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  Today in Health IT interviews from the CHIME Conference in San Diego. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT a channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. Just a quick reminder, I'm gonna be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into next week.

From the CHIME conference, and then I'm gonna have some more interviews from the next conference I'm gonna be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio where we'll start looking at the news today. Something a little different. I'm actually releasing the same show on Newsday on our this Weekend Health IT channel and on the Today Channel.

So if you're gonna pick it up on one or the other, that's great. If not. I just thought it was such a great interview and it's in line with our chime series that we're doing, so I thought I'd drop it on this channel as well. So hope you enjoy. Alright, we have another interview from the chime floor and today we're joined by Anne Wellington, who is, well you recently promoted.

Yes. So you have two roles. Tell us about two roles, two roles. My newest role is Executive Director of Digital Strategy at Cedar-Sinai. So I am helping to lead work around digital front door, a lot of our consumer and patient facing efforts, and that's sort of a new area for me to move into. And then for the past three and a half years, I've been the managing director of the Cedar-Sinai Accelerator, and I'm still filling that role right now as well.

The accelerator's fun. It is fun. We, we can go in a lot of different directions, can't we? We can go into a lot of directions. I mean, 'cause the. The digital strategy for Cedar-Sinai would be, uh, one direction. We could go, we could go in the accelerator direction. I saw some of your, your companies up at the health conference.

Yeah, so we've had companies at Health and we had companies here, and they're talking about sort of how we're working together. It's been fun. Recently, we've brought a lot of our companies that have had a chance to deploy at Cedars, and we're getting really sort of scaled up on working with some of these early stage companies.

So for those who don't know, an accelerator is a company that's already established. They're looking to really go to the next level. They come in. And they get to work very closely with the Cedars team. Not only the IT and the technology, but also the clinicians. And your clinicians are very bought in.

They're very bought in. And this is our, currently, we're in the midst of our seventh class, so we've had about 64 companies come through and. Be part of the accelerator and they come in, we work with them closely in the health system. Uh, I know that there's programs where they work with the innovation team.

That's not us. We are facilitators to get them connected into leadership, into stakeholders directly to the clinicians who'd be using the products. And it's really helpful. It's cool to see the energy that early stage companies bring in. They have a. Fantastic mindset of we're gonna change the world, fix healthcare and move fast.

And bringing that into the health system and that sort of energy and aligning that with the actual needs of the organization really is a powerful combination. Is there for some of them, I assume there's like a reality check. Oh yeah. I mean, so it's, it's, we're gonna change the world. We're gonna do these things, and then they start to sit down and go, the famous quote, man, healthcare is harder than we thought it was.

Healthcare is hard. Yes. It definitely. I think there's a reality check sometimes, but there's also just an alignment. Like I always say, any company that comes in is gonna pivot, whether that's one degree or a 180. They're gonna have to make some adjustments based on the reality of working in a health system.

But hopefully through the accelerator, we can help them make those adjustments quickly and create solutions that are helpful for Cedar Sinai, helpful for hospitals around the country. And actually get those products into the hands of clinicians and patients who can use them. Yeah, so the beautiful thing about the accelerator is some of those companies would meander for a, a fair amount of time.

They come in, they go through the accelerator, they could do that 180, come out the other side with something that is relevant to health systems around the country. Well, and we say, and when I talk to people internally about how to best help these companies and help them sort of grow and improve, the thing we always say is, the best answer is yes.

But the second best answer is a clear no. So sometimes, especially in academic medicine, people wanna be polite, they wanna be supportive. And so if something's not gonna work, they're like, oh, I'm not sure. That's not helpful to startups. What's helpful is, nope, you're way off base. Here's how you can correct and let's do it quickly and let's make that adjustment so you don't spend months or even years just sort of wandering and trying to figure things out.

But I have seen a lot of startups who. Th their, their eyes are wide. They get that meeting with, with Cedars and they sit down and, well, Darren's not there anymore, so we can talk about it. But Darren would say, can you do this? And they'd sit there and go, yeah, we could do that. Yeah. Nowhere is it like what they actually do, but when you're sitting across from, from an influential leader, A-A-C-I-O, or CMO or, or whoever, and they say, can you do this for our health system?

That is kind of an alluring kind of thing, isn't it? Mm-Hmm. , yes. And we talk a lot with companies about that balance of. Focus versus being forward thinking. So they want, we want them to have a core initial product that they get, right. They understand product market fit, they understand the value prop. We talk a lot about focusing on that.

And then if you're getting all these requests and feedback and suggestions, say, how does that fit into the roadmap? Because it is hard to say. No, we can't do that. If you think, and I always tell people, entrepreneur is the most optimistic people in the world, and so when someone says, can you do this? They think, of course, sure, I've got a great team.

I've got all these engineers. I can do anything. And so it's a little bit of balancing that optimism of. You focusing on what really is the core functionality and core sort of strength of the company? Is it too hard for, I, I don't want you to have to pick your favorite child. I can't pick a favorite child, but, but how about a success story?

And when we brought the robot, there were some nurses saying, oh, here's the robots. They're here to take our jobs. It's finally happening. But really as we've deployed robots at the hospital and they've been there to help bring supplies, take lab, uh samples, drop that off, take out the trash, do a lot of tasks that take away from nurses and care partners being able to practice at the top of their license.

They've really embraced the robots and so it's fun to, did they like name the robot? The, the robot's name is mock. Sees. So all of the robots are all moxie, but moxie is, like I said, she's a social robot. So if you say Moxie's name, her eyes turn into little hearts and she'll chirp and beep at you. And they've really embraced.

So is this like, it? It, it's a mobile. It's mobile. Moxie's about yay high and has an arm that can be used to pick things up or press the buttons on the elevator, a scan, a badge of . Moxie needs to get into an area that requires badge access and also has lockable compartment compartments so that we can put in supplies or things that Moxie's bringing around.

So, and it also has intelligence for like self-driving car kind of stuff. It can make its way around. Yeah. I think, uh, the, the founder would probably not like to hear me make this analogy, but imagine a Roomba that maps. And understands the, the environment said the whoops are pretty dumb. They just keep running into things.

This is not, I assume it's smarter than that. It ma it uses sort of similar scanning technology to make a map and then has ongoing computer vision to understand there's a person, there's a fire extinguisher, there's a door, and navigate a crowded hallway of a hospital and be able to move through the hospital if there's a startup.

Thinking about the accelerator right now, what, what problems . I mean, we have a nursing shortage. We we're coming through a pandemic. I mean, there's, there's a lot of challenges, but the, the labor shortage is one to me that is top of mind. I've talked to a fair number of people. Are there technologies that you're looking at right now that is almost like what you're talking about with moxie?

I mean, we, we don't want nurses taking out the garbage. Right. We don't want that is going to alleviate, take away some of that. That that work that they don't wanna do exactly anything that helps clinicians practice at the top of their licenses, and whether that's nurses and some of the tasks that they have to do for patient care, whether that's physicians and documentation, whether that is follow up

Phone calls and things like that that take a lot of time and maybe don't add the most value. We're looking for solutions that can help avoid a clinician burnout, help people be as efficient and effective as possible. And really when I think about where does technology fit into the overall, are we.

Taking away clinician jobs or are we actually freeing them to spend more time with patients? And so what we are thinking about is we want clinician technology to enable them to have more face time with patients, not putting technology in front of them and taking clinicians away. Yeah. Uh, it's interesting You used to report to Darren?

I did. Darren was digital stra. Darren was anything having to do with digital strategy the accelerator. What? But okay, so Darren Leaves Yes. Goes to Press Ganey now he's doing what he's doing. And I think one of the interesting aspects of this is digital strategy. You now report into strategy. I'm in strategy now.

So now both digital strategy and the accelerator roll up into our strategy department. Wow. I So help me to understand that alignment. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me, but Sure. Well, and I'll say even though we roll up into strategy, we still have relationships with our IT department. We have relationships with our

Tech ventures and tech transfer department that helps commercialize research technologies. And then for digital strategy in particular, connecting into marketing as well. So all of these initiatives are very matrixed in the organization in terms of who's involved. But when we think about what's our overall goal, it really is these strategic goals to help us grow the health system, to help bring in new patients, to help us

Be sort of at the top of provider minds mindshare of where do I wanna be, where do I wanna work? What's an innovative organization that's doing interesting things? So making sure that we're strategically aligned to the sort of growing health system. Being in strategy helps us stay connected to all of those initiatives.

So I'm gonna describe this, the, the accelerator's over here, and I know it's right in the middle of everything. It's not that. We're right here. I, I know we're not, you're right here. But the digital strategy probably has its own governance group and Yes. Its own and, and what they're really looking at is, okay, these accelerator companies are great and they're doing those things, and if something really is wildly, we will put it into the governance process.

We'll look at expanding and scaling at those kinds of things. I assume that's how it works. Yeah, so I think whenever we bring a company into the accelerator, we're looking for an internal champion, an internal . Stakeholders to say, Hey, this is aligned with initiatives I'm working on. And so one of the nice things is we can bring in companies that are aligned to digital strategy and that rolls right in.

But we'll continue to bring in companies that are tackling sort of other aspects of the organization, so it's not exclusively like a digital strategy accelerator. But we can make sure that that's particularly aligned. It's interesting, the, the movement to strategy I see as a maturing of the process. I think so it's essentially saying, look, this is core to who we are gonna be as a health system moving forward.

Therefore it is, it is our strategy. Absolutely. And I think making certain that, and even while we rolled up into it, we were very tried to be very clear that. These are not IT initiatives that the IT or EIS department is bringing in to say, oh, these are IT projects. It is really that we're serving the whole organization in trying to be a part of the innovation activities.

And so moving into strategy really aligns and says, this is not just helpful in the short term, but this is strategically important to the organization. So you and Darren were kind enough . To allow me to take this week in health it through the accelerator process. I wish I'd I, we should have had the cameras there and 'cause it was, oh, that would've been fun to, it was a really interest do cameras for the, it was maybe, maybe we should do it again and, and we can do it again and, and think, think through it that, that way.

But it was interesting 'cause we went through the interview process. We talked to the team. Clearly there was not gonna be a fit. I mean, we're in digital media and, but I wish we knew more about media, but we were not going to be super helpful. No, and your clinicians are sort of looking at me going, this is interesting, but.

You know, I, they probably would've liked to be on the show, but I don't know if we could have helped you grow it. Well, that's, I, I'm getting asked at a fair amount, and I think what I'm gonna do is, is as the pandemic starts to wane, I think I'm gonna travel around the country, go to different health systems and do this kind of thing.

So it is a pretty rigorous process and it's, but I mean, you made it to the top 10 when you were, but there's a top 20. There's, there's a, that big horseshoe was kind of intimidating. There is a part of the process where we, uh, select about a top 40 or 50 companies and they get to pitch to health system senior leadership, so our clinical chairs, our operational leaders.

And so there's a big group of people in the room. A little bit Shark Tank style, who, uh, get to listen to the pitches, ask a bunch of questions, and every founder says it's a little bit intimidating when you do it, but it's helpful. And I, I had that hallway coming outta Shark Tank. I'd like to be like the interview at the other side and say, how was the experience?

What'd you think? I think that would, that'd be fun to do. Once anyway, I'm, that's my pitch to you. I think that would be. Be interesting to really highlight. You should, that would be fun to have you sort of embedded in the process and, and get them, get the insight. We have, interestingly, being in Los Angeles, we've had reality show producers ask us if they can do a show about the accelerator, especially once they learn.

Companies come from all over. They rent usually at Airbnb. They're all like, but it can skew the, the whole thing. Oh yeah. We've always said no. But I can imagine the reality show, it's like, well, tell me about your relationship with your father. It's like, , what? What are you talking about? It's like, well, what we want to, we want, they want ratings.

Yeah. What they want. And so it's gonna skew the process. Oh, yeah. I know. We've, we've been approached by it. We've always said, no, it's. Where we're interested in taking the program, and they're very interested in getting this. They're like, so it's a competition? And I'm like, no, it's not. They just come in and we work with them and they're like, but are they?

But you've had people that didn't make the top 10. They come back, oh yeah, we've had. I think one company applied four times before they got in, and sometimes it's maturity of the company and just readiness of the health system. And we have to make sure that the company is at a point where we can really give meaningful feedback and that we are at a point where we have the right people, processes, and appetite for whatever they're developing.

Yeah. I, I interview some of the successful, I mean different category like Glen Toman, we, we sat down and had a conversation. The thing I get from him is. Not only does he understand the technology, but he understands it's not about the technology. He is solving a specific healthcare problem. He also understands the financials and how money moves, which is not easy.

It's not easy because people think, oh, well, we'll just get the consumers to pay for it. Well, the consumers don't wanna pay for anything. Yeah, for starters. And then they go, well, but then we'll, we'll get money this way. This PMPM is my favorite. And if I had taken all the PMPM deals that came to me at St.

Joe's. They would've bankrupt. Yeah. I mean, it's, and everybody's like, well, it's only a dollar pm PM I'm like, that's, that's 12 bucks a a year. Right. For every patient. And we had millions of patients. And so I, I mean, understanding that aspect. Do, do you find that's a lot of the coaching is understanding the, the, for some companies, yeah, understanding the economics.

Of the hospital and the complex economics of how, which are the different patients? What's our payer mix and how does that affect your product? And for some companies, that matters a lot. For some companies it is. If it's more of an infrastructure thing, it matters less sort of per patient. But then we think about, well then how are you pricing it and how do you scale up that pricing in a way that you can create a viable business, but also

Is reasonable given sort of the portfolio that we have and we help a little bit companies understand, look, here's where a solution like yours would fall into the spectrum of companies that we're working with. From a pricing perspective, this is going long, but I have one more question. Do you do direct to consumer?

We don't do, we typically don't do direct to consumer. We do primarily B2B. The only hesitation I am you're seeing in my answer here is . Sometimes we'll do a consumer or a patient facing product if it has a clinician facing portion as well. We don't do purely direct to consumers, so like the next Fitbit or the next Noom or things like that.

If they don't have a provider facing portion that an organization like Cedars would be the customer for, we don't work with them. So that's that Your model is, how does it, how does it serve Cedars as we serve the community? Yeah, and the reasoning for that is twofold. One. We are looking for solutions that we will be able to use, but also where we can offer the most insight and expertise.

We don't know how to build a consumer technology product, but we do know a lot about how to use and deploy, uh, healthcare specific. Uh, chronic conditions. Yeah, things like that. So we wanna be useful to the companies we work with and we think that the consumer companies we might not be as useful to. And thank you for your time.

Yeah, really good to talk to you. Great to talk to you. Don't forget to check back as we have more of these interviews coming to you. That's all for today. If you know of someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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