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Inside the Media Mind of Healthcare IT Today’s John Lynn

As the Founder of Healthcare IT Today and Swaay.Health, John Lynn has one goal in mind: using technology to improve healthcare and help others do the same. John has led his team to provide healthcare professionals with up-to-date news on trends and topics shaping healthcare for the past 18 years. More than 17,000 articles (and counting) later, John’s team has added the management and production of three podcasts and a healthcare IT marketing conference – Swaay.Health Live – to their arsenal.

On this episode of Inside the Media Minds, co-hosts Christine Blake and Luca Pagni talk with John about the recent Change Healthcare hack, AI and other topics impacting the healthcare industry.

The “ABC” Trends Impacting Healthcare

John dives into the three topics that are dominating the healthcare industry: AI, Burnout and the Change Healthcare Hack. In regards to AI, John notes that we’re just now starting to see people cut through the noise of AI and document how it can solve specific problems. He foresees the next couple of years being dedicated to figuring out which solutions solve the problem and which are just ambition.

While it’s not unique to healthcare, John also touches upon burnout and how companies in this sector are attempting to address this. Finally, he discussed the impact of the Change Healthcare hack and pointed out two key areas for improvement from his perspective: 1) Invest better in security and 2) Develop better redundancy to avoid becoming reliant on an individual partner.

To hear more of John’s experiences and insights, listen to the full podcast below or read the transcript!

 

 

Timestamps:

Timestamps:

0:52 – From Tech Guy to Media Guy – John’s Journey to Founding Healthcare IT Today and Swaay.Health

3:39 – What Inspired John to Focus on Healthcare

5:46 – A Day in the Life of John 

9:15 – ABC Trends in Healthcare – AI, Burnout and Change Healthcare Hack

12:21 – John’s Lessons Learned

14:26 – John’s Most Memorable Story – HIPAA Violations

20:08 – Gaining Value Out of Conferences

23:14 – John’s View on What Makes Healthcare A Prime Target for Threat Actors

26:49 – Keep It Simple When Pitching John

Missed an episode of Inside the Media Minds? Catch up on one of our past episodes here!

Transcript

Christine Blake (CB): Welcome to Inside the Media Minds. This is your host, Christine Blake. This show features in depth interviews with tech reporters who share everything from their biggest pet peeves to their favorite stories. From our studio at W2 Communications, let’s go Inside the Media Minds.

Hi, everyone, this is Christine Blake, the host of Inside the Media Minds. And I am joined today with my co-host, Luca Pagni. We are so excited to be talking to John Lynn, founder of Healthcare IT Today and Swaay.Health. John has created a very strong and successful place for healthcare IT media resources. So, we’re excited to talk to you today, John, to hear more about this, and more of what you’re covering and more about your background as well.

John Lynn (JL): Thanks for having me.

CB: Yeah. So, can you give us a quick overview of your background? And we’ll go from there.

JL: Yeah, so I’m a tech guy by background, literally @TechGuy on Twitter, thus the name. But you know, I started out doing system administration, implementing EMR software top to bottom IT support data centers. So, you know, that’s my background, but I was bored on a weekend. And what do tech guys do when they’re bored on the weekend? I launched a website about electronic medical record, because that’s a sexy fun thing to do, right? And really, I was trying to learn search engine optimization, and I was sharing my expertise and learning from others. So you know, I was successful made it to the first page of Google for EMR. And I was making money, I had ads on it from day one, because I was playing around with that as well. Um, then this thing called the stimulus money, and $36 billion of money from the government for EMR came and obviously stimulated my website, I was up to two websites at the time. And yeah, I was able to quit the day job, I think 15 years ago, something like that. Uh, so you know, now 18 years later, from when I wrote that first, uh, blog article, we now have, you know, as you mentioned, uh, we have a pretty nice media company with 17,000 articles, three podcasts, uh, you know, done a ton of content. Then of course, Swaay.Health is our healthcare marketing community, where we have similar newsletters and content for healthcare marketers, and we do an annual conference for Swaay.Health as well. So yeah, that’s the background from tech guy implementing EMRs to now I guess, more of a media guy than anything. And being able to, you know, at the end of the day, my goal is still the same is to try to use technology to improve healthcare and help others do the same.

CB: That’s amazing. Yeah, we’re, you know, looking around your website and everything. I love how you say, um, it’s healthcare’s friendliest, and most helpful media outlet. I think that’s a good way to put it, because it’s really a community resource, right? There’s so many different types of, um, you know, news, blogs, podcasts, like you said, it’s a really well rounded, um, media group.

JL: It’s funny you say that, because we really are, and it it comes back to myself and, uh, my business partner, Colin Hung, you know, just the nature of who we are. We are not investigative journalists, we are not breaking news, right? You know, like, that’s, that’s just not what we want to do. We want to share the stories that push the industry forward. There’s a place for that, right. And it did, but it’s just not who we are as people. And we’ve done it a few things here and there over the years. But our goal is to share the stories of success so that we can help that success permeate throughout healthcare. And so that’s why we call ourselves the friendliest media company out there.

CB: Love it.

Luca Pagni (LP): Love it. And so just want to kind of dive into it further of what inspired you to go healthcare of your choices, like, what was the Aha moment that was like, yup, healthcare is it this is what I want to, you know, take the time and build a website on.

JL: It’s kind of funny, it was a bit of an accident, to be frank, you know, I was working in higher ed IT and I got the job at UNLV in the Health and Counseling Center. And so then I had to implement the EMR and then, you know, I basically had to learn healthcare. They hired me, despite my lack of healthcare expertise, which was lucky on my part, but, uh, you know, obviously, I wanted to, to make an impact. I remember telling people in my previous job before I entered healthcare, and you know, once I got the job, I was like, how cool would it be if something I does I do something I implement helps, you know, impact a patient for good and, and I love that vision. And I still share that vision today that maybe something I write or some podcasts that I record or share could you know, help a healthcare organization improve and maybe save someone’s life right or improve the care that they receive that so that they avoid some disease that they don’t know about? So I’d say that’s kind of the overarching vision. And I mean, at my core, I live eat, breathe and sleep healthcare right now and that’s what I do. But my passion is using technology to improve how to improve anything. It just turns out right now I know healthcare, I’m in healthcare, I think healthcare has a great mission, and so it’s a good fit for me. But at my core, it’s about how do I use technology to improve any process and that’s what I think drives me.

LP: That’s definitely a good goal and a good driver to have in life. I mean, you hit it on the, you hit the nail on the head with that, it is a very important mission, and is very important to spread the right information that ultimately could help save someone’s life. It’s, you know, critical.

CB: Yeah, um, so tell us about your daily role, like your day to day now that your organization has evolved and grown into these different, um, different facets of the media group. What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

JL: I think every day is different, which is why it’s probably great for me, I think I’m ADHD, which, interestingly, I was pitched an ADHD product. I said, hey, can I take your tests and see? So I’ll let you know what I find out. But no, I mean, I, you know, we’re a small organization. I mean, there are about 20 of us across the entire community, we do a lot of part time work since I think a lot of what happens in in a media company shouldn’t be done full time. So like, I think the part time model works for us, for a lot of the things are mundane or monotonous or need some creativity. So I kind of liked the idea of of the part time model, but there’s about 20 in our team. So we have a good team behind me that does, you know, to be frank, a lot of the hard work, I get to do a lot of the fun work as far as, you know, interviewing different people and being able to, you know, just tell their stories. You know, whether it’s writing up an article about an interview that I did, we’ve definitely shifted, right? I mean, the fact that we have 17,000 articles, and I’ve written about half of them. But now if if someone pitches me now, I don’t think oh, “Do I want to write an article about them?” anymore. Like it literally, it’s almost like not a thought. Instead, the question is, if I find that story, or that person, interesting enough, I’m going straight to video, and I was wanting to have him on video, and I want to have that discussion. So we have seen that I’d say, you know, kind of post COVID, we started the video stuff, and then it really just accelerated, we’re like, we’re no longer writing many articles other than articles that feature our video. So you know that that would be I’d say, the majority of the day is interacting with people that want to hop on video and share their stories. You know, we have evolved the model. I mean, when I first started, it was all display ads and, and pay per click Google AdSense. That was the revenue driver for me. And then it evolved to sponsored content where people were doing sponsored articles. And now, you know, it’s kind of an evolution of that to sponsored videos and sponsored podcasts. And that whole sponsored content angle, you know, so that I spent a lot of time doing that with people who are buying sponsored packages, with Healthcare IT Today or with Swaay.Health, that want to buy some sort of sponsored package, you know, for example, our videos feature their customers, their executives, their partners. And so it’s kind of nice, we don’t do any consulting. But we want to make sure that whoever advertises with us and sponsors the work that we do, that they’re successful, and that they understand that telling great stories about their customers is key to their success. So I spent a lot of time working with them to say, okay, who should you have on? What should you be asking them? How can we feature the work that you’re doing in a way that is valuable to the end user? Um, because I think we’ve found this evolution. And there’s a lot of people who are like, well sponsored content, how does that work versus editorial and all this. And we found something pretty simple, which is, if you provide value in the content that you’re providing, whether it’s an article, a video, podcast, whatever, no one cares if it’s sponsored or not sure, we need to let them know that it is so that they could watch for that bias. But if they’re providing something useful, then they’re fine with it, regardless of sponsors or editorial.

CB: No, that makes sense. I think we’ve seen that too, even from like a PR agency perspective, seen a lot of more multimedia content coming out, especially post-COVID. A lot more. Like, like you mentioned, like sponsored content and things of that nature, less of that traditional written type, which has been interesting. Um, so, you kind of hit on, you know, kind of key trends in the journalism media industry. I’m curious on, um, what are some key trends you’re seeing in like healthcare technology, specifically, the past few months or so? And like, what are some of the key topics that you’re looking to cover within healthcare IT?

JL: I think the biggest trend is that everyone’s saying that they’re doing everything, and that they’re using AI to solve everything in the world, burnout, uh, you know, all the challenges of healthcare. And so how does a healthcare you know it company or solution provider, how do they stand out in a world where everyone’s saying everything? And I think that is the big problem that people have because AI is the biggest topic. Next is maybe cybersecurity because of the Change Healthcare breach and just 1000s of other breaches, and everyone realizing that can be them. Right? So I think those are two hot topics. Burnout is an interesting topic as well, although it’s interesting, because where are we really spending money to solve burnout, right? I’m not sure there might be a disconnect there as far as it’s a topic that everyone sees, and maybe we all feel. Everyone feels a little burnout across, you know, a wide spectrum, but are we really spending money to solve that problem? That’s an interesting question. So I’d say that’s maybe the biggest thing is saying, okay, you know, maybe the biggest question happening right now is, what is is, is AI real? Or is it Memorex? And maybe not even just AI in general? But is that solution really, does that really work? Or is it you know, kind of some fake flow? You know, a, we’re working on this, we think it’s gonna work. And and I think, you know, we’re starting to see people cut through the noise and say, yeah, no, this actually does solve a very specific problem in revenue cycle, or does solve a specific problem in documentation. So I’d say that’s probably going to be the next year is, you know, at least years the start and then, you know, two or three years where it really fully plays out. Which of these solutions really solve the problem? And which ones were just ambition?

CB: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s kind of what I was expecting was AI for the for that question, because we are hearing is very, um, hyped up right now across technology, cybersecurity, everything, healthcare. So yeah, it’d be interesting to see how that plays out over the next year or so.

JL: Then the stuff for someone who doesn’t talk about AI, right, like, there are solutions that aren’t AI, and they solve real problems. Of course, I like to say marketers corrupt everything, and they’ve corrupted the term AI to be even as simple analytic solution or data with data is now AI. And, you know, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

LP: Kind of shifting gears here, you mentioned that, you know, this journey for you started about 18 years ago, want to know, what has been one of the biggest lessons learned throughout your journey thus far?

JL: I mean, there’s so many lessons, right? There’s so many things you look back on, I’ll give you a marketing one first, which is I should have gone all in on email a long time earlier than I did. And I did so much with SEO, and then I did social. And I just didn’t do email initially, it was dumb, is a mistake, I should have definitely gone all in. And, you know, I think email has been pronounced dead at least 15 times. It’s like, you know, it’s better than a cat has more lives than a cat. And I still think today, email is one of the best marketing tools and, and I get why it’s a frustrating one, and it’s a challenging one for sure. But you know, I think that was a big lesson to get on that early and I should have done that more than I did. You know, I think there’s plenty of other lessons. But the key one that I probably share is that, you know, most of it is about people. Everything that we do is about the right people, and it’s about the relationships that you create. And I think it’s one of the most beautiful lessons you can learn because if you work with the right people, if you connect with the right people, and you give to the people, right, not just like, connect with them in some superficial way, but find ways to meaningfully help people. I think when you do that you receive so much in return for your business and for your life. So I’d say that would probably be the biggest lesson is focus on the people and the way you relate to them and the way that you help them. And it’s shocking how many times you know, 10 years down the road, something I did or said trying to help them, you know, comes back and they’re like, John, that meant so much and of course, I’m barely remember it [laughs] was like meaningful for them. And so I think that’s one of the best parts of the work that I do.

LP: That’s awesome. And I think yeah, that’s definitely a good philosophy to carry throughout life is, you know, it’s not always just kind of a transaction, but it’s let’s build a you know, deep relationship with one another. The other question I did have about your journey is I’m sure there has to be one story that stuck out to you the most over the years that whether it was just something that you had, you know, really been drawn to it’s just something that was completely unexpected as a topic, whatever it might be curious to hear what, uh, what’s been that number one story throughout the year? Years?

JL: I mean, there’s so many right when you’ve done as much as I did, you know, it was amazing when the person reached out and said you want to do an EHR training in Dubai. And if they would have said anywhere else other than maybe Italy, I would have been like, I think not. But Dubai, I was like I got to who ended up going five times and doing trainings there. So, you know, being willing to do crazy stuff is pretty cool. You know, lately, ambient clinical voice is my favorite topic. And it’s just been incredible watching that, but let me give you a good story. And it’s maybe why we’re now the friendliest media company in the world. You know, there was a story I wrote, it took about a month to write it was the most journalistic thing I did, you know, in my whole time, you know. I worked really hard initially, I thought it was 12 million HIPAA violations. That’s what I thought the story was going. And so, we looked dove into it were like, yeah, it was probably 1000s of HIPAA violations, but not 12 million. But it was a really poor execution by Practice Fusion, and how they were rolling out this product they had where they had patients review, the doctors, they didn’t communicate to the doctors, they didn’t, you know, even you know, so patients were reviewing doctors, and doctors knew nothing about it. And so, anyway, like I said, it took about a month to write it, wrote up how they were, you know, ruining the trust of their doctors by not communicating effectively. And, I mean, there were literally doctors on their site that were saying, hey, you know, I’m a psychiatrist, and you’re emailing my patient to review me, and they’re seeking drugs, what do you think they’re going to do? You’re ruining the relationship with my patient, and just really problematic stuff. Another another doctor, got an email from his brother and said, hey, just so you know, the email I got has the wrong address. And the doctor is like, what email? Like they knew do nothing about it. Right. So, you know, there was this important discussion about, you know, what is, what is your responsibility to your doctors? And how do you communicate it? You know, I wrote that I did write about some of the HIPAA violations, and it blew up, as you can imagine. And then he tried to shame me in the comments from the same IP address in San Francisco. And there’s a whole lot more to the story that I never shared. Because, you know, I kept that in my back pocket in case they didn’t come after me. They kind of threatened some legal action. I’m like, yeah, well, this is accurate. So anyway, there’s certainly more to the story, but it was one of the most interesting things for me, when most memorable, you know, sleepless nights when they threatened legal action against small publisher, right? You know, interesting enough, their investor was an investor in Gawker, and they did sue Gawker to oblivion, so, you know, like, it wasn’t, and they could have easily sued me to oblivion without thinking about it. But anyway, it was it was, it was an important story to put out there. And, you know, eventually it ended up in $100 million FTC violation for a lot of the things that they did and even more beyond what I wrote about. So, you know, it was a it was a, you know, a hard fought story, you know, that was worth telling, but definitely, I have the scars from it.

CB: Wow.

LP: I can say, yeah, that’s definitely a memorable story that will definitely stick with you. But a cool one minus though, you know, sleepless nights, but it’s still cool that you’re able to, you know, see the story through and be able to report on it.

JL: You know, when that happened, it was, it was sleepless nights, and I ended up hearing the story about, uh, some missionaries, there’s a movie called The Saratov Approach. And there was these missionaries that were abducted in Russia, and they, you know, realized that their parents couldn’t pay the ransom for them. Because if they did, they put all the 60,000 other missionaries in danger. And I ended up going to fireside with the actual missionaries who, you know, spoiler alert, they survived. And he said to me, that he accepted the ultimate conclusion, which was they were going to die, they were going to be killed. And he said, once he accepted that ultimate conclusion, then he felt this freedom, there’s nothing they could do to me, because literally, he’s accepted death, right? And when he said that I was in this midst of this whole you know, legal threats and you know, fear of what’s going to happen and I went through that whole thought process and I, I accepted the ultimate conclusion. Fine, they could sue Healthcare Scene and this my entire company to oblivion. I was like, Well, I still have amazing kids, I have a great family, I have skills, I can go get another job. And you know, I accepted this ultimate conclusion that hey, they could sue me to oblivion and guess what, I have a lot to be grateful for and and then there was this freedom. So it’s interesting, that was like the backstory emotional side of, of doing a story like that. But you know, I ended up coming to that point. It’s come up many times in my career, where it’s like, Hey, this is the worst you could do to me and if I I’m okay with that, then you really can’t hurt me.

CB: That’s a good perspective to have.

LP: Yeah.

CB: Um, so I want to talk a little bit about conferences. I know we’re in the midst of some key healthcare conferences. You were just at HIMSS. Last week, I believe. And then I think you started your own event focused on healthcare marketing that’s coming up in a couple months. How do you approach conferences? What kind of value do you get out of that and talk a little bit about a little bit about that.

JL: It’s unique as a media company to go to the conference, is it it has evolved. Again, instead of doing meetings to write articles, we’re doing videos, I think, you know, I haven’t seen the final count. But I think we’re about 85 to 90 videos that we did just at HIMSS. So we’re doing HIMSS and ViVE, I think we’re at the 150 range, something like that. So…

CB: That’s a lot!

JL: …it’s a great place to connect with vendors and their customers and to have them hop on video. Some of them are short videos, too. So you know, two-minute videos or do a bunch of those. So, you know…

CB: Well you must be tired from last week, that’s a lot!

JL: …well, the HIMSS haze is real, as I call it, insanity, definitely a is a is a process. But that’s what I love about conferences, though is you have a chance to talk with the smartest people. I think the problem with conferences for me is that I live, eat, breathe, and sleep, healthcare IT. And so like the sessions for me are not as interesting, because they’re talking about stuff I’ve probably already heard about and read about. But when you go and talk to people, people tell you things you haven’t heard or things you haven’t seen, or trends that you know, I should be watching. And so that’s what I love about conferences like HIMSS and ViVE and you know, the other major conferences, and even the user conferences, I love the user conferences, because you hear what’s really happening on the street. They’re not, you know, and you know, just speaking jargon, they’re saying, this is what I’m suffering through, really. And so I love that part of conferences. As far as the our conference. Yeah, we have the Swaay.Health conference, it’s in Atlanta in May. It’s an incredible group of healthcare marketers and PR communication professionals, from both health IT companies and provider marketers, and it really came out of one of my advertisers saying, hey, is there a marketing conference for healthcare people? I’m like, sorry, there’s not, like…

CB: Gotta make one.

JL: …create it. Yeah. And so I did, right. And it really just brings together both B2B healthcare marketers, and B2C, you know, provider marketers in one venue to talk about the challenge, that is healthcare marketing, and the unique aspects. And it really is a community of people that want to share and learn and grow. And so I go there, and I learn, and I love to connect with those people. So, to me, that’s a blessing to be part of that community and to learn from them.

CB: Yeah, no, that’s great. It’s cool that you started that after he saw need for it. And glad to hear that the HIMSS haze for this year is it’s wrapping up a little bit. I know you were just there last week, here coming out of that.

JL: We’re gonna survive. No, but we thrive with the energy too, right. All those connections drive a lot of good energy and excitement as well.

LP: For sure. Um, I know earlier, we kind of discussed, you know, AI, cybersecurity in healthcare and just kind of wanted to dig into that a little bit further. You even mentioned, uh, the United Healthcare hack. Just wanted to see, from your perspective, are there any unique cybersecurity concerns or challenges that exist in healthcare, specifically, versus other verticals? Are they you know, more susceptible to fraud, more of a target for ransomware? Anything that you’ve seen in your, uh, experience?

JL: I mean, I think we are for a couple of reasons. First of all, we haven’t invested the same way some other organizations have. So guess what, hackers go to the easiest targets, they’re like water, they flow wherever it’s easiest, right? So that’s the first problem. The second problem is that the data that we have is extremely valuable. Like, if I pull your credit card, you can just cancel it, which makes that less valuable. But if I find out you have cancer, guess what? You can’t just cancel that, right? Like, you know, if I get your genomic sequence, you can’t just say, oh, can you cancel my old one and give me a new genomic sequence? Like that data is that data and will be that data forever. And so I think that’s why it becomes more valuable. And there’s lots of ways to abuse healthcare data from a hacker perspective and be able to use it fraudulently. So I think that’s what makes us different. And what’s interesting, too, about the hack of Change Healthcare, which is part of United, is that it’s opened up many eyes. I saw a CIO right on I think it was on LinkedIn. He’s like, if we haven’t learned from this hack that we need to double our investment in security, to avoid this situation and make sure that we’re prepared when a hack does come to remediate it quickly, so that we don’t have this polar proliferation, then we didn’t learn anything. So that’s one lesson is we need to invest better in security. The other big lesson that I think, you know, I, we’re already starting to see, but this is going to reverberate for years to come, which is we need not just one pathway to be able to solve a problem. So revenue cycle was all going through Change Healthcare for a lot of people. And and then we, you know, it shut down. And now the revenue is a problem. And now these healthcare organizations are what do I do without the cash flow that I’m used to. And then what’s interesting is that many provider organizations thought they had redundancy, because they thought they were using change, and then they were using Waystar and they were using FinThrive, and they you know, so they thought they had multiple pathways. But it turns out, all of those other ones, were going through Change as well. And so you know, the network effect that people didn’t realize and understand to the, you know, that help them, you know, that made it so that they didn’t realize that they didn’t have true redundancy, I think that’s going to be a message for a lot of things, not just revenue cycle. But many of the things that we do, we’re going to have to have better redundancy. So I think that’s going to be a win coming out of it is it’s opened up a lot of people’s eyes to like, hey, we need to invest in an in true redundancy, and not be so reliant on one individual partner.

CB: That’s a good lesson learned that I think people can take away I think anytime there’s some sort of, you know, major breach or attack, there’s something that could be a takeaway, or a lesson learned from and that’s certainly one of them. Because like you said, with healthcare, it’s not just a credit card, you know, it’s people’s personal information. So very important.

JL: Absolutely.

CB: Yeah. And we have time for one listener question before we wrap up. And this one’s more so focused on on some tips for PR people wanting to get in touch with you, how do you prefer to be pitched? Do you have any tips or best practices for people trying to work with you and get their spokespeople involved in some of your reporting?

JL: Yeah, I mean, I’d say the biggest pitch is keep it simple, you know, simple. And I personally like links or attachments. I know a lot of people in the press don’t like that. But I do keep it simple, but linked to more in depth if if it is interesting to me, you know, I joke that many people pitch me on Twitter, and DMS, or different things like that. And I kind of like that, because then they’re forced to essentially, just give me the meat. Just give me the value of what’s there. You know, so I don’t know. I mean, that’s one tip is keep it simple. And, and to the point, what can you really offer? I don’t need an overview of what’s happening in the industry and the regulations that are happening that I already know that right, like, like, I’m going to skip it anyways. So don’t waste your time, right, get to the point, what do they have to offer? That’s unique? You know, I think the other part is, like, know how we approach stuff, right? You know, is this something that should just go on our bonus features, which is just a simple mention of a new customer, and go into it with that expectation that, hey, a new customer may not be a story, right? It may just be worth a mention. And we do that on our bonus features. You know, the same is true with a hire a customer or a partnership, you know, those types of things we will mention, but maybe it’s not worth the full story, you know, a funding announcement. Some organizations love funding announcements, I’ve never done a story maybe once in 18 years, a story on a funding announcement, because to me, the story happened six months later a year with when you actually take that funding and do something with it. That said, we will share the funding announcements on our site, but we just sell the press release. Because that is the whole story is hey, you raised 30 million or you got acquired, you know, that’s the story. You know, that those are examples, we do our quote alert, like so if you want to submit a quote, based on that topic for that month, that’s an option, right? You know, if it’s ambient clinical voice, you’ll see I’ve done a series of ambient clinical voice with all the ambient clinical voice vendors. So if you have someone that’s doing that, then that’s going to be more, you know, the pitch that I’m going to reply to in a very different way. So anyway, I think that’s, you know, it’s PR 101, but it’s understanding what does the person want the in how can I make their job easier? You know, I think sometimes we go in and, you know, it’s amazing the pitches I get to, you know, I get to talk about pains, a lot. That’s a whole nother episode, but you know, like, you know, a lot of times they like send it to you and like as I read through it, I’m like, you’re making me work for the story. That is not a good approach, right? Like, the best approach is, oh, this is a cool story, and you’re making it easy for me. And so that would be the other suggestion, I guess.

CB: Great insight. Makes sense to me and hopefully everyone hears that and abides by that because that’s the best approach overall.

JL: I’m sure I’ll get hundreds more like that but you know, like it is what it is now. It’s fine. I’m used to it.

CB: Well, John, it’s been really fun talking to you this afternoon. Congratulations on all your success and the friendliest media outlet with Healthcare IT Today and Swaay.Health and everything you have going on. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

LP: Yes, thank you.

JL: Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

CB: Thank you for everyone who tuned in to this episode. We’ll catch you next time. 

Thank you for joining us on today’s episode of Inside the Media Minds. To learn more about our podcast and hear all of our episodes please visit us at W2Comm.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter @MediaMindsShow, and you can subscribe anywhere podcasts are found.