Today in.
Speaker:Health it interviews from the health conference in Boston
Speaker:My name is bill Russell.
Speaker:I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week and
Speaker:health it a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.
Speaker:Just a quick reminder, I'm going to be dropping interviews
Speaker:over the next couple of days.
Speaker:And into next week from the floor of the health conference.
Bill Russell:All right.
Bill Russell:Another interview from the health conference in Boston,
Bill Russell:and today we were with.
Bill Russell:Rama Krishna.
Bill Russell:Exactly.
Bill Russell:I did that well, thanks.
Bill Russell:Uh, well, welcome to the show.
Bill Russell:I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Yes.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Thank you.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Thank you for
Bill Russell:having me.
Bill Russell:And you don't have your title here, but you're with blue jeans
Bill Russell:network, which is a part of Verizon.
Bill Russell:W what's your, you have innovation and strategy.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Well, the founder of blue jeans, there you go.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And now I run strategy and the chief innovator for the telehealth
Krish Ramakrishnan:space at, uh, Ryzen by blue
Bill Russell:jeans.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:And I'm looking forward to this conversation cause we've.
Bill Russell:So many people come on to talk about, uh, uh, tele-health we,
Bill Russell:uh, in fact, I ran into Dr.
Bill Russell:Joseph Cavita or this morning over in the, uh, Omni hotel.
Bill Russell:And we were just talking about the stats that he said, you know, during
Bill Russell:the pandemic tele-health went up to 60, 70% of visits, some staggering number.
Bill Russell:I asked them what the new baseline is.
Bill Russell:He said, you know, it's slowly been coming down, but he said, it feels like
Bill Russell:right now the baseline is like 5% of.
Bill Russell:Visits at health systems has gone up.
Bill Russell:I'm like, wait, that sounds low.
Bill Russell:And he said, yeah, well backtrack a couple of years.
Bill Russell:And that number was like, 0.0, something percent.
Bill Russell:He said, so that's significantly, that's a significant rise.
Bill Russell:And what he's seeing is a lot of health systems are evaluating now
Bill Russell:with this experience where they can appropriately put tele-health in.
Bill Russell:So I wanted to touch base with you and just talk about, uh, let's
Bill Russell:start with the pandemic that.
Bill Russell:Really crazy.
Bill Russell:The amount of phone calls and work you guys had to do early on to get a debit.
Bill Russell:Talk about that a little bit.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Um, during the pandemic, it was really crazy, but
Krish Ramakrishnan:let me just step back a little bit.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Blue jeans was always in the video conferencing business.
Krish Ramakrishnan:They were selling to enterprise larger hospitals, universities.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That's our core, uh, model, uh, compelling video content.
Krish Ramakrishnan:So as it turns out during the pandemic, everybody wanted to have
Krish Ramakrishnan:a video tool that they can do.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We had many hospitals reach out and say, we need to get our inpatient to remote
Krish Ramakrishnan:telehealth right now over the weekend.
Krish Ramakrishnan:In fact, I will tell you, university of Pennsylvania over the weekend, they
Krish Ramakrishnan:said, next week we are shutting down.
Krish Ramakrishnan:How are we going to do it?
Krish Ramakrishnan:We had to run a team out there, create a service improve capacity, 400%, 400%
Krish Ramakrishnan:one week in terms of not only telehealth.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Yeah, that was during the pandemic and we saw people embrace tele-health.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:W th they really didn't have a choice for the most part, not from a safety
Bill Russell:standpoint, this became the preferred method, the preferred medium for all
Bill Russell:health systems, uh, to, to move forward.
Bill Russell:So it was a, I call it a pilot at scale.
Bill Russell:I mean, it all, all of a sudden went from, Hey, we're playing around with.
Bill Russell:Now we're going to do it across the entire health system.
Bill Russell:Um, I mean, did that present different kinds of challenges?
Krish Ramakrishnan:I actually, I would say it's more of an opportunity.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, we had to roll out video conferencing for everybody, but what we realized is
Krish Ramakrishnan:video conferencing is a meeting tool, collaboration office tool, because
Krish Ramakrishnan:it's not designed for tele-health.
Krish Ramakrishnan:So when we became part of horizon, What if we can accurately look at video and
Krish Ramakrishnan:in the context of teller tele-health and how can we repurpose bill for telehealth?
Krish Ramakrishnan:And that's the innovation that blue Jean arrived and brings to the table.
Krish Ramakrishnan:So we can talk about
Bill Russell:that.
Bill Russell:So we get, we get into the pandemic.
Bill Russell:I assume what happens after the initial, uh, excitement of we've got
Bill Russell:to get all this stood up very rapidly.
Bill Russell:There's a.
Bill Russell:We've got to integrate this better.
Bill Russell:We've got to make it better for the workflow.
Bill Russell:The physicians want it to be easier.
Bill Russell:We want to make sure we don't drop any calls and that kind of stuff.
Bill Russell:So talk a little bit about, as it matured, as it went along,
Krish Ramakrishnan:what we realized is in order for tele health to be
Krish Ramakrishnan:successful, the user experience has to be at the top notch.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Right?
Krish Ramakrishnan:So most people were using it.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, Some kind of ID support.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We wanted to make sure that it worked the first time.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Doctors are not, it support people now in
Bill Russell:order
Krish Ramakrishnan:they want to be, they want to be, but turned out initially.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That's what happened.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I cannot call.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I can not hear, I have echo.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We want to make that compelling.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We, second thing we did, uh, innovation wise, we made it mobile without an app.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Download just one, click and join a.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And then we made it easier for the hospitals to launch televisits by
Krish Ramakrishnan:doing all of the EHR integrations so that we could have, uh,
Krish Ramakrishnan:the patient record pulled out.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Then we looked at this and said, one is we can simulate a real world waiting room.
Krish Ramakrishnan:After all, when you go into a real clinic, there's a waiting room.
Krish Ramakrishnan:There is an intake form.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, Things that
Krish Ramakrishnan:you
Bill Russell:need to do for
Krish Ramakrishnan:education, all of those things.
Krish Ramakrishnan:So we created a, one of a kind waiting role where the patients
Krish Ramakrishnan:go in and they have intake form.
Krish Ramakrishnan:They could look at all the videos and they can be notified.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Even if the doctor is late, all of those things, those things
Krish Ramakrishnan:we're missing an industry.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That's something that BlueJeans brought to the table of revamp
Krish Ramakrishnan:reading and then post visit.
Krish Ramakrishnan:What are some of the.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, text messages, all those things were integrated so that we can build a, a very
Krish Ramakrishnan:purposeful television application rather than using a collaboration application.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I'll
Bill Russell:tell you in the, I lived down in Florida and so, and
Bill Russell:I moved into a neighborhood where they referred to me as the kid.
Bill Russell:Now I'm 54 years old and they refer to me as a kid.
Bill Russell:It gives you an idea of the people I'm living around.
Bill Russell:And my neighbors were coming to me.
Bill Russell:Oh, you're the healthcare guy.
Bill Russell:I have a visit.
Bill Russell:I have a telehealth visit today and I can't figure it out and
Bill Russell:I'd go over to their house and they'd have an AOL browser.
Bill Russell:And I kid you not an AOL browser AOL email address, and they're trying to connect.
Bill Russell:And it was, there was a lot of friction in that experience.
Bill Russell:And there was a special, one of the, one of the people I was helping was
Bill Russell:had a meeting with a specialist at a prestigious hospital, and he ran
Bill Russell:about 17 minutes late and we had no indication that he was 17 minutes late.
Bill Russell:So.
Bill Russell:10 minutes in we're troubleshooting.
Bill Russell:We're trying to figure it out that that experience is, is critical.
Bill Russell:And I would assume that a lot of health systems are really looking to, to, to
Bill Russell:optimize that experience on both ends the, the patient side and the clinician side.
Bill Russell:I
Krish Ramakrishnan:felt that, uh, experience that you just related
Krish Ramakrishnan:is not, uh, it's not uncommon.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We have heard of about that lot at that point.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I can, it's a perfect compliment blue jeans, the video app.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, couple with Verizon the network.
Krish Ramakrishnan:So one of the macro trends that is happening across all
Krish Ramakrishnan:industries, not just tell how it service, it's moving to the edge.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Right?
Krish Ramakrishnan:What I might mean by that in a thing, there is the network component there,
Krish Ramakrishnan:the computation element and where the service is rendered, more and more
Krish Ramakrishnan:services are rendered at the home.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That is the new edge, whether it be watching a compelling.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Whether you want to eat at a gourmet restaurant that shows up at your
Krish Ramakrishnan:home, telehealth is no different.
Krish Ramakrishnan:We want to make the experience of delivering tele-health
Krish Ramakrishnan:better than being there.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Well, better than being there.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That's the north star for blue Jean.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And by coupling that with the network so we can deliver 5g
Krish Ramakrishnan:capability, no missed calls.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Crystal clear video, no choppy audio.
Krish Ramakrishnan:You're making the.
Krish Ramakrishnan:That much better.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And then you can then now with this integration of apple health data,
Krish Ramakrishnan:it minimize the amount of time.
Krish Ramakrishnan:times you need to go to the clinic to deliver that.
Bill Russell:You know, we're seeing a lot of, I saw entrepreneurs here
Bill Russell:and they're talking about hospital at home for chronic conditions.
Bill Russell:We see a medically home where, uh, Mayo and, uh, Kaiser, uh,
Bill Russell:partnered essentially in medically home and they're taking stuff.
Bill Russell:Best buy is announced.
Bill Russell:They're a healthcare company.
Bill Russell:They're standing up the home.
Bill Russell:Uh, so I want to talk about the future because the future might be
Bill Russell:communication through blue jeans, to the, the, the, essentially the
Bill Russell:primary care docs and the others.
Bill Russell:But the, the hospital room is, is my bedroom is my, my home
Krish Ramakrishnan:on the, on the money bill.
Krish Ramakrishnan:The new clinic is.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Surrounded by satellite clients that are more like your community
Krish Ramakrishnan:hospital, something of that nature.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And then there's the four, the bigger one, the bigger hospital, but it
Krish Ramakrishnan:going to be a three tier system.
Krish Ramakrishnan:But the primary clinic is your home.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And therefore you need some of those, uh, data collecting devices like remote
Krish Ramakrishnan:patient monitoring, uh, Diller and I like apple, uh, And then compelling, uh, video
Krish Ramakrishnan:communication to make it very immersive.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Yeah.
Bill Russell:Well, and that's, it's, we're entering a new world.
Bill Russell:I've heard a bunch of the speakers here.
Bill Russell:Talk about the fact that the things that are happening have happened through
Bill Russell:the pandemic and will happen over the next two years will shape healthcare
Bill Russell:for the next couple of decades.
Bill Russell:And this is one of those areas where I think we're going to be talking to
Bill Russell:our doctors a lot more through this.
Bill Russell:We're going to be receiving a lot more of our care through this media.
Bill Russell:So I'm excited to continue our conversation and hear how things progress.
Bill Russell:This should be fun.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Yeah.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I'm excited too.
Krish Ramakrishnan:One of the areas that really you're going to benefit from this is rural health
Krish Ramakrishnan:bringing expertise to the rural area.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I'd say Verizon mission blue didn't mention that is I'm very excited about
Bill Russell:that.
Bill Russell:All becomes about the network at that point.
Bill Russell:Right?
Bill Russell:So it's.
Bill Russell:Uh, I talked to a CIO for the Cherokee nation and I said,
Bill Russell:well, tell me about your teller.
Bill Russell:Cause they ramped up.
Bill Russell:Tele-health pretty significantly.
Bill Russell:It was all over the phone.
Bill Russell:They did no video because they were in such remote places, all across
Bill Russell:Oklahoma that he goes, you know, we couldn't reliably do video visits.
Bill Russell:And so it really is about the network.
Bill Russell:At that point, if we had 5g and the promise of that bandwidth across
Bill Russell:the entire country, we really would change the nature of employment.
Bill Russell:Healthcare the nature of a lot of things.
Bill Russell:So
Krish Ramakrishnan:as I said before, the new edge is the home.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Yeah.
Krish Ramakrishnan:This allows 5g and mobile edge compute allows the rural home to be part
Krish Ramakrishnan:of the edge and be, uh, be part of the smart home and smart clinics.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And everything's smart about it.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Or even educate remote education to the rural areas, no longer the laggard.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And that's most exciting.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:And I've often said, you know, if given the choice, if I get sick and you know,
Bill Russell:I'd like to pick my health system based on what's the best one I have, maybe
Bill Russell:it's Mayo, maybe it's Cleveland, maybe it's UCLA medical center for cancer.
Bill Russell:And, uh, and I don't care that I live in Florida.
Bill Russell:You know, when I have that kind of chronic disease, I'd like to
Bill Russell:interact with the best care I could possibly find in the country.
Bill Russell:And this, this really leads us in that direction.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Gives us flexibility.
Krish Ramakrishnan:And even the future, you may not have to pick between a or B.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I think we are always confronted with these choices.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Uh, should, should I go with one or two?
Krish Ramakrishnan:What can I be plethora of choices?
Krish Ramakrishnan:I have fought this.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I'll go here for that.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I will go there.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Maybe for most of my care I'll be at home.
Krish Ramakrishnan:Maybe I can walk to a neighborhood clinic, maybe for a check-in.
Krish Ramakrishnan:I go to a hospital or even a remote location that.
Krish Ramakrishnan:This is what tele-health and rich communication is
Krish Ramakrishnan:enabling for you in the future
Bill Russell:for first.
Bill Russell:Thank you for your time.
Bill Russell:I really appreciate it.
Bill Russell:Thank
Bill Russell:you, bill.
Bill Russell:Check back for Morris.
Bill Russell:The, we continues.
Bill Russell:A lot of great interviews, a lot of great conversations.
Bill Russell:I'm looking forward to sharing them with you.
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