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Executive Interview: Breaking Through Healthcare's Analysis Paralysis with Rich Waller

GMT20250916-202323_Recording_avo_640x360: [00:00:00] Today's episode is brought to you by Wells Stack. Healthcare organizations struggle with fragmented data systems that prevent comprehensive patient insights and informed decision making. Wells Stack's integrated data platform creates a single source of truth across your entire organization, delivering actionable insights through built-in decision hubs.

Transform your healthcare delivery with wells stack's modern out of the box data ecosystem. Learn more at this week. health.com/wells stack

GMT20250714-172930_Recording: I'm Sarah Richardson, a principal here at this week Health where our mission is healthcare transformation powered by community. Welcome to this executive interview, candid conversations about leading with purpose.

Let's connect.

Sarah Richardson : Welcome to this Week Health. I'm Sarah Richardson, and today I'm joined by Rich Waller, president and CEO of WellStack Rich is a longtime supporter of this week, health and a proven leader in healthcare technology at WellStack. He's guiding innovation and data management, cloud strategies, and healthcare interoperability, helping [00:01:00] organizations unlock value while navigating technical debt and complex IT landscapes.

Rich, it is so great to have you here.

Rich Waller: It's great to be here, Sarah.

Sarah Richardson : For those that are less familiar, can you share the backstory of WellStack, how it was founded and the problem you set out to solve in healthcare?

Rich Waller: Absolutely. So, WellStack was founded really to solve the pervasive data trust problem that so many healthcare organizations are dealing with today.

So we like to showcase. There's been a number of surveys and we even have done this survey live with a lot of healthcare leaders when we get groups together. But really, we ask organizations, how many of them consider. Data analytics to be mission critical to their strategic objectives.

And, as you can imagine, pretty much a hundred percent of those of those surveyed agree that it is in the same survey, what we find and what, a number of other surveys have found is that less than 20% often, even a lot less than 20% actually trust their current data foundation to get them there.

[00:02:00] Right? So WellStack exists really to help. Our clients and the industry really cross that chasm, get to that data trust. Because what's interesting is we actually see that gap is ac is widening a lot because of, the demands that AI are bringing and organizations are just being asked to do more and to do more faster with their data.

And so that, that trust level we don't see actually closing in many cases it's actually getting wider and we really. Work hard to help organizations bring that together, provide trusted data that powers all of their initiatives, including their AI and ML strategies.

Sarah Richardson : I always share with executives if they finally have the funding to do the right thing with their data so they can trust it with their CFO and other stakeholders.

That ongoing conversation about, it's not a one-time investment, but it is a strategic investment on keeping it healthy so you can always trust it. I'm curious with that being kinda that foundational element that's hard sometimes to articulate to the right stakeholders. [00:03:00] Tell us a bit about your core mission and the value prop that provides organizations the ability to have that ongoing conversation.

Rich Waller: We use this analogy a lot, right? We wanna be the easy button, right? For CIOs, chief Data Officers and their enterprise data strategy. Because a lot of this is just, removing friction, getting down into the weeds, dealing with a lot of the messy, hard stuff that happens with healthcare data.

We all know and love the core data sources that we all deal with, and they're sort of a Pareto principle. That goes into driving that strategy. And so that's really our mission and aligned with that. A lot of those same stakeholders are now grappling with the what are they gonna do around ai, right?

How are they gonna drive strategy? And as we know data is the fuel that powers everything with ai. So we wanna be, really focused on helping organizations in the most. Sort of rapid and cost effective way to getting to that, foundational data trust that helps streamline and optimize everything they're doing, not only with data analytics and that ongoing strategy, but now, moving [00:04:00] into the AI side of things as well.

Sarah Richardson : In every organization I've ever been in, the technical debt was this constant churn. And yes, you get it funded, ideally X percent every year, and then you're always trying to balance innovation on top of that. How does WellStack help an organization modernize without disrupting the current environment, especially patient care, but also like how quick the winds can start to show up while you're doing this whole cleanup and democratization and really federation of some of the data.

Rich Waller: One thing that we're doing at WellStack that, I have some battle scars from my past and in other companies and things like that, is that, we've architected our platform to be very adaptable to where our clients are today in their overall strategy. Right? We are agnostic to cloud.

We're agnostic to kind of enterprise data strategy. And so, rather than requiring organizations to sort of rip and replace aspects of either their current infrastructure or their strategy, which creates some of that risk, right? Within disrupting [00:05:00] patient quick care or key operations, we are able to deploy directly into.

Their strategies or into the strategies that they're seeking to adopt. Right. So like, as an example if an organization is looking to, they have an enterprise strategy around Snowflake or Databricks or Fabric or any of these kind of core enterprise technologies, we can deploy directly into those and actually accelerate.

Driving ROI and de-risk the overall strategy. So rather than, require them maybe to change course we help them get there quickly by, being very conducive to where they are.

Sarah Richardson : One of the things you point out in some of just your marketing conversations is how decision paralysis is something that healthcare leaders will struggle with. They'll over even just analyze the ability to bring in certain solutions. You emphasize that you empower leaders with actionable insights that drive better patient care, better financial optimization, and then it truly is seamless to the overall operation of the organization.

How do you help organizations move from. [00:06:00] That space of trying to make the right decision to action and not get stuck in that whole scenario. Yeah. As I mentioned

Rich Waller: the whole goal here is to try to be an easy button for those key stakeholders, right? And the way that we back that up and make good on that promise is, not only do we adopt kind of their core ecosystem.

But we have a core set of use cases that we have that are proven that we know drive value, that are sort of, again, in large healthcare systems, pretty consistent and the things that are always top of mind. So we're constantly working with our clients on the key use cases. So, common ones today are revenue leakage, both from a population health and from a rev cycle perspective.

Payer contract optimization, staffing optimization, throughput. Those are some of those key areas where we start and we drive quick wins within the organization. So it changes this from being a really large enterprise commitment to, let's start here and drive value quickly.

And one thing that differentiates us is the [00:07:00] way that we do that is our platform components deploy as reusable Lego blocks, right? So if you think about within population health, we deploy certified. Trusted data. Lego blocks and analytical models around things like utilization labs, medications, vital signs on the payer contracting side, it's how do you join claims to remits, to patient accounting data.

And then while we're driving, maybe that first narrow use case. Those Lego blocks can be reassembled to then go tackle revenue leakage. But the key is, is that they're trusted. Everyone's now playing off the same sheet of music from a definitions perspective, how metrics are defined, how codes are grouped and mapped.

And so you're not sort of trading additional technical or business debt to go quickly. You're actually kind of incrementally creating that stable foundation with those reusable objects. And that's something that we see as really a differentiator for what we're doing in the market.

And again, solving that problem of analysis paralysis, but also speed to [00:08:00] value.

Sarah Richardson : What are some of your favorite outcomes or some of the use cases that have emerged even this year because you guys were just a rocket ship trajectory. It's been really impressive to watch the organization grow. What are some of the stories that you've heard that just make you realize how important what you've done and how much it matters?

Yeah, so we've heard from a number of regional health systems our clients, I'll start with kind of just what we call our core data models around subject areas. We call them decision hubs, right? And so the decision hubs are really sort of the analytical models that drive value. And so what we're hearing from a lot of our clients is what's happening is it's giving them the ability to not only.

Quickly identify anomalies and outliers. So say, a big bolus of opportunities in either insurance denials where when we're looking at, payer contract negotiations, we're seeing kind of where there's opportunity for insight. You can drill straight to the details and understand exactly what's happening.

So it's very actionable and allows them to kind of periscope down [00:09:00] and across data sets very quickly. We also have a number of wins within our core population, health decision hub around revenue leakage around bringing kind of identifying key patient cohorts that we want to follow through the continuum, and then making sure that we are retaining and providing a full care pathway to those patients.

As you can imagine, there's a lot of value within areas like ortho. And key service lines that regional health systems are looking to make sure they're providing the highest quality and most effective care around.

So all healthcare executives pay attention to the financials. They pay attention to margin and outcomes and quality.

All those aspects we always have. It's how we're raised in these systems, and yet lately. Politics or otherwise, there's a significant push in some of these areas. And how are you seeing your clients lean into some of the optimization or financial capabilities differently than maybe they even did a year ago?

Rich Waller: It's amazing to see how much of this has really become top of mind for [00:10:00] the technical stakeholders. Right. So the CIOs, the Chief Data officers I'm having some really great conversations and I'm actually pretty blown away at the level of knowledge. That a lot of CIOs have gained within areas like RevCycle where many know that I've spent a good portion of my career where, maybe 10 years ago it was, really hard to engage outside of the VP of revenue cycle or the CFO around, payer contract, complexities or the data strategy even within the patient financial experience.

And the same thing goes for sort of core population health use cases where a lot of that had lived. Sort of within the service lines over time, it's coming back to being really central to how data strategies are being architected. And so that's been, I think a pretty exciting I would say development with a lot of that key focus around those core operational processes that affect the patient on the administrative side as well as on the clinical side.

Sarah Richardson : And what I love about that dynamic, especially for what you all have done, is that it's so much more than data. This is about better decisions, better [00:11:00] care, better journey for everybody that's involved. How do you bring both your vision and that of the healthcare organization to life in some of these conversations?

And I'm just curious too, when someone engages with you for this type of work, how long before they're seeding those immediate results?

Rich Waller: Yeah, that's a great question. And as you can imagine, it, it does vary based on the use case and the size and shape of organization, but we seek to. Really drive a demonstrable value or at least a use case that we can, really focus a team around within 45 to 60 days.

Right. So we're driving very quickly. The way that our data pipelines and those like Lego blocks I mentioned work, is that you can really incrementally pull through certain data sets and then join them incrementally. So what we're trying to do is really. Drive speed to value, get very focused on how we can define success.

And a lot of that is, as you can imagine, people process and technology, that brings that all together. And so we look to really partner deeply with our [00:12:00] clients to make sure that those use cases are happening on target. And we often work with our clients to make sure that our whole project plans are developed around meeting and achieving and exceeding, ideally those targets.

Sarah Richardson : And you learn with them. I mean, one of the things that I love when I talk to your team is that as much as you're training the healthcare organizations to be successful, they're bringing you new ideas and problems to solve that you're doing in tandem with them as well as the CEO. How do you find yourself balancing leading the company through that type of innovation?

Staying in front of the customer, but also creating that whole pipeline for operational excellence within your own walls?

Rich Waller: What we've found and this has been something that I think I've studied probably for the last, better part of a decade, is that when you really become fanatical about your client's jobs to be done, right.

I mean, there's been a lot of structure and Clayton Christensen's book around this was I think pretty awesome in terms of bringing that into the mainstream way of thinking on productizing things. [00:13:00] But when you focus on those like core jobs to be done, you take technology out of it.

I think all of us love to geek out on technology and, AI and all the cool things that can happen, but oftentimes you find yourself sort of searching for a problem for the technology versus the, the flip side. And so, the way that I think, I've found. Is the most successful to create sustainable organizations is really to keep the client and their core jobs to be done at the center of focus, right?

So, aligning our client delivery teams, our product teams, our sales and marketing teams around the core problems that keep our clients up at night and making sure that we're always innovating around those key problems. Our marketing, our sales our delivery. If we are always evaluating whether we're achieving those goals.

I think if you do that and you do that well, the financial results and all the other things follow pretty naturally as your company building

Sarah Richardson : and is a great ethos to have and why people enjoy doing business with you. One last question before I jump into speed round with you [00:14:00] is. Based on what we're seeing in the industry, we made a lot of announcements coming outta UGM, a lot of policy changes that are coming quickly.

What do you want to be true most in the next couple of years for both yourself and for your clients?

Rich Waller: I would love more than anything for our clients to, just again, feel very comfortable about their data foundation and that it's ready and prepared to enable all those things, those difficult things that they're looking at.

I mean, as we know, our industry is changing. Very quickly. And, directionally it can go, any different way as we, depending on, as you mentioned policy and a lot of things coming out of, a lot of the ecosystem is shaped by, what Epic and some of the core, core systems of record are doing.

And so I think and the other aspect of it is ambient listening, I think is opening up a huge opportunity within the industry. And so a lot of those things change, but, if organizations have a really great data foundation to be able to adapt and drive and evaluate success [00:15:00] in those areas I would love to see that, come to fruition.

And that's a big part of obviously why we exist.

Sarah Richardson : Yep, agree. You could continue to be that space where people come together to figure out all these dynamics in real time, which is something that everybody needs in terms of the partnerships they have in their organization. So I'm glad you guys are bringing that forward.

Okay. A leadership principle you live by every day.

Rich Waller: I would say continuous learning. I'm a voracious reader. I love to, explore lots of different topics and I think it just helps keep me focused and it's one thing that I do pretty much every

[Mic bleed]

Sarah Richardson : I'll have to throw in an extra question minus this week. Health of course. What either podcast or book would you recommend to our listeners?

Rich Waller: Yeah, that's a great question. So. Podcasts. I do watch acquired a lot. I mean, or I listen to acquired a lot. It's one a lot of people listen to, especially in the tech world.

One book that I read recently that I think is really great is a book called Never Eat Alone. It's a pretty good book that just kind of focuses on the value of building true kind of networking and trusted advisor [00:16:00] status within your personal network. I thought it was really great.

Sarah Richardson : And we need to create the add-on to that. Never eat alone unless you're stuck at the airport because airlines are forever delayed, canceled, or diverted, and you have a granola bar and a pack of peanut butter at your fingertips. You're gonna be by yourself in that gate waiting for that plane to show up.

That seems to be pretty common lately. I'm not sure about your travel woes, but they seem to be pretty persistent lately.

Rich Waller: Yeah, no, I can definitely relate to that.

Sarah Richardson : Okay. Your favorite way to recharge outside of work.

Rich Waller: Well, I have three daughters and so anytime I can spend with them and my wife traveling, playing sports is absolutely my favorite way to, recharge and spend time.

Sarah Richardson : That is such a perfect answer. Thank you for sharing that. For those that often. Find it hard to balance time for work, time for family time, for all these other aspects. The best way to recharge always seems to be the family aspect, and I'm glad so many leaders lean into it. I'm glad. As a CEO, you expressed that for yourself, your team, and clients too.

Rich, thank you so much for joining us today and for your [00:17:00] continued partnership with This Week Health. And for those that wanna learn more about WellStack and the solutions you're providing, where should we drive them?

Rich Waller: Our website is always a good place to start. But you know, you'll see us at most of the key industry events and obviously partnered with this week health and a lot of different ways to get to us.

Sarah Richardson : Sounds good. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning in. That's all for now.

GMT20250714-172930_Recording: Thanks for joining this executive interview on Flourish with Sarah Richardson here at This Week Health. We believe every healthcare leader needs a community to learn from and lean on. Join us at this week, health.com/subscribe. Share this conversation with an emerging leader. That's all for now.