11- FOXcast PT: Mike Eisenhart at CSM 2018

Jimmy: Welcome to FOXcast PT, a podcast for clinicians made by clinicians. It’s brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation. Find out more at foxrehab.org.

I’m your host Jimmy McKay and coming up is a guy that calls himself a mad scientist. I love that. Probably because he’s been ranting and raving about the same thing for years and years but now people are starting to listen. It’s gaining traction. The fact that we’ve got Mike Eisenhart on the show right now. Mike welcome to the program.

Mike: Thank you.

Jimmy: You are one of those guys we talked about this just before we hit the record button. You’re always, always, always hustling. I always see you at conferences and things like that. You’re always saying, “hi,” kind of over your shoulder because you’re always off to the next thing. Alright so thank you for taking some time to be in one place and talk to us.

Mike: My pleasure.

Jimmy: So in your intro, we talked about why we people call you the mad scientist because you’ve been reading raving about the same thing for a long time. Chicken Little was screaming the sky was falling and eventually, the sky was falling.

Mike: Feels that way.

Jimmy: So what’s the thing. What’s your thing that you’re always talking about?

Mike: That’s a pretty simple thing which is that health is more than what we do in the health system. Keeping people healthy is of value, it’s why we exist as a profession. And unfortunately, we’re not doing it right. So if we’re willing to change a little bit, kind of go where the people are, we can make a major impact on health overall and really be a leader in the space.

Jimmy: Go where the people are. I mean when you say it, it sounds so simple, right? Why aren’t we doing that? Instead of setting up shop and saying, “Well, you come to me and then I’ll do whatever I’m doing and the world will be a path to your door.” But they’re not doing that, right? So you’re saying we have to go out there. So explain to somebody who hasn’t heard your rant or your rave. What is it?

Mike: Well, the 30-second rave is that you know that people don’t want to be plugged in the healthcare system. It’s not a great experience. It’s not what anyone wants. We have an incentive to stay away from people like us like just people, in general, want to stay away from people like us.

And the reason why is because that means you’re sick and ill. And we need to flip that on its head and we have to kind of go and bring that message out to people because they will not necessarily come and get it. We’ve trained the populace so well to wait until they’re sick to deal with the healthcare system.

Jimmy: “Sick care”

Mike: Yeah that’s right. And we’ve treated the providers well to do that to find diseases and trying to deal with them instead of saying, “Hey, how can I keep you healthy?”

Jimmy: It’s not sexy. It’s, you know, it’s very hard to prove and to show to someone: Hey, by doing A, we can prevent B from ever happening.

But we can do it with that big data, pushing for that APTA has got the outcomes registry. We’re starting to actually figure out, “Hey, all the stuff we write down in our notes, what if we leveraged it for information?” We like to say we’re evidence-based practice.

What are you doing with the stuff that you collect every time you have a patient interaction?

Now what can I do with it?

We bring in people who are all very, very good at it, statisticians people who geek out on that. Have at it, geek out and then we do. We were talking with Will Dieter and Andrew Guccione and they were talking about a project they’re working on and they kept saying big, big, big amounts of information, and we asked what was their N? 72,000. That’s a good size N.

Mike: N equals all.

Jimmy: So are some ways people can find out more information about what you do and your rant rave and how they can get there how they can help row the boat in the same direction.

Mike: Yes, certainly. So, we’re in the process of building community, you know, sort of, find your tribe and you jump in the boat. aphpt.org is our little organization. It’s part of a nonprofit that I that I helped set up: Academy of Prevention Health Promotion Therapies dot org. And it’s really just a collaborative it’s a community of professionals getting together and really trying to figure that same thing out. How do we all kind of get on board and get this thing going in the right direction?

Jimmy: What’s the next step? You know what’s going to be the next thing that you’re aiming at. What’s your next goal with this big idea?

Mike: Well, a big part of it is we’ve got to be in the populations and people have to recognize our narrative, right. So, let’s change that narrative. We have to be getting people to understand that movement is a window into future health and that we are people who can kind of help them understand it.

And so that’s part of it. And the other part of it is we have to figure out ways and models to make this a career move. You have to be able to get paid. And that’s something that sounds bad when you’re in an altruistic profession, but at the end of the day, I mean we all want to practice something like this but you’ve got to keep the lights on, too. So, that’s important.

Jimmy: Why can’t we do both? It’s funny. Every time that reimbursements might go down, we say you have to close shop. I can’t afford to do this and then, somehow, you do.

So it wasn’t impossible. You just thought it was really, really, really, really hard. And then you did. So we can do that with this big idea. What else should people know? I’ll show the crowd here at CSM and listening worldwide through our socials of foxrehab.org and once the episode comes out: What’s something else they should keep in the back of their brain and make sure they do on a daily basis? Like, let’s say you’re practicing clinician somewhere in the U.S. What’s something you can do to help for that your goal on a daily basis?

Mike: Get in touch with your employer community. I mean that’s really what it is, employers. You know, we want to talk about health care as Medicare or we want to talk about health care as a problem socially, but you know, ultimately the employers are holding the bill for a lot of people. More Americans get their health benefits through their employer than anywhere else and employers need to understand that there is a method that you can keep costs in check or keep costs down, and we need to be a part of that conversation. So building those relationships and kind of cultivating them.

Jimmy: The big dance at the Big Easy: CSM. More than 17m000 physical therapists are on site here in New Orleans. Just getting in the vibe from the conference but then, of course, these conferences are always cool. And a good reason to come out: get that connection in the hallways with friends, making new friends, seeing people that you’re Twitter friends for the first time ever in real life. “You’re real! Oh my gosh, look, there he is!” How can people follow you on Twitter? what’s your handle?

Mike: Mike Eisenhart.

Jimmy: Keep it simple right. That’s smart. You got in early on the Mike Eisenhart game for Twitter.

Mike: There aren’t very many of us on Twitter.

Jimmy: Alright. The last thing I will ask you is are FOXtale. Why do you still do what you do? Why are you still so passionate about population health?

Mike: Because I’ve seen it firsthand. You know, I mean when you can look into someone’s eyes and know that you’ve had an impact on the trajectory of their life, it is a moving experience. And so you want to replicate that for as many people as you possibly can. And I just don’t think that we are going to do that one person at a time. We’ve got to be able to have like swaths of people. And so, I’ve seen a little bit of it and I kind of had a taste of it. I want more people to experience them both on the provider side and in the community.

Jimmy: I love that. Next time, we have you back on the show I want to hear more about them, I call it, BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This population health thing in the PT world is your BHAG. I want to hear more about it. Mike Eisenhart, I appreciate you taking some time out here in the Big Easy and coming on the show.

Mike: Anytime. Thanks for having me.

Jimmy: Thanks for listening to FOXcast, a clinically excellent podcast. It’s brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation. Listen to other episodes or read articles and position papers at foxrehab.org.