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 Welcome to this week in Health, it influence where we discussed the influence of technology on health with the people who are making it happen today. Special guests, uh, two people that used to work for me who have gone on to bigger and better things. Uh, David Baker, who I've had on the show before, he is the CIO for Pacific Dental, a, uh, DSO Dental Services Organization outta Southern California.

Billion Plus. Uh, I think it's heading towards 2 billion. Uh, dental service organization and, uh, the person we like to call our mad scientists. Um, uh, Mustafa Ada, who is, uh, just a wickedly brilliant, uh, innovator within, he was within healthcare now he is within, uh, healthcare on the dental side, and he and David are doing some really, really exciting and cool things.

At Pacific Dental, and I can't wait to share that with you. My name's 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. This episode is sponsored by Health Lyrics. I coach healthcare leaders on all things health.

Uh, again, before we moved. Uh, I went onsite with them. , uh, in their, uh, location. I really wish I could've given you the tour that they gave me of the, really, they have this lab that they're working in and they are doing some great stuff around the dental experience, uh, three d printing and modeling. I can see these words to you, but I, I can't, I couldn't show you pictures of all the really cool things that they are, uh, doing.

Great conversation. Hope you enjoy. Alright, so here we are from the headquarters of Pacific Dental Services. . I'm here with, uh, two of my favorite people in all of healthcare. I'm gonna say healthcare 'cause I interviewed Steven Thorn and Dan Burke, and they made it clear to me that the, the teeth are actually inside the head, which is actually part of your body.

Mm. Connected. Which is part of healthcare. That makes sense. And, uh, they drove that home, which is such, such an obvious thing, . And, uh, we just returned from the health conference. Mm-Hmm. and I, the, the thing I loved was the, um, . Yeah. Bernard Tyson, CEO Yep. Standing up there and saying, uh, you know, the head is, we have disconnected the head from the body.

And, and everyone's thought was, you know, he was talking about mental health. You're, you, of course. I was like, that's us. That's US Dental. You leaned over and you're like, he's talking about us. I'm like, I don't think he's talking about you, but you're absolutely right. And I, I think the industry's starting to, starting to recognize that, but this was actually planned as our

This might be a little more familiar 'cause we have worked together for a long time. These two gentlemen were on my, uh, team at, uh, St. Joseph Health. Uh, David was innovating on the, um, uh, consumer experience and we defined consumer a little different. We were talking not only about the consumer of the services, but we were also talking about our internal consumers patient and physician experience.

Yep. And Mustafa was his secret weapon. Mustafa, ada. Um, and I've written blog articles about you and, uh. David has taken his secret weapon from St. Joe's over to Pacific Dental, and, um, and we're, we're gonna, we're gonna dive into innovation at, uh, uh, at Pacific Dental because I think it's, you know, it's a good continuation of what we've been doing.

But just to give you guys some idea, we planned this as our hundredth hundredth episode like extravaganza. And, uh, I just published episode 147. That's amazing. Nice. You should have done one 50 then, at least. Good for you. I, uh, so why, uh, well maybe this will be one 50. We'll see. Uh, because you guys have been very, very busy.

There's, there's a lot going on in dental. There's been 47 episodes since we committed to that. A hundred one's? Yes. Wow. You are a content producer. I'm impressed. A a lot going on. So, um, so give us an idea. You know, we, we just, we did, I've interviewed you twice. And we've, uh, interviewed your executive team, which was, which was a phenomenal interview, but give us an idea of, you know, where are you looking to innovate within, within dental, uh, today?

What are you looking at? What, what technologies and, and what things are going on here? Let me give you, give you a mic. So I'll give you the high level. It's probably a good question from a staffer. CNC lives in and breathes in that space. Um. , I hope to innovate three mics next time. Can we do that? Yeah, we can.

Okay. Um, but for now we'll just, we'll just pass it, pass it back and forth. One more, one more sponsor, and we'll have a third more sponsor. All right. Sorry, this is way too familiar at this point, but we'll keep going. Um, I think we're a pivotal point in, uh, in, in dental for sure. And in healthcare, I think things are finally, um, coming together more seriously.

Everyone . Preached and, uh, talked about interoperability for, for the longest time. And I think it was just, uh, it was just a nicety. People feel as long they got in the conversation, then that would, uh, that was good enough. But, um, it, we are genuinely approaching a point where systems are coming together for sure, finally, and people are open to interoperability and it really meaning that we pass, you know, data between each other in, in some way or another.

So. You, you know what's interesting is on the, we did an episode on, uh, wisdom. 'cause you're implementing Epic's Wisdom, correct? Yeah. Solution. Mm-Hmm. . And when you go to my website and you look at the search history results, the, uh, when people are looking for, um, epic and Dental, you, your episode gets hit a, a ton from Google search, okay?

And people are, that's what they're looking for. You guys are being looked at right now, as you know. What are they doing with Epic? And, you know, is that interoperability play really gonna be the, you know, the, the catalyst for dental and medical to come together. I, I mean, I hope it is, that's the anticipation, right?

I think the power for us is bringing together not only, so you have your, you have your medical. Both the primary care and the acute. Now you have dental and you'll also have pharmaceutical dependent on, you know, what, what, who, you know, who you're with. Should you be with ACVS, for example? Pharmaceutical will be there.

Should you be with, uh, well, the same for them on the MinuteClinic primary, uh, primary care. And then with us, we'll be the first, uh, the first DSO in the US to be able to bring that complete continuum of, of information together. So that, so that's exciting. That is, that's really fascinating to, to hear. But, so Mustafa, I want to, I want to, I wanna get to you.

So the, uh, gosh, I, the blog article I wrote about you, I mean, you, you think different when it comes to innovation. Um, I remember, uh, remember one time, I, I went over to the hospital where you were stationed and I said, uh, Mustafa, what's new? What's going on? You're like, . Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. We're doing so many great things.

I said, well, you know, just give what, what, what went on this week? It's like, well, I spent the entire day yesterday in a patient bed. Yeah. I'm like, the entire day, that's what you paid me for, to get a feel for it. You gotta, you gotta lay there. I'm like, and, and my first thought was, why is David allowing you to sleep during the day?

Yeah. . But then you went through, you said, here's what I learned. And you just rattled off like five or six things. Mm-Hmm. right in a row. And it was, um, . It was interesting 'cause from that point on, I, I ended up talking a lot about, uh, you know, the ambient sound within those rooms and what we were doing to address them.

But that's what you really have to do. You have to put yourself in that, uh, in that environment to really see it. That thing continues, by the way, so I think it's awesome. And he doesn't get to sleep as much on the job anymore, but he does. He is in, I think you you did a whole week down at dental office recently.

Yeah, he's out. He's out there living and breathing out. I think that, that that's the, the, the secret to being innovative in any industry, I believe. I think that if, uh, you know, most people say like, how do you, how do you invent ideas and all that? It's really not really a big secret. It's, you go, you look at the workflow and then you see what are the gaps and what are the areas that you, you think can improve.

Now you, you know, we were earlier kind of joking around about like my personal journey, right? And so . Part of what really drives that is that I experienced healthcare in such a not positive way. I mean, I, I didn't have a great experience in healthcare. This is like seven years ago, right? When I was going through my own stuff.

And, um, for me it was like I, I made a commitment to, to, to myself and I think to, to people if, if I was in a place of influence that I could change some technology or some component of a workflow to help patients while they're in their most vulnerable state. That in the end, that was gonna be what I was gonna measure myself with.

You know, like in, in the end of your life where you're thinking about was I a good enough person? Did I do things correctly and did I help people around me that, 'cause ultimately, that's all that matters, right? I mean, and, and if that can help me, you know, uh. Uh, you know, so these experiences really helped me kind of figure out what I needed to do.

So, yeah, I did spend a couple of nights in a, in a bed. I did spend, um, David and I have this joke. I, I, I did spend, um, a Friday night from 6:00 PM until the following day, 2:00 PM that Saturday at a, at an emergency department. Only just because I want to see that experience. Nobody, you know, when I, when I tell people about, you know, like our own personal experiences, nobody really sees it that same way because it's your personal experience.

So I thought, how can I learn somebody else's experience other than, you know, the best way to do it is sit with 'em and just kind of feel it out. Yeah. And some of the things you were working on were kind of fun. So, uh, Microsoft Connect in the or? Yep. I mean, that was back in the day, which was pretty . Um, interesting to even think about and you know, you, you watch surgery and you're sitting there going, these guys don't really, can't really interact with the technology 'cause there's no good way to do that now.

Voice has really taken Yeah. Center stage there, but, but at the time, voice was nowhere to be found and connect was, was really coming about at. Talk about that one a little bit. That's huh. I mean, I know, I know it's gone by the wayside, but it's just, how did that, like how did you go playing with your kids at home?

or, yeah, these things should work together. Yeah. So, um, part, part of, part of, you know, I, I always sound like I'm on a soapbox, but part of being a successful technologist in healthcare is, is breathing and living the experience. And so one, one of the things I did was I called a neurosurgeon and I said, Hey, um, I'm a technologist.

I'd really love to sit and watch you. Do brain surgery, . So that's the best part. And, and he was just like, what? And I said, yeah, you know, I want to know when's the next time you're gonna do surgery? I wanna sit and watch you. And he says, look, I have a spinal cord surgery that I'm gonna do in a couple of days.

It's six hours long. Do you wanna do it? And I said, absolutely, let's do it. And one of the things I realized while I was watching him, and, and the coolest thing was he was explaining the, the process as we're, you know, in that room, I. And there's all these people walking back and forth and there's all these assistants and he's doing this thing.

He's standing in one place for hours and hours and he's got his hands, you know, he's using his hands to carve and do all the things that he's doing, and he's got these images in front of him that he would periodically stop and he would kind of stare at the image. These are PAX images, you know, the radiology images, and there were some that were three D, some that were just uh, two D X-rays.

And he would stop what he's doing, walk around the. The, the, the bed where the patient was or, and then he would go onto the computer and he would use these special things so that, you know, he would still stay in the sterile field. And then he would kind of play with the image, look at it, and then he would walk back and then he would get into it, and then he would go back again.

So that whole process made me think for every time he's interrupted to do something that takes him out of his flow. Right. And so one of the most important things I've always felt was like once you're in the flow, you're less prone to making errors and you're much more efficient and you're thinking like real sequentially and it's processing better.

So then I thought, you know what? Look, my kids when they go to the mall, they're always just like playing with these things. What if I brought that that device into the, or attached it to the PAC system and then the, and then registered the hands of the surgeon with that system so that no matter who walked in front or who else stuck their hand up, it would only register that I.

Physician's hand, the surgeon's hand. And then we kind of built these rules that if you do this, it goes to the next image. And if you do this, it'll make it smaller and larger. And this was like back in 20 14, 15. That that is so, so, um, my, my son was asking me, you know, he's like, what, what is it like when you're creating this stuff?

Right? And one of the hardest things is when you're working, uh, in fields where you are. I am not saying it's just me, it's people that do what we do. We're sometimes so far ahead of the industry and the way that we're thinking of things, that it's really hard to sell the idea, and that's where the difficulty thing comes in, you know?

So we did some of that with, um, with the hands-free stuff. And then, you know, we brought in some of the robots to monitor patients that were at high risk of falling. And so some of the executives, like when you explain it to them, they get it, you know, you guys get it. But then there's others that are like

This, you know, I met with a Yeah. And our job is to represent you Well, . And that was, uh, the other crazy thing was just the, I would go over to the, to St. Jude's Hospital where you were at, and uh, I'd go into the basement, I'd look over and I'd be like, are those three D printers? Yeah. Yeah. We just got like four of 'em.

Yeah. I'm like. How did you get four three D printers? He's like, we're, we're like trying to figure out how they're gonna be used in healthcare and that kind of stuff. I'm like, I'm the CIO, you're getting 'em at the hospital, but I can't get 'em at the system. Yeah. Because you're, you, you are where it was, uh, where it was happening, if, as, as they say, yeah.

And vendors wanted to, a lot of 'em still do. In fact, it's funny, I'm laughing 'cause it's, it's the same now, but they're more modern and in his test kitchen as we call it, there's probably like six of the things lined up with all sorts of goodies and you know, but there's some, I mean, we're working with I think some true pioneers, uh, for sure in the, in the Google and the AWS space.

I mean, we, we, we've done some fun stuff. Okay, so that's, that, that, that explains that a little bit more. The, the other, the the other story. And actually I want to get, I want to get to that. If you're, if you're able to talk about some of those things you're doing with Google and aws Sure, yeah. We, we can touch on, on some of that.

To go back just your earlier question, just clear on my head, we got, as far as, you know. Epic is not the first company I think of with when, when we say like, innovation, this ato, ground innovation. Right. And I, and I think that they are in the healthcare space, but ultimately that tool has gotta be an amazing, you know, operators tool, physician tool doc tool, clinician talk, where they can get in and out the information that they need to as quickly as possible to enable us make decisions.

The interoperability is key because the, the, the money if you like, is in getting that data out. Right. So once that data's out, the way we are manipulating it and what we're applying on top of that is, that's why I think we're at this tipping point. It's mind blowing because the tools are learning, right?

Themselves, machine learning, ai, overused terms like that. It's, it's here, it's now, and we can, we can take you through some really pretty amazing stuff. The, the thing I, so the thing I loved about our partnership, the three of us as sort of partners, is, um, . Fanatic DA David was fanatical about the consumer and how they u actually usability around this stuff.

Mm-Hmm. , can we use it? Can we get in and out? I, I understood the business, business innovation. So there was sometimes where you guys were so far out there that I was like, alright, that's not gonna help the system and so I could help guide you and, and those kind of things. And then Mustafa, you were just always coming up with

The clinical usages. Clinical. Yeah. I mean, I, I remember the day you came to me, you met a guy at the, uh, garage and you followed him all day through his Yeah. Oh, you remember that story? Yeah. Oh my God. That's a good one. But that's, that's, that's what you did Well, and then you would say, okay, here's, here's where we're falling down.

Yeah. I remember, you know, a couple of those things where they came together were, we were trying to redo the clinical workstation. . Uh, we now, we had state of the art, we really did have state of the art. I mean, we had the Vota client, we had, uh, smart clients. We had state-of-the-Art for healthcare. Yeah. And I remember looking at each other going, yeah, that's, this is state of the art for healthcare, but this is not state of the art.

And so we were like, all right, Mustafa, dream up what's next? Mm-Hmm. What's the next thing? And you just went into your . Lab or whatever you do. Yeah. And you came back and you're like, here's what we're gonna do. It's gonna be an Android dev device. They can run the EMR on it. They're gonna carry it from room to room.

Yeah. Just dock it and it's gonna sort of look like this. Yeah. And, and you were making significant progress on that when we, uh. Uh, when we left and you guys moved over to, uh, dental, that was so far ahead back then. Yeah. They couldn't, we made that video. Yeah. And same thing, I did the talk the other day on, on on innovation and, and the power of making sure that internally you have that emerging technology as we call it here, innovation team group.

And that those investments are made. 'cause the thing is a luxury, but I would, I would argue that it's absolutely not. And if you don't invest in disruption yourself within like another overview's term I know, but it's true. If you are not there as a pioneer, you're gonna be the next Kodak moment. It's so, it's so interesting to watch the amount of traditional companies that are displaced and, you know, dental's traditional.

And, uh, that's why I'm grateful here. That's such an entrepreneurial tech, forward thinking company. It's like, what's next? How do we become the best and ensure that, that we maintain the status of the number one denim company in, in the us And, and it's through a lot of those applied technologies. Think about going into our office, right?

The first thing I always recall, you know, when I came into the company and was interviewing, I walked into one of the offices and I'm like, there's a tooth printer. They're printing teeth. This is amazing. I still call that a tooth printer. It makes me laugh, but it's a milling machine. It's quite common now, but we have, every single office is enabled with one of these fantastic pieces of technology that enables you same day dentistry, and it will print or mill the crown.

So those days of pat in the mouth, and when you know with . Tempes and then calling you back in a couple of week, they're gone. It's like, we will see to you same day in the chain, you'll walk out of that crown. I think. I think that's phenomenal and, and lots of folks are still not at that point, but that, that's just, that's basics for us.

So I think, I think it is a good head stop. So, so talk to me about innovation in dental. Mm-Hmm. So the first thing is, um, you know, there's different levels of, of, of, uh, innovation and EPIC is innovative in the dental space in that. What you guys see is business businesses coming together, medical and dental, and the only way to really plug into that is either to create a new kind of HIE that brings the terminology of dental and and medical together, or go with the largest medical EMR that's out there that has a dental thing.

We'll do both, which, which naturally brings it together. Yeah. So I mean, that is a form of in of, I mean, the reason we talked about that from innovation is it becomes a platform which you can grow the business on. We're gonna create ADIE. Dental information exchange, I think like why not? It's just one of those things that gets overlooked and, and in some of the work that we are doing, it's bringing, you know, partners together for the greater good.

You know, sometimes you as competitors, there's areas where, you know, you can all come up together. Exactly the same with healthcare. The HIE you can all this, no one wants to hear me, they're here. Dear you, so, so I, I think it, it, it, yeah, twofold. It's a foot in the door quickly with an amazing, uh, partner like Epic who have, you know, such, uh, footprint already.

And then how do we help the others come along? How can we even, you know, assist private practice? Like, what's good for us? It's good for other, other folks, right? It's not, it's, it's not just about flying. So all the time we work really closely with some of our other counterparts in, in, in, in how we can affect the dental industry in, in, in, in general and bringing it along.

And it's disparate. There's so little information sharing. There's so little interoperability. It makes healthcare seem ahead. Mm-Hmm. Yep. So Mustafa, what's in the lab? What crazy things are you, are you working on that you're able to share? Um, you know, we're, we're focused on precision medicine right now. A lot Really?

Yeah. A lot of precision medicine. We, we want to use, we want to use math to solve healthcare problems. And so we're playing a lot with, um, augmented artificial intelligence. There's a lot, there's a big movement, there's a lot of companies that are doing some of this stuff for us. . We, we think it's, um, we, we, I think it, we think it's not a big deal.

We think it's just the natural course and evolution in technology and healthcare, but precision medicine, customized medicine, those are the areas that we're most interested in. We are looking at tying, you know, David touched on a little bit, oral systemic health. So we are the head, the body, right? How, you know, how can we do that in the most effective way other than taking, you know, complex mathematical formulas.

Putting in some inputs and getting the, the desired outcomes we want. The, the coolest thing, um, I've always, one of the coolest things I've always had in my mind in the last 10 years is that, and this is a quote that's on my whiteboard. It says, it says, we have all the answers. We have all the answers today.

It's the questions we seek. Like it's knowing to know it. It's how do you ask the right question so you can get the answers out and then make it make sense for your business, whether it's . Improving patient satisfaction, reducing cost, increasing revenue, whatever. So let's, let's talk about, let's talk in each area.

Okay? Let's start in, uh, let's talk about the consumer experience. Okay? So you guys are retail, and so I'm gonna talk about the consumer, then I'm gonna talk about the, the dental practice owner, and then I'm gonna talk about. Um, but you know, we'll, we'll start there and then I wanna come back to the system 'cause you guys have done some innovative things there as well.

So let's talk about the consumer. What are some things you guys are looking at from the consumer experience standpoint? We should have thought about what we were gonna speak about again. 'cause there's a ton we're working on. Some is really, uh, yeah. Some, some secret sauce, right? And some is I think we can, we can unleash on the world now.

Um, I, I think what's some stuff that's in pilot that, you know, . We're gonna be reading, reading about anyway here shortly. So from the consumer experience, why don't we talk, I mean, briefly. 'cause there's, there's stuff that's like 1 0 1 and it's not, it's not viewed as innovative, but it's a lot of dental, can't, can't get it right right now.

So online scheduling. Right. One of our amazing success stories this year, and that was from staffer, came in and really pulled the group together. That that did, that we were told couldn't be done. Technology is too old, uh, through the middleware and applying some of that, I mean, now, you know, 30% of all our, all our new book, new patient bookings are done through that system.

Right. So it's, it's leveling the playing field and just given the basics, I can book a haircut line, why can't I book a dental appointment? Now you can. So we crash through a bunch of, of, you know, smaller wins, but they're big wins. Right. And then on the consumer experience side, it's just making it, how do we make it easier?

For the, uh, for the patient to communicate with the office in the way they wanna communicate as quickly as they can. So he's bringing together, again, under patient experience. Mm-Hmm. , a series of, of, of, of products, of self-service opportunities to get, to get that, that point to point communication right.

Between patient office text messaging was one. Sure. We, we have, we, we, and yeah. So we're, we're taking a lot of the value-based purchasing concept ideas, uh, . and, and applying it in dental using technologies, right? So we're constantly thinking about how do we improve the patient experience, whether that's, um, you know, one of the things that we're gonna do in, in very shortly is, you know, with Epic, our patients are gonna have MyChart on their phone, so they're gonna be able to be a lot more mobile.

They're gonna have a lot more access to their data. This is something that I don't remember. My mom, my mom was a dental assistant for almost 30 years, and she has a, you know, she worked for . Uh, you know, her dentist and he was amazing. But you know, I, and I, I, I can't wait to talk with him about this stuff that we're doing now 'cause he is retired, but nobody ever thought about, you know, electronic records, much less your record on in your pocket and now you're seeing a tieback between what your, uh, dental health looks like and, you know, using Epic we can then look at other, uh, health information and then be begin

To look at correlating your oral, your overall health. So we're doing some of that. We're looking at how can we effectively predict for our patient population, what their wait times are gonna be like when they come to a supported office. So we're looking at where are our patients at any given time. We're looking at technologies that'll help us understand for different types of

Um, cases that the clinicians are working on, how long those cases take and how long they ought to take. A lot, like, you know, some of the learnings that we had in managing operating room efficiencies and we're bringing those ideas into this environment and then we're looking at using some IOT to help us build that information for us.

So stuff like that. And then the AI stuff. Yeah. And then yeah, chair side as well in terms of, so for that same day dentistry, how do we get good . Amazing information in, in front of the patient. Stuff that they've not, uh, used to, uh, not used to seeing in, in the average office. So, for example, uh, oral DNA is big for us.

The library testing, uh, things that you wouldn't normally see, we're now able to present and present chairside and, and build this Dan Dental dashboard, right? This portfolio of, of so many, um, so many feedback points to help . To help the patient make better decisions around, around their treatments, right?

It's more than just the human who a lot of folks don't trust, right? Especially in their new dentist. You go do, you know, it's like, I think everyone's got a story. They go to the dentist and, and everyone's got a great dentist and everyone's got a horror story from a dentist it seems, because it's just that one doct that's in front of you giving you their opinion.

And it differs. It's like you go to one dentist, you need four fillings and a crown. You go to another and everything looks pretty good. You just need it clean. It's like, who, who do I believe? So for us, it's applying technology there as well to help facilitate that expedited trust. We believe we're giving good feedback and giving good options.

There's no harm in, in verifying as well with the technology and putting it in front of you. And there's so, there's so few folks that are able to do that. So talk to me about, so Steve was on the show and he talked about growing over 2 billion in . Four years or something. I mean, it's the, the growth curve is pretty significant.

So you guys are adding new offices constantly, I imagine. Yeah. And some of those are rural, some of 'em are local. How are you doing that? That was, I mean, that was hard for us with physician practices in major cities. How are you doing it in Louisiana to, I mean, you're in what, 30 states? 20 states? I forget what it was.

It was, it does change. 21. 21, yeah. 21, I think. 21 states. And there's some rural locations, some city locations. How, what kind of innovation did you do? And, and this is like incremental innovation, right? We've been doing a lot of this stuff, but you have to get faster at it, better at it, more efficient at it, because you're growing at a faster pace.

I for, I mean for me it's, uh, it's about modeling the amazing business blueprint that's in place, right? Yeah. For PDS. Totally. I don't think that. So you have an office blueprint that says, oh, yeah, yeah. It's a checklist. This is what the phone list, our phone system looks like. This is what, it's the, it's the magic source in general, right?

Mm-Hmm. I mean, where you can prescribe. I've seen so much success from the company with, you know, our, uh, our, our owner dentist, right? In the practices and, and, and them just having these, these amazing flyaway successes because . They follow the model and the partnership and we're there to support them, right?

So that's, you're taking everything off their plate. They're focusing on, on the art dentistry and building their practice. And that proven model is behind them and it just keeps improving because we are just . Pushing this, this incremental, uh, technology improvements along, along the way into the office to, we just wanna give 'em minutes back every day.

And we want to be able to help them, you know, work with the patients more expeditiously and getting that better quality of data so that they can just co commence treatment. So it's, it's, I mean, we solicitate the feedback from . from those offices constantly and, and, and are looking at what, what else can we put in there?

Um, and, and there's a whole pipeline, right? But right now there is a specific blueprint and it's only getting better. And next year's gonna be a pivotal year for us. So, um, . I say that obviously because the, the big epic deployment's coming, our data will be fully liberated. We, uh, we'll have a pretty impressive, I would say, uh, you know, data warehouse and the way that we're, the visualization of some of that stuff and the AI that we're applying over the top is incredible.

Then you've got the foundational stuff like SD WAN in every office, right? Not many folks have done that. We've embraced it. We've deployed it. We have really, really fixed and, and good solid architecture on the backend with failover, with speed, enabling media in every office. Enabling, you know, the, uh, touchscreen and, and, and digital signage.

I mean, it's really, this has been a, a couple of solid foundational years. Next year is the year when a ton of this comes together. In, in, in, in, in our future stay office. Hey, you know what? There's another, there's another cool project that we're working on. Now, imagine this, we are, we're looking at . We are looking at using CB Cone Beam CT technology to look at the, the human anatomy at the head side.

Not only are we gonna be able to, no, this goes back to precision medicine. Not only are we gonna be able to diagnose better using better technologies, but now we're moving into things like, you know, uh, airways and looking at, uh, sleep apnea issues and, and, and starting to look to see if that becomes part of what

You know, is one of our offerings as an organization. Right? And so this is some of the really interesting thing. These are some of the interesting things that we're working on, including, you know, our partnerships with, um, with some of the primary care offices that, that we've lit up in the last year or so.

Those things are super exciting. Actually, when you were just talking there, it took me back to imagine this, and you did this all the time with me. It's like, what if we could do this? I had, what if we could do this? I'm sitting there going. Uh, okay. Well if we could do that, that would be really cool. And you started a lot of conversations that way.

Did wonder if we could do it? We're in the middle of our corporate planning, uh, cycle right now, uh, where we start to look at what does next year look like. Really mature process around where does those, where do those r and d dollars go? What do you wanna achieve as a, as a, as a company, you know, against our strategic, uh, business plan.

And it's the same thing, but this is the fun thing. He did a, you did a, what did you call it? The, the offsite the other day? The innovation offsite. Yes. He says innovation offsite gets a bunch of people there. And it was like, it was like kids in a candy shop for some of us, right? So it's like, imagine if

You know, time and money were no barrier. Yeah. And then he just went crazy for a couple days. But out of that, these visualization sessions are great. Yeah. This is stuff over the years, right. I think we've learned from some of the big five, some of the, we are so good at stealing stuff now, from really clever people.

And so we've got all of these great visioneering, uh, kind of methodologies that that, that we run through. And just watching everything go from nothing is crazy. Let's just go and put everything out there and then you, you whittle it down to, you know, maybe those top five 10. And then that's what you begin to frame up and you frame 'em up in such a way that you get a little enthusiasm and some backing around that stuff and they become, you know, our goals for next year.

This is stuff that's gonna help move the business along. It's gonna be, it, it's gonna be a better situation for the patient, better situation for the office. So it's fun going through that though. But the crazy stuff. Like, just going back to your point just then about Yeah. He, he's in his element and he, and he mad, mad scientist, uh, invention point.

So let's, last question I really want to get into is, um, what are the challenges I always had in managing you? Yeah. Was we You wanted to do the innovation stuff. Yeah. You always wanted to be the mad scientist. Yeah. Just gimme a lab. I'll come up with really cool stuff. Right. And we always pushed you back into an operational role, not one that was too Yeah.

Overbearing. Right. But one that sort of kept you grounded. Yeah. Um, was one of the things I did. Yeah. And I'm wondering if that continued. Yeah. Mostly 'cause I, I want to look at David and roll my eyes. Um, I'm wondering if that con continued and does it, does that help you or does it hinder you? I mean, how do you, um, 'cause we all have parts of our job that we sure really enjoy.

Why, why don't you roll your eyes? First of all, . So, you know, sometimes I roll my eyes when I'm like, I mean, I sound like Bill, why would I stop it? Um, David and I talked about that actually when I, when, uh, when I was first starting here. I think we both agreed 'cause we. Like this isn't, we're both pretty inventive.

Like, and it's kind of a weird, weird, 'cause most people who are very alike don't tend to get along very well. So there's moments, uh, where I'm, I'm starting a sentence and, and then he'll finish it and there's moments where he's like, Hey, what if we did this, this, and this? And then I'll say, well, yeah, then we can do this, this, and this.

And then it's just like this package, right? That kind of relationship is really cool to have that, that's one of the success criteria I think. You need to be in line. But one, um, we talked about operations and one of the things we both agree on is that in order to be inventive, you have to know where the holes are, where the gaps are, where the problems are, and you can't not know that.

I mean, you can't know that stuff if you're not involved in it. Mm-Hmm. . And if you're not seeing a day to day, so one of the groups that I am responsible for is the clinical operations support team, which in big healthcare is like the biomed group. And so this group is split into two. One is the architect.

So these guys are, um, constantly thinking about the next iteration of the systems we're bringing in. And then the other folks are responsible for supporting these existing clinical applications and, and systems. Mostly not so much applications, but I, I feel it's really good to have that. Honestly, you can't get too sucked.

Like it has to be a well oiled machine really. Right. So he . You know, he has a reputation for the, the, obviously the great invention. Uh, that's what everybody, nobody talks about. Oh my gosh, you got the database to go 15% faster. Yeah. You should see that. He's also got, he's a good operator as well, right? He can go in there, streamline a team, you know, build the culture in the team and get them delivering amazing customer service.

So he's had to get that dialed as well. So that's come along, but you're right, they go hand in hand. So there's a whole nother slide that folks you know, don't see. And, and there's the balance. If you don't wanna get 'em sucked into operations because . You'll never get to spend time on the innovation. So it, it's a balance, but I think we're at a point now.

I think it, it, it's balanced really well. You've got a great team out there supporting those, you know those folks clinically on the clinical devices, right? Yeah. And yet you are able to spot gaps. How can I make their life easier? You, you don't always know. You can't glean everything. Just, you know, sleeping in the bed for one night in the ed, you need to live it and breathe it a bit more.

And, and owning a piece of the operations help helps with that. So. He's not making you do the Epic implementation, is he? Well, I, I am responsible for the MyChart implementation and deployment. That's experience, that's one of the pieces that I do own. Well, I have to say though, honestly, build the most important part of having an inventive company has a, a couple of key key pieces.

One is it, it has to have an executive group. That is very mindful of the future, not so much the present. The present is great, I love it. But what, what's next is what we should constantly be thinking about and how do we adjust for that? And when executives are thinking that way, people like me flourish because I'm, I'm not thinking about today so much.

I'm thinking about tomorrow. And then the next is how can you build a team that you can trust? The, the one, the one part of what I do that I'm absolutely the most proud of. Is my team. My team is so, so good. I have 24 team members right now. I mean, every one of them is just a, a, an amazing human being that that has, that has great sense of empathy and care for what they're doing.

But one of the things that we did very strategically is we're building these, these smaller groups with product managers. All of our product managers come from hospitals. So they all have that clinical background, that clinical experience, and I think that's, that's part of the, the thing that makes this kind of a thing successful.

That's fantastic. What I forget to are, are you guys, I, I assume based on the way you're doing cloud, you're doing AWS, you're doing Google with their insights, all things you can't talk to me about, huh? It's all, I mean, it's more, we, it's more we tenant we're, uh, we're equal opportunities. It's like who's got the best product?

We, we like to look ourselves as a, as a platform company. Um, by that I mean we can pull in and out the components of, of best of breed as we go with as little impact, you know, overall. So we have a phenomenal, uh, set of middleware tools, I would say, and some great, you know, data transformation tools that kind of assigned to bring it together.

Um, but yeah, we can, doing a. A ton of stuff. The nice thing with, you know, going multi-tenant is you can bring Google have come in and sat down and talked to us about, you know, areas of, of AI and, uh, image recognition and stuff that they're just, they're best of breed naturally at it. It's what, it's what they do.

Right. And then Amazon, uh, on the, on the. The backend with more of the traditional cloud compute layer. Right? I mean, they're nails at that. It's just, it's just common commonplace now. And you've replaced the phone system with, uh, cloud based phone system as well? Yeah, we did. I'm just laughing just 'cause that was, that was a big pain point initially.

So I, I'm a big fan of RingCentral. Our vendor partners, you know, we work real closely with them. We have great relationships with, with . You know, with them that take time to build and, and you know, that's been a vendor where we've had a huge amount of success on something as basic as, you know, the phones we're trying to get people off the phones who like speaking to humans anymore.

Right. But , which is still a big part of the day, especially in the offices. So self service. Yeah. They need to, they need to work, right? So emails have gotta work, phones have gotta work. None of this stuff that's gonna win you CIO of the year. But it's all necessary. So I think our, our foundational . Uh, product line is, is solid.

It speaks volumes in the up times that we enjoy now, and it's just, it's making it boring. Okay. And then it's, uh, we're keeping the trains running on time, bill, but then we're building track and he's building airplanes. I heard that somewhere from someone . It needs to move in the background and, uh, sort of disappear, but be enabling, enabling everything.

Totally. Um, guys, I'm looking forward to the 200th episode where I, it will definitely be. The, uh, the, the three of us, uh, hanging out maybe in the lab. That would be, that'd be cool. Let's do, it's a lot of fun. Of course, you'd have like tarps over a bunch of stuff. We do. We do have some tarps. top secret. Yeah.

Nobody see that's funny. So this has gotta be one 50. Uh, this will probably be one 50. Yeah. Nice. We'll go, we'll go from there. After all the editing, you're gonna have to do . Well, thanks gentlemen. I appreciate it, bill. Thank you. Good to see. Thanks. Great seeing you. Yeah. I really want to thank David and Mustafa for, uh, taking the time to join me.

Uh, they are just fun, just flat out fun people, uh, to be around. They are innovating. They are pra pragmatically innovating and changing the dental space. Uh, it is a lot of fun to watch and, uh, I appreciate them taking the time to share some of that with me. Uh, special thanks to our channel sponsors, Starbridge Advisors, VMware, Galen Healthcare Pro Talent Advisors, and health lyrics for choosing to invest in developing the next generation of health leaders.

Please come back every Friday for more great interviews with influencers. And don't forget, every Tuesday we take a look at the news, which is impacting health. It. This show is a production of this week in Health It. For more great content, you check out our website this week, health.com, or the YouTube channel.

If you find this show valuable, share it with a peer. Best way you can support us and help us is to, uh, share it with others who would benefit from this content. Uh, don't forget, uh, we are right around the corner is HIMSS and we will be dropping a lot of shows during that week. . Going a little bit off schedule from what we normally do.

You will, uh, see, we'll probably drop three, four interviews a day over the course of that week. So you'll probably get, uh, 20 shorter type episodes, uh, which we, our format is the, uh, uh, this week health events, uh, format. Uh, we'll do that. So there probably won't be a Tuesday Newsday episode, and there won't be a Friday episode.

There's just gonna be a bunch of great conversations with industry, uh, influencers and, uh, product companies, and you name it. Uh, we're gonna try to, uh, to, uh, vet those and give you just the best content we possibly could. Thanks for listening.