Today in health, it interviews from the chime
Bill Russell:conference in San Diego.
Bill Russell:My name is bill Russell.
Bill Russell:I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health.
Bill Russell:It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.
Bill Russell:Just a quick reminder.
Bill Russell:I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into
Bill Russell:next week from the chime conference.
Bill Russell:And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I
Bill Russell:want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio
Bill Russell:where we'll start looking at the news.
Bill Russell:Once again.
Bill Russell:Hope you enjoy this interview.
Bill Russell:All right.
Bill Russell:Another interview from the floor of China, we have chiro Goswami CIO
Bill Russell:for university of Wisconsin health.
Bill Russell:You're at Madison.
Bill Russell:That's right, Sarah.
Bill Russell:Wow.
Bill Russell:Congratulations.
Bill Russell:Well, we met each other.
Bill Russell:You were at BJC.
Bill Russell:That's right.
Bill Russell:Gosh, I just had a Donald.
Bill Russell:And I said, you know, we met at, at, uh, epi, just what were you doing
Chero Goswami:at BJC?
Chero Goswami:So it was one of the vice-presidents at BJC by last stint over there
Chero Goswami:was leading the epic implementation and doing some strategic.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:And she commented on how, uh, fun it is to have an epic implementation across two.
Bill Russell:I mean, it's an academic medical center, but across to.
Bill Russell:I forgot what you called
Chero Goswami:it.
Chero Goswami:It's two different legal entities who legal and different legal
Chero Goswami:entities, the health system, and the university of Washington
Chero Goswami:universities, the academic part,
Bill Russell:and doing an EMR implementation is challenging
Bill Russell:at an academic medical center.
Bill Russell:But when you add even more complexity audit, I can only,
Chero Goswami:I used to have hair as I joked before I did
Bill Russell:that.
Bill Russell:So, um, but, but you guys earned your stripes.
Bill Russell:You, you, you know, and both of you have gone on to CIO.
Bill Russell:So tell us about the journey I do.
Bill Russell:How did you, uh, make that move?
Bill Russell:How'd you make that.
Chero Goswami:Well, first I'll say BJC is a great, great place to work.
Chero Goswami:And working with Washington university learned a lot and it's
Chero Goswami:like, they see it just by parents, raise your kids and then send them
Chero Goswami:off to college for greater things.
Chero Goswami:And that's how I feel.
Chero Goswami:I gave them to a university of Wisconsin and Madison.
Chero Goswami:So I got there January of 2020 right before COVID came in and thank goodness
Chero Goswami:for some good coaches and mentors at BJC and other places, uh, putting
Chero Goswami:all those learnings to use everyday
Bill Russell:while.
Bill Russell:So you came in.
Bill Russell:So.
Chero Goswami:Post pandemic.
Chero Goswami:So technically I started gen six, which is the first day that the
Chero Goswami:first case of, uh, COVID actually happened in the United States.
Chero Goswami:So Madison Gossett's first case with the end of February.
Bill Russell:So how do you come up to speed?
Bill Russell:I mean, you come in, it's like, Hey, welcome.
Bill Russell:We appreciate you coming in here.
Bill Russell:And oh, by the way, we need to prepare for this.
Bill Russell:And then like, I assume like a month or two later, it's like,
Bill Russell:Hey, everybody's going home.
Bill Russell:We need to do all these things.
Bill Russell:I mean, you don't have.
Bill Russell:Background, you really have to
Chero Goswami:rely on your people.
Chero Goswami:I would imagine.
Chero Goswami:So bill, you and I have worked before, so, you know, my style,
Chero Goswami:you know, it's a good thing.
Chero Goswami:Every, every challenge is an opportunity.
Chero Goswami:So when it came to the pandemic, there was no textbook written.
Chero Goswami:So nobody could tell you there's a different way of doing these things.
Chero Goswami:So it's actually worked out to be a blessing because as we all know,
Chero Goswami:healthcare is resistant to change.
Chero Goswami:So pandemic presented that opportunity where we could just try new things, uh,
Chero Goswami:without the fear of failure, knowing that the alternative was always worse.
Chero Goswami:The organization welcomed me the thoughts.
Chero Goswami:I had a great, still have a great team to work with.
Chero Goswami:So it turned out to be a very good opportunity to drive value
Chero Goswami:enablement and innovation into that
Bill Russell:culture.
Bill Russell:You know, when, when I, I always ask CIO is what was your a hundred day plan?
Bill Russell:And that kind of stuff.
Bill Russell:When we do the longer form interviews and they share them, and a lot
Bill Russell:of them are, you know, I try to meet and talk to everybody on my.
Bill Russell:Were you able to do that?
Bill Russell:Were you able to make those kinds of connections?
Bill Russell:So,
Chero Goswami:no.
Chero Goswami:No.
Chero Goswami:I mean, that's one thing I say COVID told for me because I'm a
Chero Goswami:very relationship based person and I call them meet and greets.
Chero Goswami:And, uh, it's funny because even now I show appointments on my calendar, it
Chero Goswami:says meet and greet revision, number 17, like, you know, or something like that.
Chero Goswami:The good thing though is, um, we were still meeting, uh, in
Chero Goswami:the first six or eight weeks.
Chero Goswami:So I got some time to set those relationships, but over a period of time,
Chero Goswami:Again, virtual meetings became efficient, uh, and more convenient in some ways.
Bill Russell:So it's so you, it's interesting.
Bill Russell:Cause you talked about the fact that, you know, the, the, the pandemic created
Bill Russell:some interesting situations and for you, you never got used to working
Bill Russell:in the office with all these people.
Bill Russell:Not until I know there's a lot of CEOs are talking about the transition
Bill Russell:and how it's been difficult.
Bill Russell:Cause they, they had a one way of working and now they're doing another,
Bill Russell:you came in and had to start with.
Bill Russell:I mean, pretty
Chero Goswami:much a new way of marketing, so very much.
Chero Goswami:So we have a pretty big building in one of the suburbs of Madison
Chero Goswami:Middleton where it seats about 450, uh, team members, uh, ISS about six 50.
Chero Goswami:And I still go into work three or four days a week and meet a few people.
Chero Goswami:But, uh, pretty much it was a ghost town.
Chero Goswami:It was a ghost town.
Chero Goswami:So
Bill Russell:you're, you're in the shadow of, of epic.
Bill Russell:I assume you have some former African people.
Chero Goswami:We do have some former epic employees and epic in your w
Chero Goswami:health have a long, long relationship.
Chero Goswami:In many ways epic was installed at UWO health.
Bill Russell:I, you know, there's part of me that wants to ask questions, but
Bill Russell:I won't do that to you on the thing.
Bill Russell:He's like, you know, do you ever like go over and just knock on Judy store
Bill Russell:and say, Hey, can you come on over?
Bill Russell:And, um, and I would imagine that has its pluses and minuses
Bill Russell:being in their backyard.
Chero Goswami:Absolutely.
Chero Goswami:Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons I took the, I took the possession now over
Chero Goswami:there, I talked to a few epic leaders before I took the position because it's
Chero Goswami:also an opportunity to do some very innovative, uh, joint collaboration work.
Chero Goswami:And so we are exploring and working on some of
Bill Russell:those things.
Bill Russell:Talk to me about an innovation.
Bill Russell:So your chief information officer, um, how does your digital and innovation work at?
Bill Russell:Okay.
Chero Goswami:So again, if I don't think the world has defined a very.
Chero Goswami:Demarcation between the word technology and digital.
Chero Goswami:I mean, everything is called digital nowadays.
Chero Goswami:So I am the chief information officer for the digital program.
Chero Goswami:I co-leading with a very dear close colleague of mine.
Chero Goswami:She's the chief ambulatory officer.
Chero Goswami:Uh, so on the digital aspect, we laid out the strategy in the last 12 months.
Chero Goswami:Now we are starting to implement some of the things on the digital front
Chero Goswami:door side, um, artificial intelligence and robotics process automation.
Chero Goswami:On the innovation side.
Chero Goswami:It's interesting.
Chero Goswami:A less known fact is UWO health also has an innovation arm or
Chero Goswami:venture capital arm called isthmus.
Chero Goswami:And we have a chief innovation officer over there.
Chero Goswami:Who's also a very good partner and I sat on the board.
Chero Goswami:So as long as the three partners work together among other
Chero Goswami:things, um, things get done.
Chero Goswami:It doesn't matter what the label of the, uh,
Bill Russell:thesis areas for innovation.
Chero Goswami:Um, part of it is actually.
Chero Goswami:As simple as I, Jonathan Fritz, who probably everybody knows is a
Chero Goswami:it, the chief innovation officer here, Jonathan and I, Joe innovation
Chero Goswami:is different than invention.
Chero Goswami:Right?
Chero Goswami:Innovation has to solve a problem.
Chero Goswami:Innovation has to make something better.
Chero Goswami:So when we think of innovation, we always look at what's the
Chero Goswami:problem we are trying to solve.
Chero Goswami:So again, for the rest of the other industries, that may not
Chero Goswami:be innovation, but we are finding ways where we are using data as a
Chero Goswami:currency, we are using information.
Chero Goswami:Bring down our AR days.
Chero Goswami:We are our prior auth and pieces like that, where technology is
Chero Goswami:now becoming more of a revenue generator than anything else.
Chero Goswami:So that's one very simple case of innovation, uh, in the world of
Chero Goswami:artificial intelligence, we are using imaging and non-structure data, you
Chero Goswami:know, to start creating data models.
Chero Goswami:So that's another case of innovation, anything
Bill Russell:in the area of, uh,
Chero Goswami:Starting to explore.
Chero Goswami:Uh, I'm assuming you mean RPAs and robotics process automation.
Chero Goswami:We're starting to explore by choice.
Chero Goswami:We are respecting the, the, the workforce shortages and all the
Chero Goswami:challenges in the clinical areas.
Chero Goswami:So we're starting to look at nonclinical areas.
Chero Goswami:Supply chain is one finance, HR recruitment, which everybody
Chero Goswami:is struggling to recruit.
Chero Goswami:Right now we are building an automated processes to reduce the turnaround times.
Chero Goswami:So what's the
Bill Russell:biggest difference between, um, BJC.
Bill Russell:UWA.
Bill Russell:I try to tell people it's like, you know, every academic medical
Bill Russell:center is a little different.
Bill Russell:Every IDN is a little different, every, I mean, what's, what's
Bill Russell:the biggest difference that you
Chero Goswami:found?
Chero Goswami:Uh, on a humorous note, I would say is it's a lot more
Chero Goswami:colder at UWL compared to BJC.
Chero Goswami:Uh, other than that, I would say one big difference that I feel is, uh,
Chero Goswami:what's typically known as the faculty practice plan it, most academic medical
Chero Goswami:centers here, the faculty practice.
Chero Goswami:It was very tightly integrated with the health system.
Chero Goswami:So I have responsibilities for both the, the, the systems of the faculty practice
Chero Goswami:plan rounds and, uh, the health system, Johns, which is very different than
Chero Goswami:a BJC in wash WashU, other than epic.
Chero Goswami:It's two totally different it shops.
Chero Goswami:So that's a big, big difference.
Chero Goswami:The
Bill Russell:thing I found with academic medical centers, governance has
Bill Russell:been wealth usually well thought out.
Bill Russell:Um, in fact, I haven't even thought of, of an area, an academic
Bill Russell:medical center I've gone into.
Bill Russell:Hasn't really thought out there, their governance process really well.
Bill Russell:Have you, have you found that to be so,
Chero Goswami:um, I would say the governance structures in my
Chero Goswami:experience are well-taught out of, but does it work all the time?
Chero Goswami:Right?
Chero Goswami:Tell me different things.
Chero Goswami:And so I I'm on the philosophy that every governance structure should renew
Chero Goswami:its license at the first of the year.
Chero Goswami:Um, so with that in mind, we are actually recreating some of the
Bill Russell:times
Chero Goswami:that keep you from getting things done.
Chero Goswami:Exactly, exactly.
Chero Goswami:And so you use the thing though.
Chero Goswami:I mean, think about Kobe and the decisions we made at two hours.
Chero Goswami:Right.
Chero Goswami:Why do we need another company to help us make those decisions?
Bill Russell:So I'm trying to, I'm trying to find somebody who look, we
Bill Russell:just, we all experienced code the same way we made decisions as quickly to
Bill Russell:say by I'm trying to find somebody who said, yeah, look, we've looked at that
Bill Russell:and said, we want to be like that more.
Bill Russell:And they changed a bunch of their structure moving forward.
Bill Russell:But what I'm finding is a lot of systems are just sort of slowly
Bill Russell:leaning back into what they did.
Chero Goswami:So I use a phrase.
Chero Goswami:We at the crossroads of nostalgia and ambition, that's pretty much what it is.
Chero Goswami:We want to be different, but it's our past that keeps pulling us back.
Chero Goswami:And so one of my roles in being a new leader in the organization
Chero Goswami:is to be the backstop room.
Chero Goswami:Ask why, ask why the suspect tradition, but don't go into reverse gear.
Chero Goswami:So, um, no that that's a challenging job, but I'll tell you for the
Chero Goswami:right reasons when you show it works, people start believing in it.
Chero Goswami:So, yeah.
Bill Russell:Fantastic.
Bill Russell:Sure.
Chero Goswami:Thank you for your time.
Chero Goswami:Thanks for having me over.
Bill Russell:Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews
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