Cybersecurity in healthcare is no longer just an IT issue. It is a leadership, operations, and trust issue that can disrupt care, expose sensitive data, and test whether an organization is truly prepared for a crisis.

In this episode, Zach Lewis, CIO and CISO at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, shares how AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape and reflects on the real-world ransomware attack that shaped his new book, Locked Up. He explains how threat actors are using AI to accelerate reconnaissance, sharpen phishing attempts, and exploit fundamental weaknesses more quickly, while defenders still need to focus on the basics: identity, access, data protection, patching, and segmentation.

Zach also walks through the moment his organization realized it was facing a LockBit ransomware attack, the decisions that followed, and the hard lessons learned from the response. He discusses why tabletop exercises matter, how security culture must be built through relationships rather than fear, and why data governance is becoming even more urgent in the age of generative AI. The conversation closes with a practical and hopeful look at where AI could create real value in healthcare, from smarter clinical support to more personalized health insights.

Tune in and learn why resilience in healthcare cybersecurity depends on strong fundamentals, transparent leadership, and a clear understanding of how people, data, and technology intersect.

Resources

• Connect with Zach Lewis on LinkedIn here.

• Visit the Homesteading CISO website.

• Get a copy of Locked Up: Cybersecurity Threat Mitigation Lessons from a Real-World LockBit Ransomware Response here.

The American healthcare system has extraordinary talent, advanced technology, and unmatched spending, yet it too often fails the very people it is meant to serve.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Gil Bashe, Chair Global Health and Purpose at FINN Partners, bestselling author, healthcare strategist, and former combat medic, joins Christopher Kunney to discuss the urgent themes behind his new book, Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter. Drawing from his experiences in military medicine, family caregiving, health policy, and patient advocacy, Gil argues that the core problem in American healthcare is not a lack of innovation but a loss of humanity, trust, and connection. He explains why healing is more than science and why kindness, empathy, and service must be treated as essential components of care rather than optional extras.

Gil also explores how the system has become overly transactional, from insurance bureaucracy to rushed appointments and fragmented care delivery. He reflects on how patients are often treated like passengers instead of partners, while clinicians are burdened by incentives that reward volume over relationship-building. From social determinants of health and fee-for-service reimbursement to value-based care and patient experience, he makes the case that many of healthcare’s biggest failures are not technical problems, but human ones. He also highlights how leadership decisions, staffing models, and medical education shape whether care feels compassionate or cold.

The conversation also offers a hopeful path forward. Gil shares examples of healthcare leaders and clinicians who create trust-centered environments, treat staff as partners, and model a true service mentality. He argues that rebuilding the healthcare system begins with restoring the relationship between healer and patient, aligning incentives around outcomes and experience, and empowering wise leaders to make people-centered decisions. Ultimately, he calls on everyone in the healthcare ecosystem to remember that medicine is not just about treating illness, but about caring for human beings.

Tune in to hear why fixing healthcare starts with restoring trust, kindness, and humanity to the center of care.

Resources

• Connect with Gil Bashe on LinkedIn here.
• Follow FINN Partners on LinkedIn here and visit their website here.
• Check out Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter here.

AI could become the greatest equalizer in healthcare if we use it the right way.

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Dr. Harvey Castro, a physician, entrepreneur, and CEO of 8 free-standing ERs, a medical billing and physician staffing company, and a strategic advisor to ChatGPT and healthcare, discusses how artificial intelligence is poised to transform global healthcare access and delivery. He shares how discovering ChatGPT in 2022 immediately convinced him that AI would reshape medicine. Drawing from his experience building more than 20 emergency rooms and launching multiple healthcare companies, he explains why bold innovation and acting on new ideas are critical. He also reflects on how entrepreneurs and clinicians must trust their instincts when they see transformative technology.

Dr. Castro also explores how AI, satellites, and wearable devices could dramatically expand access to healthcare worldwide. He explains how predictive analytics, combined with satellite connectivity, could remotely monitor patients and alert clinicians before life-threatening events occur. This infrastructure could help overcome the reality that geography often determines survival in medical emergencies. By enabling global connectivity, he believes AI-powered systems could bring care to underserved populations that currently lack reliable access to healthcare.

The conversation also tackles the challenges of adopting AI responsibly in healthcare. Dr. Castro discusses the cultural resistance within medicine and the need to train future clinicians to work alongside AI. He highlights the dangers of biased datasets and why AI systems must represent diverse populations to avoid reinforcing disparities. Ultimately, he argues that leaders, policymakers, and clinicians must work together to ensure AI improves equity rather than widening the healthcare gap.

Tune in to hear how AI, space technology, and bold thinking could reshape the future of global healthcare.

Resources

• Connect with Dr. Harvey Castro on LinkedIn here and visit his website here!

• Check out Dr. Castro’s TED Talks here!

Value-based care can improve outcomes and lower costs, but only when the incentives, workflows, and data all pull in the same direction.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Dr. Shannon Decker, founder and CEO of VBC One, unpacks the good, the bad, and the ugly of value-based care and what it takes to succeed beyond the buzzwords. She explains why many organizations struggle when they jump in without true readiness, especially when contracts shift risk faster than teams can build the infrastructure to manage it. The conversation spotlights the practical difference between chasing measures and building a system that reliably delivers prevention, coordination, and better patient experience.

Dr. Decker shares lessons from years of hands-on work in Medicare, quality, and risk adjustment, including where performance quietly slips through the cracks. She breaks down risk adjustment in plain language and shows how incomplete documentation and messy data flow can translate into fewer resources for high-acuity patients. Instead of treating coding as a compliance task, she frames it as a visibility problem that affects staffing, care planning, and long-term sustainability.

The episode also gets tactical about what actually moves the needle. Dr. Decker points to avoidable utilization as a major opportunity and discusses simple, repeatable practices such as tighter triage, clearer patient education, and post-discharge medication reconciliation that help prevent unnecessary ED visits and readmissions. She also cautions against the “ugly” side of incentives, including gaming behaviors, cherry-picking, and equity blind spots, and offers a grounded path forward that prioritizes outcomes over optics.

Tune in to learn how to build a practical value-based strategy that improves performance, protects patients, and keeps incentives honest.

Resources

• Connect with Dr. Shannon Decker on LinkedIn!

• Follow VBC One on LinkedIn, reach out via email, and visit their website.

Caregiving for Alzheimer’s isn’t just hard; it’s isolating, invisible, and full of grief that never gets a clean ending.

In this episode, Dr. Caron Leid, counselor, educator, author, and caregiver advocate, discusses how her mother’s early Alzheimer’s diagnosis and later aphasia changed everything and how the system largely left her to figure it out alone. She names the ambiguous grief of losing a parent in slow motion, and the emotional whiplash of being a daughter while also becoming the decision-maker.

Dr. Leid gets real about the “impossible choice” caregivers live with, especially in the sandwich generation. She talks about the guilt of choosing between a child and an aging parent, the exhaustion of constant vigilance, and how martyr culture rewards caregivers with praise instead of practical support. That dynamic can keep people stuck, suffering quietly, and feeling like asking for help is failing.

She also brings a trauma-informed, schema-based lens to caregiving. What we react to is not only today’s crisis, but old family patterns, cultural expectations, and the layered impact of racism and microaggressions on access, trust, and how black and brown families are treated in care settings. She explains why informal caregiving and formal healthcare work are not the same job.

Tune in and learn how to center caregivers as the backbone of care, without romanticizing their burnout.

• Connect with Dr. Leid on LinkedIn here and visit her website!

• Check out Dr. Leid’s books: Alzheimer’s: What They Forget to Tell You: A Personal Journey, Self Love: What They Forget to Tell You, Grief: What They Forget to Tell You, and BS and Other Childhood Tales We Learned by Dr. Caron Leid

Strategic credibility is what turns a strong health tech product into a clear yes for buyers, investors, and health systems.

In this episode, Sabrina Runbeck, a healthcare media strategist, explores why innovative founders often remain invisible and how to become an obvious choice in a crowded market. She explains how many leaders mistake credentials for credibility, getting stuck in a “hyper-achiever” loop of collecting titles instead of demonstrating real market impact. Sabrina also highlights common startup gaps, including weak go-to-market focus, unclear positioning, and teams strong in science and tech but light on business execution.

She introduces an inside-out model for visibility and growth that begins with product strength, then builds human capital and culture, followed by social capital and consistent messaging. This includes alignment across decks, LinkedIn, websites, and outreach, with a focus on signals over noise, because impressions only matter if they lead to conversations and conversions. The discussion also addresses additional barriers faced by women founders and founders of color, emphasizing self-awareness, authentic leadership, and choosing the right arenas for visibility.

Sabrina shares how initiatives like the Health Tech Impact Awards provide third-party validation, coaching, and structured visibility that help accelerate trust. She closes with practical steps founders can take now, such as running an AI reputation check and prioritizing sellability, sustainability, and scalability as core growth drivers.

Tune in and learn how to build credibility that gets you chosen!

Resources

• Connect with and follow Sabrina Runbeck on LinkedIn.

• Follow PulsePoint Path on LinkedIn and explore their website!

• Submit your Health Tech Impact Awards nomination here!

AI in healthcare has moved past the hype, and leaders are now demanding real value, accountability, and global perspective.

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Jeffery Heenan-Jalil, CEO of hunterAI, talks about the global evolution of AI analytics in healthcare and what it takes to move from experimentation to real impact. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience leading analytics and technology initiatives across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, Jeffery explains why healthcare organizations are now at a maturity inflection point. He emphasizes the shift from AI hype and “AI-washing” to disciplined, ROI-driven adoption. The conversation highlights why responsible, scalable analytics will define the next phase of healthcare transformation.

Jeffery shares his professional journey from leading billion-dollar global teams at companies like Wipro, Cognizant, Unisys, and EDS to becoming a healthcare AI entrepreneur. His experience working directly within healthcare delivery systems, including Southern Cross Healthcare in New Zealand, shaped his practical view of technology’s role in real-world operations. Rather than focusing solely on innovation, he stresses the importance of execution, governance, and alignment with clinical and administrative realities. This background informs hunterAI’s mission to deliver analytics that healthcare leaders can trust and operationalize.

The discussion also explores how AI is gaining early traction in administrative areas such as prior authorization, claims processing, and clinical documentation, where friction reduction is delivering measurable wins. Jeffery and host Christopher Kunney discuss why these use cases are building confidence for broader clinical adoption. They examine the global differences in AI readiness and regulation, underscoring why lessons from international health systems matter. Ultimately, the episode reinforces that AI’s future in healthcare depends on thoughtful deployment, transparency, and outcomes that genuinely improve performance and care.

Tune in to hear how global experience, disciplined execution, and responsible analytics are shaping the next chapter of healthcare AI!

Resources

• Connect with Jeffery Heenan-Jalil on LinkedIn here or reach out to him via email.

• Follow hunterAI on LinkedIn here and visit their website here.

• Check out his podcast as well as his company’s podcast, The Health Intelligence Pitch

Dementia is both a growing national crisis and a profound health equity issue, with African Americans facing nearly double the risk of Alzheimer’s disease compared to white Americans.

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Chuck Brown, founder of Expose Dementia, shares how his personal journey caring for his aunt with dementia led him to confront his own lack of awareness and ultimately to found Expose Dementia, an organization that uses the arts, media, and storytelling to educate, reduce stigma, and spark dialogue, especially within the African American community. Through projects like the documentary Remember Me: Dementia in the African American Community, Expose Dementia addresses mistrust in healthcare, the need for inclusive research, and the power of representation.

Chuck explains how Expose Dementia leverages creative expression, film, books, visual arts, and live experiences to humanize dementia, uplift caregivers’ voices, and change the narrative around the disease, while also identifying structural gaps in care. While the organization centers African American experiences, Chuck emphasizes the importance of cross-community collaboration, exemplified by their annual conference, which brings diverse groups together through a shared commitment to brain health and the arts. He also explores the emerging role of technology and AI in education, advocacy, and awareness, and his belief in amplifying innovative tools as they arise.

Cuck offers guidance for caregivers and individuals concerned about brain health, stressing honesty, early action, and self-care. He highlights the “six pillars of brain health”: mental stimulation, exercise, diet, sleep, stress reduction, and social connection, and underscores that prioritizing quality of life and personal well-being is essential for sustaining both caregivers and communities.

Tune in for a powerful conversation with Chuck Brown on how storytelling, art, and community can change the way we understand dementia and care for one another!

Resources

• Connect with Chuck Brown on LinkedIn here.

• Visit the Expose Dementia website here.