Today in health, it interviews from the chime
Bill Russell:conference in San Diego.
Bill Russell:My name is bill Russell.
Bill Russell:I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health.
Bill Russell:It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.
Bill Russell:Just a quick reminder.
Bill Russell:I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into
Bill Russell:next week from the chime conference.
Bill Russell:And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I
Bill Russell:want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio
Bill Russell:where we'll start looking at the news.
Bill Russell:Once again.
Bill Russell:Hope you enjoy this interview.
Bill Russell:All right.
Bill Russell:We're at the, uh, chime conference in San Diego.
Bill Russell:We're doing another interview from the floor.
Bill Russell:We have done a Roche.
Bill Russell:Who is the CIO for university of Utah health.
Bill Russell:Yes.
Bill Russell:It's great to see you again.
Bill Russell:Thanks.
Bill Russell:We actually ran into each other at, uh, at BJC.
Bill Russell:So you used to be at BJC,
Donna Roach:BJC and worst in university.
Donna Roach:Well, what'd you do there?
Donna Roach:I was the vice president over epic.
Donna Roach:So one instance of epic over two different tax ID companies.
Donna Roach:Very interesting
Bill Russell:two different tax ID company.
Bill Russell:That's an interesting dynamic.
Bill Russell:I was going to say over epic at any academic medical center is a,
Donna Roach:it is, it is different competing priorities.
Donna Roach:Definitely go on and you have to balance a lot of different, um, personalities.
Donna Roach:You have a lot of different losses.
Bill Russell:And do you have that, that disarming smile, like that's secure
Donna Roach:area.
Bill Russell:Let's, let's run that through governance.
Bill Russell:Let's see how that goes.
Bill Russell:And governance is really important
Donna Roach:in a place like that.
Donna Roach:It is, it is definitely an academics.
Donna Roach:That's one thing that has surprised me is how much is committee run.
Donna Roach:And I love something that, uh, Charro Goswami up at UWS said it's.
Donna Roach:It's not committee.
Donna Roach:You want to workshop, then you want to work.
Donna Roach:Like I'm going to use that.
Donna Roach:That was a really good way to think about
Bill Russell:it.
Bill Russell:So you're now CIO university, a university of Utah
Donna Roach:hospital and clinics, uh, academic
Bill Russell:medical center, I assume.
Bill Russell:Yes.
Bill Russell:Um, headquartered in salt lake salt lake city.
Bill Russell:Okay.
Bill Russell:But you have a
Donna Roach:larger area than that?
Donna Roach:Yes, we are a five state contenary referrals.
Donna Roach:To the university of Utah, we are the only academic facility
Donna Roach:and that five state area.
Bill Russell:And you're between you and Intermountain
Bill Russell:probably have what 90% market
Donna Roach:share and, um, HCA Stewart, we're kind of those three
Donna Roach:are the big players in music.
Donna Roach:That's what we
Bill Russell:find in most major metros is you have three players and a lot of
Bill Russell:times it's not, you know, an even split.
Bill Russell:They're at scale.
Donna Roach:Yeah.
Donna Roach:And you know, where are the academics?
Donna Roach:So we, and we're
Bill Russell:state.
Bill Russell:And so you have to work with everybody or you the children's hospital as well, or
Donna Roach:so the children's hospital is a, um, relationship with Intermountain.
Donna Roach:It is, um, their facility, their EHR, but our physicians.
Bill Russell:Okay.
Bill Russell:That's interesting.
Bill Russell:As much as I'd like to explore that, I'm not sure my audience would be really
Bill Russell:excited about that, but I, but I do want to talk about like, what's top of mind,
Bill Russell:what are you thinking about these things?
Donna Roach:Um, a lot is digital roadmap.
Donna Roach:So when I got there, I was asked to create, actually take what
Donna Roach:they had in terms of digital.
Donna Roach:Before we go there.
Donna Roach:When did you get there?
Donna Roach:Year ago?
Donna Roach:October 5th was my
Bill Russell:anniversary.
Bill Russell:So you were, you were what?
Bill Russell:Six to seven months into COVID at that point.
Bill Russell:And really they wanted to focus on digital at that point.
Bill Russell:So you really had responded to the pandemic.
Bill Russell:You had some things in place we're ready
Donna Roach:to go.
Donna Roach:And they were like any academic or any hospital.
Donna Roach:We went from zero to close to, I think 40,000, um, telehealth visits.
Donna Roach:It just, um, the curve that we experienced now we've settled
Donna Roach:off we're about 20,000 a month.
Donna Roach:Um, and inpatient, uh, ambulatory visits have picked back up.
Donna Roach:So what we're seeing in tele-health is just an add on to
Donna Roach:our in-person ambulatory visits.
Donna Roach:Oh,
Bill Russell:interesting.
Bill Russell:All right.
Bill Russell:So digital, you come in in October and they're like, all right,
Bill Russell:we have this digital roadmap.
Bill Russell:I'm putting words in their mouth.
Bill Russell:We now recognize how important digital is, especially in the age of the
Bill Russell:pandemic is we need to reach people in a lot of different, different
Bill Russell:ways that we used to have four.
Bill Russell:So what, what did it look like to sort of, I assume you picked something
Bill Russell:up that was already existing.
Bill Russell:How do you, where do you start to ideate?
Bill Russell:Do you go back into the organization?
Bill Russell:Do you bring it outside people to look
Donna Roach:at it?
Donna Roach:I mean, actually it was kind of funny.
Donna Roach:I probably week one, I got there and they said, we have this digital strategy.
Donna Roach:We want you to run.
Donna Roach:And partner with the CMIO who is great, absolutely wonderful Dr.
Donna Roach:Hightower.
Donna Roach:And I said, well, tell me digital strategy.
Donna Roach:You have something, tell me what that is.
Donna Roach:And they're like, well, it's our virtual tele-health program.
Donna Roach:I said, you do, you do know it's more than that.
Donna Roach:Like, we want to grow that bigger than just that one space.
Donna Roach:So they suddenly they're like, well, yeah, yeah.
Donna Roach:Cool.
Donna Roach:Yeah.
Donna Roach:Do that.
Donna Roach:Go ahead.
Donna Roach:Get that done.
Donna Roach:Um, my, uh, doctor, hi Tara and I work together.
Donna Roach:We actually did a couple of things right up front.
Donna Roach:We brought in, um, impacted by users to help us with the initial, how do
Donna Roach:we start to assess the environment?
Donna Roach:Where are we?
Donna Roach:What does governance start to look like?
Donna Roach:How do we create the charter?
Donna Roach:So in that first year, we pulled together a charter.
Donna Roach:We pulled together, uh, what we call our digital enablement committee.
Donna Roach:We looked at early on what should be on our road.
Donna Roach:So we have like three key things on our roadmap, but we also went back
Donna Roach:and said the same time that 2025 strategy refresh was being done by Dr.
Donna Roach:Goode.
Donna Roach:Who's the head of the medical school and kind of my boss's boss.
Donna Roach:And he had a directed steps.
Donna Roach:So every year there's a group of directed steps.
Donna Roach:So we went and looked at all.
Donna Roach:There were like 60, some directed steps for 2020.
Donna Roach:We talked to, we've looked at that.
Donna Roach:We said there's about 30 digitally enabled strategies in there.
Donna Roach:We've talked to each of those.
Donna Roach:And then we have, are starting to now put that back on the roadmap, using
Donna Roach:our deck committee to help in the prioritization of where those should fit.
Bill Russell:It's Intermountain is a, a strong digital.
Bill Russell:Yes.
Bill Russell:They're also operating at margins that cause I go to the JP Morgan conference,
Bill Russell:they report out their margins and I, I look at those and I go, they have
Bill Russell:to be the envy of just about every health system across the country.
Bill Russell:So they have a fair amount of money to spend there.
Bill Russell:Is there any sort of looking out of the corner of your eye going, what are
Bill Russell:they doing over there or do you just try to focus in on that your specific
Donna Roach:communities?
Donna Roach:It's good to know what they're doing.
Donna Roach:Um, Ryan and I.
Donna Roach:Who's the CIO, we partner quite a bit and we're, we are, I don't see them as a
Donna Roach:competitor, especially in the it space.
Donna Roach:I think we have to partner and we have to be coming to the community and to
Donna Roach:different vendors in the same way.
Donna Roach:And so we're doing that partnership together,
Bill Russell:sort of that expectation in the community.
Bill Russell:If I thought, if I lived in salt lake, I would expect that the university
Bill Russell:and inner mountain would work for.
Donna Roach:Absolutely.
Bill Russell:Th the neat thing is I think I could see you and Ryan working together.
Bill Russell:I mean, you're two very reasonable people, very smart and have
Bill Russell:probably really good teams.
Bill Russell:I haven't met your teams, but I've interviewed some of Ryan's
Bill Russell:teams over the year years.
Bill Russell:They're really some of the top people in the industry on this stuff, you
Bill Russell:could probably get a lot done just at
Donna Roach:that level, I would think.
Donna Roach:Yeah, just take one space.
Donna Roach:We so at and T with the FirstNet rollout of, you know, the first responder network,
Donna Roach:it's much easier for us to go together and talk to FirstNet and at, and T as a group,
Donna Roach:rather than me going and him going now, he's got a lot more power and probably.
Donna Roach:Get them to move on it, but us together and then showing the legislature
Donna Roach:that we're working together is
Bill Russell:what about like vaccination programs that, that
Bill Russell:came at probably a little, well, no, that would have come right after you
Donna Roach:got there.
Donna Roach:Yeah.
Donna Roach:So vaccine and the state of Utah was kind of interesting.
Donna Roach:It was managed by the department of health within Utah.
Donna Roach:It wasn't necessarily managed by the academics, so they would,
Donna Roach:the state would give us back.
Donna Roach:Yeah.
Donna Roach:And we had to show, especially for us, we had to show 85% vaccination rate
Donna Roach:before they would give us more vaccine.
Donna Roach:So we actually didn't necessarily vaccinate the largest percentage.
Donna Roach:The largest percentage of vaccinations came from the state.
Bill Russell:It's interesting because my vaccination was a drive through a park
Bill Russell:and it was paramedics, but essentially the, the card was filled out by the state
Donna Roach:health department.
Donna Roach:Yeah, the beauty of it.
Donna Roach:When people were having it done at Utah health, if you had a, my chart record,
Donna Roach:it automatically it's populated in.
Donna Roach:And, and you know, some of those that was a clear pass and everything now
Donna Roach:that's all kind of being integrated.
Donna Roach:It's
Bill Russell:nice.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:I mean, I could pull up my phone right now and show you my vaccination on clear pass.
Bill Russell:Cause I went to the health conference and it was required and it's interesting.
Bill Russell:The next conference I go to they're like, Hey, bring your card.
Bill Russell:I'm like, I don't, I brought my card.
Bill Russell:I don't want to keep bringing my card.
Bill Russell:Cause that cards kind of.
Donna Roach:Yeah, it'll wear
Bill Russell:down.
Bill Russell:And I w I w wanted to know if I can just show you this on my phone and
Bill Russell:they're like, we'd rather see your card.
Bill Russell:And I'm like, that is such a healthcare thing to say.
Bill Russell:I'd rather see your card.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:Um, have you seen things progress?
Bill Russell:Um, you know, we started using chat bots.
Bill Russell:We started doing, uh, you know, telehealth.
Bill Russell:There's a new, what we started to maybe integrate it in different ways and stuff.
Bill Russell:Have you started, what are some of the things that maybe you started during
Bill Russell:the pandemic that you think will.
Donna Roach:No, I think definitely what the vaccine process us looking
Donna Roach:at, how well we did, especially in the equity piece of it was really telltale.
Donna Roach:We did a great job for the Caucasian population, but when you looked at
Donna Roach:Hispanics, African-Americans native Indians, we didn't do such a good job.
Donna Roach:And the beauty of the university of Utah is that they're willing to
Donna Roach:look at it and say, we need to do.
Donna Roach:And be more equitable and so really put some programs in place.
Donna Roach:So they're buried when it comes to data.
Donna Roach:They're very transparent.
Donna Roach:You could go out there now and look at some of the data points that I'm
Donna Roach:talking about and it's out there and it really is open to the public to
Donna Roach:kind of see who, you know, how well we
Bill Russell:do.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:We say salt lake, but I mean, Utah salt lake Provo, and a bunch of
Bill Russell:really neat towns, but their towns.
Bill Russell:A lot of space in between those are you servicing
Donna Roach:those areas?
Donna Roach:Yeah, we do.
Donna Roach:We are pretty much that pretty much that entire state of Utah.
Donna Roach:And then a lot of those five state regions that don't have academic facilities.
Donna Roach:We have a fairly, um, extensive connect program where we send physicians out to
Donna Roach:other smaller regional hospitals to help with kind of connecting or doing programs.
Donna Roach:We also have a really pretty cool program.
Donna Roach:So Encore or corner, forget the name.
Donna Roach:I get that name mixed up, but where we help train and do actually kind of
Donna Roach:virtual training programs for physicians in other markets that wouldn't have
Donna Roach:any access to that kind of training
Bill Russell:to a company that was doing all this work in, in, uh,
Bill Russell:ORs where they're actually watching surgeries and that kind of stuff.
Bill Russell:They're training people from.
Bill Russell:And doing that.
Bill Russell:And I thought this is going to be interesting for rural health.
Bill Russell:I mean, right now, I think we're sort of resigned to the fact that if you
Bill Russell:need a major surgery, you're driving to salt lake, but you know, the
Bill Russell:rural health stuff has me fascinated.
Bill Russell:I didn't have that problem per se, in the markets that I serve.
Bill Russell:But the, it is, is such a multifaceted problem.
Bill Russell:The technology, maybe isn't up to speed.
Bill Russell:You don't have the connectivity.
Bill Russell:Uh, Uh, accessibility to doctors trained medical staff is not there.
Bill Russell:Right.
Bill Russell:Is that something that you guys have groups looking at
Bill Russell:and you're bringing technology?
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Donna Roach:So, um, take our orthopedic hospital in our Creek team.
Donna Roach:Nielsen rehab is Craig T Nielsen is state of the arts.
Donna Roach:Whenever you come out to salt lake, you gotta come and you gotta see this.
Donna Roach:Cause it is, it opened.
Donna Roach:I, I feel bad for them.
Donna Roach:They open right at the start of the.
Donna Roach:So when they had their one year anniversary was smack in the middle of
Donna Roach:it, but the, what they do awesome services to the point where when a patient comes
Donna Roach:into the room, they can actually control all of the devices in the room by, um,
Donna Roach:breath, if, if needed, if they have no capacity in their arms or their legs, um,
Donna Roach:that the city itself is almost set up.
Donna Roach:Like, it looks like the whole time.
Donna Roach:And it, you know, you know, what rehab hospitals can sometimes look
Donna Roach:like, or, you know, they're, they're not necessarily the prettiest.
Donna Roach:This is very much, uh, state-of-the-art the programs, the
Donna Roach:services and what they're doing.
Donna Roach:The counterpart, the rehab, um, facility, just down the street, they
Donna Roach:do surgeries and, and train residents and medical students on surgeries.
Donna Roach:They, they kind of, um, project the.
Donna Roach:And I got to do a tour of it, kind of an I'm kind of a geeky person.
Donna Roach:They're like, do you want to see the cadavers?
Donna Roach:And I'm like, you bet, I'm sure they thought, well,
Donna Roach:let's freak out the it person.
Donna Roach:And I'm like, no, I love, you know, but they, they actually take a cadaver bone.
Donna Roach:They recreate it with a 3d printer and then they show and train the residents on
Donna Roach:how do I place this pin in this cadaver?
Donna Roach:They're projecting, you know, the whole surgery, medical students can kind of
Donna Roach:be part of this because it's, you know, it's just a cadaver bone that's been
Donna Roach:recreated, but it helps in the training process of those kinds of procedures.
Donna Roach:It is,
Bill Russell:man.
Bill Russell:It's such a, must be such a fun job because there's so many aspects to
Bill Russell:it that you get to get to play with.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:Thank you
Donna Roach:for stopping out.
Donna Roach:Really good.
Donna Roach:Yeah.
Donna Roach:This is great.
Donna Roach:Thanks.
Bill Russell:Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews
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