The Future of Connected Care: Why Incremental Change Wins in Healthcare
This episode explores the benefits of gradual improvements in healthcare technology with insights from a Chief Technology Officer.
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EPISODE: Falko Buttler Chief Technology Officer @ Lantern The Future of Connected Care: Why Incremental Change Wins in Healthcare Episode 37
What’s Inside [0:50] Introduction to Falko Buttler [25:48] Full Podcast Episode [2:06] Highlights Video [1:14] The Hidden Cost Of Healthcare Transparency Gaps [4:21] The Real Impact Of Fragmented Healthcare Data [3:08] Why Incremental Technology Change Reduces Healthcare Risk [1:57] Why Uptime Is Mission Critical In Healthcare Technology [1:42] Designing Scalable Healthcare Systems With Cloud Automation [2:04] How Tech Leaders Drive Results Through Executive Alignment [2:01] How Technology Becomes A Competitive Healthcare Advantage [2:24] Why Engineering Owns Healthcare Customer Experience [1:33] The Long-Term Value Of Innovating Inside Healthcare [0:57] How Virtual Care Became Essential When COVID Hit [0:53] How Technology Creates Real Impact In Healthcare [0:45] Short - The Real Impact Of Fragmented Healthcare Data [0:33] Short - Why Incremental Technology Change Reduces Healthcare Risk
EPISODE: A Podcast with Falko Buttler Falko Buttler, Chief Technology Officer at Lantern, explains why connected care improves when healthcare embraces incremental modernization instead of massive system overhauls. He describes how healthcare friction is reinforced by inconsistent record sharing, broken workflows, and weak price transparency. He shares why AI can help process outdated inputs like faxes and CDs while the industry catches up through policy and standards. He also outlines practical modernization priorities like continuous delivery, infrastructure automation, and reliability practices that keep critical healthcare services available.
Full Episode “Whenever you want to upgrade a system, the best way to go about it is to do it incrementally. Improve it in small chunks along the way until you eventually have everything improved. It's going to take a long time, but the friction is not as big. If something goes wrong or it's not quite working the way you expect it, you can adjust rather than trying to do a big bang.”
5 (2:06) Highlights Video
(1:14) The Hidden Cost Of Healthcare Transparency Gaps “Healthcare is like an old industry and I believe there's actually friction built-in by design to make it intransparent, to make it harder to navigate, and have no price transparency. Lots of the companies I worked for in the past shouldn't exist if we would have a well-defined, open, and transparent healthcare system with easy access and supply. But unfortunately, that's not the case, and that's why I do what I do.”
(4:21) The Real Impact Of Fragmented Healthcare Data “Every provider and hospital system is supposed to share medical records and the patient's history with the broader system. But that doesn't really happen consistently. That contributes to the friction because you need to try to retrieve that information elsewhere by calling providers or faxing them to get to that data, and that costs time. Ultimately, it leads to delayed care for the patient who really needs help.”
8 (3:08) Why Incremental Technology Change Reduces Healthcare Risk “It's really hard to change the system all at once. Whenever you want to upgrade a system, whether it is your own legacy system or a broader one, the best way to do it is to do so incrementally, improving it in small chunks along the way, until you eventually have everything improved. It's going to take a long time, but the friction is not as big.”
(1:57) Why Uptime Is Mission Critical In Healthcare Technology “We're providing a healthcare service, and that means we need to protect our customers' data. That is a top priority for us. Internally, making sure that the data stays safe. Externally, making sure it's safe from some external forces. We also want to make sure our system is always available, so that we can provide the service. That's why we're investing in modernization of our infrastructure.”
(1:42) Designing Scalable Healthcare Systems With Cloud Automation “Thinking about being technical, one tip is dockerizing your services, using something like Kubernetes for auto scaling so you don't have to manually watch and spin up new compute as demand spikes or bring it back down to save cost. Another is managing your infrastructure through code so you know exactly that it is repeatable and has templates, and you know exactly what changed and can quickly address it.”
11 (2:04) How Tech Leaders Drive Results Through Executive Alignment “It's incredibly important that the technology team or the engineering team is working as one on the most critical business problems or strategic initiatives that you want the company to work on, and that you're aligned on what that means and how that is being executed. Work with your counterparts to determine the right timing, how this should be rolled out, and who should be involved, to reach a shared understanding of what is being built, why it is being built, and when it is being rolled out. It’s having clear communication across the different departments.”
(2:01) How Technology Becomes A Competitive Healthcare Advantage “People need to realize that the technology that you build is a real differentiator for you as a company, compared to your competitors. So, at some point, you will reach the point where you really need to invest in the technology to move forward and scale, and if you can have that conversation with the CEO and the board and the other leaders in the organization, that is going to be significantly helpful for the long-term outcome of the organization.”
(2:24) Why Engineering Owns Healthcare Customer Experience “On the engineering side, you're literally building the user interface that someone is interacting with. We deeply think about how we can improve that experience across the board, how we can make it delightful, easy to use, get the relevant information that you want, and get it as real-time as possible.”
14 (1:33) The Long-Term Value Of Innovating Inside Healthcare “For many people, getting into healthcare seems jarring because it's a really slow-moving industry, and it is. There's a lot of regulation, and there are lots of big players that are trying to make your life hard at times. I still believe there's a lot of opportunity within that market to really make a difference, especially with technology.”
(0:57) How Virtual Care Became Essential When COVID Hit “When COVID hit, our company suddenly became incredibly important. Seeing that play out at scale was incredibly rewarding, as the company has grown tremendously during that time. But for me, it was also just about the number of people we were able to help at the time, which was just incredible.”
(0:53) How Technology Creates Real Impact In Healthcare “You can make a real impact with technology in healthcare. Despite all the adverse factors at play, you can make it easier, more accessible, less expensive, provide higher quality, or just get more connected. There’s just so much opportunity by applying modern technology to healthcare to make that better for everyone.”
YOUTUBE SHORT: “Every provider and hospital system is supposed to share medical records and the patient's history with the broader system. But that doesn't really happen consistently. That contributes to the friction because you need to try to retrieve that information elsewhere by calling providers or faxing them to get to that data, and that costs time. Ultimately, it leads to delayed care for the patient who really needs help.” - Falko Buttler
YOUTUBE SHORT: “It's really hard to change the system all at once. Whenever you want to upgrade a system, whether it is your own legacy system or a broader one, the best way to do it is to do so incrementally, improving it in small chunks along the way, until you eventually have everything improved. It's going to take a long time, but the friction is not as big.” - Falko Buttler
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