Reflections on fixing America’s broken health care system, with Dr. Bob Kocher (EP.12)
Release Date: 10/16/2020
Fixing America's long-term care system, with Dr. David Grabowski (EP.31)
Civic Rx
Today, we peer into long-term care in America — those services, both medical and non-medical, that patients in old age or with chronic illness need to perform activities of daily living. of older Americans will eventually require long-term care. And this number will only swell as we reach into the next decade when, for the first time in our nation’s history, there will be more elderly than children. Of these Americans, the vast majority would prefer to age at home and in their communities. But our long-term care system, such as it is, is ill-equipped to accommodate them. Nearly 1...
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America's maternal mortality crisis, with Dr. Elizabeth Howell (EP.30)
Civic Rx
While COVID-19 continues to dominate news headlines, another crisis lurks unabated and largely unaddressed: climbing maternal deaths. Among industrialized nations across the globe, the United States stands out as the for pregnant women. Over 700 women die each year, 60% of them from preventable causes, during pregnancy or delivery. And Black women are 3 times to die than White women. Perhaps surprisingly, it didn’t used to be this way. For much of the 20th century, the US enjoyed an almost unmitigated in its maternal mortality rate, driven by scientific advances and...
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It's time to end gun violence in America, featuring Moms Demand Action's Shannon Watts & DeAndra Dycus (EP.29)
Civic Rx
Just last week, Dr. Rochelle Walensky became the CDC director in more than 20 years to call for federal action against gun violence. Meanwhile, President Biden both on the campaign trail and since has vowed his commitment to advancing meaningful gun reform, publishing six on the issue this April. And the NRA — long the swaggering villain in this saga — has been steadily losing , as it’s mired in bankruptcy and litigation. Is this a tipping point in the fight for gun safety? Today, we talk with and , two extraordinary mothers and...
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Building a better model for mental health recovery, with Fountain House's Dr. Ashwin Vasan (EP.28)
Civic Rx
We were just approaching the cusp of normalcy this summer when Delta, abetted by a silent revolt of the unvaccinated, pulled us back into a war against the coronavirus. Once again, now, COVID-19 cases are surging, hospitals are brimming, deaths are rising, and Americans across the country are being beseeched to don their masks. For even the most resilient among us, this relentless tug between progress and regress on the pandemic is exhausting. But for thousands of Americans, this stress has morphed into something even more pernicious: According to a by the US Census Bureau, more than 42% of...
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Climate change is a public health emergency, with Dr. Ari Bernstein (EP.27)
Civic Rx
Climate change is “the greatest global health … in the 21st century.” Even and especially in the wake of , climate change accelerates transmission of infectious disease, disrupts our health care supply chain, overwhelms our public infrastructure, and exacerbates chronic illness — from lung cancer to chronic kidney disease. Here to talk with us about what this means is , a pediatrician, assistant professor, and the interim director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment () at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Bernstein leads , a program that...
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Peering beyond COVID-19: introducing Season 2
Civic Rx
We’re back! Our first season featured the voices of everyone from Tony Fauci to former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, each of them grappling with the pandemic and with the daily crises it created. But the stories we unspooled are only the beginning. There are still countless threats to our public health, from climate change to structural racism, that during COVID, have been either exacerbated or ignored. Enter Season 2. This summer, I invite you to join me in cutting into these next big issues — beyond COVID — and talking to the scientists, the policymakers, the activists and...
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How the pandemic is changing health care delivery, with Dr. Meena Seshamani (EP.26)
Civic Rx
The COVID-19 pandemic has unsparingly exposed the flaws of our fragmented and exorbitant healthcare system, but it has also highlighted opportunities to better deliver care. Chief among these are new models to bring care closer to patients, be it in the form of virtual medicine, mobile health clinics, community health workers, or home-based care. Indeed, now more than ever, brick-and-mortar hospitals are working hand in hand with community-based organizations, public health departments, and local and state governments to deliver services and reach people who otherwise might fall through the...
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On the "vaccine passports" debate, with NYU's Dr. Arthur Caplan (EP.25)
Civic Rx
Have you been vaccinated? And if so, can you prove it — should you need to? These are the questions that countless Americans are asking themselves as the United States vaults past 200 million doses, or more than a quarter of its population now vaccinated, against COVID-19. These numbers will only continue to rise, and already, we’ve been thrust into a fierce debate over the utility, the equity, and the logistics of vaccine passports — proof for the holder of inoculation — that could afford a ticket to normalcy. Vaccine passports in various forms are even now being piloted in...
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We need a national genomic surveillance plan for COVID-19, with Dr. Jono Quick of The Rockefeller Foundation (EP.24)
Civic Rx
In order to get ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to understand where it’s going. And key to this is genomic surveillance, or the systematic collection and interpretation of viral genetic sequences to identify new variants and detect transmission patterns. Genomic surveillance is one of the most powerful tools officials can wield in crafting public health interventions, on everything from lockdowns to travel bans to vaccine policy. Unfortunately, the United States is not doing enough of it. Of the more than 30 million COVID-19 cases we've counted this past year, only 0.6%...
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COVAX, and the fight for global vaccine equity, with UNICEF's Gian Gandhi (EP.23)
Civic Rx
After more than 2.5 million deaths and widespread economic devastation, finally, the world has a shot of hope: multiple, effective COVID-19 vaccines. But as wealthy countries race to inoculate their populations, the majority of poor countries have yet to administer a single dose. Enter COVAX, the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access initiative. COVAX is a coalition of organizations — from the World Health Organization, to Gavi, to the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness and their key implementation partner UNICEF — that is working to ensure that vaccines are distributed equitably across...
info_outlineMore fundamentally than any other event of the past decade, the COVID-19 crisis has kindled a wholesale re-imagination of how we conceive, deliver, evaluate, and pay for health care. Foremost among these changes is the sudden ubiquity of telehealth, but the pandemic has also unleashed a wave of investment and regulatory innovation not seen perhaps since the launch of the Affordable Care Act.
Few are better poised to unpack these trends than Dr. Bob Kocher, an industry titan who for nearly two decades now has stood at the vanguard of efforts to make healthcare work better, faster, cheaper across this country. Today, Bob is a Partner at venture capital firm Venrock, where he leads healthcare IT and services investments and serves on the Boards of Virta Health, Aledade, Renew Health, Lyra Health as well as Devoted Health, both of which he cofounded. He’s an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s School of Medicine and a Senior Fellow at USC’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. Before coming to Silicon Valley, Bob played a key role crafting the Affordable Care Act — serving as Special Assistant to President Obama for Healthcare and Economic Policy. Most recently, Bob was tapped by Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on California’s COVID-19 Testing Task Force, which quickly and substantially expanded the state’s testing capacity.
Bob is a brilliant physician, entrepreneur, policy wonk and scientist. His reflections on this moment are not to be missed.
More on Bob’s work, including his reflections and scholarship on health care writ large, can be found on his website.
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