From Disney, to Cancer Survivor, to CEO...Who is Shawn Nason?

Brian Urban:
Yes, this is the Healthcare Rethink podcast. I'm your host Brian Urban. And today we went rogue. We pulled in an industry influencer with a big stature. Shawn Nason, the founder and chief experience officer of MOFI, has joined our podcast today to go through everything that he's touched with projects and what he's trying to change across the ecosystem. So Shawn, hey, welcome to our show.

Shawn Nason:
Hey, Brian. It's great to be here, and thank you for having me here. I hope I can meet your listeners' expectations.

Brian Urban:
Well, Shawn, you're already exceeding mine because we've had to reschedule a few times. You were sick, I was traveling. I'm glad you're better. And personally, a follower and a fan of the Combustion Chronicles podcast that you've been running for a while now. So, so thankful to have you on our little show here.

Shawn Nason:
Well, thank you, Brian. It's great to be here.

Brian Urban:
This is going to be fun. So with every episode of our podcast, Shawn, we love to have our audience get familiar with our guests. And for you, it's almost difficult. I have to figure out where to start because you're on so many boards, you do so many entrepreneurial things. But I want to go back before MOFI, before all the boards that you sit on, maybe even before your Disney experience. Let's go as far back as you want. But how has Shawn Nason gotten to have close to almost 100,000 followers on LinkedIn? How have you been a part of these really creative projects the last decade here? Take us through the journey.

Shawn Nason:
It's pretty simple, Brian. And I tried to figure out how to summarize my life. And if you go out and follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see on my banner, it says, "I am what happens when a Walt Disney Imagineer turns CXO, author, and founder, gets and beats cancer, and then turns healthcare CEO to help change the world." And I tried to put more before the Disney in my life in there, but then the banner was getting way too cluttered.
I tell people, Brian, I think I'm in my fifth or sixth career. And I started out as a professional musician, so studied music in college, traveled professionally through. That time as well, came on to be a pastor. And it was in 2005, when my wife and I were leaving full-time church work, that we actually lived in Orlando, Florida. And my wife actually worked in the healthcare space for a major hospital system in Orlando.
And I had been exposed to it in my life. My mother died prematurely, at the age of 59, so I saw what healthcare was like there. And then my father lived to be 90, so this huge gap. And for people to try to figure that out, my parents were 20 years apart. So that's a whole nother... That's over drinks or something. But in 2005, I was living in Orlando, and my wife looked at me one day and said, "Why don't you go to work for Disney?" And I said, "Okay."
We've always been, she and I have always been huge Disney fans. And I said, "But here's the deal. If I go to work for Disney, I am not doing entertainment. I'm just done with the music and entertainment world for a while." And so, actually my first role in Disney, I tell people, if you know anything about the Magic Kingdom in Florida, the Magic Kingdom's actually the second floor, there's this whole tunnel corridor underneath. And my very first office at Disney was in revenue and currency control, right under Cinderella's Castle.

Brian Urban:
Really?

Shawn Nason:
There were many days that I would go in before the sun came up, and I would leave after the sun went down, so I would not even see daylight because I worked in this corridor, if I didn't walk through the corridor and get out in the park during the day. But that was my entrance into Disney. And when I look back on that, what I tell people is they're like, "Well, then how did you get into experience and all that?" Disney amazing company, still huge fan of them, still consider every once in a while going back to work for them.
Experience is just in their blood. That's what I tell people. So although I was an offstage cast member, I never worked on stage, never worked with guests, it was just part of my role that I needed to create magical experiences for these families coming and spending their money, hard-earned money, to be a part of it. So I worked my way through Disney, was very fortunate, revenue currency control, accounts payable, to ultimately, you see behind me, there's this big picture of a ship, I worked Disney Cruise Line.

Brian Urban:
Okay. Did not know that. Okay.

Shawn Nason:
Yeah. And then, through that time at Disney Cruise Line, Disney was getting ready to build their third and fourth ship, the Disney Fantasy and the Disney Dream, and I got asked to go be a Walt Disney Imagineer, which is like the dream job at Disney.

Brian Urban:
This is the Holy Grail. Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
Very little people get it. I still tell people, behind me is my little hard hat. I get to keep it. And I get to... I still don't get discounts, none of that. That's what I get to keep, my hard hat, to say that I really wasn't Imagineer. Because most people are like, "Really?" And I'm like, "Yeah, really."

Brian Urban:
Yeah, there's the proof.

Shawn Nason:
And I got to work in incredible things. And one of those things that I got exposed to was actually how healthcare and Disney could work together. A book by Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital, got to see that come to fruition, and be a part of that, and get exposed to healthcare organizations coming to Disney through the Disney Institute to do amazing things. And realized at that point how really influential... And I tell people it's not fair. I get it. My very first corporate job was at Disney. Not everyone gets that.

Brian Urban:
Yeah. I mean, what a start. What a start. Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
And that's where my passion for healthcare really became, and then my career just went from there, went to Humana, went to be a chief innovation officer at a university, started MOFI. We've been in the healthcare space really... I actually joke about this, Brian. I've tried to get out of healthcare, but I keep getting sucked back in.

Brian Urban:
We're going to get into that too. Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
Yeah.

Brian Urban:
It's so interesting. You've had a cornucopia of experiences. A lot of your base has been around experience. And I think that's the one human element that has been just challenged since the beginning with healthcare, not only trust across a variety of populations, access, affordability, everything in between, but experience as a base. No one ever says, "I want to go visit a hospital. I want to stay here." And rightfully so. But you want to heal and recover through the services provided. But a good experience has to be on there, so you're not afraid to not go, or to not seek help, or to not be afraid to maybe pay a bill.
And I think that experience and innovation side of your brain and where it came from in Disney is just so fascinating to me. So with all that said, that's just my fandemonium talking out loud here, I want to go into the project you were a part of with David Lee, with If Disney Ran Your Hospital. What an interesting thought experiment. I heard you mention it before on a podcast. I am intrigued by what this project was. And I'm also curious of, did it lead to any other real world applications that hospitals, healthcare systems have picked up and tried? So tell me about that experience.

Shawn Nason:
Yeah, so I was exposed to the book. Again, Fred Lee, amazing gentleman.

Brian Urban:
Fred Lee, I am sorry.

Shawn Nason:
No, you're fine. If Disney Ran Your Hospital, the nine and a half things you could do different really to create the Disney experience in a hospital. And it's still going today, and I joke about it, but you could either pay Disney seven figures or eight figures to come in and teach you how to do it, or you could hire MOFI and my team for five or six figures to learn how to do it. It's really this whole concept. And if you go on our site at MOFI, we talk about this experience ecosystem. And that's what Disney does beautifully.
And I say this almost on every podcast. I just spoke at a conference this week and I said it. I'm speaking at a conference next week and I'll say it. If you get the human experience, you will get the numbers you need. So healthcare executive, hospital executive, we are in a crisis right now in the workplace. People are leaving like never before. And they're leaving because they don't feel appreciated, they don't feel heard.
And I really even saw that come to life this year. I was fortunate to sit in an interim CEO role for eight months where most of the organization was clinicians. And I told the organization and I told my executive team, "Listen, I'm going to spend 75% of my time with our associates and in the field and 25% of my time on business stuff." And people looked at me crazy. The board thought I was crazy. But that's... When I was a leader at Disney, we were required to spend that much time with our cast members.
And even as a back of the house, offstage cast member, I was required to work in the park two weeks out of the year. And sometimes, that was just picking up trash or serving quick service food. I always tell people, it's Disney's way of getting cheap labor. They're already paying me for a salary. And during the busiest times of the year, they want us in the park, Spring Break and Christmas. Get all the salaried people into the park. Beautiful. And so, that project is just one manifestation of the whole Disney mindset. And listen, we're all seeing it right now. Bob Iger came back. Bob Iger-

Brian Urban:
Yeah. He came back. He didn't have to. He didn't.

Shawn Nason:
Bob Iger... Let me tell you, Bob didn't come back for cheap. And they had lost their way a little bit. And he's like, "No, we're not going to do that." Right? And so I was there the day... Bob Iger's very first day, I was there at Disney, got very fortunate to meet him his very first week. I was at the Cruise Line, Imagineering. Got to meet him. Powerful man, love him. Think it's the best thing the company could do. Because you don't want to lose that. And it doesn't matter if it's around What If Disney Ran Your Hospital, or if it's around any other program Disney does. It's understanding the magic is treating the human right.

Brian Urban:
Yeah. I love that you took that statement and you thread it through some of those examples that you just shared. And I think that is what I see from my end. And I've touched public health from a research perspective, data, product, market development, and the human condition of what basic needs are, expectations, and what some of the simple subliminal psychology is to just be met, smiles, tone, pitch, word choice, environment, fluidity in the atmosphere, and the full end-to-end experience, like you're discussing.
I think it's amazing the insights you got from just doing some of the really simple jobs. You're saying picking up trash, running some food lines, and then back to your office work. The insights you were probably able to glean just from things that you heard and saw were probably so invaluable, and how you fed that back into Disney and how that was replicated probably in your Imagineer role, was just probably so valuable.
So that's a big miss in the workforce development, retention side of healthcare, frontline staff, specialists. Primary care, I think, is an evolving, emerging space right now. But it's definitely, there's a lot of fissures. So it's good to hear what you're talking about. But are you seeing... Now you're up in Ohio, I believe, but you're all over the place. Are you seeing, because now you're more culturally spread across the US these days, are you seeing a lot of pace in terms of experience being faster in certain areas of the US than others?

Shawn Nason:
No.

Brian Urban:
In terms of experience. No? Okay.

Shawn Nason:
No. That's what's kind of sad to me. And listen, as I mentioned, I was an interim CEO this year for eight months, did a big turnaround for this organization. But I think what really started to even transform my journey with experience goes back to last year. And Brian, you and I touched on it a little bit beforehand. I went in for a traditional colonoscopy. And this is my public service announcement. I was 49, I should have got it at 45, so waited four years. Now it is 45, and now they're saying for men, they're going to lower it to the age 40 for colonoscopies.
Went in for a traditional colonoscopy on April 15th of 2022, woke up to being told that I had a 90 to 95% blockage in my left colon, and that it was cancer. Went through massive surgery, basically took out all of the left side of my colon, went through 12 treatments of chemotherapy last year. And I couldn't really define what it was until this season on my podcast at Combustion Chronicles, Dr. Adrienne Boissy, who is now the chief medical officer at Qualtrics, but former chief experience officer at Cleveland Clinic.

Brian Urban:
Interesting.

Shawn Nason:
And if you haven't, and I don't mean to plug for it, but you need to go listen to that episode, because it was when my light in my head went off, of what I had experienced battling cancer to this. We keep talking about creating amazing human experiences in healthcare. And what she challenged with, and now I am like the champion of this, is not creating amazing human experiences, but creating amazing humane experiences. Because let me tell you what. I don't know how you create an amazing human experience when you're going through chemotherapy.
And not everything is a human. When you go into the medical facility, or you're battling something like that, you can't always make it the most human, but you can make it humane. And this is how... I give this, and I'll try to give this story real quick. My oncologist, love him, Dr. Johns came into the room very first time, sat down, said, "Here's what you have. Here's what we're going to do. Here's your care plan. Any questions?" Now, those of us that have worked in experience would say he needs better bedside manners, he needs to know how to talk better, all of those things. I used to be the one to preach it. Excuse me.
And I remember getting in the car with my wife and I, and she goes, "I don't like him." And I'm like, "What?" Because my wife is not the touchy-feely person. I'm the touchy-feely person. She goes, "He just didn't have good bedside manner." And I never thought I'd be the person to say this. I said, "You know what? That doesn't matter to me because my life is in his hands, I don't know how to battle this, we have to trust him."
So was it a great human experience? For most people, no. But I wanted the best doctor in Cincinnati, Ohio to take care of me. I did not want to go anyplace else. I had set up a medical review board. I have that privilege. I know a lot of doctors. They agreed to this treatment. They said, "Yes, great, awesome." Where the humane part came in is my nurse, Reagan. Reagan knew that I was in treatment in the infusion suite, that when the chemo was coming in, I got really hot for some reason. And there was this one chair in the infusion suite where literally the air conditioning hit on it.

Brian Urban:
Okay. Sweet spot.

Shawn Nason:
The sweet spot. Every time I came in for treatment, Reagan had that chair set up and ready for me, and saved for me.

Brian Urban:
Interesting.

Shawn Nason:
Knowing that even though I may not feel like talking, I may want to just to sleep, I may felt like going around and talking to other patients, I needed to be where it was cold. That is a humane experience, not a human experience.

Brian Urban:
Wow. And Shawn, thank you for sharing that. I was hoping we could get into your story of detection all the way to survival, and very happy that you're doing well. And clearly what you've delineated there is that Disney model of magic and experience, and a lot of health plans and IDNs call delighting and surprising, I think they've said that for many years, but what you described as humane, it's the simple things, the basic things, the foundational things, and knowing how to do that.
I think your wife's reaction sounded like it was transactional. I don't like that. A lot of people don't like that in healthcare. We don't want transaction, we want want some substance. But when your life is on the line, you want clinical excellence, and then you want the little things to help you keep your sanity, it sounds like. I'm so happy that you shared that, and it sounds like you've grown that relationship. So the trust side of it was built there.
Do you think that others... So thank you for the public health announcement, first of all. I think that's very important. Do you think others have a fear barrier, trust barrier, a poor bedside manner barrier when they are fearful of doing these screenings? What do you think is the biggest barrier? Because we see a lot of this, not just health literacy, socioeconomic status, but there's also a variable of human sense of safety and trust there too. Do you think that is worse now than ever for a lot of people, just to go for screenings, or vaccinations, or some of the maintenance of health?

Shawn Nason:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's sad to me, yeah. I think it's worse. I think people struggle with it. And listen, it comes back to we in healthcare, and when I say we, I'm pointing the fingers at myself because I've been in this space now for almost 15-plus years, we have tried to build one size fits all solutions. Take this training, do this. What it really, to me, has come down to, and I learned this even, like I said, this last eight months as an interim CEO, is it's more of a mindset that needs to be shifted.
Again, I didn't... Now, Dr. Johns and I have a great relationship now. I just saw him two weeks ago for my six-month checkup. We laugh. We have a great relationship. It's knowing that moment of, I guess, having self-awareness or emotional intelligence of when your patient needs what. And here's where I think that the system is breaking down so bad. And I've worked in the underserved, under-resourced communities. That was my very first project, actually, when I went into healthcare in the state of Mississippi for Humana.
Was we have broke down and we have put so much administrative burden on our providers, clinicians, however you want to use the term, because that's a whole nother fight that happens in this world. We've put so much administrative burden on them that we actually take the humane experience out of them. And I used to tell people this. Well, I still tell people this. All I've heard for years is, well, healthcare is so regulated. It's hard to do all of that. Well, I don't know any more of a regulated industry than the theme park industry.

Brian Urban:
Interesting. Tell me more here, because I think a lot of our audience would be definitely baffled by that.

Shawn Nason:
Well, I don't know about you, Brian, but I know for me, that I don't want to get on rollercoaster and hope that 99.9% of the time that rollercoaster works right.

Brian Urban:
Yep. Very good point here. Okay.

Shawn Nason:
Before a park opens, engineers are there four or five hours testing, making sure everything's right for the guest, putting safety and quality first, just like we do in healthcare, put safety and quality first. So please tell me, and this is not a soapbox that I was planning on getting on, how is safety and quality first when we expect our caregivers, clinicians, providers, again, to work 12 and 16 hour shifts? Because believe me, what I don't want is I don't want to be the person in surgery in the last two hours of a surgeon's day.

Brian Urban:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a very good point.

Shawn Nason:
When they went in and had to take out cancer out of my body, that was a 90% blockage in my colon, I didn't want a tired surgeon.

Brian Urban:
No. Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
I wanted a fresh surgeon. Those are the things that baffle me still to this day in healthcare. I just don't get it. And so, when people say to me, "We're just so regulated, it's so..." I just call bullshit on it.

Brian Urban:
Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
Right?

Brian Urban:
I think, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's not even the regulations, it's the operating model. It's so dated, it's so traditional, and it's never evolved to continue to meet the needs and the volume of populations and maybe the special needs of populations. Kind of reminds me of, in undergrad, I went to a state school farm town. They had multiple five-way, six-way intersections. Didn't make sense. The town grew from its initial inception, they never planned for growth. They never planned for variation or change, the unpredictable things.
Kind of reminds me a lot of our healthcare system and these large, huge anchor systems that have just grown as volume has grown, and maybe never adapted some of their models as intuitively as maybe as, obviously we're seeing now, and there's a lot of catching up to do, and these big systems need to become more nimble. But that's a great... I would not have thought quality and safety, engineers working on rides, that level. That's a great overlay. Didn't even think about it.

Shawn Nason:
Yeah, I don't just want anyone working on a rollercoaster. I want a very highly skilled engineer. Because when I get on that rollercoaster, I want to make sure I get off that rollercoaster.

Brian Urban:
Yeah. And not through the air.

Shawn Nason:
And not through the air. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you saw a few months ago, there was a video going around where someone had taken a, I think it was at a Six Flags or someplace, I don't remember, where a roller coaster at the highest peak was starting to separate from one of its weldings. I'm like, "Oh my gosh."

Brian Urban:
My goodness.

Shawn Nason:
How did that park miss that?

Brian Urban:
Yeah. Yeah. And that is a really good example in terms of the shifts, and the volume of work, and the expectations on surgeons, frontline staff, and then the administrative burden that's put on them. And it creates barriers between them for coordinating care and sharing information in a system, outside of a system, back to a pair, et cetera.
The one thing that intrigued me about your background was your work with Humana and innovation in what we would call, in the greater northeast, the deep south. It's down in Mississippi. So what was your experience like there? I mean, a lot of high social health needs in terms of the mix, Medicaid, duals, a lot of that. What did you find so fascinating? And tell me a little bit about the impact you had in those days.

Shawn Nason:
Oh, man. It changed my life. And it's kind of funny. I see you're wearing a Dartmouth shirt. There were a couple people who, now, one of which is in Austin running the Values Institute at University of Texas in the Dell Medical School, Elizabeth Teisberg, who had come into Humana. And it's really when social determinants of health were really picking up for us to understand.
This was in 2010, 2011. And it was actually when President Obama was launching the marketplace, Affordable Care Act. There were 52 or 54 counties in the state of Mississippi that were not going to have a marketplace. Secretary Sebelius at the time, President Obama called Bruce Passard and said, "Would you partner with us to launch a marketplace?" He then called a gentleman who's been a mentor of mine, I've worked now with for 13 years, a gentleman by the name of Sean Slovenski, said, "Can you go down and can you put a team together and go down and figure?" And I got the call.
So I spent almost a year in the state of Mississippi, drove almost 6,000 miles. So if you know anything about the state of Mississippi, not a lot of land. Did a lot of driving. I could tell you where every public restroom is, every paycheck cash place, where every fried chicken joint is, who has public bathrooms, who doesn't. It was when I really understood the deep sense of empathy. And when I was at Disney, I was very fortunate to be part of a team that collaborated with the Stanford D School, learned human-centered design.

Brian Urban:
Great, great, great program.

Shawn Nason:
And I took human-centered design to Humana in this project. And we spent almost a year to learn that the way we were going to ultimately change that state... And I'll never forget this, a young lady, single mother, four children, working two full-time jobs. And it's when the whole wellness thing was coming around too, that you needed to walk 10,000 steps a day. And I said to her something around that, and she's like, "You know what? I would be more than glad to walk 10,000 steps a day, but this is what I need you to do. I need you to find a babysitter for me who can come at 4:00 AM in the morning, take care of my children, so I can get out and do the 10,000 steps before I go work my two full-time jobs."

Brian Urban:
Yeah, there you go. Can't get more of a barrier in real life there.

Shawn Nason:
That's when I... And again, it's probably not fair because that was my first big project in healthcare. That's when I realized this massive disconnect in healthcare. That we tell people they need to be healthy. Listen, I'm a big guy. I'm overweight. I don't need my doctor to tell me to quit eating cheeseburgers. I know that I need to quit eating cheeseburgers. But some days, a cheeseburger sounds better than a salad. Let's get real. I know that. People know that. It's just around going back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We need to put that in with the social determinants of health, of how we are going to take care of our humans, our populations in the world, that we have to meet basic needs before we can even talk about healthcare.

Brian Urban:
It's so flipped. It really is. And a lot of the programs being made from health plans or from healthcare institutions, IDNs, it's flipped. It is. And that's from their perspective of outcomes, spend, utilization. But if you go back to that, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's great. It's a great principle to follow. Yeah.

Shawn Nason:
Yeah.

Brian Urban:
Yeah. So in terms of, Shawn, the experience there, I mean, you covered some serious ground. You were a public health impact maker, and you didn't even probably realize it maybe at that time. But you saw all of the barriers, the opportunities, and you felt the real life stories. What did you come away with that then you probably began to flip into MOFI. I guess MOFI came eventually after Humana's experience. But did you take a lot of that and you put that into the architecture of what you're doing now?

Shawn Nason:
Oh, absolutely. So I tell people, and I said it at the beginning, you can pay Disney the seven or eight figures, or you can pay MOFI the five or six figures. Disney doesn't do well talking about how they do an experience ecosystem. So we went out, and I have a partner in the business, Michael Harper, we created this whole thing called the experience ecosystem, all based on the foundation of human-centered design. So as an executive, as a thought leader, as a business, we lead with empathy.
And I tell executives... And in 2020, during the pandemic, in my boredom, I decided to write a second book with Michael, my business partner, and a very different mind and ours, Robin Glasgow. And in that book I talk about, I preach my three point sermon. And my three point sermon is pretty simple. It is this. Leaders, executives, you need to learn how to build radical relationships with your associates, and with your people, and people around you. And why do we say radical relationships? Because radical relationships mean you surround yourself with people that are diverse, think different than you, challenge you, not yes people.
You need to learn to be transparent. When the business is suffering, tell them the business is suffering. And love people. Lead with empathy, love people. I don't understand how you can be a leader or an executive and not like people. But I know people that are like that. And I'm like, "I don't get it. I just don't get it." And so, yeah. I mean, it's in my blood. I tell people all the... I mean, my wife laughs at me when we go... We still do a ton at Disney. I still pick up garbage when I go to the park if I see it.

Brian Urban:
It's ingrained. It's interesting that truly it's coated into you. And I find it fascinating that, I think a lot of leaders, they'll learn stuff, they'll bake it into their dialogue, and it eventually has an expiration date. The Stanford Human Design Program, it's been around for a long time. Is that the BJ Fogg? Was that part of his work?

Shawn Nason:
One of him. But the Stanford D School is the big thing now that does it. Yeah.

Brian Urban:
And that's just incredible because that was some time ago for you. That's still in your philosophy, your approach, and I find that really fascinating. And yeah, curiosity and love, that's the mix. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think my experience is, in a lot of big organizations, I've seen the variations of leaders, and I think the more of that being present on a daily basis is where you see a lot of change.
I want to look a little bit... First of all, I got to get my hands on your second book. Side note. I'll hit you up later. I want to learn more. And I feel I would love to have you on some of our executive round tables. Your voice alongside a lot of healthcare leaders in just fascinating dynamic discussions with no finger pointing. More laughs than...
But I'm curious of what you see. So you had your stint with a healthcare startup... Not healthcare startup, a healthcare organization, a smaller one recently. I see Shawn going into probably so many different places from here. But wherever you might go in the future, aside from all the other projects and boards you sit on, what are you seeing in terms of maybe trends, or something that needs to be fixed now in order for us to avoid a bigger disaster down the road, and things that can be tackled now, not unforeseen things, like pandemics or large economic downturns, but things that can be changed now? What are you seeing that's starting to be changed or that needs to be changed, or else we have an eminent disaster ahead of us?

Shawn Nason:
And this is kind of funny, because there's a yin and yang to this statement that I'm getting ready to make. What healthcare doesn't need is more digital platforms. We are apped out. I remember very recently I spoke at one of our very big pharmaceutical companies in our country, to a group of their leaders, and a statement was made that within that company for their patients, they had somewhere close to 90 different apps developed.

Brian Urban:
Oh, man. Oh, man.

Shawn Nason:
Just in that organization.

Brian Urban:
That's unbelievable.

Shawn Nason:
And so, we've swung so far to this tech side that we've lost the human side. So my mentor, I mentioned him earlier, Sean Slovenski, we both talk about this balance between high-tech and high touch. So how do we really truly create solutions that are tech enabled in the healthcare services space to take that administrative burden off of clinicians or patients, so that you can have more human and humane interactions? Because it's funny, I gave the stat this week at the conference I spoke at, 70% of consumers still desire human connection. So we want the ability to have tech. But I did not want to interact with tech when I went through cancer. I wanted to interact with a human being.

Brian Urban:
Right place, right time.

Shawn Nason:
When I need to go get my blood work done. Awesome, yes, let's figure out how to do that on a tech basis. I don't need to talk to someone. The second-biggest trend I'm seeing right now happening, and it's about fricking time, is in investments going in heavily into the underserved, under-resourced communities. It's the biggest area of funding happening right now in healthcare is around Medicaid, and dual eligibles, and then obviously Medicare Advantage and Medicare space.
I'm very passionate about the Medicare space, but I'm more passionate about this Medicaid dual eligible space, of how do we provide quality of care in that space, and not make people feel... Because let's be real, and I'll say it how it is, people that are on Medicaid are treated very differently sometimes in healthcare than people that have commercial insurance, and that is wrong.

Brian Urban:
Absolutely. Yeah. And you're right too. And I think it's seen maybe as a behavior from the business end of healthcare because of the margins that are very different with Medicaid as to Medicare Advantage, high growth in terms of volume, enrollees, supplemental benefits, Medigap, everything that comes with it, in that space. And then commercial, very different too. It is. It's called out.
And I just came back from MHPA, the big Medicaid conference in DC, and a lot of the conversations have been shifting utilization, having different approaches to tackling some social determinants, not at a programmatic level, but as an experimental level. I think a lot of investment is being put in there. I feel like, and maybe you feel like this too, a lot of organizations feel like they have to do everything, have a program for everything, and a nice little package, rather than just finding something of high priority and finding a starting place.
So you're seeing that at firsthand. Is that... So it's less marketing these days? But I guess you can see those who are doing marketing and those who are doing true investments. So you are seeing some big investments across the ecosystem? And I'm glad that's getting you excited, but any projects you're getting pulled into? I'd love to know that.

Shawn Nason:
I'm always giving advice in places. Just joined a board recently of a company called Statra because I think it's doing data in the way we've always wanted it to be done in healthcare, and so I'm excited to see where that organization goes and moves forward. And yeah, I think for me, right now, I'm looking for that next thing that can really impact that underserved, under-resourced community, whether as an advisor, board member, or step in as a CEO or somewhere in the C-suite.
We've still got a lot of change. And my advice to people in healthcare is quit trying to boil the ocean. Let's chip at it. There's a book that I recently read and met the authors called Ripple of Change, and it's a doctor and a patient telling their story. And what ripple are you going to make? Don't try to... Quit trying to boil the ocean. I think that's what we've done wrong in healthcare. We've tried to fix the whole thing at once and not fixed anything.

Brian Urban:
Yeah. Yeah, you can't renovate the whole home at once. There's nowhere to live in it. You got to do a part at a time.

Shawn Nason:
Right? Yeah.

Brian Urban:
I love that. Such a just encyclopedia of experiences, knowledge. We can see why you have such a big following, Shawn, and why you're so highly sought after. So thank you for giving me just a portion of your day here. I definitely feel some follow-up conversations coming on here, probably in a bigger cohort here virtually. But thank you again, Shawn, for joining our little show here today.

Shawn Nason:
Absolutely, absolutely.

Brian Urban:
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