The Groves Connection: Podcast
Welcome! I’m Dr. Robert Groves and I want to welcome you to my website and my newest project: the Groves Connection Podcast. New episodes are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and here.
I’ve been immersed in Healthcare since I can remember. My father was a primary care physician and I idolized that life from an early age. The physician-patient relationships that I saw growing up were intimate and reciprocal. I was hooked. I’ve had the privilege of a long career in healthcare. I spent 27 years in direct patient care including founding and leading a private practice, participating as a member of single and multi-specialty groups, and rolling out and leading one of the largest tele-ICU services in the country for a multi-billion dollar integrated delivery system. For a dozen years, I held multiple leadership positions in that large delivery system including senior clinical roles in traditional functions such as academics, simulation, education, quality management, utilization management as well as value-based care. Bringing people together through consensus has become my passion. The system has become too complex, fragmented, inaccessible, and expensive.
I used to believe that I knew how to fix healthcare. After all, my roles have put me at the forefront of strategy and innovation. I have seen bright entrepreneurs with new ideas and solutions and I’ve helped them navigate the complex sales cycle of large organizations to implement their solutions at scale and deliver amazing results. I’ve led internal innovations within organizations and again, seen the remarkable results that can be achieved when we work together. These solutions are important, worthwhile and we should continue these efforts, but they are not enough. In order to have an impact on the greater system, these solutions must be coordinated and integrated into a seamless whole.
Each time I have taken on a new role, I’ve discovered that there is much that I don’t know. Without fail, I find another layer of complexity and associated incentives that drive unhelpful behaviors, prevent true collaboration, and serve only limited interests. Fixing this will take all of us. The enemy is not big pharma or insurance companies, or delivery systems or life sciences and it’s certainly not the caregivers. The enemy is confusion and complexity. Sure there are a few bad apples everywhere, but most people in the industry are good and decent people trying to do the right thing in a broken system with flawed incentives. If we want to fix the system and its incentives, we have to get curious. We need to be open-minded and listen to a variety of perspectives. That's what this is about. I’ll be writing about healthcare here, what I’ve discovered, what I believe, and what I think we can do to change it. And I’ll be open to your ideas. On the podcast, I’ll be inviting guests from every corner of healthcare to share their personal journeys and unique perspectives. Unlike many healthcare podcasts that focus on a single aspect of the system, I’ll be seeking to create the broadest perspective possible. Yes, I want leaders in government and industry to be heard, but I will also interview patients, frontline caregivers, and those that support their efforts. They must also be heard because they too have something to teach us.
Understanding, connection, and collaboration will be necessary. Let’s help build that coalition. How can we have a broader impact? We need to understand. That’s where I can help. I want to arm you with information and perspective so that together we can begin to drive positive change at the highest levels of the healthcare industry.
We won’t always agree, but I know we can find a common path forward if we begin to listen to each other, understand and respect each other, and understand that ultimately all of us are working towards the same goal; an affordable healthcare system that is both personal and fully enabled by technology. We want better care, consistently high quality, and an experience for both patients and providers that makes us feel welcome, heard, and respected. These goals are within reach. So, join me as we explore healthcare and learn together what each of us as individuals and all of us collectively can do to reimagine and remake our flawed system.
I used to think that I knew how to “fix” healthcare. Now I know that I cannot do it alone. But this I do know: if we get the incentives right, there are millions and millions of smart people who will drive towards our common goals and that together we cannot fail. So, join us at the Groves Connection as we expand our ability to make a difference.
