This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the smartest robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

 Welcome to this week in Health IT News, where we look at the news which will impact health it. This is another field report where we talk to the leaders from health systems on the front lines. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this week in Health. It a set of podcasts, videos, and collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders.

As you know, we stepped up production over the last three weeks and Sirius Healthcare has stepped up to sponsor and support this week in Health it. I wanna thank them for sharing our passion to capture and share the experience, stories, and wisdom of the industry during this crisis today. Drex De Ford conducts the field report for this week in health.

It. Special thanks to Drex for helping us to cover more ground during this time. If your system would like to participate in a field report, please shoot me a note. And, uh, easiest way to do that is by email bill at this week, health it com. Now onto today's report. Hello everyone and thanks for joining this week in Health it.

I'm Drex Ford CI Securities Chief Healthcare Strategist and president of Drex Innovation Network, and today we welcome Carl West CIO of Intermountain Healthcare. It. Thanks for being with us today, Carl. I know that you're super crazy busy. Let's start off with just give us a little bit of overview of, uh, Intermountain, the organization, your team, uh, anything else that you would just sort of wanna tell us generally about, uh, about the work you're doing.

Thanks. Happy to chat with you today. Intermountain is an integrated delivery. A multi-state area centered around Utah. We have, uh, 24 hospitals. We have hundreds of clinics. We have a home care, hospice, and insurance. So we, we are an integrated delivery system and, uh. That's a little bit about Intermountain.

Yeah. Thank you. Uh, what, what, um, you know, given everything that's going on right now, obviously the Pandemic, pandemic is sort of top of everyone's mind right now. What are you seeing from the perspective of threat activity during the pandemic? Well, I, I think a few things, um, significant increases in phishing attacks and social engineering that.

On covid and government stimulus topics and things like that. We're also seeing zero day attacks and known vulnerabilities. And then just in general, we're, we're seeing, um, a number of issues associated with the fact that.

Our caregivers outside of the perimeters, a new experience. And so we're seeing issues associated with the, that, that motion of our equipment and protection and what, uh, what kinds of capacities and issues, uh, those are threats to us. It. It threatens availability and reliability, the ability to give predictive care in timely fashion when needed.

And so those are things that are pretty significant. We're also seeing a lot of, uh, uptick in network scans. People looking, uh, scanning, probing what's going on inside of our environment. Uh, you know, so one of the things that, uh, I realized right when we first started, I asked you if you were gonna be able to go on video with me and you said no.

Do you wanna talk more about that? Oh, yeah. And, and you know what? Normally under normal circumstance I would, but, uh, there's, uh, such an.

Technologies that are out there that we're being very careful to use things that we've been able to get security controls around and, uh, and, and to make sure that's safe for managing healthcare and healthcare information. So there's some tools, some, there's a lot that are out there.

Six that we're offering inside Intermountain, but we.

Things that we don't have, um, PHI protections in place, uh, in, in some certain environments. Got it. Got it. Yep. That totally makes sense. Given, you know, the amount of activity that's happening right now, you talked about the incredible sort of ramp up for both telehealth and I'm sure you're like everyone else.

You've sent a bunch of people home to. Have you been able to sort of figure out the balance there between supporting the mission and maintaining security? I know that you have a great relationship with your CIOI know you have an awesome relationship with your compliance, uh, folks. I've been to Intermountain and, and, uh, and met with you and some of the team there, but, uh, but it's, it's always interesting to sort of think through or hear from somebody who, who does this, I think pretty well how you wind up managing to.

Sort balance this world that you live in. I think right now. Um, and, and at all times, cybersecurity has to be a partner with the business and I share with my team and all the leaders that. An enabler and not a barrier. And in many instances there are things that we have to score and assess risk. But, uh, the best way I think, to facilitate all that's going on and staying integrated in the process is, um, to.

To not only deliver care, but to deliver in the midst of a pandemic. It, it just means us being involved upfront with key leaders, understanding what they need to do, and then helping them in a process to find how to solve the problem, um, with them as opposed to becoming a barrier to them.

Is a lot of the time, does it turn out to be offering options, not necessarily the thing that they've come to the table with, but something maybe as good or better, or at least nearly as good. I think I always encourage my team, Dr. To say, let's take a look at what they have found. Um, let's, let's not try to bait and switch and tell them why don't you try blue instead of the red that you like?

Oftentimes there are reasons. Have selected a particular product, but at the same time, I upon us as member of the environment to come back and say, did you know that? Or three of this very same product. Mm-Hmm. If someone is looking at another product for which we've already paid a million dollars, I'd, I'd want my team to be able to point out and say, did you know we had this product?

And we, we also have a contract that protects the information. Is it something that could work? And if not, then we try to understand that we don't make it our role to go out and support what gets selected and then try to advocate for the lowest appropriate cost. Our members and our patients, and that appropriate means we have take some duplicative.

Mm-hmm leverage find resonates in our environment. Part of our mission is about delivering.

An alternative

conversation about other technologies.

It's, uh, it, it, it's amazing the amount of this drill that turns out to be listening, right? Um, listening. Listening to the requester, listening to the patients, listening to the rest of the department about things that are available. Uh, it's, it's not, uh, it's, it's, I, I think you, you know, you put it nicely, not not wanting to be a roadblock, but that requires a lot of paying attention and being empathetic and listening.

Yeah, no question. Understanding the.

All of it. And cyber is about understanding the business, understanding the problem, and, uh, I, I think we have to, you know, strive to understand before we try to be understood. And that becomes a difficult thing because we all have the answer and seldom do we want to hear, uh, what someone else is needing.

Yeah. And our, and our own perspective, depending on our, our own previous experiences. Um, I, I wanna ask you one kind of one last thing, and, and then I'll, I'll, I have a, maybe just a little bit of a closing question, but, um, in the last three weeks, everybody's hair has been on fire. We've done a bunch of new cool, interesting stuff.

Um, any, any best practices that you would like to, uh, uh, share with, uh, viewers, listeners, on work that you've done that you think everybody should be doing this?

Um, there, there are lots of new things that are coming out. I think the thing that, that we're, uh, excited about, it's not so much about a particular thing, but about processes and agile processes and tools that are helping and, and, and I wouldn't want to be. But there are some great tools that, for example, Microsoft and and an have that enable the world that we're in.

And so we have learned quite a bit and felt was important to us was finding new ways. In environments where we're all sitting in our homes with stay at home restrictions, our partners are in the kind of environment and so we found ways to use things like teams or, and found how we could make that. A part of everything we're doing in terms of sharing and exchanging documents, and that's not a new process for that us.

We've had those tools into place, but being remote, we've been able to leverage them in a very new way. And that's probably been one of the most, um. Powerful experiences for us in this environment and us all to think we'll be a little bit better when we go back into an environment where we're sitting in the, because some we've.

Share to communicate, to exchange with some, some different tools and processes. So that's, that's something I'd encourage people take a look right now while we're having these opportunities to be sequestered and, and look at the technologies that are out there that make this, uh, and facilitate this type of a learning environment.

Our.

We shifted after the first few weeks to teams, and so we have two or three meetings a day. We're using teams, we're using all, all the features of tools and processes that are there that make it a much richer experience and my own teams in their huddles, in their daily meetings, they're starting to leverage different types of technology to be to share and.

An environment where we're not able to do drive.

Yeah, it's, I, I mean, I love it, you know, and the, somebody said, you know, never waste a, never waste a good crisis. And, uh, it sounds like you guys are taking every possible advantage to not only do the right thing in the heat of the moment, but to prepare yourselves to, to land well. Uh, once this all settles down, you'll have, you'll have learned a lot of lessons you can repurpose for the, uh, the, the rest of the care delivery, uh, process.

Yep. I, I think drex, one other thing I'd add is Yeah. Um, and, and it occurs to me and to my team because of our roles, bad actors who are also sequestered at home are finding more time. Their, um, their wear and their tools, Uhhuh, and, and so I think, uh, my advice, we need to be more vigilant right now. I know there are some relaxations that have come down in terms of privacy and security, but I think we have to be even in that relaxed environment.

We have to be more vigilant than ever. We've got to be very careful about the threats that are, and those actors who are having more time to pray upon us. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . Hey, uh, uh, we're out of time and I know that you're, you're super crazy busy. I really appreciate you, uh, being on with us, Carl West from Intermountain, and, uh, uh, any, any final words before we, uh, before we break?

No, I encourage and hope that all will be safe at home. Take care of your families, those important things, and we'll be back to normal just very soon. We're just so optimistic here as we watch the trends and see what's happening, we think it'll be a quick, quicker return than many have forecast. So stay and healthy.

Thank you, Carl. Uh, we'll, uh, we'll talk to. Thanks, Drex. That's all for this show. Special thanks to our channel sponsors VMware Starbridge Advisors, Galen Healthcare Health lyrics and pro talent advisors for choosing to invest in developing the next generation of health leaders. If you wanna support the fastest growing podcast in the health IT space, the best way to do that is to share it with a peer.

Send an email dmm, whatever you do. You can also follow us on social media. Uh, you know, subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's a lot of different ways you can support us, but sharing it with peers is the best. Uh, please check back often as we'll be dropping many more shows, uh, until we flatten the curve across the country.

Thanks for listening. That's all for now.