This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Chad Gehani, President of the American Dental Association which is observing National Children’s Dental Health Month. Tooth decay is the largest unmet health need for children in America, and they discuss the ADA’s Give Kids A Smile program in which thousands of dentists and other dental health professionals provide free dental care to tens of thousands of kids around the country every year. They also discuss the impact of water fluoridation for prevention of tooth decay and the need for expanded access to care for all Americans.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Diana Bianchi, Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the NIH, the largest funder of health research in the world. She oversees a $1.5 billion budget conducting research in all phases of child health from maternal and reproductive health, to infant diagnostics, adolescence into adulthood, and all people with intellectual disabilities.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Patrice Harris, the 174th President of the American Medical Association and the first African American woman to hold the post. She talks about the AMA's efforts to innovate for the evolving health care of the 21st century, with a focus on tackling the opioid crisis, addressing racial disparities in the medical profession, and advancing health coverage, equity and behavioral health parity for all Americans.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Larry Levitt, Executive Vice President for Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation who looks at the differences in proposals from the Democratic presidential candidates. He looks at variations in the "Medicare-for-all" proposals, how it would impact consumers, and examines the shifting role of insurance companies in the ongoing health policy debate.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome OpenNotes founder Dr. Tom Delbanco on his movement to make clinicians' notes visible to patients through their electronic health records. They discuss the early reluctance of clinicians to participate, the high level of satisfaction from patients gaining access to their notes, with 40 million patients now utilizing OpenNotes.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Pediatrician and public health activist, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who exposed the Flint Water Crisis brought on by state and city officials who switched Flint's water supply. She discusses her book on the crisis, "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City" which exposes government efforts to deny their role, and the ongoing community-wide effort to address the public health crisis.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Alain Chaoui, Past President of the Massachusetts Medical Society on their joint study, conducted with the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, on the 'national health crisis' of physician burnout in America.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Leah Binder, CEO of the Leapfrog Group, which is dedicated promoting patient safety through better transparency in hospital errors leading to avoidable deaths. She discusses the 161 thousand error-related hospital deaths last year, and the latest Hospital Safety Grade, which scores hospitals on their safety measure performance.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Adrienne Boissy, Chief Experience Officer at the Cleveland Clinic Health System who talks about the Patient Experience Summit, and the quest to improve patient outcomes and reduce clinician burnout by operationalizing empathy into health systems.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Colleen Kraft, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has vocally opposed the separation of immigrant families at the border. She talks about the long term impact of toxic stress in childhood, recommended breastfeeding and vaccination protocols, harm from gun violence, and too much screen time for kids.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Susmita Pati, Chief Medical Program Advisor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, founded by the legendary actor and PBS science show host who felt science and health professionals needed to learn better communication skills. The "Alda Method" applies traditional actors' training like improvisation and other speaking techniques to improve the ability of health care and science professionals to better disseminate their complex information.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Jeanne Pinder, Founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs, which seeks to unmask the true cost Americans pay for health care. They discuss the online platform she created that compares prices for hospitalizations and procedures offering consumers real transparency in health pricing, utilizing crowd sourced patient payment data vetted by journalists around the country.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Pediatrician and public health activist, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who exposed the Flint Water Crisis brought on by state and city officials who switched Flint's water supply. She discusses her book on the crisis, "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City" which exposes government efforts to deny their role, and the ongoing community-wide effort to address the public health crisis.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Sue Sisley, internist, psychiatrist and President of the Scottsdale Research Institute which is conducting the nation's only FDA-approved study on the efficacy of whole plant marijuana for treatment of PTSD. She discusses her ten-year quest to complete a randomized control trial on the use of cannabis as a potentially effective approach, and restrictions that pose a challenge to expansive scientific research.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Charles Alessi, Senior Advisor for Dementia Prevention at Public Health England, the UK's equivalent of the CDC. Dr. Alessi talks about the prevention strategies being deployed across the UK to delay the onset of dementia, the lack of barriers to primary care services, and their recently announced Minister of Loneliness to confront this chronic health issue.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with award-winning New York Times science writer and columnist Carl Zimmer on his critically acclaimed book, "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potentials of Heredity" on the dramatic scientific discovery underway fueled by genomics. He discusses the genome's role in understanding heredity and how personalized medicine will be advanced once the science and medical communities master their knowledge of how genomics impact health and disease.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Don Berwick, President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former CMS Administrator who oversaw the launch of the Affordable Care Act. He talks about inherent political challenges in American health care, the need for providers to get active politically, and the promise of real innovations in the health system coming from outside the industry.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Iyah Romm, CEO of Cityblock Health, a venture with Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs aimed at improving care and outcomes for underserved populations in urban areas by deploying tech-based solutions supporting patients and care teams. He talks about Cityblock's development of digital and telehealth tools that enable real time monitoring of patient data, and a network of interventions addressing social determinants of health.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Patrick Carroll, Chief Medical Officer at Walgreens Healthcare where he oversees the pharmacy chain's expanded primary care and prevention health services in nearly 10 thousand retail pharmacies. They discuss Walgreens' expansion of digital and telehealth interventions for behavioral health, medication compliance and chronic illness management, with expanded health services being offered in the pharmacy clinics.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. John Halamka, Chief Information Officer for Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston where he has launched a new endeavor: the Health Technology Exploration Center. The lab is an incubator for studying emerging technologies in health care such as telemedicine, genomics, blockchain, wearables and smart speakers like Alexa that could potentially improve clinical workflow, data sharing and outcomes.