Why Telehealth Will Change Healthcare Forever

[0:00]  hey guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast in today's conversation I'm sitting down with an amazing individual named Jon o luck now our conversation today is going to cover a wide array of topics but primarily we're going to be talking about the challenges that we face in our society from a mental and a behavioral health perspective we're going to talk about the impact of these little devices on how we see the world we're also going to talk about the current landscape of mental and Behavioral Health Services in a city like Seattle but more importantly how we can take a fresh perspective and meeting the challenges of our communities through the lens of innovation in technology now jonno is an amazing leader but he's also has a technical background and working for some of the largest tech companies in the world managing teams and developing better products today's going to be an amazing conversation let's get into it I feel in a lot of ways tella Health has

[0:49]  helped to lower um some of the negative stigma around seeking help if I can on my phone for example right leveraging an app or even just connecting with my provider have a more confidential conversation the walking into the clinic being seen that's that's reduced that barrier to seeking help and so the third element almost behind convenience if you will right the immediacy the delivery is that privacy and confidentiality which I believe to be a good thing right be a good thing there more people are willing to reach out when they need it it's generational and personal preference but that doesn't matter because it's how I choose like you said to get my information to engage to ask for help to whatever that thing is and 100% we need to uh we need to have that flexibility so anybody is able to engage the way that they

[1:50]  want all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm incredibly excited because I have a individual here with me jonno who but is a self-proclaimed Champion for tella Health a champion for telea medicine an executive and Residence at the UDA Foster School of Business and the president of the board at an amazing organization called Therapeutic Health Services Jon welcome to the show man thanks man thanks for having me this is goingon to be exciting conversation we're going to talk about mental health we're going to talk about the intersection of technology and everything that's kind of going on in our society today in the community and so I really want to kind of give everybody a little bit of a background about you you and how you find yourself being a champion for not only mental health substance use but all the other things that are in between so why don't you give yourself a little bit of

[2:36]  introduction man sure so uh first of all my name is John Oak as you you already said um I I live in Seattle Washington and how I kind of got involved with all of this I actually have had my own journey of U mental health and um working with counselors to discuss just things on and off throughout my life I would say I've been fortunate because I a I do believe that talking to someone that has no invest M other than to hear you out is such a helpful thing it's not because I like to hear my own voice it's because I truly believe right having that other party there um but also throughout the years Healthcare I truly believe it to be one of the most important things we can all do right helping other people providing those things and so whether it be through work um so I currently work with Cisco um with webx although I'll be switching

[3:22]  companies very shortly uh the the work there to support tah health during covid great example where it wasn't a nice to have it was a necessity so people could gain access to care um but afterwards also realizing that same technology can expand who can gain access to care just because I live in a city five blocks away from my health care provider U doesn't mean that should limit me from getting help people that live in rural communities right that's where tele Health as you mentioned tele Health te tele medicine both sides of those can materially improve people's access to care there's certain things you got to come in for like you got to go in to have a procedure but but especially in the realm of I think mental health behavioral health and substance abuse there's so much good we can do leaning on these kinds of tools and Technologies and and that's where with Therapeutic

[4:10]  Health Services we are moving into those spaces as well right so I'm super excited about what we can do and the flip side I see the need I really do right some people say it's kind of before covid it was different postco I can say right here Seattle Washington King County 10% or more of adults are saying that they've had at least two weeks of mental health you know kind of instability over the past month or so two weeks half the month something has been ailing them that alone should be reason and cause right you to to find a way to provide people what they need support them through those bumps I'm also gay so the lgp lgbtq plus Community has a 2X likelihood of mental health and Behavioral Health needs you know and so there's even more that we can do to make

[4:58]  that better and I'm fortunate because I'm able to support and participate in that um in that delivery of care the unique perspective of you being an outsider I'll say not coming through the therapeutic lens of going to school becoming a therapist and being a champion for things like tele medicine is super important because when I started our company back in 2014 I was looked at like I had six eyes on my head when I would walk into the conference room of a hospital and say there's going to be a need for this virtual connectivity they said it's going to take away from the experience nobody wants to do that but we weren't thinking about the upside right how do you kind of think about your role as an outsider being on the board at Therapeutic Health Services and helping them kind of navigate the future of technological connectiveness when it comes to Healthcare Services yeah actually I'm glad you brought that up as a theme right Outsiders sometimes can be seen as

[5:46]  a bad thing what I'll actually call it is diversity you know diversity of experience background and expertise those opinions multiple opinions lead to a better outcome that's how I think of kind of what you're describing there right and so myself with with a technology background um and a business background working with THS I can come in with some of those things and go but you can do this different I know you can do it different because I've done it over here so that diversity of opinion and experience means that reality is probably somewhere in between but we can move towards a different and and ideally better way of delivering care right leveraging technology again not only to replace for convenience but also to improve access right giving more people more places because something else with THS Therapeutic Health Services um a lot of our our community and program members

[6:36]  actually um I mean they come you Medicaid right they are in different socioeconomic backgrounds where travel is not always possible so that democratization of access to care is such a big part and I think it's because of that diversity if if it's more of the same you don't always think about different ways right to change it and so I think it's valuable and I hope if THS people are listening and watching they find it valuable as well to have that debate about what could we do differently and why well we don't have the luxury in healthcare to stand on our Hill anymore the one thing that I always talk about in modern-day leadership no matter what segment of business you're in technology Services you know Commodities or healthare you have to be curious to be able to explore different Avenues to get the job done how do you think you as a leader in your organization and on the board kind of

[7:23]  Leverage curiosity as a way to kind of be a wayfinder for new possibilities you know I I think so two things that kind of speak to what you're describing there first of all we're a nonprofit nonprofit means a lot of things when it comes to taxes and how the government views but the the thing that I think is most interesting and therefore meaningful towards that curiosity is we can't afford to do everything we do not have the luxury of billions of dollars sitting in bank accounts everywhere so we have to get creative therefore curious about how can we do this better right so I think that's very much a driver for it it's we have this many customers s customers we have this many patients and community members looking for help we can only help this many there's a difference and a gap that has to be closed how do you do that right and so that that drives the need for

[8:11]  what can we do differently like curiosity in fact something I'm really excited about with Therapeutic Health Services is we're actually looking at a different approach to meet people in the community where they are so in the same way that tella health and tele a medicine allow for you to be one place and me a a clinician to be another we're looking at can we provide support with substance abuse and Behavioral Health leveraging mobile units right that's an example of changing the paradig to to meet the patients where they are where they need and not require them to change how they're getting to work and thinking about their dayto day so that's an example of where necessity drove through curiosity an improvement in care delivery I want to look at that through the lens of consumer behavior and I only say that because in today's society we

[9:01]  expect everything on demand AKA either it's going to be instantaneously available which is the role of teleah health and creating that instantaneous access or it's going to be delivered to us and I feel like there's an interesting Dynamic of consumer Behavior today when we look at healthc care services where these type of organizations across the entire spectrum of healthcare need to adapt to be a little bit more aligned with that consumer Behavior or that expectation that comes along with that stuff what do you think about that yeah I completely agree with what you're saying I'm actually going to add a third dimension to that which is confidentiality and privacy I feel in a lot of ways tella Health has helped to lower um some of the negative stigma around seeking help if I can on my phone for example right leveraging an app or even just connecting with my provider have a more

[9:49]  confidential conversation than walking into the clinic being seen that's that's reduced that barrier to seeking help and so the third element almost behind convenience if you will right the immediacy the delivery is that privacy and confidentiality which I believe to be a good thing right be a good thing because more people are willing to reach out when they need it but going back to the convenience and the consumerism like you said behind it I I think it's true right in a lot of cases I feel like people ask if I can do this in other parts of my life why can't I do it here and usually consumer behaviors Drive Improvement in in technology in healthcare government Etc think about how we vote think about how we do things there's a convenience element now behind some of these right and so it's a good thing that those expectations are set because it shows it can be done and I

[10:37]  I'm using Healthcare again obviously you know the topic is your tella Health the world will not go back to mandating everyone walk into a physical location why because for three years you didn't have to you know so again the it wasn't even consumerism per se again it was necessity but it's the I could do it before you bet I want to keep doing it now and that's going to now be a new kind of bar set so that we can ask the next question of why can't we have this convenience and again often driven by consumerism and one of these things too this is consumerism at its best right I get access to everything I message my care provider I can get my prescription filled and it'll keep raising that bar and I think that's how we get more care to more people um and again kind of reducing some of that stigma around that

[11:25]  because if everybody's doing it then it might be okay for me to get help too I mean you're a th% right and it's interesting when I kind of reverse back into the early days of me trying to pitch tah Health to these large Health Systems they always talked about the lack of human connection here is a barrier because it takes away from the experience right and it was interesting because the human Connection in a lot of elements like talking about mental health is a barrier for us to be able to raise our hand in the first place yeah I think a lot of people today have gotten used to being able to lay I would say stand behind that that safety net of that technological divide to be able to divulge and be vulnerable about things that we're dealing with that often I couldn't have a conversation with Jon about in a room full of other people because I feel that pressure does that make sense no absolutely and kind of as an example of that we uh during the

[12:11]  pandemic we saw this a lot of people are willing to send a message an SMS or you know a chat in an app that they're not necessarily willing to verbalize when looking eye to eye to your point right again that's where in some cases it's it's a different kind of privacy it feels safer to initiate that way and seek help and then it could escalate into okay well we should have a voice conversation or look at each other over video you're right I think again it lowers that almost that bar to engage because it's easier for me to ask for help to engage with you know who a provider to get them and isn't that kind of thinking about where we're going right one of the saying I've been hearing a lot in the podcast recently is like uh skate to where the puck is going as a hockey reference right and if I think about if you can see that so you you want me right there there you go right exactly um one of the things I

[12:58]  think about is like the way in which younger demographics and generations communicate today gen Z huge on Snapchat loves to send text messages back and forth that's way in which they open doors build relationships so why shouldn't we be thinking about future proofing I use that word very intentionally the Health Care system by creating that optionality for people to be able to reach out to their healthcare provider and start a conversation the same way they would with their friends and family that's something that only seems to make sense to me and I feel like it's going to be a huge part of the overall communication strategy of Healthcare in the future yeah you're you're % right the thing I often I'm not countering but I say it's an and it is preference so for example my mother prefers to walk into her doctor's office it's in this case it's a generational preference but the point is is right it's a preference but it can be so much

[13:46]  more effective if they have the right preference at hand right I will text the joke is I will do everything I can sometimes to not walk into a place I'll do it over message and she does everything she can to walk in it's generational and personal preference but that doesn't matter because it's how I choose like you said to get my information to engage to ask for help to whatever that thing is and 100% we need to uh we need to have that flexibility so anybody is able to engage the way that they want yeah I mean I think in our last conversation we were talking about the optionality right of delivery is incredibly important and that was one of the things I talked about in our previous conversation was the difference between tella health and tele medicine tele medicine the asynchronous transaction for billable services me delivering Medical Services over video audio whatever that could be tella

[14:33]  health is the use of all different types of pieces of technology to help somebody through their care journey and it's that optionality of saying out of these six options which works best for you is how I think we need to think about the flexible future of healthcare yes 100% And I think tech technology has given us the ability to offer those options right whereas before it was walk in be told you're ninth in line and wait so I think we're in a better place today than arguably even five years ago so to speak no I totally agree I would love to kind of take the the conversation in the direction of AI but before we get there let's talk about the way in which we are influenced if you will by things like social media algorithms in our previous conversation you said this so succinctly you said these social media platforms

[15:21]  almost act as an echo chamber and although we as humans say I only nice like like nice things I like positive people it's interesting to see what happens when you look at somebody's for you page on Instagram it's a complete depiction in little micro moments and little pieces of content of who they are and what they're interested in let's kind of Riff on that a little bit yeah um I think the since we chatted last time even I've tried to refine it a bit more the word that comes to mind when I think of social media Platforms in general is curation right and then there's the technology of AI and algorithms but the whole point is how am I going to put things together that you want to see um sometimes that's in in service of a commercial outcome you're going to buy stuff right other times it's I want to keep you using this app it is an app it

[16:09]  is a platform and so showing you more things that you engage with Will beet more things that you want to see and and then that is the echo chamber effect and where I I have some issues sometimes with social media platforms is but it's not clear to me the user of this application right Tik Tok snap whatever maybe more Tik Tok and Instagram for example that that's curated and so it becomes a biased view on the bajillions of videos heal there and I mean let's be clear we're right now in a very contentious election cycle it's a perfect example of where social media uh and the curation by algorithms can actually lead to behavioral health and mental health issues you know it's frustrating it's exhausting it's you know you feel down about things and so it's a perfect example where people

[16:56]  forget sometimes just because you saw seven things in in a row doesn't mean there weren't 14400 other things it's that this app this platform gave you those seven things that Echo chamber can be dangerous and so I think there is something there there right about how how we need to remember take that step away from your app your phone how have you're getting that in 2012 I moved to Las Vegas and at the point in time I was about 285 PBS so was a little bit heavier yes during those days and during um in New Year of 2013 I moved in with my best friend and now business partner Dante mlan and he challenged me to go the gym every single day first couple months I was going to the gym but I wasn't paying attention to what my diet was and if when I wasn't eating properly I wasn't

[17:43]  fueling my body and I would feel bad during my workouts I bring that up to bring this up over the last year or so I've been messing around with the framework of our mental health diet the things that we consume mentally and eat mentally have a direct impact on us us the same way that our physical diet does on our physical health yeah and I feel like it's really important for people to understand and curate the diet that we consume mentally and I want to back this up with some statistics in 2012 when social media really became a thing there was a statistic that said girls um below the age of 18 often had or had highly depressive episodes at a rate of 9% okay as of the most recent data in 2023 31% of girls today have highly depressive episodes because of the attribution of

[18:32]  social media yep what do you think is going on with that huge escalation and why are we not paying attention to the the I would say Canary and the coal mine the way that we should be based on that data and that Trend you're asking some hard questions there first of all I mean while while shocking it's not surprising that that's growth right in the percentage of um why are we not recognizing it's interesting I do hear people talk about it right whether it be at the government level whether it be at the social level you know my friends and I they have kids they have daughters that are turning 16 everyone recognizes the risk of of that and by the way I loved the curating of the mental health diet concept it's so true remember about 15 years ago maybe this actually bringing this around in a moment but 15 20 years ago the organic movement the GMO you know non-GMO there was suddenly

[19:20]  an awareness that a chicken is not a chicken necessarily a chicken could be this chicken or that chicken right you know the KFC jokes and all those but there was an awareness and then suddenly there was classification and so that tells me that the society demanded a framework to make things better right I think you're 100% spot on with that curation I'm hoping that we're going to hit that moment soon with those statistics right where but it takes time because and rightly so we are debating is this Freedom of Information does this company have the right to curate in this way that's why we live in this Great Society where we can debate but we have to get to the same kind of framework to allow people to curate their mental health diet right I think um as an example a reset my algorithm button so that on a you know I can at

[20:10]  any point in time unbias it just just do it by time index show me all the stuff I bet you if you ran them side by side people's minds will be blown by how what I would have seen and reset my algorithm what I do see it's just like on Instagram when you can unfollow unblock the things you blocked you're controlling that but that's not at the four that's not something that's right there telling me right I feel like that's the the turn we're about to make and so I'm hoping that we take a similar approach what we did with you know Organics non GMO I mean Whole Foods classifies their turkeys and chickens right like with how much maybe that's a bit extreme but but the the awareness of me the consumer going back to the consumerism right me the awareness uh to to make a decision and the control to

[20:59]  choose maybe again biased unbiased whatever the classifications are will be necessary and then making kids aware as they grow into adults then that way they can go well I'm not feeling great because look at what I saw but there's all this other stuff right so everything starts with awareness and so actually I think yeah it's interesting you brought up the diet concept that is what's needed I think in a lot of ways but it comes back to that element of awareness which in today's world is incredibly incredibly tough to do and here's a good example I always talk about um the different influences that Generations dealt with right I think today's generation no matter what generation you're a part of if you have a device in your hand you're a part of the digital generation that is dealing with the element of distraction more so than any other

[21:47]  generation ever has yep because back in the day there was a moral Panic about distraction being in the form of a kaleidoscope there were news articles that were released saying children are letting their minds rot away because they're looking into Scopes all day they don't want to be here in reality right but today the average 18yearold spends about n hours per day on their device they spend more time on their device than they do on average sleeping so if you think about which which world is becoming real the digital world is more real than ever and we have to be able to establish guidelines that help us curate the information that we're consuming yeah because your worldview can be easily manipulated by an algorithm and I want to reverse a little bit farther back you had mentioned should this individual company have the responsibility of curating data I was listening to a podcast yesterday

[22:35]  with the former head of Google X and he was talking about we think that there are companies behind the algorithm at um Instagram or Tik Tok making choices and pulling strings about what information jonno and Kenan are going to see but really they're allowing for those algorithms to operate on their own so they don't even truly can or understand the ramifications of how these algorithms are serving information and images to the people around them do you think that's a little bit of a dangerous step to not have human oversight at scale which I guess is really impossible yeah um do I think it's a dangerous thing in the most General sense I think it is right um I think however you can counter that by sharing the why right it going back to the why are you seeing

[23:22]  this we see that sometimes in places why are you seeing this ad right and they can kind of tell you that begins to chip away at the problem of recognizing if something is biased or going a certain path but again it goes back to awareness of me an individual wanting to know that and then potentially course correcting right being cognizant that this isn't a good thing I'm going down a rat hole you know of a bunch of these I should pull back up awareness it starts with awareness um in so many cases and and something you talked about the mobile device in the digital Generation Um I actually want to tie this a bit to almost substance abuse and um because I I can't remember I going to butcher it if I if you want I can find you the article but I was reading where every time this screen lights up a little bit of chemical fires off in my head right there is a I can't remember which chemical it was but it's a good chemical Good Feeling chemical and we become

[24:11]  dependent on that in some cases because it feels good stuff is coming and so now I'm just sucked even more into this universe like you said the digital reality not the reality reality which then just exacerbates this problem right so it's I think it's very much the how the phone has become the extension of my body and what I'm getting there so there's an amazing book um it's called indestructible okay um and it was actually um found or written by a guy named near Ela e y a l e okay anyway his book talks about this exact concept which is a lot of people today are not and I'm not trying to throw shade or I'm not trying to disprove anybody but he says a lot of people today are diagnosed or they believe that they have ADHD okay right one of the key elements of that is

[24:59]  the fact that nobody today can regulate their emotions let me give you an example any single time you are in a public space in a mall in a grocery store in the gym where people are standing around or standing next to other people what's the first thing that they do jonno next to each other think about this think about this in your mind if people are standing in line at the grocery store or they're standing in line at the mall often what are they doing while they're standing in line they're on their phones they're on their phones exactly and so what he talks about is the fact that that whenever we feel uncomfortable we feel a little bit awkward we don't have a human connection where we can have a conversation what Behavior have we created as a habit through hundreds of thousands if not millions of repeated actions we pull out our phone and often if you look at somebody's device they're not even doing anything they're literally just like

[25:46]  flipping back and forth between their screens they're not texting anybody that is a lack of emotional regulation so it's I would never have categorized it but I see it as such and I can totally vouch for that because I travel a lot for work by myself and usually I eat the restaurant downstairs because it's the easiest thing to do and all the business Travelers are on their phone and you're right half the time it's flipping back and forth It's not towards and it's aimlessly using this device because I I don't want to sit there and watch the TV or stare at something it's really interesting you bring that up that's entirely true yeah yeah it's an interesting concept but when we have these small little actions that are built into habitual habits I think about the amount of time when we lose opportunities to have human connection I remember growing up I was born in 1990 so I'm like right in the middle of being

[26:32]  a millennial I remember people my parents in that further generation saying you guys don't know how to communicate with each other you have no interpersonal skills you can't talk to anybody anymore you guys just want to text if I think about that extrapolated into the future where we now have children who are born and tossed in iPad at the age of Two And every single time that they get upset or throw a tantrum their parents feed them with that digital Horizon of infinite what are they going to be when they get to be adults are they going to be able to have resiliency to overcome tough times what are they going to do when they have lack of emotional regulation what are the behaviors that we're going to see downhill and it ties back into that substance use and that substance disorder right of people using things to escape instead of sitting with those

[27:18]  feelings yeah I think you know we used to or I think people we still do but coping skills is one way to describe the how do you handle a situation by the way it can apply equally to a great situation as a bad situation usually it's more bad right because you cope with the bad but you're right how do you handle a given interaction or situation something that's interesting though Keenan I mean you and I have never met in person but because of the way that we communicate I do feel a connection with you we're having a really meaningful conversation but it's not the norm over text or video or audio right and I feel like it's possible but it's not a skill that we teach kids when you have 30 kids in a classroom together playing a sport soccer hockey football they're learning that collegiality and

[28:06]  how to interact with one another like you said about the iPad It's usually put up as a coping don't scream in the restaurant just watch your movie and that's where it's doing a diss surface to a technology because iPads us used for Behavioral Health virtual you know that's a good thing and so I feel like it's how these tools are introduced used and taught that can make all the difference and where is the sense of accountability right I bring that in because often I am the victim of hearing a lot of examples of eighth place trophies Seventh Place trophies right but my rebuttal to that element of people saying well your generation is soft because you got eth Place trophies I always asked who raised us because I was not the 5-year-old who was inside the trophy store saying I want the eighth place trophy for me and my

[28:53]  friends who aren't going to win a single game in this soccer tournament right so where's the sense of accountability that goes back to looking at who were the people who had the responsibility at the time but dropped the ball and now we're dealing with the lagging effects or the you know the lagging indicators if you will of those bad decisions so I'm going to take a slightly broader answer or answer to your question too one of the problems I think we often hit right and this this goes to the accountability problem is it can't always be the same person in each situation right so we talk about school or at least I brought up example school classroom or coach or or parent or Guardian different family circumstances necessitate different people to play that role that that's the the bigger thing I'll say for example you know something I um I am super passionate about with THS is we have a Youth and Family Services Group that

[29:42]  help and support and the thing I've come to recognize and and appreciate is it's not the same answer for every kid parent Guardian grandparent because the Situation's different and so so back to accountability I don't know that we can say this that or the other I I think that it becomes almost like a personal mandate to be that if someone can't be that you know I have a really great friend he was effectively raised by his neighbor or his like his best friend neighbor's mom as part of the family because that was the group that could provide stability teaching accountability others you hear great stories about you the football coach was that that person in their life and so I don't know there's a one-sized fits-all answer but for you and I others that are listening because we care if we're listening to this podcast

[30:28]  I think it's our responsibility to try to be that person and sometimes it's a one to one sometimes it can be a one to many through supporting groups or others right that's that's kind of a wishy-washy answer and a feel good answer but I actually believe it to be true there is no one-size fits all but every kid needs that um that role model almost right which is a way of driving accountability you know do as I do show you know lead by example that's going to make us better later and that also includes by the way the right to be vulnerable I think something that as I talked to a lot of folks over the last several years about mental and Behavioral Health a lot of the generation that's kind of in their 40s and 50s now they talk about their JDS saying you know you got to do this this is the this is what men do and and I think that there is a lot of that that weighs heavy on people because but

[31:17]  that's not me am Am I Wrong Am and so that whole just supporting right supporting and embracing difference um kind of going back to know different opinion diversity opinion is also an important part of that accountability because each kid is different um each adult is different I want to talk a little bit about the concept of Happiness so when you think about happiness what does that mean to you um so I I have probably a different definition now than even when we we chatted last um so the reason why I say that is my husband and I are starting story to and I realized I now realize how looking forward to being a parent for me personally is making me so happy like having silly conversations about well

[32:04]  what are we going to do about this what are we going when that happens makes me happy right and and the reason why I kind of leave with that example is again I think it's different for everyone and there is no long long duration definition of it it is probably time and place but I think safety is a big underlying part of it right being able to be yourself feeling safe and all the you know masa's hierarchy of needs those those fundamental Primal through to the ability to express yourself and be yourself that's probably at the heart of Happiness what you want to do think believe that's you but the ability to believe think and do that's that safety and I think you know that that's the heart of it I mean I love that answer and I only bring that up because you um

[32:53]  have been fortunate enough to be very successful in your professional life right and often I feel like there is a misnomer in society today where if you attain a certain amount of money if you attain a certain title you're G to find happiness but let me tell you what I have had $646 in my bank account and I've had a lot more money in my bank account I've been able to buy cars and go on vacations and things like that when I think about the definition of happiness I worry that we are chasing materialistic idea ideas instead of truly understand what is fulfilling and so I could not be happier to think about how you answered that question thinking about yourself in a future State being able to raise a child being able to have all of those micro interactions is a

[33:40]  true definition of happiness it doesn't seem like you put a lot of value on the dollar if that's true no 100% 100% correct you know and this is where um I I'm glad you bring that up too because um growing up like first of all I fully appreciate my parents so much they're here visiting this past week right we even talked about this um money wasn't easy like we we it was paycheck to paycheck but the the realization that if you have money you can buy things that can so easily be I'll use the word perverted perverted it into oh that's happiness then because I I wanted it and now I have it that's not happiness it can lead to safety that that concept because if I know that I don't have to worry right that I know where this dinner is coming from and that I can feed and provide

[34:28]  there's a safety element there but yeah it's it's a very very nuanced difference that a lot of folks because if you didn't have something before and now you can well that must be happiness because I got what I wanted um I'll be I'll be honest though right I mean I'm 42 now it it took me a long time to get to the place where I have happiness I got married two years ago and now I now realize what those things are and you're right none of it had to do with how many zeros were in my bank account whether it be zero zero or many zeros right um and guess what he or she who dies with the most money still dies so you might as well die with really good memories that was something someone said to me a long time ago and I think it's even more true now right looking back at the things that you did the people you were with how you you help someone going back to that accountability and leading into people in your life right that's what's

[35:16]  going to matter and so I'm actually really glad you bring that up and I feel like that's kind of where my heart sits today um I once again I was listening to that podcast and I was talking to uh or I was just listening to that podcast the other night the former head of Google X and he was talking about how his son died at the age of 21 named Ali and he died because of a simple um um like appendectomy right his appendix was um bad and they messed up and unfortunately his son died and in that moment he said I could have chosen to live a life of sorrow or I could try and make as many people happy like my son would have wanted me to do and I recognized that happiness never came with the first C that I bought but I did make the mistake saying saying that it's not the right color so I'm going to buy another one until he got to the 16th vehicle and he realized that none of these

[36:02]  materialistic items are the things that actually fill my soul it's the time I have with my daughter it's the time I get to spend with my grandchildren it's all the micro memories that we remember at the end of the day but we just are in such this Flux Of materialism in society I mean when I look at a lot of people who are Idols to younger men I see people who are either making a ton of money living in Dubai driving a Lambo living Miami live in all these places but then I think like as I've gone down the path those things are so shortlived and at the end of the day they can disappear and then you're left with yourself only and if you're not happy with yourself you're GNA find yourself in a really tough position oh 100% 100% agree it's just uh it's an interesting time um I want to talk about as we kind of you start wrapping this up a little

[36:48]  bit man time has been flying this a conversation said I was like oh geez this has been great so yeah um I want to talk a little bit about AI so recognizing that you are in the technology space you're also a prominent leader in a healthcare organization how are you guys kind of thinking about AI in the future is there a role to be played in the space of healthcare do we have to overcome some mindsets that often are not quickly adaptable in healthcare from a leadership position what do you think the future is going to look like over the next couple years so first of all you asked like a disertation length question so I'll try I'll try to squish it down um I absolutely think AI has a role not just in healthcare but everywhere in life um the second part though you know the the how does it fit in what do we have to do

[37:36]  like AI if done wrong is Skynet level bad right um I think about Healthcare if AI gives the wrong answer you ask a question it should have said go see your doctor instead it says take four of these things that is fundamentally not the right thing like there's a right and the wrong so we have to get it right and there's a progression from where we are today with humans saying something a doctor a a pharmacist to AI telling you along the way there's a ton of testing a ton of observation um the phrase often used is a human in the loop meaning the AI may suggest it but I'm going to say as a you know a second opinion yes before it gets sent to you those are the kinds of things right that will allow AI to be brought in and help scale out care delivery um there's a you know there's a

[38:23]  stat out there recently where they said that AI in I believe it was early breast cancer screening was able to improve the efficiency of Radiologists because it did a first pass right it would say yes no and call out this thing and and then a human could say yes no but they could do so many more revisions reviews sorry in a smaller period of time more people got care that's how we should think of AI right again it's it's a it's an incremental step towards that so that's the first thing the second thing I think about AI is it also then means that we can take that same technology and put it into the hands of folks that otherwise might not have been able to get care going back to the example of tea health in this particular case access to right a a visit of some form well what if right what if where we don't have

[39:11]  doctors today we can leverage AI that's been proven as a way to provide some of that base level answer Q&A and a correct WebMD the most dangerous thing about WebMD is I interpreted what I Googled and found right so so the flip of that is AI is telling you but again if we've if we've taught it correctly it can give so many more people some of the safer answers to questions and therefore improve scale right the scale of that care delivery or or as we talk about Behavioral Health if people are comfortable with it why wouldn't I perhaps bounce some ideas back and forth you know with a think of it as a we just call them Bots right you know these virtual therapists and kind of go from there it could ask me questions I talked about therapy I believe in therapy very

[39:57]  much but it's dig at the first couple questions I don't need that to be a human I would be comfortable with that with the right privacy and all those things right so I think it can materially change who and how we can deliver care too I mean I think about it as being um an accelerator now a replacement yes right correct I think it's going to have to be positioned that way because um you know historically from my experience and the behavioral health space is anybody going back to the very beginning of our conversation who is an outsider who has a different perspective is of often looked at as a threat and the one thing that I do not want our licensed mental health professionals to think today is that technology is coming to replace them but we need to look at it as an accelerator that helps them do more with less because we've talked about some of the nonprofit challenges when it comes to

[40:45]  funding reimbursement acquiring Talent we're having a really tough time out here in a lot of our States because a lot of the times funding is 75 80% of what's necessary to cover Services what are we supposed to do that Delta of 15% go out into the community and fundraise when it sounds like we have such a pent up demand for services like mental and Behavioral Health in our communities we need 150% of resources to get all these people back to Baseline where they can be advocates for themselves and I think that unless we look at technology with that lens of curiosity I'll bring that word back into the conversation and think about how it can be positioned we're doing ourselves and our communities a huge disservice oh absolutely you know and when you talk about demand I want to go back uh to something we've thrown some numbers out over the course of the conversation I

[41:33]  would any day anytime put my hand up and say I think these numbers are easily 40% below what the truth is because again there's stigma behind sometimes asking for help saying yes on a you know a check checking the check box in an intake form and so while we you said 70 to 80% the reality probably is is there's more demand than we actually even know and so the more we can have these tools that help people meet them where they are again right that preference that optionality I really do think we will make it better we will give them ways right to ask for help reach out for help and get help jonno I want to uh I want to say thank you so much for this time that we've spent together it's gone by so quickly but the conversation has been so valuable to me and to everybody who's tuning in listening and watching today we have a tradition here where we like to link our last episode with today's episode by

[42:21]  having our previous guest ask you a question okay okay okay previous guest um their question was what is the one major setback that you obviously wouldn't want to have but because you had it it transcended you forward in a massive way the one setback that transcended me forward you know um I I'll use this example because it's actually very timely for myself right now uh people are always their worst critic right so expectation personal expectation and then usually real or self assessed reality is somewhere in between um and so in that way I think this is for myself recently as well um I realized I I can't perform at the level that I want to perform in a certain

[43:07]  thing right and and that actually triggered speaking of health and therapy you know conversations introspection on but what is it exactly that I wanted what what was this and so that setback I you know I took a break from from work for a little bit and all these things to reassess actually set me on this new path right and so it was a setback be but I didn't ask that question I just kept running the rat race and the hamster wheel and this is what I thought I needed to do and in reality I didn't know why except that was the thing I needed to do and then taking that step back it actually allowed me to say you know what that's not the thing this is the other thing and now I'm going to go chase that path Chase my heart and reassess right and then set new priorities set new Focus um so for me personally that literally just happened in the last three months this this

[43:54]  journey this change in course and I'm thankful for it right every time you have a chance to reassess and you should be thankful to be able to make a change a course correction it's not always possible and that's why I am thankful that I'm able to do that um I hope that meets the spirit of the question as it was asked though no it definitely does John man I just can't thank you enough for once again coming on the show this has been such a spirited conversation and I'm definitely going to have to have you back here in the future nearly or in the very near future um any closing words you know when you when you have something that you want to leave on the mind of all the people who are tuning into this what do you want to say to them as they leave um first of all I want to say thank you for all that you do right these conversations again Drive awareness imagine that it drives awareness um but for all of us it kind of came up in that theme of

[44:41]  accountability um people have the luxury of listening to this podcast however they're consuming it wherever whenever um ask yourself can I be helping those around me a different way when I talked about it's a different shape for everyone it's similar to a while back we used to say you don't always know if someone's having a Mental Health crisis all you can do is ask and so I implore everyone listening here yourself and myself included to always be willing to ask right because you you don't know when your question may be the thing that gets people on a path that helps prevent something that otherwise is is not a great outcome so that's what I ask everyone that's listening yourself and I well I appreciate that man once again this has been another episode of the heart and hustle podcast that's a wrap catch you guys in the next one