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When is a medical technology company more than a medical technology company? When it sets out to solve problems greater than simply supplying just the best technology. Dave Pacitti is the president of Siemens Healthineers. Well, Dave, welcome to the program.
Dave Pacitti:Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to see you.
Dr. Moira Gunn:It seems like none of us can go into any medical setting without seeing a great variety of equipment with Siemens Associated Labels. Still, I have to ask you about something else. I know in in just preparing for this interview, I saw that in your college years, you were a big football player and you went on to sign with the Miami Dolphins. Now while I talk to a lot of company presidents, I don't get a lot of former NFL players. And I wanna ask you, you got drafted, you were signed, you show up.
Dr. Moira Gunn:When did it really hit you? I'm a Miami Dolphin.
Dave Pacitti:I think it hit me, when I had to run lots of wind sprints in that hot Miami heat. And, yeah, it it yeah. It really it really hit me well then. And, so I I wasn't drafted. I was a free agent.
Dave Pacitti:I was signed way back in 1990. As you mentioned, I played, I played football college at Villanova University, which my which my father went to Villanova as well, and many family members went there. So, it it you know, the the the football thing was great. I signed a free agent contract in 1990. It was a great part of my life.
Dave Pacitti:And as you can imagine, you know, I'm a I I grew up from an Italian family, and, nobody played that football. They played a different kind of football. Soccer? Yeah. Yes.
Dr. Moira Gunn:What we call soccer, they call football.
Dave Pacitti:Yes. Exactly. And, it took a lot lot of years to sort of separate myself from football and let them make people believe I could do the job I'm doing today. But I will say, I don't think I would be as effective as I am if I didn't from my football background. I learned so much, especially about teamwork and collaboration and the and the and the desire to win and really desire to get better every day.
Dave Pacitti:Right? That's what you learn from playing such a tough team sport. And football was really hard, but I'll tell you what we're gonna talk about today is even harder. Right? The and a lot has to do with health care in United States and its complex problems that we're working on.
Dave Pacitti:So, football gave me a good foundation, but I'm really excited about what I'm doing today and, really, hopefully, making a big impact. Our our team is.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, it was a it's tough training, unavailable to me. Thank goodness. But good for you and good for Siemens Health and Ears. Now as I said earlier, you'd be hard pressed to go into a medical setting and not see a Siemens associated label on equipment everywhere. Remind us, what is Siemens?
Dr. Moira Gunn:And then what is Siemens Healthineers in particular?
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. So Siemens has been a large industrial, conglomerate, Siemens AG, that's been around for well over a 100 years based in Germany. Siemens had a Siemens had a medical division, it was just called Siemens Medical, that was spun out into the market in 2017, and we got a new name, Siemens Health and Ears. And, and then we became our own company. Siemens AG is a majority shareholder of of Siemens Healthineers, but but we, you know, are independent company now and, you know, have our own stock symbol on the exchange.
Dave Pacitti:And that all have back happened back in 2017, but we still obviously collaborate well with our Siemens AG colleagues.
Dr. Moira Gunn:So what's the difference though? I mean, you're why why Health and Ears? What does that mean?
Dave Pacitti:So Health and Ears is really we're we're focused on health care. The other parts of Siemens are industrial companies, like, you know, making trains and airplane engines and, you know, smart infrastructure and and, you know, a lot of do in the end. There's a Siemens Energy business that has now spun off as well. So, you know, think of it as a very large industrial company. Siemens Healthineers is a 100% focused in healthcare and we make we make medical products.
Dave Pacitti:We had started out primarily as a diagnostic company. So imaging, like MRIs and CAT scans. We have laboratory tests, and we make laboratory equipment. But then, during COVID, we bought Varian Varian, which is now a a part of Siemens Health and Ear.
Dr. Moira Gunn:A very old company, by the way. Very old.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. Also. So so there's a lot a lot of old companies around. Right? So yeah.
Dave Pacitti:And, yeah, Varian has a great legacy, but it's a radiation oncology company. So we're now actually delivering therapy, not just doing diagnostic work. And then as you know, in a very difficult field, radiation oncology is is treating cancer patients. So and we're really excited to have Varian as part of the team for the last couple years, and it's been a a a a great synergies between the two companies.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Now all of that I could find online. That's easy. But what I found fascinating is that you are going beyond well, here's our diagnostics. Here's our treatment equipment. Here's all of this.
Dr. Moira Gunn:You're going beyond that into health, if you will, in terms of of the reach of what you're doing. Tell us about that.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. So, you know, and I may I stated this earlier, health health care, no matter where you are in the world, is complicated. Right? Every every country's got a different system and it all it has its flaws and then they have their benefits. Right?
Dave Pacitti:So we know, whether in Latin America or South America or in the US, there's a lot of complexities in health care. And we've started a enterprise business that we call value partnerships. It's really focused on trying to solve the biggest challenges in health care. So we're we're we're thrilled when someone wants to buy our equipment. Right?
Dave Pacitti:And and that's all we used to do. But now we come into a institution and say, how about we try to help you solve some of your biggest challenges? And some of those challenges could be workforce related. They could be driving efficiencies in the hospital. It could be around addressing disparities in care.
Dave Pacitti:And we don't certainly don't say that we can do healthcare better than a hospital, but we think we can help in certain areas. And we've taken on that challenge and we've started these value partnerships and we're, you know, we're thrilled to have them. You know, we only do a few a year. And we have a 150 of these partnerships worldwide and 21 of these partnerships in the US specifically. Why these are important?
Dave Pacitti:And if you're a patient in a in a health care institution, right, so if it's you, someone in your family, or it's me, one of my kids, right, there are problems in our healthcare system. And what we're trying to do is address those problems. Imagine you have to get a critical test done. You're a patient and you need an MRI done on your brain, right? But one of the challenges, because they're workforce, they're short workers, that MRI can't happen for 4 months.
Dave Pacitti:That's a real scenario today in the US healthcare system in some places. And what we're doing with healthcare institutions, that's just one example, we're helping them address their workforce needs so people don't have to wait as long to get a test. Also, if you're someone who is uncomfortable, you know, getting care, right, or you don't have access to care, well, it gets harder if there's less workers. Right? Because then the access is you don't have as much access.
Dave Pacitti:Right? So that's one of the problems we're working on in these partnerships that's very relatable to anyone. I know I I call and I have to wait some so long to to see a doctor. It's hard. Right?
Dave Pacitti:Or get a test done. You know, I have a I have a my youngest son is autistic. There's not a lot of pediatricians that are child early development pediatricians. Right? So when my wife made the appointment, it took 7 months to go see that this.
Dave Pacitti:And that's that's a shortage. Right? That's because there are shortages that in that case, there's a shortage of pediatric pediatric physicians that specialize in in in, child children that have neuro problems. So there's one of the issues, that I think is very relatable for people to understand, that we're helping institutions address.
Dr. Moira Gunn:So you could have equipment standing there, but if you have no one operating it, that doesn't you can't get into it. You just can't get into it.
Dave Pacitti:You said it better than I did. That's exactly that's exactly it. Right? So there's a lot of ways to address that. 1, you know, we believe that by utilizing technology, you can we've learned now that we have utilizing technology, we can operate more than one piece of equipment with with less people.
Dave Pacitti:Technology, we can operate more than one piece of equipment with with less people. Right? So using AI and automation, you can have one technician run multiple MRIs as an example. Right? Which helps if you don't if you can't find 4 MRI techs, you have one tech that can run 4 MRIs as an example, right?
Dave Pacitti:So technology plays a role in this, right? Technology is super important. Just like with doctors, we have artificial intelligence now that helps radiologists look for things that maybe are not prescribed on the test. You know, if I had a if I'm a patient and I have pneumonia, okay, and the doctor writes a prescription, Dave, you need to go get a chest CT because I wanna verify if you have pneumonia or something else is going on. We now have technology.
Dave Pacitti:When you get that that CT for pneumonia, the CT tells the doctor this. Doctor, yes. Dave has pneumonia, but, oh, by the way, sort of with a red green light system, you should be looking at these other things and following up with Dave that has nothing to do with his pneumonia. Right?
Dr. Moira Gunn:That's exactly where technology comes in.
Dave Pacitti:Exactly.
Dr. Moira Gunn:It's not paying attention because because I analyze everything I know how to analyze, and there you are.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. And and they're busy. Right? So he a lot of times, a doctor, because they're so busy and have to look at so many scans, in this example, a day, they wouldn't have time to look for all those other things. That's why bringing it to their attention is super important.
Dave Pacitti:So so, Jen, just another example where technology plays a role in addressing workforce shortage. But it goes and where it goes a step further, that's not the only way to do it. There's a little bit of we have to roll up our sleeves and also find new workers. Right? Technology is not gonna solve all the problems.
Dave Pacitti:So one example that we can share with you, the SSM, in Saint Louis, which is a large health system in the Midwest based in St. Louis. We're actually working with SSM, the health system, and the Urban League in St. Louis to identify candidates that might wanna go to tech school to become a health care professional. And they're really looking in the underserved communities and the minority communities in in St.
Dave Pacitti:Louis where people might not even know about these jobs exist. And and the Urban League will be sort of the host. And then between SSM and and Siemens Healthineers, we'll work together in creating the curriculum. You know, it takes time, but put some of these programs, you don't need a college degree depending on what it is. Right?
Dave Pacitti:And you could go through, like, a certificate program to get certified to be whether it's a rad tech or or something or laboratory tech or a phlebotomist. So we we gotta do it more than one way, technology and the old grassroots effort of really trying to find the workers of the future.
Dr. Moira Gunn:I like that.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. No. It's great.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Stand on a street corner and say, hey. Want a career? You know?
Dave Pacitti:That's good. Exactly. People are looking for that. You know? So it's it's exciting, the work that we're doing.
Dave Pacitti:And and we obviously, we don't do it by ourselves. We're doing it with our partners. Right?
Dr. Moira Gunn:And correct me if I'm wrong, but you're also working with the University of Missouri. I mean, developing curriculum for biomedical engineering. I mean, what what is that about?
Dave Pacitti:Yes. Correct. It's and it's a great example. So with the University of Missouri, I wish I'm actually going there, today, they they we work together collaboratively with the university there. They they have a biomedical engineering program.
Dave Pacitti:What we work with them on was creating a certificate program, some of it funded by the state of Missouri. So we got a grant, you know, the university did, and we created a clinical engineering program that that actually takes these students and they get certified in how to fix our equipment. And they get, you know, get a job, they come work for Siemens Healthineers, they can work for the University of Missouri, they can work for another health system, or they can work for another company. But it's a very creative idea that the teams came up with. First of all, there's a lot of there's more dollars out there at the state and federal level for workforce development, especially in healthcare, because everyone knows this is a problem.
Dave Pacitti:Right? We have a shortage of workers, also in other fields, as you know too. But in healthcare, it's super important. So, we're also trying to tap into those funds with universities or and medical institutions so that we can access and create new training programs. And we're spending a lot of times in creating curriculum for those training programs.
Dave Pacitti:And our team has been involved in developing that curriculum. We were also involved in helping with the grant writing process as an example too. So it's been a great, it's been a great example of of 2 great organizations, University of Missouri and Siemens Health and Human Resources working together to to create meaningful new jobs in the marketplace.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Now it's one thing to work with the medical centers. It's one thing to to go out, you know, develop all these workers and get education for them so that they could participate not just with you, but anywhere in the field here. We're we're you're really working on that. But there's another program that you have that I thought was pretty fascinating and it's this mobile mammography unit. It this would be breast cancer screening or what I call the truck.
Dr. Moira Gunn:You're taking the truck. Tell us about this.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. No. It's a great one. And so, yes, we we have a a truck, a a large RV almost, I would call it. And you walk into it, and it looks like a very much like an aesthetic setting, and you're walking into a procedural room at a hospital like if you were getting a mammography, you know, and it has our equipment in there.
Dave Pacitti:So, we have some wonderful examples that we've done this all around the country. We've done it at WakeMed. We've done it at MUSC. We've done it at University of Pennsylvania. We've done it at Missouri.
Dave Pacitti:And we're looking forward to do it more places. So the way it works is we bring the truck. It's a Siemens Healthineers truck. It has our equipment in it. And we go into a local town with one of our partners, and we set up shop.
Dave Pacitti:We actually set up shop with the with the truck with the truck, not at the hospital because you're not really reaching people if you go to the hospital. That's one of the problems. Sometimes people are intimidated going to the hospital. So we might be at the Walmart parking lot in Philadelphia. We were in a high school parking lot.
Dave Pacitti:We were at a church parking lot in another town. We went into my hometown of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and we're in the supermarket parking lot. And it was I have to say, it was incredibly powerful to see. So the patients we're targeting are obviously females. They don't have insurance.
Dave Pacitti:And a lot of them never even had a mammography. What's scary, Moira, is some of these women were well over the age of 60. They've never had a mammography. And the partner institution that we're dealing with, they bring their staff to help run the equipment. Our staff does the registrations.
Dave Pacitti:We have to make sure everything's set up. We need security. We need that power. Right? There's a lot of logistics.
Dave Pacitti:You have to work with the state on getting everything approved. So we've gotten really good at the logistical piece. And, well, sometimes we'll be there for a couple weeks. I think, you know, in in in certain instances, in a couple weeks, we've scanned over 300 close to 400 women, WakeMed and and at MUSC and and University of Pennsylvania as an example and at and at University of Missouri. And, unfortunately, sometimes something is found, and the hospital agrees to follow those patients and follow-up on those patients.
Dave Pacitti:Okay? So it it it's just been wonderful. I mean, it it to me, it's this is why we do what we do. Right? It's very powerful.
Dave Pacitti:You it it feels like for some reason, when we bring the truck to an area that people are more comfortable, it gets a lot of people. In fact, in in some cases where we haven't had enough available spots. We we filled up 2 weeks worth of scanning. Right? And we've had to stay longer to try to get everybody.
Dave Pacitti:You know, we do, you know, social media advertising. We advertise through the local churches and schools so people know about it. Kids tell their parents. The other thing that's been so fascinating about this is at the same time and I gave you the example one time we did it at a high school, maybe twice, we've done it at a high school now. We've actually had the kids come out and ask about, what are you doing?
Dave Pacitti:And this is how they learned about careers in health care, which is I mean, is that's like a, you know, that's like a grand slam.
Dr. Moira Gunn:A 2 fer. Yeah. It's a 2 fer. 2 fer. Alright.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Grand slam. All of it. Yeah.
Dave Pacitti:We're We're taking care of people that don't have insurance, the underserved community, and we're also finding potential workers of the future. So it's just a win win, and we're so proud of the team. Our team does a great job. Of course, all of our partners, all these health care institutions I mentioned, they do a great job, and it's it's it's it's very it's powerful. It's emotional.
Dave Pacitti:Right? It's it's a big deal.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, I I just have to say this has really been terrific, Dave. Going forward, is this the big vision, or or is there even bigger vision for you?
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. You know what? It's a great question. I think about that a lot because, you know, and I'll answer it. I promise I'll answer it, but but things change so fast in health care, so we gotta be flexible.
Dave Pacitti:And I'll give you examples why I say that. You know, a couple years ago, if I went to a health care institution and I talked to a CEO, they were only talking about one thing. Well, that was COVID. Right? How could you help us?
Dave Pacitti:You know, we have all this stuff going on with COVID. Then as a result of COVID, we had the workforce topic. Right? Because a lot of people left the workforce. Right?
Dave Pacitti:That that was hard being a health care worker during COVID, and people decided to retire. And then, you know, today, if you talk to them, they say, you know, sustainability is a topic. Right? You know, we're trying to do things in a more carbon neutral fashion, and, you know, health care throws out a lot of carbon. Right?
Dave Pacitti:A hospital. Right? And they're not the most energy efficient places. So now we're working on how do we help them with some of those problems. So if I think about the big vision, I mean, ultimately, we wanna really impact health care in a meaningful way.
Dave Pacitti:Right? We really wanna do that. We wanna help our partners. We wanna be very customizable. And we say, look, tell us where your pain points are.
Dave Pacitti:And we'll be honest with you and tell you if we can help you or if we can help you. And and, and we sort of put our money where our mouth is, and we really try to do things and make a big impact. Sometimes the problem is around efficiencies or driving out cost. Right? And and we we we work on those on those things, as well.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, I'll tell you, Dave. I think that if if any of your employees listen to this, they're gonna be a total fear that you're gonna make them run wind sprints.
Dave Pacitti:You know?
Dr. Moira Gunn:Okay. 1st, we're gonna run down the field.
Dave Pacitti:Okay. I got a couple of them. I think I'll do that anyway.
Dr. Moira Gunn:That's terrific. I really appreciate you coming in. I hope you come back, see us again.
Dave Pacitti:Yeah. Thank you so much.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Dave Pacitti is the president of Siemens Healthineers . More information is available at Siemens. That's siemens, siemens hyphen healthineers .com.