Healthcare organizations have 50 percent more sensitive data than the global average. If you're concerned about how to keep the sensitive data safe in the face of cyber threats and safely restoring critical patient care services quickly, I'd like to invite you to Rubrik's Healthcare Summit, happening virtually on September 12th.

You'll hear from leaders of New York General, UCI Health, and Seattle Children's Hospital. On the latest predictable recovery, AI, cloud and ransomware defense. Sign up today at thisweekhealth. com slash rubric. All right, today in health IT, we're going to take a look at cracking the code, deploying an AI enabled nursing workforce, and I'm going to be joined today with Sarah Richardson.

My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health. A set of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare, one at a time. If you haven't had a chance, check out our fundraiser for Alex's Lemonade Stand. We are walking miles and miles. If you want to be a part of that, go ahead and hit our website, ThisWeekHealth.

com, and you will see the banner in the top right hand corner. Go ahead and click on that to be a part of that today. We appreciate the generosity of our community. One last thing, share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Use it as a foundation for daily or weekly discussions on the topics that are relevant to you and the industry.

They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Sarah Richardson, welcome back to the show.

Thank you, Bill.

I'm looking forward to this. We are you and I are going to be doing these Today shows for a little bit together. And then it's just that whole backfilling strategy.

We practiced it as CIOs, making sure that we had redundant coverage, and we are practicing it here. And we're going to start with doing these shows together, and then at some point, you might hear just Sarah talking about the news without me on the show. Looking forward to that. This morning's article, do you want to tee up this morning's article?

Yeah, absolutely. So this comes to us from Mercy Hospital. It was actually their Chief Nursing Executive, Betty J. Rocchio, at the HIMSS AI Forum. And what's so fascinating about this specifically is about the ability to enhance nursing workflows and staffing efficiencies. Some key points for them. They've saved 52 million in their workforce retention, and they're showing over 20 percent improvement in the nurse's electronic health record experience, which is huge.

17 percent increase in efficiency. What's most interesting is their whole AI enabled systems help streamline nurse credentialing and reduce the cognitive load. Decreasing burnout. That's really key when you think reducing the cognitive load and decreasing burnout within their system. This is across several systems, which is why the span of the outcomes is so incredible.

It's I was looking at some of those stats as well. 52 million is amazing. 20 percent improvement, amazing. 17 percent increase in nurse sufficiency, amazing. One of the stats that jumped off the page of me was, 240 minutes per shift spent in the EHR, which contributes to the cognitive load and the burnout.

240 minutes, that's four hours to you and me. This is one of those things that we have talked about and it is You know, we get all caught up in how AI is going to interact with the patient and potentially how it's going to render diagnosis and those kinds of things. We're going like straight to the hardest possible use case and then measuring it against that use case, when in reality There's a lot of use cases between here and there that it can help out in.

And I love the leadership here of saying, okay, how what are the tasks within nursing that aren't necessarily that aren't necessarily going to have a potential adverse impact on patients and even if they do fall into that category, that can potentially find some things that are Maybe use them as an alert, maybe put them in that workflow that works, which is essentially the AI provides some information, but that the human becomes the mechanism by which it goes through to get to the patient.

I love the leadership here. I love the The ability to break down these tasks and identify the areas where AI can help.

One of the things that they've said about having a technology enabled workforce, they're like, look, healthcare is a mess. And sometimes it's all about the process. But if you go back and figure out a way to clean it up, and we present it in an organized fashion.

That's how the technology needs to be consumed. So they have the data, so using data driven solutions to show actionable insights, but they've literally said like the big focus is how do we build up the workforce and how do we create a space where people want to be there and it helps us to maintain retention and that they're part of the conversation.

What I could ascertain is this didn't happen to the nursing staff, it's happened with the nursing staff and if they can create An area where they're going to have retention for these clinicians in a way that makes them feel like they're part of the solution. That's a huge win across that entire organization.

It also starts to be able to foster the space to do it in greater areas of the organization. So I love that they're talking about technology enabled workforces with data driven solutions for actionable insights. So they can go back and amend their own solutions because they already know it's a mess.

So everything they're doing is making it better. And then they're just doing it in a more collaborative fashion than maybe we've seen in the past.

Are you preaching heresy here? Are you essentially saying we should start projects with adoption in mind?

We should always start projects with adoption in mind.

It's just historically, it's hard to keep up with what happens now. It sounds silly

to even say it, but it's it is the core of every project. It should start with the idea of, hey, someone's going to use this. Let's talk to the

people using the technology, because think about it. Years ago, you put a solution and people just had to deal with it.

We learned by being in the trenches. that when you just force technology upon people, the ones that have the greatest interaction with the systems are the ones who are like, who made this decision? And I've had to eat crow sometimes and say, Oh yeah, that was me. And they're like, why didn't you ask first?

Thank goodness that was like 30 years ago. And so it actually sunk in, but you're seeing it more and more that the champions are not the IT individuals. The champions is IT enabling the rest of the business and the organization to make great decisions. That's why we're seeing the sea change.

So Sarah, what does crow taste like?

I hear it's better when it's warm. That's where the conversation came from, but it just sounds pretty gross across the board to me.

Let me, all in terms of the framework for the today's show I used to do this and I got a little lazy and have stopped doing that, but we're gonna, when you and I do this we'll close with this.

I, I used to have I, I go to church and I used to have this pastor, he was one of my favorites because he would end every talk with, so what? So he would do this elaborate thing and he'd say, all right, so what? And I thought, that's a great framework. We're going to do the same thing. So what? So we talk about AI, we talk about AI and nursing.

If you're talking to the picture of a healthcare leader out there today, what's your so what? And then I'll give my so what.

When I think about not just AI specifically, but technology enabled workforces, I think of that ability to introduce the right technology that's complementary to the investments that you've already made and making sure the people that are using them know that they don't have to say yes if there is significantly something that could be better or different than what's being proposed.

So not every pilot or every first time actually happens. We're allowed to say no as part of the equation.

Yeah, my so what is. Start grabbing these stories. Cracking the code, deploying an AI enabled nursing workforce, healthcare IT news. Start grabbing these stories, because you're this is the foundation for doing these kinds of projects.

I would take this article, I would share it with nursing leaders within your organization, especially if you haven't done anything around AI, and don't like, hey, you should be, It's more like you put it in front of them and you say, Hey, I'd love to talk to you about this. This looks interesting to me.

They might say, Hey, I know Betty Jo. Do you want to get on the phone with her and talk about it? And this could be your path. Your path is essentially collecting these articles, sharing them with your staff, and identifying the the champions from within your organization that can move things forward.

All right, that's all for today. Don't forget, share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Use it as a foundation for mentoring. We want to thank our partners who continue to help us to train the next generation of health leaders, specifically Rubrik. If you haven't 📍 checked it out yet, Rubrik's Healthcare Summit, September 12th.

thisweekhealth. com slash rubric. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.