Rebuilding Trust in Healthcare with Leslie Kirk

eorge grombacher 0:01
Let’s, uh, Kirk is the CEO and Managing Partner of incentive communications. They’re an organization focused on the growth and success of healthcare technology, and community oriented organizations. It’s also a passionate active cancer advocates, having recently announced a partnership with cancer X committed over $100,000, to accelerating digital health innovation. Welcome to the show, Leslie.

Leslie Kirk 0:26
Thanks for having me. excited to have you on.

george grombacher 0:28
Tell us literally your personal last more about your work, why you do what you do.

Leslie Kirk 0:34
Ah, sure. So I’ll start I’ll start way back in the way. So I was not raised with a lot of money or around a lot of money, which I think is an important distinction. My dad was a blue collar worker, and my mom was a stay at home mom. And, you know, pursuing your passion for anyone that’s familiar with that upbringing is not really a conversation, that’s not really something anyone talks about, it’s, you know, it’s not, let’s pay your bills, let’s do whatever is going to happen to make sure your family is taken care of. And so, you know, I went into a field that had a 40% growth rate, I’m not gonna lie, that’s what I did it. That’s the only reason I did it. And I was, you know, the first person in my family to graduate college, which I was only able to do through scholarships and working part time. And, you know, when I accidentally fell into healthcare technology, just by applying to a job, a few years after the recession, I was blown away, because all of a sudden, I was surrounded by these founders and CEOs that had most of the time, deeply personal experiences with how healthcare had failed them. Either they were doctors, where it failed them in their workplace, or they were just people who went through our healthcare system, and went through sometimes some really tragic stories. And if gaps have been filled, or if something had gone a little bit better, somebody might have lived or something would have, you know, they might not have been in financial straits or whatever might have happened to them. And so these people who built businesses based on a deeply passionate experiences was something completely new to me. And it kind of defined my place admits like a really big problem, which is our broken healthcare system. And, and, you know, fast forward, we are something very different because consulting firms are not known for being very value driven. Most of the time, I’ll work with anyone who will give them money. And we are extremely focused, mission based consulting firms. So we work with organizations who aren’t afraid to address the really big problems, you know, the ones that don’t always have financial incentives. On the other end, you know, health equity, rural health, substance abuse, maternal health, all these really big challenges that we have in our, our health care world. And we do everything we can do to help make sure they succeed. Because a joke we have in our industry is a lot of CEOs in our world are either doctors or engineers. And something that they both have in common is very, only a handful of them really understand the business side of it, because they, they built something to solve a problem. And they don’t necessarily know how to do the other component. And we have a really complex environment in which to build a company. So we help them build it, we help them grow, we help them help more people. And so it’s really important to us because we believe that their success will actually help make our healthcare system better. So fast forward, you know, from my anecdote of not maybe not being able to pursue my passion, because we’ve built a company that’s seeing some success, I finally feel like we have the ability to expand how we’re helping our health care system improves, and hence the cancer X. Impact partnership, we realize that that is something that, for me is deeply personal because my mom battled cancer a handful of years ago, and something that we could actually do, combining our skill sets as a as a company, but also personally and across our group. So

george grombacher 4:34
I love it. We never know what when when we set out where we’re going to end up, but it’s like, certainly sounds like you’ve managed to find an opportunity where you can have a very big business effect, but also while doing really important work.

Leslie Kirk 4:48
Yeah, I mean, listen, tripping and falling into a mission is not usually how people do it. But that’s, that’s easily what happens. So

george grombacher 4:55
yeah, I appreciate that. You mentioned a couple of different For lack of a better term verticals, maternal health, rural health. And when you take a big step back and look at health care, I, you know, I bet there’s just dozens, if not more different sort of segments and different ways that people are helping other people, because we human beings have so many different needs from a healthcare perspective.

Leslie Kirk 5:16
Yeah, yeah, there’s just, you know, maternal health is just one of them rising ones. And health equity is another really big problem right now. And we work a lot with public health initiatives and Medicaid. And so when you look at where funding goes, because I mentioned the money piece earlier, that’s one of the trickiest parts of our industry, they tend to focus on very specific initiatives at any given time. So maternal health is that lends itself sometimes to where we happen to be working, just because that’s where a lot of the energy and initiatives go. And a lot of times we work with businesses who built a really powerful solution, but they don’t necessarily know exactly how to prioritize it. To your point exactly. To your point, there’s so many people that need help, and there’s so many problems. So how do you narrow your focus and not try to be everything to everyone in order to make incremental improvements. So

george grombacher 6:19
that’s always a tricky thing. I don’t want to, you know, I want to avoid boiling the ocean, but I also don’t want to be too limited. And the folks that you’re working with, I’m sure, these brilliant, people who are probably capable of solving many, many different problems, but helping them realize, okay, we can’t do all of it. Let’s just start one thing at a time. So prioritization. Yeah,

Leslie Kirk 6:42
yeah. And, you know, in some of that, you know, again, we work with a lot of people don’t necessarily have immediate financial incentives, where we just have, you know, investors are like, you know, dying to invest in them, and especially in the public health side. So what we have to do is, figure out, I mean, I hate to say that words, chase the money, but like, figure out how, again, these guys are trying to solve real things, you know, and I live, unfortunately, in an industry that’s notoriously 10 plus years behind, where, you know, buzzwords are everywhere. And that’s true about every industry. But the difference with us is that it’s not going to get any better if we don’t start, you know, really innovating in the areas that don’t always have all the money. And so how do you solve that? How do you solve that problem. And so working with these companies to grow by prioritizing in the right areas of our massive problem, healthcare system, will help them grow so that they can help more and more people. So you know, segmentation and sometimes it’s by state, you know, we have such a complex regulatory environment that a lot of times that helps you narrow in on where you need to prioritize it. Also, how you talk about yourself and how you build this is a big part of our businesses, the reputation part because the commodity that’s hardest to come by in our world is trust. And you to build yourself to be a trusted business in our in our environment, can take a very long time. And so as soon as you do something wrong, or take a wrong turn, which again, is really hard, easy to do, and healthcare, you can completely eliminate all of that equity that you built up. So, you know, we have a lot of things that we help help them do in order to actually again, do real things. Because we have a lot of people who are just repackaging something that’s already been done 100 times and calling it new, you know, a big joke that we have is that AI isn’t real, right? Like, you know, it is like, but we had big data that we have machine learning and like, it’s just the next buzzword. And then the moment that you know, generative AI and chat GPT came out, all of a sudden, overnight, all of these companies have AI solutions. And that’s just not reality. And it’s also not helping the point, which is the patient at the end of the day. It’s not helping solve for financial toxicity. It’s not trying to solve anything in particular. And I think that’s where I get a little get a little a little fussy, because I don’t I it just it makes us so frustrated on our side when businesses aren’t doing real things. So yeah,

george grombacher 9:18
I appreciate that. So trust and who are who are the different for lack of a better term stakeholders, we need consumers have the patience to trust you Who else Where else is trust,

Leslie Kirk 9:33
it’s everywhere. It’s every layer. So think about some medical mistresses of is a massive problem. And so that’s, I’m a patient and I don’t trust that I, you know, I’m not going to get a bill for $20,000 a month. I don’t trust that, you know, the that the allergies that I have to certain medications is actually getting to the doctor. I don’t trust if I go that I’m going to get the The right analysis, especially if I am in rural, you know, so So that’s just one piece, then you have to have the medical teams, right? So especially when you’re talking about comorbidities are these really big, elaborate or cancer specifically, right, these really long, big medical plans, you’re dealing with lots and lots of doctors and nurses, and you know, admins, and all these, you know, the health plans, all of these guys also have to trust each other or work together. And then on top of that trust in, you know, obviously, I work in healthcare technology, which is the underlining and of our whole system. And if you can’t trust that that data that you have received is accurate, then you don’t know that you can do a good job. So it’s just it’s just every single layer of our healthcare system is so reliant on trust, and I don’t I think we’re having a little bit of a crises right now, where no one really trusts anyone. And so, you know, I think that we’re mandating it. There’s a lot of ways to triple check and all of that, but I think we, you know, something that we obviously focus on is making sure that our businesses that we work with, again, are prioritizing correctly and making sure that it’s quality over quantity, and that they understand that it takes a long time. But that trust is so important to their success to the success of their end users, whether it’s the doctors are the payers or the patients. So

george grombacher 11:32
yeah, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Leslie Kirk 11:34
Yeah, no big problem. That’s it. Yeah. You know, at least I was at least I was taught how to do work ethic and not, you know, since I didn’t have to worry about pursuing big passions. I was just like, I don’t know, it seems like a problem. We can fix the problem. Yeah, yeah.

george grombacher 11:48
Let me roll my sleeves up and giant problem as you were going through all of those examples, and like, oh, yeah, that makes all the sense in the world. And and I probably, I don’t know that I distrust certain aspects of the health care system, but I am less trusting than I was probably 10 years ago. And all the examples that you laid out certainly make a lot of sense. Do you have hope for the future? Oh,

Leslie Kirk 12:21
of course, of course. And I think that every little bit helps to I think that people see, I mean, you know, people look at our political system, when people look at our health care system the same way, which is they see this massive problem and think, How can I do anything, you know, to actually affect it. And I think that with health care, you know, people don’t just throw their hands up and walk away. I think that with health care, because it touches all of us, and it touches our families, you know, people can’t just ignore it. And so I think every little bit every little bit helps. And I think that acknowledging the change, you know, with the mistrust piece, kind of like you were talking about, I think that as an industry, everyone’s doing a lot better of educating and letting patients take a little bit more control and ownership. We’re one of the only industries in the world where, you know, like its impacts literally our life. And we have so little say in it. And so it’s such an interesting thing. And that’s something that’s shifted over the last 1015 years, where people are becoming a lot more bigger advocates in their own health. And I think that’s really important. And again, all the businesses that can help that be even stronger, and those voices be heard more, especially when it comes to health equity. I think that’s a really important piece. Yeah, that

george grombacher 13:40
that certainly does make a lot of sense that as you do look at the massive layers, just different ways that we receive care today and into the future, I need to be an advocate for myself, and I need to take ownership of my health and then be able to trust that the companies that I’m interfacing with and interacting with, I can make my case I can say, hey, this is what I think is happening, and then trust that they’re going to be able to give me the care deliver it correctly or help me navigate a system that I don’t understand.

Leslie Kirk 14:21
100% actually, so I took my mom, who was mostly blind to a doctor’s appointment the other day and she has had some issues with her glaucoma, which is only one of you know, 50 issues she has with her eyesight. And her and, you know, the doctor, she’s been going to hope they don’t listen those markets, and I was in World North Georgia, and you know, and you know, she, she didn’t want to come down here. She didn’t want to she can’t drive. So, you know, I had to go get her and she was telling me that like, you know, she didn’t want to do this because she didn’t want to inconvenience me and she didn’t want to meet a new doctor. It makes her really nervous. But we get there and it’s in downtown Atlanta and And these people were just sharp, they listened. And there was this thing that had been bugging her for so long which is that that which is probably not worth going into in depth, but her eyesight you know the pressure in her eye, which is why she was going to the glaucoma and cataracts specialist and retina specialist. She wanted to all it was met, she just wanted them to say that she could also put this eyedrop in her in her fully blind eye. And they kind of ignore that I at her old doctor’s office. Because you know Why care about a dead eye? But it was actually making this doctor listen to her and said No, actually, this is a valid thing. And you should absolutely do it and completely rearrange the regimen of her eyedrops. And so But what was so interesting was that after that doctor’s appointment, it wasn’t about oh, I’m so glad that my eyes are gonna be better it was I can’t believe that doctor listens to me. Like that was she was she was blown away by the knowledge by the act like, you know, even down to the technicians. Like they knew all the verbiage. She didn’t have to remember 30 years of eyes stuff, you know, it was a very eye opening experience for her was something that she’s does 10 times a year, you know, but exposure to that, like she didn’t even know that that was a thing until she went to this doctor’s office. So things like that are just like these little microcosms. It’s amazing how much just listening and, and having technology like how many times have you filled out a form, and then you literally walk in, and then you repeat everything that you’re on that we’re on that form. And then you walk into the actual doctor’s or whatever the doctor comes in, and he makes you repeat every single thing. And on that report form, you know, and then you get referred to another doctor and none of your information gets passed along to the next doctor and the referral. I mean, these are the types of things that are so simple, they should be so simple, and are so impactful, so that people can focus on just talking and listening and you know, the, you know, the emotional pieces of our healthcare system if the technology was cleaner, and simpler and more accurate. So

george grombacher 17:09
you would theoretically think that good, clean, successfully working effectively working technology would alleviate a lot of the burdens that we’re experiencing.

Leslie Kirk 17:19
Yeah, you think so. But and that’s, and that’s something to you know, I do a lot of companies when I say we want to work with companies that are doing real stuff, in some ways we’re looking for those companies are trying to eliminate stuff. You know, I think that that’s such a big piece, because a lot of people are like, Oh, well, if we add in this technology, then maybe we can simplify but what you end up with this 40 layers of band aids, right? So instead, let’s make it cleaner by eliminating all of the extra steps that we don’t need, because it’s like a game of telephone. That’s, that’s how data becomes incorrect is, you know, you know, we work with a company that deals with patient identity. And, you know, think about that, like when you walk in, and they don’t even know who you are. Because there might be four of you in the system, because you accidentally got your name put in multiple different times spelled four different ways. And so which notes are they pulling up? When you’re in that doctor’s office? You know, that kind of stuff? It’s just so it’s just does not need to be? It? Well, it is. It is what it is, but it feels like a problem we should be able to solve for sure.

george grombacher 18:25
Yeah. Yeah. Who? It is a massive, slow moving fast moving problem.

Leslie Kirk 18:34
Yeah, yeah. Well, and that’s, you know, cancer X, the cancer X stuff. That’s something that’s so interesting, because this is a group, the reason we chose them wasn’t just our personal attachments to solving something as big as cancer, but it was, the only way we’re going to solve this is by having big brains come together and work together. And there’s, again, because of the financial incentive issue. There’s not a lot of worlds in our worlds, in which a lot of these brains come together. And you know, that’s just one example of, you know, a bunch of 160 I think different members have different orientations, academic, you know, commercial, all of the payers, providers, all of these people, nonprofits coming together and trying to solve something. And I think that’s why it’s so critical. Because it’s not just it’s not just having the big brains coming together, but almost the neutrality, which I realize this funny thing coming from someone who does business consulting, but you know, the neutrality of no one has a financial stake in the game, if that makes sense. Like, no one’s no one’s selling a business at the end of this. So let’s just solve the actual problem that’s at hand. So that’s, I think that’s something that I think about a lot, you know, at four o’clock in the morning, I can’t sleep, I

george grombacher 19:51
totally get it. And that makes a lot of sense. That it’s not necessarily it’s really hard to bring together really, really small Aren’t people that have their own stuff that they’re working on in their own huge problems that to try to solve and all of it and to be able to do that in an environment where there’s not a profit motive to actually solve the problems makes a ton of sense. But Leslie, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And it’s enough?

Leslie Kirk 20:20
You know, we have a website in Sendai which is guys spelled the i n n SP and a totally made up word, no problem. And, but we’re all active. Love it or hate it on LinkedIn. So feel free again, we are people who are constantly trying to network and grow people’s networks and build relationships to actually make real things happen. So if you guys would love to interact with us, go find us on there. Perfect.

george grombacher 20:44
Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show less than your appreciation share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas go to and cena.com i n s e n a.com and find them on LinkedIn as well. I will link all of those in the notes of the show. Thanks. Good. Leslie. Thank you so much. Till next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.