David O'Donnell: Cardiology Innovation

Let's meet an inspiring cardiology leader. I'm Kate Save. The Inspired CEO starts now. Welcome to the Inspired CEO, where each episode we explore the innovative wellness practices that are driving success and longevity in the modern business world. In this episode we sit down with a visionary CEO, spearheading innovation in cardiology. Joining me now is David O'Donnell, founder and CEO of Adbarra Heartcare. Thank you David. No problems, good to be here. Well tell me, what inspired you to get into cardiology? Look it's a really interesting question and a lot of my colleagues and friends come up with great answers for what inspired them to get into healthcare. Mine's a little more basic. I've always been fascinated by the human body, fascinated by physiology, how things work. So getting into medicine is actually a really easy choice for me. Once you're in medicine, there's lots of avenues you can go down and for me cardiology had the opportunity to use your intellect to diagnose problems. Yes. You get to use your hands to operate. Yes. And you're also a psychologist. You're working with patients to manage their health. So I often wonder why anyone would do anything but cardiology. It seems like the fascinating thing, a combination of everything you could possibly want in a career. And such a critical organ in the body. Absolutely. I often say we've got the intellect of physician, the hand skills of a surgeon, but you've also got to be an emergency doctor because people's hearts stop. So it can be pretty dramatic at times as well. That's a lot of training to get through to where you are now. What did that journey look like for you? It's one of those things and it's interesting with the Olympics being on now. It almost feels like you're preparing for the Olympics. It's a multi-year program. And my training was partly in Australia, partly overseas. I was very fortunate. It came at a time when things were changing at dramatic rates. So I spent a lot of time in Europe learning some of the newer techniques around heart surgery and came back to Australia and got to practice them. So it's a long journey. Yeah. You start uni at 18, probably in your mid 30s by the time you're ready to go as a cardiologist. So you've really got to love what you do to keep going because it's not months. It's many, many years and decades in. Look again, I've got two young kids and they say, "Do you want your kids to do medicine?" I say, "You should never want anyone to do medicine." If you want to get into healthcare and you know this, you only get into healthcare if you're passionate about it. If you're not passionate about it the long hours, the phone calls that's running the morning, they're going to drain on you after a while. So if you're passionate about healthcare, you know, it's the best thing in the world to do. You're in a really privileged position in someone's life where you're actually impacting on their outcomes. And that's an enormous privilege. But unless you're passionate about it, it's not something you're going to want to do. So what is your primary goal? It's the CEO of Advarra Heart Care. How do you envision that you can change lives? And what keeps you really pushing every day and growing? Look, it's a really interesting question that we set up our business some time ago with the priority of improving Australia's heart health. Yes. I often tell people, your company should always start with a really powerful vision. Now if improving Australia's heart health doesn't appeal to you, then you're not the kind of person I want to work with. Yeah, if you're going to work for something improving Australia's heart health is about as good as it gets. So I think we're in an enormous position of privilege that we can do that. But that comes in obligation. And it's the obligation to inspire people to change what they do around their heart health is what really drives me. That's an interesting comment too because I think just telling people what to do for heart health isn't going to achieve anything at all. You have to motivate and inspire them. And how do you do that? And how do you lead your team to do that? Look again, I can tell you this is as a cardiologist, which I'm only now on a Friday. But as a cardiologist, I often said that the number one skill is not how well you put the stent in. It's not how well you put the postmaker in. It's not even how well you prescribe the drug. It's getting the patient to buy in to their health. Because if a patient buys into their health, if they become engaged in what's important to them, they'll take the medication. And in fact, we should be judged on how compliant our patients are with their healthcare needs. Rather than being judged on how well we prescribe something, we should be judged on how well that is actually taken and the compliance is really vital to me. So that's part of what we've done as an organization is trying to emphasize quality outcomes. Not emphasize procedures, not emphasize volumes, but emphasize quality outcomes. And every doctor in our network has their quality outcomes measured. And we're incredibly proud of that. If you see an advarra cardiologist, you know he has world's best outcomes because we measure them. And we measure them, we analyze them and we report them back to our cardiologists so that all of our cardiologists know and it's well known in psychology that if you measure something, you improve it. But if you also provide the feedback and education and training, you improve it even more. So I'm really passionate about the fact that it can be confusing. Which cardiologist should you see? Which specialist should you see? Yeah. And a lot of people don't like to publish their results. We're very proud of our results. So we're very happy to publish our results and tell people that we're going to work with you to improve your healthcare. And that is flipping medicine on its head a little bit too. That you're trying to get the patient to own their health rather than the doctor telling the patient, this is what you do and I will control your health. You're getting them to own their health and taking them on that journey and supporting them. What are the innovations if you've got your organisation and where is the heart health of Australia? How far are we on this journey? So look again I'm, where is Australia's heart health that's pretty poor? Where one of the countries with the highest rate of heart disease and that relates to all of the factors that the cause heart disease and there's been long list. Yes. But the fear that are really relevant in Australia, obesity, lack of exercise, diabetes, high cholesterol, poor diet, processed foods, there's a lot of things that go in there. When I was training as a cardiologist, the focus was all on, do the operation as well as you can. So everything was focused on the operation and that is incredibly important. But most cardiologists are pretty good at that bit. What's really important is that before care and the after care and what I'm passionate about is how we actually deliver better after care of patients. And I can't do all of that. No. You know my job is to actually get the process in place and then to use the right people to facilitate that using exercise physiology, using dietitians and nutritionists, encouraging people to manage their mental health. All of these things have a powerful impact and it is a team sport. For many years doctors thought they were playing the solo. It's a team sport. We're part of a team that manages the patient's health care. We won't get too much into politics, but you know the Australian health care system isn't really set up for that team care approach and that's why you need these innovative models that allows to pursue that. Very interesting you say that too because when I think about health care in Australia, it is that example of people at the top of the cliff and the ambulance waiting at the bottom to catch them and nothing in between that we should be stopping people falling off the top of that cliff and that is something that advara heart care is addressing. So what are you doing in prevention or management prior to heart events? Look again you're spot on far too often I'm seeing someone for the first time when they've blocked their artery. I'm seeing someone for the first time when their heart's gone out of rhythm. Now in retrospect it's the 10 years leading up to that is where you can have a really powerful impact. It's getting the patient at the right time on the right treatment and the right lifestyle measures. Now that takes a concerted effort to figure out who are the at-risk patients. This is not screening. Screening is a slightly different problem. This is identifying elevated risk patients. If you can identify some people are at elevated risk and manage them, you have a profound impact. We all know that smoking's bad for you. Yes. And we know the longest smoke for the worst it is. Yes. We haven't quite got that with cholesterol and diabetes yet. You know, having high cholesterol at 40, your risk of heart attack might not be in the next six months or the next five years but it's definitely over the next 30 years. So let's get to these people when they're young enough that actually having this effect on their cholesterol, having the effect on their diabetes, having the effect on exercise. If you do all of that at an early enough age we're going to prevent significant amounts of heart disease later in life. It's interesting you say that because I lost a colleague a few years ago who had a heart event in the end but he'd had diabetes for 20 years and his GP had said to him, "When he was 40, these are the things you need to do, otherwise this is where you end up." And he said to me before he died, he'd had multiple amputations by that stage that he wished he listened to his doctor earlier. What if you heard patients say after that first heart attack? Is there something that you surely hear these stories all the time? Look again, I wonder if it's something that you and I have also said to ourselves at times, we're just too busy. Often hear people that are too busy, they don't prioritize their health. We're all busy and there are things that get put to one side but managing your health is not one of those things that should be put to one side. We know there's a lot of things that contribute to poor heart health sitting. We shall be using standing desks that we all have standing desks. No, not everyone does have standing desks. Why? I just haven't got random to doing it. We know we should go for a walk at lunchtime. Why don't we always a bit busy? So I didn't do my lunch at walk time. It's really actually saying I'm going to prioritize my health. No one, this is not patients that I've heard, but these patients I've heard, but it's also well known that no one at the end of their life says I wish I'd worked a bit harder. No one at the end of their life says I wish I'd done a few more hours on that job. I wish I'd spent more time with family. I wish I'd travel a bit more. Well they are my next two questions. How do you manage your balance with your family and your work life? And what do you do for your own health? - Look, again, you've hit me at a good week 'cause once every three months, my wife's actually out of town and it happens to me this week. So I'm really juggling she owns her own business as well. So this week, it's all of the kids driving around falls to me. Yeah, there's a few things that I say. I think balance, balance is different for everyone. - Yes. - You know, I'm not the kind of person that needs to sleep in on a sat-day morning till lunchtime. I'm not someone that needs to finish work at five o'clock and not turn my phone on till eight o'clock the next morning. I'm passionate about what I do. So balance for me is making sure I can fit everything in my week. - Yes. - But it doesn't mean I'm sitting on the couch at five o'clock watching TV. I think that one of the keys for me is actually starting each week with a pretty structured plan. It sounds boring, it sounds easy. But you know, Tasha and I sit down on a Sunday night and we work out who's dropping the kids away. What I want to do is I want to do as much work as I can in a week. But I want to make sure I'm getting my exercise. I want to make sure I get to at least have one game of basketball with Jade. And I stand in a soccer goal or Janna kicks balls past me with Janna. And I now actually coach the under 12 soccer team by default because to no one else would do it. But these are all the things, these are all things I want to fit in my life. So I make a decision, I'm going to fit these things into my life. - Yes. - And once you make the decision, you're going to fit them in, you fit them in. So true, and it is that prioritising. But the way that you've done it is very clever. You've got the fitness and the sport with the children. So you've made a commitment that's not only good for your health and their health, but it also gives you that family time that a lot of people sacrifice. - And you know, it's the mental health benefit that comes with it's enormous as well. I'm a real believer in, if you're doing something, do it 100%. So when I'm at the park playing basketball, the kicking the soccer ball, the phone's not in my pocket. - That's right. - The phone's in the car. It's 100% focused on that time on what I'm doing. And the mental health benefits of that, are additional to the physical benefits of it. - And if you had one thing that you think is absolutely, part of your success, what is it with your routine that you would never give up? - So I'm a swimmer. - Ah. - And swimming is magnificent as a cardiologist and as a CEO because phones are not yet properly waterproof. So the thing that I enjoy most is jumping out in the ocean. - Yes. - It's a little cold from Melbourne as well. It's a little cold in the bay right now. So I'm in the pool over winter, but over summer it's in the ocean. That's my one hour. I try and do that with a group of masters at the moment. We swim from 5.45 to 6.45 each morning. - Fantastic. - Get dressed, have breakfast, into work, get by e-mails for the day. And that's my time. Is that early morning before anyone else gets to work? It's a focus for me. And that's Monday, Tuesday, Thursday because Wednesday and Friday attack the kids to school. So it's actually getting that balance, but it's pretty specifying how you're going to do it. - Incredible. It's so great to hear about your lifestyle and how you manage it. And I guess the things you won't compromise on because it's what's got you to where you are today and what a fantastic role model you are to your children as well. So thank you so much for sharing with us today. - Thank you. - This is Ticca, we'll be right back.