Scaling Technology To Achieve Longer Life Expectancy, Lower Mortality, Improve Patient Experience and Lower Cost with Lawrence Hamilton of The Permanente Medical Group

Lawrence Hamilton, Executive Vice President of Performance of The Permanente Medical Group, Inc., joins the show to discuss how healthcare systems can improve outcomes without losing the human element of care. 

He shares how Kaiser Permanente’s integrated model delivers longer life expectancy, lower mortality and high patient satisfaction at lower cost. He also explains why digitizing broken systems creates risk, how incentives shape outcomes and where technology helps or hurts clinicians. The conversation explores health equity as a core performance metric, the challenge of scaling personal care and why meaningful leadership requires taking on work where failure is possible.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Introduction.

04:36 Purposeful work should feed both the heart and the mind.​

09:00 Patient stories are critical for reconnecting teams to impact.​

13:00 High-reliability systems must still enable personal, intimate care.​

19:00 A clear vocation in healthcare can emerge from lived experience.​

24:32 Career choices are strongest when aligned with family priorities.​

31:20 Walking away from misaligned roles is a real leadership agency.​

33:56 Leaders grow most by tackling problems where failure is possible.​

41:04 Reducing mortality and closing equity gaps defines future success.​

43:12 Technology and new models can improve affordability without tradeoffs.​

54:16 Fragmented innovation must be integrated to lift population health.

Resources Mentioned:

The Permanente Medical Group Inc. website

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