Donald R. Lurye, MD, MMM, CPE, FAAFP, FAAPL, serves as President at Apollo Advisors, LLC.
Donald will serve on the panel "The Next Generation of Physician Leaders: Key Trends and Focus Areas" at Becker's Hospital Review 12th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place in Chicago from April 25-28, 2022.
To learn more about the conference and Donald's session, click here.
Q: What technologies and innovations are you most excited about in healthcare right now?
Donald R. Lurye: I am excited about the rapid growth in the field of remote patient monitoring and technologically assisted patient self-management for chronic disease. Regular in person and telehealth visits are important, but most of the time, patients manage their conditions themselves. Effective management of chronic disease is, to me, an important approach to achieving the Quadruple Aim. To aid us, there is a lot of innovation currently in the area of AI-aided diagnosis and treatment. I think we are also at the dawn of documentation via virtual assistant, allowing health care professionals to spend more of their time focused on patients. I'm also happy to see the growing attention being paid to social determinants of health. We can't meet the challenges of SDOH on our own, but via a variety of partnerships among health care professionals and institutions and both governmental and non-governmental agencies we are starting to make headway. SDOH is a broad societal problem which we can help address, but we can't do it alone.
Q: What will the lasting legacy of COVID-19 be on the healthcare system?
DL: COVID-19 has shown us the best and the worst of our healthcare system. I hope we have learned the value of nimble, team based care that can adjust quickly to the next emerging infectious disease. COVID-19 also magnified the impact of the endemic inequities in care in our country. We must address this to avoid having history repeat itself. I hope also we will honor and elevate the selfless health care professionals who did their best under trying circumstances.
Q: What advice do you have for emerging healthcare leaders today?
DL: Leadership in health care is growing in importance. My advice? Be authentic, i.e. be the same person at work as you are at home. Be vulnerable and admit your mistakes and state how you're going to do better. The people you lead will trust you, and that is key to the teamwork we need in health care right now. Show empathy, but focus always on your mission and vision. Surround yourself with people who have expertise you lack, and mold them into a great team. One of the most important things healthcare leaders can do is to nurture and grow new leaders. I often like to quote the late Max DePree, a long serving CEO of Herman Miller Furniture: "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."