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Newsday: Cure-All or Co-Pilot? Discussions of AI and Technology Adaptability with Jacob Hansen

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Bill Russell: Today on Newsday.

Jacob Hansen: the thing that stuck out to me about that article was when we think about patients, The need for clarity around what's this person's context?

And how am I going to have the most success by engaging with them in a way? that they're comfortable and accustomed to. And that's just fundamentally different My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of This Week Health. where we are dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time. Newstay discusses the breaking news in healthcare with industry experts

Bill Russell: Now, let's jump right in.

(Main) All right. It's Newsday and today we're joined by Jacob Hanson, Chief Product Officer at Avasure. Jacob, welcome back to the show. Yeah, thanks. Glad to be back. It was so much fun last time. I just couldn't help myself. I was amped

to return.

We're going to have some fun stories today. we're going to have some fun with some of the stuff that's out here. I appreciate some of the stories you sent over. We're They were some of my favorites as well. Three stories. One is Gen Zers, our computer wizards. don't ask them to type.

That's one of my, I enjoyed that one. was one of my favorites. Chat GPT versus the Magic 8 Ball. Who can solve the healthcare crisis? So this is really looking depth in the technologies that are available to us to solve the healthcare crisis and seeing which one comes back with more solid answers.

And then actually, we'll start on a serious note. Three areas of focus to elevate the customer experience. So I went to UGM and the customer experience used to be something we paid lip service to, but I feel more and more healthcare systems are starting to elevate their games. They're starting to say no, this matters.

Like we want to make sure that the patient experience is better. We want to make sure that they feel like we know them. at every point we interact with them as opposed to what we used to do, which is hand them another clipboard and say, yeah, whatever you told those people, we don't talk to them. So tell us again.

You read this article. Are you feeling the same thing? We still have bad stories from time to time, but do you feel like we're really trying to elevate this game?

Jacob Hansen: I think it's want to give us all some credit. I feel like we've all aspired to make a difference in patient experience for years and years.

I think that there's a ton of value in acknowledging how hard many organizations have been working at that for a long time. The nice thing is that If there was ever a time that we've been positioned to solve the problem more effectively we're on the verge of technologies that support that kind of outcome in a way that we just haven't been in a long time.

And so you look at the convergence of audio visual platforms in rooms the various incentive models that reward patient experience focuses. And then also just, I think slow but sure, we've got at least a collection of patients in the market who are getting better and better educated about what they should expect.

or shouldn't from an experience with care teams and healthcare. So I think it's a unique time for us to focus on it.

Bill Russell: Jacob reminded of a story early on in my career as a CIO in healthcare, and I went into a meeting and I made the mistake of referring to patients as customers, and I did that because we were looking, we were CRM solutions and CRM meaning customer.

management systems, because was trying to make the case that the EHR was not really a good CRM. It was really designed for the patient and the patient journey. And if we are going to create customer experiences, we have to start thinking of them as customers. I got slammed pretty hard. Again, that was, almost a decade ago and maybe that's changed a little bit, but and I got slammed for clinical reasons, like if we think of them as customers, we're not going to be able to provide them the right treatment.

We have to really treat them as patients. And I understand where they were coming from, but you're right. Those tools have become more prevalent. They've become more integrated. They've become more multi channel. You come in and check in and you give me your phone number.

I don't treat that phone number like it's data that isn't necessary. We actually ask you at that point, Hey, can we provide you updates on your journey today via text? Like we'll text you and say, Hey. Your next appointment's over here. Click on this link for wayfinding and we'll guide you. And that experience actually starts before they get to the health system, because one of the biggest challenges with health systems is parking.

Jacob Hansen: Even the arrival of, you think about alternative care delivery models, these hybrid models that include virtual caregivers from other parts of the health system, from command centers. You've got bedside staff or on unit staff. For a long time when you were thinking about being aware of a patient's needs and then getting the right people involved, it was still just people that were walking distance away.

Okay. Now we're talking about bringing the force of many caregivers many care team members from different backgrounds and specialties to bear at the bedside, but with virtual connection points. So one of the things I noted about elevating the customer experience is that we're now in a position where we can.

awareness of what's happening in the room, we can more actively and effectively triage the need for virtual engagement with the patient and identify cases or opportunities where the right people can get involved at the right time. And I think that's what stuck out to me about this notion of customer experiences.

We can shorten the length of time a patient waits, gets frustrated, feels misinformed or under informed. We can solve that faster by using things like ambient listening in the room to then accelerate the arrival of virtual participants to solve those problems.

Bill Russell: talked to a specialist in a hospital in a major city and it was an interesting conversation because he was talking about rounding.

and how he is using those technologies you just described for rounding. And so he's now showing up on the TV. Yep. his comment was, Bill, I used to have to go from this building over to this building, over to this building, over to this building. He goes, think about the time I'm just traversing all of these things.

He goes, it's great. put, 15 to 20, 000 steps on when I'm doing all this stuff. He goes, but now I'm essentially ringing the doorbell. They answer, I'm on their TV, this form of communication that you and I are doing right now, it has become more acceptable and, rather than wait for that, as you were noting it, rather than wait for that specialist to show up, they come in almost on time.

Like when we expect them, that's one of the biggest complaints in most health systems is I don't know when I'm getting discharged because, I have to wait for this doctor and this doctor to come by. And if we can make those specialists more efficient in that fashion without losing the personal feel of it, then I think more and more people are going to check that box on the survey to say, yeah, my experience was pretty good.

The doctor was very attentive. Yes, he was on a screen. We only saw him live person once. But, that's probably appropriate for what was going on. Now, if I'm a cancer patient and I'm struggling with a diagnosis, I expect them to come out of office and come down to see me. But figure those things out as we're striving to get better at customer experience.

Jacob Hansen: it can even go a step beyond rounding where that's purposeful and intentional. What do we do when a patient is laying in bed feeling confused about when they're going to be going home and the medications they're going to be using? Or confused about why they're experiencing pain they didn't expect?

Or just, cold and want something to help them warm up. How do we triage that these points of interest to bring the right people to conversations like that? Yeah.

Bill Russell: All right. We'll hit the fun ones here. ChatGBT versus the Magic 8 Ball. You remember the Magic 8 Ball via Oh, I had a Magic 8 Ball as a kid.

It was great. I know, it helped me in so many different areas where I was unable to make a decision. Should I go to the arcade or should I do my homework? And then I would shake the Magic 8 ball and it would tell me the arcade is definitely, the place to go. Pitting these two things against each other created a funny outcome.

To operate one of them is like 400, 000 day and the Magic 8 Ball costs 1, 499, probably still costs 1, 499. I was going to say, it

Jacob Hansen: hasn't inflated much.

Bill Russell: Yeah. a very basic question. Can you help me solve the healthcare crisis? And the Magic 8 Ball came back with the answer of signs point to yes.

And I love the Magic 8 Ball because it's very concise. It doesn't really help me with the answer itself whereas ChatGPT, and if you've interacted with it much as I have, it's really interesting to watch because it'll come back won't answer that question directly, but it'll say, here are the, eight key strategies and it'll have a whole bunch of bullet points on details and how you might solve and what people are saying about the healthcare crisis.

they keep moving on from there. Which one of these answers jumped out at you made you laugh?

Jacob Hansen: The, I think every single one of them made me laugh. The one that struck me the most is there was the question about value based care and the way that could drive down cost and create cost efficiency.

And Magic 8 Ball very concisely said yes. It is a

Bill Russell: certainty, yes.

Jacob Hansen: Yes, it is a certainty, yes. Versus I think that one, ChatGPT, if I'm remembering right, it basically outlined five benefits and five challenges associated with value based care models. And that really prompted for me was a reminder that, look, AI It certainly advances us well beyond a yes or no from the Magic 8 Ball, and that's wonderful.

And it can arm us with information, it also highlights the role That deep thinking human beings who have been confronted with these issues have to still play in working with AI and the information that AI can serve up to ultimately guide toward a decision. So many of the questions that he went through, number one, they made me laugh out loud.

And then two, every time AI was hedging its bets on every question, there were always pros and cons. Did it actually answer the question of how to solve the healthcare crisis? No. What it was doing was providing lots and lots of data. And information for consideration. And this is why it stuck out to me right away. This article highlighted why AI plays such an important role in healthcare in the future. And what should its be? It should be to empower people in staying engaged moving quickly to solve problems we've been struggling with. Because that information at our fingertips.

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Bill Russell: , I love that summary. I did enjoy the question, are hospital mergers good or bad for patients? And the magic eight ball said, ask again later. And ChatGPT, of course responded with a long list. I'll tell you what I'm learning with ChatGPT as I'm studying it and understanding.

The people who are getting the most out of it. There's different ways to approach it. One is, you have to tell it who you want it to be. So a lot of people just do single shot. Hey, do you think we can solve the healthcare crisis? And it'll just give you a bunch of answers. But if you say, Look, you're a politician who's about to give a talk on the floor.

You have to take a stance on, can the healthcare crisis be solved? Tell me what your talk would be. That would give you a more, the more specific you are with these models and you give it a role, it will take that role that you tell it to do. The other thing I've, I'm learning is. I'm turning it around.

In reality, I'm the expert. So I'm asking it, I'm asking it to be the interviewer. So I'm saying, all right, look, I want to have a conversation with you on how to solve the health care crisis. I want you to ask me one at a time questions. And I'm going to answer those questions. And then you ask a follow on question for clarity until we get to something.

And so it turns the table and it helps me to, to fine tune my thoughts and my thinking, because it's actually a pretty good thought partner. And it asks really good questions. It's just, we're lazy. We want it to just give us all that.

Jacob Hansen: Yeah. Boy your thoughts there really speak to how important specificity.

is and the way that we use AI now. It's one thing if we expect a Band Aid that sort of is a coverall, solves all problems but we're going to have to be okay as an industry with engaging with AI almost on a, Like in a bulleted list, a thing at a time, workflow by workflow or condition by condition sometimes, because the more specific we can be, the more clear and actionable AI can be as well.

So to your point, number one, you can lead the witness a bit to exactly where we need to be. And then the more specific we are, the better the outcome becomes.

Bill Russell: It's a great tool. People are like, Hey, can you 10X yourself with the tool? And we are in the media business.

I will say when you look at the businesses that are most fearful of disruption based on generative AI, the media business is the most fearful. Second being entertainment. And then it goes down from there. Healthcare. I remember seeing the stats, healthcare was 61%, 61 percent of healthcare CEOs are afraid of the disruptive nature of of generative in healthcare.

But it was like 93 percent of media companies. So I'm very in tune with, okay, what can it do? And I'm getting my team very comfortable with using it. And they are doing some, I have a lot of, I have a lot of these Gen Zers. They talk about. And they're really teaching me some things on how they use it.

Let's talk about Gen Zers. They are computer wizs. Just don't ask them to type. Do you foresee a time in the next make this easier, in the next decade where the keyboard goes away.

Jacob Hansen: It feels like we're moving that way. And boy, a decade seems far away almost with with the arrival of interesting things like Neuralink and, just ambient listening in general, the number of times a day.

Or I'm having a conversation, then my phone pops up with a, oh, did you need X, Y or Z thing from an app that's listening. It feels like we're awfully closer than 10 years. I think the thing that stuck out to me about that article was more as an industry, when we think about patients, The need for clarity around, you could call it social determinants, but really clarity around what's this person's context?

And how am I going to have the most success by engaging with them in a way? that they're comfortable and accustomed to. And that's just fundamentally different for, to be honest, I was actually shocked reading the article. Blown away, I, there was the bit about a young woman who'd written an eight page essay on her iPad, using the iPad keyboard, and then probably also the verbal dictation option.

can't even wrap my head around doing that because I type wicked fast and find I get my thoughts out better that way but the experience for everyone needs to be a bit more tailored. To create the kind of outcomes that we want as an industry.

Bill Russell: My daughter who works for me typed her term paper on her iPhone because she could type faster on an iPhone than she could type on a computer.

And she's probably listening to this cause she's one of the producers. And I remember at the time thinking, man, that is, that. That demonstrates what you're talking about here, which is like every generation that comes through has a different experience with technology and a different immersion with technology.

And we might say the keyboard's going away. The keyboard will only go away, like, when they, Pry it out of your hands and pry it out of my hands. It's still a really good tool for us to get information in and out of a computer. Her generation though, completely different way of interacting with technology.

They will have all really entered into the retirement ages. And all right, so how are you developing? Solutions that are going to work for the baby boom generation as they age, and the Gen Zers who would much rather talk to a computer than have this mouse and keyboard in front of them.

Jacob Hansen: I think as I was reflecting on this, having read some of this had a great discussion with Health System yesterday, thinking about some of these virtual care tools.

And their focus was on simplicity. If we overcomplicate things, if we focus on keeping things as simple as possible, we can probably meet the broadest set of patients where they are the fastest. And then we can create unique experiences off of those really clear, simple beginnings.

there are a lot of tools in healthcare. Started out with lots of complexity, especially because of unique care needs for patients. And so how do we bring some learning from the world of UI, UX and customer experience? In the non healthcare setting into healthcare to create simplicity for patients.

That might be one of the core answers because it will allow us to then create flavors of that simple experience that are unique to each each group. And we talk a lot about the desire for like patient accountability. Patients need to have a stake in this and they need to be an equal partner in their own outcomes.

We can only do that if we're really listening to the way that they want to engage our industry.

Bill Russell: Absolutely. Jacob, we are at time, but I love these stories. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your experience.

Jacob Hansen: Yeah, as always Bill, you and I seem to be motivated by similar stories because these are all probably a little bit unique to think about in terms of somebody who's very focused on virtual care platforms and health care outcomes.

But these tie right into the heart of, what either limits or strengthens our success as a, as an industry.

chief product officer for Avasure. I love that because these are really appropriate stories because you're thinking through, all right, what does our product look like in the future, how are we going to meet these needs?

Bill Russell: And so I love having these kinds of conversations. So keep the stories coming and look forward to the next time we get get together and do this. Thanks for having me, Bill. I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to Newstay. There's a lot happening in our industry and while Newstay covers interesting stuff, another way to stay informed is by subscribing to our daily insights email, which delivers Expertly curated health IT news straight to your inbox. Sign up at thisweekealth. com slash news.

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