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launch of our new CFO and Revenue Cycle
podcast.
Tune in for conversations with finance experts from
the top hospitals and health systems. We'll discuss
key trends and ideas to drive meaningful change
in the industry. Look for Becker's CFO and
Revenue Cycle podcast wherever you listen to episodes.
This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine
and Orthopedic podcast,
and I'm thrilled to be joined today by
by doctor Philip Louie of Virginia Mason Franciscan
Health. Doctor Louie, thank you so much for
joining us. Before we dive into our main
discussion, could you please introduce yourself and tell
us a bit about your background?
Yeah. Thanks for having me on today, Carl.
So my name is Philip Louie, orthopedic spine
surgeon out in Seattle, Washington, Virginia Mason Franciscan
Health. My practice is predominantly minimally invasive sort
of spine surgery, but I also have a
huge interest in sort of the
big picture
of, medicine overall and spine and musculoskeletal
care
and and just using social media as dissemination
of information
in what is now 2025.
Yeah.
And you recently announced on LinkedIn that you're
joining Wharton's executive MBA program. And I was
wondering just kind of why you decided to
invest in this, why now, and what you're
supposed to get out of this as a
submission.
Yeah. I'm actually really excited for this. And
I think that for me you know, everyone
has a a different reason to to get
an MBA.
Obviously,
people have their opinions as to whether positions
really need it or or should take the
time to get it. But
I think there's a couple big areas spurred
me, and and one is, you know, I've
always been interested in how we define value
in patient care.
I know the term, you know, value based
care is thrown around quite a bit. It's
a little bit of a buzzword,
but, you know, I I think that no
one really
understands it from a broad and holistic standpoint.
And and that's one of my goals. Right?
On a broad level, right, like, how we
determine value is gonna determine how we get
compensated in the future, and it's gonna guide
how
we even care for our patients. And on,
like, a very micro level,
right, we're always trying to better understand all
these new enabling technologies
that are coming in. And we have to
figure out, like, in our practices and our
hospital systems and to our leadership, like, what's
the value of this technology or what's the
return on investment and being able to sort
of start patching the the micro
value systems to the macro value systems that
guide what we do. And I and I
think the second area that really intrigues me
is that, you know, health care seems to
lag behind in a lot of different areas.
And I and I think that ultimately, we
can learn a lot from
the other fields that are a bit more
nimble than what health care is, and especially
in musculoskeletal
and spine care where it's really important to
understand, you know, how we can continue
to do things better and what technology can
help us be more safe and effective on
what we do.
Just just sort of growing the network and
learning from others to think outside the box
a bit better
and hopefully drive the the field forward a
bit more.
Absolutely. So it sounds like this education will
really help fill in some
gaps that you
might not have had a little while that
you might have now.
Yeah. And I think we we we struggle
to find time in our lives to read
or learn, and
this is just one way to force me
to take some time if if I really
believe it's meaningful and to devote some time
and energy to it and then actually learn
it better.
Yeah. And I was wondering if you could
talk about some of the
top business challenges that you're seeing in your
work. I know you did mention
about value and spine care, but are there
any other challenges that you're
seeing? And what's your approach to tackling them?
I mean, I I think if you look
around even, you know, what you all publish
and what's being written in sort of the
mainline
journals and and online and social media. We
all have a lot of common struggles no
matter sort of where we're practicing or what
setting we're in. I think one of the
biggest ones we deal on a day to
day basis is how do we learn to
do more with less,
essentially.
You know, staffing is more difficult. It's more
expensive than what it used to be, and
and what we're asked to do is growing
and growing and growing. So, you know, how
can we be a a better steward of
our resources and and be more effective with
what we have and and even diminishing
to do more and do better than how
we did before? I think that's the challenge
that we're all facing.
I think a second challenge that we face
is, like, as you know in health care,
there's just a lot of different stakeholders.
And I and I think we find ourselves
arguing with each other all the time trying
to get on the same page.
And so whether it's, like, the insurance companies
and hospital leadership and the physicians and other
providers or the patients themselves in the industry,
like, we all sort of want to do
the right thing,
and we just have to do a better
job of communicating with each other and and
finding,
you know, again, what where where do we
find the greatest value and drives our work,
and where can we find overlap to move
things forward?
You know, regardless if a physician
has
business training
or not,
what's a business skill that all spine surgeons
should know?
That's a really good question. You know, I
I think if you, you know, you have
you've been someone who's sort of interacted with
a lot of spine surgeons.
We are really good at identifying problems and
making that known. Right? We're we're just in
our nature, we we just complain a lot.
And we think
we're really good at identifying
a whole series of possible solutions. Right?
But I think where we struggle is, you
know, how do we take our
identification of problems,
and then how do we get to these
solutions? Right? So, like, taking an idea and
turning into something that makes an impact.
I I think there's a set of administrative
skills that we, as surgeons, tend to lack
in that area,
and it makes us seem like we are
just loud and complain and don't understand the
process. And part of that is true. And
so I think we just need to do
a better job of once we've identified the
problem and once we've sort of singled out
some potential solutions,
really learning to take a step back and
figuring out, well, how do I go from
point a to point b, c, and d,
and who needs to be involved? And and
who's all these different skill sets that we
need to learn as far as part of
the journey from the start to the finish.
It sounds like it really ties back to
what you're saying, Bob, just that taking a
step back, really taking a a big picture,
look at things, and
then taking action.
Yeah. Yeah. Easier said than done.
Definitely. Definitely.
And you had mentioned, in earlier in this
recording
that you've been very you're still very engaged
with social media. And I wanna ask, you
know, in 2025,
as
all different platforms, their algorithms are changing, they
sometimes, you know, in The US, you know,
TikTok has faced a potential
ban. I'm wondering how you're
adjusting your social media strategy
to the ever changing landscape.
Yeah. I mean, I I think that's something
we have to understand is
it's it's always changing, and we always have
to be willing to adapt. I think that's
part of the fun aspect of social media.
Right? There's no
blueprint or textbook or curriculum that will teach
you how to best utilize
social media, and there's no right way to
do it because everyone sort of has a
different way of approaching it, and it has
to fit with, one, you know, what your
hospital system will allow you to do, but,
two, sort of your own personality and what
you feel comfortable with.
You know, I I think for me, it's
it's always been about, well, how can I
better educate patients?
How do I better engage with my colleagues?
And because of that,
we sort of find ways to adapt as
a community.
Right? So it's not necessarily me trying to
jump on the next trend.
It's it's me trying to see,
okay. Well, if this is happening, how do
I maintain this community that we've developed? Right?
How do we, you know,
educate in ways that we can reach more
people effectively, whether it be one platform or
another?
And how do we sort of bridge everything
together so, like, everyone's interest and everyone's goals
are sort of being achieved?
But it's you just gotta keep your eye
on on what we're allowed to do, and
that we know is changing a lot.
I really like your emphasis on the community
aspect of your social media engagement. I mean,
at the end of the day, it is
it does start with the word social.
Yeah. I mean, I I think that's the
fun part about it. Right? I if you
look back at, you know, the things we've
done and what other my colleagues have done,
it's, like, we've been able to meet so
many people that we might not otherwise have
met along the way.
And it really is sort of developing different
communities that you find interest
and that, otherwise, you would never have been
a part of.
Absolutely.
And my last question for you, doctor Louie,
what are three health care trends that you're
following closely?
Yeah. I think from my angles, you know,
I'm still pretty academic, and we do a
lot of research. You know, one area that
we're looking at is this patient reported outcomes.
Right? We we track these all the time,
and it's interesting to see how different stakeholders
are are using that now.
Alright. Whether they're in insurance companies or even
our hospital leadership has identified,
hey. These are metrics that are really important
where we are just trying to capture as
much as we can sometimes from research purposes
to better understand how we're doing.
But I I think one trend that I'm
really trying to follow is, you know, what
are the most meaningful quality measures
that are going to be captured so we're
not creating fatigue in these surveys and that
all these other stakeholders are getting the information
that they need as well rather than, you
know, putting patients through, you know, ten, fifteen,
twenty minutes of surveys
so that they can try to answer small
questions for everyone.
You know, a second area would be
a very common area of sort of artificial
intelligence, but the way I look at it
is, you know, it's it's there. And whether
you agree with it or not, you know,
people always ask, well, is, you know, artificial
intelligence going to replace you?
I don't think that it will ever replace
us fully, but I do think that
surgeons and physicians who understand
and can apply and and utilize artificial intelligence
will eventually replace those that cannot.
And so I I think it behooves us
to really understand
what is happening in the AI world and
safely
and responsibly
trying to adopt
these various technologies and these practices. And then
we just need to do a better job
of communicating to our patients and understanding where
they feel comfortable because
I I think we all know it's a
wave that's coming, but we can do a
good job of responsibly adopting it. And then
the third area is sort of tied to
my first, and that's
you know,
there's so much focus right now in the
financial health care landscape and cost arising, and
we need to help more people, and we
just need to do more.
We have all these goals and targets.
But we also have to remember, like, we
have a responsibility
to
sort of train the next generation and sort
of continue to contribute to our body of
knowledge as a field. So,
you know, it's something I'm keeping my eye
on and as, you know, as as the
financial landscape in health care changes a little
bit, you know, how do we
attract people to,
like, continue to innovate, right, continue to provide
the best quality of care to their patients,
but also dedicate time to train that next
generation, whether it be undergrad, medical students, residents,
fellows,
and be willing to, like, add to the
body of knowledge. Right? Like, I I think
doing all four of those things
are gonna be really important to not just
sort of providing care as it is now
and in the future, but kind of pushing
the field forward.
Yeah. And I just wanna ask a quick
follow-up question.
Very simply,
are you
nervous or optimistic
when you think about the next generation of
spine surgeons?
I am
cautiously optimistic. Right? I I think that
when we face a lot of struggles, we
are forced to innovate.
And I think that if you ask a
lot of spine surgeons,
you know, their perception of the current state
of spine care, musculoskeletal
care,
a lot of people will answer, hey. We
are at this point
that changes need to happen.
And and I think that's where my optimism
arises from is that, you know, this is,
like, the perfect breeding grounds for innovation right
now because a lot of us feel like
our backs are are up against the wall.
But it is still a bit cautious because
you can't just wildly take
uncalculated
risks.
Right? And in our world, anytime you innovate,
there's always some cost. And and, you know,
that cost can be a financial cost,
but could it also be a a cost
in the safety or the effectiveness of the
care that we're providing?
So can we sort of
innovate responsibly in the future? I really hope
so, and I think we can, but we
just sort of need to, you know, come
together and do it the right way.
Yeah. Sounds like a very, very
mindful type of cautious optimism
from what I'm understanding.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much for joining us
today, doctor Louie. It's been a pleasure speaking
with you, and I look forward to connecting
again in the future.
Alright. Sounds good. Thanks so much.
Thank you.