Episode 2: The Grand Unified Theory of Health Care: Delivering Top Technology Solutions to Hospitals

Episode Summary

It’s not every day that healthcare technology providers can find an application for theoretical physics that might radically improve patient care and hospital outcomes.

But Lone Star Communications, Inc. Director of Research and Development Justin Bailey has done just that, laying out the Grand Unified Theory of Healthcare (GUTOH).

While Justin — by his admission — had his tongue firmly in cheek when he named his concept for the entire lifecycle of a hospital visit, its applications are deadly serious — and potentially revolutionary for healthcare technology providers.

Hot on the back of analytics-as-a-software (AaaS) platform CareSight joining the Lone Star Communications, Inc. family, Justin dives into how hospitals can best benefit from applying the GUTOH to their systems and processes with Lone Star Communications, Inc. Director of Analytics Kenny Schiff.

In his role, Justin is tasked with researching and evaluating new technologies that might prove beneficial to healthcare providers in improving the quality of patient care. He also focuses on tying systems together to help them work in a more cohesive, effective way than when separate. As such, a fundamental part of the GUTOH is taking a broader view of a hospital visit’s lifecycle than just the nurse call system — historically, Lone Star Communications, Inc.’s primary focus. Systems from other healthcare technology providers, ambulance travel to the hospital and post-stay care should all factor into the equation.

The other part of GUTOH is ensuring that the well-known marketing process, “jobs to be done” (JTBD) underpins every action — from system through product and even ideology — and stakeholder perspective. Through customer and stakeholder interviews, healthcare technology providers can focus solely on the mission rather than getting distracted by new but unnecessary technology.

Featured on the Episode

Name: Justin Bailey

What he does: As Director of Research & Development at Lone Star Communications, Inc. Justin is responsible for both evaluating new technologies and tying systems together to provide the best possible patient care.

Organization: Lone Star Communications, Inc.

Words of wisdom: "What you're trying to get to is the actual job to be done, not what technology you're using to do the job — because the job itself never changes over time, but the technology does.”

Connect:  LinkedIn

 

Key Points

Top takeaways from this episode

• Look at the whole lifecycle of a hospital visit, not just its constituent parts. Familiarity with one system, such as a nurse call system, should never trump the overarching view of the whole. There are a multitude of systems both in and outside hospitals, including patients arriving there in ambulances and going home following hospital stays. What Justin refers to as “jobs to be done” informs this process, which looks at various system and product needs from all stakeholders’ perspectives — even if they might be founded on ideologies.

• Look at and solve JTBD without being distracted by shiny, new, and unnecessary technology. Whether the objective is based on a system, product, or ideology, every perspective in the life cycle chain matters. From a systems standpoint, the life cycle and procurement matter as much as the end user view. By interviewing customers and stakeholders separately about what they're trying to do step by step, providers can establish the permanence of jobs to be done — alongside the impermanence of the technology to get those jobs done. Attractive technology may be nothing more than a distraction if it doesn’t solve the problem.

• Systems that are tied together are better together than they are separate. Having recently joined Lone Star Communications, Inc., analytics-as-a-service (AaaS) platform CareSight is what Justin calls the “dark matter” of the GUTOH. This dark matter ties the whole system together and provides new possibilities — knowledge beyond what’s going on within the four walls of a single hospital. CareSight empowers Lone Star to recommend programming processes because it has data from multiple hospitals.

Episode Insights

[00:00] Healthcare tech champions: Lone Star Communications, Inc. is dedicated to providing the very best healthcare technology for prime patient care.

[00:56] R + D = Magic: As Director of Research and Development for Lone Star, Justin’s mission is twofold: Evaluate new technologies (the research) and tie systems together (the development).

[01:19] The grand unified theory of healthcare: Justin dubbed his concept of the full continuum of a hospital visit’s lifecycle as an homage based on his love of physics and engineering.

[02:24] JTBD: There’s theory and then there’s practice. GUTOH doesn’t just look at healthcare through the lens of the end user, but also from other standpoints like lifecycle support and procurement.

[03:32] Jobs don’t change, tech does: Cool technology is alluring but can be unnecessary, distracting from the true goal of solving the problem to be solved — nothing more, nothing less.

[04:00] AaaS incorporation: Now part of the greater Lone Star Communications, Inc. family, CareSight is GUTOH’s dark matter, tying everything together to give hospitals the outcomes they want.

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CarePoints with Kenny Schiff by Lone Star Communications is a series of conversations with his collaborators at Lone Star, customers, partners, and notable folks in the healthcare industry. For over 32 years, Lone Star Communications has been focused on transforming healthcare through innovation and empowering improved caregiver and patient experience.