I was blessed to travel to Paris last week to watch the Olympic pole vaulting. My wife and I work for great companies that allow us to take stress-free, unplugged time off. Without our flexible work and my parents (who watched the small dinosaur that is my son), this trip of a lifetime would not have been possible!
Pole vaulting has been a passion of mine since I first tried it in the 8th grade. I jumped high enough in high school (15’) to get a chance to walk on at the University of Tennessee. An amazing program and coach allowed me to improve my personal best to 17’10”-5.43m, earning All-American honors. I continued to compete after college, jumping 18’3”-5.57m, but never reached my ultimate goal of making the US Olympic team. I retired in 2020 when the Tokyo games were delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year, my wife and I were watching TV and saw an ad for the Paris Olympics. We were thinking about how special it would be to go and watch the games in person, as the Olympics are unlike any other sporting event. Athletes come from all over the world to connect, creating a sense of unity. (This is similar to how digital health enables connecting patients, providers, and mountains of data!)
A few weeks and hundreds of Google searches later, we had tickets to see the men’s and women’s pole vault finals in Paris. The countdown was on.
“But Chase, what could pole vault have to do with digital health!”
Patience. My coach tells me I’m on enough caffeine to kill a horse at the SEC Championships 2012. The Ole Miss freshman Sam Kendricks had just made 18 feet, and I had not. I was pissed but, at the same time, respected Sam’s performance as we had become rivals that year but also friends.
Sam would become the greatest pole vaulter in US history, undefeated globally from 2017-2019, winning back-to-back outdoor world championships. As he approaches 32, Sam is still a serious threat in any competition. Part of the reason we decided to go to Paris vs LA was that we had friends like Sam competing, and four years from now, we may not.
Another friend I met through this sport is Mondo Duplantis, the Tiger Woods of pole vaulting. I first met Mondo in 2018 at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada. I was coming off the best year of my career, and Mondo was a high school senior from Louisiana. I remember thinking, “There’s no way I’m losing to this high school kid,” and he proceeded to beat me by two feet, besting the entire US elite field.
Mondo was different from other pole vaulters. His dad was a 19-foot vaulter for LSU, and his mother was a Swedish Olympian in the heptathlon. Mondo chose to represent Sweden instead of the US because the USA Track and Field (USATF) needs to do a better job supporting its own athletes than its European counterparts.
However, Mondo was not only different in that he was a Swedish athlete living in the deep south, but his technique was unlike anyone else’s. When I was learning and competing in the sport, there was only one way to jump, known as the Petrov model. Appropriately named after Vitaly Petrov, who coached six athletes to a total of 14 Olympic and world championship medals, the track record spoke for itself; nearly every coach taught this method.
Mondo, his dad, and coach Greg did not care what other athletes did. They had their own vision, goals, and ideas of how to get there. And boy, have they arrived. Mondo broke his own world record for the ninth time in Paris at 20’6”-6.25m, beating the silver medalist Sam Kendricks by an entire foot and winning his second Olympic gold at just 24 years old.
“Still, what does this have to do with digital health?”
Epic is certainly ‘what everyone else is doing,’ it consolidates more of the U.S. EHR market share than any other single vendor. The tech giant’s dominance is so entrenched in our healthcare systems that many organizations adopt an “Epic-first” approach, often waiting for Epic to roll out new features or innovations. Much like Mondo Duplantis, who shattered conventions with his unorthodox technique, there are digital health companies that have been quietly innovating for years, offering revolutionary solutions that go beyond the traditional Epic ecosystem. These solutions, while perhaps not mainstream, are essential in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in healthcare delivery.
Health systems, like elite athletes, must adapt and evolve to remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment. Just as Mondo’s unique approach redefined what’s possible in pole vaulting, healthcare organizations need to look beyond the status quo and embrace digital health innovations that might not fit into the conventional Epic mold. This isn’t just about keeping up; it’s about staying ahead of the curve. Digital health tools, whether integrated with or independent of an EHR, offer unprecedented opportunities to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations, and enhance overall care delivery. The challenge lies in recognizing these opportunities and having the courage to pursue them, even when it means venturing into uncharted territory.
Hindsight is always 20/20, and nothing is ever truly future-proof. However, what if there was a way to mitigate some of the risks associated with digital health investments? Panda Health provides health system decision-makers with a unique advantage by combining a community of forward-thinking leaders with deep market intelligence. This empowers you to make well-informed decisions tailored to your organization’s specific needs and goals. And the best part? It’s free to join.
As we look ahead to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, we must ask ourselves: will we be stuck in the same cycle, or will we have harnessed the power of innovation to propel our healthcare systems to new heights? The future of digital health is in our hands, and with the right tools, we can leap into a new era of possibility.
