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 Today we have another interview in action from the conferences that just happened down here in Miami and Orlando. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health, A set of channels dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. We wanna thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders, Gordian Dynamics, Quill Health, Tao Site Nuance, Canaan Medical and Current Health.

Check them out at this week, health.com/today. Here we go. Alright, here we are from 5 20 22 and the crews moving stuff around behind us and I'm here with Dr. Michael Peffer with Stanford. New organization. Yeah, new organization. Looking forward to the, uh, conversation. So you, uh. Last time we talked, you were with UCLA.

Yes. Now you're with Stanford. Yes. You need to move up. I assume you're pretty excited about being at Stanford. I mean, that's the center of really tech innovation, isn't it? Yeah, it is. UCLA is an amazing place and very fortunate to have spent 17 years there and uh, now up at Stanford and kind of really in the hub of innovation, incredible faculty.

Incredible research. It's, it's truly an amazing, uh, place to be. Yeah. I'm a little jealous. I mean, you have, you have UCLA who would've loved to have keep you, and you have Stanford who's wants you to come up and be a part of it. I mean, those are two great organizations to be a part of. I, I can't complain.

It's really incredible. You know, I only have 10 minutes with you. I want to, what, what's top of mind for you? What do you think is . I don't know the, the most important thing that you, I don't wanna do that to you, , but what's something that you're focused on right now that you think is, is, uh, pretty impactful?

Yeah, so we made a recent announcement that Stanford Healthcare hired its first chief data scientist, Dr. Nigam Shaw. And the idea behind that is really embedding within the healthcare delivery part of the organization and the IT organization applied ai. So the idea is how do we actually take all these algorithms that are developed, bring 'em into the healthcare setting, and then monitor them and care and feed them and make sure they're performing the way they are.

So we're really, really excited about that. Alright, so data science is interesting. Yes. This, this concept's coming up over and over again. We're seeing a lot of, uh. Big data aggregators who are saying, all right, we're gonna bring these big clinical data sets together. Yeah. But I guess that has, its, its purpose.

But you're, you're doing this locally. You're doing this locally. Well, I, I think that there's a huge, you know, opportunity for looking at the local data sets and how they perform locally because, um. Every site has its own kind of culture, the way it does things, the way it maps data, the way it documents.

And so you really need to kind of craft these algorithms specifically around clinical decision support based on kind of the way the organization practices and then monitor them because they're gonna change. And there's a lot of really good evidence that algorithms, you know, drift over time. And so if you're not constantly, you know, checking them, feeding them new information, then they're not gonna continue to perform.

Absolutely. I mean, so you really have to, I mean, this is why the data scientist makes the most sense. I mean, you really have to, I agree. Dr. sas gonna be reporting into the IT organization into me. So he'll be part of the IT organization's leadership. So it's not only a focus on AI but also another voice on the leadership team about, you know, where, where we need to go in the future.

So I think that's really exciting as well. But it's really about, you know, that local flavor, that continued data science team that's evaluating things for your organization. And it's not just clinical decision support, it's how do you improve operations. I think there's a huge opportunity with . In basket and, and you know how, how we kind of improve that.

So there's a lot of opportunities, but it's really understanding kind of a framework about, okay, so we have a problem to solve. Can it be solved with ai? If you had an algorithm that gave you an answer, could you do something with it? And if you can, then it's worth investing it in the time to try to develop it.

Is there still a cultural challenge for clinical adoption of ai? I mean, but clinicians in general, there's, they're, they're scientists. I mean, they, they look at, you know, if you can, if you can work with them, show them. Yeah. If there's transparency to the thing, I would think that they're open to it. And especially at a place like Stanford, I think they would be.

Yeah. I mean, I think clinicians overall are open to lots of things. I mean, clinicians are incredibly innovative, thoughtful, constantly looking at new evidence on how to treat people. So it's more how do we kind of get them involved? How do we display information in a way that's not ? Simply a number A, yes, a no, a green or red.

It really has to be, here's what the prediction looks like. Here's why the prediction is happening like this, and I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done around how do we actually display this information in a way to clinicians that they can use it to augment their decision, not make the decision for them.

What about the transparency into the algorithms? Yeah, so I think that's a good point. I mean, ideally you have full transparency and there are . Kind of new techniques emerging where even your kind of, uh, deep learning algorithms, which tend to be a mystery, are becoming less and less mysterious. So I, I think that's gonna be a huge opportunity around, you know, bringing that transparency.

How does the algorithm work? What are the variables that are going into it? And I, I think that's gonna be really key, especially around clinical decision support. So, at UCLA, you probably had a lot of people knocking on your door saying, Hey, we'd like to get into UCLA, you work with your docs and those kind of things.

Stanford's like I, I would think maybe a, just a tick higher than that of people going, Hey, I've got this great idea. Uh, I mean, 'cause you, I mean you have all those people there, you have the money there as well. I, I, when people ask me what's the difference between Southern California and Northern California

The entire ecosystem exists in Northern California. It's not that you don't have innovators in Southern California, you absolutely do. Yeah. But that the ecosystem is just more well-defined at at Silicon Valley. Yeah. I mean, I think there were tons of opportunities at both sites, and it's really trying to understand.

You know what's gonna provide value? I mean, there's so many companies, I mean, as you, as you see here, right? It's like where do you even begin? And I think it's about starting with, okay, well what problem do we need to solve at our health system, at our school of medicine? What do our faculty need from us?

What do our patients need from us? And then go out and look, can we do an internally, can we use the tools we have? Do we need to go to market rather than kind of more the, you know, . Let me just go see and go shopping for what's out there. But I think, yeah, I mean, Silicon Valley's an amazing place to be.

There's incredible innovators, Silicon Beach and Los Angeles as well. Yeah, it's, it's pretty nice, right? So, absolutely. So lots of opportunities, I think, at both places. So what do you, I, I mean the transition, yeah. Transitioning to a new role. How long have you been up there? Just going on seven months. Oh, so you're, it's, it's, you're pretty well past the transition at this point.

Still, still learning a ton. It's, it's an incredible organization, so a lot to learn. The, you know, when people do that transition, there is, you know, from one academic medical center to the other. There's still a lot of, of distinctions of, of each one. Yes. What's what, what was the biggest transition that you had to go through going from one to the other?

Well, I think it's learning how the organization works, the culture of the organization, how the school of medicine. And the health delivery system kind of interact, how do they think about strategy and strategic planning? O one of the things I, I love about Stanford is they have a overarching strategic plan that involves the School of Medicine, Stanford Healthcare, and Stanford Children's.

So it, it really has a brought kind of the organization together in a really spectacular way. They call it the integrated strategic plan, and part of that plan is being digitally driven. So it, it, it's kind of, we live and breathe that, and I think that's really, really incredible. So learning that and, and how that infuses through the entire organization has been really, really great to see.

Where does, where does innovation reside? Is there an innovation or is it just an innovative culture? It's an innovative culture. Like, I like to say that everybody's innovating all the time. Our analysts who are figuring out like the next best way to kind of tweak our systems. That's innovation. So I, I like to say that innovation isn't a team that sits somewhere.

It's really kind of everything and everybody. And if you, if you have that kind of culture, which I is definitely the culture at Stanford, I think you can do amazing things. Do you have a, like taking the innovation to market kind of approach at Stanford? Yeah, so we have some really great programs around this.

So we have a catalyst program that's really looking for internal innovations, let's call them transformations, right? So everybody's innovating. Some of these really can become transformative, and so we have a a, a program that's actually designed really to take these really great ideas, they apply to it, and then give them the, the resources to help the planning to take it to the next level and potentially commercialize it.

We, we picked a great spot, by the way, anyone who's watching this on camera, we've had. Uh, a lot, a lot of, uh, people walking by. Yeah. Um, we should have put one of those little, like floors, wet sign over there, but that's okay. Maybe if we were a little more innovative, we would've, we would've had some way to, to keep 'em coming through the Yeah.

I'm, I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with you. Yeah, I would love that. A quick hit here and I'd love to come up to your campus and, and see some of the stuff that you guys have done. Well, it'd be amazing. We, we have such an incredible new facility. That was built a few years ago. Well, it opened a few years ago, right before actually the pandemic.

And it's been an incredible addition to the Stanford healthcare kind of ecosystem, but it's really transformative and state-of-the-art. So yeah, it's, it's, it's quite the place. Fantastic. Mike, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Another great interview. I want to thank everybody who spent time with us at the conferences.

It is phenomenal that you shared your wisdom and your experience with the community, and it is greatly appreciated. We also want to thank our channel sponsors. Who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders, Gordian Dynamics, Quill Health, Tao Site Nuance, Canon Medical and Current Health.

Check them out at this week, health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.