Sept. 1, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by South Dakota Biotech.

Success in any organization often depends on the willingness to take a calculated risk.

Kent Lehr recognized that in Sanford Health – and it drew him to learn more.

“They were doing exciting things, especially in research and innovation,” said Lehr, who now serves as the system’s chief business development officer.

“They were more than a traditional health system, moving into new businesses and diversifying in ways traditional health systems weren’t doing. I wanted to help focus these efforts on things that were more aligned with our mission and strategic goals.”

Lehr, an experienced health care executive, connected to Sanford through his former work at Iowa-based UnityPoint, which considered a merger with Sanford in 2019.

The merger didn’t materialize – but in the case of Lehr’s own career, the relationship built with Sanford proved a fit. The Iowa native joined Sanford in 2020.

“I liked their mentality,” he said. “We’re going to take some calculated risks, some will work and some won’t, but we will learn and move on. And I loved the fact that as an integrated system, we have a strong care delivery vertical, which is our bread and butter and mission, and we have a health plan focused on value-based care and population health. So it was an awesome opportunity.”

Now two years into the role, Lehr is helping to define it in accordance with the system’s broader goals.

By its nature, a role tasked with “business development” and “strategic partnerships” could go many directions. And it is steadily evolving as industry challenges and new opportunities are presented, Lehr acknowledged.

“I think the biggest difference for Sanford is how I’m working to realign our business development and innovation priorities with the priorities of the organization,” he said. “Ultimately, our vision is to be the premier rural health system in the U.S., and that will take new competencies and capabilities and tools all focused on driving toward delivery of world-class care.”

What does that look like?

Lehr points to a new partnership with Dandelion Health, an early-stage startup focused on creating the high-quality, representative clinical data that is necessary to revolutionize health care through clinical artificial intelligence.

Dandelion partners with a few select, large health systems to safely and ethically make their deidentified clinical data available to AI developers in health care, and Sanford was one of the first two systems to join the consortium.

“This is a perfect example of a partnership we believe will ultimately deliver great value not just to Sanford, our clinicians and the patients we serve, but to the industry,” Lehr said. “It’s an example of what Sanford alone couldn’t have accomplished as it would take too long and require resources we don’t have today, and even then we’d be limited to our own data.”

Bringing workable data sets to the world of AI and machine learning can develop tools and capabilities that don’t exist today “and ultimately allow physicians to detect cancer earlier or develop a wearable that can detect a heart attack before you know it’s happening or predict the likelihood of developing certain diseases,” Lehr said. “Then, we can intervene before it becomes a big issue to the patient or a big cost to the system. So it’s really exciting and an example of something we haven’t done before.”

Innovation also can and should occur “inside out” at Sanford, Lehr added.

“We have 50,000 people who all have ideas at some point in their career or have them every day, and they’re looking for a place to go,” he said. “In partnership with USD, we’re trying to create more outlets to develop ideas, and we’re putting resources behind it. It’s a great culture to be building and an exciting way to serve our communities.”

Two nursing-led innovations and one patient-led innovation currently are going through a defined path between USD and Sanford to develop them further. One is a homegrown algorithm designed to predict needed nursing staff based on patient volume.

“We had identified that as a challenge already and took that innovation combined with another we found in an outside company and recently signed a collaboration agreement to run our model and theirs together, taking the best from both,” Lehr said. “So it’s a new tool I think will change the way we staff, which is really exciting not just for Sanford but as a commercial product.”

They’re examples of how health care is looking at innovation in new and evolving ways, said Joni Ekstrum, executive director of South Dakota Biotech.

“We are increasingly seeing the intersection of data and bioscience occurring in very powerful ways, and the work Kent Lehr and his teams are doing lifts that up and helps position South Dakota with the industry’s trajectory,” she said.

“The opportunities within health care for business development are so numerous that leaders need to hone a strong, specific focus, and it’s clear that’s the direction Sanford is taking.”

There also are potentially game-changing innovations being worked on using AI and other technology to automate and improve efficiency, Lehr added.

“The beauty of health care is it’s highly traditional and built on strong tradition, but the risk is that it’s very traditional and built on strong tradition,” Lehr said.

“These are big organizations with a lot of dynamics, and with that comes challenge, and change management is one of them. It’s hard to change muscle memory. We believe we can protect those things that are sacred like the relationship between clinician and patient. However, the experiences around that interaction need to  continue to evolve in order to deliver world-class experiences.”