Healthcare leaders face mounting challenges: rising costs, staff burnout, and pressure to improve patient outcomes. Traditional solutions often fall short. However, groundbreaking WHO research reveals a powerful, evidence-based approach through arts integration. When strategically implemented, arts programs reduce hospital stays by up to one day, decrease medication needs, and improve staff retention. NYC Health + Hospitals' 7,000-piece collection and global initiatives like the HoME study demonstrate how arts integration delivers measurable ROI while transforming care environments. Discover how arts in medicine programs are transforming healthcare through evidence-based interventions. Joe Desiderio explores the groundbreaking WHO-backed research, strategic partnerships, and measurable clinical outcomes of integrating arts programs - from personalized music therapy to large-scale murals - in healthcare settings.Implement evidence-based arts programs to reduce hospital stays and medication usage, directly impacting your bottom line
Joseph Desiderio, Chief Connector, connectXr
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT
Welcome 0:01 Music. Welcome to Digital Health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't. As we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS, deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
Megan Antonelli 0:29 Hi everyone. Welcome to Digital Health talks, where we explore groundbreaking innovations transforming healthcare. I'm Megan Antonelli, and today we're diving into the fascinating intersection of art and medicine with Joe desiderio. Joe is the chief connector at Connect. XR and I have known him for a long time. We met through our friend Alex fair in that health 2.0 community, thinking back, you know, at an event I did with Alex and the walk in gallery, we actually had an art auction at that one. So it is incredibly, sort of poignant that we are here talking about this today. And you know, when we look at how healthcare is grappling with both burnout and patient experience and clinical outcomes, Joe has been teaching me about how many amazing programs there are that are kind of evidence based art programs within the New York community and nationally and even around the world. You know, the World Health Organization is involved, so I'm so delighted to have him here today to tell us more about that and share some insights into, you know, these amazing programs and the impact they're having on patients and providers. Hi, Joe,
Joe Desiderio 1:43 how are you much? Megan, thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah,
Megan Antonelli 1:47 it's so nice to have you on the show. It's it's been a long time coming. Yes, absolutely. So tell us a little bit you know about how you know your background and how you ended up kind of at this, at this intersection of health and art. Great.
Joe Desiderio 2:02 Thank you again. All right, I won't go too far back. I'll start with school. I went to UC San Diego to be Jacques Cousteau, which turned into a trip into neuroscience and cognitive science and philosophy, which landed me back in New York City, doing from New York City, doing tech support in a bunch of big companies. So I wound up at Ogilvy, and then ultimately at Sotheby's, doing IT transformation in big multinationals. And Sotheby's, of course, had a lot of art connections, so I had a little bit of, I think, a side eye for art, you know, from my Sotheby's days, and from there, I founded a health tech company. Voice Brook co founded that with a few guys, and we are doing speech recognition and workflow optimization in surgical pathology. And there was a couple of little hits here and there over the past, you know, six, eight years, where the pathology images actually look like art. So there was a couple of places, and I'll come back to maybe some of those, where art and pathologists and diagnosis and making something out of the art around a patient's experience really opened my eyes towards the power of, you know, where art and patients can go and even providers. So got interested in that. We've always been interested in art. My wife's an artist. Actually, her surfboards are hiding behind me somewhere. There can painted surfboard. So I have it at home, I have it at work, and I've been really pursuing who's doing what with art and innovation and creativity in healthcare on a couple of levels. So I guess I can pin it there. That's probably getting too
Megan Antonelli 3:39 deep. Well, then, of course, there's the story of the hats,
Joe Desiderio 3:42 the hats and mess up my hair, hold on, and
Megan Antonelli 3:46 the sign and and the and the mural. So it was actually at the first digital medicine conference, I guess. But well, not the first conference, but the first time you brought the hats was when we had Gita Nayar speaking, and we had the known health hats, and those had your little your chips in them, which you could even, you know, from. So the intersection of art, technology and healthcare that we could, you know, kind of bring up the conference agenda and everything on. So that was super cool. But then this in June, we had Joshua Morales,
Joe Desiderio 4:23 right? Yes, NYC, local, NYC in
Megan Antonelli 4:27 town, and he was painting the mural and did hats for everybody, and that was just so much fun. But, you know, and of course, from an event perspective, it adds a buzz and an excitement. But we, we didn't tell the story as much as I would have liked to. So I'm so glad we're here today to talk about, you know, that intersection and and in that you've told me, you know, we've talked a lot about the New York City Health and Hospitals program that's going on. I'd love for you to talk tell people about that a little bit and just, you know, where it. These programs kind of began and where they're having impact, sure. So
Joe Desiderio 5:06 for me, I span a lot of worlds, and one of them that I've been interested in for many years, also a little bit in my background. Bore you with that part, but the Association of Medical Facility professionals is another organization that I participate with. And in that space, basically the who's who of the healthcare, built environment, architects, engineers, construction firms, and all the ancillary services, so furniture and flooring and wall coverings and all these things. And in that space, there's a lot of emphasis on design, interior design facility, just the whole facility design. And so wherever art pops up, there was a really interesting presentation a couple years back about how they were using art for tranquility in was a a psychiatric intake emergency area, and using art, they tested it out, and they found that by using tranquil art, and they classified different ways, so versus something you know, Jackson Pollock looking very busy and splattery, the tranquil art on the walls actually had a big impact on how much they needed to medicate and the time to be able to admit someone, and all that good stuff. So I've been sort of pulling at the Art thread in on the facilities side, and as far as the hats and all that, I met this artist at NYC at an art show, and we've been poking around at a few different things. Happened to be on the board of the hit like a girl podcast, and I touch on men as allies and a bunch of things. And we were doing a meetup, and we said, you know, wouldn't be cool if we could incorporate something with the flavor of New York City. And that turned into creating hats with messages. So that was one little thread. The bigger things happening in New York City we have from the facilities space, which is why I brought that up. The Arts and medicine program is here in New York City, health and hospitals, and we don't always realize, but you know, New York City has has a public corporation that manages around a dozen hospitals around the city and a bunch of other facilities, and over the years, they've built up a very, very big portfolio of art. So if you go to hospital in Queens, you can walk under a Keith Haring, you know, mural of, you know, old graffiti from the early 80s. And it's just many places in New York City. So just New York City having a big portfolio is sort of one aspect of arts in medicine, and there's other aspects around, you know, putting art on a cart so that you can engage folks, you know, staff, who are just burning out in the middle of the day or just one little break, and they can, like, make a little art project with their team, or even with patients. There's all kinds of interesting stuff happening around art for treatment and for just the facility and spaces around us.
Megan Antonelli 7:57 Yeah, it's so amazing. I mean, you know, I know a few years ago, and I My memory isn't serving as as it always does when I'm live, but you'll probably remember her and the and the business, but the in, I think it started at Johns Hopkins, the Music and Medicine, where she where it was all about, sort of the sound therapy and, You know, just kind of overcoming, just the horrible alerts and just, you know, the, um,
Joe Desiderio 8:26 Yoko Sen, I believe, yes. Yoko Sen, yeah. She, she took her experience as a pianist, I think, or, you know, trained musician, and applied it to what the sounds that were happening around her with all the alerts. And so that alert fatigue, she's very interesting,
Megan Antonelli 8:41 yeah. So, I mean, I think it goes so much, you know, obviously, the patient experience, the culture that people, you know that you're in, and that, you know, the environment of the hospital, but then, you know, as I've started to think about it, and thinking about, you know, hospital at home, and healthcare everywhere, and kind of how this all interacts, right? So you've got music, you know, there's even this, just the food is medicine movement, right? And, and all of these pieces of, you know, what we define as quality of life, aspects. You know, whether you know, whether it's art or music or food, the things that we enjoy putting that into healthcare to make healthcare and the process of getting well and being well, you know, enjoyable, absolutely.
Joe Desiderio 9:24 I'm super excited if I can give two sort of little mini New York City plugs, hip hop, public health, Lori and Dr Williams and Dougie fresh, you know, using hip hop as a platform to get, you know, mostly kids, but pretty much everybody excited about healthcare issues using hip hop. They put out amazing content. You know, it's really fun to see how they're using hip hop as a lever. And locally, we have another program, which is a little more well known in the education space, but I've been sort of pushing some, some creative nudging about getting them more involved in how. Care proper. We have a program called the Green Bronx machine, which is an educator out in the South Bronx, using food as medicine, but giving the kids lessons with grow towers right in their classroom, getting them excited about the science of growing, about cooking with with healthy foods, and just getting more healthy food access out into the community. So maybe not art proper all the way, but it's very artful, and it's very creative. And I think those are the things we need to really move the needle in this stuff.
Megan Antonelli 10:26 I know, and you know, I saw you post about that recently, and it's so funny, because in my sort of discovery of all this, which was a little bit more on the sustainability side of things, I had a blog called Sustainable motherhood ones, and I highlighted his programs and nice so, you know, years ago. So it's all coming together. And I think that's what's, you know, that's what's so exciting to me. Because, you know, as we talk about healthcare, and we talk about as a sick care system, where we're constantly, you know, if it doesn't have an ICD 10 code, it doesn't exist. And, you know, you've got, we've got to focus on, you know, that the what happens before, you know. And there's been a lot of discussion around, you know, loneliness and the impact of of loneliness on mental health and teens. But also, you know, and also, you mentioned Hip Hop public health, which is, I'm so excited to learn about them. You know, I think I had mentioned to you, we haven't gone fully public with it, but that our charity for the health impact event coming up in January is road recovery. And of course, their program is to use music and music programs for teens in recovery and with mental health issues to, you know, you know, bridge that and and stuff. And they did some incredible things over the pandemic, where they took, took the programs that were, you know, based in sort of outpatient facilities, and brought them virtual and, you know, seeing the, you know, these types of programs really gain momentum and really have measurable impact is just exciting. And then also to see the health systems truly getting involved. Because I think, you know, around 2016 2017 when the shift or the focus, or the discussion around social determinants of health, and, you know, sort of awareness of, okay, these things matter, right? Which is sort of, to some degree, you think, Well, duh, right? Of course they matter, and, and and stuff. But at the same time it was, how do health systems get involved, right? And now we're seeing health systems like SBH have gardens on their rooftop, and New York health and hospital getting involved in these arts and music programs. Are, you know, that that are really, you know, having an impact on patients as well as on their clinicians. So it's exciting to see. Tell me a little bit about you know, as you're seeing these evolve, right? Who are the people within the organization that are championing it?
Joe Desiderio 12:54 Oh, wow, that's a tough one. I mean, HHC has a specific group for arts and medicine. I think that's an outlier. I think some of it's going to come through patient experience. I hope more of it will come through patient experience. I know in the in the medical facilities world that I'm in, I'm also sort of pushing a little towards more green, you know, they have focus on green spaces and having, you know, welcoming designs and designs that help even the staff with their own sort of burnout issues. And I think we have the facilities there, and there's plenty of space to do green space and maybe to bring in some healthy food growth. So I think you're going to see it coming from a bunch of different angles. And then the folks who focus on the kids like Steve Britz and green Bronx machine, like bringing it from the other side, where they're getting educated, and they're even educating their families about, you know, healthy food. I think there's an obvious intersect with the health system and the local education system, you know, coming together at the local level.
Megan Antonelli 13:57 Yeah. So, you know, sort of strategic partnerships. And I think, you know, obviously the world, the World Health Organization being involved with the Jameel Arts and Health lab and and that whole, whole group is interesting. Are there any other, you know, sort of pockets of funding, or even on the innovation side, where you think there's kind of potential for this, right?
Joe Desiderio 14:18 I mean, I think there's a big move on the even on the the outside in the corporate world. So Kroger just made a big push at Health I'm not endorsing any I just don't know all their, you know their specifics, but I'm just from the stuff I've seen. You know, Kroger's making a big push into healthy food. If Instacart, you know, pushing in. You have people like farm box, you know, there's lots of people companies who are also intersecting the health system and local community organizations. So I think all these things are coming together.
Megan Antonelli 14:49 Yeah, yeah. No, it is. It's interesting to see. And it's when you know, when you know, hopefully, when there's there, that impact is truly measurable. And I know, um. Some of the things I was reading about in terms of, you know, even cost reduction, you know, length of, you know, length of stay, you know, certainly around even oncology and, you know, sort of healing times and and wellness. It's it, you know, there's some really amazing studies out there about the impact. And so it's just, you know, it is a little bit of, like, Where does this live and who's whose responsibility is it to bring it forward, as we have all of these different things happening. And I think, you know, when we talk about, like, the well home, and, you know, wellness initiatives that are beyond, you know, the hospital walls, it gets even more exciting. And I think there's even more opportunities for innovators to kind of, you know, look at that space and see what they can do.
Joe Desiderio 15:49 Yeah, absolutely. There's also an educator, Dr Raven, the science Maven. I follow her. We haven't met in person, but I follow her antics, you know, sort of online. And I think she just set up a grow tower in her living room. So it's coming from everywhere, which is really exciting.
Megan Antonelli 16:06 Oh, nice, yeah. Well, as you think about, you know, some of these efforts and around kind of the wellness and, you know, even retention, you know, for health systems and things, what are some of the programs that you think are, like you talked about the art carts. Like, are there some specific programs that you think, you know, are pretty easy for health systems to kind of adopt
Joe Desiderio 16:30 and do? Yeah, I mean, I think the art carts is a good example. It's, I think there's really low hanging fruit around, you know, using art in the therapy, especially pediatrics kids, you know, in long stays. I'm sure there's lots already happening there. That's probably not that new. I think taking some of that and bringing it to staff, and bringing it to even staff and, you know, care teams and patients. So the example how I, one of the examples where I first got involved, was a pathologist at Moffitt and her patient, it was Dr, dr Bouie in pathology, and her patient, Ray Paul. He was a fine art painter, and they started consulting. And in the pathology specialty, there's not typically as much consultation directly with patients. Usually it's back to the referring physician, so they're frequently one off, and there's a kind of a big movement to get more engaged directly with patients in laboratory, which creates other issues, and you need, you know, billing and all that stuff. But at the core issue, they really both cared about getting to know each other. And by using the image of his art, he was able to, first, he didn't even realize, I think there was a digital image of the art. So, you know, pop out a big image he could paint on, and he paint on it to sort of attack his cancer. And I think it was a really, really interesting way to see them come together. And the upshot of that was they actually created an art book with many participants, other other physicians and other laboratory folks who did some of their art, other artists who had experience with cancer. And so these things are coming up and popping up in really interesting and surprising ways sometimes. So I think they're easy to get going, though. I think it's a matter of having somebody who has the sort of mandate to do it, or just takes the bull by the horns,
Megan Antonelli 18:15 right? Yeah. No, it is. I think it's interesting. And I think in watching, you know, sort of doing the research around this. A lot of people getting inspired to do it during the pandemic, right, whether it was a little bit of quiet time, perhaps a little bit of sort of reflection, and, you know, you needed something to do. And so a lot of people sort of picking up art and seeing, you know, how much that that had a healing power and and, yes, then bringing it back to work when they when they returned. So it's some interesting stories about the folks who have kind of gotten involved in terms of the like. So you mentioned the 7000 artwork collection, right? The big artwork collection that the New York Health and Hospitals have is that, is it, you know, how are they, how do they fund that? Is it all, you know? What is how does it? Where does it, build, build from, and then, is it all throughout their health systems that, that it's shown, or do they have galleries? What's the, yeah,
Joe Desiderio 19:14 I can't say I'm very expert, and I would love to bring in Larissa trender, or somebody who's in the program, to really talk about that, but from what I understand, they built a lot of it up over time, over many decades, of commissioning pieces here and there. I think they show some of it formally. I think they do walking tours here and there. I know they put out a book, which I have around here somewhere, and I'll definitely bring to health impact. They have a book about the murals of HHC as a corporation, they still do lots of mural work. So I'm not really as sure about the funding. I mean, I don't know exactly what levers they're pulling on on funding that how it has impact to local communities and bringing local artists in, I'm sure is a big part of it. I think the city also is. Probably involved in some of that stuff. I saw a presentation recently with, I think Bloomberg Philanthropies was involved, and it was New York City HHC, so the healthcare side of it, the MTA side of it, and the public housing side of it, there's three organizations within the city that are all municipally funded, and they all had their take on how art contributed in their spaces. And there were some overlaps, amazing, amazing presentation of that. If I can dig it up, I'll, I'll add it to the show notes. Awesome.
Megan Antonelli 20:30 Well, yeah, I'm so excited to dig in into this more at health impact in January. And as we kind of lead up to the event, I think, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, once you start, start looking, you realize how much effort is there and and how much is going on, I mean, and the program at New York Health and Hospitals is super impressive and extensive in terms of how many people there, yeah, and there,
Joe Desiderio 20:52 I think there's a really nice, I left it out. There's a nice network of arts for social prescribing, sort of the there's a community of it. And again, like, if you don't know that it's out there, you don't know where to look. I know there's teams at Stanford and Johns Hopkins, and I think that's, you know, probably lots more than I'm thinking of. There's really interesting community there too,
Megan Antonelli 21:11 right? And you think, if these hospitals are, you know, certainly American Health and Hospitals, which, you know, it's not necessarily as, you know, wealthy or robust to some of the other hospitals, if they're spending the time to invest in it, there must be seeing some value and some impact. And, you know, and it is, I mean, they've got quite an extensive department in place working on it. And then, of course, Johns Hopkins program is pretty is, is well known and established as well. So I'm excited to kind of reach out to them and get them, them engaged as we talk about this more in January. So when you think about it, and you know, you've been kind of championing this for a while, you know, what's the, you know, what's the thing we need to do? What you know is it, is it kind of get out there, talk more. What's the, you know, what can, how can we really kind of build some momentum around this movement. But
Joe Desiderio 22:02 I think, I mean, I think it's a matter of knowing that art and artists are a way to really create engagement and and bring visibility to a topic. And this is something I spoke to Dr Nair at the last session about, how can we use art data visualization, especially to drive progress against misinformation and disinformation. So if we take a topic that's really hard to get people interested in sometimes, or to cut through some of the noise, how can we use art as a way to really get the topic in front of people in a way that makes them stop and look at it, and then bring in people who have those skills to to help address it.
Megan Antonelli 22:46 Oh, I love that. And I think that's so important. And obviously visual arts, music, I mean, that's, you know, it is. It's the best thing. There's
Joe Desiderio 22:53 awesome dance. There's a STEM From Dance team here in New York City that are teaching young women about STEM career. I like to say steam really more than stem, but, you know, and she's now going across the country, creating opportunities for young women to get more involved and stay involved in STEM. So every aspect of the arts, I think, is on the table. Yeah,
Megan Antonelli 23:12 well, absolutely, we'll have to share the resource for that too. I wasn't aware of that one. That's great.
Joe Desiderio 23:17 Four pages of notes. I'm trying not to just blab them all out, but I'm happy to share them.
Megan Antonelli 23:22 But, yeah, no. And that's, you know, I think maybe we can, as a summary of this, and also to put forward, we should do, you know, a blog post or something for for health impact, to kind of put all these resources together, because I think that's a good, a good way to get started. And I think there's also, there are quite a few, you know, experts and leaders in the space that we can kind of begin to chat for this. So I'm happy
Joe Desiderio 23:46 to help curate and connect any of those dots. Anytime. Awesome.
Megan Antonelli 23:50 Well, thank you, Joe, so much for joining us. I appreciate it, and I, you know, I really appreciate your both, you know, your ability to connect, but also to continue to champion this important topic because it, you know, I with the first time you sent me something about it, I was like, Oh, my God, I love this, this, but it's one of those things where you know, somehow, you know, there's another cyber security breach. And we pay attention to some of these topics. Martin,
Joe Desiderio 24:19 too, absolutely. Thank you so much for having Megan. These
Megan Antonelli 24:23 are super important and and very incredibly valuable. And in some cases, you know, easier to move the lever on, you know, because it is something that people are both passionate about and they enjoy so well. Thanks again. Thank you Joe, and thank you everybody for listening. This is Megan Antonelli, and you've been listening to digital health talks and health impact. Thank you so much.
Thank You 24:51 Thank you for joining us on digital health talks, where we explore the intersection of healthcare and technology with leaders who are transforming patient care. Five This episode was brought to you by our valued program partners, automation anywhere, revolutionizing healthcare workflows through Intelligent Automation, netera, advancing contactless vital signs, monitoring elite groups, delivering strategic healthcare. IT solutions, sell point, securing healthcare, identity management and access governance. Your engagement helps drive the future of healthcare innovation. Subscribe to digital health talks on your preferred podcast platform. Share these insights with your network and follow us on LinkedIn for exclusive content and updates. Ready to connect with healthcare technology leaders in person. Join us at the next health impact event. Visit Health Impact forum.com for dates and registration. Until next time, this is digital health talks, where change makers come together to fix healthcare.