Telehealth at Mercy Health: Podcast interview with CFO/EVP Strategy Shannon Sock

[audio mp3="https://healthbb.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/shannon.mp3"][/audio]Today's Center for Connected Health Symposium #cHealth14 featured a high-powered panel discussion with top executives from Wellpoint, American Well, and the VA along with Shannon Sock, CFO and EVP of Strategy at Mercy Health. The topic: Large Scale Connected Health Interventions --Lessons Learned.After the panel, I sat down with Shannon to talk about Mercy's 10-year journey in telehealth. The big, midwestern integrated delivery system has made telehealth a strategic priority since at least 2006. That commitment is ramping up further with the construction of a 120,000 square foot, $50 million virtual telehealth center, slated to open next year.In this podcast interview Sock described Mercy's telehealth approach and accomplishments as a first mover. He also touched on the challenges of getting his colleagues to approach telehealth as a strategic asset, the opportunity to diversify Mercy's revenues by providing services to other systems, direct contracting with employers, and the exciting new possibilities of patient engagement arriving with Apple's HealthKit and similar initiatives.Sock also highlighted the competitive jockeying that's taking place between health plans and large health systems. The plans are starting to insert themselves into primary care delivery (e.g., Wellpoint with American Well) while big systems are building the infrastructure that they hope will let employers bypass health plans entirely.I would love to be the moderator for round 2 of this panel so we could dig into these competitive issues more directly.–By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams of the Health Business Group