The Health Crossroad with Dr. Doug Elwood and Dr. Tom Elwood

Dr. Roy Meyer is a seasoned professional of the healthcare system, having spent over 35 years practicing cardiology and internal medicine for Kaiser. He initially earned his BA at Yale University in Art History before pursuing his medical degree at the University of Alabama Medical School. From there, he continued his training in Chicago before settling in the San Francisco area. Dr. Meyer has long been an athlete and an avid artist, spending much of his free time now playing golf and singing and songwriting performing live throughout various counties around San Francisco, where he raised his three sons and currently lives with his wife.

Matt Hall is CEO of Human Care Systems, which he started in 2008 to provide service and support to help clinicians and patients better manage complex diseases. Prior to starting Human Care Systems, Matt co-founded the Kerdan Group, a biopharma and life science consulting firm. Matt has also worked in venture capital and as a consultant at Bain & Company. He has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, South Africa, and the US. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Political Economy from Williams College.

Dr. Amy Nicole Nayar is an Advocacy & Outcomes Research Leader with a 15-year track record of successfully driving Market Access within the pharmaceutical industry. A passionate patient advocate, Amy Nicole has a natural ability to create patient access right treatment through a combination of persuasive data and win-win partnerships. Pfizer’s Patient Advocacy & Strategic Partnerships Network grew from 5 to 168 employees across 58 countries under her leadership. A published author in behavioral health, Dr Nayar is an advocate for empowering patients with digital platforms that improve adherence, and therefore, patient outcomes. Knowing that extrinsic motivators are short-lived, she is most enthusiastic about adherence programs that target intrinsic motivators for long-term behavior change. She is currently helping companies capitalize on the changes coming out of health reform and Health IT to empower better patient outcomes at lower cost. Dr Nayar is a licensed Pharmacist, with Undergraduate Studies and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of Michigan, and a Masters in Health Outcomes & Pharmacoeconomics from the University of Arizona. In this interview, Dr. Nayar provides personal reflections on how she got started in health outcomes and tremendous insights into patient-reported outcomes, the difference between indirect and direct costs to the system, leadership, and many other relevant topics.

This podcast is about music and its relationship to health. Music in one form or another is something that has been in existence for as long as when humans first inhabited the earth. Whether instrumental or vocal, music has served as a primary source of comfort, enjoyment, and inspiration for our species. The stirring power of national anthems provides just one example of the importance that music plays in affecting human emotions.

Katherine Milkman is an Assistant Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research relies heavily on "big data" to document various ways in which individuals systematically deviate from making optimal choices. Her work has paid particular attention to the question of what factors produce self-control failures (e.g., exercising too little or eating too much junk food) and how to reduce the incidence of such failures. Katherine has published in leading periodicals such as Management Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Psychological Science. She also is an Associate Editor for the Behavioral Economics Department at Management Science and a member of the Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Editorial Board. Her work has been featured by media outlets such as The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, BusinessWeek, The Economist, NPR, and Harvard Business Review. In 2011, Katherine was recognized as one of the top 40 business school professors under 40 by Poets and Quants, and in 2013 she was voted Wharton's "Iron Prof" by the school's MBA students. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in Operations Research and Financial Engineering and has a Ph.D. from Harvard University's joint program in Computer Science and Business. In this interview, Katherine discusses her research in temptation bundling, planning props, and commitment devices among other topics and their implications to improving health behavior.