The COVID-19 pandemic has unsparingly exposed the flaws of our fragmented and exorbitant healthcare system, but it has also highlighted opportunities to better deliver care. Chief among these are new models to bring care closer to patients, be it in the form of virtual medicine, mobile health clinics, community health workers, or home-based care. Indeed, now more than ever, brick-and-mortar hospitals are working hand in hand with community-based organizations, public health departments, and local and state governments to deliver services and reach people who otherwise might fall through the cracks. As a post-pandemic future draws nearer, I wanted to talk with someone who has lived that evolution, and could speak to what this new approach meant for the future. Which is why I’m excited to introduce Dr. Meena Seshamani, Vice President of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health -- a large, Maryland-based health system -- where she is charged with leading value-based care initiatives across the system’s 10 hospitals and 300+ outpatient care sites.

Today, Dr. Seshamani shares MedStar’s experience adapting its practice and operations to a once-in-a-century pandemic. She offers lessons, in innovation and in crisis management, for other health systems navigating this period. And she explores what changes need to be made more broadly to foster an equitable, better integrated, more wholesome approach to care delivery — leveraging the insights gleaned over the last 15 months. For more ideas on how to reform our ailing American health system, and how the pandemic might spur us forward, check out:  - "Ten Actions For Better Post-Pandemic Health Care In The United States," in Health Affairs - "After COVID-19: Thinking Differently About Running the Health Care System" in The Journal of the American Medical    Association - "9 ways COVID-19 may forever upend the U.S. health care industry" in STAT - "Covid-19 - Implications for the Health Care System" in The New England Journal of Medicine For more on Civic Rx, visit rx.org/">civic-rx.org.