Kris Ehresmann, MPH, RN

Director, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control | MDH

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Challenges: There is sometimes a lack of focus on preventing disease and more of a focus on detecting and treating diseases, especially infectious diseases. All aspects are important, but we can do so much to help people if we focus on prevention efforts, such as vaccination. The decline in trust in science has led to more vaccine hesitancy, which makes promoting prevention even more difficult.

Strategies: We know people still trust their health care providers, so we are working to arm them with information to help address patients’ concerns around things like vaccination. We are also working to share more stories about the power of prevention because we know those stories resonate so much more than data.

Paul F. Erickson, MD, MPH, FAAFP

Medical Director | NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center

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Challenges: Quality, access, and payment models are three big challenges. The social, political, and contextual aspects of health are beyond the scope of health care organizations. Accessing health care services is also critical, and equal access to affordable care is essential. Payment models are evolving towards value-based care that rewards outcomes rather than a piecemeal fee-for-service model. Yet the dollar still drives health care.

Strategies: At NorthPoint, we provide services to assist patients and partner with community resources to address the social, political, and contextual determinants of health. Addressing inequities in these determinants of health is critical to ensuring the best health possible for all members of our communities.

Randy Farrow, MBA

CEO | Mankato Clinic

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Challenges: COVID-19 has challenged the delivery of safe, effective, and accessible care, and has heightened awareness of the health impacts of racial and social inequities. Its devastating economic impact will further strain federal and state health care budgets and increase pressure to restructure how health care providers are reimbursed.

Strategies: We moved swiftly to establish respiratory clinics and implement telemedicine, and will maintain and expand these approaches. To address racial and social health disparities, we are building on our patient navigation programs to help patients access the resources they need in our clinic and community. We will continue to make infrastructure investments that support improved value for our patients as budgets tighten.

John R. Finnegan Jr.

Dean and Professor | University of Minnesota School of Public Health

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Challenges: Chronic underfunding of public health causes compounding effects. During COVID, underfunding preparedness, prevention and health promotion flooded the health system with patients beyond its capacity. Implications for delaying chronic disease prevention and treatment include mortality and morbidity increases and negative impacts on the economy and trust in institutions. Underfunding also leaves inadequate resources to address the impacts of racism and climate change on our health. A serious reset of the system is needed to remedy the cycle described as “neglect, panic, repeat.”

Strategies: We train leaders in public health and healthcare administration and provide the knowledge and research policymakers need to make decisions about population health. It is up to the people to urge their representatives to fund public health for the challenges ahead.

Cindy Firkins Smith, MD, MHCI

Co-CEO | Carris Health

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Challenges: Health care delivery is changing at a frenetic pace.  Driving this change demands balancing urgency with inertia, bold vision with economic realities, and optimism with fear. We must “think forward” and ask, “how we can transform health care into something better, rather than slap a Band-Aid on a system that is failing so many people?” To truly innovate, we must get people to think, work, and act differently than they have in the past.

Strategies: We have committed to adaptive change: collaborating instead of competing, innovating in team-based care, changing decades of ingrained processes, adopting different reimbursement models, designing compensation and incentive structures to drive desired outcomes, and embracing the technology that we need to succeed.

Vivi-Ann Fischer, DC

Chief Clinical Officer | Fulcrum Health

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Challenges: Rising health care costs and opioid overuse are top issues. In a Gallup poll, 78% of U.S. adults preferred nonpharmacological treatment for back and neck pain before considering pharmaceutical options. Healthcare expenditures may be lower for those who seek care from conservative care professionals. 80% of adults experience low-back pain at some point in their lifetimes.  This experience can be treated, in most cases, with nonpharmacological conservative care.

Strategies: To educate patients to utilize therapies that have the dual benefit of being non-addictive and cost-effective. To do that, we work with health plans to remove access barriers to drug-free care like chiropractic and acupuncture.  We assist patients with the daunting task of finding the most appropriate clinician to treat and manage their pain.

Kristine Fortman, PhD

CEO | Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation

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Challenges: From a research lens, there is heavy demand on the health system. Greater challenges exist to provide care and continue research, and we are recalibrating. While COVID-19 is an important focus, there remains a strong need—and commitment from our passionate researchers—to continue momentum across cardiovascular research.

Strategies: We are leveraging new ways of working. Our team has figured out how to work digitally (leveraging technology), collaborate more than ever before, and share challenges with our partners (industry, hospital, physicians and care providers, etc.). Our solutions-oriented approach is leveraging collective areas of expertise in new ways to address challenges and identify opportunities as our environment changes.

Daniel Frye, MHA

Bemidji Area Director | Indian Health Service, DHS

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Challenges: Electronic Health Records are notorious for not speaking to each other. There is also a lack of formal communication between health care systems. In many cases, we don’t have a particularly good system of handing off patients as they transition through v arious stages of care.

Strategies: Our mission is to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level. Our strategic plan is to ensure that comprehensive, culturally appropriate personal and public health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people; promote excellence and quality through innovation of the Indian health system; and strengthen IHS program management and operations.

Bobbie S. Gostout, MD

President | Mayo Clinic Health System

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Challenges: Connecting is the major challenge: connecting patients with resources; knowledge with patients and providers; volumes of diagnostic information with care teams; and patients in greatest need with cures and care. We also struggle to support the healing relationships that people need. We must accelerate the connection with innovators to build more patient- and provider-friendly systems, discover new cures, reduce side effects of treatment, and prevent chronic diseases.

Strategies: We monitor COVID patients at home to detect and respond to concerning trends. Remote connectivity between experts in Rochester and providers caring for patients in Mayo facilities are revolutionizing the care in small and mid-size Minnesota communities. our core Mayo values demand that we continue to find solutions.