Even though Bunny Ellerin has built a career around bringing people and organizations together -- in fact she's known as "the most connected person in healthcare" -- she still gets apprehensive walking into a room full of business leaders she may not know. While acknowledging that networking is scary for many people, and seen as too transactional for others, she wants her students at Columbia Business School and people in healthcare professions to understand that it's not just about handing out business cards at events. Reaching out with an article recommendation or proactively connecting people who you think would benefit from knowing each other is also "networking". Check out this episode of Raise the Line to find out how, as co-founder and CEO of New York City Health Business Leaders, Ellerin has used this approach to spur innovation in healthcare and help build a thriving digital health scene in New York.
SHIV GAGLANI: Hi. I'm Shiv Gaglani. Today, on Raise the Line, I'm delighted to welcome Bunny Ellerin, director of the Healthcare Management Program at Columbia Business School and co-founder of New York City Health Business Leaders. But those titles really don't capture the magnitude of the influence that she's had as a driver of innovation in healthcare in New York and beyond.
In fact, she's known as “the most connected person in healthcare,” and she's played an important role in the success of Osmosis even in the few months I've known her. I wanted to shout out to the godfather of Osmosis, Peter Frishauf, who first connected Bunny and me, as well as note the fact that Bunny gave us a connection to Dr. Joe Habboushe at MDCalc and Osmosis now has a grant from the MDCalc team. For those reasons, we call Bunny “the nice aunt of Osmosis”. Bunny, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today.
BUNNY ELLERIN: It's great to be here, and I love being the aunt of Osmosis. Do you want to see the mug?
SHIV GAGLANI: Yes.
BUNNY ELLERIN: Here we go. This is the mug that you guys sent me, and I just love it. One, it's great to drink coffee out of it, but two, it just says so much about your organization, so thank you.
SHIV GAGLANI: Bunny, one other connection we share is that I attended Harvard Business School, as you did. While I was there, I went to a lot of events from the HBS Healthcare Association, and when you were there, you started the Healthcare Alumni Association. Can you tell us a bit more about your experience at HBS and how you got into healthcare in the first place?
BUNNY ELLERIN: How I got into healthcare literally was by accident. I was running, I had an injury, went to physical therapy, and I loved it. I loved the fact that you could go in broken and come out whole. As is my way, I just started talking to the owners of the practice. It was small, and one thing led to another. They brought me on as their marketing director, and then ultimately, I ended up managing their practice. What I learned from them was that healthcare was broken in many ways, or that healthcare at least needed a lot of management talent, a lot more than it had.
I applied to HBS, and I knew, going in, that I wanted to stay in healthcare, and that's what I've done for the past 25 years. I've been in healthcare that whole time. In terms of the HBS Healthcare Alumni Association, I started it two years after I graduated, or that's when the idea came to me. It came to me because at HBS at that time, healthcare wasn't on the agenda. It just wasn't something that people were interested in. This was 1995.
There were a small number of us who were interested in healthcare, so in order to get a job, I had to look through the alumni database, and that's when I saw the richness of healthcare in the alumni. In every single sector of healthcare, there were leaders from HBS. The whole range was there, and I thought, “This is silly that we don't connect. Why don't we connect?” That's what sort of motivated me to start this alumni association. There were many trials and tribulations that one had to overcome, especially in the mid-1990s.
When I tried to advocate for such an alumni association, alumni relations looked at me, and they laughed. They said, “Who would ever join this thing? Who's in healthcare?” So I cajoled and pushed, and lo and behold, 20 years later, it's one of the largest associations at HBS, and it's certainly the largest non-geographic, so there is a lot of healthcare at HBS.
SHIV GAGLANI: Yes. Even when I was attending, I was impressed. One reason I chose to go to HBS versus other business schools was because of how strong the healthcare group seemed, and in particular, their dedicated courses, as well as companies that aggressively or earnestly recruit from HBS, like DaVita. A lot of my section mates went over to that dialysis company.
What are some of the unique interactions you have had? I know you recently hosted a conversation with one of your section mates who is the CEO of Honeywell about how they worked on transitioning Honeywell to create personal protective equipment to, as we say, raise the line and increase healthcare capacity. I'd love to hear more about that as well as other interactions you've had with the alumni association that have stood out.
BUNNY ELLERIN: Sure. I've met so many amazing people over the years. It's just incredible, but you mentioned DaVita. Kent Thiry was the CEO of DaVita, and Kent was a major HBS alum. I worked for Kent in the mid-1990s in another company called Vivra, and 14 years later or so, there's an award that they named after me. It's called the Ellerin Alumni Association Award, which is cool, and I got to give it to Kent.
I will always remember that night because when I met Kent, it was the late 1990s. I distinctly remember we were on a retreat. I was young, new to the organization, and I sidled up to Kent and said “Hey, what do you think about if we had a healthcare alumni association at HBS?” He just looked at me with this face like, “Why? What's the point?” When I got to give him the award, 14 years later, I got to tell him -- there were like 200 people in the room, and his wife was sitting there -- I'm like, “Kent, here's the point.” That was a lot of fun.
You mentioned my section mate, Darius Adamczyk. I sat next to him at HBS. It's the HBS gods. They figured out who to put in each section and then where to put you, and I sat next to this guy. He was an engineer, always a very, very nice person. We became friends and all, then lo and behold, 20 years later, he becomes the CEO of a Fortune 100 company called Honeywell. You just never know where people are going to end up. So in my current role at Columbia Business School, where I deal with a lot of students, I always tell them “Absolutely don't dismiss anybody. Get to know everyone in your cluster. You just never know where people are going to end up, and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you weren't open to meeting and connecting with everyone,” so when I got to interview Darius a few weeks ago, it was tremendous because, to be honest, I was so impressed with his leadership. I tease him all the time, and I won't let him know that I was incredibly impressed with the kind of leader he is, and also what they did in terms of addressing COVID, in terms of retrofitting some operations, not only the PPE.
There are a lot of other things that they've been doing, but more so, he talked about what it was like to lead and certainly lead during a crisis. Also, he talked about ethics and his philosophy in the company against racism and the fact that he would never tolerate that. He brought that up, so frankly I've connected with people at Honeywell, not a ton, but it's very true that I always get that impression. It was really fun to do that.
SHIV GAGLANI: I love what you said earlier about treating everyone well. In fact, whenever somebody joins Osmosis, we ask them to go through a relationship-building workshop, which is all about the first question you should ask when you meet somebody: “How can you add value to their life? How can you make them happier?” One of our core six values is "Spread Joy"
And it's true because you never know where life will take you. Even the way we got connected— I mentioned Peter, but even before Peter, I read a New York Times article about this professor at UCSF who was doing Wikipedia editing as an elective for UCSF med students. I randomly emailed him, and we had a call when he was at a conference in South Carolina.
His name is Amin Azzam. He's become a very close friend and a teammate at Osmosis. He got to know Peter, and he was the one who tipped Peter off to what we're doing at Osmosis. This was five, six years ago, so there's a direct relationship between me reading a New York Times article and reaching out to that person, to Peter, to you and all of that. That's sort of, I think, a good lesson for anyone in general, but in healthcare, I think the power of social interaction is not talked about as much as in business school. However, it makes a big difference if you are a clinician who treats everyone around you with care and respect.
One theme that runs through your career is networking and relationship building, obviously with the HBS Alumni Association that we talked about, but then also starting the New York City Health Business Leaders. Is that sort of a similar story where you were in New York, you realized that there's so much healthcare talent, you wanted to bring them together? Can you talk a bit more about that organization and what you all focus on and do there?
BUNNY ELLERIN: Absolutely. It is a theme that runs throughout my life in terms of connecting people and networking. The term networking to me -- I get that's how people describe it -- but to me, that's so transactional and I consider what I've done to be community relationship building, I love that you have the training about “how can I help you?” That is 100% perfect because I've always believed that in order for all of us to succeed, we need to help each other.
In terms of New York, my co-founder is a doctor, Dr. Ang Ho. She was an emergency medicine doctor but also went to HBS. She didn't practice, but she was involved in businesses in New York, including her own, so we met through the HBS network initially. She and I were lamenting that New York is full of healthcare. Look at all of the top systems that we have, the most amazing doctors. At the time, I was in media, healthcare media.
New York City is absolutely the healthcare advertising, journal, and publishing capital of the world, but it also has pharma in and around it, and today it's got a ton of biotech. There was just so much richness that was being overlooked. We felt that there was a need to bring the community together because we wanted to— I think it was a little bit selfish, actually. We were missing being around smart people who really cared about healthcare, were passionate and wanted to learn about what was new, what were the trends because anybody who's been in healthcare for as long as I've been knows that healthcare is constantly changing. It has been on the precipice of revolution for 25 years, so at any point in time, there are many things that can be improved in healthcare, and that time was no different. We wanted to bring people together and see how we could expedite that and also showcase New York as a place where innovation happens. At the time, the digital health community was very small.
Peter Frishauf was one of the first people who embraced our idea as you would expect because Peter is such a visionary. When we told him, he just loved it. He was like the champion at the beginning. As the founder of Medscape, he was digital healthcare 1.0 in New York. When we started New York City Health Business Leaders, there were a handful of digital health companies. There were MedData, Zota, Crossix, which Peter helped found. There were Medscape and Web MD. There really wasn't a whole lot more, and 10 years later there are hundreds of companies now in New York. When you look at the biotech ecosystem, there was nothing, virtually nothing 10 years ago. Now there’s at least a hundred, if not more. We've been part of that. We're certainly not the only reason, but we've been part of it. What we did over the last ten years is connect people. Number one, you build a community, exactly like you said before, Shiv, which is, “How can you be helpful to somebody else?”, then they'll want to be helpful to you.
Basically, we've had many events with a lot of thought leadership. We publish an annual report on the venture capital or the innovation environment in New York city. When we were able to have live events, we brought people together and they loved them because there's networking, which is critical. In order for people to connect, they need to have a way to connect, and it's not really transactional. People like to come to our events because they're nice. We're fun. People have a good time. It's not just about handing out a business card.
We always have a panel or a discussion, and we try very hard to make it good information, quality information, not a commercial, and then we have more networking. Through that, so many different things have happened. There are people who have hired each other for companies, their funding has been distributed by people who met at these events, board seats were obtained. One company, which is now very successful, told us that they came to an event and as a result of what they learned, they actually pivoted. They changed their business model. That was exciting.
Basically, in a nutshell, it's about building a community and making sure that everyone in the community can benefit from each other. So my advice to people always is, “Don't cold call. Don't just email somebody and ask how they can help you. Offer them something first. Tell them what you like about what they have to say, then go from there.”
SHIV GAGLANI: Totally. I know you probably get cold called quite a bit, or at least random LinkedIn invitations coming your way, given your role, connecting people in the community, and I do too. I definitely notice the people who read something about what we've done, or they have an idea of how to improve Osmosis, or they took the time to personalize their message, and I'll take the time to reply. There are a lot of other people who are just very clearly cold calling.
You've seen a lot of change over the past 20, 25 years, but probably not much could compare to this past six months. You also are based in New York, as we talked about. I'd love to hear your take on what it has been like for you personally in New York during the COVID crisis. What do you see as being some of the lasting changes that are going to come out of this for healthcare?
BUNNY ELLERIN: Being in New York obviously was devastating for so many people. Personally, I live in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and camped out here. I live near a hospital, so I saw a little bit of it, but Manhattan, other parts of Brooklyn, Queens were very heavily affected. Your life changed overnight. Before that, you were going on the subway to work or wherever, and then you're not. You're not on the subway or not in your environment.
From my perspective, the response here from the frontline workers but also from the business community was really inspiring. I still can't believe just how much that many people endured, as well as how much they gave. What we did with New York City Health Business Leaders when COVID hit— first of all, it really impacted us because we do live events. But what we noticed was immediately so many webinars, so much online stuff, and we just did not want to add to the noise. We were very cognizant that we wanted to sit back a little bit, but then also help promote and connect the people who were closest to us. Within our network, every day, we did something called #NYCHBL leaders. We would profile a company or individual every day and talk about what they were doing. It was really inspiring how much effort people put into changing or adding to their offering, or giving it away for free.
There was one company that literally stopped making what they were making and changed to making respirators. It was really inspiring. We did that for a while. In late May, we decided we were going to start talking about what the COVID impact would be in New York City over the next six to 12 months, as things started to wind down. We do this annual report on healthcare innovation, and what we thought we would do is an interim, a midyear report on COVID and COVID’s impact, particularly on the digital health sector.
We fielded a survey, primary research, and we're going to publish that. It's going to come out right after Labor Day, but I've seen some of the advanced results, and New York is going to change very, very much. I sit here in late July, and I remember in May thinking, “Okay, in September, things will probably be back to normal.” I actually taught a class at Columbia this spring, and I taught it online, but I figured, “Yeah, we'll be back in September.” We're not going to be. Columbia, many schools will have a hybrid model. My son in high school. He'll have a quarter hybrid model. He only gets to go to school one day a week. Things are not going to return to what we consider normal soon, or maybe ever.
The fact that many people are able to work from home has really shown leaders that they don't necessarily need office space. Yes, human connection is important, and people will find ways to do it, but many people are not going to go back to having full offices. I can absolutely tell you that. People are investing in a lot more collaboration tools. Slack has been a star.
From the medical perspective, the past four months people say that more changed in two weeks, then in 10 years because a lot of regulations changed virtually overnight. The telehealth community has been advocating for years about your location for receiving care or who can receive care or even doctors being able to practice across state lines, and all that'll change. Telehealth, as I say, was the breakout star of COVID-19. It really is virtual health, where you don't always have to be seen in person.
That's going to be a big game changer and also be a game-changer for health systems, how they have to retrofit how they deliver care. As you know, more care is going to be delivered in the home. You're going to see remote patient monitoring activities, so those are some of the things that I know are going to change, and people in the industry are working on it for sure.
SHIV GAGLANI: Definitely. What are a couple of standout companies that you think our audience should be looking at, should be keeping a close tab on, especially given that our audience is mostly healthcare professionals and providers or future providers. Are there things that may impact their day to day, whether they become doctors on these telehealth platforms or some other things that you're looking at?
BUNNY ELLERIN: In New York, there's a company called K Health, which I'm a big fan of. They were very early in symptom monitoring with AI. Their CEO doesn't come from healthcare. Oftentimes, that's good. Sometimes, it's bad. In this case, it's good because he really looked at things in a very different way. They have relationships now with big payers, and they did a lot during COVID. I think that's a really interesting company.
On the behavioral health side, there are so many different companies that are starting. I think, behavioral health, again, something that we've talked about for so long, but now we see a lot more money put into that area. One company that I've worked with a lot that I really like is AbleTo. New York has a bunch of other companies. I think, from primary care or actually from a physician perspective, another company is called RubiconMD. Actually, the CEO went to HBS, Gil Addo. They are very, very interesting.
They help primary care doctors get specialty consults, and they're now providing a new offering around behavioral health because there are so few clinicians, whether it's psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers. Primary care doctors, as you know, they're the frontline. They often have to address these issues, and they're not well equipped, so they've put together a new offering that addresses that. In general, I think that's a good company for people to look at.
Then there's the recruiting company, Nomad Health. Alexi Nazem is an MD MBA and another HBS alum. He helps clinicians with job changes. That's a really good company. There are certainly more.
You can look at our website, https://www.nychbl.com/, and look for the 2020 New York City Healthcare Venture Capital Report. We have a lot of companies cited in there, and after Labor Day, we're coming out with this special report on COVID. We will have a bunch of companies there, too.
SHIV GAGLANI: That's awesome. We definitely should look at that and maybe link to it because as Wayne Gretzky says, “you want to be skating where the puck is headed, as opposed to where it is.” I think a lot of our audience are currently in training programs to be dentists, doctors, nurses and PA's and the types of work they'll be doing and the way they'll deliver that care is changing because of these companies like Nomad, Ro, and Hims & Hers, which is telehealth, as you know.
I think it's important for people who are interested in health not just to innovate in health, but people who will be practicing and providing healthcare to just understand where things are going so that they don't choose to go into specialties that may totally be automated away in five, 10, 15 years.
I know we're coming up on time. Are there things I missed that you wanted to be able to share with our audience? We didn't get into your work leading the Healthcare Management Program at Columbia. Is there anything else related to advice that you may give our audience of over 2 million healthcare professionals and students?
BUNNY ELLERIN: I've said before networking seems transactional, and often people are really nervous about it, and they're scared of it because they feel like, “Who's going to want to talk to me?” Well, you know what? I may be very connected, but I have the same issue. I go into a room if I don't know somebody, I get that too. I'm like, “Why would they want to talk to me?”, and I get nervous. Networking is about more than walking into a room. That's a skill that you can learn. But there are other ways to do it. Simply connecting with somebody - like if you see an article where you think somebody might benefit and send it to them, that's connecting.
If somebody comes to you with an issue and says, “Here's what I need. I need to meet so-and-so” -- if you're the connector, you've done something really good. You've helped them. That's networking. There are a lot of ways to develop your community, a lot of ways to build your network. Work is one of them, but don't consider it just happening through your job. Everybody has multiple networks. For people who have kids, you're going to connect with the parents. Most of them will work so people connect that way. It might be your church or synagogue. It might be your hobby, so think of it as a way to enrich yourself.
Don't think of it as a chore because really, as we know, it's not what you know. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's what you know, and I hope more often, it's what you know, but many times it's who you know, who you're friends with and who your colleagues are because they'll think of you. I was thinking the other day that people always say, “This person was the absolute best person for this job.” Okay. That may be true, but there's no best person for any job. It was the person who, in that coterie of applicants and interviewees was the best of that pool. So remember that if you're not getting yourself out there and you're not connecting with people in whatever way you want to, you're doing a disservice to yourself and to your career.
SHIV GAGLANI: That's great advice and again, something I hope that more current and future health professionals come to learn. The two takeaways I have from this conversation for them are to inform themselves of some of these innovative digital health companies that are going to change the practice of what they'll be doing in five, 10, 15 years, or even sooner than that. The second is that networking isn't a bad word. It isn't just for business school students. It's also for healthcare professionals.
The reason is, again, the amount of time you will spend with your employer may change. You may go join Nomad, for instance, and decide to work at multiple places as a locum. The other aspect of it is I think more importantly than ever, it's important to form those connections and build a community because the act of community building, relationship building, requires you to find common ground with somebody, whether it's a hobby, as you said, or a place you worked or people you know. Especially in this divisive and really stressful time we live in, being able to look for the good and find common ground between each other is worth it in and off itself.
BUNNY ELLERIN: One hundred percent.
SHIV GAGLANI: Awesome, Bunny. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today. I really appreciate your advice and the back story of the HBS Healthcare Alumni Association and NYC Health Business Leaders.
BUNNY ELLERIN: Well, thank you. It's been a real pleasure.
SHIV GAGLANI: With that, I'm Shiv Gaglani. Thanks for checking out today's show, and remember to do your part to flatten the curve and raise the line. We're all in this together.