← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
The most important healthcare decisions don't happen in isolation. They happen when leaders come together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings together more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives this April in Chicago. With 800 speakers from Ascension, Cleveland Clinic, Common Spirit and more, the conversations get real. Leaders will share how their scenario planning for policy shifts brief, breaking through value based care barriers and building clinical teams that translate new ideas into real world care. Join top decision makers in the room April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right.
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B
This is Laura Deardow with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Andy Chang, Chief marketing officer at UChicago Medicine. Andy, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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C
It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [00:59]
B
Absolutely. Well, you know, I'm looking forward to our conversation because I know we have so much happening at UChicago Medicine. It's truly a world class institution and so I'm excited to learn a little bit more about how you're thinking about the next year. But before we dive in, can you tell me a little bit more about yourself as well as your background?
- [01:16]
C
Yeah, happy to. I am mostly from outside of the healthcare industry, but I've been going on eight years now with, with healthcare. So I guess I'm more of a veteran, a seasoned veteran at this point. I've been at UChicago Medicine for two years and three months now and it's been probably the best job of my life. I could say that with pretty big confidence because we're doing some really exciting things here. And it's part of the reason why I joined is because the amount of change, the amount of transformation that that UChicago medicine is trying to lead in healthcare and trying to change our healthcare has done.
- [01:56]
B
Absolutely that. You know, it's definitely great to hear and certainly interesting to have that kind of vantage point and experience that you've been able to bring it into UChicago medicine. Now can you tell me a little bit more about the most important initiative that you led in the last year? What did you do and what were the results?
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C
Yeah, we had a pretty big aggressive journey here to as many healthcare systems have talked about, but with digital transformation. But in the case of UChicago medicine, what we mean is really utilizing the latest in tools in AI and in tech stacks and in automation to really make sure that we are focused heavily on achieving our goals. And our mission. And so more specifically, especially in the marketing, what we've done is really look at how the end to end and patient experience could be transformed not just from an advertising way, but really again, through an experiential standpoint. It could be messages, it could be two way communication via chat or texting, it could be through voice AI. There's just a lot that's been going on and this past year we've been really focused on all of that. Something specific was really our use and standing up of Salesforce as a engagement technology stack where we have a CDP that's been stood up that records and logs all of our patient interactions. And from there we're able to dynamically create content and serve messages that are actually relevant to the patient. And through that targeted way, we're able to deliver messages or experiences that again, the patient may need to hear. For example, if a patient is overdue for a mammography thing, we automatically send those messages out. And what we've been able to achieve is a significant triple digit ROI lift. And the way that we've been measuring all of our campaigns is actually another pretty big accomplishment that the team has done, which is the setting up of control groups and seeing how our campaign treatments compare to the control group so that we're actually getting incremental lift as opposed to just taking all the that a lot of marketing departments in any industry will do. We're actually really focused on what did marketing deliver from an ROI standpoint and report back out on that to the organization to really justify the fact that marketing is an investment and an area of growth, not just a cost center.
- [04:45]
B
Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. And you know, it is really kind of amazing to see. I think it seems like across the board health systems are really looking for more of that hard ROI and understanding of what, you know, the investment dollars are going into. So when you think about that shift in, you know, how you're looking at campaigns, how you're thinking about the outcomes in the measurables, what are some of the things that you've been able to do with those control groups? I guess how do you really calculate that and then report it out to the broader executive team?
- [05:15]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So the first step is set up the foundation for it. And the foundation that we use is to have a roughly 10% of the audience that receives the campaign, depending on the campaign size, because sometimes campaigns will only go to a couple hundred people because it's so targeted now. And in those cases we'll do more of a 5050. But we actually track the appointments booked and then if they showed up for their appointment, and then we also have the revenue attributed to those specific appointments as well as downstream. And then we will compare the two groups. Was there a lift? Was there not a lift? And we verify that with finance. Our finance partners have been amazing partners actually working hand in hand with us to make sure that our methodology is sound so that we can report this out and share this out with the rest of the organization. And look, Nike, not every, not every campaign or test that we run comes out with a positive roi. And we're willingly open to share all of the results with anyone that asks and try to brainstorm why it didn't work and treat it like almost like a clinical trial. Like what worked, what didn't work, why didn't it work? And how do we apply that to other campaigns and other learnings as well? And so in some cases we've generated over $5 million in incremental appointments that again vetted through finance. And in other cases, you know, you could argue we've generated zero or less than zero because the control group outperformed our test groups. And so all that is because we've connected Salesforce with EPIC and are able to link the actual activities and appointments down to the patient level and really honestly just report on accurate roi.
- [07:11]
B
Got it. That's so helpful to know and just really interesting to think about that journey and what it can mean for the future. And speaking of the future, what are some of the big priorities and headwinds you're focused on for 2026?
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C
Yeah, absolutely. So the examples I gave were really more around the one way messaging, relevant messaging, dynamic content that if someone came to our website, we know who they are because they clicked on a certain email. And so, so we are able to show content that relevant again to that patient and further enhance the conversion rate, which means the ability to book an appointment. But you know, again it's, it's really more about the experience that we're trying to really transform. And so using AI and using, we're building out a entire strategy of omnichannel patient experience. And what that means is the ability to interact with, with us at any hour of the day, any day of the week to really accomplish what most people call us to do, which is booking appointments, confirming appointments, change, cancel appointments, general, general questions, you know, like, like visitor hours and prescription refills, those types of activities which really make up a huge portion of why people engage with us. You know, today in Healthcare, we're forcing everyone to pretty much do it in, in one channel, right. Which is through the, through the phone. And we live in a day and age now where we don't have to restrict people to one channel. We can let people choose which channel they want us, they want to use. So if my parents want to call someone and talk to a live human, we're going to encourage that and we're going to always want them to do so and be open to do so. But if I want to call, well actually I don't want to call, I want just text someone or I want to just. I'd rather chat with a bot than with a human and I want to do that after hours because my day is pretty packed. And so we're building out this technology now that lets people interact with us. And in other words, we're letting people engage with their own health on their own terms. And that is set to go live at UChicago Medicine, hopefully in the next coming weeks.
- [09:36]
B
Wow, that's really cool. And what a great idea and way to expand some of those access points and more personalize it for the preference of patients in broader community. I can imagine it takes just really multi department effort to do something like that. Who are you working closely with in order to set up some of those capabilities and position the technology as well as the people in the best way possible to field any kind of access point?
- [10:02]
C
Yeah, yeah, we, it is absolutely a cross functional collaborative effort. We have our executive steering committee that oversees this, which is myself, our cio, our chief medical informatic officer and our chief ambulatory officer. So it's ops, IT Clinical marketing and then we have a steering committee that has legal and compliance, IT security, finance, procurement, and then of course operations, marketing, a lot of the business functions. So it really is cross functional because we are changing the way that patients engage with us, which means we have to change the way that our employees engage with the patients as well across the board. And remember, like I said in the beginning, this is about changing the entire. It's not just one upfront access point, it is the entire experience. Whether they're in the exam room, whether they are leaving our parking deck, whether it's in between appointments, what can we do to really make this a frictionless experience? And that involves even our parking, attendance and our security. It involves so many different groups of people. So it's a way of really just at the same time bringing the entire organization along to get them to see the future vision, how healthcare is changing and how UChicago medicine is leading that.
- [11:32]
B
I love it. Thank you for digging a bit deeper there. Now I know there's a lot of great opportunities in this next year, but some certain certainly challenges ahead. What do you think is going to be the hardest thing you have to do in the coming year? What are some of those additional challenges that that might be abreast?
- [11:49]
C
Yeah, we have a lot of challenges that you are very familiar with because I read about them every day in your newsletter. From 340B to Medicaid changes Medicare Advantage from a whole just industry standpoint, there's so much going on and it's really hard to predict the future. So what our biggest challenges is how do we stay nimble enough, grow through efficiency, making sure that we are really focused on what matters the most, which is taking care of our patients and our community, but doing so in a way that really benefits everybody, the patient, the community, our staff and our physicians, et cetera. And to do that, you know, you really do need to have a somewhat of a rally cry on how we're going to again make things just a lot more efficient by reducing costs while also making the lives of our patients and our staff and faculty and nurses a lot easier through technology. But it is a pretty big, you know, it's a pretty big change that we're trying to embark on. And we're not alone in the, in the world here trying to use technology and AI to, to change the way things are done. But we are very progressive in the way that we think which, which I love and there is full buy in to do so here as well. So we're, we're really excited about what's coming the next year. But it is again, not easy. It's just a lot of components that need to be worked making sure that we do it in a really safe and secure way. So you know, we'll probably make mistakes here and there as long as we are able to learn from them and, and hopefully share with others in the industry what the and learn from everyone else's mistakes. Hopefully we can make this go as smoothly as possible and really figure out a way to, to continue our growth strategy in the most beneficial and highest probability way. Got it.
- [14:02]
B
That makes a lot of sense. And you know, I think all the things you pointed out there truly, you know, are things that so many other health systems are trying to navigate through and understand more deeply and broadly. So I'm glad we've been able to at least be informative with some of our coverage and continue to this next year we'll continue to double down on those spaces too. But speaking of growth for UChicago medicine, where are some of those best opportunities in the next year?
- [14:26]
C
Yeah, we have so many. Chicago is a pretty saturated geography with extremely competitive set of really high class, world class healthcare players here and it is the third largest city in the country. At the same time, always room. But we're also, we expanded into Indiana, northwest Indiana in the last couple years and continuing to just grow our footprint through our partnership with Advent Health and our JVA certain suburbs. But we're just evaluating so many just organic opportunities of growth because the population is aging and the way that we deliver healthcare and the quality that we do it, you know, it really is unmatched. And the way that we've been able to transform the way that hospitals have been run, like for example, our Ingalls Hospital has been just outperforming patients tremendously thanks to some really strong leadership there and, and again trying to bring quality health care to communities that are just underserved. So we're just always looking for opportunities like that from a geographical, geographic standpoint. So I would say that it's, it's all over the board, really. It's a very pretty vague answer, but that's really how we're looking at it. It is all over the board.
- [15:54]
B
That's absolutely amazing to hear. And you know, I know it's certainly a lot of different things upcoming and great opportunities ahead. And I think especially when you look at some of the aging demographics, the population, how it's, you know, shifting in many ways and then two, your expansion, it's just been really cool to see what has it been like partnering with Advent Health. I know their base is down in Florida, so I can imagine there are some differences between headquarters down there and what you're doing in Chicago. But how do you see some of those synergies coming into place and where are you continuing to bring some of that local feel into that partnership?
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C
It's been a wonderful partnership. It's a joint venture with the Great Lakes region of Advent Health and it's with four hospitals in the western suburbs and amazing partners they are, you know, they're quite large and so there's a lot of learnings that we learn from them. And then Chicago area, we know Chicago better than they do obviously. And, and there's just a lot of learnings that we share together and we have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of meetings and discussions on how we can make sure that we're serving our population's beds and how we're going to be working together and maybe even expanding. Like, for example, we just started a cancer network and have a partnership with the Advent Health and Shawnee Mission down in Kansas. And then on top of, there's just a lot of different needs that we both have that we both are eager to. Eager to fill. And so, you know, I would. I really want to say that it was, it's. It's a really good partnership. I came into UChicago Medicine towards the end of the. The whole negotiations, but it's been going really, really well and also surpassing our expectations on both sides. They've been a great partner to work with.
- [17:51]
B
That's amazing to hear. I know partnership is so critical in the healthcare space, especially today, and looking ahead at how to troubleshoot additional access to care and continuing to personalize medicine, advance it and transform it into where it needs to be. Andy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a really fun conversation. I'm looking forward to seeing you as well at our annual meeting. I know you'll be speaking on a panel there, and it'll be great to dig a little bit deeper into these themes and then continue to just have additional great conversations.
- [18:22]
C
Yeah, happy to also just share the results and report out with everyone on what we're doing. It's been a really fun journey and thanks for having me.