Launching a Health System Venture Fund, Implementing Digital Care Journeys

A Conversation with Ben Chao

Ben Chao, President, CareConnect, MultiCare Health System
Twitter: @berkchao

Ben Chao is the President of CareConnect at MultiCare Health System and responsible for extending EHRs and other technology solutions to strategic partners. He holds a dual role as Partner at MultiCare Capital Partners, the system’s strategic and social impact investment arm. He has held several positions of progressing accountability at MultiCare and started his career at MultiCare as an Administrative Fellow. Most recently he has served as Director of Technology Advisory Services, facilitating the organization’s digital transformation to deliver consumer-obsessed, provider-empowering, high-value care. He has brokered mergers and acquisitions, led market strategy & facility planning, and ran MultiCare’s virtual urgent care and telehealth provider services teams.

Listen to the Conversation

Episode Takeaways

  1. Digital health leader, Ben Chao explains how The Jetsons, the animated American sitcom, influenced his appreciation for digital care from a young age and the potential for digital care to improve access and ROI for health systems.
  2. The story behind why Chao and his team operate like a startup, measuring KPIs to ensure asynchronous care improves patient-centricity and why MultiCare measures patient NPS around each encounter or visit and how the digital care program has achieved an NPS between 80-90 compared to the industry average of 20-40 in healthcare.
  3. Learn about the impact Digital Care Journeys have on engaging with patients every step of the way through care journeys (e.g., orthopedics, bariatrics, maternity care, etc.), and why MultiCare required a robust solution that was not solely microtransactions (e.g., appointment reminders) but also contained contextual information through clinically aware content & education specific to the care journey.
  4. Chao provides insights into how MultiCare’s strategic investment arm–MultiCare Capital Partners–operates from an organizational philosophy of “sourcing, picking, and winning.”
  5. Garner insights on the value MultiCare gets from participating in various healthcare innovation networks such as The Scottsdale Institute and AVIA. And hear why mentorship is important and deeply personal to Chao and why he focuses on pushing his own mentees out of their comfort zones.
  6. Discover why Chao is excited about the future of asynchronous care that emphasizes longitudinal care and leverages Natural Language Processing to distinguish between administrative tasks vs. clinical care, as well as innovation coming out of China such as being able to setup modular hospitals in a matter of weeks.

Hosts

Alan Sardana

For nearly a decade, Alan Sardana has combined a unique blend of curiosity and community-advocacy to uncover and disseminate best practices in healthcare innovation. He is an award-winning filmmaker, science advocate and startup enthusiast, having played an instrumental role in supporting multiple startups advance from seed financing through multiple funding rounds.

Alan is currently the Marketing Lead at SeamlessMD—the leading Digital Patient Engagement platform for health systems to engage, monitor and stay connected with patients across healthcare journeys. In his role, Alan is responsible for developing and advancing SeamlessMD’s positioning and partnerships.

Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO, SeamlessMD
Twitter: @joshuapliu

Dr. Joshua Liu is a physician turned entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder/CEO of SeamlessMD, which provides the leading Digital Patient Engagement platform for health systems to engage, monitor and stay connected with patients across healthcare journeys.

Joshua graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Toronto. During his medical training, he co-led a research project at UHN on hospital readmissions and sat on UHN’s physician advisory group for post-hospital discharge follow up. As a result, Joshua was inspired to develop technology to better support patients and prevent adverse outcomes such as a readmission – which ultimately led to him co-founding SeamlessMD.

About the Show

Rated one of the top 30 Best Digital Health Podcasts by FeedSpot, The Digital Patient takes an “edu-taining” approach to all things digital patient care. On this show hosts Dr. Joshua Liu, and Alan Sardana talk with healthcare, technology, and innovation leaders about the latest advancements in digital health, trends in digital transformation, and strategies for optimizing the patient experience. Guests include Dr. Becket Mahnke, CMIO, Confluence Health, Dr. Denise Basow, Chief Digital Officer, Ochsner, Dr. Michael Radtke, CMIO, Intermountain Health, Duska Kennedy, Chief Digital Officer, North York General Hospital, Dr. David Putrino, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation, The Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Jay B. Shah, Chief of Staff, Stanford Health Care, and many more.