Category: Monthly Updates

The Beastwood Files: July 2025

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Starting this one off with Stuff I Read because Matthew Holt, a longtime observer of the healthcare technology landscape, encapsulated a lot of feelings I’ve had (but hadn’t put to paper) about last week’s interoperability glad-handing in DC. Signing a pledge to make tech tools talk to each other is admirable; doing so in the direct presence of men who are quite open about their disdain for proven medicine, healthcare’s safety net, medical research, and the needs of others is not – to say nothing of their very public targeting of the communities that all too often make computer engineering and healthcare delivery possible in the United States. For days, I’ve had a line from They Might Be Giants’ “Your Racist Friend” floating through my head: You can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding. Thank you, Matthew, for saying the quiet part out loud.

Stuff I Wrote

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • Our street’s in the process of being repaved, along with a stretch of the main road through town. We’re also getting new sidewalks. What this means: My camera roll is full of videos of construction vehicles hard at work to appease my son’s truck obsession.
  • We recently invested in a foldable wagon. It’s bulkier than a stroller but apparently like 123% more fun. I lay even odds we actually use the stroller again.

Have had a busy few weeks on a big custom project for a client. Hoping to emerge from that soon. Happy August.

The Beastwood Files: Spring 2025

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I’ve had an interesting few months. I finally bit the bullet, upgrading my website and selecting a hosting provider. The former was a good idea, and long overdue, as it let me set up a store where I could get rich selling digital content. The latter turned out not to be such a good idea since 1) it somehow managed to create a second WordPress log-in for me and 2) said log-in was linked to me staging site, not my actual website.

This meant the blog posts I created on what I thought was my existing website were in fact on the new version, which is also were I happened to create the product page for my eBook (which I also happened to edit and design over the course of the spring).

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get the new blog posts – namely, the April and May roundups you’ve come to know and love, or at the very least tolerate – to appear on the page that listed all the blog posts. That seemed like kind of a big deal. There were also some quirky tweaks to my new (or maybe existing?) website that weren’t the best, and it wasn’t clear whether they were the result of the site migration or user error.

As a result, I scrapped the hosting plan and stuck with a Business version of my old WordPress site. I didn’t lose any necessary functionality, and I didn’t end up spending more. What I’d been paying for the hosting service basically now pays for a business email address, with the added bonus that it’s not Webmail, which as far as I can tell no one actually likes.

The issue – and this is where it gets interesting, folks – is that I decided to do this a few days after I launched my eBook, which meant to link to it was dead. It also meant the April and May roundups disappeared, along with my heartfelt look back at five years of full-time freelancing. I was able to repost the eBook product page (which was easy enough to rewrite) and the career retrospective (which I’d drafted in Word), and I managed to rewrite the blog post introducing the eBook to the world.

That said, I didn’t bother redoing the roundups. To be blunt, I didn’t feel like it. Plus, the list of Stuff I Read was a bit short, and my Adventures in Fatherhood were a bit repetitive, redundant, and repetitive.

So, instead, I present to you, my loving audience, a quarterly roundup. This includes links to everything published in the last three months, along with some fun tales of raising a child that I may or may not have shared with you already.

Stuff I Wrote

Dang, this list looks a lot more impressive when it covers three months instead of one, doesn’t it?

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • Over Memorial Day weekend, I ran a marathon in Burlington, Vermont. The course was two Figure-8 loops. All told, I went through downtown Burlington four times. This meant I ran up the hill on Main Street four times. My wife told my son this was a mean thing to make the runners do. She wasn’t wrong – and for the next two weeks, my son, who has entered the phase of asking so, so many questions – humored me a few times a day by asking, “Why did the marathon do a mean thing to the runners?”
  • Meanwhile, over Fourth of July weekend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, my son was introduced to the idea that Daddy attracts mosquitos almost immediately upon going outside. (Don’t ask me why. They always have.) He then proceeded to humor us by repeatedly saying, “The bugs love Daddy.”
  • We’ve recently discovered store-bought frozen water- and fruit-based confections. This is lovely – but, as my son prefers to eat approximately three bites of things before declaring, “All done,” it also means at any given time there are at least two unfinished treats in the freezer. That also means there are often at least two child-sized bowls or plates in the freezer, which is a challenge when, say, we arbitrarily decide the Cheerios need their own bowl.

With any luck, I’ll get back to monthly posts starting in August, just in time for everyone to stop caring about work until Labor Day.

The Beastwood Files: March 2025

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Look at me, everyone – I’m not posting this a week and a half late this time! Most credit goes to the iced coffee I got myself after grocery shopping this morning and subsequently poured into the iced coffee that I brought with me grocery shopping.

Stuff I Wrote

Stuff I Read

  • Lot of content related to telehealth, as I put the finishing touches on v2 of the eBook and left it in the hands of my reviewers. The most interesting stuff: A brief history of the first chatbot in medicine, which was developed in the 1960s (!!), and two posts from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in which veterans said telehealth quite literally saved their lives. The latter offered some perspective and helped me feel like the eBook would hopefully be of value as healthcare tries to figure out how to make telehealth truly work.
  • A recent Accenture survey found 83% of C-level executives in healthcare are piloting generative AI – but fewer than 10% are investing in the infrastructure to scale up use. Much like an early 2000s romcom, something’s gotta give. I’m of the belief, echoed by others, that generative AI will be most useful for documentation and revenue cycle automation but not much else, at least for a few years.

Adventures in Sandwich Generation Caregiving

  • Bit of a departure from the usual structure y’all have come to know and love, as I spent a good amount of time in March helping my mother move into independent living. The hardest thing wasn’t necessarily getting her to part with things of sentimental value; it was encouraging her to get rid of things she had never really needed in the first place. After one day of packing and throwing things in the trash, for example, I packed 6 rolls of paper towels and an unopened box of baby wipes into my car; so did my brother. There were two slow cookers, more casserole dishes than I could count and – to be fair – a pile of largely unused cookbooks I’d gotten her over the years to help guide her to better eating habits. It’s tough at the very end when things are either going straight into the trash or into a pile for someone else (in our case, fortunately, the moving company) to deal with and inevitably throw into the trash later.
  • With the onset of False Spring in the Boston area, we’ve commenced our annual tradition of planting seeds indoors, watching them grow, bringing them outside, feeding the local population of feral bunnies, and then making batch after batch of red sauce with our tomatoes because I’m the only one in the house who will otherwise eat them prepared any other way.
  • We are increasingly learning that different grocery stores have different advantages. Stop & Shop has little mini frozen chocolate chip pancakes that can be microwaved in 30 seconds. Trader Joe’s has child-sized baguettes and stickers. Market Basket has sensory overload and too many stories about how Daddy used to work there.

Happy April, everyone. With any luck, I’ll have exciting eBook news to share soon. In the meantime, I’m realizing it’s been five years of full-time freelancing – so stay tuned for some reflections on that.

The Beastwood Files: February(ish) 2025

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We’re going to pretend I’m posting this one-third of the way into March because last month’s post was also late and not, you know, because I got sidetracked. The fun snowball effect of needing to make up for lost time earlier in February, coupled with finally moving forward with helping my 80-year-old mother get into independent living, left me with little free time. I finally have a moment – and I’m devoting it to you, dear reader. You’d better be happy. (I kid. Mostly.)

Stuff I Wrote

  • MIT Sloan Ideas Made to Matter: A framework on the four paths to success for entrepreneurs
  • Custom content for clients in digital health, health data analysis, technology infrastructure, cybersecurity, and more
  • The finishing touches on the first draft of that Telehealth eBook I keep talking about but am sitting on until we figure out whether flexibilities get extended beyond the end of March
  • …and, coming soon, content from a new freelance client! (Not a new client per se, as I worked there for several years when I had a lot less gray hair. A handful of you may know what I’m talking about. Please don’t spoil the surprise for everyone else.)

Stuff I Read

  • Press Ganey published some survey results about consumer experiences in healthcare. Not a knock on the report or its findings, but it’s sad haha that half of patients are willing to wait three weeks to see their PCP and three months to see a specialist.
  • For one of my clients, Healthcare IT Today, I spent some time poring over press releases from ViVE and HIMSS. (Did you see my LinkedIn diatribe on why having those two events in a three-week span is a terrible, terrible idea? If not, you should read it, if for no other reason than to be acquainted with the phrase “bananapants.”) I found it odd that, for all the momentum ViVE purportedly has, the most interesting press releases all came from HIMSS. Curious if folks waited two weeks as a strategic move or simply to buy themselves a bit more time to get stuff approved. Who’s to say?

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • We have recently discovered the Museum of Science and Boston Children’s Museum. I’ve lost track of the number of hours we’ve spent there, the dollars spent on parking, or the steps taken chasing my curious, independent, and speedy son from one exhibit to another. Boy, has it been fun, though.
  • I have a habit of injecting song lyrics into the books I read to my son, if for no other reason than to amuse myself and my wife. (Especially if it’s something we’re reading for the 123rd time.) I have to be careful, though. In the last couple weeks, my son has 1) randomly belted out “Take these broken wings and learn to fly again!” and 2) said to one of his toys, “Move! Get out the way!”
  • I was having a conversation with one of my son’s friends at school at pickup one day. I made a bad joke, and my son immediately yelled, “That’s a Dad Joke!” His friend was confused, so I explained the concept and then asked if her dad told Dad Jokes. Evidently, he did not. I was flummoxed.

Have a happy March. May your bracket not get busted, if you’re into that sort of thing. I watch for the upsets, which can be a bit, well, upsetting for my wife, who attended that bucolic private university in the ACC that no one likes. (Wait, I have to mention that it’s not the one founded by the railroad magnate. I mean, I *suppose* Stanford is on the Atlantic Coast if you have a boat with a lot of fuel. Ah, big-time college athletics!)

The Beastwood Files: January(ish) 2025

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Well, the New Year kicked off without much of a hitch, and then some sort of lovely crud hit our household at the end of January. Luckily, none of us were sick for more than a couple days – apparently vaccines work??!? – though it was enough to throw off the ol’ schedule I made up for myself to publish these posts and keep the masses happy. So it goes.

Things I Wrote

Updates on Goals

  • Still working on the eBook, though the first draft is finished now. Haven’t gotten started on the new website. Did book a sitting for new headshots. Now need to get a haircut – and the cash to pay for it.
  • Running was going quite well until first my son and then I came down with whatever cold/flu we had. Hot sauce consumption has sadly levelled of, though I imagine it might help with the congestion. Or hurt. On second thought…

Stuff I Read

  • When I wasn’t getting equal parts frustrated and sad about the state of our country, I came across a not-terribly-scientific “study” suggesting Boston is the best U.S. city for introverts. This is based on our proliferation of libraries, coffee shops, and hybrid jobs. Add to that my favorite hobbies (running and hiking) and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more closely aligned to a stereotype or a place.

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • Lately, my son has gotten into just randomly saying “potty,” as one does. My response is to pretend he said “party,” loudly ask “IS IT PARTY TIME?” and then dance like the awkward middle-aged white man that I am. He does not like that.
  • Also, he would like you to know I am a Bad Dad. Why? On three (3) successive evenings, I got the temperature of the bath water wrong. On the upside, we now have a new favorite funny word: Lukewarm. “It’s when your friend Luke isn’t hot.”
  • We have discovered the Museum of Science in Boston – specifically, the room with the rotating exhibit. For the holidays, there was a model train, which of course we went to see more than once. Our aim in going back? “I want to see what’s where the trains were.” It helps that the cafeteria sells ice cream and croissants and has a view of the Red Line.

Happy February, everyone. In between your sneezes, keep fighting.

The Beastwood Files: December 2024

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I’m embracing a bit of a different format this month, partly to keep y’all on your toes as January begins and partly to hold myself accountable for the things I hope to accomplish in 2025.

Professional Goals for the Year Ahead

Make this a Big Boy Website. I created this site several years ago but did about 86% of the work on it in the first week of April 2020, when I decided to use being laid off as an excuse to try full-time freelancing. It’s due for a refresh and, more importantly, I think I’m ready for a Big Boy Corporate Email Address, too.

Finish the eBook that’s been 18 months in the making. Remember that blog post I wrote about telehealth’s day of reckoning back in April 2023? A few of you said it was good enough, with some additions and updates, to be an eBook. Well, I’m taking y’all up on that. Let’s see what happens.

Stick to what I do best. It’s not all sunshine and roses up here. I had a few projects go sideways in 2024. A few factors were at play in each case, but one thing that unified them all was a focus outside of what I think I do best: Healthcare, healthcare tech, and executive leadership. If I decide to take on more work, I’m going to be very particular about it.

Personal Goals for the Year Ahead

Be more systematic about running. After taking about two months off to recover from Morton’s neuroma in my right foot, I finished the year strong. I hit my time goals and snagged a couple age group prizes in some lovely little suburban races. More importantly, I found shoes (and insoles) that work and settled into a good rhythm. If all goes well, this might be the first year since 2015 I manage a marathon in the spring AND the fall.

Be as good a person as my kid things I am. I’m at the great stage where my son, at three and a half, wants nothing more than to hang out with me and do what I do. I hope other people will feel the same way. At the same time, I need to make sure that being there for him and with him doesn’t drain me emotionally. I can’t be afraid to take a break here and there.

Eat more hot sauce. My wife gave some really good hot sauce for Christmas. It was delicious. I see no reason not to have more.

Adventures in Fatherhood

You may recall that I taught my son the emblematic Boston phrase “bang a U-ey.” Now, whenever we see a sign prohibiting U-turns, he screams “DON’T BANG A U-EY!” He’s quite proud of himself, though he hasn’t fully grasped the linguistics of the phrase and believes “bang a” is one word, like the city in Maine.

We recently had the following exchange. “Daddy, I love you!” “Aw, I love you too. That makes me feel special.” “I love the songs you sing.” “I’m glad. Do you even love the silly ones I sing?” “I love the songs you sing on your phone.” (Dear reader, that would be the YouTube videos of children’s songs that we play at 10- to 15-minute intervals a few times a day.)

Happy January, everyone. I’ll return to the regular format next time, since I know everyone’s chomping at the bit to read something with my name at the top.

The Beastwood Files: November 2024

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Bit of a light month up in here. In addition to a few days off for Thanksgiving, we took a few days to go to Cancun for a good friend’s wedding. Along with seeing friends from near and far, and meeting new friends, it was nice to relearn some lessons about electrolytes, sunscreen, and the value of shade in a hot and humid climate. Suffice to say, I was more than happy to land in 50-degree weather upon our return.

Stuff I Wrote

  • A summary of a paper on energy poverty and how the formula for allocating federal aid for energy bills is due to be recalculated – one of the most interesting things I’ve written in a while
  • A quick take on what drive real-time business operations and the value of real-time data in supporting them
  • Custom content for clients in digital health, healthcare administration, technology infrastructure, health plan administration, and more

Things I Read

  • Count me among the many profoundly affected by the Esquire essay on a former journalist experiencing homelessness, his efforts to find a place to live (and survive), and the long, slow erosion of support systems in the United States. The optimist in me hopes this can be a wake-up call for our society’s failure to take care of those in need; the pessimist in me knows that ship sailed a long time ago.
  • In lighter but messier news, Verily and HLTH are planning to analyze wastewater samples from the conference to try to determine if a large conference does indeed spread infections diseases. Having come home from more than one conference with a “head cold” back in the day, I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to this is “Yes.”
  • During Introvert Alone Time on our trip to Cancun, I went down a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole on Mexican history. I learned Cancun was quite literally a fishing village until the 1970s, at which point the Mexican government decided it would be a great place for beach resorts and funded the construction of several hotels. Not a bad investment. I also learned Mexico was ruled for three years in the 1860s by an Austrian king, Maximilian I, backed by the French. He was a descendent of the Habsburgs, who ruled Spain when they conquered Mexico. As you might imagine, this didn’t end well: There was significant opposition, quelling it only made it worse, and eventually Maximilian I was captured, tried, and executed.

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • A few weeks ago, when my son and I were grocery shopping together, I used a popular regional phrase to describe my need to turn around and get something at the other side of the store. I thus introduced my son to the phrase “bang a U-ey,” which he is now quite fond of saying.
  • We were VERY excited to get a Christmas tree, so much so that we were one of the first ones in line on the first day the local Boys and Girls Club was selling them. We also decorated it within an hour of bringing it home, with the adults in the house justifying the decision by noting the branches might actually settle a bit faster if ornaments were weighing them down.

Last year, a coworker introduced me to the saying, “May you have the holiday season you’re hoping for.” Some people love a hectic household with lots of extended family around a huge table. Some people prefer quiet time with their immediate family. Some people like to curl up and watch A Christmas Story or Love Actually or Die Hard for the 23rd time. (Yep, I went there.) Some folks are keen for outdoor adventures or other trips away from home. Some people like a mix of all four in varying quantities. So I’m going to borrow the saying and wish all of you the holiday season you’re hoping for.

The Beastwood Files: October 2024

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October was a strange month in the Boston area. We had to rush order a new winter jacket in time for unexpected 40-degree days, and now it’s 80 degrees on Halloween. On the upside, the cold snap helped us convince our son that wearing Crocs with socks every day is less than ideal.

(Picking up on last month’s theme, we’re a divided household on Crocs: My son loves them, my wife likes them, and I abhor them. It’s everything not to like about sandals coupled with everything not to like about shoes. Why would you do that to yourself? Why?)

On to the good stuff.

Stuff I Wrote

Tabs I Kept Open

  • Fierce Healthcare posted a piece looking at the limited gains of the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home initiative. As I noted on Twitter, this didn’t surprise me in the least. The program’s enrollment parameters are so narrowly written that it’s nearly impossible to scale a program to the point that it achieves any sort of savings. And, as Health Affairs pointed out a couple years ago, it’s also the sort of program that only works at larger hospitals.
  • Avoidable ED visits are a dominant theme in all things digital health, care coordination, value-based care, payment reform, consumer choice, etc. As I learned doing some research for a client, though, there’s no consensus on how many ED visits are in fact avoidable. I came across a 2017 paper noting estimates range from less than 5% to roughly 90%. The paper concluded that only 3.3% of ED visits are in fact avoidable, on the grounds that the vast majority do, in fact, require diagnostic or screening services, medications, or medical procedures. What many would call “avoidable” visits are, in fact, necessary for the patient at the time. Old research, yes, but interesting food for thought.
  • I did less reading this month because I was writing letters to voters. Go vote, for cryin’ out loud.

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • This month, I unlocked a key Suburban Dad Achievement. I ran outside in flip flops and got the garbage can to the curb right as the truck was pulling up in front of the house.
  • Some days, your kids play 4D chess to try to get get what they want. Some days, they grab the ice cream scoop out of the drawer at 6:45 a.m. when you’re trying to make breakfast and say, roughly, “THIS IS AN ICE CREAM SCOOP. I WANT ICE CREAM.” We didn’t have ice cream that day, so a couple days later, we got ice cream as part of our regularly scheduled grocery store trip. I will let you guess whether he actually liked the ice cream.

I hope everyone has a good November. May you get seconds of your favorite side dish at Thanksgiving. I’m running my first race since coming back from my self-induced foot injury. Hopefully there are bananas at the end, as that’s really why my son comes to these things in the first place.

The Beastwood Files: September 2024

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Happy fall from a divided household, where my wife prefers pumpkin spice and I’m all about apple. (Warm apple cider doughnuts are one of the best things on this planet of ours.) Kiddo also likes apples, mostly because they offer a reason to use the apple peeler/corer/slicer, which coincidentally is also one of the best things on this planet of ours. (Or at least one of the most convenient.)

This was a bit of an odd month. I worked a lot but don’t necessarily have a lot to “show” for it, as much of it was custom.

Things I Wrote

  • Custom content for companies in digital health, health insurance, cybersecurity, enterprise tech, and healthcare payer tech
  • Bylines coming next month! (Kids, this is what we in the industry call a “Teaser.”)

Tabs I Kept Open

  • Matthew Holt wrote a post for The Health Care Blog suggesting 2024 looks like a lot like 2021 for digital health, and not in a good way. Lots of companies are getting funding, sure, but he figures there are only 11 true digital health unicorns at this point – and only one of them is actually profitable. All signs point to a rough road for anyone looking for an exit.
  • If you’re into that sort of thing, Fierce Healthcare published a list of key healthcare conferences for the next few months. I have little interest in business travel these days, but there’s a part of me glad to see events coming back. I’ll probably start to think about it when I see people’s pictures and get FOMO. Right now, I’m not.
  • I grew up watching sports, and I still do, but my interest has waned as I’ve gotten older. I consider myself fortunate that happened at the exact moment sports betting became so ubiquitous. This piece in The Atlantic describing how sports betting hits people’s savings accounts and hurts their families is sad.

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • I do my best not to disappoint my son. That said, he routinely calls me out for scraggly facial hair and deadpans, “Daddy, you need to shave.” In the moment, I tell him, “You’re right, I’ll do it tomorrow.” Then, more often than not, I do not in fact do it tomorrow.
  • As fall began, I noticed my son was the only kid in the preschool class wearing shorts. As a first-time parent, I naturally wondered if this meant I was in some way being neglectful. Then I looked down and realized I, too, was wearing shorts.
  • I cooked the right kind of chicken nuggets last night! Let’s see if we get through the entire bag before we declare once again that we no longer like chicken nuggets. Good times.

Happy October, all. May your children stick to their Halloween costume choices and not change their minds at 4:32 p.m. on the 31st. May you acquire the appropriate amount of candy for your household given the weather, neighborhood trick-or-treating patterns, and innumerable factors you won’t think to consider until 4:32 p.m. on the 31st. May you remember to rake the leaves before the first snowfall of the season – and may that snowfall not come, unannounced, at 4:32 p.m. on the 31st.

The Beastwood Files: August(ish) 2024

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Little bit behind on this one. I took separate trips to Maine in August – one alone to hike in western Maine, the other with the family to Acadia National Park, mostly to eat ice cream and look at the ocean – so the days before Labor Day were devoted to meeting end-of-month deadlines and catching up on laundry. (We’re almost there!)

Things I Wrote

Tabs I Kept Open

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • Our preschool door code is a series of numbers followed by #. Kiddo doesn’t know the word for #, but he knows it looks like something you may eat for breakfast. So whenever I enter the door code, he screams “WAFFLE!” as I press #. (This is when he’s not just pressing a random number to mess it up on purpose, which he finds funny.)
  • Whenever we have waffles, kiddo offers to pour maple syrup into a small bowl, as we’re a “tear and dip into syrup” household. He usually pours way too much – it’s equal parts “still developing fine motor skills” and “eyes are bigger than stomach.” Like any self-respecting dad, I pour the rest into my coffee. It’s quite good. Vermont is on to something.
  • My favorite thing to do when we go to the grocery store is narrate the experience. It keeps us both occupied and takes our attention away from stuff I’d rather not have him plop in the cart. Recently, I needed to turn around and introduced him to the very Boston phrase “bang a U-ey” (make a U-turn). Several people laughed. I call that a victory.

Fun personal update: I’m running again! After taking a couple months off to nurse what looked like a stress fracture in my right foot and felt like plantar fasciitis, I was in fact diagnosed with Morton’s neuroma. No surgery and no boot – just a shift to shoes with a lot more support and a slow road back to where I was before.

That’s all for now. May September be good to you, whether it’s the beginning of school, fall conference season, or being able to actually turn off the AC here and there.