In the health care investment space, more money does not always mean more success. While there’s no shortage of investors and startups looking to disrupt the health care sector, successfully navigating the different needs of payers, providers and patients can prove daunting.

That’s where strategic corporate investors come in. They work with corporate entities that invest and build up startups with the goal of improving the health care system. These investors connect corporations with fresh, new solutions from entrepreneurs, while providing startups strategic counsel in navigating red tape and understanding how different solutions will play out in the marketplace.

In this episode of HealthChangers, we talk to two strategic corporate investors:

Matt Hermann, Senior Managing Director at Ascension Ventures, which invests on behalf of a system of hospitals and health systems
Matt Karls, a partner with Echo Health Ventures, a strategic investing firm focused on next-generation companies that are transforming health care

In Uganda, nearly a half million people from surrounding war-torn countries have sought safety in refugee settlements. The U.S. organization, Medical Teams International, operates health clinics in Uganda to help the refugees and locals with their medical needs. But the slow, paper-based system impacts the time it takes to treat patients as well as identify outbreaks of diseases like malaria. Also, it can take up to a month to manually collect and send data from health clinics in Uganda to the United Nations.

Two years ago, Medical Teams decided to find a solution to this problem. They partnered with skilled volunteers, people with specific expertise who are willing to share what they know, to build a technology solution to automate the process and help transform the way refugees in Uganda receive health care. In this episode, we spoke with two of the volunteers chosen for the project, Heidi Brown and Jason Dempsey, who both work in Cambia's IT department.

Too often, health care focuses on “what's the matter” instead of “what matters” when a person is diagnosed with or experiencing serious illness. Palliative care plays an important role in helping people and their families navigate a complex health care system in a way that respects their cultural belief systems.

To try and answer some of these questions, the Cambia Health Foundation created the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program. It's an initiative designed to identify, cultivate and advance the next generation of palliative care leaders. On this episode of HealthChangers, we talk to two palliative care physicians, Dr. Dulce Cruz and Dr. Justin Sanders, both recipients of the Sojourns Scholar grant. Their research and work focuses specifically on navigating cultural beliefs with education and communication.

There's little debate that health care in this country needs improvement. Costs are high, paperwork is cumbersome and confusing, and patients can get lost in the shuffle. Some believe technology will drive improvements in health care. But the guest on today's podcast disagrees.

Aneesh Chopra was the first ever U.S. Chief Technology Officer serving under President Obama. He says technology's role isn't to drive change, but to enable doctors, hospitals and even patients to create change. He dropped in for a conversation before a crowd of health care innovators at the Cambia Grove in Seattle. The interviewer for the event was Lee Huntsman, President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Bio-Engineering at the University of Washington. 

On any given day, 10,000 people in the U.S. turn 65 years old and become eligible for Medicare. As choosing the right Medicare plan has become more complex, navigating all the options can be overwhelming. In this episode, two members of the Medicare team at Cambia discuss today’s seniors, a new tool that can help people sort through options step-by-step and advice for those working in the health care industry industry – whether a consumer, patient or a member.

The HealthChangers podcast is presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. You can find more information and show notes on all of our episodes at CambiaHealth.com. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like, leave us a review.

Internships offer a small taste of the real world and an opportunity to work in a desired field. Interns at Cambia engage in challenging assignments that are crucial to the transformation of health care. To learn more about a newcomer’s perspective of the health care industry, we spoke with three interns who spent the summer working at Cambia. In this episode, the interns share what they liked about the work they completed, what surprised them and what their hopes are for the future of health care.

The HealthChangers podcast is presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. You can find more information and show notes on all of our episodes at CambiaHealth.com. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like, leave us a review.

The HealthChangers Podcast, presented by Cambia Health Solutions, is where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. 

In this episode, we feature a recording of a live fireside chat at the Cambia Grove, a place that is a bridge between health care entrepreneurs and innovators and the larger health care institutions that want change for this industry. Health care and public policy are tied at the hip and you can't have a productive conversation about health care innovation without talking about policy.

The focus of this conversation is on the future of health care and it features physician and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Andy Slavitt, who was the administrator for CMS responsible for implementing the Affordable Care Act during the Obama Administration. 

For more information on all episodes of HealthChangers please visit CambiaHealth.com.  Also follow us on Twitter @Cambia and let us know what you'd like to hear on future episodes. 

Whenever you get a checkup, or go to the ER, there's a doctor or a nurse on hand, typing notes about your health into a computer. They are often recording things like your weight,blood pressure and other measurements. These notes can also include important instructions about medications, and the doctor's impressions of your health condition.There's a growing movement among hospitals and doctors to make these notes easier to access.

That movement is called OpenNotes, an organization that aims to make notes more readily available to patients and their caregivers. The hope is that patients can take a more active role in their own health care. To find out more about OpenNotes, we spoke with Dr. Joann Elmore a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, and a physician at Harborview Medical Center, one of the first medical centers to adopt OpenNotes. In this episode, Dr. Elmore explains the OpenNotes Movement.

The HealthChangers podcast is presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping tomake health care more personalized. You can find more information and show notes on all of our episodes at CambiaHealth.com.  Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like, leave us a review.

Virtual reality has been making a splash in the gaming and entertainment industry in recent. Now, as platforms have progressed and technologies have evolved, people are starting to expand their horizons and ask “What if we could use this for more than just entertainment? How can we help use this technology to help people?”

On this episode of HealthChangers, we spoke with Dr. Alison Greco, a clinical psychologist who has been following the advancements of virtual reality for several years. She shares how virtual reality is being used as a pioneering treatment for anxiety, expanding the limits of our imaginations for more comprehensive treatment.

The HealthChangers podcast is presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. You can find more information and show notes on all of our episodes at CambiaHealth.com.  Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher orwherever you listen to podcasts and if you like, leave us a review.

Each month the Cambia Grove, a health care focused innovation hub in Seattle, hosts interactive conversations with leading health care innovators. This series of events is called Under the Boughs. Recently the conversation focused on how to engage people in their personal health care ecosystems–one of the biggest opportunities and challenges in health care today. Hosting this conversation is University of Washington President Emeritus, Lee Huntsman and his guest is veteran tech innovator and relative health care newcomer, the CEO of Accolade, Rajeev Singh.

The HealthChangers podcast is presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. You can find more information and show notes on all of our episodes at CambiaHealth.com.  Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like, leave us a review.

Welcome to the HealthChangers podcast, presented by Cambia Health Solutions, where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized.

On this episode, we’re joined by Burt Rosen, Chief Marketing Officer for HealthSparq, a Cambia company that helps peoples make smarter health care choices with industry-first transparency tools. Our other guest, Susannah Meadows, is a journalist and author who has written for Newsweek and The New York Times. Susannah recently published a book, The Other Side of Impossible, about ordinary people who faced daunting medical challenges, but didn’t give up.

Susannah and Burt have something in common—they are both patient advocates. They both have worked with, and at times beyond, the health care system to advocate for critical treatments for themselves and loved ones. In this episode, we talk with Burt and Susannah about this growing movement of patient advocates, why it’s happening now, and what it’s like to be an advocate.

To build awareness about patient advocacy and patient experience, Burt has created a conference called What’s the Fix?, happening June 14, 2017. Susannah will be a keynote speaker. You can attend this free conference in Seattle at the Cambia Grove, or via livestream. REGISTER HERE

For more information, notes and the full transcript of this show, and an archive of our past episodes, visit CambiaHealth.com.

Welcome to the Health Changers Podcast presented by Cambia Health Solutions where we share real stories of health care transformation from those experiencing it and those helping to make health care more personalized. Today we'll hear a conversation between Leslie from Cambia and the health startup company mPulse Mobile. This will be the first in a mini-series where Leslie will interview various entrepreneurs and tech startup companies in the healthcare space

To continue listening to this series and our other stories on health care transformation be sure to subscribe to the HeatlhChangers podcast.  Or you can follow along and read show notes about each episode on our blog at Cambia at https://www.cambiahealth.com/news-and-stories/podcasts.

Illness doesn't wait around to hit us when it's convenient, in fact more often than not we get sick when it's the least convenient, in the middle of the night, right before a big meeting, or the first week of school. When we get sick and are looking for quick answers, it's likely we'll go to urgent care or even the emergency room. However a growing, albeit not new, way to deliver health care called telehealth stands to make situations like this more convenient for people.

We've all received one in the mail, a letter from a health insurance company, hospital, or doctor.  They all look different, sometimes there are multiple copies that arrive for days and sometimes they look like a bill, even though they say "This Is Not a Bill" at the top. In this episode of HealthChangers, presented by Cambia Health Solutions, we'll hear two stories from people in health care applying user-centered design to make these letters and bills easier to understand. 

In this episode we talk with the founding director of the UCSF Palliative Care program, Dr. Steve Pantilat. Dr. Pantilat is recognized internationally as one of the leading experts on palliative care and he chairs the advisory committee for the Cambia Health Foundation’s Sojourns Scholars program. We talk about what palliative care actually is in practice, how his patients and colleagues define ‘living well’ with serious illness, what caregivers should do for their loved ones, the future of palliative care and his new book, “Life After the Diagnosis; Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers.”

If you are interested in your Health Care, the Health Changers podcast is a great place to start. It explains what is at the heart of this brand new Cambia Health Solutions podcast. When you are done with this one, check out our first podcast focused on Palliative Care and make sure to leave a comment and rating on iTunes.