In our latest episode of “In Search of Value”, we had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Dan Mingle, Executive Chairman of Mingle Health.

Dr. Mingle shared with us his experiences as a family practice physician, spoke on the transition to value-based care from a physician’s perspective, and his thoughts on how healthcare could learn valuable lessons from other industries.

You can jump right in to watch our episode with Dr. Mingle here:

About Dr. Mingle

Dr. Mingle has decades of experience as a physician and we were delighted to hear stories from his career and pick his brain about the future during our interview.

He started his healthcare career by owning and operating a small group family practice in rural Maine, then moved through roles at a small hospital to residency. He then worked as faculty at Dartmouth Medical School’s Family Practice Residency, where he received advanced training in measuring health care performance and leading change in complex medical organizations.

And of course, in 2012, Dr. Mingle founded Mingle Analytics – which became Mingle Health in 2018.

Highlights:

There are a handful of great moments in our interview with Dr. Mingle: he shared stories from his long experience in healthcare, explained how time in front of patients has shaped his view of the healthcare system, and we picked his brain on the trends he’s currently watching closely.

Here are a few of the most interesting moments when he zeroes in on value-based care and how the healthcare system approaches problems.

His answer to one of our favorite questions in this series – “What does value-based care mean to you?” is notable. Dr. Mingle had a great way of cutting through the noise and getting right to the heart of the matter:

“A great product at a great price – that’s the goal of any business person, no matter the business. And there’s room to be a little ashamed of what we provide in healthcare — being the most expensive in the world and lagging below average in many different methods of measuring value.”

Later in the episode, Dr. Mingle reiterated the idea that healthcare could learn from the broader marketplace when interacting with patients:

“One of the things I fault about healthcare is that we fail to learn lessons from other industries. If you stand on Main Street in Anytown, USA and look up and down the street – you’ll see companies that are handling similar problems as healthcare – and doing it in far more efficient and effective ways.”

Dr. Mingle’s answers to these questions are great reminders that healthcare isn’t immune to the problems that affect any business, and the healthcare industry could help itself by learning lessons from other industries.

And as far as value in healthcare is concerned, Dr. Mingle’s answer is a great reminder to keep the focus on the person you are serving: “great product, great price” means that patients get the care they need while not feeling like they have to break the bank to get it.

Other great moments from our conversation with Dr. Mingle:

• We got to hear about Dr. Mingle’s journey to healthcare, and how he learned the importance of service in his father’s retail business.
• He shared the story of how he chose and implemented an EMR in a community hospital without a loss of productivity – and how clinicians reacted when they realized how powerful it was to have immediate access to electronic charts for their patients.
• He also shared his thoughts about how this is a great time to be in healthcare “things are changing, and I think that’s the most exciting thing about right now.”
• Dr. Mingle mentioned that he thinks the Primary Care First program seems to be driving things in the right direction: “there’s a substantial amount of upfront money to manage patients, and I like that approach. It gives the physician near complete control over what’s delivered to provide help.”

Thank you for joining us for this conversation, Dr. Mingle! P.S. If you haven’t attended one of Dr. Mingle’s recent webinars, take a look at our upcoming webinars and Resource Center for opportunities to hear from him >>

Dr. Mingle also invites you to join him on LinkedIn and he would love to hear from you about what trends you’re watching. Visit Dr. Mingle on LinkedIn here >>

Get in touch with Charles and Alysen if you have a suggestion for who you’d like us to have a conversation with next. Want to receive alerts when we share our next episode? Take a moment to subscribe here

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