From South Side Doctor to Healthcare Innovation Leader: Dr. Shah's Journey at UChicago

[0:00]  [music] Welcome back to another episode here on the hard hustle podcast. Today we have a guest that says digital health is only equitable if it's designed for those who've been left behind the most. Otherwise, it's just more innovation for the already privileged. How you doing, doctor? There a lot of doctors, man. I've been talking to so many doctors. Do you go by doctor? Do you just go by your first name, Sasha? What do I call you?

[0:38]  Yeah, man. I just go by I go by my first name. Uh, and the doctor stuff. Uh, I don't I don't I don't care that much. I feel like it's uh you you know, it's just a it's just a title, but we're just people.

[0:49]  Hey, nothing wrong with that, man. So, h how is how does a doctor on the south side end up leading AI for one of the country's top hospitals? Yeah, I mean great question. I mean I think you know in healthcare um uh you know I started as a primary care doc 15 years back here on the southside after my training and I think I saw very quickly how much um inequity there is and how much things I'd like to see um change you know at a system level. you know, you can you can affect your patients one-on-one, which is great and a real privilege, but after a while when you start seeing the same stuff um over and over again, you want to start thinking about, hey, how do I change the system to make this better for everyone and more equitable for everyone? And, you know, be became pretty clear that, you know, at that point in time, um, you know, what we call informatics, you know, digital health solutions, uh, were really emerging as a way to to touch, you know, entire populations instead of individual patients. and you want to do both.

[1:49]  When does this hit you, man? I mean, I'm pretty sure you didn't just grow up thinking this is what I'm going to do as you go off to college. When when was that that spark in you? Say, you know what? There has got to be some really big changes and I want to be a part of that.

[2:01]  Yeah. You know, uh I was really unsure about, you know, whether I wanted to be a doctor, you know, how I wanted to, you know, find what was right for me, find my calling. And so, you know, I I was uh I was looking around a lot. I was trying different things, you know, I was trying different experiences and then it, you know, circle back to me that, hey, there's a lot you can do with medicine and uh it's really about the relationships that you have with with individual people. That's the real kind of privilege and opportunity in medicine. And that um that that that sort of hit me, you know, right after college, a little after that, I took a year, you know, after college and before I started applying to medical school. And that's that's when it really hit me. It's like, you know, that relationship that you form, that longitudinal relationship, you get to know people over time. You get to know them really well. Um and then you get a real opportunity to become part of their lives and um help them get to a place where where they want to be. You learn a ton yourself um in in the process. And um you get to encounter people from all walks of life that maybe you wouldn't have in your you know normal circles and in your normal you know daytoday. That part's that part is really cool and that part's really interesting to me and humbling. Um and so you know when you start taking care of patients like that um you want to see you want to see their lives get better. You want to find ways to to help them you know be healthier people, be be better people. and you know you you you inevitably come along for the ride. You know, you you get better yourself uh in doing that. So, I think that's when it starts, you know, it started crystallizing as I you know, started building up my panel and got to know uh these folks, especially here on the southside really well cuz you know

[3:40]  Yeah. had had to get your hands dirty a little bit, feet wet a little bit, figure out what's what's a lane for you. I'm guessing your dad, is that correct?

[3:47]  Uh yeah. Yeah. I got three young kids.

[3:49]  Is that what the message on the board says? I love my dad. Is that

[3:52]  my my daughter a few years back? kids. I I can't bring myself to erase that off my whiteboard. There's a lot of things that come and go on that whiteboard, but [laughter] that one stays put.

[4:01]  And do your kids come back and see it all the time. Is that dad still here?

[4:04]  Yeah. Yeah. They come check on it. They they come hang out with me sometimes after school. They they go to school not far away. So sometimes we got some some time to kill. I'll bring it back here. They they they draw on that whiteboard.

[4:15]  So think about it, man. You know, being I'm a father as well, two little ones. And I just realized that life is not about us, right? you kind of mentioned it's about helping people. It's about really pouring into others. It's about the next generation. What are some leadership qualities that you hope that your your kids not so much they they're hearing because they don't really listen to us as much, right? But they're watching us, right? They're watching us. Austin, so what are some of those things that that you want them to pick up when it comes to leadership that you're really just proud of?

[4:41]  Yeah, there it's a great question. I you know, there's a [clears throat] lot of things, you know, you know, as a parent, you just want to tell your kids um hey, just just do this. you know, like trust me, it's going to save you some heartache. It's going to save you some pain, but at the end of the day, they got to experience it themselves. Um, for me, the big things are, you know, you want to role model it, right? You want to just just like you said, you can't tell them you're 100% right. You got to show them, uh, you know, you got to embody it. And in and the things, you know, for me, it's it's humility. Um, we, you know, the world is a, you know, complex, you know, nuanced place. Um there's lots of different sides to the truth and uh you got to be humble about how you approach the world and the people that you encounter. Um and if you come from a place of curiosity, you come from a place of humility, um I think that'll serve you well. You want to you want to be that person in the room that's listening first um before they're, you know, just going in there and and and and starting to talk and say that I I got it all figured out because because we don't. Um and then two is you know just um stick to your you know have a moral compass and stick to that. Stand up for what you believe in. Don't be afraid to speak truth you know uh your truth. Um and uh and and and keep that you know keep that as your you know as your guiding light. Know that you have you know know what your north star is and and and don't don't you know do your best not to stray from that. Those are the things.

[6:11]  How many kids you got?

[6:12]  I got three. Oh, boys and girls or

[6:15]  mix?

[6:15]  I got my oldest one's a boy, my middle one is a girl, then my youngest one's a boy, too. So

[6:21]  Oh, man. I got two and I said I'm done. I don't know how you decided to go three. Everyone says, "Listen, you might have three the way you're playing around cuz I I want to go ahead and get the uh surgery." I I hear it's it's not too bad.

[6:32]  Not too bad. That's what I hear. [laughter]

[6:35]  You You experienced it? I've not experienced it, but you know, I think I think my biological clock uh you know, me and my my wife, I think our our clocks are sort of past the point now. So,

[6:45]  oh man, I'm I was passed when I realized these two, you know, growing up, man, when I don't know if you grew up with a big family, but I grew up with seven of us and I always thought to myself like, how did my mom do as a single mom?

[6:56]  You know, and life's totally different, man. But, you know, just to everything that you're saying, it's like it's completely right. We have to lead by example. you know, we we everything that we do at work, what we do at home, like these kids are watching our every move, you know, that the conversation that we're having, you know, while they don't listen to us, they're really listening to some of the things that we're having that we're when we're not talking to them. So, I think it's it's it's huge, man. I would always go back to I was 30 years old when I finally told my mom how I felt about myself. I was adopted. So having that conversation and the re the reason I even decided to kind of I would say speak up was because I was teaching my daughter how to use her voice, how to, you know, be bold, be confident. But how do you do that? How do I preach that if I'm not practicing it,

[7:42]  right? And I had to do that. And it's go back to your kids are they're seeing, you know, they're watching not so much they're they're watching what you're doing. And if you are not um being confident and if you're not, you know, speaking up when things need to be said, your child is also going to be doing that. So, I think it's so crucial, man. I love that that you've taken those leadership. Not only do you implement them into who you are as a leader, but also for your kids to be able to kind of grow up and say, "Man, dad, look what dad was doing. I'm going to go ahead and take some of these these things as well."

[8:08]  Yeah. And we're, you know, we don't always get it right. You know, that's that's a big part of it, too. And and sort of just admitting when you when you make a mistake. And uh that that's another one, you know, uh just say sorry, you know, um ask for forgiveness. Um you know, and when when you're wrong, just just lay it out on the table and say, "Hey, I this was a misstep. I learned this is what I learned and you know, I'm going to try to fix it for next time." And and I'm sorry, you know. So that's a

[8:33]  I love it.

[8:34]  You know, we got to that's the part of being humble. You know, we don't always get

[8:37]  I love that you say this is the mistake I made is and and own it and this is how what I learned from it cuz everything there's something to learn from. You know, I love that. Every anytime someone tells me something, okay, so what did you learn from that? Like because there's a lesson to be learned and and I think right now, man, there's a lesson to be learned on how we designed tech for people who've never trusted a system to begin with.

[8:57]  What does that actually look like? How do we do that?

[8:59]  Yeah. you know, you you highlighted at the at the beginning, you know, um historically, conventionally, a [clears throat] lot of the the tech that that we've designed across, you know, across all these different use cases, but you know, particular to me, I think a lot about healthcare, um we've designed it in a way that unfortunately has left have left a lot of folks behind. You know, um we make assumptions um about who, you know, will be comfortable with this technology and who won't be. Uh, and we, you know, I call it sort of our digitally privileged, you know, individuals. Um, you know, and we designed things a lot for them historically, like, oh yeah, you know, this this iPhone user, they're going to be great. You know, they're going to they're going to be able to track their blood pressure in this app and download it and sync it up and, you know, communicate with, oh, but but this, you know, this, you know, 72year-old, you know, African African-American male here on the southside, you know, maybe we don't have to offer that to them. like it might not be right for them, you know. Um, and that's a dangerous assumption to make. It's not only dangerous, but it's harmful. There's two things that you're assuming. One, that they can't do it, which, you know, a lot of my patients, they can, you know, they they maybe they need just just a little bit of support. I think a lot of us do to get over that, you know, small hump, uh, that small barrier to to doing it. Um and it's you know that that's on us um to help them get there and and approximately to that design it in a way that's it's accessible and inclusive and hey you know if half of your you know half of the population can't you know um can't access something then you know that's that's on you that's not on them you know you got to you got to think about it a little differently you got to design it a little differently so um those are those are some of the assumptions that I think we have to continue challenging that we're really focused on challenging because when we talk about health in particular, uh, you know, the folks that are kind of bearing the disproportionate burden of chronic disease um, and medical and social complexity, you know, those are the folks that are in that in that group that we've traditionally excluded. And that's a problem, right? the ones that could benefit the most are are the ones you know that are excluded. The ones that that could really benefit from this technology and and these uh you know these ways to reimagine care delivery these ways to kind of remove access remove barriers to access um they they should be front and center. Those are be ones that that we're exactly focused on. And and it's not only healthcare, right? It's it's things like housing and it's education and it's it's food and you know social services. like so many things are dependent on your ability to navigate technology and and it's you know it's less these days about having access to the technology. Most most folks even in you know the most difficult you know sort sort of um economic circumstances generally speaking they'll have access to to a smart device like a a smartphone. Um but broadband access is still very choppy and you know there's this you know notion of digital redlinining where we don't see great broadband access in certainly rural communities u but also a lot of our you know urban communities uh with uh that that are you know that predominantly consist of you know uh uh communities of color and those those are and then that third piece of digital literacy like you know I'm I'm comfortable making a phone call and maybe sending a text message but if I have to download an app if I have to, you know, um, navigate a little bit more. I might just need a little bit of support um, to to get there, but it's not insurmountable by any means. It's something that we should be focused on.

[12:33]  If the Heart and Hustle podcast has ever sparked any idea or made you think differently, do us a favor. Make sure to guys share this, post it on LinkedIn, or even text that nonprofit friend that you just have. Whatever works. This is what keeps the conversation going and allows us to just grow this community together. Seriously, we appreciate you. How long have you been in the space now?

[12:57]  15 years now at uh at my my institution, you Chicago. Oops.

[13:01]  Yeah.

[13:03]  But overall, how how long have you been in the space?

[13:06]  Uh so in healthcare, um you know, this was my first, you know, job after I finished training. So, you know, I went to undergrad, four years of medical school, four years of residency, and then I started uh here 15 years ago.

[13:18]  Oh, so this is Okay. Got it. Got it. Now I only ask man like you you've got in and I can only imagine you've seen as much as there's not a lot of innovation in healthcare that had to be some innovation. Yeah. Right. That's the only way that to kind of scale up in a sense. So what are some innovations that you were so excited to see as on your journey but also excited to really see as we continue to innovate. You know technology we mentioned AI um our previous call and a little bit today. So what does that look like for you? Let's talk about the past and some things that you're so excited about, but also the future on some things that you're also excited about.

[13:50]  Yeah. Um, so, you know, historically we've made, and this is true, and I think in a lot of places, you know, there's there's incremental progress, right? You you make progress and in sort of small increments, you chip away, you work hard at it. Um, things like, you know, something simple as, you know, you know, the the EHR era, you know, electronic health record era. We went from paper charts to electronic health records. That was very early in my career. was kind of happening already when uh I was I was you know starting training I was in medical school and you know residency um but things like you know getting getting information on on patients at a population level you can pull out data like hey show me all of my patients who you know are due for this cancer screening for instance instead of like I got to look at I got to open every single chart and see yes or no um that's that's a big you know that's a big change the big leap um you know in in things like quality right doing, you know, being able to close those types of care gaps that have, you know, direct impact on survival when it comes down to it. Um, the way we communicate with our patients, you know, we could do outreach now, you know, in a much more, you know, um, in a much more sort of efficient way. We can, you know, there's there's digital outreach. We can send them text messages. We can send them, you know, u messages through the patient portal. We can meet them where they are. We can do video visits, right? like if you can't make it cuz you got some child care um you know responsibilities or you can't take time off of work to to come all the way down for the appointment or it's tough for you mobility wise navigating public transportation paying for parking is a problem you know hey we can you know we can meet you where you are like you know let's get on the phone and have a conversation or let's let's do a video visit like this and you know have a conversation let's let's cover what you need to um those are those are some of the real you know sort of um significant you know changes over you know over the last you know several years and it was a lot of that was accelerated by the pandemic of course um more recently [clears throat] you know especially in these last two years with the advent of AI at least you know kind of in in a more kind of usable way uh for for all of us in the more general public and across some industries um it it's feel it feels like it we've moved from incremental progress to the ability to make kind of quantum leaps in in certain ways um you know One example of this is, you know, we um one of the most one of the earliest kind of use cases for for AI in in in healthcare has been with that clinician patient relationship. Um there's something called ambient AI where you know I think a lot of us experienced it in some some form or another in in a lot of different industries but in healthcare it's you know hey I I turn on I turned on the the ambient AI with permission of my patient and I said hey it's going to listen to our conversation and you know at the end of it it's going to just summarize it turning into a clinical note that'll let me just instead of like you know typing while we go or kind of trying to remember what was just said and and capturing it um and being able to shift shift to like, okay, what am I going to ask next? And help me maintain eye contact, help me be present. Um, that's been that's been a real massive sort of, you know, that's been a quantum leap for for me cuz it's it's really enabled us to return much more to that clinical conversation to that focus instead of having this like this third wheel in the room, right, that's taking up a lot of time and cognitive bandwidth. The example I like to use is, you know, it's like when you're trying to have a conversation while you're texting somebody, you know, you know, yeah, you're still there and you're you're you're communicating some, but I mean, everyone knows that you're distracted. You know, you're splitting your cognitive bandwidth and and that's noticeable to everybody.

[17:26]  Yeah. I have a friend like that. I know when he's texting, I'm on the phone with him.

[17:30]  Yep.

[17:30]  And I'm talking and then I'm like, "Bro, are you listening?" [laughter]

[17:33]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's even worse. I'm not going to say his name. He's even worse cuz he he drives a Tesla. So because his Tesla's driving, so now he's really doing a hell of things. So I got to tell him, I said, "I'm going to get off the phone with you because right now what you're doing is unsafe for me." Okay. God forbid anything.

[17:48]  I got to remove myself from part being part of the problem, right? Yeah.

[17:51]  He is so bad at it, man. Or when I I used to work with him at the airline industry and um you're talking on the phone to these customers

[18:00]  and he would be they would say something and sometimes upset and they would say something and he's like, "I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?" And it's because he was not paying attention, right? He was scrolling or something. So, yeah, that that is

[18:11]  I think that's one of those things that a lot of people I hear time and time again is that interaction is being able to be looked at while I'm talking to you cuz that's respect. We've always learned as we grow up that's respect, but we're not receiving that in in in the space of healthcare. But it's changing, right? All this transcribed AI information and people just being able to truly do what they love. I think it it's phenomenal and I think there's so much there's still so much possibilities when it comes to to AI. But how do you measure success with AI when the goal is better care and you know smarter systems? Do you feel that there's something that we can utilize to measure for those that actually listen?

[18:50]  Yeah, I I think so. Um it's a great question. You want to define your success criteria up front, right? You don't want to necessarily, you know, look back and say, "Oh, this this and this. Okay, let's use these." You know, it's hey, what what is going to, you know, tell me that this is successful? you know for for us the first use case certainly with the ambient AI it's it's you know clinician wellness because you know um for for it's been a well doumented issue burnout has been a huge problem and a lot of that is predicated on this documentation burden you know doing all these charts you know um and and to what end you know it feels like it's it's endless people leave the field early they you know they cut down on their practice a lot it's hard to find you know primary care docs and and a lot of others because they're just it's too much um and it takes the joy out right it takes the joy out of it. Uh so one of them is you know just you know these metrics around clinician burnout and retention and you know sort of satisfaction and we've seen those kind of just change off the charts. The second one, the second big one of course is just patient experience and you know we measure we measure that pretty closely uh after visits you know we we have brief surveys and you know man the questions you know around the you know the clinician patient interaction you know we see you know in the year and a half we've been doing it just really noticeable you know improvements you know for for those that you know that leverage this. Now, you know, looking at other stuff, you know, hard harder outcomes, you know, we were [clears throat] talking about things like, [cough] excuse me, a gentic AI when your data is good and and look, that's a it's a big assumption to make. You got to take care and you got to spend a lot of time on making sure your data is good. The stakes are too high in medicine to to make mistakes like this, especially when you're looking to automate those things that you you can automate. But even lower risk things, you know, they're, you know, they're related to someone's healthcare. But, you know, you use an you use an AI agent to say, "Hey, find me all the patients with um you know, with this care gap." You know, the example I was using earlier, they're due for their mammogram. Um, and then, you know, then you um send them a message on my behalf, have it include a direct link so that they can self-schedu the mammogram because we have that template up and it can, you know, we can schedule into that. And now all of a sudden instead of you know making a bunch of phone calls or even sending out you know a message and saying hey write me back so I can place this order so you can get this and then someone will call you and schedule. That's a lot of steps. That's still a lot of steps. Um it's about bringing that self-efficacy to the patient. You know we we know from we know from the data that hey if you give someone you know a nudge with uh you know the ability to act on it themselves you know and that might be you know 10:00 after you know we've put our kids to bed. It might not be during the regular contact center hours, you know, which which are understandable that they're not 24 hours and who can stop that. But hey, if you can, you know, if it can be something that, you know, you give your patient self-efficacy uh around, they'll see the message, they'll click on the link, they'll self-schedu, this works for me, I'll do it Tuesday at 10 o'clock, done. Um, then all of a sudden, you're you're closing these gaps. You're seeing, you know, you're seeing um your cancer screening rates go up. you're you're hopefully picking things up early. Um you're helping people with with preventive health, which is which is the name of the game. We want to we want to be proactive, not reactive whenever possible.

[22:07]  While we make it sound so easy, like it's just plugandplay. There's so many people that are skeptical,

[22:12]  right? I'm pretty sure you see that a lot. So, what's your go-to strategy when you're talking about trying to bring things to these colleagues in innovation that they're probably

[22:21]  just in fear of? Yeah. like you got that strategy that you that you just always go to?

[22:26]  Yeah. Ch, you know, what we do is behavior change, right? We do it with our with our patients and we do it with our colleagues. Um and uh you know there's there's a few strategies you know um one one of them is you know show me the evidence, right? Like hey give me uh irrefutable evidence that that it works and and sometimes that means you know you need some some folks to to um be early adopters to take it on faith. And luckily we have a subset you know everywhere everywhere tends to you know we have this you know sort of this adoption you know curve that we see and there's there's the early adopters

[22:55]  and and just like you said you know we just define the success criteria early right it's like hey this is hey we're going to either you know succeed or fail based on these four or five key metrics right and let's be transparent about it and let's be honest about it is it is it doing what it's going to is it doing what it says it's going to do or what we define as our success criteria for this proof of concept maybe it's 3 months we're going to pilot something like this and then is it doing what we say what what we said that it should do and if it is great we can start showing that evidence and start scaling it. your early adopters are very helpful in terms of convincing their their peers as well you know who are practicing to the left and to the right of them and saying hey you know I've been using this the last three months and it's it's been you know it's been great or you know hey it's okay you know sometimes I use it sometimes I don't because of x y and z um but you know the paradigm that we use is you design it and [clears throat] you design it inclusively you know and sometimes that's with patients sometimes with colleagues you know but with the stakeholders you implement it with the success criteria defined, then you measure it very transparently and then you improve it, right? Um, and you continuously improve it and if it's worth kind of continuously improving, you keep keep chipping away at it. It's never going to be perfect. We don't expect perfection, but there should be a path forward to make it better and better. Um, or you or you abandon it because it's not doing what you know you you expected it to do. It's not meeting that threshold. And so you succeed or fail fast because you know you can't just keep you know keep planning planning planning designing designing designing and waiting forever. This the pace of these things right now is just far too fast. You got to make you got to be decisive but you got to be systematic.

[24:33]  Yeah.

[24:34]  Uh and how about when we talk about to our execs? What's that one mindset shift that you wish um they would make more around tech? So I I believe decisions should be made a little bit around tech. I'm not sure if you're in agreeing to that and I think that execs a lot of times as we mentioned they're just living kind of in fear so they don't make those decisions around tech. Do you agree that it should be made around tech a little bit?

[24:58]  Yeah, I think um you know decide decide on type of place you you want to be um you know what type of institution what the culture is. Some are going to be a little more conservative and and wait and see and I understand that you know especially when there's there's there's new stuff. There's of course risks that come with any new, you know, um paradigms. Uh but then, you know, if if you want to be an innovative innovative place, you know, if you want to be out there leading, uh then then you got to put yourself out there a little bit. You know, there I'm a I'm a baseball fan, right? I grew up watching a lot of baseball. There's there's a you know, forgive the sports metaphor, but you know, there's there's this thing, you know, where there's a third base coach, you know, um and a lot of times when you got runners on base, maybe there's a guy at first base and and the the hitter hits a, you know, hits a triple or hits a extra base hit into the corner, the guy from first, you know, goes to second, he looks at his third base coach and it's should I stop at third or should I go home? You know, and the third base coach is either going to be conservative or aggressive or somewhere in the middle. And there's this, you know, there's this uh, you know, concept that, hey, um, the third base coach, you know, should make decisions in a way that at least 10 to 15% of the time, that runner should be thrown out. And and if if if they're safe 100% of the time at home when they send them, then you're not taking enough risks that you're not you're not being aggressive enough. Some of the things that we do are going to fail, and that's okay. Um, obviously, we don't want them all to fail. We don't want to be reckless, but, you know, hey, we want to take certain risks, right? Um and and if we fail on some of them, that's okay. That's the price of taking, you know, putting bets down on things that will that will, you know, succeed and sometimes spectac spectacularly and being up ahead on that, out ahead on that and engaged and actually, you know, being leading that change. There's a ton of value to that. Um and that's that's the type of place I know that we want to be and that's that's the argument that, you know, we have to make repeatedly. We want to be systematic and rigorous and disciplined and stick to our core principles and like what we're trying to achieve strategically. But we got to take some risks and that's that's okay. That's part of that's part of our culture here and that that has to be.

[27:08]  I learned something new today. I played baseball until about 10 years old and I knew that there was somebody on the third base that was not a player. [laughter]

[27:17]  So that coach is actually telling people to run or stay.

[27:21]  Yeah. Yeah. And you know, cuz I also coach my my uh my son's little league team. And uh you know, up until a certain age, mostly they're there to like, you know, come on, you can do it. You know, like you're a cheerleader. You're just a cheerleader. You're telling them you're running the wrong way. You know, it's less about the, you know, the go sign. But at a certain point, uh it it becomes like, you know, very strategic uh decision- making that you make as a third base coach. And it's kind of fun.

[27:46]  Wow. That's good. That's good stuff. Now I I've seen it and now it completely makes sense. And just just to really think about when we talk about coaching, right? So many people

[27:56]  could use coaching and I just think for you know when we think about baseball players, basketball players, they're great but they needed that coaching. They needed that extra 10 15% right of someone to just tell them that they can do it. And uh I love I love that you brought the analogy because it just also brings us to the executive space of things. We all think that we got it and it's not true. It's uh of course we've learned along the way and I'm pretty sure in 15 years you've learned from great leaders and bad leaders, but sometimes having to have somebody in your corner to tell you a little bit different, you know, and see things from a different point of view cuz it's so easy for us to do the same things over and over and over. But it takes one person to really bring innovation. Um and it seems like with you, man, you're just always just looking to innovate yourself because you realize you're in the space that innovation happens with you or without you. So if you're not helping innovate, then guess what? They're going to find someone else to help them interview

[28:48]  on sideline watching, right?

[28:50]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, no man, this is actually really good stuff. So, as I was starting to wrap up, man, where can people find you if they want some more information? Where could they find you? Are you on LinkedIn or anything like that?

[28:58]  Yeah. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. Um, you know, seeing patients, you know, three days a week uh here on the southside in Chicago. But yeah, I'm I'm on LinkedIn for sure.

[29:08]  I love it. And then seeing patients, are you at the same facility that you're working at or is this

[29:12]  Yep. That's uh And you know what? That's uh it helps keep me you know very close to my patients and grounded and you know we were talking about north stars like that's my north star. It's like you know what are my patients how is this going to impact my patients and how's it going to make their lives better. That's it. It's it's

[29:29]  this normal for doctors to do. I feel like there's so many doctors that you know they become I heard the the the yakual terminology is they become the suit in the company, right? Um but they're still practicing you know and I'm like wow that's so cool. like you're still in the front lines learning which I I do agree with you like that's where all the learning happens you have to understand it in order for you to make a difference so you're still practicing and a lot of doctors still practice but yet they still take on a different role is do you find that normal in the sense of people that were practicing but wanted to do something else

[29:59]  you know I I I hope so I I think it's a big part of certainly our identity um institutionally and um I I think you know in in healthcare look you need a good balance right like you know there's there's going to be some things you learn in med school and some things you don't and some things you pick up along the way and certainly you want you know the expertise for you know for certain things like you know hey managing you know like the finances and you you want to play a role in that but you also want a health care system to to have a strong you know clinician leadership element I think that's that's essential you know who people who are seeing patients and working alongside it's not just physicians it's nurses it's you know other you know kind of care team members they you know we want them all to have a say in the dayto-day today because we're the ones you know on the front lines in the trenches and and that that you know preserves that point of view. It preserves that legitimacy frankly among your among your colleagues too who you're trying to you know who you're trying to persuade like hey I think we should try this I think we should do this a little differently and they're like okay um you know if they see you next to you know practicing next to them and you know seeing patients like you then that that goes a long way uh you're not just a suit you're you know you're you're um you're you're a colleague

[31:11]  a leader now it's funny that I I hear this terminology suit because like I feel like I'm in the healthcare you know system now I call me with suits or not. The first thing I did when I found that I was my mother-in-law, she doesn't do frontline stuff anymore. So I said, "Oh, you are suit." And she's like, "What?" [laughter] Just to mess with her, man. But uh no, that's pretty cool. Um how many years were you doing the frontline work before you decided to actually integrate the technology piece? Yeah, it was it was probably like you know three four years and then I started getting into the you know informatic stuff and then you know I started getting some some of my time protected for that probably like five six years in and it's been the last kind of decade that I've been you know about 60 40 50 with my time. Yeah.

[31:54]  That's cool man. Well listen what what's we didn't talk about the organization. What's the website for the uh for the

[31:58]  organization? Chicago medicine.org. That's our That's our health system. And uh

[32:04]  and they can still see you. Even if you know, not all the time, every time, but

[32:08]  if they come on the right days, they can still see

[32:10]  see me.

[32:11]  I love it. Well, Sasha, um it is the time to be in the hot seat. We do this blind question every episode. So, are you ready for the blind question?

[32:19]  All right, let's pull this up here, man. So, the blind question. You spent your career designing systems for others. If you became a patient tomorrow, what would you want your tech to do for you? Yeah, I would want it to I think about this a lot. This is a good one. Um I would want it to, you know, take away a lot of that mundane stuff. Um a lot of that routine stuff to free up, you know, me and my, you know, clinician, my care team to to do the stuff that only humans can do, and that's like build that relationship, have that clinical conversation, you know, be present. Um that's that's I think the name of the game. I really that's what I want my tech to do for me. I wanted to make me more human.

[33:02]  All right. What's your blind question for the next leader we have here in the heart?

[33:05]  Yeah. You know, um, we talk about innovation a lot, right? And, you know, for me, uh, I think about this a lot because, um, I talk to my patients all the time about, you know, I spitball with them sometimes like, hey, I got this idea like, what do you think? It's a good sort of gut check. But, you know, what responsibility, this is the the the thing I have in my head a lot. What responsibility do do innovators have to the communities that didn't necessarily ask for the change you're trying to bring?

[33:34]  That's deep. Actually, I I actually wanted to go and ask you. So, you have all these ideas, right? And I always feel like when you become a leader in the seauite space, um even if you're still practicing, the community becomes very small.

[33:47]  Yeah.

[33:48]  Right. So, who are you bouncing ideas off of? Who is that? We a lot of times we have friends that are just yesmen. And I always say I don't want those friends. I want people that going to challenge me. Who's challenging you, bro?

[33:57]  Yeah. So, you know, I got my I I got my colleagues, my, you know, physician colleagues, my nurse colleagues, you know, like my pharmacists and, you know, my care team, right? Um that that's big. Um I do bounce them off, you know, like my my fellow kind of executive leaders. Um but then I'm also, you know, like I said before, like I'm also a lot of times, you know, taking this to my patients, you know, the ones that I've known for, you know, 15 years. Some of whom some of whom I've known for 15 years, they feel like family to me. They'll call it out, you know, they'll be like, "No, that's that's stupid." You know, like that doesn't make any sense. Like, I'm not going to do that. Um, and they're from all different they're all I take care of both adults and kids. So, I get, you know, I can get an adolescent perspective. I can get my 99year-old patients perspective. I can get, you know, you know, the parents protect perspective, the the grandparents, you know, and that's that's really cool. Um, I I I actually lean on that a lot. Um, I take a lot of um I take a lot of uh value from from that because again they're you know I've known them long enough where there's no filter for them which is awesome. You know you know that's that's the type of you know uh that's the type of people you need to to bounce this off of. They'll speak truth to you which which I love.

[35:07]  That's good. I mean what's so good is that you mentioned some of these people have been with you for years. I tell you I don't know if I have the same physician over and over. It's always something somebody new. I never came across someone like, "Oh my god, this person's good." So maybe that's why I don't go often, right? And it's like therapy. There's this one person and still don't go to therapy often, but she was so like so good

[35:30]  that even though I went one time, I'm an advocate to say, "No, you just got to keep dating. Go find the one."

[35:36]  Um, and I almost feel like I got to go find my one, man. You know, I I do obviously go try to go once a year, especially when I hear men my age that are are because sickness and and health doesn't it doesn't have a age, right? It hits anybody at any time.

[35:52]  So, um I try to definitely do that. But I'll tell you, man, the experience is never good for me,

[35:57]  you know? But I I'm hearing what you're saying and I'm like, golly, why are you so far? I'm definitely down.

[36:02]  Tell [laughter] man,

[36:04]  you're right. That is true. That is true. Tell health, man. Because I think it is crucial. I think it's crucial to bring back what it actually looks like. For so long, we had a family doctor and I was actually talking to my neighbor about this. We had a family doctor.

[36:16]  We don't have that anymore. There is no family doctor, you know. And I would go back to the last experience that I had um that just now that I'm speaking to those in the health care space more often, I'm like, man, she was not good at all. But I walked in and you know, my wife said, hey, this is where I go. You can go here. So, I'm thinking, okay, you know, my wife's doctor, no biggie. So, I'm talking to this doctor, but as you mentioned, the whole time, you know, I'm looking at her. She's looking at her computer screen. Really no conversation there. And I love to talk. So, if I feel like you're not looking at me and you're not talking back, this is already a no show for me. [clears throat]

[36:48]  And so, I'm asking her, I said, "Oh, yeah. You just seen my wife and this and the other." And she just made up a whole story. And I go to the car and I tell my wife. I said, "Yeah, man. The doctor XYZ." She's like, "That's not my doctor."

[36:56]  Oh, man.

[36:57]  I'm like, she just lied to me. But it was just she was had to hurry up, write notes to next person. You know, she only had me but so many minutes. Go to the next room. It's just a system. And I think at some point the system does have to be kind of um I wouldn't say completely broken, but shift a little bit. So

[37:11]  and this is what I'm hoping, right? Like this is that that same, you know, concept of like, hey, like let's let's take all that clerical work away. Let's just let's focus on that conversation. be present, you know, like that. Give give yourself a chance to, you know, to succeed as as a as a clinician, you know, like hopefully you signed up for it because that's what you want to do is you want to have that relationship with your patients and focus on them uh instead of, you know, be be typing away like while while they're talking to you over here, you know.

[37:39]  Yeah. Well, listen, brother, I won't take too much of your time. I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the insight and hope that a lot of us leaders that are watching this also kind of take a lot of insight from it. We're in a space of innovation and clearly you're at the front line of it, but not only are you at the front line of innovation, you're you're getting all this insight because you're still practicing. So that is that's kudos to you for being able to do that and you're still practicing or not practicing coaching your son's team like time, man. You clearly have time management, work life balance. We appreciate it.

[38:08]  We appreciate it, man. Well, guys, this has been the hard hustle podcast. This is Dr. Sashin. Thank you so much for your time. If you guys want to hear more conversation like this, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Is the free thing to do. All right, we'll catch you guys on the next one. Lers.