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 Welcome to this Week in Health It where we amplify great thinking to Propel Healthcare Forward. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this week in Health. It a set of podcast videos and collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders. Have you missed our live show?

It is only available on our YouTube channel. What a fantastic conversation we had with, uh, direct Ford David Mutz. S Shade. Around what's next in health. It, uh, you can view it on our website with our new menu item appropriately named live. Or just jump over to the YouTube channel. And while you're at it, you might as well subscribe to our YouTube channel and click on Get Notifications to get access to a bunch of content only available on our YouTube channel.

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Special thanks to Sirius for supporting the show's efforts during the crisis now onto today's show. This morning we're joined by Andy Crowder, the CI for Atrium Health. Morning Andy, and welcome to the show. Uh, thank you, bill. Great to hear your voice and see you. Well, I, I, I guess I should say welcome back to the, we've uh, we've done this before.

Last time you, uh, were not with Atrium. You were So, you've the move. How ago was that?

So, yeah, a few things. Yeah. And you guys are in the news almost perpetually, almost weekly, uh, with things that you guys are doing, uh, M&A work, uh, uh, the, uh, work with Epic and then your Covid stuff. I, I think, you know, before we get into the interview, one of the things that's been Impre impressive is you guys really have stayed ahead.

The communication game, you're, you're doing a lot of news stories with the local media. You're doing, um, a pulse, uh, kinds of things, uh, internally. I've read a bunch of those stories. They're fantastic. So you're communicating really well, uh, with the community around, around you, the community, uh, of, uh, caregivers.

Um, it's, it's really impressive. Give us a.

Yeah. You know, Michael Parkerson, the chief marketing officer, who I think he's about three months ahead of me, um, uh, joining the organization and, and part of the strategy and transformation office with Drta Rasu, um, I think have done just, uh, a phenomenal job of communication, both internally and externally to.

We've.

It has been really, really meaningful and I think comforting to our community. It's a place where, and Gene Woods will say, you know, as part of our brightest shining moments, um, in Atrium Health's history are being witnessed right now in the community and on a national level. It's something that's a real sense of, um, honor and pride.

Yeah, and I, I, I wanted to bring that up. I, I'd love to interview him at a future time because you guys have done a great job around that. And one of the things, one of the things I've been talking about on the show is how important it's for the health system to be the trusted source of information for that community.

Um, people are like, oh, I can't, you know, I can't trust this source, can't trust this source, but they can trust their local health system and, and you guys are doing an exceptional job in that area. Yeah, Michael, Michael would be a great interview candidate. He's a phenomenal partner office right across the hall from mine when we were in the office.

Uh, and I, I've probably spent more time with him and his, um, team on the MarTech stack and part of our digital, um, components over the past 90 days than I ever did in my past. So we're, we're gonna talk about

are things that, uh, did experience.

Yeah. You know, if I look back, still

reflective, you know, I think all of us, um, in leadership roles and frontline staff for, at least for the groups I've been engaged with, like some of the most meaningful. And significant work. Um, probably our careers, um, the way that our caregivers, providers and support staff have come together to provide, you know, critical service to our customers and communities has just been nothing short, uh, of inspiring what's been interesting.

And, uh, we call it either bimodal or agile, or whatever you wanna say. Weeks, months, and even a year to get done. Um, we've been able to, um, you know, move through barriers, get things done in hours or days. Um, virtual hospital was stood up in five days. Um, it's been incredibly meaningful, um, and I think significant work that when, you know, we look back at the end of our careers, we're gonna so about things that we've been able to do as a.

Um, I think the, I think the, a couple of things that emerge, um, for me is that've data and analytics.

Have been key. If we wouldn't have galvanized the leadership team around the elements of the data that guide our actions, uh, we wouldn't have been harmonized. Um, and it's been meaningful for our analytics and BI leaders, our Center for Outcomes research. The people that have done forecasting work has been really significant.

And I think the other thing that's been really refreshing and.

Like you chime. Um, our vendor partners have stepped up really, really huge. Um, and, you know, they're countless names, but, you know, epic and Cerner and Getwell and Amazon. Um, even the, the vendors that, um, you know, would've not normally been there have, have stood up and made donations. Our communities, the.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I, uh, title is.

It's, uh, chief Information Analytics Officer. Um, you know, I think most of, uh, s feel like they were doing that already, but it was call out guide decision making,

um, what we do in the future. Um, it's been. So enjoyable to watch those analytics resources. Um, informaticist physicians and other colleagues come together and ideate and put solutions out there. Um, that's been, without the data, uh, you could have made some really, uh, very different decisions. So making informed decisions data is a pretty exciting part of my role.

Absolutely. So what are, what are couple ways that technology has played.

Yeah, so I, you're watching part of it right now. I think the collaboration suites from, um, Microsoft teams and some of the other ones without those technology capabilities, um, large group mediation, uh, meetings, ideation, and those type of things would've been, um, very difficult. Um, within the first three weeks, we moved 9,000 people to remote.

Satisfaction is even higher. So I think that's a pretty significant transition. Uh, virtual health with the sanctions being lifted, some of the coverage parity, uh, for telehealth. And the other items, you know, we've seen a 20 x, um, increase in that. Um, and in places where, uh, either the clinical.

Providers brought up on virtual pathways within the first 30 days. It's just been significant. And then there have been some emerging technologies, you know, things that you would not normally see in the hospital setting that we've learned from our partners around leveraging donations from Amazon with tablets to keep families and communities connected.

But. Of the social isolation, not being able to see their loved ones in the hospital. Very, very, um, scary times. And technology's been able to bridge that gap. Provides caregivers a way to connect with their patients and still keep, um, you know, precautions in place. And social distancing has been really significant, um, in the work that we've done thus far.

Yeah, I wanna talk a little bit about, uh, work home and those kind of things, but it's been interesting. I probably.

Monitor and let's do this with it. Right. Let's take this tablet and do this with it. And it's, it's been fascinat It's been really exciting to see them, you know, just be creative with the tools they have. Yeah. A, a great interview for you to do. Um, just a shout out to, uh, Dr. Andy McWilliams and the Center for Outcomes Research and, um, Becky.

Families and patients in ways using technology that you would, you could at, you know, target or off Amazon. And the stories are just, um, so powerful, the difference it's made, uh, to those families, uh, loved ones. So your, your IT staff is working remotely. Um, let, let's talk about how you're thinking about bringing the.

I do think it depends on, um, who you're talking to. We're doing a, a pretty exhaustive assessment, uh, of our enterprise work remote strategy as almost every organization is doing right now. We moved 9,000 teammates. Those were the ones that weren't in direct patient care. If you look at the statistics, I think, uh, is is about 90% remote.

Um, and you know, the majority of the feedback that we've gotten so far is positive. Um, when we look at our statistics, productivity is actually up. We've been able to stay on track with our core enterprise initiatives, the Oracle Cloud solution, um, that we're doing for ERP, our EPIC initiative. Uh, people been able to get through certification.

Thanks.

Are significant. I know personally, um, if you talk to my leadership team, uh, once you get used to the work-life balance and how to put those things in place, the productivity, uh, increases are pretty significant. So we're gonna, uh, for the teammates that we moved remote, predominantly, uh, those back office, call center, contact center is hr, those type of functions.

The staff to determine the pros and cons, impacts to KPI and cost. Uh, and then we'll be making some long-term recommendations by the end of the month. We're also collaborating with, um, all of our local community leaders as part of our outreach to them from a employer support point of view. Um, and that's been, uh, meaningful.

Yeah. With, uh, some.

People. I think it's, it's surprising some, some CIOs think, wow, you know, people really love this, and they do. Generally speaking, it's new, it's different. They're enjoying work. But thing that's surprising them, just as many people are saying, Hey, I'd work from, there's a whole bunch saying, you know, bring me back to the office.

I miss, I miss the face to face. I miss being with. It'll, it'll be interesting to see how, how this, uh, plays out. Have you guys started to explore safety precautions if you do bring them back to the office? ? Yeah, of course. You know, there's the, all of the, you know, anything from, um, you know, alternate work days, making sure that you've got, uh, the facilities set up for social isolation, for those that do, that are, you know, required to be on site.

You know, there's a percentage of our staff that have to be on site, so we put those precautions in place. Hand hygiene appropriate PPE, um, looking at the way the facilities are outlined or laid out, um, uh, symptom tracking and tracing those, uh, that have tested positive. All of those things are in play right now.

Yeah. So you guys, you guys had a lot of things going on prior to this. Uh, all we had to do was just take.

You guys are, are mixed environment with your, with your, uh, &. A you end up with, um, some cer and, and some other things in place. So you were really brought in there to, uh, harmonize that environment. So do you intend, you know, first of all, I mean, what's the status of that work where. Yeah. So, uh, you know, um, our teams have done, um, couldn't be prouder of them.

They've found ways to, to get work done in, uh, uh, un not the, the way that we did them before. So the way that we run meetings, the way that we, um, uh, integrate with our epic teammates, our Oracle teammates to go get build done. And, you know, thankfully all of those initiatives are on track and quite honestly, um, under budget in certain areas because we're not doing the travel.

And the travel's a pretty significant component of it. And so, um, I think that, um, there are those that do miss, um, some of the, um, uh, time with their colleagues and teammates. Um, and you know, I was talking to Carl Devo the other day and he was mentioning that, um, productivity increases in certain areas, but also what's it mean from collaboration and free collaboration?

So I.

Best practice from outside of industry as well. There are many of those that have been well ahead of us for, uh, work remote type configurations, and we're gonna leverage all of that that we can. So, you know, coming into this, you know, we were really a different environment that coming out. Do you, do you anticipate, I mean, I'm sure there's gonna be some new pro post covid projects that kick in.

How do you prioritize, make sure you know that, that. Yeah, so you know, early on when I joined the organization, there was a significant focus on.

In helping us prioritize our long term roadmaps and our short term tactics and strategies, uh, whether it's an epic initiative, uh, you know, reimagining our digital front door, um, MarTech stacks, uh, communication tools, whatever it is, um, uh, with the alignment of the strategy and.

We had a strategic planning process and now we're in a, what they call a rapid plan. Um, and I think they've elicited some six to ideas coming outta Covid, which will run back through our governance processes and our C Council determine what those optimization efforts we have to do coming out and which ones are part of our next normal, what's our future look like as it relates to telehealth and how brick and.

So you were one of the first health systems to sort of announce, you know, a, a a, a digital model coming outta this and, um, covid free areas for care and those kind of things. Um, you may or may not be able to do this, but you know, what, what are some of the pro, I mean, new, new ways of thinking about the waiting areas, obviously.

So I think that, um, you know, if you look at the essence of what we're trying to do, it's really around safety. Convenience and access for our customer base, whether that's, you know, leveraging, you know, self triage capabilities so that people can get anytime, anywhere, access to the information they need.

Otherwise, those things would've resulted in a phone call at a time when volumes were peaking out. Concern and fear for, uh, covid spread.

Times.

The thing about virtual, and, and you and I have talked about this before and I've talked about it with a lot of CIOs. It's, it's such a better experience. You know, check in, you know, check in for traditional is we, you know, walk into a room, then we sign in, then we, you know, then we get forms and questionnaires handed on a clipboard, and then we, you know, for checkout we have to go back and.

I mean, the virtual experience is just so much more elegant in terms of checking in online before you get there. Forms of questionnaires filled out before you get there. Checkout and documentation all given to you online so you can view it. You can even include videos, uh, you know, billing. So do you see that being integrated and changing the physical, uh, experience?

are.

Human and, and there are gonna be places where you still have to provide that. So I think making sure that people have choice is really, really key in how we do these. But you know, from how you approach the building, , uh, whether you go straight to a room without even. With, um, with all kinds of things I think are gonna change things that would've been taboo or off the table for even consideration are now gonna be conversations where, uh, we ideate, uh, and implement a lot faster than what we've ever done.

Fantastic. Uh, Andy, thank you for your time. I'm looking forward to just continuing to highlight the great work that is going on at Atrium. You guys are, uh, you know, really I groundbreaking stuff and, and appreciate, appreciate.

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