David W. Johnson

Expertise: Market-driven health reform

Dave is the CEO and founder of 4Sight Health, a healthcare boutique specializing in thought capital, strategic advisory services and venture investing.  4Sight Health operates at the intersection of healthcare economics, strategy and capital formation. The company’s four-stage analytic (Assess. Align. Adapt. Advance.) reflects the bottom-up, evolutionary character of disruptive, market-driven reform.  Mr. Johnson speaks frequently, authors a widely-read blog on market-driven healthcare reform and is currently writing Market versus Medicine: America’s Battle for Better Healthcare at Lower Prices that will publish in 2015.

During his 28-year investment-banking career, Mr. Johnson lead managed over $30 billion in healthcare revenue bonds, led significant strategic advisory engagements and advanced capital formation, asset-liability management, enterprise risk analytics and new business-model development for his large health system clients.  Dave’s expertise encompasses health policy, academic medicine, economics, statistics, behavioral finance, disruptive innovation, organizational change and complexity theory.

Mr. Johnson holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in English Literature from Colgate University and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University.  Dave was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa and a United States Presidential Management Intern.  His civic and professional affiliations have included Harvard Medical School (Visiting Committee); the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (Board, Executive and Finance Committees); the University of Chicago (Harris School of Public Policy’s Visiting Committee and Student Engagement Sub-Committee Chair); the Health Management Academy; Harvard School of Public Health (occasional lecturer); CHRISTUS Health (Audit Committee); the British-American Project (U.S. Chair); and Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Center (Finance Committee Chair).

Dave enjoys reading, travelling and has run ten marathons.

While media attention focuses on the white-hot politics of Obamacare, private-market activity (e.g. Walmart’s desire to be the country’s largest primary care provider) is reshaping American healthcare in fundamental ways that will result in better care, lower prices and increased customer convenience.
Hits:

declining rate of U.S. healthcare spending

Misses:

current prolonged period of low long-term fixed interest rates

What I Learned:

U.S. healthcare is too expensive, too fragmented, too variable, asset-heavy, over-invested in acute/specialty care and under-invested in prevention, primary care, behavioral health, chronic disease management and health promotion. I’ve launched 4Sight Health to spotlight and assist companies delivering better healthcare at lower prices. 

American healthcare will advance by responding to customers’ needs, delivering superior outcomes and cutting waste. By focusing on value creation, private health companies will lead the transformation.
 

U.S. government whiffs on 10-year health expenditure forecast
Despite the high drama and intense media attention, Supreme Court versus Obamacare II is a sideshow. The main event remains how market forces are reshaping fundamental supply-demand relationships in healthcare delivery.
In this article, David explains how asymmetric information exchange between providers and patients contributes to medical errors, customer frustration, over and under-treatment in U.S. healthcare industry.
Many believe Big Data’s capabilities will transform healthcare and they’re probably right. Big Data’s ability to remake industries is awe-inspiring. Big Data’s enthusiasts, however, often lose sight of this basic truth: data analytics are nothing more than a performance improvement tool. All data has noise. Big Data generates sonic booms. Big Data cannot transform healthcare until health companies get “Little Data” right.
Market vs. Medicine goes beyond diagnosis to consider how sustaining and disruptive innovation will make U.S. healthcare better at diagnosing and treating illness while developing care management capabilities that promote prevention, behavioral health and chronic disease management. In the epic battle underway, market-driven reform, more than regulatory change, will transform and improve America’s broken healthcare system.

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Expert Information

Expertise

Market-driven health reform

Location

Chicago

Experience

Current Experience

CEO and founder of 4Sight Health

Past Experience

  • Managing Director, BMO Financial Group

Education

  • Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University
  • Bachelors of Arts degree in English Literature from Colgate University