Jodi Rosen, Vice President at City of Hope

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Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Made for the People Who Power U.S. Healthcare ORG. I am Molly Gamble at Beckers ORG, and today I'm so happy to be sitting down with Jody Rosen PERSON. Jody is the Vice President of Innovation and Digital Strategy with City of Hope ORG. Jody PERSON, welcome to the podcast.Thank you so much for being my guest. How are you today? And where does the podcast find you? Thanks so much, Molly PERSON.

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It's terrific to be with you and our listeners. I'm doing really well. I'm very excited to be having this conversation with you, especially in the context of Women's History Month as we get to the end of the month and really thinking about sort of the women who have inspired me in my career and in so many other people's careers. And you're at that list as well. And I'm going to try to weave in some important women who have done great things in health care or brought equity to health care in some of our conversation for sure.

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So thoughtful of you. And this March, as we're connecting, like you said, we are winding down. It's been a particularly fast one, it seems like, for many of us, I'm sure for you too, Jody PERSON. So to get us started today, you know, for listeners who are not as acquainted with City of Hope ORG as they'd like to be, can you share an overview of the organization and then your role within it just to kick us off? Absolutely.

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Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. City of Hope ORG is over a hundred-year organization, and our mission of making hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes is a very powerful mission and one that resonates with many people in their life. And, you know, I would share a little bit about the roots and the history of our organization as well is really founded in Southern California as a non-sectarian sanatorium back in 1913, really looking to help treat individuals who were afflicted by tuberculosis and providing care for all regardless of their ability to pay is just truly in the roots of who we are as an organization. And as tuberculosis was eradicated, City of Hope ORG,which initially was established as the Jewish Consumptive Relief Association ORG, began to, and it was consistent of these two campus cottages, and ultimately that did launch over a century long journey that would become City of Hope ORG, a leader at the forefront of our nation's medical and research institutions. And we've begun to take on mounting a fight againstdiabetes, rare diseases, HIV, AIDS, and then oncology. And really, in the spirit of one of our early leaders, Samuel Goulter PERSON, coined a phrase that there is no profit in curing the body if in the process we destroy the soul. And these words have really become City of Hope's ORG credo and resonate in our mission, vision, and values as we are a national comprehensive cancer center with now a national footprint, not just in Southern California LOC, but also with hospitals and outpatient locations in Phoenix, Arizona, in the Chicagoland area, and also in Atlanta, Georgia.So becoming a national research and clinical care provider focused on oncology care and diabetes goes back to our early roots well over 100 years ago. And that piece of philanthropy and care for all and equity is very central to our mission and how we provide care daily.

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I was going to touch on this toward the end of our conversation, but I think we should stick with it. The history that you just shared, I mean, really remarkable. And it's rare to find an organization that initially was established to specialize or really set out to treat one disease like tuberculosis so successfully in its scale. And then there's advancements with the antibiotics. And they then, the organization then pivots to specialize in another pressing disease,in this case, HIV, AIDS, oncology, diabetes.

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Jody PERSON, what lessons can we draw from this unique origin story? So great. And I really do feel as an employee of the organization and speaking, you know, with any of my colleagues, I think this would come across that the visionary work we began well over 100 years ago continues today in a very mission-focused way as we look forward to continuing to be a leader in the fight to eradicate cancer. And every day we advance new breakthroughs in cancer research and cancer treatmentin different ways to support patients and their loved ones on the oncology journey so that we can give more patients everywhere, more hope and new hope, because of those groundbreaking advancements that are happening at the bench side that can quickly move to the bedside and then beyond to the larger healthcare community of those who are joining us in the fight against cancer. And I think the other piece that I would say about just kind of our early roots and some of the things that are thematic daily is that, you know, we were founded by donors and volunteers determined to make sure that no one was left out of care.And that vision for health equity does drive us. And it drives our supporters from a philanthropy perspective daily in our organization. Very powerful.

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Well, I'm really happy to sit down with you, Jody, for a number of reasons, but one is because I was sharing with you before we began a podcast, how much audience interest we've seen in the past several months around issues related to cancer, this is going to be, or it's set to be a pretty taxing year for the U.S. GPE cancer care system with new diagnoses projected to hit a new high in the U.S., exceeding $2 million for the first time. That's about 5,500 cancer diagnoses a day.The mortality piece, that is a rosier outlook, there's some improvements there from the American Cancer Society ORG projections. But nonetheless, this is a lot, this is a large volume of diagnoses we're looking at. How does this projection tie into or factor into your work today on innovation and digital strategy at City of Hope ORG? Great questions.

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You know, at the root of the growing rates of cancer, early detection, prevention, awareness screening is so important. And that really rings true for me personally with my public health background.

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And I'll say that I'm very pleased to share

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that City of Hope ORG has recently launched a mobile clinic offering clients and our patients and those individuals who have never known the City of Hope GPE, but by having a mobile van that can reach out to neighborhoods out into the community that clients receive state-of-the-art screening services from multiple different types of cancers and genetic disorders that may,and sexually transmitted infections that might actually increase cancer risks and other conditions. And so our mobile clinic clients have access to City of Hope's ORG world-renowned clinical trials, our research programs, and technologies and innovations, breakthrough treatments that are being used around the world. And so those mobile clinics is one type of the commitment that we have to, again, the equity, the outreach, the prevention,early diagnosis, and they're staffed by nurse practitioners, technicians, mammogram technicians, support teen nurses. They have changing rooms, private exam rooms, and we're currently scheduling screenings and events across our Southern California LOC community with other community-based organizations because partnership on screening, especially to address, again, back to our roots, those who may not always have access to care is so important. So I would say one piece of that is definitely the work on early diagnosis.The other is more and more oncology care is moving to outpatient or ambulatory settings. And I'm excited to share that we will be opening in February of 2025 at our Duarte FAC campus, a new state of the art Hope Plaza FAC facility, which has housed within it over 352,000 square feet QUANTITY of outpatientcare being provided for a patient across nine different levels. Initially, we'll have 84 new exam rooms, eight procedure rooms, 59 infusion spaces, a dedicated outpatient imaging and women imaging modalities. We are very excited to be having new digital experiences within that building that can reach patients and address what their oncology journey needs are and begin to move healthcare delivery from sort of aone-size-fits-all to more of a personalized experienced orientation, which is so much of where the market is going to. And that ability to think about meeting patients where they are on their oncology journey, whether it is that early diagnosis, whether it is they were screened and treated somewhere else and are now looking for other options and more advanced options with clinical trials. Where can we meet the needs of patients now not just in Southern California LOC, but across the country? And with some of our enhanced digital capabilities, we're very muchequipped and ready to take on that challenge.

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The other distinction, too, is that there's rising diagnoses among younger people, too, right? The number of diagnoses among people under 50 are on the rise. And cancer, it's not always been equated as a young person's or a middle age person's disease. What does this shift also signal or mean for your work?

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Absolutely. You know, there's been such an interest in different age cohorts, especially right now, and we may talk about this a little bit of the 2030 problem we're looking at with an aging baby boomer population. But as you think about millennials, Gen X and other populations, as it relates to seeing cancer diagnoses rates rising, but also other types of diseases affecting younger populations, I think one of the things we have to think about as provider-based organizations is how to meet those needs of the younger generation. And really, Omni Channel comes to mind. I think meeting the patient-slash-consumer expectations and making provider side care welcoming, making it simple, and often that meanstransparent and mobile first, making it convenient with on-demand or 24-7 access, even to some

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amount of mobile tools, and highly personalized and contextually relevant to that patient

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consumer population with customized products, services, offering, and opening up self-service tools that a younger generation is so accustomed to using in every other part of their lives. I think those are the types of experiences that we are definitely investing in. And I know the broader healthcare provider ecosystem is investing in because patients don't want to be treated differently when they walk into health care than when they're interacting with so many other verticals, whether thatis in travel leisure, banking, lifestyle reservations, what they can do for health and wellness in their workout environments with educational institutions that they interact with. They're looking for some of those same pieces and being able to make sure that we have simple, transparent, convenient, frictionalist, and personalized services are so important. I think the other piece that we're seeing around our younger generation is really how to have partnerships with primary care providers.We know that that stickiness of orientation around providers, patients who are millennials, not having as strong of relationships as maybe a baby boomer population does with their primary care doctor. How do we reach out and partner with a whole host of primary care providers to be able to better educate them on screening referral management into NCI comprehensive cancer centers like City of Hope ORG when there is a concern that a patient may be faced with cancer.

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I appreciate those comments so much, Jared PERSON, because I think you said on this earlier, but so often, I mean, the language has said that we have an aging and graying population, and that was correlated to health outcomes. But I think what that can miss is, like you said, the millennials, the Gen Y, the people who are in their early 40s right now,

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that they aren't necessarily gray, but they are struggling with different health challenges, like you said. And then they kind of are operating the system where so much of it is built around Medicare ORG recipients and retirees that have very different access and availability for a care team compared to someone who might still be working or with a young family. So I really appreciate that point because I think in some ways this group can be overlooked

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in some of the traditional ways about thinking about a graying population or an aging population. Absolutely.

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Absolutely. And I will say you have both. You have younger diagnoses happening with a population of individuals who have different types of consumer expectations around care delivery and service delivery. And at the same time, you do have this 20, 30 problem people discuss as it relates to insufficient resources and ineffective delivery system supporting the doubling of baby boomergeneration from 2002 to 2030. And what that means for us as it relates to a workforce that will be retiring, at the same time you have baby boomers who may be resulting in needing additional care. And so that begins to put a lot of compression on a nationwide shortage of care providers. a lot of compression on a nationwide shortage of care providers. And, you know, where are those opportunities to continue to take care of people? And so, you know, I do think some of those shifts and patterns of trends are really interestingbecause they do think those are real opportunities that we can be looking to leverage more, you know, the places that deep learning, how artificial intelligence can help us lead to improved health outcomes, improve early detection, improve access, decrease burnout, really foster top of licensed care for clinicians who are working daily and taking care of patients daily,but some of the noise of practicing medicine gets in the way. And I think, you know, ultimately with leveraging the right generative AI strategy, algorithms really can affect both the entire care journey experience for our patients, but also so importantly for our clinical providers to really, you know, bring the joy of practicing medicine back, as well as allowing patients to feel more human again and not as robotic in the system, right? If you can automatethe stuff that doesn't, is not additive to the human part of care delivery, but is so vital and give people more time to interact with their provider on an oncology journey. I think those are some tremendous opportunities we have as it relates to trends and things that we are looking forward to continuing to explore and that the entire academic medical community on the health care side is continuing to explore, which is very exciting.

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Jody PERSON, are there any other trends, any other shifts or patterns that you wanted to know related to cancer care, other care offered at City of Hope ORG, or any other closing thoughts for our listeners as we wind down today? Sure, sure.

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I really just think the piece that we are beginning to focus on for all patients is really this hyper-personalized care orchestration and really thinking about Omnichannel care. And so that ability to call click or come is so important for us, especially as we have become a national NCI comprehensive cancer center across the United States is really beginning to think about those interconnecting pieces that patients are really desiring in their experience, whether it is know how to connect with me, know me, know my preferences, help me orchestrate my care. And that is all of that ability to think about how to reach patients both inside our fourwalls as what was outside. And the same in the flip side could be true for our workforce, right? And so much of the workforce since the global pandemic, pieces of that workforce are remote. So how to continue to create team-based care to best support our patients on their journey. These are very important projects and work we're leading. And hopefully you'll have me back and we can share some updates on those things next time.

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You can plan on that. Listeners, this has been Jody Rosen, Vice President of Innovation Digital Strategy ORG, a city of hope. Jody PERSON, thank you so much for your time and for connecting these trends and projections around cancer rates and cancer care in the year ahead, back to the work you do in Innovation Digital Strategy ORG. truly so helpful to see the bigger picture. We reallyappreciate you being our guest today. Thank you so much, Molly PERSON. A pleasure.