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 Welcome to this week in Health IT News, where we take a look at the news which will impact health it. This is another field report where we talk with leaders from health systems and organizations on the front lines. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this week in Health. It a set up podcasts, videos, and collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders.

Are you ready for this? We're going to do something a little different for our Tuesday Newsday show. Next week we're gonna go live at noon Eastern 9:00 AM Pacific. We will be live on our YouTube channel with myself, Drexel Ford Sus Shade. And David Munch with Starbridge Advisors to discuss the new normal for health.

It, uh, with you supplying the questions with live chat. Also, you can send in your questions ahead of time at hello at this week in health it.com. Uh, I'm so excited to do this and I hope you'll join us. Mark your calendar. Noon Eastern 9:00 AM Pacific on April 28th. If you want to, uh, send the questions, feel free to do that.

Um, and uh, you can get to the show by going to this week, health.com/live. This episode and every episode since we started the Covid 19 series has been sponsored by Sirius Healthcare. Uh, they reached out to me to see how we might partner during this time, and that is how we've been able to support producing daily shows.

Special thanks to Sirius for supporting the show's efforts during the crisis now onto today's show. Today's conversation is a returning guest, Kristen Myers, SVP at Mount Sinai in New York City. How's, how, how you doing, Kristen? Uh, very well. How are you, bill? Good. Did, did I mess up any of the intro there?

No. No. Okay. I, I, I'm, I'm getting, I, Kristen Meyers is, is a, is a pretty straightforward name, but you never know anymore. I get, I get stuck on these things. Uh, thanks for taking a few minutes. I know you guys are really busy. Um, so let's just jump right into it. What, you know, give us a little context. You know, today's April 22nd and you know, what, what's going on in New York City?

What are you seeing? Uh, how are things going?

I think, uh, it's been a very challenging time in New York City. Uh, as of this morning there was around cases just in the city, 14 and you know, has actually ed around.

Still in the icu. So, you know, while things are getting better, uh, we're not, we're not out of the woods by any stretch imagination. Yeah. These are, these are really extraordinary times, uh, especially in New York City. Uh, you know, we, we, we talked with Jamie, um. Jamie from hospitals for special surgery, and she was just describing, uh, the environment and, and things that are going on.

Um, so let's, you know, it's this week in health It, so we're gonna focus in on that aspect of it. Um, what's, you know, what's one thing that you've discovered over the past couple of weeks? Um. You know, that, that, that might benefit others or people might be surprised to hear that's going on. We're we're now preparing for a second surge as we start to come out of this.

And I think, I think some of the learnings we have from New York City are gonna really benefit other areas. Yeah. I think the first one is around, uh, structure and communication. Um, you know, we have an emergency.

That meets, uh, formally once a day, but are multiple meetings a day, and then it has its own center that meets a day and think that what's important is really to be, to and ensure that you have that structure in.

Significant. You remote,

remote.

Um, every single day. Uh, and then, you know, the creativity that comes into play when you know you're really forced to find solutions, uh, very quickly. And at Mount Sinai Morningside, you know, we had a situation where we were converting IC you know, non ICU areas into ICU areas that had no.

What is going on with the patient, uh, what's going on with the vitals and vents, et cetera, which is really important. And, you know, we're protecting our frontline providers by being able to come up with these creative solutions. Wow. Did you say 40 to 4,000 a day in telehealth? Yes. Wow.

How did you bring so many physicians up to speed so quickly on that? Yeah, so what we did was we set up a special telehealth command center. Um, and, you know, we were able to work with the physicians and, you know, get them up and running very, very quickly. But we had the underlying infrastructure in place, uh, which I think was extremely helpful.

So.

Uh, the workflow was there, the technology was there. The physicians just had to come up to speed on, on this kind of stuff, right front, front facing light, how to communicate, how to document, how to, uh, you know, what things they could do over telehealth, what things they couldn't do over telehealth. I assume that's, that's the training that had to go on.

Absolutely. And then, you know, we had the, uh, command center as backup, so if they had any questions, concerns, et cetera, you know, we could just, you know, have a zoom call with them or, you know, walk them through on the telephone, whatever they felt comfortable with. So we had that facility for them. You know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna get to the other questions, but I, I'm, I'm curious your thoughts.

Do you think once the New York population experiences this, and once the clinicians experience this, that'll it, it'll go back from 4,000 to 40? Or do you think, where, where do you think it'll fall? Once, once this we're past this, um, you know, that those.

I go back, you know, to 40, I think that the physicians, you know, feel very comfortable with the technology and, you know, we've, we've got, you know, a lot of positive feedback, um, from them. I think that initially there was probably, you know, some reluctance because they.

From a safety perspective, you know, they probably feel, you know, better being able to communicate, um, than not to communicate with their physician right now. So I think that, you know, telehealth's here to stay. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's gonna be interesting. Although my mom has, has told me, because she has experienced her first telehealth visit, she said, you know, I, I, there are times I still wanna see my doctor and I.

We'll see that coming outta this, what, what specific solutions have you put in place that, that, um, that, you know, you talked about the, the one, um, what other solutions have you put in place that, um, that either the, the, that were necessitated by this or that were necessitated by, you know, creativity that was just required?

I definitely think that, um, the Google Nest cameras and the iPads, um, was a great example of that at Mount Sinai, Morningside and other facilities. I also think expanding telehealth into the inpatient facilities so that, you know, you could have consults with cardiologists and, you know, other specialists.

Um.

Actually be at that specific facility, uh, has been, you know, great. Um, and an extension of what we were doing already, um, with telehealth, you know, I was talking to another CIO about that and they were talking about, um, that they think that, that the camera is gonna be a fixed piece of equipment in all rooms going forward.

Is that, do, do think we'll see. Yeah. It, I think that that's probably where we will ultimately move to. Yes. Yeah. Because it's, it, it provides us a lot of flexibility. Uh, what, what's one thing that your, your team has been able to do that, that you're really the most, um, most impressed with at this point? You know, I think that, you know, the teams have, you know, being so committed to.

You know, what I've seen is just the giant lift, quite frankly, of work that would take weeks to do, potentially that gets done overnight or in a few days. Um, I think that when, you know there's a crisis in any health system, you know, the boundaries blur and, you know, work that takes such a just gets done.

No, we can do it. And I think that can do attitude to, you know, really achieve results and turn it around quickly. I mean, it's been amazing and, you know, really wanna thank, uh, not only, you know, all the frontline providers at Mount Sinai, but also, you know, to all the support teams, uh, like technology teams.

Uh. Yeah, and I think the, you know, having been to New York, having friends in New York and I've been to their apartments and they give me the tour and it's, it's just kind of funny 'cause they'll say, you know, this is our basement and it'll be like a closet. Now this our, and it's, you know, friends of ours who have moved from places that were, you know, in the suburbs and whatnot.

And I, I don't, I.

How big of a, a, a challenge it is. I mean, the apartments are not, uh, the, the living arrangements are not all that big. You're home with your kids. Um, you know, the work environment changed so dramatically and then they were being asked to do so much over and above that. Uh, there's an awful lot of, uh, just flexibility and, um, I, I just professionalism to get that much, that much work done.

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, one of the key takeaways is you have to really be an empathetic leader because not only are your team members really focused on, you know, trying to get this work done, working very long hours, working seven days a week, they have their own challenges, uh, in their own personal lives and their own anxieties.

And then on top of.

On an individual basis is so important, having those touch bases, having the town halls, you know, having the regular meetings also, uh, and just asking really, how are you, how, how are your children? And, you know, really empathizing and understanding where they're at. Is amazing. Uh, the, um, so you guys are, are, are technically, so you had the original April 22nd.

So you're starting to see, uh, start to starting to. Come down a little bit, but, but the reality is New Yorkers still live on top of each other. I mean, no, no places like this, I mean, to get to your house, you're going in a, uh, you're going in an elevator to go to work. You're going in, uh, public transportation.

Um, you know, is there, is there any, any talk about what this looks like after, uh, after the surge is gone? Are we still too close to.

I think that, um, you know, we're starting to look at preparations for how do we reopen, uh, areas of ambulatory care and,

and it needs to be, you know, done in coordination with.

I think that, uh, it's not gonna be a short process here in New York City at all. No, and, and I, I really appreciate what you guys are doing. Uh, you did break up a little bit there from time to time and uh, I, I, I hope we captured enough of it. If we didn't, I might, uh, I might reach back out to you for some.

No worries. So, Kristen, thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, bill. That's all for this week. Special thanks to our sponsors, VMware Starbridge Advisors, Galen Healthcare Health lyrics, serious Healthcare and pro talent advisors for choosing to invest in developing the next generation of health leaders.

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