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 Welcome to this Week in Health IT events where we amplify great ideas with interviews from the floor. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this week in Health. It a set of podcasts and videos dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders. We want to thank our founding channel sponsors who make this content possible, health Lyrics and VMware if you wanna be a part of our mission to develop health leaders.

Go to this week, health.com/sponsor for more information. This episode is sponsored by Health Lyrics. When I became ACIO, I was really overwhelmed at first, and one of the first things I did was to sign ACIO coach to walk with me through the journey. This was someone who had wisdom that can only be gained through years of experience.

Uh, you're gonna hear, um, what they're excited to have accomplished last year and what they're looking forward to accomplish next year. I asked each of them the same eight questions, and I think you're gonna be fascinated to hear the similarities. And the difference is based on where they're at, geography and other things.

Each of these interviews is about 10 minutes long, so you can listen to 'em really quick and some of you listen at one and a half time speed. So it's gonna go like that. Uh, we're gonna publish one a day, uh, with a few Newsday episodes sprinkled in through the end of November. So check back every day for the next episode, and don't forget to look back to see if you missed any.

Our next guest is Dr. Shafiq. Rob the CIO for . Rush in Chicago and uh, he really needs no more introduction than that. So here it is. So you Right, I'm gonna ask you these questions. You, you don't need to see 'em, do you? No. I mean, you're, come on man. When was the last time I read a question? I know. Uh, so let me ask you this question.

How's the role of the CIO changed in this year? Not over the last five years, 'cause we know it's become more business centric and less about technology. But how has it, how's it really changed over the last year do you think? The role of the CIO? Yeah, I think in this year, uh, three, four things have become very important and, uh, for ACIO you need to know how the government is changing the rules.

Regulation, uh, transparency of data, API apps, CMS was not that forward before. So CMA did a great job, man, . And to open up the APIs for the CMS data. So what that done, what that did was that interoperability data, blue button, all those things started playing a different role and then started fearing if the data gets out, what's going to happen.

Cybersecurity has always been there, but the amount of attacks and other things, that also created a new idea of business continuity, new means, because every time we ask. Talk to ACIO, they'll say, oh, we got three data centers. But if they all get hit by ware, whatcha gonna do, man, right? Ransomware, you, you, uh, you, you can bring your tape back or you can bring your digital thing back, but you gotta, you need a hardware.

So cloud computing and putting things in the cloud became important. Well, only in the last six months, uh, big, uh, EHRs like Cerner and Epic said that they're ready to move to the cloud. So that was a . Big thing that was not before. Yeah. I think the last thing that I think, uh, that's happening is that, uh, institutions are saying that the CIO needs to become part of revenue generation.

Like it was not the thing, technology was not mature. Five G was not there. Uh, the edge computing was not there. Cloud computing was not there. Government rules were not there. And then, uh, bigger companies, Amazon, Google, and Apple, this . Started saying they they are interested in healthcare. Yeah. So all these things together has made the CIO a little worried.

If they're not, then they should, they may be strategizing about it. Yeah. So what are, what are maybe a couple priorities that your health systems looking at next year that, that it is gonna support? So in, in our health system, we are a little, I don't know, different maybe. So go boil down to four things.

One, . How to make the patient happy, so our patient experience, patient happy. Second, how to make the caregivers happy, simple. It's not like, so, and then I, then I'll go to the intricate detail of it. And the third is that, uh, people who come to work at our places, they should be happy. Yeah. So these are the three guiding principles.

And in that, lastly, we need to make some money. Uh, and I also have a university responsibility, so how to make the students happy. So what that means, . That means that the tech, any strategic decision we make, whether it's virtual care, telemedicine, it all centers around the how to make the patient happy.

Yeah. Similarly, within the physicians, if you're trying to reduce the burden or. You give them something to speak on or, so typing goes away or make the template better or buy newer tools that goes there for staff is how to bring efficiency in work using lean tools, business processes, making them better.

So it has to actually become efficient. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about those two, two things. Let's talk about the patient. What's, what's one thing that you guys are doing in the patient area? . That the patients of Chicago should know about that they'd be excited to know that you're doing. So, two, three things.

Uh, I can tell you, you are asking about one thing. So patients in Chicago can download our app Zuma Rush mobile app. What that does, you can have a on demand call video visit. You can do a e-visit, you can get you all your records, you can get all your pharmacy records, you can get all your . Things, but also you can do appointments, but that's not the only thing.

You can look up symptoms, uh, you can tell that you're coming in what time to the ED if you're on your way. So things like that. And if you're a Medicare patient, you can download your entire five years with the Medicare, Medicare information on your phone, and then share with any doctor you want. You can get a prescription, you can get appointment with anybody.

You can cancel an appointment if the new appointment opens up. So all service oriented. You can put a payment plan to make your payments, things like that. That's, that's pretty exciting. What's, what's one area that you're, uh, looking to to make the clinician's life or experience better? So recently you might have heard the ACI announcement with Microsoft and Nuance.

So we were one of the site where we are developing, uh, ambient clinical intelligence. Patient doctor sits in a room and the information directly goes in the EHR. Nobody is. Ever type, right? So what we are trying to do is to take away the burden of typing. Second, what we are trying to do is to bring things in six clicks or eight clicks, so that the entire visit from the beginning till the end is done in eight clicks.

That means pre bringing the orders, pre bringing the prescriptions, so it saves some time. And also if they forget something during documentation that people get paid for, it automatically pops up so they can look at it and sign it. So those kind . Things working with the doctors, the whole visit from the time they show up till the time they leave.

What'd you say? Six clicks, eight clicks. The idea is six clicks, but presently we are at 11 clicks. We want to bring it to eight clicks. That's fantastic. Yeah. We, we'll announce that. I mean, because it's very simple. Think about it. What do doctors do? Uh, once they have a patient, they open up a thing and they read it half an hour outside before going in.

Right? Right. So if that is composed in a, in a longitudinal study, take it. Read in one second. Right. . Similarly, uh, when they take the notes, like talking to a patient, information goes directly in. But after assuming that the doctor says, well, this person has this disease, the moment he thinks what he has, what's the next thing the doctor does?

He thinks about the lab information. We'll bring all the labs prefilled. Check it, click it. Then what does he do? Write a medication prefilled. Check it, move on. Then what he does, he refer, refer, that gets a consultant prefix, click it. Gone. So it should be that intuitive , uh, should be, I'm looking forward to following up with, with you on that.

So then, so they're now making $80,000 a year. Uh, that's the, uh, unbelievable success, but they work 20 hours for us and they go to college, uh, Malcolm X College. So if they maintain B average, the tuition is free for the Masters, they can come to Rush and get B-S-N-M-S-N for free. So if you're asking what is the biggest successful

Uh, AP payroll, . Uh, I, I missed that. I I should have done the bots there. I don't think you're too far behind anyone else, but, um, but yeah, we're talking to a lot of people right now about RPA. It seems to be, seems to be front and center. Yeah, we talking about it, but you know, I mean, come on man. I should have done it.

I just didn't do it. So, I mean, you're asking direct question. Talk to Daniel Daniel's doing a lot of it. Oh, Daniel is a good friend. I mean, he is got, I mean, I love him man. He is a brother. Yeah. He, he on the, one of the podcasts, he shared some of the stories they're able to do . For the phone calls. Yeah.

Yeah, I know that one. Yeah. Very, uh, very exciting. Well, the, the, the thing that killed us is this stupid cybersecurity because, uh, you know, when, when you click on a, on an email, it, so we now put a virtual, uh, browsing. So you click on it, it is not gonna go anywhere, till it's a known domain, known place then goes.

So even there's protection, we have to spend time in educating people. Cybersecurity is for real, man. Oh, yeah. I'm telling you, there is no . Digital security, uh, uh, is initiative without cyber security. Absolutely. Um, area , this might be a leading question, but area where you would like to see more innovation?

The area where I would like to see more innovation in me is the understanding that our future depends on five G sensors and continuous monitoring. But even if you monitor, there's no central place where somebody's looking at it like, you know, . When the planes come to an airport, you have a tower, right?

So we are all doing it individually for our hospitals. We may have a hospital monitoring system, but we don't have a community or a, like a lifetime of a person somewhere where the data is being collected and some information is being understood and the continuous feedback going, but doing continuous blood clo glucose monitoring.

But we are not giving the continuous feedback, you know what I'm saying? So the innovation is . That the participation of the patient and the participation of the community has to come to one place. Is five G gonna change what goes on in the hospital or is five G gonna enable us to do more things out in the community and in the home?

So City of Chicago is now led up with a sprint at and t and uh, Verizon. I have all three phones. So in my mind, because I did that study, you can download a 30 slice of MRI sitting outside McDonald's in . Downtown and hooking up to Rush in less than a second. Wow. 2.3 gigahertz, uh, gigabyte per second are clocked.

So what I'm saying to people as the five G goes forward, the speed at which, so it's not based on the hospital. You can put antennas in the hospital, but the real benefit is outside from home. You can do real video with one, one doctor and bring in five other doctors into the same same com. Uh, concept or contact, like you can go up to 10 gigabit per second, but it's not there yet.

And as the antennas go forward, the, the idea is that when you sit in a car, imagine your steering wheel is made up of, uh, bacteria resistant, uh, material. So you don't get infection, you sit, it takes your weight. Sensors look at you. If you're sleepy, it bigs the alert wakes you up, right? That information goes somewhere.

CDA is very important. Chief data analytic officer, chief business Officer is also important now because, uh, we don't go to MBA schools yet. Most of us should go to good places. CSO is important. Uh, chief Health Information Officer is important. Uh, chief CTO is important, but in my mind, two, three things have to happen.

We still don't have a Chief IT Experience officer, like we have a patient experience officer, but we have never . Paid attention to the experience that we deliver to our customers. So that's something new that I'm thinking about. And the last thing that I'm thinking about is that we all have a cloud strategy, but we don't have a chief cloud officer.

You know, because cloud is where you do the experiment and phone is the edge computing where you do the, uh, actual interpretation of it. Yep. Absolutely. Shafi, thanks for your time. We'll have to do a full episode a little later. Absolutely, brother. Quick one here. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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