In this captivating episode of data driven, we engage in a thought
provoking discussion about equities of care and disparities in the health
care system. Our guest explains how patients
experience varying levels of care based on their unique circumstances,
an issue that undoubtedly impacts both the health care system and the
patients themselves. We discuss the administrative
inefficiencies and lack of effective management in healthcare systems.
Can data and AI really fix this issue? Listen
to find out.
Hello, and welcome to Data Driven, the podcast where we explore the
emergent. Right? It's no longer emerging. Fields of data science,
machine learning and artificial intelligence, and, of course, data engineering, which
is really the foundation for all of the good stuff that we're gonna talk about
today. How you doing, Andy? I'm well, Frank. How about yourself? I'm
doing alright. I'm still working on memorizing the season 7 kinda intro,
which is probably by the time this show goes out, it's It's been a
little different each time. So Sure. But it's all good. I I like
the, the emphasis on data engineering, of course. Mhmm. I'm
Naturally. But, totally
totally get that. And, I'm really excited about,
today's guest. Cool. Yeah. Me too. I I will add
that that before we talk about our guest, that the the emphasis of
data engineering isn't just for you. It's mostly for you. Well,
thanks, Frank. I appreciate that. The more work I've done in
in enterprises, the more I realized that, you know, this is
It is foundational. Right? And and and if you follow me on on my Red
Hat channels and things like that, you know, I have this this talk, you know,
red, rock stars and roadies. Right. Like, our office hours talk, by the way.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. And, you know, and I use the
example of Taylor Swift because my niece is a huge fan of hers. Right? So
people buy the tickets for Tay Tay. Right? But Tay Tay's concert
wouldn't be awesome. I'm not a fan. Right? So I'm not and they don't
hate. I don't fan. I'm very neutral. I'm Tay I'm Tay Tay neutral. Right?
And my my my Tay Tay Probability wave has
function is not collapsed yet. So, that's
a quantum computing joke, which you will get or you won't
get or neither, I suppose, which is another joke. Anyway,
it really comes up that that, you you know, it's important. Right? Like, the the
rock star is important. That's who sells the tickets, but Absolutely. The
performance can't go on without all the people that go in. So roadies.
Yeah. With that, I'm gonna we're gonna have a great conversation with Joe
Bethone, or Bethony. I'm not we'll get the corrected pronunciation in a
minute. He's the cofounder and CEO of Anexis Health, a leading health care
tech company That helps lessen Nice. Administrative and
logistical barriers across the patient experience, increase access to
care, reduce financial burdens at both Patient and provider
levels. His goal is to change the world by building a culture around health care
data that people wanna be a part of. Welcome to the show, Joe. Thanks so
much, Frank. Hey, Andy. Hey. Yeah. It's it's we had a
little bit of a chat in the virtual green room here, and we'll get to
that maybe at the, as the show progresses. But, just
wanna welcome you, Joe, to the show. The, the the
goals, the mission, of the company just sounds amazing.
It sounds what exactly is needed. Right? Yeah. So so
so tell us about how did you how'd you get here? Like, how'd
you How'd you get there? How'd you hit that
frustration point? What made you take the action, and then what your firm is
doing? Yeah. Yeah. I I think that it It took me
longer to get here than I than it should have. Right? I
think I'm more stubborn than I ever thought, And
maybe it just takes me longer to learn. I spent a lot of time in
the pharma industry doing a bunch of different things.
So the things that I did in pharma that relate to what I'm doing
today, were around roles I
played in the business of oncology. Alright. So
I did things like create payer focusing teams, facing
teams, led reimbursement Teams. I led
relationships in big health care companies. I
had the opportunity and the blessing To lead
our relationships with advocacy groups. And
that was probably one of the most meaningful experiences in my
professional career Because it got me
into this seat to watch people that dedicated their
entire Professional life. 2, advocating on
behalf of patients. In this case, cancer patients.
So it was extremely meaningful for me
To watch people or to interact with people and try
to play some kind of meaningful role in the
lives of those that were looking to impact the lives of
patients with a cancer diagnosis. So that was a really cool
opportunity. I did learn a lot through all of These
other experiences, another big experience was
leading relationships with large health care
companies. Large health care companies that supported and sold
into pharma. So what I learned was
there's a lot of crap out there. Right? And there's some good stuff.
And learning the ability to kinda
sift through things, learning the ability to say, hey, this looks really cool,
But how do you measure it? Right? There's a kind of a data story in
that. Right? Right. So ultimately,
I spent too much time because I'm Stubborn,
and I think that I learn quickly, but sometimes I refuse
to learn On other's terms. Right? And
so other's terms, the Andy God, in this case. Right?
Where there is a there there's a plan in play here. So, Ultimately,
I don't have any regrets, and, really, the honest truth is is I needed all
those experiences to help me as an operator. So I stepped out of
pharma. I did the operator gig somewhere else prior to this
and it was around data. It was around taking clearing house
data, bringing it in, And creating meaning and action
to that date. Meaning so it's clearing us data for
claims and remittance. And there's a lot of good data in there. Right? But
it's all how it's packaged. Right? So in the oncology space,
provider organizations are buy and bill. They have pharmacy dispensing software,
So they've got skin in the game. Certainly, the patient has skin in the game
and stuff not getting paid for it is getting paid for. Right? So we
ingested the data. We looked at it closely. We found out what was going
on with things that were being denied. Why was it being denied?
What are the things that we could do to impact Denials or
approvals or time to payments. Right? And that all impacts patient
care. So we took that data. We ingested We
created meeting in action. We created pretty pictures, and we sold in to
pharma. We help providers, right, help their patients.
So during that time, as an operator, we
were discovering and exploring other things to truly have an
impact on improving access to health care for
patients. And so at that time, in
that role as an operator With other partners,
we actually were working with another software company to start to build the
bones of our technology at Anexis Health today,
And that is assist point. We can get a little into a little bit more,
about that later, but that's the journey that led me to
Anexis Health. Do we wanna pause and banter or,
go through some questions, or you want me to tell you a little bit about
Anexis Health? Well, I'd like to know more about Anexis Health. I mean, there's there's
a lot to unpack what you said, but I think if we kind of if
you close the loop and kinda see what you do, that might that might make
the questions a little more clearer. Yeah. And I think to the audience and maybe
you guys, depending on how much time that, you
guys spent just looking at our website, Ultimately, there's a big
conversation going on right now around equities of care.
I don't know if you guys have heard about that, but ultimately,
Whether you call it equities of care or disparities of care,
there is a real issue in our healthcare system
where Based on specific circumstances,
patients are getting care or not getting care, or getting care
in a different way. Right? And it's having an impact on our health care system.
It's having an impact on patients. So it's it's really interesting
that this is a really hot topic. We actually started building
building this this concept of a company really before
this became a hot topic. So what we're solving for
is actually improving the
way the health care journey is managed. And our focus
is busting through administrative toxicities That often lead to
financial toxins. So how do we do that? Yeah. We
basically provide a comprehensive
Tooling through technology and through
services, tech enabled services, to manage
financial assistance start to finish For provider organizations.
So it could be a community provider, and we're in 14 different disease
states now. We started in in oncology. And, ultimately,
What we do for provider organizations as it relates to financial
assistance is 4 key pillars, search and roll, track, and adult.
So if you guys know anything about the health care space and revenue
cycle management, ultimately, what we do for financial assistance
is that complete cycle of management around financial
assistance, and and it does a couple things that are really important. Number 1,
it makes the providers whole Economically so that they can continue to treat
patients the way they need to. It takes a burden off
of the patient, so they get the health care they deserve.
And, ultimately, we're making this heavy administrative
process and function cleaner, Easier,
more automated, more comprehensive, and so that's 1 that's what we
started. Right? That was the the MVP that we created, And then
we started to develop other tools around access. And
so management of free drug is a really important thing in the
space. It's something that is needed to get patients on the
therapy that they need, but often, it's a net
negative To life science, to the provider, even to the patient
because of what's actually not being paid for wrapped around that. And so
we do a really good job of Managing that, making sure that where there's an
opportunity to convert patients to other assistance options to get
commercial drug, we do that as well. So those things
that we're currently doing right now, inclusive of making sure that
everyone has access to other services like travel, Lodging,
psychosocial, other other services are in one
destination, in one place. Now Why is
this a big thing? Because before we started doing this, really, we were the
1st to market with this provider centric comprehensive way of
approaching things. It was all spreadsheets. It was fax machines. It
was post it notes. It was free text notes in EHRs and rev
cycles. So it was a mess, And that was
our competition. Now our vision our vision of this organization
is to bust through in more administrative top systems
by providing the enterprise platform for provider
organizations. So it could be community providers, health
systems, institutions. The enterprise platform
we that that we wanna provide is focused on administrative logistics. So in
the health care system, provider organizations have Three key technology
enterprise platforms, the EHR, the electronic health record,
the revenue cycle management system, the cash register, And
and the intake engine and the pharmacy dispensing software.
All of those systems are not designed to manage
The administrative logistics of the patient's care journey. So as
a country, we talk about equities of care. We talk about managing the
patient experience in their health care journey, and we haven't
tooled the space to do that effectively. Right? And if
you think about it, Most of the if you guys have
individual experience or family experience or friend experience, getting
a diagnosis of cancer or some
disease that is associated with the sophisticated disease
states like gastroenterology, rheumatoid arthritis. I could go on and on. That's a
heavy piece of information to receive. Right? Oh, it's a life changing
event. Oh my god. And then they said, go figure it out. I think you
should get this, But go figure out all these scenarios, like, how you're gonna pay
for it? Is there help out there? Right? Are you going to have
to be at a certain, like when we talk about disparities,
Andy, you live in Farmville, Virginia. I don't know how close the the
the the really top notch next level
Center you would go to for a cancer diagnosis, but Yeah. Getting there
and getting there on a regular basis is something that we struggle with. Right? So
if you're in rural America or there's other scenarios around Urban America. Anyway,
there's a lot of administrative functions that aren't managed
effectively, and it's all one off. So the things that we wanna Really
carve out and manage from an enterprise approach
with provider organizations is the remote nature of patients that are
on oral therapeutics. The cell and gene space is
heavily laden with administrative logistics, the testing,
diagnostics, and genomic profiling space. So
by doing that, we're creating a technology network. We're pretty big
already with our current state. And by creating that technology
network, We create the ecosystem by which
services and data solutions flow through, and pharma invests
heavily in that To automate, to make sure there's fulfillment
to impact 3 key things. Getting patients on intended therapy,
Getting them on therapy quicker and keeping them on therapy because we know
from our data, when there is an a therapeutic
designed and there's scientific evidence around the impact it
has. And if you do those 3 things, you're gonna improve outcomes.
So That's what we're doing as an organization. I
I wanna tell you guys that I am a capitalist
at heart With a purpose to change the world. You said that earlier, and that's
something that we can be and can do. Well, that's
true. They're not mutually exclusive, and there's a lot There's a lot
of unpacking that. Right? And then and just as, you know,
thank God I never had a cancer diagnosis, but
just Doing stuff in the health care system. Right? Yeah.
Just doing anything in the health care system. You look at the mass
quantities of paperwork that has to go And I mean, not just
paperwork, like, in the term, but, like, actual paper that's still
used. Like, you mentioned post it notes and spreadsheets. About the
fax machine, Frank. Or the fax machine. It's crazy. And
it's, like, I'm just in my back of my head, like, that little
data engineer in me is Freaking out because, oh my god, like, that's
at least it's like there's n number, x number of formats,
and and and and it just And, you know, people
of this show know, like, that is that is a huge,
barrier. Like, that's a and that's a big
That alone is it will will block it. And you kinda look at it like,
can't this be better? And, you know, and I kinda see, like, oh, yeah. You're
still using fax machines. Wow.
Yeah. So so it's kinda interesting where when I
was talk talked to you about How how we start and what we're doing
around this equities of care thing. And
what's going on in this space is
It's very similar to Frank, Andy, how you describe
on, your website around the what's
going on with data Related to the old what
went on with oil. Right? So when we think about
equities of care, when we think about the health care Space.
What you guys describe around the data opportunity
is incredible. I think about it on a couple different levels. Number
1, You can tell I'm passionate about what I'm doing. Right? Absolutely. And
you can tell that hopefully,
you Stan, right, I'm on this program because data is really important to me. But
it's super important to me for a different reason than it is to you guys.
And I think But there's some similarities. Right? Where Oh, sure.
Data make data makes a freaking difference. Right? And so for me,
to sit here and tell you my story, Or to sell into life science, or
to sell into a provider, or sit on another podcast that I was
on yesterday and describe how we're impacting the market,
I have to have data to tell the story to be able
to prove that I can, actually, in my company, right,
can improve the likelihood that a patient's gonna get on therapy, and we do.
Right? To make sure that we're demonstrating with what we do, we're getting patients on
therapy quicker. We're getting patients on therapy and maintaining them on
therapy. So in everything we do, we're constantly analyzing
the data to demonstrate that we're doing those things. But, Frank, I
think you said something earlier, or maybe we're talking offline about, like,
the the whole idea of well, no. You just said it. Right? Like, the
cumbersome nature of the paperwork Process. Yeah. Right? I think
about some of the things that we do. Right? We wanna we wanna get rid
of the spreadsheets. We wanna get rid of the paper. But sometimes we
can't do it fast enough. Right? So We're constantly
iterating on our technology. So the iteration in our
technology has to include machine learning and AI and RPA.
And you know what? You don't invest in that heavily, if you don't understand it
deeply, then you're gonna spin and spin
and spin. And then, ultimately, my unit economics Don't improve because I got
people doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing, processing paper or
manually entering something in the system that should be
automated. So I, anyway, besides the fact that I'm really
passionate about what I do, when I started to read about you guys and listen
to some of your podcasts, you got me, you got me all fired up. Now
I wish you Oh, cool. This Friday because I was ready to roll. Oh, that's
awesome. Thank you. Thanks for that feedback, Joe. And I know I've had
a Couple of experiences that I could, you kinda
relate to what you're talking about. 1, I, worked for
Unisys for a couple years, And we did Medicaid,
systems, MMIS systems. And so you've got
kind of that it it's a bit of a fringe element or at least people
kinda think of it that way. It's not quite like,
the big insurance companies and stuff, and I I've done work on their data as
well, helping them with data engineering there. That's that's what I
do. But it was very eye opening to
see, You know, to see and hear the stories and
managing a team that grew to 40 people. That was new
for me as well, but the key was Picking a story and
going with that and saying it was a it was a pharmacy story. And
it was sometime in the future after we deploy this,
Some grandmother is gonna go and try at 10 minutes to 5 on
a Friday, afternoon, and Monday's a holiday. She's
gonna try and fill her prescription. And if she doesn't fill
it, she doesn't know this, but if she doesn't fill it, she's not gonna make
it till Tuesday. And so our job is to make
sure that that grandma gets her prescription in plenty of time before
the pharmacy closes at 5, and that she gets to live for
however long she's supposed to and enjoy her life and have her children and
grandchildren, you know, enjoy her life. And
Pausing in the middle of a presentation of that and just watching
the, you know, they, at this point, we were all remote
watching the faces on the screens And everybody kind of got that
and it resonated. And it's your the stories you're
telling, I I feel are in alignment with that. You're you're focused
on the outcome. And the outcome is people's lives are
better or longer or both. The other personal
story is my my dad passed away in 2019, and
he lived in Appalachia, so a couple 100 miles west of
here. And, you know, I've I've done,
I've been very honored to to be able to go and do
missions work in Honduras. I have few few mission trips down
there. And that area out there is not it
it's it's way closer to Honduras than it is to where I was. I've been
in Farmville. It's just It's neglected,
almost. And and people are struggling even now,
and they were back then as well. And but yet and still,
there were there were good hospitals there. There were doctors there that were caring. I
met with them, talked with them. They were doing their level best. But
When I mentioned that I did data after we had, had
built a little bit of trust, when I I worked on data, they they
kinda opened up to me, and they were describing Problems similar to what
you're solving. The EHR systems that they just
hit a blocker. And and this is not a complaint. Everybody's doing their
best. It just wasn't there yet. And
what you described sounds like a big part of the
solution that a a conversation I had with 1 of dad's docs.
So that's it's amazing. I think that there are companies out
trying to solve that. And the technology has gotten so
ubiquitous and connectivity, so ubiquitous and and the
tech's so cheap that it's while it looks
like a large jump from filling in the forms or typing in Excel
To working on a tablet, it's really not anymore. So Well, I
I I I I would take the contrarian point of view of that because, like,
it Okay. It
I I I wonder, like, it's very easy as a technologist,
right, to just assume everybody's gonna Comfortable with technology. Right? You're not wrong,
Andy, but it's just about the patients, mind you. My dad, Andy, my
tablet? No. Probably even the medical even the doc,
The medical field is a field that is driven has always been driven
by data. Right? Like Yeah. You know? But they are not Data
driven. And, you know, that's not a plug for the podcast, but, like, it just
it's like you know, for instance, right, and and a more lighthearted thing. Right?
This that's not life and death. Right? I have a Fitbit. I I I track
my heart rate. I I I, you know, I I track a lot of data
and track my weight. I go into my doctor and,
You know, I show it was like a group practice. I showed her, like, you
know, this is the data, like, you know. Because, you know, you look at my
profile, my age, my height, my weight, like, You know, but I'm like,
here's my resting heart rate. Here's all the data I have on my heart rate.
Yeah. And she just looked at me like I was insane. And I'm
probably you're definitely an you're not insane. But you are an anomaly, I think, that
you not only track it, but you present it, to your
doctor. So But, you know, you think of that you know, it just seems like
some doctors, I think, are more open to the idea.
Well, I guess there's multiple angles to this. This is probably why it's a difficult
problem to solve. Right? Because there there's there's Yeah. So many players, but everybody
has their own different systems. Right. And, you
know, I I just I just can't I mean, this is there's so much to
unpack. Right? Like, because I can't imagine Yeah. You're getting a some kind of
Bad diagnosis, and
that's a life changing event. And then you're thrown all of this stuff, like, you
know, like like like, all the things that That Joe had said, it's just like
Yeah. You know, how I mean, on a normal like, just a
like, I had a knee surgery, like, 10 years ago. I mean, the the knee
surgery, was 3 months from, you know,
doctor said you need to do it to what was done. And then, like, 3
years later, I'm still getting paperwork, Like, oh, this has to be paid. Like and
it's just like, I I just can't imagine,
like, it just I don't know. Like, that just blew my mind. Like,
3 years later, like, I I I I I half expect to get email
at mail at the new house, like, hey, you still owe us $5
and A $50 processing fee, which, again, like,
is so bizarre. It's it's interesting too
what's going on in the space, so So, actually, to both of your points.
Right? So we've come very far. Mhmm. I just think about some of the
things that the federal government does that's A colossal failure, and then I think about
some things that are favorable. So let's stay positive. Right? Sure. So as it
relates to system and it relates to data, You know, the
federal government launched this meaningful use thing
years years ago, and the health care system
battled. Providers battle over this, being forced
into using an electronic chart system,
right, versus This paper, you still go into
these practices and you still see they've got their manila folders up
on on the wall. And, ultimately, they
it was initially a carrot, and then it became a stick, and there was a
lot of complaining. And there was some heavy economic toll. Right? Because the
amount of money that the federal government was giving through meaningful use wasn't
meaning. Right? Mhmm. But provider organization struggle for what we're all
better for. We all are better better for it, and
we're better for it because of data. But we still struggle. Right? Because if
you're not capturing this data in a way Through or the data
is an input in fields? You guys know. Right? You're not
capturing structured data. Right? You're capturing Right. Free text notes. What the hell do
you do with that? And I don't care how good you think you are at
natural language processing. There's still people you gotta apply to it and still
ineffective. Right? Right. So I just think about that movement
and and how it's getting much better, and we are trying to force everyone to
think about forcing this in the field. Let's understand the fields. Right?
Because the next level of what the federal government has done
very positively, again, is interoperability. So meaningful
use became interoperability. Now everybody's talking about shell
sharing health care data that we used to put walls
around. And that's, yes, such crap They were putting walls
around that, and the primary reason was because people wanted to make money. Right?
Mhmm. So the federal government has decided that this health care data is the patient's
data. Let's figure out a way to share data through a standard
API approach. Right? And Right. Although we're way far from that,
It still has actually made the conversation easier. It's made it
easier for Nexus Health to do the data
thing To allow us to do what we do from a tech and services
perspective much easier and much better because I'm talking to these EHR
systems, these rev cycle systems, these pharmacy dispensing systems,
these data aggregators or institutions or whatever it may
be, and where they may have sat in a place where they're like,
no. You can't come anywhere near my data because I would have
monetized it, and they had no interest in changing the world. Right.
But then Right. To change the world by putting money in their pockets so they
could go spend it somewhere else. Right? So now I think the the industry is
looking at it a little differently, And it's opening
up. I think getting back to the original point that I wanted to make, though,
I think things are getting better. I think it's light new day
Different than it was, like, 10 years ago, but we still have basic challenges.
Right? Like, I think about one of the things that we're facing right now,
where I need to create a
better system by which we connect with charitable foundations
because it's really bulky, what we're solving for there. The charitable
foundations are a five zero one c three. They don't have the people, the time,
the FTEs to engage in some basic conversations.
Like, we make things really easy. And if anybody's listening from charitable
foundations, please contact Sunexis Health because we can make your life
easier. We could make you do better at what you do. You're gonna get more
money in because that we improve it, and we're gonna cost you less money by
the way you process things. But ultimately, people are resistant. There's not a lot of
time. So I'm trying to RPA things. Right? But if I've got an
unwilling participant because They think it's gonna be too much,
or they think there's gonna be security risks. And they're not even willing to
have the conversation that if I wanna do The really clean,
easy way without their participation, they got
stuff blocking my box. And alls I wanna do is the right
thing for the patient. Right? So, yeah, we can we can solve for that and
do that. But guess what? You know how much money we're Spending to solve for
this and iterate on this thing. And ultimately, every penny I
spend on that kind of crap, and it makes it more expensive for me,
Then it makes it harder for me to impact patients. So there's
Every cycle every cycle you spend doing that is a cycle you're not
spending. Sorry, Andy. I got you off. That's okay. No. And and you've got
some well intentioned regulation, HIPAA,
And and just other privacy concerns, just general,
personally identifying information type stuff that that's out
there. And it all collides, I think at at medical
data. So, you know, I while I understand some of
the resistance that you're seeing and I and I kinda get where it's coming from
and and agree with that Part of it, there's ways
to de identify data and and go after aggregates,
especially if you're Trying to do what you're trying to do. You're trying to smooth
out the system for everyone. You're not while while it will
benefit individuals, you're not going after individual data.
So and there's other things. Right? Like, you just gotta make sure. And you do
have to put some time into it. Right? Like, isn't excess help legit? Right?
Well, there's things that can understand if they're legit or not. Are you SOC
2? Are you HITRUST? Right? So there's things that we are
doing from a regulation perspective That make it easier for us to
trust those that wanna prevail in the data. So do you think
that people or organizations hide behind regulations
by saying, like, oh, that's that's HIPAA. We we can't do that, or
it's too much of a risk. Is that is that a thing? It was like
I think, we I think we can all agree that HIPAA has been has
its use. Right? It has its purpose, but I don't understand. Has that been a
has that been a have people used that as blockers? For Unequivocally,
yes, Frank. Unequivocally, yes. Yeah. And and I and
it might it could be It's anywhere. It's
anywhere. It it is and and I think about the segments of our business. Right?
So working with a large Health system
or institution. Right? And and my people are
dealing with 3 lawyers, 2 security
folks, 3 compliance folks, 4 regulators, and
Wow. They all have a really important purpose in this. Mhmm.
But If their purpose is to say no
and Mhmm. Say no, hiding
behind Regulations
and policies versus Yeah. Understanding the reason for that
regulation and Policy and being solution oriented? Oh my
gosh. Yeah. So it blocks or cost time and money at the
provider on the same thing in the life science world, Right? Where
you have lawyers that they're there to do the job. They they have to.
Right? Because no life science company OIG coming down on them for
whatever the reason, but you have to be solution oriented. You gotta look
at the organization. You gotta make sure that organization is
actually doing what it's saying it's doing, and there's
ways to test that and look into that, versus saying no. And and and that's
like, you can you can hear, Frank, The passion and my answer on that question?
Oh my gosh. I've spent so much time and so much money
getting through Those that sit in a seat that they're hiding
behind something because it's easier to say no than to work to a
solution. Yeah. That is that is true.
What are your thoughts about the fire? The, f
h I r. Is it pronounced fire or is it fear? Because I've heard both.
I say fire, and I'm using the authority on the way things are
said. But what's
fascinating is so so the previous job, I, you know, I
I was, technology architect for data and AI at at
at one of the MTCs, Microsoft Technology Centers, And I had never heard
of fire. Right? I've been out of the, electronic health record space
since 2006, and so I it was completely
new to me, and I would blow my mind. It shouldn't blow my mind, but
it was like, wow. This is actually a couple things blew Wow. People
actually in this space got together to work together? That blew
my mind. 2, it was both, Java's, JSON
and XML compliant, Which I thought was pretty pretty cool.
Has that helped? Is that is that been a good kind of kind of having
a common language for these systems to talk to one another?
Yeah. So I think, generally speaking let's just step back. So so fire,
I think there's a lot of conversation around it because that's how the federal government
has decided to put language around the standards. Right? The
standard for communicating. So fire API. So I think just the
API Approach is yes. It's
all good. Right? So let's standardize the way we're gonna share
information in a safe private matter. So, yes, it has changed the
game, but the whole discussion around FHIR and creating FHIR APIs and
standards of communication has opened the door
incredibly to this
idea that we should be really investing
in sharing data and we can't Sit in a
position of hiding behind something or just being scared to death. So Yeah.
I think that the the the conversation, And I think the
work being done and I think the work being done, and then, absolutely, the
application. Right? So whether we describe that we're Using
a FHIR API or we're using an API approach
that we've created the specs around or we're working with someone else's
specs, A whole idea that you can communicate between between
with these application programming interfaces is
Life changing. Right? Because there's still a lot of stuff that we're doing through h
l seven, ADT feeds. There's stuff that we're absorbing in a
flat file. Right? And I can't wait for the day that all of it is
through API. Why? Right. Because it's gonna be better. It's gonna be cleaner. It's gonna
be faster, And it's god, I hope gonna be less
expensive. Well, yeah. I mean, you're right. Go ahead, Frank.
Sorry. No. Anytime you say flat file, it's kinda like,
Yeah. I started to sweat. I said it. I start my palms are sweating.
Right? I I had those sinking feeling in my stomach. So I'll get the
task Andy's memory. We had a guest that made an analogy, and I only remember
part of it where it was basically Data data professionals
were, used to be kind of guardians or
gatekeepers, and now they're shopkeepers. I forget who said
that. That's Donald Farmer. That's what I thought.
I wasn't sure. So so we had a show, and he's like he kinda has
wax is very philosophical because data at one point was Hidden
within an enterprise. There were silos were considered normal. But I think
now what you're talking about with all these different parties, like Like you said,
they have to open it up. They have to be like a store almost. Obviously,
with HIPAA and things like that, there has to be some constraints, but Yeah. But
I think it's a mindset shift. My mindset shift. I didn't
say that. What I was gonna say. Yeah. It's definitely a mindset
culture switch. And I like you, I cringed a little bit
when I heard an EDI, you know,
specification. And I believe h l seven was one
of those. I've it's been a while, but, yeah, those were hard those
are hard to load. And I just did a recent blog post related
to that. I I titled it h, sorry, XM held.
XM held. This
is, you know, give me anything, something,
anything other than XML. But But that but as we're
having that conversation, The different formats and the ways that we, the company,
a data company so we're we're a health care solutions company, but we're a
data company at heart. Right? Right. So I think about
How we wanna be better every day around ETL. Right? So
extract, transform, and load. And and I just think about
the pain that we've been through, The process that we've been through,
but the whole idea is that if we're gonna do this data
thing right, Right? Yeah. And we are there's gonna be
individuals. There's gonna be companies that are gonna invest in this. Like,
there's a lot. There's a lot to doing this. There's a lot to being in
this game for us, right, as data people. And I'm
not a real data person. Right? I'm a I'm a I'm I'm
a I'm a change the world geek, and and so you guys ask questions, I
think, typically, in our website, like, what brought you to data? It's because
data is the only way that I wanna prove that we can change the world
and then how we do it better. But this whole idea that we've gotta invest
so much money And extract, transform, and load.
Right? I don't care. Like, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say this to demonstrate I
don't know what I'm talking about. But the amount of money we're investing in palaces
and lakes and Rivers and whatever the hell that is for ETL.
Right? It's crazy. Like, let's just get ourselves wrapped
around the fact that Figuring out the best way
to share data, figuring out the best way to ingest
data and be able to study it in a meaningful way Yeah.
Changes the world, and that's what I wanna do. And I that's why I love
what I see that you guys are doing. Right? Oh, thanks. Well, thanks.
Yeah. This is an awesome conversation. We can go on for another
hour, but, probably good times. Yeah. It's all fun at the
moment. Well, I'm on these guys
So you kinda touched upon the first question we asked, which is how did you
find your way into data? Did you find data or did data find you?
You know what? And and and I I let out some of the stuff that
I pre prepared, but, like, literally all good. Yeah.
Literally, I, for the longest time, knew I
wanted to change the world. I just didn't know how the heck I was gonna
do it. Right? Yeah. So as I started to think about things and I started
to look at things, data points are really like, I think
in bullet points. I think in spreadsheets. Not even knowing that I was a
data guy, I tell our data scientist lead all the time that,
you know, that's what I wanna do next. I want to learn how to be
a data scientist. Right? Because I'm nowhere near that. Like, I gotta go to probably
50 years of slow learner, 50 years of schooling to to be that. But it
was it was this this thing that's changed the world geek inside of
me that let me know I was constantly absorbing data
points. And so once I cited or
once God laid on my heart what I actually wanted to do. Right?
Then it became really clear to me
The data is the way to do it. Right? Data is the way to decide
what you wanna do. Data is the way to decide you is the way to
decide How you build it better, how you structure it. Data is the way
you prove what you've intended to do is working, and then
data will tell you what to ship and what to change to. So, Anyway, I
was brought to it, but I guess in my heart, I always was that kind
of data geek. I just need to learn a lot more to be as cool
as you guys. Oh, We're constantly learning
too. It keeps changing on us, Joe, so it's all good.
Our second question is which go ahead. I love the story. I love the
story in data. Right? Oh, yeah. There are there are stories in
every data point. Ab absolutely. And that's a really good way to
kinda get everybody on the same page. We've been listening to stories
since, you know, we were kids, so, you know, that helps.
Our our second question is, what's your favorite part of your current gig?
When I go back to the stuff I'm saying over and over again, it's making
a difference. Right? So It's good. I told you guys I was a
capitalist, through through. But it's not about
making money. I've done a bunch of different things in my professional life and
made money. Right? That I, Andy, when you're talking
earlier, I don't get satisfaction fulfillment
from my job, There's professional satisfaction
that comes along with your work, and, ultimately,
I get that satisfaction through making a difference. So I just feel like,
man, I'm and and I guess I shouldn't be putting this out there, but
at 57 years of age, I had no
intention or no idea that I'd be working the kind of hours that I'm working,
but I can't wait. I'm a real early riser, and it's because I can't wait,
it's not because I'm stressed out, it's because I can't wait to get to work
and make a difference. That's fantastic.
Awesome. So we have, 3 complete the
sentence, questions. When I'm not working, I
enjoy blank. Interesting.
Surfing. Cool. So you're on the East Coast you mentioned just a minute ago.
Yeah. Where do you surf? So I have a place in
Bethany Beach, Delaware, and so I'm storm chaser. I'm a hurricane chaser,
but I will you know, I'll I'll find ways to get to places
that have really good waves on a regular basis. Awesome.
Awesome. Our next our next fill in the blank,
is I think the coolest thing in technology today is
blank. The pace of change. I think that,
Andy, you guys were Frank both were talking about this
earlier, and I think we were talking about it through the conversation, like, the differences
that we've seen. And I think that, like, you you use the analogy
of oil. We can also use the analogy of the
industrial revolution and, like, how things change so rapidly.
Everybody talks about the technology revolution. I mean, I think we should be talking about
the data revolution, right, about what's going on and how fast it's
all changing. So I I think that, ultimately,
It's really cool. It's really cool no matter what frustrations I express,
no matter what, you know, ripping off on
about, you know, the fax machine. The pace of change is really cool right
now, and I'm wired that way. Right? Like Nice. I think I love
what I do every day because it's not predictable, and it changes
Very rapidly. It does. Yeah. So, Frank, we need
a new order for a t shirt. So, we've got Data is the
new oil That's right. And which, listeners can pick up and
help the show out. We need one for the, data
revolution now. I think Joe inspired me. Yeah. I think, I think I'll
be I'll be hitting up Photoshop later today. But
the, Or maybe even DALL E. Who knows? I may I don't even have to
do the actual artwork. So that's an interesting
point because there was there was something you talk about data and and how it
can transform it's Transform everything. Right? So one of the stories I heard was
this is regards to staph infections, and I forget,
speaking of rogue AI, Alexa, stop.
She's like, She I don't know how what I did to trigger her, but
the the short of it is is that there was a story about a, a
woman lost her child Because he had some kind of staph infection
or whatever, and she mentioned the notion of
data leakage. Right? So it turns out, Again, I'm getting the details
wrong. But, basically, if you track your heart rate or heart rate var
variability, There's a signal in that
in that data that there's some kind of massive infection,
but most times, you know, when you're in the hospital, they only check your
pulse but so often. So that I think that's a good example of how
data can transform medicine. And is
that is that something you've seen or heard of? Or
or just getting the fundamentals right is just so is the process right
now. So I think that, you know, I
was involved a little bit more on the clinical side at different
roles in pharma because But right now, I'm so focused
on the administrative and logistical challenge
associated associated with The
care journey, I would say, I'm sure. There's example
after example of that. Right? I think about some things that I've
seen, right, in terms of Very similar things
where, I just was exposed to something recently about
suicides, and the The the the
epidemic in the way certain groups are
deciding to to to do this, and
There's data in it. Right? Like, there's there's blood markers
that are telling for okay. What happened? And what are
we looking at? Why did that happen? That we can act more quickly.
Right? So Yeah. To to help that that that
person. So I think, absolutely, we probably could Bring somebody clinical
line and talk to that all day long. But I can tell you the thing
that I see that's really meaningful where and this will have an
impact on health care. Right? The cell and gene Area
is crazy with logistics. So these personalized immunotherapies, I don't know if
you guys have heard much about that, where basically, You're
having a patient go get blood drawn,
have their t cells spud off, or sending it to a manufacturing
Right. Then they're creating a personalized therapy for
that patient, then it has to be shipped to a treatment
which is not typically where the primary care is going on, and then that patient
has to have things set up for the logistics around the 30 day inpatient
stay, the care I just hit on a few things, but the
logistical challenges in all of that, if you improve
one thing that typically there's, like, 20 to 30 steps in
that And they all take dates. If you can use technology to
shrink those elements down, wow. These
things are Curing. These personalized immunotherapies, we're not
calling them cures yet, but I'm telling you, like, no evidence of disease. It looks
like it's curing patients Where they were on 4th line of therapy, and they were
gonna be dead in a month. It's having real impact, and
technology Process improvement
can really impact health care, and those are the things that we wanna study. When
I think about data, like, I wanna be able to study that Time in motion,
and how are we having an impact in the cell and gene space? I absolutely
love that. Just just that the whole concept of reducing the
steps. And if you can move you got somebody who's
been diagnosed and and given a month to live. You're
You're changing the you're moving the needle significantly if you
can stop it from being Monday morning and make it Friday
afternoon. I mean, that's significant, and
that's amazing. It sounds like, oh, you're shuffling papers. Well,
if you wanna look at it that way, knock yourself out. But I'll
guarantee you, you know, that person is having that starfish
experience where, you know, there's a kid on the beach picking up Starfish and
throwing them back into the water, and somebody walks up and says, you know, what?
You're this is useless. You're you know, they're just gonna wash back up
again. Doesn't mean anything, and a kid says it means a lot to that
one. He just chunked. For sure. Well,
actually, getting back and think about getting back back getting back to Trife's point. Right.
You think about these staph infections. Right? But let's think about it
in the word way of, like, a blood infection, like sepsis. So,
like, you get a blood infection, you're gone quickly. Right?
So identification, diagnosis, Improvement
in how things are being processed and identified through technology and
through data will have a Critical
impact on some of those things that are really truly urgent in the
moment. I I love it. Wow. We went down a rabbit trigger here
off our question. But that's that's what we do. I'm not even sure what question
we are. I think we kinda It's u and number 6.
Okay. I look forward to the day when I can use technology
to blank.
Totally off script, Brush my teeth and floss because that takes a lot of time
for me throughout the day. But beyond that, I I actually am
always, Jotting notes, and sometimes those
notes become more formal documents and outlines and
wireframes for The the next thing. Right?
I'm still a very young 57. I tell my kids I'm biologically
31. So I got 2 or 3 or more gigs in me.
And so I look forward to using technology
to solve for food deserts. I look forward to using
technology to solve for a comprehensive
approach approach to health care insurance alternatives. I think our
insurance industry our health care insurance industry is totally broken.
Right? The way we approach it, the way we just approach
insurance, right, through the standard brokerage approach, through the standard
markets approach, I think we need to open that up, and I think we can
open up through SMEs. Right? So subject matter
experts applied to technology. So those are the things
Besides flossing and brushing my teeth, I would love to apply type 2.
That's funny you made that because there was a TV show called Farscape,
Like, in the early early 2000. And and one of the one of the plot
points I forgot was, like, they they they have, like, little nanite,
robots that clean and floss your teeth for you. Forget that that came up. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea.
So our next, thought is we asked to asked that you
share something different about yourself. You already mentioned surfing.
So, but it, and we remind all our
guests, not just you, to, remember it's a family podcast, and
we wanna hang on to our clean rating.
I think that I don't
know how different this is, but I think my obsession
Is what makes it different? I am obsessed with challenging the
norm and expected behavior.
I think that I think that too
many of us in this world
I've settled in the fact that this is what
it's expected. This is what is the norm. This is what
we're told to do, and this is how we're told to do it. Yeah. I
think that there are more people That it could have
a major impact on others if they would in the right way.
Right? This is family friendly. I'm not talking to do things to to do
things that are Harmful or nefarious around challenging norms
and expected behaviors, but I think in a healthy way, my
obsession with it is sometimes unhealthy, but I think that's a little different
and maybe even a little off with me. Interesting.
You know, one of, Frank and I, follow,
success coaches, and and the one I'm thinking of, I know it went through
Frank's mouth whenever we hear the word obsess, is, Grant
Cardone. And he has a book called Be Obsessed or Be Average.
And it's, it was a very challenging, listen for, for
me. I know Frank Got a lot out of it as well. And,
I I don't think there's anything wrong with being obsessed. I I think,
yes, Like anything, it can be taken to an unhealthy
spot. But it I don't think that that spot out you know,
the word that popped into my mind first was extreme. But I'm not so
sure extreme is the definition of unhealthy there. I think there
are 2 different spots and I can hear the passion, in your
voice, Joe. And for those listening to the audio, you can't see Joe's
face. Here we are recording this as video, but then we usually Strip
out the audio because we got more listeners, listening than
watching. But I I get it. I can see
that in your it's a good passion. It's not unhealthy at
all in my opinion.
Interesting. Okay, Frank. I lost track now. No. No. No. No. I think it's you.
I think you're not And I'm going to do the audible one, then we'll ask,
the final question, which is where people can find out more. So do you do
you do audio books or or or, Or not. If you do, can you
recommend a book? So I I typically don't do audio.
I love to read, because I love words, But I
typically love to read to take me away,
because of my obsessed approach to things. I'm always
on. So I have one that I can
recommend that I read years years ago, and I still think it was one of
the the the the more Thought provoking take
me away books that I read, but I I do need to say first
that the book I recommend to everyone is the bible. So that's the
one that that I actually read every day and
I find important as it relates to guidance, advice,
And how I should be approaching things from a foundational perspective, but it
also reminds me daily of my failures in trying to accomplish that.
The other the book that I I would recommend,
is The Genesis Code by a pseudonym
John Case. And it's a biological thriller. So thought
provoking, some cutting edge, interesting blending of that could
be possible, Not possible type type stuff. Interesting.
Awesome. Audible is a sponsor of Data Driven. If you go to the datadrivenbook.com,
I'm sure I know that there's multiple readings of the bible. My
my, my wife uses Audible all the time because I see it come through. There
you go. Oh, very cool. Yeah. I I am the
heavy user. I I use my wife's credits because we're on the same account. So,
I don't know if that's that ranks in the share Netflix password thing, and somebody
from Audible's gonna give me a call. I don't know, but we'll find out.
That's what data science is all about. I have Hypothesis, I do it.
Mhmm. Sometimes I plan the hypothesis. Sometimes it just comes out of my
mouth. So on that note, before I say anything
else stupid, Share something. No. We did that. Where
can people find out more about you and your company? The best place to go
is our website, anexus, a n n e x
US. And by the way, a Nexus is
for connectivity in Latin, and you guys heard through the stories
today Yeah. That connectivity is really to what we do, so ennexushealth.com.
Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you, and we'll let Bailey finish the
show. Thanks for listening to Data Driven.
If you have any suggestions for future episodes or topics you'd like us
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