Whether you want to learn more about health policy, COVID, health care costs, or the latest news, we’ve gathered our picks for health care podcasts to add to your listening library in 2022. And a shameless plug – of course RISE Radio is on the list!
The ACDIS Podcast: Talking CDI
Hosted by Brian Murphy, director of the Association of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (ACDIS), the bi-weekly podcast covers the hottest topics in CDI.
While the 30-minute podcasts often dive deep into the weeds of clinical coding and best practices, topics also address health care issues of interest to health care leaders, such as diversity and inclusion, lessons in resilience, and staffing and hiring.
The Dose by the Commonwealth Fund
Hosted by the Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai, the bi-weekly podcast, The Dose, focuses on current issues in health care across the country and abroad. Each episode features a conversation with a health policy expert about a specific health care issue and the answer to the question: What could the U.S. do differently? Recent episodes concentrate on child vaccination rates, equity in reproductive health, the state of the pandemic and vaccination rates, and health care among transgender people who lack housing.
EPIDEMIC with Dr. Celine Gounder
Hosted by Celine Gounder, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist who worked on tuberculosis and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and was an Ebola worker during the West African epidemic, the weekly podcast focuses on the science, public health, and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Gounder talks to some of the world’s leading infectious disease and public health experts to better understand the latest science and help the public make sense of it all. The podcast launched in February 2020 and season 1 covered COVID myths and conspiracy theories, the origins of vaccine hesitancy, and the limits of natural herd immunity.
Produced by the American College of Healthcare Executives, the podcast offers meaningful discussions with health care leaders. Industry experts share insights on topics ranging from improving physician engagement, health equity, and addressing institutional racism in health care organizations.
In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt
Andy Slavitt serves as President Biden’s senior advisor on COVID-19 and was the former acting chief of Medicare and Medicaid under the Obama administration.
Twice a week, Slavitt provides an insider’s guide on the pandemic–what has happened so far, how we emerge, and what must come next. Can’t-miss episodes include what 11 top scientists expect in 2022, the plan to fight Omicron, and how we live with COVID.
MMWR Weekly COVID-19 Briefing/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
If you want to know the latest information on the pandemic, check out this weekly podcast series that summarizes content from the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) related to COVID-19. Episodes typically are less than than 10 minutes. CDC has also produced three informative podcast episodes on flu prevention and flu season worth a listen this time of year for best practices to fight off the flu, especially if you have kids in school. The episodes focus on flu season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the importance of the annual flu vaccine for both children, including those with special health care needs, and adults.
Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH) Editor-in-Chief Jay Kumar hosts this bi-weekly podcast to discuss the hottest topics in patient safety and quality with industry experts. The episodes delve into topics related to COVID-19, patient experience, infection prevention, hand hygiene, cybersecurity, high reliability, and more. Recent discussions have focused on a patient centric, team-based approach to improve patient outcomes, the evolution of health care quality over the last 20 years, and the expanding role of physician assistants.
We’d be remiss not to include our own podcast, RISE Radio, which features interviews with industry leaders about policies, regulations, and challenges faced by health care professionals in our three communities: Quality & Revenue, Medicare Member Acquisition & Experience, and Social Determinants of Health. Since the launch of our first podcast in February 2021, we’ve featured interviews on population health, Star ratings, telemedicine, and emerging drug threats.
Hosted by Shoshana Ungerleider, M.D., a practicing internal medicine physician, journalist, and film producer, the weekly podcast explores helpful daily habits to improve health, new medical breakthroughs, and other tips to live healthier lives. Dr. Ungerleider talks to TED speakers about unique and innovative approaches to health. The latest episodes cover a range of topics, diving into maternal and child health as a human right, how an NFL quarterback overcame setbacks and self-doubt, how life expectancy doubled in a century, and the possibility of using our own stem cells to recover from illness.
What's Health Got to Do with It?
A weekly 53-minute podcast from WJCT News that examines where health care intersects with life and helps guide listeners through an increasingly convoluted medical bureaucracy.
It is hosted by Joe Sirven, M.D., a practicing physician journalist who is an expert in all facets of health care. The program covers wide-ranging topics such as medical trends, disabilities, the racial makeup of U.S. doctors, pancreatic cancer awareness, and Alzheimer's treatment and prevention.
Brown School of Public Health podcasts
The university produces two insightful podcasts we recommend giving a listen: Humans in Public Health and COVID: What comes next?
Brought to you by Brown University’s School of Public Health, the special podcast series for National Public Health Week explores the many facets of public health. In the five-episode series, podcast host and Brown University Adjunct Lecturer Megan Hall interviews university public health experts to shed light on how public health impacts all aspects of our lives. Episodes feature thought leaders experienced in community outreach and education, toxic plastics, COVID hotels and homelessness, anxiety, and race and genetics.
Hosted by G. Wayne Miller, health care reporter with Providence Journal and the USA TODAY network, the weekly podcast features insights from Ashish Jha, M.D., a pandemic expert and dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, on events across the world each week and what lies ahead. Recent episodes focus on the Omicron variant, vaccine effectiveness, booster shots, and vaccine approvals for children.
Health Affairs podcasts
The peer-reviewed journal of health policy thought and research produces three podcasts: A Health Podyssey, Health Affairs This Week, and Narrative Matters.
The weekly podcast is for health policy fanatics who want to know the stories behind the research and policy implications. During each episode, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil talks with leading researchers and influencers who shape the big ideas in health policy and the health care industry.
Recent episodes have focused on health care payment reform, the controversial two-midnight rule, and state level changes in the nursing home and home care workforce.
Each week the journal’s editors discuss the most pressing health policy news in 15 minutes or less. Recent episodes featured conversations on the WHO’s Climate and Health Report, health spending, the Affordable Care Act and health policy at the Supreme Court, and global health inequity.
To catch up on what’s happened this year beyond COVID, listen to the podcast’s year in policy review episode.
For those who want to go beyond the printed page of the journal, the podcast offers a chance to listen to essays, often read by their authors.
Recent episodes feature a health care leader who shares her story of living with major depression and calls for better treatments and a physician who is struggling with the debilitating symptoms of long COVID.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) podcasts
The national newsroom produces three excellent podcasts: What the Health, An Arm and a Leg, and Where it Hurts.
Hosted by Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KHN, the weekly podcast features health policy reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, and other media outlets who discuss the latest news and explain what the health (yes, you read that right) is going on in Washington.
Recent episodes focused on the Omicron variant, vaccine mandates, and a discussion on the Supreme Court majority that appears ready to overturn Roe v. Wade. Recommended episode to download: The politics of vaccine mandates, Oct. 14, 2021, which includes Rovner’s interview (at the 31:23 mark) with Beth Macy, author of the book “Dopesick,” which has been adapted into a miniseries now streaming on Hulu.
A coproduction of KHN and Public Road productions, the podcast explains why health care costs are so expensive and what we can (maybe) do about it.
Hosted by award-winning reporter Dan Weissmann, the show is informative and entertaining. Recommended episode to download: The recent and timely show on why rapid COVID tests are so freaking expensive in the United States, why they are important, and why they are so hard to find.
A collaboration between KHN and St. Louis Public Radio, the podcast examines overlooked parts of the country where cracks in the health system leave people frustrated and without the care they need. For its first season that debuted in September 2020, called “No Mercy,” host reporter Sarah Jane Tribble examines the fall out in the Fort Scott, Kan. community when Mercy Hospital shuts its doors. The entire series features seven episodes—plus a couple of bonus episodes released in October 2021—all worth listening to.
Modern Healthcare
The daily publication covers health care events and trends. In addition to a new sponsored content podcast featuring interviews with health care leaders, Modern Healthcare produces two podcasts: Beyond the Byline and Next Up.
This podcast is produced every other week and allows listeners to hear from Modern Healthcare reporters who share behind-the-scenes reporting that didn’t make it into their articles but offer greater context into the latest news and events. Recent episodes featured a discussion on private equity interests in health care and how federal regulators are targeting False Claims Act cases, House Democrats latest attempt to get states to expand Medicaid, and COVID-19 vaccine mandates and staffing issues.
The twice monthly podcast for health care leaders is produced by CareContent Inc., digital marketing agency for health care organizations, and hosted by its CEO Kadesha Thomas Smith.
Recent episodes have covered the impending nursing shortage, navigating leadership changes in your organization, how to become a patient-centered health system, and prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion in 2022.