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 chime floor.
Bill Russell:We're with Zephyr Chaudry from Seattle children's CIO.
Bill Russell:Uh, welcome back to the show.
Bill Russell:We hear you.
Bill Russell:And I had a great conversation a little while ago.
Bill Russell:Um, but it's been a little while.
Bill Russell:I mean, the, uh, pandemics hit we're now back together at chime.
Bill Russell:So a lot of transport.
Bill Russell:What is top of mind for you right now as
Zafar Chaudry:a CIO?
Zafar Chaudry:Oh, I'm just trying to talk to people.
Zafar Chaudry:Well, first of all, talking to people in 3d is amazing.
Zafar Chaudry:It is.
Zafar Chaudry:And also just talk to people about what's keeping them up at night.
Zafar Chaudry:And, uh, I think the trends are similar.
Zafar Chaudry:I was at the boot camp earlier this week and a lot of trends around
Zafar Chaudry:teams, high-performing teams, uh, some mental health, psychological
Zafar Chaudry:safety, you know, people are stressed.
Zafar Chaudry:People have.
Zafar Chaudry:They've been going after it for 18 months straight.
Zafar Chaudry:Uh, but technologically speaking, you know, similar trends, some
Zafar Chaudry:people are wrapping up their EMR.
Zafar Chaudry:Some people optimizing their EMR, lots of discussion on analytics as
Bill Russell:well.
Bill Russell:So are we going to go back to the stress?
Bill Russell:Are we seeing that in the health it portion of the organization, has it been a
Bill Russell:significant sprint for the last 18 months?
Bill Russell:And we have to start looking at that pretty closely.
Bill Russell:What are some things we, you hear that people are.
Bill Russell:That you think are good practices to,
Zafar Chaudry:well, I think that's the debate.
Zafar Chaudry:What do we do to keep people safe?
Zafar Chaudry:So technologists working in the background and support services are still facing
Zafar Chaudry:the same mental pressures that everybody else is many have lost family to COVID.
Zafar Chaudry:Then you have sick family members, but working 12 hours a day from home,
Zafar Chaudry:not having that social interaction.
Zafar Chaudry:Some of those conversations when people have tried virtual events, happy hours,
Zafar Chaudry:Uh, all sorts of different things.
Zafar Chaudry:We've, we've got our own employee welfare group in it.
Zafar Chaudry:They call themselves your voice and they they've had some fun events, some
Zafar Chaudry:virtual events, you get mixed feedback from those people still actually just
Zafar Chaudry:want to sit down and share a sandwich.
Bill Russell:Okay.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:You know, it's, it's interesting.
Bill Russell:Cause when, when people were coming to the office, you could identify the
Bill Russell:people that were working 12 hours.
Bill Russell:And you can just walk into their office and say, Hey, go home.
Bill Russell:It'll be here tomorrow.
Bill Russell:And you know, you could, you could sort of coach them, but you don't see it.
Bill Russell:Now they're working, you know, they're getting up early in the
Bill Russell:morning, they're doing meetings.
Bill Russell:They're whatever they're doing aspects of their job and they're,
Bill Russell:they're not getting it all done.
Bill Russell:And they never did before either.
Bill Russell:And now they're, they're working an extra four hours from the home.
Bill Russell:And so even though they're home, they're not seeing their family,
Bill Russell:they're not, uh, uh, How, how much of that is, is on leadership to sort of
Bill Russell:step back and say, all right, we're going to put these things in place.
Bill Russell:We're going to shut off email at five o'clock that's an
Bill Russell:extreme case, but maybe, but
Zafar Chaudry:absolutely.
Zafar Chaudry:I mean, for example, I could tell you the Germany, that's exactly what they do.
Zafar Chaudry:They shut off email after a certain time and don't let people, they
Zafar Chaudry:can accrue their email, but it won't go out over the weekend.
Zafar Chaudry:For example,
Bill Russell:you know, I, I coached the IoT.
Bill Russell:Uh, invariably I'll I'll I do this kickoff process.
Bill Russell:I interviewed their staff typically when they're coming into the organization.
Bill Russell:And, uh, they'll say, I hope the CIO doesn't send me emails on
Bill Russell:the weekend and it's amazing.
Bill Russell:We don't think anything of it.
Bill Russell:Cause as a CIO you're like, Hey, Saturday's a good day.
Bill Russell:I can get up and get through some emails and a couple of hours and
Bill Russell:then I'll go have my weekend.
Bill Russell:But when they received that email from the CIO, that's a big deal.
Bill Russell:That's like a trigger for action for them.
Bill Russell:And.
Bill Russell:Potentially ruin their Saturday.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:Because they
Zafar Chaudry:feel like they have to respond if the CIO sends an email.
Zafar Chaudry:So yeah, we could, we could adjust our patterns as well.
Zafar Chaudry:I mean, personally, I like to send emails usually Sunday evening.
Zafar Chaudry:I don't do anything on Saturdays or Friday evenings, uh, hoping that they
Zafar Chaudry:won't pick that up till Monday morning.
Zafar Chaudry:But I think your idea of shutting off an email system at a particular
Zafar Chaudry:time could be a possibility we have.
Zafar Chaudry:Email free hours that would send an email between, you
Zafar Chaudry:know, 12 and one on a Wednesday.
Bill Russell:Our, our, our CEO did come to me and say, Hey, can we
Bill Russell:shut off the email over the weekend?
Bill Russell:She said, I just want you to explore the ideas of possible.
Bill Russell:Technically they came back to us, technically, it's possible.
Bill Russell:We could do this.
Bill Russell:And after some conversation we realized, Hey, we're a hospital.
Bill Russell:We do a lot of stuff.
Bill Russell:And there's a lot of automated procedures that happen via email in the.
Bill Russell:That's the, that's the, that's the kind of complexity we have to deal with though.
Bill Russell:I mean, it's yeah.
Bill Russell:We're we're uh, it's.
Bill Russell:I don't know.
Bill Russell:It's fascinating.
Bill Russell:What about labor shortages?
Bill Russell:I mean, there's there, there's a nursing shortage.
Bill Russell:There's a battle right now for health it talent people are, uh, I I've
Bill Russell:talked to two CIO since I've been here who are hiring people in 48 states.
Bill Russell:It's like, we've now opened it up to if you want to work for us and you have these
Bill Russell:skills, we will hire you in 48 states.
Bill Russell:That used to be a no-no.
Bill Russell:Yeah, my finance team would come to me and be like, we're not doing taxes
Bill Russell:in 48 states, but now I guess it's just part of the part of the world.
Bill Russell:Are you guys doing some of that?
Bill Russell:We've
Zafar Chaudry:expanded.
Zafar Chaudry:So our primary business was in Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.
Zafar Chaudry:We've added Georgia, Florida, and Texas during the pandemic.
Zafar Chaudry:And we do have some it folks in Florida, Georgia, and Texas
Zafar Chaudry:now, but they're very isolated.
Zafar Chaudry:So that's one issue that
Bill Russell:you come across.
Bill Russell:They're never coming into
Zafar Chaudry:the office.
Zafar Chaudry:Potentially maybe once a year for a team meeting or some people
Zafar Chaudry:will try to come together and regions and have a team meeting.
Zafar Chaudry:It's not helped that much in the sense that you're right.
Zafar Chaudry:There's, there's too much competition for tech talent.
Zafar Chaudry:It's hard to compete with the salaries that are being offered
Zafar Chaudry:by other technology companies.
Zafar Chaudry:So we are really leveraging mission to try and retain people, but I can
Zafar Chaudry:tell you for us and during this whole.
Zafar Chaudry:We had an 8% turnover rate at children's and in it, it's now 18%.
Bill Russell:It's, children's very distinct.
Bill Russell:Like you, do you try to find people with children's hospital experience
Bill Russell:and background or, I mean, the technology is the technology, right?
Bill Russell:So routers or routers, emails, emails, switches, switches, that kind of stuff.
Bill Russell:But the EHR patterns and the workflows, are those pretty
Bill Russell:specific or are they pretty kind of.
Zafar Chaudry:Based on whatever vendor you have, you try to
Zafar Chaudry:seek out with some skill.
Zafar Chaudry:So if you have vendor a that's fine, you might have vendor B skills
Zafar Chaudry:and you can transfer those skills.
Zafar Chaudry:But for the, for commodity it, we don't tend to seek pediatric experience,
Zafar Chaudry:which is, look, as you said, a switch is a switch to the switch.
Zafar Chaudry:Yeah.
Bill Russell:How, um, innovation on the innovation side, I love
Bill Russell:to hear what people are doing.
Bill Russell:Through the pandemic.
Bill Russell:What's the most innovative thing that you guys have really seen?
Bill Russell:I would say
Zafar Chaudry:that, uh, rolling out the vaccine at mega pace
Zafar Chaudry:has been the most innovation.
Zafar Chaudry:I've seen like ways of how to do that, how to automate that, how to have a
Zafar Chaudry:whole scheduling system built in next to no time going to remote working.
Zafar Chaudry:Those are all things we never got traction on.
Zafar Chaudry:The pandemic has certainly pushed that.
Zafar Chaudry:But I see a bit of a slow down now because clinically you've got a lot of burnout.
Zafar Chaudry:So when you talk about, can we put more innovation in, can we do some automation?
Zafar Chaudry:They don't have the bandwidth to participate in the project.
Bill Russell:Yeah, it's interesting.
Bill Russell:Because prior to the pandemic, some of these things would have been really hard.
Bill Russell:We've really focused in on the consumer experience.
Bill Russell:I go into three different conferences.
Bill Russell:I had to get tested before each conference and now I just go out.
Bill Russell:And I'm getting tested in places that aren't my hometown.
Bill Russell:So I just find a place, get scheduled an appointment through tests, you
Bill Russell:know, give me the, give me the results.
Bill Russell:That's the kind of, that's kind of thing that I think has become
Bill Russell:the new baseline for expectation.
Bill Russell:How do I make this easier for the patient?
Bill Russell:How are you guys making things easier for
Zafar Chaudry:we've?
Zafar Chaudry:We built a digital front door application as part of the journey
Zafar Chaudry:of the last 18 months without it.
Zafar Chaudry:Telemedicine into that space.
Zafar Chaudry:We did a Cerner epic migration within the pandemic and went
Zafar Chaudry:live just a year ago now.
Zafar Chaudry:So my chart is available.
Zafar Chaudry:That's integrated into our tele-health tele-health products
Zafar Chaudry:that, so we've added those features, but we have an advisory board of
Zafar Chaudry:patients and parents and caregivers, and they've been talking to us.
Zafar Chaudry:The biggest thing we've heard from the group has been the equity to have.
Zafar Chaudry:To equipment and internet connections, certainly in the pediatric space,
Zafar Chaudry:not everybody has, you know, they may have four kids at home.
Zafar Chaudry:Not every kid has their own laptop, right?
Zafar Chaudry:Not everybody has a tablet.
Zafar Chaudry:Not everybody has a fast internet connection to consume the apps
Zafar Chaudry:that we create or even partake in telehealth telemedicine.
Zafar Chaudry:So we've had to come up with a loaner program for those families
Zafar Chaudry:that don't have this access.
Zafar Chaudry:We will give you a device.
Zafar Chaudry:With the 4g SIM card, and then you can consume that, that particular visit.
Bill Russell:And that's, that's doable now that the cost of
Bill Russell:those kinds of devices are not as expensive as they once were.
Bill Russell:Yeah,
Zafar Chaudry:it's doable.
Zafar Chaudry:It's just, you don't have enough volume of right.
Zafar Chaudry:Like either a hundred or 500 devices.
Zafar Chaudry:You probably won't get them back.
Zafar Chaudry:And so how do you keep handing out devices?
Bill Russell:thank you for spending some time with us.
Bill Russell:Thanks, Belgian.
Zafar Chaudry:Pleasure.
Bill Russell:Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews
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