There’s a Better Way: Smart Talk on Healthcare and Technology

Corporate website: surescripts.comIntelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe): Subscribe to the Intelligence in Action newsletterEpisode description If you’re prescribed a medication for high blood pressure, you can usually pick it up at the pharmacy the same day. But a prescription for multiple sclerosis or cancer doesn’t go to the pharmacy shelf. It goes into benefit verification, prior authorization, financial assistance and nursing coordination. All of it stands between the patient and their first dose. Closing the distance is what Lucille Accetta calls her North Star. Over more than 30 years, starting behind the counter as a community pharmacist, she’s seen technology reshape what pharmacists can do for patients. Listen in as she explains how connected data gets specialty pharmacy patients started faster, why a quieter pharmacy is a better one, and how technology strengthens the human touch when we use it well.In this episode: 0:00 – Intro: what stands between a serious diagnosis and the first dose1:00 – Closing that gap as a North Star: why a specialty prescription doesn’t go straight to the pharmacy shelf3:00 – A grandmother with brittle Type 1 diabetes and a community pharmacy in Westchester County: where this work got personal5:00 – 30 years watching technology scale pharmacy without losing the human touch6:00 – What specialty pharmacy is: multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, hemophilia and therapies that demand far more than dispensing7:00 – Benefit verification, financial assistance, prior authorization, clinical education: the work behind a first fill8:00 – Same-day process for hypertension, complex process for specialty: the friction Lucille is working to remove9:00 – Lucille’s better way: get patients started fast, then personalize everything around their diagnosis and therapy10:00 – Three phases for keeping a specialty journey from breaking down after a cancer or MS diagnosis11:00 – Connecting with the electronic health record to complete the clinical work a prior authorization requires12:00 – Delivery, financial assistance and social needs support: coordinating the pieces before day one of therapy13:00 – Scaling a high-touch experience to more than two million patients without it turning impersonal15:00 – A mom who called at 3 a.m.: why always-on access matters for patients facing complex conditions16:00 – Where connected data makes the biggest difference: addressing prior authorization requests for more than 80% of patients, more time for patients instead of paperwork17:00 – Pharmacists as integral members of the care team, and what still has to change to make it real18:00 – Working at the top of education and training: AI, predictive analytics and rethinking pharmacy workflow20:00 – A day in the life of a pharmacist: from alert fatigue to clinical insight built for one patient21:00 – Sharing work across pharmacies when one location gets buried22:00 – The phone off the shoulder: why a quieter pharmacy is a better experience for everyone23:00 – A specialty patient’s experience five years ago compared with today24:00 – Untangling medical vs. pharmacy benefits and turning copay assistance into a link25:00 – “The pizza tracker”: letting patients watch their therapy move from prior authorization to delivery26:00 – A portal that ends the phone calls about where Mary Jones’ prescription stands27:00 – Lucille’s one change for keeping complex care on track: simplification, one person and one family at a time29:00 – Reflections: technology strengthens the human touch when we use it well30:00 – Don’t ask patients to navigate the complexity—absorb it for them Follow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode.

Corporate website: surescripts.comIntelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe): Subscribe to the Intelligence in Action newsletterEpisode description After more than three decades in federal health policy, Julie Barnes still encounters a healthcare system reliant on compact discs, faxes and manual workarounds. On this episode, she explains why change, not technology, remains healthcare’s biggest obstacle, and what it will take to make interoperability, prior authorization and price transparency work for patients.In this episode: 0:00 – Making a connected healthcare system something patients can feel2:00 – A vice president, two hospitals and one disc of medical records 4:00 – From Capitol Hill to health policy: the experiences that shaped Julie’s career 5:00 – The puppy, the senator and the story behind Maverick Health Policy 6:00 – What new interoperability and prior authorization rules mean for patients 7:00 – Losing the clipboard and letting medical histories follow the patient 8:00 – Why changing healthcare workflows is harder than changing the technology 10:00 – Information blocking: what it is and why enforcement may be different now 12:00 – The three-legged stool: interoperability, prior authorization and price transparency 15:00 – Regulating healthcare AI at the speed of patient desperation 16:00 – What happens when policy works17:00 – TEFCA surpasses one billion records and gains momentum19:00 – Why coordination across federal health agencies matters now23:00 – Julie’s better way: technology-supported care centered on the patientFollow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen. Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode. 

Corporate website: surescripts.comIntelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe): Subscribe to the Intelligence in Action newsletterEpisode descriptionFor Anna McCollister, health data access has never been abstract. Living with type 1 diabetes has meant fighting for years to get her own health information from her devices, labs and doctors. She turned that frustration into a career—helping launch #WeAreNotWaiting, advising companies on how to earn patient trust and shaping national interoperability policy through HITAC and The Sequoia Project. Listen in as she explains why most barriers to patient data aren't technically hard to solve—they've simply gone unaddressed—and what changes when patients stop waiting and take action.In this episode:0:00 – Intro: what becomes possible when the patient isn’t along for the ride, but at the wheel2:00 – Anna’s path: from journalism and foreign policy to health IT, and the realization that her own frustrations as a patient were fixable—it was just that nobody had bothered to fix them4:00 – A continuous glucose monitor whose software only ran on Windows: buying Parallels to see her own numbers6:00 – “It’s my data. This is my health.” Discussing lab values she could never get8:00 – How #WeAreNotWaiting started: patients and parents who happened to write software, and two devices locked shut9:00 – A receiver, an Android phone and a Pebble watch: John Costick’s hack meant parents could monitor their child’s glucose levels 10:00 – Ben West cracks the insulin pump protocol, and Anna takes the case for open APIs to the DiabetesMine stage with the FDA in the room11:00 – Loop: a closed-loop artificial pancreas built by patients, free on GitHub, more than 30,000 users worldwide12:00 – Where the gaps still are: patient portals were a real win, and they’re nowhere near enough13:00 – Four days to eye surgery, 30 days to the imaging: mail a paper check, wait for it to clear, then wait a month15:00 – Designing with patients, not for them: inside a genetic testing company built on “patients own and control their data”16:00 – The trust stack: don’t try to avoid losing trust, try to earn it17:00 – The annual report that changed minds—publishing every way patient data was used, and watching skeptics become supporters18:00 – Why electronic health information is a harder fight than devices, and why nothing moves without a sense of urgency19:00 – The Sequoia Project’s ask of hospitals: rethink data access as user experience, not systemic overhaul20:00 – Two ideas that need to go: portals are sufficient, and patients don’t want their data21:00 – Four different LLMs, one mysterious diagnosis: analysis beyond what her physician had capacity to provide22:00 – The unfinished piece: why personal health records and mobile apps still can’t get a reliable data feed23:00 – 19 doctors, 170 appointments in a year, and a stack of manual downloads before every one24:00 – Anna’s better way: put health data on the phone—it’s slowing progress, and it's very fixableFollow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen. Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode. 

Corporate website: surescripts.comIntelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe): Subscribe to the Intelligence in Action newsletterEpisode descriptionMost Americans live within five to 10 miles of a pharmacy, which means that pharmacists are some of the most accessible clinicians in healthcare. Yet historically they have been among the least connected to it. Ben Bluml of the American Pharmacists Association Foundation is working to change that. Ben has spent three decades building care models, credentialing and data connections to turn pharmacists into fully-fledged members of the care team. Here’s why getting pharmacists onto the health information superhighway may be the fastest fix for a healthcare system that too often leaves its most accessible clinician out of the loop.  In this episode:0:00 – Intro: why pharmacists are some of the most accessible—and least connected—clinicians in healthcare2:00 – Ben’s path: from community pharmacy counter to three decades building pharmacist care models at the APhA Foundation5:00 – A patient story: 26 pharmacies, 400 patients, and a lipid-lowering program built around a feedback loop9:00 – “I’m not gonna be here to see my granddaughter get married”: a stroke-risk wake-up call11:00 – The paradox: 90% of Americans live within 5–10 miles of a pharmacy, yet it’s the least connected part of care13:00 – From vaccines to bone density screenings: the two faces of advanced pharmacy services15:00 – What integrated systems like Kaiser get right—and why most community pharmacies don’t have it17:00 – Project Impact Cardiovascular Health Plus: credentialing and paying pharmacists like their physician colleagues19:00 – SDOH screening, a stroke risk assessment, and a 30-second EKG: how the AFib program works21:00 – The results: Afib identified at more than 3x the expected rate across 2,100 patients23:00 – Getting pharmacists onto the health information superhighway through Surescripts24:00 – A cautionary tale: a medication reconciliation gap that ends in a broken hip26:00 – The Sequoia Project Pharmacy Interoperability Work Group: Surescripts, NACDS, NCPA Foundation, and APhA Foundation 28:00 – Bundling prediabetes prevention and CGM access as pharmacists connect through TEFCA29:00 – One billion CDAs and counting: why this moment feels different31:00 – Ben’s bold ask: an integrated EHR in every community pharmacy34:00 – Ben’s better way: pharmacists plugged into the health information superhighway Follow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen. Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode.

Corporate website:surescripts.comhttps://surescripts.com/products/prior-authorization-automationhttps://surescripts.com/surescripts-health-information-network/interconnectIntelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe):https://cloud.comms.surescripts.com/iiaFollow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.Episode Description:No one understands the patient burden better than Amy Gleason, who lived it as a caregiver navigating her daughter’s rare disease diagnosis before bringing that experience into her work leading national health technology reform. Listen in as she shares how the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem, the effort to “kill the clipboard,” and a renewed push for trust are all working to make healthcare follow the patient—not the other way around. In this episode:0:00 – Intro: What if the biggest shift in healthcare is a patient finally getting to own their own story? 2:00 – A new center of gravity: CMS launches the Office of Health Technology and Products 4:00 – Amy’s better way: patients getting access on their own terms, without faxes or paper 5:00 – The TED Talk moment: mysterious symptoms and a week-long wait for biopsy results 7:00 – “She has a life-threatening disease”: a diagnosis day of canceled tests and a midnight scare 10:00 – What should have been different: faster diagnostics and technology built around the patient, not the paperwork 14:00 – The real barrier isn’t technology—it’s data trapped in silos 16:00 – Trust, not tech: how HIPAA myths and misplaced caution keep health data from following patients 17:00 – Kill the Clipboard, Axe the Fax: launching the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem at the White House 19:00 – Verified and live: more than 800 companies and the first CMS-certified Medicare apps 23:00 – TEFCA, QHINs, and CMS-aligned networks: how they work together, not in competition 25:00 – Prior authorization’s next test: a new pledge with October and January deadlines 27:00 – Available isn’t useful: why 51 patient portals still aren’t enough 29:00 – Healthy caution vs. inertia: distinguishing real risk from resistance to change 32:00 – The clearest sign the change is sticking: patients aren’t waiting anymore  Follow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen. Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode.