Five Good Things with Janae Sharp and Megan Antonelli: A rapid-fire segment highlighting positive developments in digital health. Janae and Megan share insights on recent innovations, successful implementations, and emerging trends that are driving progress in healthcare technology.
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
Janae Sharp, , Founder, The Sharp Index
Welcome 0:01 Welcome to Digital Health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't. As we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS, deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
Megan Antonelli 0:25 Hi everyone. Welcome to another edition of five good things. This is Megan Antonelli, founder of health impact live. And I'm here today with Janae sharp, my friend and co host and founder of the sharp index. Hi, Janae,
Janae Sharp 0:36 hi. It's great to be here today. I'm excited to talk about the great things going on right now.
Megan Antonelli 0:42 Me too, there are some good things happening in healthcare, some good things happening in the world, some good things that you know, have some big butts associated with them that maybe are good things. But I
Janae Sharp 0:56 mean, some notable things certainly have happened this month for
Megan Antonelli 1:00 sure, like women went to space.
Janae Sharp 1:04 Yes, that a good thing? Yes. Well, there are some good things about it. As we know Katy Perry had the song et with Kanye West, and we're one step closer to finding an alien lover. We also know that they are better than deep sea exploration because I didn't use an Xbox controller. I think,
Megan Antonelli 1:25 wow, those are some really interesting good things. Yeah.
Janae Sharp 1:29 Fun fact, over 104 women, I think just 104 women, have been to space, but this was one of the first all women. Does
Megan Antonelli 1:37 that include the women that just went to space? Yes, wow. So
Janae Sharp 1:42 it's pretty low. It's a low number.
Megan Antonelli 1:44 How many? How many men have gone to space? Let's look at it. How many went out? Three, 385
Janae Sharp 1:54 Oh, wow. Okay, well, you know. So it's a slightly better, about a quarter. It's a better balance than we have with male to female executives in healthcare,
Megan Antonelli 2:04 kind of, yeah. I thought the good thing that really came out of that were the memes. And, you know, it was, it was definitely an interesting thing to watch happen. I think I wanted to feel like it was something that was maybe empowering, but it really did not feel that way. And I think the, you know, I think the response like Gayle King being upset about it, about about the fact that people weren't excited about this and that they saw it as a publicity stunt, was handled really badly. Because I think that ultimately, if she had just said we had to send famous, rich women to space to get you to pay attention, that would have been from an authentic place. But instead, she said, I'm an astronaut, you know, and she touched the ground when she got back and that that, to me, was a little bit of, I don't
Janae Sharp 3:04 know, yes, it did seem a little bit like rich people cosplaying normal people cosplaying astronauts. And that is their thing, right?
Megan Antonelli 3:17 And why are we talking about it? Because we like to talk about great things that women do, and we'd like to talk about women empowerment. But when women women empowerment is used as a
Janae Sharp 3:29 publicity for publicity, or a way to flaunt that you have things that other people don't have, when that, when a lot of people in the country are struggling, it's rough, like you have to be really mindful of how you approach even your fun outings, you know. And it
Megan Antonelli 3:49 does. It felt like a little bit of like distraction propaganda, and it felt a bit surreal, as opposed to empowering, which you know was, was the supposed aim. But, you know, good on them for having that experience. I mean, I would love to go to space. I think it would be awesome.
Janae Sharp 4:08 I would not, no, so, no, no, I don't want to go into deep sea expedition. I don't want to go to space. Maybe I want to climb mountains. But
Megan Antonelli 4:15 like, I mean, maybe, maybe I should try hang time at Knott's Berry Farms first and see how I feel about that?
Speaker 1 4:20 Yeah, I barely like roller coasters. I don't think I want to go to space. That's pretty
Megan Antonelli 4:26 much what it is. So all right, well, let's get to the show. There are some good things happening in healthcare. Let's not start with the measles outbreak, because that's a really big but so where do you want to start? Janae,
Janae Sharp 4:40 okay, let's start with digital health use increasing and growing in underserved communities. There was a highlight of a JAMA study that came out, and they were looking at data from 2022 and and I really, I really like that. They asked people in the past. 12 months, not counting times you went to an emergency room. How many times did you have an appointment without their healthcare clinician by video or phone for telemedicine? How many times did you receive remote counseling or remotely supervised training or therapy from a healthcare clinician online or by phone? And they found that in a lot of areas, it's increasing
Megan Antonelli 5:22 that is good. I didn't realize that the date that the data that they were studying was from 2022, I mean, it'd be, it would be interesting to see the snapshot of it now. And, of course, kind of like how that, I assume that that reflects an increase from pre pandemic. But you know that, to me, is still kind of admit, admits to the pandemic fallout in terms of our behaviors, right? But I imagine that it does continue, and it is good that that access is there, like this week talking to Joanna Strober, who we have on the show today, you know, bitty health, and what they've done with virtual health and making that, you know, available to women, all of those tools, and a lot of that came out of the pandemic for them and when they started, and so, you know, and we're seeing that increase. And I did see some other more positive developments around I think the Senate, the number of senators who are currently supporting the telehealth bill and the continuation of that. So I think that that is good news.
Janae Sharp 6:26 Well done. Yes, I think it's great news. I do think that in a lot of areas, they don't have the care that they need. Like it's really hard to find someone in network that will provide you with mental health care. In rural areas, it's really hard to find someone in your area. And obviously we want care where people are, but I love that telemedicine can make things available and make people, make them no, it creates access for them, for care in their communities.
Megan Antonelli 6:56 Yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's huge, and we've talked about it a bunch in terms of just that impact that it does have on on rural care. But, I mean, you know, I live just outside of Los Angeles, and there's a lot of care that we can't get, or we have to wait for, you know, and that's why
Janae Sharp 7:12 I live in Charlotte, and it's a long wait to get, like a therapist, right,
Megan Antonelli 7:16 mental health, you know, OB, GYN, you know, all of the women's health and specialties are not, they're not great. There's not a lot, a lot available, and there's lots of appointments needed, and there's a long, long wait time. So it is great to see that, and it's great to see that it's going, you know, it's impacting underserved communities in that way. So that is good. Speaking of Rural Health, because I can't, I can't help myself there. I just saw it this morning, and this is not good news. I can't help it. But, you know, there's 800 cases of measles in Texas right now, or across the wow, wow. 80 of them are in Texas, the majority. So I, I had to say, I had to look up. And so the good thing in this is that vaccines work. Because the question I had, and this is, you know, from my epidemiological, you know, background was, well, are the vaccination rates lower in Texas, and why? And come to find out, they are so school, case, non non religion or non health exemption, vaccinations are much, much higher in Texas, and it literally correlates directly to not only the rates of the Mac the measles epidemic and where we're seeing the increase, but also, you know, where these where these regions are, and then the sort of rural versus Urban. So you can see the pockets of higher vaccination rates are closer in the in the cities, and as you go outside. And so I think it speaks to both. You know, I was just talk, just watching Doctor near and I'm forgetting her name, your friend from Premier, Casey Casey kelpen, yes. Casey, Casey, COVID there. They did a great podcast with Chrissy far about misinformation, and, you know, Dr G's, you know, book and that, and what that means. And I just think we're seeing this huge spike happening once again. And the only thing I'm going to take from that is vaccines are good, and I am going to spread that word that it is important to get your children vaccinated because they work. And herd immunity is an incredibly important part of the, you know, process of this country staying healthy and US stopping the spread of infectious diseases, right? I
Janae Sharp 9:42 can tell you love public health. I mean, I grew up in Clark County, Washington. We, you know, home of the original measles outbreak, before it was trendy to really talk about how bad vaccines were. And I, I do think people are learning like these high. Rates of of it's an important topic that obviously has been bothering a lot of people for years, right? And it's something that it seems like, hopefully they'll have better data about,
Megan Antonelli 10:13 for sure, another good thing, which I know we've talked about already, but if you haven't watched the pitch Janae, you gotta watch it. I haven't watched it. I need to. You have to. HBO, no, I think it's I think it's paramount. And I think, and the thing about that is what they do, I mean, in addition to physician and clinician burnout, which they talk, which they deal with aggressively throughout the whole season, the the stories and the and the patients that they handle that come in. One of them is a is a mom who does not want her child, you know, who has not vaccinated her child, who does not want her child to get a spinal tap. And I've actually been in that situation of not wanting my little baby to get a spinal tap, and I right, right, empathize with it tremendously. But at the same time that, you know, the vaccination piece, so they really hit all of these stories and, you know, and in some ways, that is the storytelling piece of that, and how, you know, television is a medium. We still watch it, you know. And and there are opportunities and that. That brings me to another good thing, which is our health impact conference in June, which we are focusing quite a bit on storytelling and the extension of you know, the you know, how you can take sort of culture society and use that to combat and educate people and engage them in their health, you Know, and that continuity of, you know, we talked about in January around, you know, music is medicine. You know, music and health and art and medicine, and now just sort of that whole bigger picture around storytelling. So Gary Forbes, who we talked to today, and his great book series called Soul survivors, and the way that, you know, positions the kids as superheroes, you know, all good things,
Janae Sharp 12:06 yes, and I love, I love that the pit also is giving great information. Like, I've talked to people, they're like, I almost think I feel bad for how stressful it must be for healthcare providers. So it's like, Wow, imagine learning something on TV that actually helps you learn empathy and gives you accurate medical information. That'd be
Megan Antonelli 12:30 crazy. It's crazy, you know, was it? You know, so super interesting. Totally a side note, but that's what we're here to do. I of course, watched er when er came out, I think, you know, religiously, so I had to go back and watch it, and I started, and what I didn't realize is, in the pilot, Julianna Margulies, who is the chart, you know, head nurse, attempts suicide through a drug overdose. And I didn't realize it then. But the thing about it is that they don't make it about her work. It's about her relationship with George Clooney, right? And that, you know, but it does. It kind of frames that difference both between how we looked at the medical profession in the 80s, 90s, whenever that was a long time ago,
Janae Sharp 13:19 just yesterday, just
Megan Antonelli 13:21 yesterday. And now where we do see that they are, you know, that this is a real people, and the job is what impacts them, not their relationship with McDreamy or George Clooney that tends to, you know, tend to dominate the stories that we want children, you know, or as teens, or in some cases where maybe we're too young to watch at all. I didn't watch.
Janae Sharp 13:47 I didn't watch, but it's delightful that people aren't blaming George Clooney anymore. He seems like a delightful husband and father. Yeah, well, he
Megan Antonelli 13:54 was not a great actor. I will say that. No, I highly was, I wouldn't know, but I think his wife is incredible. Yes, yes, human rights attorney, we love that. We only have a few minutes left. Speaking of you have right,
Janae Sharp 14:10 let's talk about environmental impact. We talk a lot about artificial intelligence. Just I think it was last week that OpenAI said being polite to open AI is costing us a lot in energy, so your thank you and your please costs a lot of operating power, and that's one of my concerns when we talk about AI in healthcare, like, are we improving overall health when We need such so much power for the computing behind it, and it's a question that healthcare leaders are facing head on. So the good news is that people in healthcare understand that all this power is impacting people's health, and they announced that PLA. This is like Advent health is investing in renewable energy and has been working on, you know, solar power and wind power. And I live in North Carolina, just a few months ago, the grid, the power grid in Asheville, after Hurricane Helene was just wiped out. So it's great news for me to see people in healthcare taking that leadership, to think about what is actually needed to improve health and also reduce the impact.
Megan Antonelli 15:39 Yeah, it is. I mean, I think it's such an important topic. And I think, yeah, the whole AI piece of it is even, you know, it's just another step of that. I mean, if you think about the waste that was in the supply chain and healthcare, you know, in reasonable and non reasonable one time use things. I mean, it's almost built into some of the workflow. And there's so much I know Kamal Bajaj at New York health and hospital system, and you know, the folks at that, you know, came in January to talk about a lot of that at health impact. And it is a, you know, ongoing, developing concern. And there's certainly some some great initiatives. And I, you know, with the current administration, you worry that the focus will shift a little bit, although RFK Jr was an environmental lawyer, so maybe, maybe it will increase. Who knows? It's hard to say things are rather uncertain. Well, I think the
Janae Sharp 16:35 amount of impact that healthcare has might be similar to the amount of GDP they control. So if they're improving things, that's great news for all of us. It
Megan Antonelli 16:46 is for sure. And Advent health is a you know, expanse.
Janae Sharp 16:49 And I was going to make a joke about some guys selling solar online, but it wasn't that funny.
Megan Antonelli 16:57
That's okay. We could talk about something else. But I think it is great to see Advent doing that. They write, yeah
Janae Sharp 17:06 I think Kaiser Permanente is also Kaiser Permanente is also doing something like that.
Megan Antonelli 17:11 Awesome. That's good news, especially because it's Earth Earth Day. April is Earth Day. Earth Week. Yes, we had
Janae Sharp 17:19 earth day this week, and my six year old was thrilled about it and turned off all the lights in our home.
Megan Antonelli 17:26 All right, we only have two minutes left. All right. What's our final good thing? It has to be another big but the AI uses what nurses see, and the desk death risks plunges 36% but the grant was pulled. We have to talk about it, though, not only because they saw incredible results using this AI system that was developed by critical para nurses at New York Presbyterian and Mass General, but because our bestie, best, best, favorite and
Janae Sharp 17:58 repeat guest and yes
Megan Antonelli 18:02 Kato was involved in that, and so a 36% drop in hospital deaths associated attributed to AI, but the research was abruptly canceled. Do the Trump administration? However we hope, and we hope by shedding some light on this, but that, you know, it will come back and it will get pulled back. That, you know, we've seen a lot of things get pulled and then, Oh, oops, oops, they they give the funding back. So we hope that with the attention that our friends, the first person who saw that so, so I saw this online because Michael millenson wrote about it on Forbes. So good. Good on you, Michael, for shedding light where light is needed. And congratulations to Kenrick on having such good results. And let's hope that by the time the show airs, the funding funding has been returned and replaced to where it should be. I
Janae Sharp 19:02 love that. That's a great good thing. I know we only have, like, 30 more seconds, but I think we should mention that scan health plan and Sutter Health have paired up to provide better offerings for Medicare Advantage in California. So Dr Jane's been on our been a guest as well speaking. And I think it's great that they are working to provide innovative partnerships and models for Medicare Advantage. Baby Boomers, they're reaching the age of retirement. I think 2030 is the last year when they'll all be there, and we got to prepare for taking care of the old people.
Megan Antonelli 19:39 And if anybody still has jobs left, it will be, you know, quite a retirement so on that, they don't, they don't need jobs if they're retired.
Megan Antonelli 19:50 On that note, thank you, everybody for joining us, both for health impact live today and for digital health talks and our segment of five good things. Thanks. Janae, always a pleasure chatting with you about all the good things. Yes,
Janae Sharp 20:04 We're looking forward to hearing more good things. Please message us. Tag us. Let us know.
Megan Antonelli 20:09 Yes, follow like and share. Signing off. Megan Antonelli and Janae sharp you.
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