(upbeat music) - We're joined once again by Bob Garrett, Robert C. Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health.

Bob, good to have you with us again.

- It's great to be here.

Thank you, Steve.

- Bob, can we do this?

I wanna talk about artificial intelligence, consumerism, if you will, the "Amazon" culture and how it relates to healthcare in just a second.

But I want you to do this for us.

We're taping this interview at the end of September into October.

You recently lost your dad, and you've talked about your dad a lot.

Talk about your dad and his impact on you, not just as a healthcare leader, but as a human being.

- Yeah, thank you for that, Steve.

And, you know, my dad had a great run.

He passed away at 94, and he lived those 94 years in a really complete way.

And I learned so much from him, he was a great man in so many different ways.

You know, a couple things that, you know, that I learned from him directly was his sense of optimism, you know, his positivity.

You know, I remember stories when we were kids, we would go down to Florida for a vacation, it would rain four out of the six days we were there.

But all he could talk about for months after that were the two sunny days.

And that was kind of like his mantra.

He was very positive, very optimistic.

And, you know, as a leader, I think that's a really important quality.

And I've taken that away definitely from my dad.

The other thing, you know, was his work ethic.

He was sometimes at my mom chagrin, he worked long hours, you know, seven days a week as a pharmacist.

He was a pharmacist, a retail pharmacist.

And, you know, he valued relationships as well, I learned a lot about that in working with him, whether it was relationships with doctors, with patients, customers, with team members, with his own team.

I saw it firsthand.

And, you know, and he was tough because, you know, I used to work with him, he used to bring me in a little bit, and if I did well, he'd compliment me.

But if I didn't, the first thing I would get was he used to kind of bite his lip a little bit.

Like, you know, I get that, like, hmm, you know, look, and then I knew there was gonna be a statement to follow.

But I did learn, honestly, I did learn about work ethic, about hard work, and that it does produce results.

But in the process of that hard work, I learned how relationships are so important.

So, you know, I really, you know, we got great memories of my dad and we are celebrating his great life and certainly those lessons learned.

- Well said.

Best to you and your family on that, Bob.

- Thank you.

- And also condolences, which I've said privately.

I just wanna share that with the.

There's no good transition for this, Bob.

From your dad to artificial intelligence, right?

- Which was not part of my dad's era necessarily, but I think he would, if he were still with us, he would embrace it, yeah.

- Okay, so here's the thing.

The name of the book coming out is "Why Not?"

We talked about this in another segment.

I argue that AI is not an why not thing, it's, you have no choice.

Here's my question.

Either it's, I wanna frame it the right way.

I keep, because I struggle with, and I'm afraid of it, I'm concerned.

Either you lean in and engage it and use it or you get hurt by it.

Is that too simplistic, Bob?

- Not at all, I think you have to lean in.

Listen, it's a transformative technology.

Probably the biggest transformative technology that we've seen in a long time, if not ever.

And you know what?

We can't dismiss it, it's here, it's going to stay.

I mean, every new technology, every new innovation over the history of time, there were doubters at first.

But in the healthcare space, I mean, we think about it very strategically.

We think about it in a certain areas of focus where we can really, I think, transform healthcare.

So, just a couple examples.

We think AI has potential, tremendous potential to help clinicians detect disease earlier, like chronic kidney disease, which could avoid years of dialysis or even a kidney transplant.

In the era of cancer, area of cancer, it can really help us design precision treatment plans very specific to that patient's needs.

Not all patients are the same.

And you know, everybody has a different genetic profile.

It can help us streamline really administrative efficiencies, like help us on the revenue cycle, meaning our billing and collection process.

It can help us in the OR as far as scheduling.

And then the last thing I'll mention is, it can help alleviate burnout.

We are seeing that in healthcare a lot, physician burnout, nursing burnout.

So, as an example, you know, there's an expression in healthcare called pajama time, where physicians, you know, can spend some time with their families, or even spend more time directly with patients.

But through AI, there can be note summarization, there can be note-taking that saves hours of physicians doing that in a kind of old-fashioned way.

They get more pajama time, they get more time with their patients.

And in the nursing sphere as well, just on AI-driven virtual nursing program can free up nurses to spend more time with their patients, less time on charting on administrative tasks, that kind of thing.

And guess what?

That's why nurses went to nursing school, that's why doctors went to medical school.

They wanna spend time with their patients.

- So interesting, by the way, since you mentioned pajama time, is that right?

Is that what it is, Bob?

- That's right, that's what they call it, pajama time, yeah.

- Yeah, well, I was gonna ask you, because you and I talk about wellness and wellbeing all the time.

Real quick on this, the connection in your mind, whether you call it, forget about pajama time because there's a place for pajama time and wellness, but then there's also a place for wellbeing, fitness, and taking care of oneself, mentally, physically, et cetera.

You connect that to leadership, I know you do.

- Yeah, it's really important.

I mean, I think the most effective leaders out there, you know, are fit.

I mean, they try to be fit, they try to eat right.

I mean, I think it just adds to your effectiveness as a leader, you know, it helps you mentally, it helps you physically.

And you know, let's face it, leadership can be a very tough, you know, tough run and, you know, tough engagement.

So, you need to be, you need to have your health, and you need to have your sleep.

I used to say earlier on in my career that sleep was overrated, but I do not say that anymore, it's not true.

And my clinician friends corrected me on that, and they were absolutely right on that because it is important.

So, you know, I think that balance of work and lifestyle is also an important aspect of being an effective leader.

But yeah, I definitely wanna, you know, share with the audience that I'm a true proponent of health and its correlation with leadership.

- Well said, last question Bob, minute or less.

Consumerism and healthcare.

The so-called Amazon culture, connect it back to healthcare, minute or less, got a minute or so.

- Yeah.

Well, you know, Steve, that's a great point.

And you know, we have, as an example, at Hackensack Meridian Health, we have an organization that we partner with, which is called One Medical.

It's a division of Amazon actually.

And we are extending our primary care network through a partnership with Amazon.

We're gonna build up to 20 primary care centers in New Jersey.

And folks that are Amazon Prime members will actually get a discount by virtue of their membership, they get a discount in joining the One Medical network.

So to us, that's gonna extend primary care.

You know, in New Jersey, one out of three New Jerseyans don't have access to a primary care physician.

So, we applaud Amazon getting into this space and partnering with organizations like Hackensack Meridian Health.

- And lemme just, I should have disclosed this earlier.

Hackensack Meridian Health is a long time underwriter of our programming, particularly around vaccine awareness, a program we're doing in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Health, creating information or providing information that's accurate and relevant.

And also dealing with public health and the public health infrastructure and trust in public health.

And also, I've done a whole range of leadership coaching at HMH.

Bob, thank you, we wish you all the best.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

Congress Hall.

A Cape Resorts property.

PSE&G.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Johnson & Johnson.

NJM Insurance Group.

And by Valley Bank.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by NJ.Com.

- How long you been waiting?

- About a half hour.

- Brutal.

This keeps up, I'm gonna miss my pickleball game.

- I've been waiting eight years for a kidney.

What can you do?

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Over 100,000 people in the US are waiting for a life-saving transplant.

But you can do your part in an instant.

Register as an organ donor today at NJSN.org.