Kourtney Witten, Area Vice President Network Managing Partner Wisconsin, Advocate Health

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Episode Summary: Interview with Kourtney Whitten

Podcast Details:

• Title: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
• Host: Haley Rutger
• Guest: Kourtney Whitten, Area Vice President Network Managing Partner Wisconsin, Advocate Health
• Release Date: July 5, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Becker’s Healthcare Podcast, host Haley Rutger engages in a compelling conversation with Kourtney Whitten, the Area Vice President of Enterprise Population Health at Advocate Health. The discussion delves into strategies for balancing affordability and quality in healthcare, maintaining high standards of care, enhancing patient engagement, and leveraging data and technology to transform care delivery.

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Balancing Affordability and Quality

Kourtney underscores that "quality and affordability are not mutually exclusive" ([01:29]). Advocate Health employs a multifaceted approach to manage costs without compromising patient outcomes. Key strategies include:

• Prevention and Wellness: Focusing on preventive measures helps reduce overall healthcare costs by minimizing the need for expensive interventions.
• Patient Relationships: Building strong relationships in ambulatory clinics allows for early identification of patients with chronic conditions or other risk factors. This proactive approach enables the provision of resources and support programs to maintain optimal health levels.
• Reducing Acute Care Utilization: By fostering continuous patient engagement, Advocate Health aims to decrease emergency room visits, hospital stays, and the use of skilled nursing facilities, thereby demonstrating high-quality care.

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Maintaining High Quality of Care

Ensuring consistent quality in care is paramount for Advocate Health. Kourtney highlights several best practices and tools utilized to keep quality at the forefront:

• Staying Informed on Quality Programs: Keeping up with evolving quality programs and regulations is essential in the rapidly changing healthcare landscape.
• Technology Integration: Utilizing advanced technologies such as patient lists and care gap identification tools enables proactive outreach to patients in need.
• Virtual Care Solutions: Implementing virtual care and remote patient monitoring services allows Advocate Health to support patients who are unable or unwilling to visit clinics physically. This approach ensures continuous care and monitoring, enhancing patient outcomes.

Kourtney emphasizes, "building a relationship with our patients is the most important part of that" ([02:34]), highlighting the central role of patient relationships in maintaining high-quality care.

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Enhancing Patient-Centric Care and Member Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction serves as a crucial indicator of the trust and effectiveness of care delivery. Kourtney outlines Advocate Health's strategies to enhance patient-centric care and measure member satisfaction:

• Managing Expectations: Clear communication about potential delays or issues helps set realistic expectations and build trust with patients.
• Regular Check-Ins: Engaging with patients during their care experiences to address questions, concerns, and feedback ensures they feel heard and valued.
• Respect and Empathy: Treating patients with respect and empathy not only improves survey results but also fosters long-term loyalty and trust.

As Kourtney states, "a good barometer of the trust that we have with our patients" ([03:46]), emphasizing that patient satisfaction is integral to the overall success and reputation of Advocate Health.

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Future Opportunities for Payers in Transforming Care Delivery

Looking ahead, Kourtney identifies significant opportunities for payers to lead the transformation of care delivery through the effective use of data and technology:

• Data Utilization: With an abundance of healthcare data, Advocate Health focuses on analyzing and learning from this data to make informed decisions that positively impact patients, communities, and healthcare teams.
• Proactive Patient Support: Leveraging data to identify patients who need additional support before adverse health events occur is seen as a major win for both patients and the organization.
• Operational Efficiencies: Streamlining operations through technology reduces administrative burdens on staff and clinicians, allowing them to dedicate more time to patient care.
• Virtual Access Points: Expanding virtual care options, remote patient monitoring, and digital engagement tools provides diverse access points for patients, making healthcare more accessible and convenient.

Kourtney remarks, "we have an abundance of data... how we analyze data, how we learn from it, that can have a significant impact" ([05:08]), highlighting the transformative potential of data-driven strategies in healthcare.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a mutual expression of gratitude between Haley Rutger and Kourtney Whitten. The conversation highlights Advocate Health’s innovative approaches to balancing cost and quality, maintaining high standards of care, engaging patients effectively, and harnessing data and technology to drive future advancements in healthcare delivery.

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This detailed summary captures the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who have not listened to the full conversation.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is Haley Rutger with the Beckers Payer Podcast and we are recording live at the Becker's third Annual Spring Payer Issues Roundtable. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Courtney Whitten, Area Vice President of Enterprise Population Health at Advocate Health. Courtney, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you go ahead and get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and your background?

[C]

Sure. Thank you for having me. I am the Area Vice President for Population Health for our Wisconsin Division at Advocate Health. I've been with Advocate over a decade in several different roles and helped build our value based care infrastructure for the State of Wisconsin and have recently taken on an expanded role as a managing Network Partner for Enterprise Population Health.

[B]

Well, congratulations on that new role. Now to start our conversation off, I'd like to talk about balancing affordability and quality. So how is your organization innovating to manage the cost of care while maintaining or improving member outcomes?

[C]

So quality and affordability are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many of our strategies to look at cost reduction revolve around prevention and wellness for our patients, and building a relationship with our patients in the ambulatory clinic is key. We can then help identify which patients have chronic conditions, which or other factors that put them at higher risk for adverse health events. So when we get to know our patients in a more regular setting, then we can start to predict who will be at risk for adverse health events and start to proactively set them up with resources and support programs to try and help maintain their highest level of health. This should in turn lead to fewer emergency room hospital stays, skilled nursing facility stays, and really demonstrates the strong quality of care for our patients.

[B]

Well, I'd like to go off of that on the Quality of care so what best practices or tools does your organization rely on to keep quality of care at the forefront?

[C]

So it's important to stay on top of new quality programs and regulations as they're coming out. Especially nowadays, it feels like things are changing very rapidly. But quality is still key and building a relationship with our patients is the most important part of that. We do use technology so we have patient lists, we identify care gaps, and we use technology partners that can help proactive outreach to those patients and work on addressing those care gaps. We've also got some creative solutions around virtual care, remote patient monitoring services for patients at home who are not able or not willing to come in for their care. So meeting the patients where they are to help look at the data and metrics, but also really provide that patient centric care helps us understand those care gaps and then help patients maintain their highest level of health.

[B]

So, on the topic of patient centric care, member satisfaction is essential to thrive in today's competitive health care landscape. So what experience or engagement strategies have proven effective for your organization and how are you measuring that success?

[C]

I agree. Patient satisfaction is really important and it's a good barometer of the trust that we have with our patients between the clinician, the patient, and even the communities and caregivers that we serve. So a big part of that is managing expectations, helping patients understand if there are any delays or issues that we can anticipate in getting out in front of those, and then also checking in with patients while they're at our settings of care to see if they have additional questions or concerns or issues. And that does two things. The first is it lets patients feel heard if they have some feedback or questions for us. And it also enables us to provide a timely solution that we can agree upon with the patients. And thinking of treating patients with respect and empathy is really important. That does more than just build your survey results. It allows us to build relationships with patient. It goes to patient loyalty, it goes to understanding and getting to know our patients so they will come to us and call us first when they need care and allows us to provide the highest standard of care that we can.

[B]

Absolutely. And looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for payers to lead the charge in transforming care delivery and driving better outcomes for all stakeholders?

[C]

Now more than ever, I think we have an abundance of data. And what do we do with that? How we analyze data, how we learn from it, that can have a significant impact on our patients, our communities and our teammates. If we can proactively identify patients who need additional support and resources before they have adverse health events, that's a huge win. If we can work to streamline our operations and find some efficiencies using technology that can take some of the administrative burden off of our staff and our clinicians and allow those folks to spend more time caring for our patients. And technology can also offer different access points for care so we can consider virtual options, remote patient monitoring in home, options for care, different apps to connect with our patients, different outreach solutions and contact points so all of the technology that's out there can allow us to meet patients where they are. And this is a really exciting time to be in healthcare and to improve care delivery as we operationalize some of the technology options that are out there.

[B]

Well, I really enjoyed this conversation with you today. Again, this is Haley Rutger with the Beckers Payer Podcast, recording live at the Becker's third Annual Spring Pair Issues Roundtable. Courtney, thank you so much.

[C]

Thank you.