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Today in health, it interviews from the chime

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conference in San Diego.

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My name is bill Russell.

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I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health.

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It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.

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Just a quick reminder.

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I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into

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next week from the chime conference.

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And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I

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want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio

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where we'll start looking at the news.

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Once again.

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Hope you enjoy this interview.

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All right.

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Another interview from the chime floor.

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We're here with GPC with LK.

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Hi, how are you?

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Good.

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I'm looking forward to the conversation.

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So thank you for having me.

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I would normally ask what's top of mind, but top of mind

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for you is interoperability.

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I

GP Singh: 00:00:48

interrupted, but it is the big thing that everybody's spending Solomon.

GP Singh: 00:00:52

Yeah, that'd be at the

Bill Russell: 00:00:53

top of my mind.

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So what kind of conversations in what aspect are they looking at?

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Interoperability?

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Is it, is it broadly to share information with, with other health systems?

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Is it sharing it with consumers?

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Is it RJ?

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Just all of it.

GP Singh: 00:01:05

It's, you know, what's, what's been really interesting is that, uh,

GP Singh: 00:01:08

you know, the healthcare systems have really evolved around having shared data.

GP Singh: 00:01:12

So it isn't just between systems.

GP Singh: 00:01:14

It's now with a lot of the digital health systems that are out there, there's a lot

GP Singh: 00:01:18

of the digital front door applications.

GP Singh: 00:01:21

Patient engagement applications out there.

GP Singh: 00:01:23

Um, so digital health has really taken off in a big way in the last couple of years

GP Singh: 00:01:28

with COVID obviously in addition to that there's pop health platforms, there's life

GP Singh: 00:01:32

sciences, there's, uh, you know, working with all of the networks out there.

GP Singh: 00:01:36

So there's a lot that happens in the hospital or healthcare

GP Singh: 00:01:39

system around exchange of data.

GP Singh: 00:01:41

And so interoperability really plays

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a key role.

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What about, uh, so 21st century cures, is that spurred that on a little bit or.

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Naturally happening as a result of our digital transformation,

GP Singh: 00:01:51

that's been part of the deal with the 21st century cures act as there's

GP Singh: 00:01:56

been a lot of emphasis on, on being able to allow for easy exchange of data.

GP Singh: 00:02:02

Uh, but also COVID Israeli, um, made that even more imperative

GP Singh: 00:02:07

because telehealth was almost like people were kind of working.

GP Singh: 00:02:11

It wasn't obvious that there was going to be a lot of folks using it, but

GP Singh: 00:02:15

COVID has really changed that around.

GP Singh: 00:02:17

It's gained a lot of acceptance and Vitale help, you know, a lot

GP Singh: 00:02:20

of the digital health applications that have really gained acceptance.

GP Singh: 00:02:23

So, uh, a lot of those factors out there, so

Bill Russell: 00:02:26

LK is pretty much agnostic, right?

Bill Russell: 00:02:28

You're not like pushing a single tool or, or solution at this

GP Singh: 00:02:32

point, you know, elk is, has been in business for about what 20 years.

GP Singh: 00:02:36

Uh, you know, we've built the platform.

GP Singh: 00:02:38

Time, uh, we're known as a healthcare data plumbers, uh, for a reason

GP Singh: 00:02:42

because we understand healthcare data plumbing better than I think better

GP Singh: 00:02:46

than a lot of other folks out there.

GP Singh: 00:02:47

So, uh, we have a platform that's been built to enable, uh, data exchange

GP Singh: 00:02:52

across, uh, different entities, different types of applications.

GP Singh: 00:02:56

And we have our own interface engine that really has been

GP Singh: 00:02:59

developed within the organization.

GP Singh: 00:03:01

When you think about it, nine of the 10 labs in the country, work with us,

GP Singh: 00:03:03

we're pretty big in the lab space.

GP Singh: 00:03:05

We're pretty big into data, archiving data migration space.

GP Singh: 00:03:08

We're pretty big in the ambulatory space, right.

GP Singh: 00:03:12

And then of course, in the interoperability space, and now all

GP Singh: 00:03:15

of a sudden, the bare space, we're making some headway over there.

GP Singh: 00:03:18

So across a lot of segments in that sense.

GP Singh: 00:03:20

So I'm going to give

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you my use case and I'd love to just bat it around.

Bill Russell: 00:03:26

Uh, Southern California, we weren't able to employ the docs.

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So we had a foundation model.

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We ended up with a hundred different instances of the EHR.

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It's not like we could have said, Hey, we're all going to a single EHR.

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That'll solve the issue that was not even on the table.

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Right.

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So we had to figure out how to build a first, the clinically integrated network.

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And so with the clinically integrated network, you have to have the metrics

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that you're going to be providing back to those, to those physicians,

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to, you know, make value, create value from that, from that network.

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So there was a lot of disparate systems.

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We had to bring all that data together.

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We had to put it into a, you know, some sort of, of, of data analytics engine.

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And then we had to produce things and get it back into the workflow so

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that they could, could utilize it.

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Is that, so I was trying to solve that in 20 12, 20 13.

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Have we solved that or

GP Singh: 00:04:15

is that still so, so we've solved that to a large extent.

GP Singh: 00:04:18

Um, you know, we've got something known as a clinical data.

GP Singh: 00:04:21

Where we bring in data from disparate systems in a community health

GP Singh: 00:04:23

systems out of Indiana uses us.

GP Singh: 00:04:25

For example, you know, where, you know, when a patient walks into an epic

GP Singh: 00:04:30

instance, right, or into a hospital and they're primary care setting on all

GP Singh: 00:04:34

kinds of different systems out there, we're able to bring that data into

GP Singh: 00:04:38

our CDX platform, make that available through epic or through Cerner or

GP Singh: 00:04:42

whatever system they might be out there.

GP Singh: 00:04:44

So that you'll get the holistic view of what the patients, you know, uh, record.

GP Singh: 00:04:50

And then that same platform then becomes helpful to be able to feed a

GP Singh: 00:04:53

lot of the analytics and the quality platforms and be able to feed that.

GP Singh: 00:04:58

So the pop health vendors use us for that.

GP Singh: 00:05:00

Uh, a lot of the, uh, folks that are around aggregating data for

GP Singh: 00:05:04

life sciences, trials and clinical trials users for that, because, you

GP Singh: 00:05:08

know, we clearly have demonstrated the ability to bring all of that.

GP Singh: 00:05:12

And create that sort of a consolidated view of that data.

GP Singh: 00:05:15

So we are doing that right now across, so a lot of customers, the

Bill Russell: 00:05:19

mature, and, and I'm not throwing this out as a buzzword,

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that's going to solve the world.

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I understand its limitations, but what's the maturity level

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of, of, of fire right now.

GP Singh: 00:05:28

You know, um, fire has been on fire for awhile,

GP Singh: 00:05:32

again, kind of using the Domo.

GP Singh: 00:05:35

There's still a lot of work that needs to be done.

GP Singh: 00:05:37

Uh, just as an example, you know, a lot of the EMR companies have

GP Singh: 00:05:41

enabled fire to access data out of the EMR, but still not enabled to

GP Singh: 00:05:44

be able to write back into the EMR.

GP Singh: 00:05:46

So there's, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done

GP Singh: 00:05:48

around that, but it's definitely moving in the right direction.

GP Singh: 00:05:52

And I think in the next few years, we are going to see some more levels of maturity,

GP Singh: 00:05:55

but I wouldn't call it fully mature, but, um, you know, it's kind of getting there,

Bill Russell: 00:06:01

right.

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Writing data back into the.

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Has has always been one of those things that we are very cautious of because

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you're, you're, it's, it's the system of record around the patients, right.

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Health and those kinds of things.

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Plus we don't want to, we don't want to clog it up.

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So even though we can connect to all these really cool devices and pull that data

Bill Russell: 00:06:20

in, uh, the personal devices and whatnot, we're, we're still reluctant to bring

Bill Russell: 00:06:26

that data in as are we, are we starting to figure out ways to, to incorporate that.

GP Singh: 00:06:31

Yeah.

GP Singh: 00:06:31

So, so what you're saying is, right, right.

GP Singh: 00:06:33

I mean, there's so much data that ultimately is that data even going to

GP Singh: 00:06:37

get used by anybody that is in somebody even going to look at it with everything

GP Singh: 00:06:41

is just kind of put back into the EMR.

GP Singh: 00:06:43

There's gotta be a certain process and a certain, uh, way to kind of, you know,

GP Singh: 00:06:48

bring that data in maybe, you know, insights from that data is probably

GP Singh: 00:06:52

more helpful than just your raw data.

GP Singh: 00:06:54

Right.

GP Singh: 00:06:54

And maybe bringing those insights into the EMR might be a better way

GP Singh: 00:06:57

to, to kind of really have actually.

GP Singh: 00:07:00

Uh, you know, goals that are so instead

Bill Russell: 00:07:02

of moving my, every time I step on the scale and to the EHR,

Bill Russell: 00:07:06

you're essentially letting the doctor know this information sits outside

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of there, but there's intellects being run against it that says,

Bill Russell: 00:07:13

Hey, Bill's put on 10 pounds since

GP Singh: 00:07:15

COVID started.

GP Singh: 00:07:16

Exactly.

GP Singh: 00:07:16

I think something along those lines might be a better approach, although,

GP Singh: 00:07:19

you know, right now, when you think about it, right, this patient intake systems,

GP Singh: 00:07:23

patient intake systems are getting data from Pittsburgh data sources from the.

GP Singh: 00:07:29

And really taking a lot of information in front of help and move that into sort of

GP Singh: 00:07:34

a pre, uh, encounter sort of data, right.

GP Singh: 00:07:38

That data model works.

GP Singh: 00:07:39

Right?

GP Singh: 00:07:39

So those situations were, but then the RPN space where there's

GP Singh: 00:07:42

remote patient monitoring, that's happening, we're working with a lot

GP Singh: 00:07:45

of remote patient monitoring vendors.

GP Singh: 00:07:47

Uh, what we're seeing over there is the companies that have sending insights

GP Singh: 00:07:51

are actionable insights are probably have a better chance of engagement

GP Singh: 00:07:55

with the providers rather than.

GP Singh: 00:07:57

Plain and simple take all the data and throw it into the EMR, which really

GP Singh: 00:08:01

doesn't generate the same sort of that.

Bill Russell: 00:08:03

I love the, uh, data plumbers.

Bill Russell: 00:08:06

I don't know if you're trying to go away from it or whatnot.

Bill Russell: 00:08:07

Cause I know some people struggle with that, but that is Indic that's

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essentially what you're trying to do is you're, you know, we look out

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in the city of San Diego, right?

Bill Russell: 00:08:16

We don't see the plumbing.

Bill Russell: 00:08:17

We don't see all the things, but if it wasn't there so many things.

GP Singh: 00:08:22

Which is exactly what LK is about.

GP Singh: 00:08:23

There are so many places there they don't know LK is because they fully provide the

GP Singh: 00:08:28

plumbing, uh, you know, uh, for, for a lot of these organizations and health systems,

GP Singh: 00:08:33

but that's what we're really good at.

GP Singh: 00:08:34

And, uh, you know, we want to continue doing that and I don't think we're

GP Singh: 00:08:37

going to move away from plumbing.

GP Singh: 00:08:38

Plumbing is going to be our core business versus Chiefy.

GP Singh: 00:08:41

Thank you for your time.

GP Singh: 00:08:42

Thanks a lot.

GP Singh: 00:08:43

Appreciate it, bill.

Bill Russell: 00:08:44

Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews

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