FIVE QUESTIONS WITH DR. GERRY STANLEY, M.D., P-CEO Member, Doctivity Health Advisory Board
Gerry Stanley, M.D., is an accomplished third-generation family doctor, speaker, author, and catalyst for change in the workers compensation industry. With a passion for healthcare transformation, Dr. Stanley speaks extensively on the topic of healthcare IT, population health management, self-insured health plan management, and medical consumerism and direct to employer network enablement.
His visionary perspective on the opportunity to find a solution for the growing opioid epidemic and mental health crisis by creating a resource for clinicians to treat patients “wholistically” is what he describes as a “once in a lifetime opportunity to solve a societal need.” As the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Harvard MedTech, his belief that a collaborative approach and strong foundational understanding of health care delivery, health systems, insurance brokers/consultants, and self-insured employers is critical to scale health plans and achieve the quadruple AIM of healthcare. Considered an industry disruptor, he is writing a book entitled The Innovation Equation to provide a framework for safe and effective innovation and effective cross organization communication to foster a culture of change.
Most recently, Dr. Stanley served as the Chief Medical Officer for the Employer and Consumer division of Cerner, where he was able to put into play his unique ability to identify market specific opportunities for development, stabilization, and growth. This included developing a value-based care and population health strategy for critical access hospitals and community hospitals, and a framework for health plan development for integrated delivery networks. While at Cerner, he also had the responsibility for its national system of on-site and near-site health centers/pharmacies/occupational centers serving self-insured employers, care coordination teams, a national team of corporate wellness strategists, an analytics division, a third-party administrator (TPA), and the self-insured and direct-to-employer insurance strategies for Cerner clients.
Dr. Stanley received his undergraduate degree from Creighton University studying Classical and Near Eastern Civilizations where he graduated magna cum laude. He then attended the Creighton University School of Medicine where he served as class president for three years, graduated with clinical honors, and received the university’s highest honor, the Spirit of Creighton Award. Upon graduation, he completed his residency and served as chief resident at the Northern Colorado Family Medicine Program with a focus on rural and surgical family medicine. He practiced medicine for over ten years in a variety of practice settings with group/hospital leadership positions before attending the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and graduating from the Physician CEO program.
ONE
DH – What are the biggest challenges in healthcare today? How can Doctivity’s advanced data analytics play a role in solving these challenges?
GS – One of the biggest challenges is the impact of information asymmetry. There is currently no alignment between payers and providers, providers and patients, and providers and health systems. Patients and their health and well-being, of course, are most important, but all too often they are without a voice and are left being looked at as the “widgets” the healthcare industry produces. We must align the healthcare industry to include all the key components, and sharing information and analyzing it correctly is key to our success. Information is the currency of our age, and Doctivity has the accurate and actionable data to align the various parties and level the playing field.
TWO
DH – Please tell us about your passion for healthcare transformation, the importance of effective data analytics to innovation, and how such transformation equates to improved patient care.
GS – I’m a third-generation doctor, so healthcare is my family’s business. That’s where my passion for quality patient care was born. I can’t remember a family dinner while growing up where we didn’t at some point talk about the medical field. Then, as I moved through my education, training, and career taking care of people, it became obvious that there were various things my colleagues and I could do differently to enhance patient care and improve efficiency and results. Innovation and transformation are imperative if we truly want to make substantial improvements. There is tremendous power in analytics and an avalanche of information available can be daunting. The challenge is that all too often the data is organized in a way that is not understandable to everyone. Doctivity makes it understandable. There’s a significant need for cross understanding throughout healthcare and what all the different players are doing. The best solution I’ve seen is Doctivity, as it breaks down usable and actionable analytics and offers insights that ignite transformation.
THREE
DH – You are well known as a catalyst for change in the workers compensation industry. Please tell us the size and scope of workers’ compensation healthcare and some of the advancements in this field.
GS –My grandfather served as an occupational medicine physician for General Motors, so this has always been an area of particular interest for me. Workers’ compensation is a forgotten vertical in healthcare in need of transformation. There is a significant patient population with too much disparity in outcomes, and it is an area of medicine that is looking for ways to catch up. That’s a situation in need of transformation. Worker’s compensation patients are mostly young and healthy, but many are smokers. And yet they are doing worse than older and sicker patients. Traditionally, the focus was on time – getting the patient back to work as soon as possible – but now the emphasis is rightfully on patient outcomes. Transforming workers’ compensation care will be beneficial to the patients and to those who care for and insure them.
FOUR
DH – Please tell us about your book, The Innovation Equation, and your thoughts on safe and effective innovation and cross-organization communication to foster a culture of change.
GS – The book is a multi-year project that is an accumulation of my insights as I began studying how people, think, innovate, and unfortunately become stuck. Put simply, the book provides an equation on how to approach innovation – a framework to approach complex issues in an understandable way. As you change one part of the equation, that may or may not change the next part. The framework presented in the book helps you to consider such cause and effect and work through the issues effectively. I am hoping to put the finishing touches on the book soon.
FIVE
DH – Where do you see healthcare going from here? What do you see happening in the industry in the coming years and how does innovation and transformation lead the way to future success?
GS – That’s a tough question. We are dealing with patients’ lives so we cannot allow the ship to sink. We owe it to our patients to do more and to do better. Third-party influences will continue to impact healthcare, not just regulatory but things such as self-insured entities will demand achievement of the quadruple aim and better outcomes. An employer revolution is coming related to how and where they buy healthcare determined by best outcomes analytics. Doctivity plays into this by creating an active key performance indicators tickertape of healthcare. Doctivity measures the pulse of an organization or system and provides the vehicle to help them make informed choices to improve outcomes.
We need to care for people better and remember that we may not always have the best hammer, but we do have the best craftspeople – those who provide the care. It’s the art of knowing that sometimes the best course of action is not to rush to surgery or other procedures. I have an old picture in my office from the early 1900s of a doctor sitting at the patient’s bedside. It reminds me that time can often be the better healer and our role is to help the patient through the pain.
No matter the best care plan, organizationally we need to continually think about transformation and ask, “What levers can I push to impact change?” When we continually emphasize and prioritize change, innovation and transformation will follow.
