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Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF, welcome to Stanford and Systems Leadership.
>> My pleasure to be here.
>> So tell us a little bit about UCSF and your role in the institution.
>> Sure, UCSF is one of ten campuses in the University of California, and
it's unique, And it's the only campus focused exclusively on health services,
health sciences.
It's only graduates, so we don't have any beer busts on Friday or fraternity row.
It's all medical students, dental students,
pharmacy students, nursing students plus a graduate division and
then the health care delivery system and that's the part I'm responsible for.
All in, UCSF is about a six and a half billion dollar operation.
The health system is about four and half of that.
>> And UCSF was recently named one of the best hospitals in the nation.
And there are a lot of changes going on in the health care system in our country.
How are you seeing that impact your business and
the people who work on your team?
Well, first, I'll just say about all surveys, if they rank as highly,
we're very appreciative of the methodology.
If they rank as poorly, we just dismiss it.
>> [LAUGH] >> But, I do think that the rankings do
reflect and underline strength in our technology and
innovation and, particularly, our strength in.
Delivering high end tertiary and quantinary care.
The challenge for all of us in health care industry is we're not quite sure what
the underlying economic business model is.
We've been told we're moving to a population health model for a long time.
I thought by now we would be well down the road of All looking like junior Kaisers.
But fee for service still is the dominant form of the business.
And when you're not sure how your economics works,
it makes it harder to make decisions.
We have just made the decision we're going to ask as though,
we try to place our bets on a population health future, but Assume there is
just a modest transition and that it were continuing as we have for the past.
So it's a heard time for everyone in health care, and particularly because
it's so political, everybody is always threatening to with the system.
>> Now, within that context, how do you think about new types of
digital technology or personalized healthcare and
how that impacts what you're able to do with your patients.
>> We have a lot of issues in healthcare.
One of them is cost for sure.
One of them is quality.
One is patient experience, and I think That technology
has the ability to reduce errors, improved reliability and reduce cost.
We see it, whether it's robots that we use in our new mission day hospital that
they don't unionize, they don't strike.
They just carry linens, they carry drugs, they carry food back and
forth, all day long.
Or what we're doing on electronic medical records, and others.
So I think the whole healthcare industry is so ripe for a technologic advancement.
And they've been slow.
There's some legitimate reasons why we've been slow.
But we've been slow to make those adoptions.
>> How do you decide who you want to work with?
There is so much activity going on here in Siicon Valley, and
you're at the heart of it.
How do you chose who to engage and with whom you say, let's wait a bit?
>> Yeah, I think it is a challenge.
In fact, we set up a separate unit, our center for digital health innovation,
that we try to run suggested ideas or new proposals through.
So we can kind of do some preliminary screening.
But in general, we're looking for things that are That save money or
save lives or save improved processes.
We're looking for things that are secure.
We're looking for things that are scalable.
And we're looking for things that are seamless.
So even if we get an innovation that requires us to Undo all of our
interfaces with existing systems.
It's not worth it for us,
unless it's got some profound impact on reducing morbidity or mortality.
So we're trying to simplify our lives and have things work in a common interface.
So we're looking for innovations that can work well with that.
>> How early will you bring a compnay, an outside company, in to working with UCSF,
given the complexity of the system within which you're working?
>> Well, we're always open to new ideas and we encourage people as,
once they have a proof of concept >> Mm-hm.
>> We're looking at it.
But I was just thinking about mistakes I've made.
I was a big believer in Elizabeth Holmes and
Theranos before we learned that there was nothing there.
We were an early investor in a waypoint which just went bankrupt this week.
And this was a Technology to attract capital equipment inside the hospital so
we're willing to try new things, but almost in every case,
we're looking for an organization that knows the space extremely well,
knows the The adjacencies and the interfaces and
can work well with us and we're willing to give it a try.
>> All right so let's go to the other end of your ecosystem.
Let's talk about government regulation and how that impacts what you do.
How does that drive the everyday behaviours of you and your team?
And again, how does that get tied to patient outcomes?
>> Absolutely. Everything we do is regulated.
How far off the floor or from the ceiling we stack things is regulated.
Who can put an eye drop in your eye is regulated.
You name it in healthcare, it's regulated.
And I think For legitimate reasons, because it is a life and death industry.
And the expectation is this is a place where no mistakes should be made.
And I think some of the tension that happens between healthcare and
the tech world, where make mistakes often, and frequently, and learn,
and constantly evolve, bringing those together.
By the time they come together, the health care industry is saying no mistakes here.
This needs to be worked out cause we're not going to put our patients in
harms way and so that becomes a real challenge for us.
But I think The regulatory environment is what it is,
I wish it were a little more stable because
unfortunately it has become a r versus d on how they think about regulation.
And we're never quite sure again what's coming next.
>> So as the CEO of this business you deal with doctors, you deal with researchers,
you deal with patients.
You deal with technology, you deal with the government, how do you spend
your time as you think about managing the broader company and organization?
>> Yeah, well that is I think the challenge for every CEO.
So last week I was in Washington, DC,
on my way over here I was on the phone with the dean of the medical school.
Where in a week ago, we had a strike at UCSF with our nurses and other employees.
So the positive spin is it's a very diverse, interesting engaging environment.
But the challenge is maintaining a strong relationship with all your
stakeholders Making sure you thoroughly understand what's driving them and
motivating them and trying to work productively with them.
Find a way forward that helps the company grow, thrive,
prosper and better serve our mission.
>> Of all of our guests that we've had so far this quarter,
I think that your job may, in fact, be the most complex.
You've got an ecosystem with a variety of constituencies And
it really is dealing with life and death.
We're really appreciative of you making the time to come here to Stanford and
join Leadership.
>> My pleasure.
Thanks so much.
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