Health Care Rounds

Hosted by Darwin Research Group

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Episodes

213

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-US

About the show

Smart conversations with the people moving health care forward. Health Care Rounds podcast brings together the leaders changing the future of health care and pharma, from how it's delivered and paid for, to where it's headed. Each episode goes deep on the decisions, innovations, and ideas reshaping the industry from the inside out. Hosted by John Marchica, CEO of Darwin Research Group and a longtime industry insider, every episode has one goal: leave you thinking differently than when you arrived.

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60 recent

August 13, 202625 min

Mailbag: Debunking Vaccines Myths

A few weeks ago we conducted a survey of Our Take readers that included both listeners to our podcast and those who don’t (the latter group, we assume, was interested enough to complete a survey). We asked for questions you would like John to answer, and we got some great ones, including today’s question about vaccines and the long-debunked link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorder. In this first mailbag episode, John reviews the evidence, calls out the "revised" CDC website, and provides his thoughts on the cost of misinformation and disinformation — and what to do about it. === References Gallup polling on trust: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx 2002 NEJM study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 2014 Vaccine study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X14006367 2015 JAMA study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2275444 2019 Annals study: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M18-2101 1998 Wakefield Lancet study (retracted). https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/fulltext CDC webpage on the history of measles: https://cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html CDC’s interactive page on measles cases and outbreaks: https://cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html CDC webpage on Autism and Vaccines: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html#toc Original CDC page on vaccines and autism, before the rewrite: https://www.restoredcdc.org/www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html Internet Wayback Machine instructions: Go to https://web.archive.org and search cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html, then pick a date before November 19, 2025. === 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Smart conversations with the people moving health care forward. Health Care Rounds podcast brings together the leaders changing the future of health care and pharma, from how it's delivered and paid for, to where it's headed. Each episode goes deep on the decisions, innovations, and ideas reshaping the industry from the inside out. Hosted by John Marchica, CEO of Darwin Research Group and a longtime industry insider, every episode has one goal: leave you thinking differently than when you arrived. === CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

August 7, 202642 min

Health Care's Affordability Crisis Is Getting Worse w/ Larry Levitt, CEO-Elect & EVP, KFF

Health care is 18% of U.S. GDP, the number one affordability concern for consumers, and the single biggest line item employers are trying to manage. Every major policy fight in American health care, at its core, comes down to money and who bears the cost. Larry Levitt, incoming CEO of KFF and one of the most trusted nonpartisan voices in health policy, joins host John Marchica to examine why value-based care has yet to deliver on its promise, and why a deepening public distrust in science and health institutions may be the most dangerous obstacle standing between the U.S. and any meaningful reform. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT LARRY LEVITT Larry Levitt is Executive Vice President for Health Policy at KFF, overseeing the organization's policy work on Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the health care marketplace, racial equity, women's health, and global health. He previously served as editor-in-chief of kaisernetwork.org and directed KFF's communications. In May 2026, KFF announced that Levitt will assume the role of CEO in January 2027, alongside Dr. Mollyann Brodie as President. Prior to joining KFF, Levitt served as a senior health policy adviser to the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, where he worked on the development of the Clinton Administration's Health Security Act and other health policy initiatives. Earlier in his career, he served as special assistant for health policy with California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, as a medical economist with Kaiser Permanente, and held several positions in Massachusetts state government. Levitt holds a bachelor's degree in economics from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Smart conversations with the people moving health care forward. Health Care Rounds podcast brings together the leaders changing the future of health care and pharma, from how it's delivered and paid for, to where it's headed. Each episode goes deep on the decisions, innovations, and ideas reshaping the industry from the inside out. Hosted by John Marchica, CEO of Darwin Research Group and a longtime industry insider, every episode has one goal: leave you thinking differently than when you arrived. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

July 24, 202638 min

Are We Measuring Health Care Quality All Wrong? w/ Dr. Rachel Werner, Professor of Medicine, UPenn

Decades of quality measurement programs were designed to make U.S. health care better. The evidence suggests they have, just not nearly as much as anyone hoped, and sometimes in ways that hurt the patients who needed help most. Dr. Rachel Werner, Professor of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, joins host John Marchica to examine why well-designed quality incentives so often produce unintended consequences, and why the long-term care system, despite years of reform attempts, remains structurally broken. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DR. RACHEL WERNER Dr. Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Management and Economics at the Wharton School. She also serves as a physician at the Philadelphia VA and is a Core Investigator with the VA HSR&D Center for Health Care Evaluation, Research, and Promotion. Over the past two decades, Dr. Werner has built a research program examining the effects of health care payment and related policies on care delivery. She has investigated the unintended consequences of quality improvement incentives and was among the first to recognize that public reporting of quality information may worsen racial disparities. Her work has been published in NEJM, JAMA, and Health Affairs, and she has served on advisory committees to state and federal government agencies and research foundations. Dr. Werner has received numerous awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the AFMR Outstanding Investigator Award. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and holds both her MD and PhD in Health Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Smart conversations with the people moving health care forward. Health Care Rounds podcast brings together the leaders changing the future of health care and pharma, from how it's delivered and paid for, to where it's headed. Each episode goes deep on the decisions, innovations, and ideas reshaping the industry from the inside out. Hosted by John Marchica, CEO of Darwin Research Group and a longtime industry insider, every episode has one goal: leave you thinking differently than when you arrived. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

July 17, 202626 min

The State of Value-Based Health Care w/ John Marchica, Darwin Research Group

After a year of interviews about value-based care, the same things keep coming up. Fee-for-service is still the problem. Payers want to pay less, providers want to bill more. And twenty years in, the people who helped build value-based care are grading it a C-minus. In his first solo episode, host John Marchica goes back through the transcripts and pulls out what guests agree on: the problems value-based care is trying to fix, the fixes they keep proposing — mandatory participation, full-risk capitation, payer-provider integration — how it's going so far, and where the real progress is likely to come from. Tell us how we're doing and take our survey here. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

July 10, 202657 min

Why Health Care Reform Keeps Falling Short w/ Dr. Elliott Fisher, Dartmouth Institute

Decades after the research that proved high-spending regions don't produce better care, and 20 years after the term "accountable care organization" was coined, the U.S. health care system still runs overwhelmingly on fee-for-service. The incentives haven't changed, and the results show it. Dr. Elliott Fisher, Professor of Health Policy at the Dartmouth Institute and the Geisel School of Medicine and the researcher who coined the term ACO, joins host John Marchica for a frank look at why value-based care has fallen short of its promise, and whether a public utility model for health care regulation might be the structural fix the system has been missing. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DR. ELLIOTT FISHER Elliott Fisher is former primary care physician and now Professor of Health Policy at the Dartmouth Institute and the Geisel School of Medicine. His early research revealed that US regions with higher Medicare spending did not achieve better quality or outcomes, revealing the magnitude of unnecessary care and providing evidence that universal insurance should be affordable. He worked with colleagues to develop the concept of Accountable Care Organizations and to achieve their inclusion in the Affordable Care Act. His current research and activism focuses on how to strengthen primary care, improve population health and make health care affordable for all. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

June 26, 202656 min

Inside the Rural Health Transformation Program w/ Dr. Tim Ferris, InterSystems

Rural hospitals in the U.S. have been closing at a steady pace for over 50 years, and the country now has one of the lowest rates of acute hospital beds per capita among OECD nations. A five-year, $50 billion federal program aims to slow the bleeding, but it may only be a stopgap. Dr. Tim Ferris, Vice President of the Health Care Practice at InterSystems and former National Director of Transformation for the NHS in England, joins host John Marchica to unpack the Rural Health Transformation Program, why value-based care models built for large health systems don't translate to rural America, and what lessons the U.S. can borrow from his time inside the NHS. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DR. TIM FERRIS Dr. Tim Ferris joined InterSystems in February 2026 as Vice President, Healthcare Practice. He brings decades of experience directing large-scale health care technology transformations and leading major physician organizations to drive better patient outcomes and enterprise efficiency. Prior to joining InterSystems, Dr. Ferris served as President of Health care at Red Cell Partners, a technology incubator and investment firm. Previously, he was the National Director of Transformation at England’s National Health Service (NHS), as well as CEO and Chair of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization and Senior Vice President for Population Health at Mass General Brigham. A recognized leader in health IT, Dr. Ferris’ advisory roles include multiple committees at the National Academy of Medicine and the health policy advisory board at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Ferris trained in medicine and public health at Harvard University and continues to lecture at Harvard Business School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

June 12, 202643 min

The Affordability Crisis Behind Value-Based Care w/ Dr. Michael Chernew, Harvard

U.S. health care spending keeps rising, quality scores keep climbing, and yet the care most Americans receive has barely improved. The measurement systems designed to drive better outcomes may be making things worse. Dr. Michael Chernew, Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and former Chair of MedPAC, joins host John Marchica to examine why decades of quality measurement have failed to move the needle on actual care quality, and whether value-based payment models can survive the incentive distortions they were built to fix. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DR. MICHAEL CHERNEW Michael Chernew, PhD, is the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and Director of the Health care Markets and Regulation (HMR) Lab at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on improving the health care system through novel benefit designs, Medicare Advantage, alternative payment models, low-value care, and rising health care spending. Dr. Chernew currently chairs the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), having previously served as vice chair (2012–2014) and member (2008–2012), and has thrice served on CMS technical advisory panels (2000, 2004, 2010) reviewing Medicare trust fund financial assumptions. Additionally, he is a member of the CBO’s Panel of Health Advisors, Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Health Connector Board, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a senior Visiting Fellow at MITRE, and co-editor of the American Journal of Managed Care. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in economics from Stanford University, and was awarded both the John D. Thompson Prize (1998) and the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award (1999). 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

May 29, 202656 min

What’s Holding Back Value-Based Care? w/ Don Calcagno, Founder, ValuesEdge

Value-based care has been the defining promise of health care reform for two decades. Yet new evidence still takes an average of 17 years to reach standard clinical practice, payers and providers remain structurally misaligned, and most VBC models still prioritize payment mechanics over actual patient outcomes. Don Calcagno, Founder of ValuesEdge and former Chief Population Health Officer at Advocate Health, joins host John Marchica to talk about why value-based care is still in the early innings despite years of promise, and how closing the structural gap between payers and providers is the real unlock that the industry keeps avoiding. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DON CALCAGNO Don has 30 years of experience across population health, managed care, operations, clinical integration, accountable care, laboratory sciences, process improvement, analytics and research. He started his career at Lutheran General Hospital in 1992, with a brief stint at AT&T. He serves on the boards of the Devoted Health joint venture and Medicare Shared Savings ACO. Don also leads the Leadership Institute’s Value-Based Care/Population Health forum. A former lab tech, he is a senior operating fellow of the Health Management Academy and a past fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Calcagno earned his Bachelor of Science in medical technology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. He also has a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

May 15, 202629 min

Why Membership Medicine Could Save Primary Care w/ Larry Kutscher, CEO, MDVIP

Primary care physicians are burning out, and patients are paying the price. With the average primary care visit lasting just 15 minutes, the volume-based treadmill is pushing doctors out of the profession and leaving patients without meaningful, preventive care. Larry Kutscher, CEO of MDVIP, joins host John Marchica to make the case for a fundamentally different model. They dig into why membership medicine may be the structural fix that value-based care never delivered, and how reducing patient panels from thousands to hundreds could be the key to restoring both physician fulfillment and long-term patient outcomes. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT LARRY KUTSCHER Larry has over 30 years of executive leadership experience driving transformation and growth for industry-defining businesses with a passion for building and inspiring high-performing teams, cultivating winning organizational cultures and creating value through operational innovation. He was most recently CEO for A Place for Mom, Inc., North America’s largest senior care referral service, and currently serves as chairman of its Board of Directors. While CEO, he reshaped the company's go-to market strategy and delivered strong revenue growth by building world-class teams to meet the needs of family caregivers and community customers. Prior to that, he was CEO of TravelClick, more than doubling the travel technology provider’s revenue and earnings over eight years. Previous appointments also include CEO of Register.com, General Manager of the Small Business Group at Dun & Bradstreet and various leadership positions at American Express. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Brown University. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media

May 1, 202643 min

Why Health Care Treats Instead of Prevents w/ Dr. Barry R. Davis, Author, The Preventioneers

Health care spends trillions treating disease, but far less preventing it. The gap between what we know works and what actually gets implemented may be the most expensive problem in medicine. Dr. Barry Davis, physician, professor, and author of Preventioneers, joins host John Marchica to explore why prevention so rarely makes it from research to reality, and what it would take for health system leaders to finally close that gap. ================================================ 🎙 ABOUT DR. BARRY R. DAVIS Barry R. Davis is a physician-scientist, biostatistician, and clinical trialist whose career has centered on prevention — not only as a medical strategy, but as a societal responsibility. He is Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and Data Science at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, where he previously served as Chair of the Department and Director of the Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials. He also held the Guy S. Parcel Chair in Public Health. Based in Houston and the Texas Medical Center, his work has shaped national and international approaches to cardiovascular prevention. Dr. Davis served as Principal Investigator of ALLHAT, one of the largest hypertension trials ever conducted, and led SHEP, a landmark study demonstrating the benefits of treating systolic hypertension in older adults. He also held leadership roles in the Hypertension Detection and Follow-up Program (HDFP). He contributed to the early development of the SPRINT trial and later served on its Data and Safety Monitoring Committee. In addition to directing large-scale trials, he has served on more than 150 Data and Safety Monitoring Committees and held leadership roles in national and international professional societies. Across decades of clinical research and public health leadership, a recurring question emerged: Why does prevention so often struggle to gain traction, even when the evidence is strong? Scientific insight alone does not guarantee action. Institutional incentives, political pressures, economic resistance, and human psychology shape whether early warnings are heeded. That inquiry ultimately led to The Preventioneers: Diseases, Disasters, and the Discoveries That Changed Our World (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), a narrative history exploring how individuals across disciplines recognized danger early and what allowed some to succeed where others stalled. Today, Dr. Davis writes and speaks about prevention, leadership, and the persistent gap between knowledge and action, offering perspective on how societies can respond more effectively to emerging risks before harm becomes widespread. 🎙 ABOUT HEALTH CARE ROUNDS Health Care Rounds is a weekly podcast developed for health care leaders who are at the forefront of health care delivery and payment reform. Join Darwin Research Group founder and CEO John Marchica as he discusses the latest advancements in health care business news and policy developments. ================================================ CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Visit us on the web 🌐 Follow Health Care Rounds on LinkedIn 🌐 Follow Darwin Research Group on LinkedIn 📺 Watch Health Care Rounds on YouTube 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify ⚙️ Health Care Rounds is produced by Grippi Media