a rare blend of strategic insight and operational excellence.
Speaker A:He is co founder of Pricinia Health alongside Dr. Dustin Williams, where they develop a transformational solution to type 2 diabetes, one that can reshape how we approach chronic disease management.
Speaker A:In this episode, we'll explore how John's journey through entrepreneurship, leadership and healthcare innovation and uncover how his work is helping organizations and individuals thrive in the face of complexity.
Speaker A:John, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker B:I'm really grateful to be here.
Speaker A:Good to have you on.
Speaker A:I'm going to ask you my favorite question.
Speaker A:What's your best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker B:Let's see.
Speaker B:I will tell you that the best piece of advice I received is probably the same advice I gave to my kids when they turn 18, and that is to know how to make the most important decisions in life.
Speaker B:Well, and I think those are who you spend your time with and what you spend your time on vocationally, like for work, and then what you believe in that's bigger than yourself.
Speaker B:And then I write them a letter on their 18th birthday about how those decisions get made and how to make those decisions in the context of gratitude.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But I think those three decisions really shape a life.
Speaker A:I love that I gotta start doing it.
Speaker A:I'm a little behind on some of my older kids now.
Speaker A:I have to pick a different birthday.
Speaker A:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker A:So, John, you've worn many hats in your life.
Speaker A:Founder, CEO, advisor, professor.
Speaker A:How has your diverse experience shaped your approach to leadership and decision making?
Speaker B:You know, there was a time when I led people and I would, I would characterize myself as not a great leader, not a leadership style that I was super proud of because it was very transactional.
Speaker B:And so I really made a hard shift 20 or so years ago and wanted to make sure that I understood the importance of professional and personal relationships and how that led to peak performance both at home and at work.
Speaker B:And that was a big shift for me.
Speaker B:Like, it was a.
Speaker B:It was a hard shift for me, but that really changed the course of my life in a lot of ways.
Speaker A:You know, it's funny, I think I had that same shift.
Speaker A:You know, I think when I, when I was younger, it was about, let's get the task done.
Speaker A:And then you realize, oh, there's people along the way and you have to kind of go back and how do, how do I make sure that I, I don't just put the task before the individuals.
Speaker B:Well, and I, you know, in the beginning I, I, I said the words, I, I said the words that I cared about people.
Speaker B:And in my heart I genuinely did care about people.
Speaker B:But the reality, I had this kind of quid pro quo mentality like if I do this for you, what will you do for me?
Speaker B:And if this happens, like it always came back to how does that impact me?
Speaker B:And, and I just, I found that to be, for the last 20 or so years, not so helpful.
Speaker B:And I just, I focus on helping people get what they want for them.
Speaker B:I used to thought, think that I knew what was best for everyone.
Speaker B:And I, I, that that was much more arrogant than I would have wanted to admit at the time.
Speaker A:I get that.
Speaker A:I'm curious, as you've led in so many different ways in different organizations, is there a common leadership blind spot that you've uncovered?
Speaker B:I, I think we, you know, first line management is really hard when, when you have kind of like managers who are managing first line people.
Speaker B:And there's not a really consistent message that I've seen across all, all the literature on leadership and management.
Speaker B:And so I went out and studied hundreds of years of leadership writing to find what I think was most important.
Speaker B:And I think there's a series of relationship skills that people need to understand for peak performance.
Speaker B:And there's a set of first line management skills that help people to manage others.
Speaker B:And so on the relationship side, responsibility and accountability are kind of like the groundwork.
Speaker B:But then you have accepting someone's position as being different to your own so that you can meet in the, where they are being appropriately vulnerable.
Speaker B:Vulnerable in a professional setting is really helpful to getting messages, you know, across and receiving them.
Speaker B:I think trustworthiness and holding, you know, information closely that shouldn't be shared is really important.
Speaker B:And then giving people the benefit of the doubt is often as is reasonable.
Speaker B:I think those four things on the relationship side are really critical.
Speaker B:And then on the performance side, for individual contribution, I think you have to separate skill set from mindset from work effort, which is work ethic from prioritization.
Speaker B:And when you do that, you start to understand when you look at all of that, management doesn't become entirely about discipline.
Speaker B:Like discipline works really well if somebody doesn't have a work effort, if they've got a work effort problem, but if someone's got a skill set problem, discipline doesn't work.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But if you can't accept that you start to use a hammer for everything.
Speaker B:And when people want to be managers or leaders because they desire the power, I find that they miss the ability to develop the skills they need to develop as leaders, which involve things like training and coaching and accountability and alignment and evaluation.
Speaker B:And, you know, I think there's some basic skills every leader needs to have.
Speaker B:But I think, I think when you focus on the wrong skills, you get expectedly bad outcomes.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:It's very insightful.
Speaker A:I want to dig into what you're kind of working on now, and I'm really curious about this.
Speaker A:So tell us about Precinia Health and what inspired you and Dr. Williams to begin that organization and to tackle type 2 diabetes.
Speaker B:Yeah, I spent a lot of my career helping companies through change management.
Speaker B:And then I met Dustin, who had a passion for helping patients with type 2 diabetes.
Speaker B:I'd worked in healthcare for a long time and my mother in law got sick is what really drove the point home.
Speaker B:Eventually ended up in the hospital.
Speaker B:It could have been avoided if a few different things had happened.
Speaker B:And I called up my friends at USC and said, hey, I want to come back and get a doctorate.
Speaker B:I want to come and solve this problem with type 2 diabetes.
Speaker B:And I kind of got a pat on the head.
Speaker B:And they're like, that's cute.
Speaker B:You can come back and study, we'll take your tuition.
Speaker B:But the whole world has been working on solving type 2 diabetes for like, you know, 50 or 60 years.
Speaker B:And so I started the program, we did a pilot study where we took 50 patients in a low income area with low access to care that were very, very sick.
Speaker B:And we helped them to control their diabetes in 12 weeks.
Speaker B:And so we did that by lowering their hemoglobin A1c by 3.2% in 12 weeks.
Speaker B:And usually if you can lower hemoglobin A1c by 1% in a year, you've got like a billion dollar drug.
Speaker B:It's very.
Speaker B:We did it by 3.2% in 12 weeks.
Speaker B:And then we kept people in control, which means out of the hospital, and their A1C was controlled for the next two years.
Speaker B:And so that was our first pilot study.
Speaker B:We're about to release our next study, which we just collected the data on.
Speaker B:We took even more sick patients and within three months we had them, you know, approaching control.
Speaker B:They had an average A1C of 11 in these cases.
Speaker B:And then at six months we were able to get 30% of these patients off of insulin.
Speaker B:So we're taking really the hardest cases, the most difficult, difficult people to help.
Speaker B:And we're helping them get healthy very, very quickly.
Speaker B:And it doesn't have to be, you know, hyper resource intensive.
Speaker B:It can be done with a mixture of really great medicine, really great behavioral health, really great behavior change, engaging the patient, helping them have better agency in healthcare.
Speaker B:And it's like the healthcare system may feel like it's aimed against us some days, and maybe that's even true.
Speaker B:But there are still some things we can do as patients to get better if we're willing to kind of be actively engaged in the process.
Speaker B:And that's what we talk to our patients about, is we'll do the medicine, we'll help with the mental health, but we also need you to be a participant in ways that are acceptable to you.
Speaker B:And that doesn't mean all you can use is kale and carrots.
Speaker B:Like, we just need to start small and we take this radically incremental approach.
Speaker A:So let's dive into your approach, because I'm curious when I hear those numbers, that's really impressive.
Speaker A:And I'm sure you're not real popular with the medical profession.
Speaker B:Everyone loves us.
Speaker B:We thought we wouldn't be, but people actually love to hear it because everyone wants to heal and we're doing it.
Speaker B:Yeah, but I think there are some people over time that won't love the fact that we're keeping people out of the hospital.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So tell us about your process.
Speaker A:Tell us the solution that you guys have come up with to help people really radically change the type 2 diabetes.
Speaker B:Yeah, we're calling it the START protocol, which is systematic therapeutic alignment and rapid titration.
Speaker B:And so what that means in like layman's terms is we look at all of the medicine.
Speaker B:So when someone's sick with type 2 diabetes, they probably have other things going on too.
Speaker B:And so we look at all of it because we want to understand what every doctor is asking them to do.
Speaker B:Because sometimes we're being asked to do so much, it's overwhelming.
Speaker B:So we wanna understand that first.
Speaker B:Then we understand all the mental health things that are going on.
Speaker B:Very common for people to have stress, anxiety and depression when they have type 2 diabetes or other issues.
Speaker B:And so we wanna understand what of those things are being caused by the disease and what other mental health issues may be going on, not as a result of the disease.
Speaker B:Then we look at the social determinants of health and we say, okay, what's actionable, what's not actionable?
Speaker B:And there's a bunch of other non Clinical variables we evaluate.
Speaker B:And then we evaluate readiness for change and say, okay, across all these things that are overwhelming, what is the thing the patient is ready to change and what is severe enough that it has to go to the top of the list?
Speaker B:And then we communicate with the entire medical system, all their providers, their primary care provider, their cardiologists, their endocrinologists, their surgeons, their podiatrist, their ophthalmologists.
Speaker B:Like, hey, here's the thing this patient wants to work on.
Speaker B:Here's why we think it's most important.
Speaker B:Here are the treatment protocols you've all given us.
Speaker B:Here's the way that's gonna work for the patient.
Speaker B:Is everyone okay?
Speaker B:And we all stack hands on that plan.
Speaker B:And then the patient's off to the races.
Speaker B:And we talk to the patients as often as every day in some cases to make sure that they're making the tiny little changes they need to make to be successful.
Speaker B:And so what does that look like?
Speaker B:It could be just changing the medicines a little bit to make sure that they're easier to tolerate or they have the appropriate medicines, or it may be that we need to them moving.
Speaker B:And so for one patient, it was, hey, can you walk to your mailbox at the end of the driveway today?
Speaker B:And they called back the next day.
Speaker B:They're like, I can't do it again.
Speaker B:My knee hurts.
Speaker B:We're like, well, tell me what happened when I.
Speaker B:When I, you know, my knee was really hurting.
Speaker B:Like, well, when was it hurting?
Speaker B:I was like, when I turned around.
Speaker B:Which way did you turn?
Speaker B:I turned to the left.
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:Did your knee hurt when you turned to the left?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:No problem.
Speaker B:Do you have a cane or a walking stick?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Tomorrow, can you try again?
Speaker B:And I want you to plant your walking stick in this way when you turn.
Speaker B:Since walking straight doesn't hurt.
Speaker B:They called back the next day, like, this is great.
Speaker B:I walked to the mailbox twice.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's those tiny, tiny little things that we have to get involved with so that people don't give up, so they have hope and they want to take the next step.
Speaker B:Pun intended, right?
Speaker B:Like they want.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Like, we.
Speaker B:We need to keep them moving with these tiny little things.
Speaker B:And then we.
Speaker B:The success builds on the success builds on the success.
Speaker B:And pretty soon they're.
Speaker B:They're taking less medicine, and pretty soon they're dropping weight, and pretty soon they're eating a little better.
Speaker B:But if someone's eating, you know, Captain Crunch every day for breakfast, and you're talking about Kale and carrots.
Speaker B:Like, you're not going to get them over that hump in a day.
Speaker B:Like, let's move from like Captain Crunch to Cheerios.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:Like maybe Honey Nut Cheerios.
Speaker B:I mean, whatever.
Speaker A:Right, right, exactly.
Speaker A:Or Special K, which is horrible.
Speaker B:There goes the sponsor.
Speaker A:Oh, sorry.
Speaker A:Never mind.
Speaker A:I love special cake.
Speaker A:You know, usually when you talk about making a lifestyle change, there are some mental hurdles you have to overcome.
Speaker A:What have you discovered is the biggest hurdle that maybe patients have to overcome?
Speaker A:Because you know when you get that diagnosis that there is something wrong with you.
Speaker A:No matter what that thing is, you do sometimes become paralyzed.
Speaker A:How do you help them get beyond the paralyzed phase to okay, I gotta take action to do something phase?
Speaker A:This doesn't have to be 8 a quote unquote death sentence for me.
Speaker A:How do you help them through that?
Speaker B:I think the most important thing is our staff gets training every single week.
Speaker B:Like they've gone through years of training to learn how to meet patients where they are in a hyper effective way.
Speaker B:And so what that would mean for you versus what that would mean for me or one of our friends, all very, very different.
Speaker B:But the protocol for how to get there is the same.
Speaker B:And so we teach our providers how to go meet the patient right where they are every single time.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And sometimes it's really hard.
Speaker B:Like, we had one patient who came to us and the whole team had tried to get them aligned and it failed.
Speaker B:And they escalated it to my desk.
Speaker B:They said, we just don't know what to do.
Speaker B:We're gonna need your help.
Speaker B:So I called the patient and I said, hey, I got A note from Dr. Williams and I got a note from the rest of the team.
Speaker B:They said that you don't want to take any kind of recommendation for dialysis.
Speaker B:They said, I don't want dialysis.
Speaker B:I said, no problem.
Speaker B:I also understand you don't wanna take insulin.
Speaker B:I said, I do not wanna take insulin.
Speaker B:I said, no problem.
Speaker B:We support those things.
Speaker B:We're going to need to get you a referral to hospice and to palliative care because in 60 days you're probably going to be dying.
Speaker B:And I want to make sure that you heard that message from the care team, because that's where we're headed.
Speaker B:So can I get you a recommendation or a referral to palliative care?
Speaker B:And they said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker B:I didn't hear that.
Speaker B:I said, okay, well, I just.
Speaker B:I want to make sure that you understand the choices you're making.
Speaker B:Like, A, take insulin, B, start dialysis C, you'll be dead in 60 days.
Speaker B:So if you don't choose A and B, c happens whether you like it or not.
Speaker B:So I'm not.
Speaker B:Like, I have no judgment about that.
Speaker B:Like, I think if that.
Speaker B:That's a choice you could make, that could be rational, if that's the right thing for you and your family.
Speaker B:He said, well, hold on.
Speaker B:I don't want to die.
Speaker B:I was like, okay, well, if that's the thing that's most important, what's second most important?
Speaker B:Would you rather not have dialysis or not have insulin?
Speaker B:I'd rather not have dialysis.
Speaker B:I said, great.
Speaker B:There's a reason you don't want to take insulin.
Speaker B:Can you share with me what's going on?
Speaker B:I don't know how to inject insulin.
Speaker B:I'm scared of needles.
Speaker B:Like, no problem.
Speaker B:Like, that is so normal.
Speaker B:Like, we've helped people with this.
Speaker B:Has anyone ever talked to you about the size of the needle?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Let me show you one.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Do you want someone to show you how to inject on the screen today?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Can I get you a prescription for insulin today to make sure you have some in your house?
Speaker B:They said, let me get my daughter.
Speaker B:Can you talk her through this?
Speaker B:I said, great.
Speaker B:So we got our daughter.
Speaker B:We had all the paperwork to make sure we could talk to the daughter as well.
Speaker B:And they had insulin in their house.
Speaker B:They were able to inject that day.
Speaker B:We had a provider, their actual medical provider came back on the video, showed them how to inject with them, and now they're healthy.
Speaker A:But it takes a minute, and it takes listening.
Speaker A:I love that because I think oftentimes patients don't feel listened to.
Speaker A:They will have issues, and they try and express that.
Speaker A:And most don't go as far as you just did to say what's kind of stopping you, Because I think when I've walked into doctor's office, what I find out is that sometimes they have a limited amount of time.
Speaker A:We have a lot of patience, and so they don't ask the questions about, why don't you want to do this?
Speaker A:It just kind of.
Speaker B:And to be fair to them, they haven't been trained to do that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:They've been given a protocol and training.
Speaker B:And look, Dustin's been writing medical school curriculums for more than a decade, so we know what is being taught in medical school.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And you know, and we know where some of the gaps are.
Speaker B:And so when we got together to figure this out, he's like, I know how to do the medicine.
Speaker B:I Was like, well, I know how to do the behavior change.
Speaker B:Like, how do we put it together?
Speaker B:And what it turned out is that we had to kind of tear down the entire concept of what a medical practice is and rebuild it.
Speaker B:And we think we found, like, a new subspecialty of medicine.
Speaker B:We don't know that yet, but we think what we're aimed at is that just like you have cardiology, endocrinology, we think we have this new type of medicine that is a new set of protocols built around this start protocol that teaches physicians how to engage endocrinologists, cardiologists, primary care physicians, hospitalists.
Speaker B:Like, how do we get everyone working together so that we have the right plan that's informed by the patient?
Speaker B:And it's this.
Speaker B:It's this skill set, a set of protocols that other people shouldn't have to learn in the same way that a cardiologist doesn't learn what an endocrinologist knows, and vice versa.
Speaker B:Like, this is the thing that we specialize in, is the behavior change piece of it.
Speaker B:And I'll tell you, I saw a specialist in the hospital one time, and they were talking about a patient and whether or not they were a candidate for transplant.
Speaker B:And the doctor was like, no, I've educated them.
Speaker B:They haven't changed their behavior.
Speaker B:They're not a candidate.
Speaker B:And I was like, whoa, whoa, excuse me.
Speaker B:Like, I know it's not my patient, but I just overheard.
Speaker B:Can I dive in here?
Speaker B:Like, when you say you educated them and they weren't changing behavior, do you know those two things aren't linked in the way you might think they're linked?
Speaker B:Like, is it possible that with a quick conversation with me, maybe they belong on the transplant list?
Speaker B:Are you open to that conversation?
Speaker B:And they're like, sure.
Speaker B:And I walked them through.
Speaker B:It was like, oh.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:I mean, but.
Speaker B:But in fairness to that doctor, they weren't trained in this.
Speaker B:Like, they had a very reasonable, well educated, articulate position that just didn't understand this part of the science yet.
Speaker B:That's okay.
Speaker B:You know, it takes 17 years for new science to go from, we know it to doctors are practicing it, like, widely.
Speaker B:17 years.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So if a doctor's hearing this or a medical team, how could they connect with you to learn more about your process, to help, you know, patient care?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think there's a couple things.
Speaker B:Like, we have patients, we have doctors referring into us all the time, and we're 100% virtual medical care for patients, so we can operate in any state.
Speaker B:We're licensed in a number of states right now, and we'll be licensed in most states by the end of the year.
Speaker B:And so certainly we can take referrals.
Speaker B:I've had a lot of doctors say, well, can you just teach this to me?
Speaker B:Like, you know, maybe come spend a day with me.
Speaker B:And we tried.
Speaker B:Like, we've been doing this for 10 years.
Speaker B:We've tried to teach people we know quickly.
Speaker B:And what someone, a doctor, finally said to me, they said, john, if you understand the brain, that doesn't make you a neurosurgeon.
Speaker B:Like, there's a reason we have that many years of residency and fellowship to become a neurosurgeon.
Speaker B:Just because you know the anatomy doesn't mean you know how to do it and what you're talking about.
Speaker B:People need to practice over and over and over again.
Speaker B:And I thought about that.
Speaker B:It's like, man, psychologists need a thousand hours of training before they graduate and 3,000 hours supervised after they graduate.
Speaker B:So over anywhere from 20, 18, 18 to 36 months.
Speaker B:And so I think, I think it would be a little bit too hopeful for me to say that we could train people in a weekend how to do this like this.
Speaker B:This is a subspecialty of medicine we think we don't know, but it relies heavily on all of the clinical, medical things that we know and all of the best practices we know about behavioral health, which, I mean, it just, it takes repetition, right?
Speaker A:So how are you taking this beyond what you've already nerved, studied, and developed to other people?
Speaker A:How are you getting the message out or teaching it or getting it in schools?
Speaker A:What's that look like in terms of what you guys are trying to accomplish?
Speaker B:Step one, research.
Speaker B:So we have research that's overseen by institutional review boards where we just.
Speaker B:Our second research is just now, data collection is complete.
Speaker B:Paper has been drafted.
Speaker B:It's going through final revisions.
Speaker B:We'll then submit that to different publications.
Speaker B:Assuming that gets accepted for publication, we'll go speak at conferences to let people know.
Speaker B:Typical academic kind of information flow.
Speaker B:We're also writing a book for patients right now that explains the science of what we do to a patient so that a patient, even if they're not in our practice, they can start asking better questions of their providers, we hope as another way of coming at the problem.
Speaker B:And then right behind that, we're going to write a textbook and we're going to try and get this into medical schools and see if we can start teaching doctors this, you know, subspecialty.
Speaker B:Maybe during medical school Maybe during residency.
Speaker B:I don't know where the right fit is going to be yet.
Speaker B:We're not even sure it's a whole field of medicine yet.
Speaker B:I'm sure there's going to be pushback from some experts in the field who will make us better by helping us think about that differently.
Speaker B:So we're doing all these things right now, and so.
Speaker B:And we're trying to find ways to make it, you know, very scalable.
Speaker B:So everything we've done is not just to make this work, but it's also got to work financially for everyone in the system, which means it has to work for the payer, it has to work for the patient, it has to work for the provider.
Speaker B:Like, everybody has to be taken care of in this whole system economically.
Speaker B:It has to work for the patient in terms of treatment burden.
Speaker B:It has to work for the provider in terms of not burning out the doctor.
Speaker B:So all of these things were taken into account, and then all of that had to be scalable.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:We've got three and a half billion people on the planet that have chronic disease.
Speaker B:When I went through my doctorate, my bar that I set for myself is the things we're learning have to eventually work for a billion of them, and it's not that good.
Speaker B:Like, today, I'm going to work for 100 million.
Speaker B:There'll be things we have to change to get to a billion.
Speaker B:But we're on the right track.
Speaker B:We know how to do the research, we know how to study.
Speaker B:And anybody who dives in with us, like I've had medical doctors say, well, I need to know more before I can believe.
Speaker B:And 15 minutes later, I just start scratching the surface.
Speaker B:They're like, yep, got it.
Speaker B:And then we just go deeper and deeper and deeper.
Speaker B:It's really fun.
Speaker A:I'm curious, as you think about this process, what was that breakthrough moment for you in this process where you're like, oh, I think we got something.
Speaker B:I mean, those happen all the time.
Speaker B:I mean, we have patients.
Speaker B:You know, the number of conversations we've had where someone has said, I've had type 2 diabetes for 10, 20 years and I've had no success out of control, can't figure it out.
Speaker B:And then six months later, they're like, I had no idea.
Speaker B:Like, like, you know, one of one of our providers came from a larger practice where they had.
Speaker B:I can't remember the exact number, but it was maybe 15 or 20 providers.
Speaker B:And they said, you know, every six months or so we get a story like this.
Speaker B:And it was really heartfelt and wonderful, because every six months we were getting that.
Speaker B:And they said, now just in my panel of patients, which is, you know, one panel of patients for one provider, I'm having that experience weekly.
Speaker B:Wow, that still feels pretty good for everyone.
Speaker A:It does feel good.
Speaker A:I'm curious, as you.
Speaker A:As you do this process and as you work through different areas, are you just finding.
Speaker A:Are you discovering that it's more challenging depending upon the culture or the region of the world, or are you kind of just.
Speaker A:Kind of, just kind of doing it.
Speaker B:In the U.S. today's in the U.S. we do have.
Speaker B:One of our advisors is the former leader for innovation for UNICEF globally, used to work for the who, and they're advising us on how to take this international.
Speaker B:And, you know, we have to get traction in the US before we can credibly go internationally.
Speaker B:But I think there are some international innovators who want to partner with us.
Speaker B:And so we've got so someone who's done that globally for really big organizations guiding us through that and holding our hand for how to think about that.
Speaker B:He's a medical doctor by training, so he has the right clinical background.
Speaker B:He used to work in mental health with unicef, so he's got the right background there.
Speaker B:He's been a great thought partner.
Speaker B:Victor Liddell is his name.
Speaker B:And so Dr. Liddell has been an amazing partner for us there.
Speaker B:So we already have an eye on the future to international.
Speaker B:But I'm very careful with our board of directors to remind everyone, like, we have to kind of take care of job one first, which is, let's make sure that we're really solving a problem at home here in the US not for any nationalistic reason, but because there's all the complexities of going overseas change, all of the regulatory and, you know, those things.
Speaker B:But all the things you talked about, like meeting with different cultures, all those subcultures happen.
Speaker B:Forget the US Here in Austin, in Texas.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:In California, like, we have so many.
Speaker B:And so for us, it really comes back down to, like, how do you meet someone right where they are?
Speaker B:That means we have to be able to speak in the language.
Speaker B:So we have native Spanish speakers as an example.
Speaker B:On our staff, we have AI utilization that allows us to translate things into virtually any language on the planet.
Speaker B:We have translation services where we can bring translators in for any language.
Speaker B:But it's also knowing that, like, in South Texas, there's a group of people that have had an experience with type 2 diabetes that led them to believe that insulin causes amputations.
Speaker B:Like, nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker B:But because of the experience they've had and because one of the doctors down there was able to share that experience with me, we have a lot of sensitivity working there.
Speaker B:It's like, okay, we get this is the place they're coming from.
Speaker B:We're going to have to bring them along because it's not true.
Speaker B:And we can't validate that because it's not true.
Speaker B:But certainly we can be sensitive to the point they're coming from and really jump into how do we help them.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because we've got a history in healthcare in this country that isn't always awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, we do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, there was some really nasty tests that were done in the last hundred years that treated humans like lab animals.
Speaker B:And it was.
Speaker B:To call those tests deplorable would be such an understatement of what happened.
Speaker B:And that wasn't that long ago.
Speaker B:Long ago from a sociological perspective.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So like, I think so our team is trained to be not just sensitive to the person's culture in their community, but the culture in their family.
Speaker B:And that could be family of origin and their married family.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we really do try to teach people to be sensitive at a much more granular level.
Speaker A:So that's powerful.
Speaker A:So this has been a phenomenal conversation.
Speaker A:But I love to ask my guests this question as we kind of get close things out.
Speaker A:What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:It's a fantastic question.
Speaker B:I really hope that when this is all said and done, like what I tell everyone in our organization is, my goal is that everyone that works with us becomes a billionaire.
Speaker B:And we don't count that in dollars.
Speaker B:We count that in the number of lives we've improved and made healthy.
Speaker B:That's how we're going to be billionaires.
Speaker B:And so we've got a 50 year plan for a billion people to have healthier lives as a result of the work we're doing.
Speaker B:Whether that's directly or indirectly, we don't care.
Speaker B:We really just want people to have a better life as a result of the work we're doing collectively.
Speaker B:And we talk about that regularly.
Speaker B:And so yeah, that's.
Speaker B:And whether I'm remembered for that or not is less important than the fact that it happens.
Speaker B:And people have had that, had that happen.
Speaker B:That's the thing that I feel passionate about.
Speaker B:It wakes me up every day and it makes it really easy to go to work every morning and to work long hours.
Speaker B:And I'm really passionate about that.
Speaker A:What an amazing goal.
Speaker A:Season six has been Kind of an interesting season.
Speaker A:We're doing something new.
Speaker A:We're asking a surprise question.
Speaker A:Pick a number between 1 and 5 for your surprise question.
Speaker B:3.
Speaker A:Oh, here we go.
Speaker A:I love one of my favorites.
Speaker A:Who would you like to sit next to on a 10 hour flight?
Speaker A:And why is this?
Speaker B:Anybody in Time.
Speaker A:Anybody in Time?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think for me it's a pretty easy one.
Speaker B:I'd love to have it be Jesus, because I think it's the.
Speaker B:There's so many questions.
Speaker B:And I think that for me, we look at history and we either make it worse or we idealize it.
Speaker B:And I would love to understand from that point of view, like, what it was really like throughout, you know, time, recorded and unrecorded time.
Speaker B:And I would just want to have as.
Speaker B:I would want to bust as many myths in my brain as I could to kind of be able to see the world a little more clearly.
Speaker B:And I believe that conversation would help me to help others kind of more effectively and get me on the straight and narrow.
Speaker B:So that's, that's an easy one.
Speaker A:That'd be great.
Speaker A:People always say I want more than 10 hours with them, though.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:You know, I think I've, I've met people in my life where, where an hour of conversation was more than I could digest in a year because there's so much wisdom in it.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, and I think that, you know, there's.
Speaker B:There's been so many, I mean, that I, I have a list inside my life plan of like the 12 people that, that I want to influence me as I go through life.
Speaker B:Some of them are names that you would know, some are people you've never met and never heard of.
Speaker B:But I think, you know, I try to think through like the people that have really made an impact on the world by helping others.
Speaker B:Again, I don't, I don't know how important it is that I'm remembered for any of that.
Speaker B:That, that to me is like not a, that's not a motivator.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If you, if people are listening to our podcast, who are people who have a desire to really shape the future of whatever organization they're in.
Speaker A:What one advice do you have for leaders who want to drive meaningful change in their organization?
Speaker B:I think it's really get clear about the why and make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons.
Speaker B:When we talk about things in our organization, it's what, why, how, and so what is it?
Speaker B:And then why is it important before you start on the how and so get really, really, really clear about the why.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:So, John, thank you for sharing your journey, your incredible work that you're doing with Princenia Health.
Speaker A:Your insight is reminding us that leadership isn't just about navigating change, it's about creating meaningful impact.
Speaker A:So excited to see the work you're doing.
Speaker A:Pray that you do have people that impact a billion lives in their organization and what they're doing, especially with the group you're working, because I think what you're doing can be so life changing.
Speaker A:Giving people back health is a wonderful thing.
Speaker A:Guests, if today's conversation sparks something in you, whether it's leading through a complexity or rethinking chronic disease care, don't let it stop here.
Speaker A:Reach out to Presidia Health and explore how innovation and purpose can go hand in hand.
Speaker A:John, thanks so much for this wonderful conversation.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
