Dr. Blake Hendrickson, Program Director for Master of Healthcare, Administration Professor at Austin Peay State University and Program

In this episode, Dr. Blake Hendrickson, Program Director for Master of Healthcare, Administration Professor at Austin Peay State University and Program, shares his journey from a high-pressure healthcare executive role to academia. He dives into pressing topics like rural healthcare access, the impact of AI, and how future leaders can shape a more efficient, compassionate system.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast.
Thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant
leader and teacher.
We're joined today by Blake Hendrickson,
and Blake's gonna tell us where he's focused
today, what's going on, what trends he's watching,
and a lot more.
Blake, can you take a moment and tell
us a little bit about yourself first and

(00:21):
about what you do, then we'll talk about
what Trent you're watching, what you're most focused
and excited about.
Sure. Well, it's good to be with you,
Scott. I think it's been about a little
over three years, so
happy to do this again.
Before
I got into teaching, I was in health
care with
the HCA's, community health systems,
AdventHealth,
and several consulting companies for over twenty five

(00:44):
years.
Didn't really have a retirement plan, so to
speak, what I was gonna do, but I
started one night, I remember getting home, and
I had met with
doctors on their contract negotiations early in the
morning and then trying to buy a physician
practice at night.
And I came home and said, you know,
this stress

(01:04):
is too much. I think I'd rather teach
it.
So went back and got my PhD,
in my fifties,
and, have been teaching now for five years
as a program director for our masters of
health care administration. So, hopefully, I can pass
on to students what we've what I've my
experience.
How amazing is that to go back and

(01:24):
do your PhD in your fifties? Was that
very stressful? What was that like to go
back and do your PhD?
Were you with lots of people that, like,
I'm you know, at least that old. So
I don't wanna say exactly age, but at
least that old. So the concept is that
going back to study and read and write
like that, in some ways, a great joy.
In some ways, oh my god. All these
younger people are so smart.
How did that feel to go back and

(01:46):
do that?
Yeah. It was
stressful, especially because I did not stop working.
I was still working
for community health systems at the time,
probably sixty hours a week at least. You
know? Sort of when you're in administrative positions,
you're always on call.
As far and then the program was mainly
online,
but, yeah, there was a lot of younger

(02:07):
students there.
And it was sort of stressful, for sure.
Took me a little longer than it should
have. And when I got down to doing
my dissertation,
that took way too long.
But,
you know, it was worth it, because I
the stress level is different
at at a university.
It's still there, but it's not as
intense

(02:28):
on on a daily basis. So I'm gonna
enjoy the heck out of what I'm doing.
Isn't that fantastic?
What are you most folks focused on and
excited about this year?
Boy, that's
a oh, I'm not sure where to start.
I I'm sure you've talked to a lot
of people about AI, and I of course,
that just jumps off the page.
I would be mainly watching how it's gonna

(02:50):
look like and the responsible use of that.
That's one thing.
I think,
another is how we are seeing the increasing
concentration of health care moving to urban areas.
And we and what's that continue
continuing rural migration gonna do to health care?
How are we gonna cover those rural areas?

(03:10):
So And talk about that in the rural
areas. This is a brutal situation because
if you don't have health care in the
rural areas, people can't keep on living in
the rural areas. It does a real just
real
discouragement to doing so. At the same time,
you can't get enough health care out in
the rural areas because there's not enough money
and business out there to take care of
people. So how does this get better, or

(03:31):
what do we do about it?
Well, I think that,
you know, there's a couple of possible solutions.
And I one of my classes, we brainstormed
this very thing
for the last month. And,
some of their ideas were good, and some
were probably controversial,
like bigger bonuses from the government to go
be a provider in those areas.

(03:51):
One thing that AI is gonna help us
do
is we're gonna be able in fact, it's
already happening some places, you know, with remote
hospitals.
So I think that we're gonna see more
and more
artificial intelligence used to help those people in
the rural areas. You know, the Internet of
things
or IoT, I
guess, has a lot of advantages

(04:12):
where they can work with patients
individually
from afar,
prescribe medications,
you know, actually even visit with them as
a companion
if they need to.
That is a very interesting thing, and, also,
it's it's actually a thing I was gonna
mention next anyway. But I think, you know,
with virtual hospitals and the remote approach to

(04:32):
health care management,
we can
deliver to the rural areas. It's just not
gonna be easy. Right?
But a %. I mean, challenging,
but could be done,
and people are gonna have to have remote
local health care for the most urgent things,
stroke care, lots of other things.
But the dirth of labor and delivery in

(04:52):
rural areas is daunting, though, isn't it? Yeah.
It is.
Yeah. Yes. It it is. And I you
know, I think we will we will see
the larger health care corporations,
like HCA, which is just a couple of
miles from me.
They they're talking about leading the way in
doing some of this because they do have
while they're definitely, you know, for profit, and

(05:14):
they work that way, they also have a
have always had a keen interest in community
and helping the health care world in The
United States solve some issues.
So once ACA does that, if they're the
first, I think we'll see other systems follow.
And whether that's in those bonuses, which I
don't really think
that I would support probably unless it was,

(05:35):
you know, done in such a way that
we could all agree on it. But it
it, you know, in a in a time
of trying to cut,
inefficiency,
I'm not sure that would happen. But I
do think we can make it work with
the remote
providers
and virtual hospitals. At least to help a
great deal,

(05:56):
what else in your class like, what are
the top subjects that people are talking about
in your class or in the health care
administration program today? What what do people
what what topics are are top of mind?
So I would say the most top of
mind is,
and we talk about it in terms of
health care two point o to health care
three point o.

(06:17):
And basically means from the way we treat
people today is more of a treatment,
And health care three point o is, you
know, prevention, and we hear a lot about
that. Conteres medicine has been around for twenty,
thirty years,
but now it's really almost gonna become necessary.
We've got to, start treating the patient. We

(06:38):
gotta worry about health span
and not lifespan.
Peter Tittle wrote a great book that talks
about that.
Health span is, you know, basically
having more years of quality life,
not just measured by lifespan, just how long
you're expected to live.
So we talk about that a lot.

(06:58):
And, actually,
classes make presentations,
how we should get there. And some of
them are very, very different. Some of them
are very good. We've actually entered a couple
of competitions.
So,
I that's that's probably the most top of
mind.
Some of the things have been brought up
by that. I'll I'll mention one thing, especially,
As they have dug into hospitals, especially,

(07:20):
they've talked about,
the unnecessary
pre authorization price process
and
how many claims get denied.
It's about 15 to 20%
of Medicare claims get denied.
And
if you appeal those, 75%
of them are overturned.

(07:40):
So Mark Green, a congressman, actually introduced the
law, I think, 2022,
late '20 '2, to make sure it's a
physician deciding and not a bureaucrat.
So maybe I'm cutting my own throat there.
But,
you know, it's called the reducing medically unnecessary
delays in care act. And it's still on
the floor and has not been voted on
yet.

(08:01):
Yeah. No. It's hard because there's only so
many resources to go around as your point.
It was mentioned a few moments ago, like,
when you talk about the bonus points and
so forth versus some of these other initiatives.
But the health span concept, the Peter Attia
book is brilliant in this concept. If you
live to 82,
how close to 82 are you relatively healthy
and still living a great life or the

(08:21):
life you wanna live versus so many people
that live to 90,
but their fitness is gone and their quality
of life goes down dramatically in their seventies,
and that's that's what we're trying to avoid.
Yeah. I mean, that's that's right. Yeah. I
do like his approach of what do you
wanna do in the last decade of your
life, and then we sort of work backwards
from there.
So

(08:42):
We're we're a huge fan. It so you
you've had this great career, and and what
a great transition from working professionally to teaching
professionally to to doing what you do. What
what advice do you have for emerging leaders?
What do you tell emerging leaders, emerging people
about about having these fulfilling and terrific careers?
So I think a few things.

(09:03):
I would say, you know, to I I
guess, first of all, good leadership never stops.
You have to continue to read, listen, engage,
keep abreast of the industry.
And,
because leadership is not a destination. It's a
journey, of course. And I also would make
sure they understand, like, the and I believe

(09:23):
this totally good leaders are made. They're not
born.
And
we have to engage. We have to collaborate
more.
And that has started, but we've got to
continue to do that at health care in
order to do things efficiently
and produce better quality care. The last thing
I would mention is from an old Stephen
Covey book, start with the end in mind.

(09:44):
Where do you wanna go and then go
from there? How do you get there? So
those are some of the things I would
tell somebody.
No. And I and I love the concept.
And this is so fascinating to take it
into the Peter Attia book. If you start
with the end in mind,
start with what do you wanna look like
at 80,
and you better take care of yourself and

(10:05):
not be running too many marathons in your
sixties if you want your knees to work
in your eighties. But you also better stay
active. It's to keep on moving and keep
on keep on keeping on if you wanna
be in that spot if we talk about
that particular thing starting with the end in
mind. You know? I
I see, you know, when, when a supervisor
gets a little upset with somebody and they're
a little too upset,

(10:25):
they better think about how that's gonna look
a year from now, a week from now,
five months from now with that person. Because
what's your real goal here? You wanna change
behavior in the moment, but you also don't
wanna so disenfranchise that person that they're disenfranchised
to become a negative force too.
Right. I mean, that that would be one
of the qualities of a leader is, you
know, the compassion and being able to work

(10:46):
with
situations like that for sure.
A %. It it Blake, it all is
always fantastic to get to visit with you.
Thank you so much for joining us, on
the Becker's Healthcare podcast. You're a terrific leader,
a terrific teacher. Thank you so much for
joining us. Thank you, Scott.