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[00:00:00] Bill Russell: [00:00:00] Welcome to This Week in Health IT where we discuss the news information and emerging thought with leaders from across the healthcare industry. This podcast is brought to you by Health Lyrics. This is episode one. My name is Bill Russell, recovering healthcare CIO, writer, and consultant with the previously mentioned Health Lyrics.

[00:00:50] And he was talking about, he had a meeting coming up with the great grandson of the first. patient [00:01:00] for that health system ever for the health. So many jokes who is admin, how do we even know that this guy was our first patient? And she is obviously a very diligent person, maybe a CSI fan.

[00:01:41] So we're launching a podcast. Why do this podcast? Well the answer to that is, is really founded in a pretty simple answer. I was the CIO of a $6 billion health system in Southern California. Experiencing all the things that a large health system [00:02:00] CIO has to handle and have to deal with people, operations, budgeting, strategy, innovation.

[00:02:27] And the point being that the [00:02:30] role of the healthcare CIO and the role of the CIO is, is very busy. And as a leader in the technology space, my responsibility was not only to ensure the smooth operation of the health system prepare for the future, but also to stay current and educate as many people as possible.

[00:03:10] There's a lot going on and And there's an awful lot of people that you have to bring along on that ride with you. So I created this podcast for you. For those of you who are tirelessly working on making healthcare better in all the communities around the world. [00:03:30] It's it's really for the healthcare executives.

[00:03:54] And obviously it's for clinicians and healthcare workers at large, who are [00:04:00] interested in the world of technology and its impact on healthcare. So that's why we're doing it. So let's talk about what we're going to do every week. Following this week, of course, I'm going to invite a healthcare executive to join me on the podcast to discuss the news of the week.

[00:04:36] Or we could talk about. Leadership. We could talk about a lot of different things just to give you a little taste for if you wanted to learn more about digital transformation, there's nobody better than David Chou. Who's the is one of the leading voices for digital transformation on Twitter and on social media.

[00:05:20] And we will share that conversation with you. As another part of the story for me is I came into [00:05:30] healthcare and immediately put on about 30 pounds within about 18 months of being named the CIO for a health system. It was kind of ironic, but this is my gift to those of you that like to. Listen to things while you're on the elliptical or the treadmill.

[00:06:00] I've invited some of my other friends, and I'm really excited for you to meet them, to hear from them, their dynamic, engaging leaders that are doing some really fascinating things within healthcare. And I hope you'll come back every week, subscribe and and join us. Maybe take us to the gym with you.

[00:06:49] So you have innovators meeting with money people, private equity with venture capital, and just all sorts of really interesting dynamic conversations going on. I, of course, [00:07:00] did not go to the really cool fun conference that you get to where. You know, you get to dress down, wear your jeans and look real cool.

[00:07:40] So let me again, let me paint the picture a little bit for you. Each each health system is given about 30 minutes. Oh, not about 30 minutes. I that's that's misnomer. They are giving exactly 30 minutes. It's like a Ted talk. You cannot go a minute. Over those 30 minutes, it usually starts with the CEO [00:08:00] presenting things like accomplishments and their plans and insurance.

[00:08:24] So you can see you know, their cash positions. You can see. [00:08:30] You could see admissions, you can see all sorts of things and why do they do this? They do this because it's an invitation only event. You will have institutional investors and bond holders sitting in the room, listening to these health systems to determine whether they're going to buy the bonds that the health systems are selling.

[00:09:09] Just get up there and present, Hey, here's what we've done. And here's, what's going on. Let me give you a little feel for who was at the conference this year, who presented. It was kicked off the first day at Baylor Scott and white health Intermountain healthcare, Northwestern medicine, Geisinger health system, dignity partners, health care system, [00:09:30] Cincinnati children's Chi Catholic health initiatives, Adventist health system mercy health out of Ohio, Florida, blue Henry Ford health system, Parkview health system, Phoenix children's hospital.

[00:10:16] They're actually expanding Aurora health wake med, and then Northwell finished it up. So you have 22 presentations all going on right, right in a row about 30 minutes [00:10:30] segments. And it, it was, it was really fascinating. I learned an awful lot. Let me, let me just jump to that real quick. I actually, if you're wondering, I did write, write about this on the health alerts blog.

[00:11:02] The first was a joint operating agreements. Some interesting stories around that most interesting being UWU Madison, really taking The population health too, to an interesting level in terms of partnering with a competitor in order to relieve pressure on their hospital and to provide additional services, the JOA was really well done.

[00:11:44] Tele-health is starting to reach critical mass you're you're seeing the DOD. You're seeing some other things start to take off. You're seeing changes in regulations and how it's handled across certain segments. And so [00:12:00] telehealth was talked about a lot. Geographic expansion is another way that the health system to grow into grant to greatness, physical hospitals are still being built.

[00:12:37] Some of the health systems are talking about how to make them more attractive to people looking for destination destination medicine. So the I, I wanted to hit on the Intermountain digital hospital real quick. So what they're doing is they're taking a hundred service offerings. This is a building that is not a hospital.

[00:13:17] Now they didn't go into a lot of detail, but they could potentially partner with people in, in certain markets. They could potentially compete with people in certain markets. So it's interesting to really think about where this might go. [00:13:30] So the healthcare consumer has finally broken, broken, free, broken through Every presentation had some aspect of the healthcare consumer that we are now starting to think about the care journey and how do we make it easier.

[00:14:06] They're looking for the best price. They're looking for the highest quality and they are consumers. They're doing research and they're, they're likely people interesting things around that. A lot of people are doing digital transformation initiatives, a bunch of technology. But also a lot of really patient centered forums dialogue.

[00:14:54] One of the more interesting things, there was a RPA robotic process automation, which [00:15:00] essentially has used within their call center to drive out. I don't have the number in front of me, but it was either 40 or $80 million in costs. Significant significant material number in costs through RPA they've since packaged that up, they take that out to the market as a service offering.

[00:15:46] 2.0 Geisinger has really dedicated a significant portion of their conversation. Just talking about their population health initiatives and some of the neat [00:16:00] stories that they have going on. One of the stories I share is around food. We all know that food is so critical to, to health, but there are certain places that, you know, your zip code doesn't really lend itself real well to getting good quality food and you don't eat real well.

[00:16:43] Intermountain is Has I, again, I find what they're doing fascinating. So Intermountain has selected two high risk zip codes and what they are doing is they have said, we know that we're going to have to be able to deliver population [00:17:00] health at some point in our future. So what we're going to do is we're going to take two of the most difficult zip codes for us to deliver care in.

[00:17:31] Every health system, not every, but most of the health systems talked about the steps that they are taking. To really reduce the use of opioids and they've really declared war on, on this epidemic as it spreads across the U S so some interesting programs, but definitely some, some aggressive system-wide goals are being set by these by these leaders around the opioid epidemic.

[00:18:18] But we had one health system talk about how they are starting to drive whole exome sequencing, to be a standard practice, to [00:18:30] To really address preventable conditions, very exciting stuff. Look forward to hearing next year. What they talk about should be, should be very interesting. So have a couple more things in the article.

[00:19:02] He said, you know, just about every job he wouldn't be good at. And you know, in a lighthearted moment, but a really true moment. He said you know, he just, now that he's done what he's done, really trying to solve world hunger and, and eradicate these diseases. It's kind of hard to go back to, you know, jobs that are have too much mundane in them.