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- [00:00]
A
This is Laura Dirdo with the Beckers Healthcare podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Javier Rodriguez, Chief Executive Officer at davita. Javier, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:10]
B
My pleasure to be here with you, Laura.
- [00:13]
A
And I'm excited for our conversation because we're really looking deeper into some of the cool things that you're doing at DaVita. And truly, you know, it's a unique time in healthcare right now. So having the opportunity to talk with you about spotlighting the things you're doing well, as well as looking into the future and what the future may hold will be an exciting conversation for us. But before we dive in, I'm curious, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background as well as davita?
- [00:38]
B
Sure. I. My name is Javier Rodriguez and I've been at Davita for about 27 years. So I grew up here. I've done a lot of different jobs all the way from being internationally to managing our revenue operations, all the way to managing our centers. So I've had a lot of exposure to our teammates and our patient population across different points of view. It's been a great journey. I'm a proud husband and father of three.
- [01:08]
A
That's amazing to hear and definitely really cool to have such a long background and experience with davita. I can imagine having that Runway really puts you in a great position to steer the organization into the future.
- [01:23]
B
Yes, and it just dawned on me that many of your listeners, of course, don't live my life and don't know what davita does. Just to make sure we get off the conversation with the same understanding, we are a provider of life sustaining kidney care. We have the privilege of serving over 250,000 people in 15 countries. Our main focus is on improving outcomes so that we empower each and every individual to live their best, healthiest life. And so we have that privilege on a daily basis.
- [02:01]
A
That's fantastic to hear. And 250,000 patients, I mean, that is an incredible amount of people that you are influencing and certainly an important population as well. So given your vantage point and places in the market, what are the trends you're currently watching, what's top of mind for you as you're thinking about making decisions for the future.
- [02:20]
B
So there are some trends that are a bit concerning and there's some very positive ones. So I'll start with the ones that we have to be watching out as a society. Society, and that is the chronic conditions continue to grow. Roughly 4 in 10Americans have two significant chronic conditions, 1 in 3 are diabetic and 1 in 5 are, you know, high blood pressure. So when you start to put these conditions on top of one another, it really puts a lot of burden on the healthcare system. So that's one of the things we got to watch out. The second is that there's a confusion on how to engage the healthcare system, how to trust and how to participate, which is, of course, of concern. And the last one we continue to hear from all different angles is just access and cost. The continued trend of healthcare costs continues to surpass inflation. And on the positive sides, you see that the healthcare provider community is coming together and saying we have to deliver a better, more connected experience. And we are working that across our entire continuum to try and meet the patient where they're at from beginning all the way to transplant. And we, as a provider community, are trying to connect our systems and put interoperability across so that you can, as a patient and a consumer of health care, can have access to your holistic self and not just one piece of your healthcare. So those are some of the trends, a couple of ones that we need to bend the curve on, and a couple that we would love to expand and make better.
- [04:05]
A
Absolutely. I think that's such a great point. And looking at many of the aspects you talked about and mentioned here, I wanted to zero in a little bit more on the access and cost side of things. I think, you know, a lot of what's happening in healthcare today is focused on how you can make sure that the patient populations, no matter what is happening, you know, in the broader environment and policy and changes and those kinds of things, how can they continue to think about access to care over the next couple of years? Is there anything that you're doing right now to prepare for a future where, you know, costs may be prohibitive or access may be more challenging than it is today? How are you thinking about that and working on it with your team and community partners?
- [04:53]
B
Yeah, so. So obviously, we're one part of a very elaborate health care system. One of the things that we're really proud of is our cost structure and efficiency. So if you look at our. Our revenues, they basically, over a decade, have grown at roughly 2%. And so our costs have been very, very contained, even during the pandemic. And so we'd like to say that we're a model for health care. So the first thing we did is we left the most expensive acute setting. Then we went basically outside of that. Then we went home, and then we bundled all of our treatments. And so a lot of the normal constraints of healthcare, which is, is it a fee for service? No, it's bundle. Do you need the service? There's no debate of whether you need the service or not if your kidneys have deteriorated. And so those trends that are outside of our space, of course, are things that we want to help. And so what we do is we have a lot of analytics to connect to hospitals and to other sites of care and other specialists so that our patients that are diabetic, hypertensive, et cetera, can have their transportation and coordination of care done. The best way for us to contribute to healthcare is to make our patient population have the wraparound services so that they're not ending up in the ER and using other services that could be avoided.
- [06:31]
A
That makes a lot of sense and definitely is so important when you think about the entire healthcare ecosystem in meeting those accessibility and affordability goals. I'm curious, is there anything else when you think about the last year or so that has really been successful for you or organizationally, things that you wanted to elevate and spotlight as truly being part of the transformational change that you're seeing in health care today?
- [07:00]
B
Yeah, I'm proud of a lot of things and very excited about the performance of our team just across the board. And if you were going to say one of the things you mentioned earlier was access, I didn't finish on that. I'm really happy that we have access to all of our patients roughly within 10 miles. And so if you think of a chronic condition that can have access to it is a. Is a big deal. But as it relates to pride, I always say that one cannot pour from an empty cup. Of course, not my saying, but one, one that we really strongly believe at DaVita. And so our care team, we measure their energy and enthusiasm and of course, many people have these type of surveys, but 90% of our teammates took it. So it's over 65,000 people and 84% said that they feel they're engaged and that they belong. And to us, that was a very high score and source of pride. And we were told by the people do these surveys that it was unusually high. So that's of course, very energizing. Secondly, I would say the resilience and the commitment of our care teams has just been truly inspirational. And we've had a lot of hurricanes and natural disasters occur, and our centers are 99% up within two, three days after these hurricanes. And so the team just goes to work. Dedication, resiliency is just Truly fulfilling for me to watch. The third would be transplants. We're doing a lot of innovation in transplants, and last year we had 8,000 people receive a transplant, and that was the highest. We're connecting more people to more folks that are donating their organs. So we're just across the spectrum having some bright lights. And then the last thing that I would say is if you do dialysis care at home, one of the things is you might feel a little nervous or what if something happens type of thing. And in the last two years, we connected. Now over 90% of our patients have connected cyclers, so we could actually see from a nurse's station what is happening in that dialysis treatment at home. And that has been an enormous, exciting thing for a patient to have that freedom to have a more fulfilled life.
- [09:35]
A
That's truly incredible to hear and, you know, certainly mind blowing to know that so many of those patients are able to get support from home and really moving into a setting that I know is so much more comfortable for patients, too. So amazing results, even through national disasters and everything else. It makes a really big difference. Before we wrap up here, I wanted to ask, what advice would you have for evolving leaders, especially in the healthcare space today, thinking about what it takes in order to be successful during times of transformation and change?
- [10:09]
B
Yeah, it's interesting you asked me that. I just had my son, he's considering entering healthcare, and he asked me the same question. I summarize it in three. The first is, I want you to be action oriented. That there's just too many people pointing to the challenges, highlighting the challenges. Some of them are pretty apparent and obvious, but they're very difficult to actually fix. Please be action oriented and be part of the solution. The second is the speed of change is really accelerated. And that is a good thing. It's a positive thing. We want change, but that means that we have to be quicker to adopt. Which leads to the third one, which is you need to be a life learner, because we, because of all the trends that we highlighted earlier, need to think completely differently and be more aggressive because the aging of the population and the demands of the healthcare system warrant a different approach and a different speed. And frankly, the energy that we brought in the last two decades needs to accelerate for the next two decades to succeed.
- [11:26]
A
That makes a lot of sense, and it is inspiring to hear how that action orientation can lead to real results, even with that speed, that acceleration, and then understanding what trends are informing the type of care and the type of decisions that you need to make on a broader scope. So thank you so much, Javier, for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a really fun conversation and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [11:52]
B
Thank you so much, Laura.