Full episode transcript.

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Desiree Duncan (00:01.014)

Welcome everyone to the No Normal Show brought to you by BPD. This is where we leave all things status quo, traditional, old school and boring in the dust and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the future, all related to how brands can lead the way in health. I'm Desiree Duncan, Vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion at BPD, and I'll be your host today. And I'm very excited. We got the gang back together. Have a couple of guests, I guess you could say for this episode.

You may recognize them, but it'll be Chris Wickline, SVP of Strategy, and Stephanie, EVP of Engagement. Hi, how are you?

Kris (00:37.588)

Great, how are you? It's so good to be back together.

Desiree Duncan (00:40.279)

Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille (00:40.535)

Yes, I'm so excited for this. We've been doing our own sort of sidebar episodes and interviews, so it's great to have the trio.

Desiree Duncan (00:48.326)

Yeah. So we have you today as guests because we want to pick your brains. You just got back from health and that's H-L-T-H. So want to talk all the things because it's like this big party it almost feels like. what I wanted to understand, like what's one of the most exciting? my God. You're at the end of this, I'm so sorry. But wanted to know if there are any cool or exciting events that are happening in your lives before we jump into the show.

Stephanie Wierwille (01:19.157)

what a fun pre-question. Well, we are here at the end of the year, aren't we? It's almost the holidays. I feel like we're here at the chaotic wild times. So I'm already starting to think about Christmas gift shopping, holiday planning. It's overwhelming as usual. That's where my head is. Where's your head, Chris?

Kris (01:38.986)

Well, my head is on tomorrow, actually tonight, because I'm headed out for a silent retreat for the weekend. And can I tell you how I cannot wait for the quiet? am, it is like, the hair on the back of my neck is standing up just talking about it. So yeah.

Desiree Duncan (01:54.95)

So are you going with people? you going on your own? Like what the seller?

Kris (01:57.87)

No, well, my mom is going to meet me there. My mom is going to meet me there and we'll get to wave to each other and we'll talk a little bit tonight at dinner and then talk again on Sunday afternoon. But yeah, it's just so nice to get quiet, particularly when it's been so busy as Stephanie mentioned. So looking forward to it.

Desiree Duncan (02:14.008)

Yeah, no kidding. Okay, and I'm excited about, I'm living my best Austin life. I'm taking two-step lessons tomorrow. I'm just like leaning all the way into country and Western culture.

Kris (02:26.068)

God, I love that.

Stephanie Wierwille (02:26.231)

Wait, two-step, my goodness. Des, what a vibe.

Desiree Duncan (02:31.755)

Yeah, we did like a Zydeco dance like session when we were in New Orleans and so I'm like, okay, I wanna like learn the steps of the city of the area of the region for each place we go to. So excited about that.

Kris (02:44.916)

Des, you are just so consummately cool. I mean, I aspire to be like you. You just embrace everything. So awesome.

Desiree Duncan (02:53.39)

trying to just soak it all up while we can. Alright, so Vegas though, speaking about West, you both just went to health and this was in Vegas this year and it feels like almost all conferences are in Vegas. But most folks may not know exactly what is health. So if you could just kind of, how would you define health?

Stephanie Wierwille (03:14.817)

Yeah, so I love health. I try to go as often as I can. And the reason why it's really special and it is a big party is it's everybody in one place. It's providers, it's payers, it's pharma, startups, investors, retail health. Really anyone who's either in healthcare or trying to get into healthcare is there. And that creates a really unique atmosphere. And on top of that, I think partially because it is really focused on invest.

the investors in the startups making deals on the spot or shortly thereafter, it's really done up. It is a party. It's meant to be glitzy, meant to be glamorous. Everybody's telling the most interesting story they can possibly tell and everyone's focused on the future, which is what's coming and what are we, what am I, what is my organization, what is our team building to make a better or...

more profitable future for healthcare. So it's a really unique space, very different than any other conference out there. Chris, this was your first time. What was your feeling?

Kris (04:21.854)

Well, first of all, I mean, I've been a fan girl from the outside since, you know, this conference started, I think in 2018, right? Wasn't it in 2018? And this was my first chance to go. It was, it was, it was awesome. It was everything I expected. And, you know, I think to me, and it was overwhelming, I'm just going to say, and I heard a lot of other people kind of who were like me, who had never been there before. And we're saying, Hey, do you have any advice? you ever been here? I'm like, no, there's like, this place is so overwhelming. And it is.

But I think, my God, if you wanna talk about how we talk about the no normal and being the future, I mean, this is the future, as you mentioned, Stephanie. So it's cool. To me, I've never been to CES, but it's like what I see, what I imagine CES to be from the outside looking in as kind of that place where there's things that are real today and there's things that are concept.

And it's all about kind of how it's gonna change, you know, the culture of electronics. And it's so much like that for health. That's what it felt like to me. You've never been, have you, Des? Have you been?

Desiree Duncan (05:24.95)

Yeah, I've not been to health, but I have. I lived in Vegas for a while. So the big conference seasons, it's always wild to see like what they come up with. And especially like everyone was excited about the new toys, basically, that would come out with CES. That's consumer electronics. But yeah, I'm curious, though, how does this particular conference stand out against others? Like what makes this one feel different?

Kris (05:37.204)

Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille (05:54.841)

think it's that safe space where people can dream really big and it doesn't have to always be about practical solutions. In fact, I would say 5 % is about practical solutions, 95 % is what could be possible? And if you just take five days out of your year to go dream and innovate and play and say, if, I think that's really beneficial. I think I'm...

I made the joke to you all the other day. It's like health is the haute couture of healthcare. Other conferences are ready to wear and I'm not knocking ready to wear, right? Like we need that, especially in healthcare and in marketing. We need to know what to do today and how to practically apply trends to our day to day. Health is not that. Health is the what about, you know? So that's where I think it really stands out.

Desiree Duncan (06:52.462)

think you're muted, Chris. We accidentally all got muted.

Kris (06:58.312)

I think to me, Stephanie, what's so fascinating about it is I don't think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any one place where there would be such a breadth of thought leaders from just about every corner of healthcare in one spot. And that's what made it so exciting, I think, is just, again, it's easy to get just kind of tunneled into your world of health, and there's so many other things that impact it. So to me, that was just, I just had goosebumps because again,

Not everything is practical, it helps you think differently about the world that we're in. It's like, I always say, you stand up and stick your head above the cube and figure out what's going on out there. So that was so exciting.

Stephanie Wierwille (07:38.935)

Yeah, I'm gonna, that's a really good point. And I'm gonna add to that because we, BPD did a little bit of a different way we showed up this year. We have our booth, we're having conversations with folks who need marketing support. And oftentimes we're meeting with our clients who are there. But this time we also sat down and had one-on-one conversations with people about what they're doing. And in addition to that, that was just so phenomenal, I think, because

You can sit down even just at lunch and have a conversation. The next thing you know, like I sat down and I was all of a sudden chatting with somebody who had created an AI based company for radiology and just sold it six months ago. And we got into the conversation about it. Another time was sitting next to a nurse and she was telling me all about her day to day in nursing. Another time I was sitting next to somebody who was heading up diversity and inclusion programs.

But then beyond that, you know, we had so many great interviews with, I know we'll be rolling out soon with chief health officers, chief medical officers, CEOs. So to your point, Chris, it's like you're surrounded by the smartest people in healthcare and you don't even know it until you just strike up a conversation. And it's just wild being at tables with people who are absolutely incredible.

Kris (08:54.548)

Yeah, such perspective changing. I mean, really.

Desiree Duncan (08:58.42)

I while I'm jealous, like the variety of folks that you get to encounter where it feels like most conferences are so focused on this one particular piece of your industry or work or what have you, but this feels like you kind of get a taste of all the things. And being that it is Vegas and in some cases like this where what happens there doesn't need to stay there because we want to get all the things about the future out in the world.

But you know, Vegas can't help themselves. They go big. What were some of the exciting things you got to see while you were there?

Kris (09:30.122)

just being in the room with some famous people. mean, you know, so Lance Bass had been on stage talking on the main stage talking about diabetes and we're walking out, you know, at the end of the session, we're walking out and there was this group of people in front of me. And then all of a sudden I see this man stop and he puts his arm around a cutout of John Legend and it's Lance Bass. He's right there, like I could have touched him. And then Lenny Kravitz, my God. I mean,

you know, seeing him on the screen. But can I tell you one of my favorites, this is going to make me a geek, Matt Wilpers. You know who Matt Wilpers is. Yeah. So but I'm sure you saw many other folks, Stephanie, who did you also kind of fangirl over?

Desiree Duncan (10:00.162)

my God.

Stephanie Wierwille (10:06.711)

yeah!

Stephanie Wierwille (10:14.093)

Well, you already mentioned John Legend. know, John Legend was on the main stage with our client Johnson & Johnson was interviewing John Legend. That was really exciting. Halle Berry, Dr. Jill Biden. And then I also went to the industry night, which I've never done before. I've always kind of been like, need my sleep and you do need your sleep at health. But I went this year and so Busta Rhymes was in concert and it was a very intimate at a Vegas nightclub.

you know, you're 15 feet from Busta Rhymes. I got to live my millennial dreams. I mean, that was maybe the, I won't say the highlight, but it was, it reminded me what it felt like to be alive again, to spend a moment with Busta.

Desiree Duncan (10:58.456)

Busta Rhymes, my gosh. It's funny, he keeps coming up. He was on tour with Missy Elliott this past year, so speaking of Millennial Dreams, he finally actually went on tour. But question, did he make you put your hands in the air? Like they don't care.

Stephanie Wierwille (11:11.353)

Absolutely. There was a lot of hands in the air. He also rolled out what I guess is a new song and it was very clearly a TikTok dance and he made us all learn the dance on the spot and he told us it's going to be the dance of the season. So we'll see if that plays out.

Desiree Duncan (11:26.158)

help, help. Okay. All right. So, no, a lot of exciting moments occurred. You had some great discussions with top executives, got to go to a number of panel discussions, and there were some really interesting topics as it relates. You know, there's the fun of all the things, the tech, the AI, and the crazies, but there's also the things that, of course, we take back that applies to the things that we do every day. So, Stephanie, you know, were there any kind of common themes that you saw this year?

Stephanie Wierwille (11:28.057)

Hahaha

Stephanie Wierwille (11:55.043)

So many themes. I'll just kind of spit a few out and then we can dig into them. So I think, you know, women's health was a really big topic, possibly with all that's been happening in the political environment, but it was also really interesting to see the progress that's been made in women's health. Of course, it wouldn't be a 2024 conference if AI wasn't the word of the day. So we'll dig into all of that, but there was announcement after announcement after announcement from folks like Nvidia and Microsoft and Samsung and GE.

who are all rolling out their new AI and healthcare offerings. Primary care was really a big topic, which is fascinating because I think we've talked a lot about how what's the future of primary care? Is it dead? Is it broken? What's the future? How do we build it? And so that was really a good topic. And then there were some smaller ones. There was a lot around provider discussions. Nurses were there for the first time in a big way. Those are just some examples.

Kris (12:30.986)

Hmm.

Stephanie Wierwille (12:52.739)

But there's a lot more. Chris, what else? Is there anything else you would add?

Desiree Duncan (12:52.823)

Yeah.

Kris (12:56.328)

You know, it's almost overwhelming. You know, we talk about again, kind of consumer at the center of health care and consumers taking more active control of their health. There was a lot around that. I think one of the coolest things too about this conference is you can look at all the videos after, and I've been spending a fair amount of time digging through those. Thank God you can put things on like one and a half speed. And it's just, you know, but I think you hit the major one, Stephanie. It's just, and hopefully again, that helps our listeners here.

about the breadth of the kinds of things. And hopefully we can share more than what we're just gonna dig into today.

Desiree Duncan (13:31.054)

So that first theme you mentioned Stephanie is women's health. And I know Chris, you and I have been thought partners on some women's health campaigns. I'm just kind of curious, you know, what really stuck out from you in those conversations around women's health.

Kris (13:43.718)

Yeah, and you know, we did some things on site talking about women's health, some of the some of the live shows that we did. But again, my hair is going to stand up on my back on the back of my neck because I was so touched. I had no I mean, I work in this day in and day out. And I see some of the complexities we have as healthcare marketing and communicators and addressing women's health issues. But there were things like, you know, the the investment and lack of investment there's been around women's health topics.

the kind of idea that now is the time there's a whole lot more attention and focus on women's health issues, all away from things like, know, all should be women's health was basic OB-GYN stuff or fertility things. It's now expanding into the unspoken territory of the challenges that women face. And the unspoken territory, if there was a lot of attention around perimenopause and menopause. And I think that's also because

our big generations are now getting into that space. So it's getting a little bit more attention, but it was just so fascinating to me. Stephanie, you also took note, there were many things that you were really kinda keying in on. What did you see?

Stephanie Wierwille (14:51.363)

There were. What I appreciated, I'll just give two big takeaways I had. One is, you're right, Chris, we do women's health programs all the time. And I think one thing that we BPD have really been pushing is the language that's used and making sure that we're using authentic language that really speaks to women and the way that they speak and the way that consumers and women speak is so different than the way that, you know, it's easy to speak in a clinical jargon or sort of just skaddle over the...

skate over the top of the ice kind of way. And what I loved is the conversations were really going right to the heart of the matter. I mean, really talking about here's what women experience in the day to day. And so even though there weren't consumers on stage, there were clinicians on stage, I felt like it was a focus group of sorts. And in our own work, we, you know, we learned so much from our focus group work, focus groups. know Des, you've led a lot of those really fruitful focus groups of women, for women's health.

But I took so many notes of like, okay, here's how we can be more authentic in our communications. The other takeaway I had was around funding. I mean, it has been a headline that women's health is underfunded, especially in the VC world. And so there was a lot of headlines there. So some announcements, one announcement, Dr. Jill Biden announced that there was 10 million in funding being

Kris (16:07.242)

110, I think, right? Wasn't 110?

Stephanie Wierwille (16:10.169)

We will fact check that afterwards. But it was a large amount, let's put it that way, that was being, yes 110 would make a lot more sense, that's being funneled into women's health. And the stat that I thought was fascinating was that the US loses 1.8 billion in working time every year for the menopause symptoms that upend women's lives. So there's your business case. I hate that we have to have a business case, I really do, but we do.

Kris (16:13.119)

Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille (16:40.109)

So there it is. And so there was a lot of discussions around to your point, not just the fertility side of women's health, but even things like Alzheimer's and heart and the entire picture.

Kris (16:51.774)

Yeah, I think, you know, what was also, you know, pretty fascinating to me is, you know, just the idea that a lot of these peer plays that are coming into the space, guess what? They're talking to women authentically about all those things. They're putting the real out there on menopause and perimenopause, and they're connecting with women. You know, we talk as all the time with our clients about how can we be authentic because that's a way in to reach our consumers. There's a lot of other folks out there that are coming at it from that authentic point of view.

and they're connecting. So, you if we're going to be talking in kind of language that's not as relatable, we're going to suffer from our ability to really kind of engage women. And, you know, we, we, we love it when, you know, we can work with folks who are really kind of willing to step into that.

Desiree Duncan (17:35.916)

I mean, yeah, to your point, like in the past, any conversation or ads or commercials about it, it's like this high level and like foul language around, you know, women's and like the same kind of notes around hot flashes, what have you. But there's like the real real that's actually happening within the bodies. And more people are talking about it out loud. To that point, Chris, what you said about the the unspoken, you know, a lot of these conversations were kind of hushed to just maybe women, you know, between each other.

Kris (17:58.303)

Yeah.

Desiree Duncan (18:04.568)

having these conversations and not really having the, even either physicians or doctors going in that not as knowledgeable. So I'm really excited to hear that there's gonna be more research about this.

Kris (18:15.998)

You know, can I say something else? So Stephanie hit it. You I think a lot of times in the health system space, we look at women's health as women's bits. What do we do to help women take care of their women parts? But you know, I mean, she mentioned cardiovascular health. You know, we talk about sleep. Menopause dramatically impacts women's sleep, right? And what does that mean? Sleep is kind of, you know, central to everything. And I'm unfortunately learning the hard way a little bit on that too.

And it's like, okay, so we start to talk about all these things that impact health in totality, not just women's health as this, you know, this thing that's related to OB-GYN and hormone changes, you know?

Stephanie Wierwille (18:54.221)

Yeah, absolutely. And right now, women of all ages are learning about those kinds of things. Where? From TikTok. That's where I heard about Perrymenopause for the first time this year, by the way. So if you are a provider or a health system or any kind of healthcare organization that touches women's health, wouldn't you want people to learn it from you? Wouldn't that be a great way to cultivate a relationship? And wouldn't, you know, I mean, my mind goes to things like CRM, for example. It's just women are hungry for this kind of education.

Kris (19:00.18)

Yeah.

Kris (19:11.828)

Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille (19:23.927)

let's not let Dr. TikTok be the one that teaches them.

Desiree Duncan (19:28.59)

Yes, let's lead the way. And like one more thing around this, are clearly our favorite subject, but just the fact that when thinking about women that are going through menopause, there's this assumption of what stage in life that they are. And like perimenopause starts at 40, 41, maybe even up to 45, but so often you'll see ads and it's of a woman that is, you know, done with menopause. So it's like really that realization of like who is actually experiencing what in one time of life.

All right, on to our next favorite subject, which is the artificial, the intelligent, the all things Stephanie loves to dig into. What were some of the big announcements that came out of that?

Kris (19:58.322)

sure.

Stephanie Wierwille (20:07.801)

so many announcements. mean, people were tired of hearing AI by the end of the five days, I think, but hey, we're going to keep hearing it. So some big announcements. For example, Nvidia and Microsoft announced their expanded collaboration and partnership focused really on startups, which was certainly right for that audience. Some really cool ones and very impactful for many of our clients.

Samsung Health announced a new health record that they're rolling out. So they have data from wearables and all kinds of devices. I really didn't realize how big the Samsung ecosystem is. People know about the Samsung refrigerators, right? Like they had that in their booth, but they have so many more devices than that and they have all kinds of data. So they're bringing it all together for medical records and medication management and food tracking. Then AI agents, it feels like they're here or at least, you know, again, in the futuristic view of health, HLTH, they're here.

So GE announced their own AI agents and they did it in a way where they're talking about it being like a multidisciplinary board. So like a board of clinicians essentially that are actually AI agents and their job is to evaluate data like biological data, pathological data, radiological data. At the same time, NVIDIA also announced their own agents and they were more digital health agents that are really connecting specifically with patients. So they actually had what...

They were, think, trying to make look like real humans, avatars, if you will, that speak to you with an AI voice. And here's my hot take. They're not human yet. They're very clearly AI. And they were a little creepy because they're trying to actually look like humans. So I'm not sure that's not probably ready for prime time yet. But again, this is the CES of health care, right? These are concepts. So it shows us what's to come.

Desiree Duncan (21:49.909)

no.

Stephanie Wierwille (22:00.801)

that potentially we could see a world where you're having a telehealth appointment with an AI doctor. I think that's the world that I saw coming toward us. Yeah, Chris, your face.

Desiree Duncan (22:10.146)

Was this it?

Kris (22:11.85)

I'm doing the primal scream. Yeah. I think it's so fascinating. I think the thing that really struck me is there are so many point solutions out there. There are so many things happening. I just kept thinking, and the future is exciting. I just kept thinking, how can healthcare organizations metabolize all this? It's not just a technology solution. It's a people's How do clinicians guide?

this work within healthcare systems? How does it fit within workflows? It's massive, right? And then you look at, there's a solution for that, and there's a solution for a particular type of tumor or a particular type of cancer. And I mean, it's just exponential. So that promise is amazing, but how do our organizations kind of deal with all of that? And I think, you know, some of the things we've said before is how is marketing and communicators, are we in front of this?

so that we can help our organizations communicate to the general public what we're doing because stuff like you mentioned Stephanie, Dr. Creepy, Dr. AI Creepy is gonna, gives me the primal scream. I can only imagine what it's gonna do to lots of consumers.

Stephanie Wierwille (23:16.115)

Hahaha!

Stephanie Wierwille (23:24.525)

Well, that's... Go ahead, Des.

Desiree Duncan (23:24.64)

Okay, a picture for those of us that weren't there. Was this literally essentially a robot walking around or was this something that was more housed in a screen? Okay, okay.

Stephanie Wierwille (23:35.509)

screen. This is a two-dimensional… So imagine if I'm talking to you, me, on this video here, but I'm not real. I'm AI and my voice is AI generated. So it was, as you can imagine, we've all seen the AI generated videos. You can tell they're AI, right? This was even more you could tell it's AI and the voice was sort of a Siri voice, not even an Alexa voice. Certainly not the chat GPT voice that feels really human. It was that

Desiree Duncan (23:52.973)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Wierwille (24:05.227)

stage. But again, like the concept is there and it sounds like the data is working behind it. And so to your point, Chris, and I really want to let's dig into that for marketers. Some of these things about AI and healthcare may feel like that's not relevant to me. That's for the clinicians to deal with. That's not true. This is patient engagement. This is how the patients might experience healthcare in the future. If you are not thinking about how to leverage AI for patient engagement and patient communication, I would say we need to go so far beyond

Kris (24:20.798)

Yeah, right.

Stephanie Wierwille (24:33.997)

Well, let's just use it to create some social posts. No, no, no, no, no. Like you need to be ahead of what is your organization doing and how are you going to market it and communicate it and what are the issues gonna be? Where are consumers gonna have the ick factor? Where are they gonna love it? What does that look like?

Kris (24:49.546)

Totally, because you can imagine the crisis comes that result from this being done wrong, right? I mean, if nothing else, that's what should scare us. If we're not dealing with it on the front end, we're likely gonna be dealing with it on the back end, you know? So pick your poison.

Stephanie Wierwille (25:03.895)

Yes, and the health system partnerships are already there. Like GE showed their partnerships with Mass General Brigham, with Vanderbilt. They were talking about how those partnerships work. Of course, Google has partnerships with Mayo Clinic, with Stanford. And that, think, is part of what's really amazing is these players are building it in partnership with health systems. They're building it in partnership with clinicians. The question, again, is, OK, marketers, let's get involved.

Desiree Duncan (25:04.238)

So it's like.

Desiree Duncan (25:27.946)

It's like get in there, understand all the parts so can help ease this process for like patients and consumers coming in.

Kris (25:35.636)

You know, and that was interesting to me too, because Des, you're just drawing off of that. There are things that are back office things that aren't gonna be noticeable, but that make it better. And I wondered, using an example like GE and their command center and the ability to kind of use AI to orchestrate care, to move people in and out of care settings easier, right? It's a pain point that consumers have today. Now we don't wanna take them into the details of what those improvements are.

But to the extent that our stories can show how it's improved the experience that they feel, how it's improved access, just made me wonder, you know, is there a way to kind of leverage that, you know, to show how it really is making it better so that if there are things that are more creepy, you know, we have the ability to quickly offset or, you know, tell us a succinct story about what it's doing to make our experiences better that may be, you know, less obvious. I don't know, maybe.

Desiree Duncan (26:30.958)

Yeah, I'm thinking about that. We talked about this on the hologram episode. Maybe there is a way to start introducing this from just a patient experience standpoint of when you're going into the doctor's office or to the hospital. It's almost like a concierge service, like this person that's going to help you navigate the hospital and then down the road, once you are in the doctor's office or the room, then this is going to help you navigate your own health care. So just really, really interesting. All right.

Jumping over to the other topic, primary care, another one of your favorite topics, Chris, what were some of your takeaways from this?

Kris (27:08.872)

Yeah, it's so fascinating. I'm gonna go off on a little personal tangent. You've heard me talk about my former primary care doctor who's now retired and I don't have him anymore because he's retired and I moved anyways. What has become really kind of painfully aware to me is the way I experienced primary care for much of my life and don't now frankly, is how most people have not experienced primary care. And there's been so much discussion around primary care being the key to maintaining

healthy populations. get that, right? Everybody kind of knows that. But it is, you know, a lot of the conversation was around that primary care isn't broken. It's the system around it that's broken. And I think that's an important thing because I think a lot of times, can you imagine being a clinician in primary care where the message is primary care is broken? You know, people get into primary care to take care of folks. And there's a lot of things that are set up really against them. So the big takeaway from me, which I had with my

My primary care doc for so many years was coordination. He was my quarterback and I loved my quarterback and he knew how to orchestrate the team. But we are so kind of siloed within healthcare. And it doesn't just start, it's not just about being siloed as a health system. It also, of course, there's other players there. But what's interesting to me is all the announcements. CVS, we talked about it on one of our live shows. It really struck me. I think that, you know,

they're in a real position to make an impact. Now, of course, when we talk about this quarterback, the focus a lot is around chronic populations where care management is absolutely critical. And it just fascinated me how this integrated care of really trying to break down those silos is kind of a key piece of things. So know I've been on a little bit of a rant and Stephanie is also pretty passionate about this. So I'm gonna take a breather and just let her chime in and add.

Stephanie Wierwille (29:03.309)

Yeah, what I think I'm really passionate about is the preventive conversation. And that is as much about population health, maybe more so than it is about the business of health care. But they're intertwined. So when you are at a health, you hear a lot about longevity and prevention.

and things like nutrition and exercise and sleep and all about how that ties into primary care and how primary care can and should step into those spaces. And in fact, it's interesting because you hear a primary care conversation right next to a conversation from Kroger Health or Peloton or Headspace, right? That's the conversation. That's very different than I think many health systems are continuing to talk and think about primary care. So I'll just give some examples. So there was a quote that I really loved.

Kris (29:41.194)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Wierwille (29:55.083)

Several folks actually kind of mentioned this gist that we need the three-legged stool of nutrition, exercise, and sleep when we think about prevention. So that actually came from Peloton, the medical advisor of Peloton. They mentioned that. But then we had Kroger Health announcing that they had updates to their nutrition scoring system. And they're pushing for nutrition to be seen as a vital, so nutrition to be as equal of a vital sign as things like blood work or diagnostics. That kind of blew my mind, to be honest.

Kris (30:22.858)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Wierwille (30:23.997)

And so I'm tying that into the primary care conversation because again, those are the conversations happening on the same stage as Amazon One Medical or health systems. Go ahead, Chris.

Kris (30:38.026)

Well, I was gonna say it's so fascinating because again, we've talked a little bit about this before on the show. How companies approach solving their problems is where they make money. So, you you see CVS around, it's all chronic care management. How do we take care of chronic populations? And frankly, that's the biggest cost driver in our overall system. But on the other end of the spectrum is a lot of these peer plays who are focused in the health and wellness space. So they're coming at it from more of a prevention point of view. I guess maybe the thing that, you know,

Stephanie Wierwille (30:47.875)

Guess.

Kris (31:07.562)

that I wonder is how do we think about what our business strategy really is and where our focus is? There may be some health systems out there who are really all over the preventative side. There may be some more around the chronic care management side. I'd ask the question, can we really do both of those well?

Stephanie Wierwille (31:24.995)

So that's where I'd go to partnerships. So one good example of a partnership is Amazon One Medical announced that they're partnering with Cleveland Clinic to open a primary care office in partnership with Cleveland Clinic next year. Okay, why do I bring that up around your point? Because Cleveland Clinic's business is they get their business, if you will, from complex, really high acuity,

you know, specific rare cancers, those kinds of things. Well, a partnership with One Medical theoretically would help them find those patients earlier in their stage of care and bring those in. Okay, now you go a level up. So you think about Kroger. Kroger has their business built on food. And so they're trying to build out primary care and pharmacy, of course they already have. And so

If you bring people in through food, theoretically you can get them to primary care. So it's kind of our funnel wars structure, but saying what are the massive collection of partnerships that you have? So if you are a regional or a local or even a national health system, what are the gaps in your care that you're not gonna build out in-house and who can you partner with to have a more holistic sense? And I think we've probably moved, well, I won't say fully, because a lot of health systems are building out the urgent care, the primary care, and I know we can have a big debate about that.

Kris (32:20.873)

Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille (32:44.535)

but many are now looking towards partnerships. So that's how I would answer that question. Des, what about you?

Desiree Duncan (32:52.428)

Yeah, well, I guess I was touching on the like with Kroger, you know, their their focus is like food is medicine, right? And so often what we eat, what we consume or diet is is not taken into factors when it comes to our health care or primary care, and that there's so many different connections that are unspoken that we could really use more support in. So I'm thinking about the correlation between some neuro stuff and gut health, for example.

And that, know, what can we help solve beyond, you know, medicine or other focuses? What could we do from a guiding on a food standpoint of, know, how do we get more probiotics in so this were more of that partnership where the Kroger could come in there.

Stephanie Wierwille (33:42.241)

Yeah. And those are the kinds of conversations that consumers are having, right? So I mentioned longevity earlier. There was a lot of discussion around longevity. And that's where, again, I go back to Dr. TikTok, Dr. YouTube. That's something that's becoming much more prominent in the cultural zeitgeist overall is this consideration of longevity and how do we live a long, healthy life and how do we make sure our health span is long, not just our lifespan.

And so, you know, consumers are leaning into that conversation, whether it's around blue zones or whatever. And so, you know, if they go to their doctor, how does that all connect? I think that's the question.

Desiree Duncan (34:26.851)

Yeah.

Kris (34:26.868)

Well, no, I was going to say, Des, I mean, I think that's the one place where I really think as health system marketers, we can really challenge ourselves because as we are focusing, our organizations are focusing on trying to keep people healthier, right? Where's our focus? Our focus is usually on top of funnel, get people in the door. Yet we're trying to figure out ways to coordinate care and primary care. We're trying to figure out ways to engage patients. All these things that we're talking about to drive better health and longevity.

Well, where are we at in these conversations as our own organizations are kind of rethinking primary care? As marketing communicators, are we at the table? Are we saying, hey, you know, we've got experience, we know how to engage and reach consumers and we can help you in that. Or are we leaving that to kind of the clinical job to do? Because I think we're missing something. And I also think that's a place where we can show probably, well, maybe I shouldn't say probably, where I would bet there's a good chance we can show more value in our impact.

to reach and engage consumers supporting that, then maybe we can in random topic here funnel.

Desiree Duncan (35:30.188)

Yeah, and speaking of that care team, I know you had mentioned that nurses were kind of having a moment here at Health, know, share a little bit more about that and then also even that connection to how they contribute to that conversation on care.

Stephanie Wierwille (35:47.353)

Absolutely. I think that was a shining bright spot that was really different this year. In the past, nurses just, hasn't been part of the conversation as much, maybe a little bit, but this year there was a whole kind of track around nursing. There was all kinds of events, hackathons, happy hours, networking events, nurse specific sessions, and quite a few sponsors that were focused explicitly on nurses. And so, you know, first of all, yay, we love that because nurses are really…

the largest part of that, you know, frontline population of healthcare workers. But it was really interesting. I actually sat down one-on-one with a nurse and heard a little bit of her pushback, which was, this is awesome. I'm so glad I'm here, but I'm exhausted. This is not gonna affect my day-to-day. These big picture ideas, they're cool on stage, but they're not gonna help my team. And so I think I'll just say progress.

Awesome. think even we with our clients are hearing more and more focus on nurses and we're doing a lot of work in our work with clients around nurses, but there's still a gap. And so there's more work to be done.

Desiree Duncan (36:54.99)

Yeah, I know, like with J &J, they're looking at nurses as those next innovators, know, doing their own research. I'm wondering if that had more to do with why they're to kind of get their perspective on what's being developed in order to actually make it work for them later down the road. But yeah, exhausted. You'd also mentioned the payer provider and some B2B marketing, you know, what kind of what showed up there in those conversations.

Stephanie Wierwille (37:21.113)

Go ahead, Chris.

Kris (37:21.876)

I was going to say from a payer provider point of view, it's all about kind of how do we integrate to deliver better care, right? It's how do we reduce prior authorizations? How do we kind of work together to better understand what's really working and what's not working? How do we open lines of communication and kind of put down the boxing gloves where we can? So there was a lot around that. What else did you see in that space, Stephanie?

Stephanie Wierwille (37:46.219)

Well, I just have a funny story to share. So there was a panel that UnitedHealthcare was sharing a bit about primary care actually and how they're building out, of course, their focus on primary care as part of their holistic ecosystem, their pay-vider ecosystem. And they said, you know, for them, even though they have payers and provider, of course, right inside their ecosystem, sometimes sitting down the hall from one another,

So things like prior authorization. He was like, I have an example where one person was complaining on the provider side about not getting a prior authorization or at the macro scale, not getting prior authorizations enough. And he was like, you can literally walk down the hall and talk to the person on the payer side and figure this out. And I just kind of laughed at that because as we, of course, support providers,

We hear these frustrations and I guess it gave me a little bit of joy is not the right word, but something just to realize that even in a pay VITR, they struggle with it too.

Kris (38:53.396)

coordination. No matter what building you're in, quote unquote, the coordination becomes a challenge.

Stephanie Wierwille (38:54.53)

Yes.

Desiree Duncan (39:01.838)

Okay, sounds like a lot happened. Lots of amazing discussions occurred. But for those that are curious about Health 2025 or any conferences like this, what are some key takeaways that you would share in order to maybe even entice?

Stephanie Wierwille (39:21.625)

Yeah, well, first of all, I think AI is and will continue to have a moment. So it's going to be very interesting to see where are we in 2025, a year from now, back in Las Vegas, I believe. And even along the way, right? Like you mentioned CES, Chris, that's just right around the corner, South by Southwest into the March. And it's not just about the conference circuit, of course, but we're seeing announcement after announcement every single day in that space with the healthcare marketing hat on. We already ranted a little bit about that and how, you know,

this is something that marketers should get ahead of. But I would just say, how are you telling your organization's story? And specifically, the story your organization wants to tell from a B2B standpoint or even an earned media standpoint or an investor standpoint is not the same story that consumers need to hear. Consumers are still very much fed up with the lack of time they get to spend with their doctor, with the frustration around wait times, with the affordability challenges. I don't want to forget that.

and really recognize that what consumers really want is FaceTime with my doctor to be seen and heard and listened to. so telling me a tech story, as we just saw with Forward Health closing its doors, I think that was one of the takeaways I had yesterday around Forward Health, who's really come out and said, we're the future of primary care. We're tech forward. We have all this tech, and you have to pay out of pocket for it. Consumers are like, cool, but that's not what I want.

So with your marketer hat on, how are you going to tell this story to all the audiences that need to hear different things?

Desiree Duncan (40:54.135)

Any key takeaways from you, Chris?

Kris (40:56.2)

You know, the funnel wars are alive and well. We've talked about that, you know, over time on this podcast, right? So, you know, we can't, I think about, you know, the old maps recalculating, recalculating, recalculating, right? So a lot of these folks coming in are figuring out that maybe how they envisioned their forays into the top of funnel aren't necessarily working, but they know there's still gold here and golden them their hills, so to speak. they're,

So they're finding different ways to do things. So I think it's alive and well, CVS, even Walgreens, even though they're pulling back, they're finding their space, right? They're finding their space. And it may not be that grand vision that they had because of the short-termism of being able to produce results, but folks like CVS, UnitedHealthcare, Kroger, Amazon, they're not going away. They're figuring out kind of what to do. It's important to kind of still watch and it's important to kind of...

make sure that we are clear about where our value is, as Stephanie had mentioned before, examples of the partnership with Cleveland Clinic. yeah, picking the strategy and really kind of figuring our focus is critical in this space.

Desiree Duncan (42:08.27)

I don't know we can talk about this all day long, but we'll wrap it up here. Stephanie and Chris, thanks so much for sharing about all the things you experienced at Health 2024. And hopefully we'll see some of you at Health 2025. For all of you listening, thank you so much for joining in. And as always, if there's something you want us to cover on the NoNormal show, shoot us an email at nonormal at bpdhealthcare.com. Make sure you share the show with friends and colleagues and give us a review and rating on iTunes and Spotify, preferably five stars. All of that would be greatly appreciated.

And until next time, don't ever be satisfied with the normal. Push that no normal y'all and we'll talk to you next week.