Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Roberta Schwartz, EVP & Chief Innovation Officer & Dr. Sarah Pletcher, Chief Digital Health Officer at Houston Methodist

Transcript

Roberta Schwartz, EVP & Chief Innovation Officer & Dr. Sarah Pletcher, Chief Digital Health Officer at Houston Methodist · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips is a health tech leader focused on
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  innovation that improves the health and well-being of
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  people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
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  help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
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  patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
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  the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
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  with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Bucharest Healthcare
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  Podcast, and we are live at the 9th
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  Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM Conference.
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  I am joined by Roberta Schwartz, who serves
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  as the EVP
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  of Houston Methodist Hospital, and Sarah Pletcher, who
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  is the chief digital health officer at Houston
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  Methodist Hospital. So thank you both for joining
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  me today, and we'd love to have you
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  start off by introducing yourselves a little bit
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  further.
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  Sure. I'm Roberta Schwartz, and I serve as
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  executive vice president. I run our large academic
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  medical center,
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  in the Texas Medical Center, about a 1,000
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  bed hospital. And I run our innovation activities
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  for our 8 hospital system
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  in Houston, Texas.
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  And I'm Sarah Fletcher in the chief digital
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  health officer role. I have things in my
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  portfolio that include virtual services,
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  some of our leveraging of remote monitoring,
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  care redesign,
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  really lots of innovation efforts throughout the system,
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  especially those leveraging digital tools.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for joining me. And we'd
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  love to start our conversation off with AI
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  adoption. So this is exploding in health care
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  right now. In your view, what is the
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  most significant or promising application of this technology,
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  and how is this informing your organization's innovation
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  strategy?
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  I feel like anything
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  that folks wanna talk about right now or
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  everything that people wanna talk about is,
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  ambient listening. So I'm not gonna pick ambient
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  listening, because I feel like everyone else has
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  probably talked to you about that already.
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  So I love the
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  work that we're doing in the audio
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  and video environment
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  where we are
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  both,
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  listening
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  and watching
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  various events
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  and then using the video
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  or the information,
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  the artificial intelligence that comes off of that
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  to help us become more efficient
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  and or
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  watch
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  various
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  activities that are happening
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  around our patients or with our patients.
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  And I think at a high level,
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  it's anything
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  where we're getting that huge payout in
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  managing complexity
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  and mountains of information
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  and giving time back, whether it's time to
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  the patients, whether it's time to the care
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  team, whether it's time to the burned out
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  physician.
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  The good news is there's so many opportunities
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  within AI,
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  to really maximize both of those fronts. And
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  I think that that's really what we're looking
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  for when we're choosing our strategic portfolio
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  is how can we stay on top of
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  this immense complexity,
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  and then do so in a way that
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  provides a better experience for our patients in
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  our care genes.
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  The other thing that I really like is,
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  the work we're doing around predictive analytics,
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  where we're able to actually take now this
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  big amount of data, this enormous,
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  plethora
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  of things that happen every minute, every second,
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  every moment, every medication,
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  every vital sign, and actually using that information
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  to predict whether or not our patients are
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  gonna have a fall, gonna have a readmission,
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  going to need a next level of care
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  in a particular location that's gonna help them
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  and using the information
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  to guide us
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  rather than just judgment. Because, again, you get
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  so much information that comes in
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  on
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  a, momentary
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  basis
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  that it's it's hard for our physicians to
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  keep up with the,
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  bazillion things that are in the medical record,
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  both from today's visit, but also in the
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  hundreds
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  of pages of medical records that have happened
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  in the last month, year, and 10 years.
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  Yeah. I mean, that's the reality. Right? There's
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  so much already there. So the spinning straw
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  in the gold is really the promise of
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  a lot of these tools, to take what's
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  already in there, but just curate it,
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  create insights, and put it in the right
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  hands at the right time,
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  with the right human in the loop, in
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  order to really leverage the power of what
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  we already have.
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  And so switching gears just slightly,
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  I would love to kind of
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  talk about data. So healthcare leaders are managing
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  greater volumes of data and more devices across
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  a growing number of care settings.
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  And in this complex environment, what clinical integration
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  tools or practices are you seeing drive improvements
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  in patient outcomes?
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  And I'd love for you to share specific
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  examples of these.
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  We're doing, work with one of your companies
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  here, health data analytics,
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  HDAI,
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  that is
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  working it pulls in all of our data.
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  It then twins it against,
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  like, 20 to 30 years of Medicare records
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  as well as all payer claims data and
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  then uses that information
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  to actually give a,
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  set of scores to our doctors, likelihood of
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  mortality, likelihood of being readmitted, likelihood
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  of,
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  having long lengths of stay.
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  It gives them insight about things that are
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  in the medical record that may or may
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  not have been missed. Or,
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  in patients like this, you may not be
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  looking for these conditions.
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  In that case, it serves that information up
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  to our clinicians
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  and
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  basically provides it to them in a a
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  almost a dashboard like reporting and says, hey.
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  These are things you may wanna keep an
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  eye out for. It's provided
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  huge amounts of our doctor
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  information to our doctors presurgery
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  to get these patients prepared and talk about
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  what they need to do to optimize these
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  patients and or whether or not it's really
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  a good idea to do surgery on these
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  patients. Can they survive it?
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  Yeah. And I think and, I mean, there's
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  so many examples. Another one is we have
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  a wearable device that all patients wear when
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  they come in the hospital, and it's collecting
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  high frequency vital sign data. But rather than
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  just deliver this whole new mountain of data,
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  it's at it's applying algorithms and protocols against
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  that data and leveraging a central team
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  so that we're integrating that insight,
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  across our system to, again, allow better care,
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  but actually less burdensome time on the care
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  teams trying to provide that care.
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  We're also leveraging cameras in our operating rooms
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  and in our inpatient rooms that have AI
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  capabilities that, again, allow us to really consider
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  data around
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  throughput
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  and efficiency
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  and,
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  corridors of care to be able to drive
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  improvements in, our hospital and in our operating
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  room experience.
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  And with greater volumes of data and AI
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  adoptions, our IT teams
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  have become a lot more critical. So I
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  would love to hear how you believe that
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  healthcare organizations can better support both IT and
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  clinical teams as they carry out innovation efforts.
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  And what do you see as the most
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  common pitfalls here?
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  Yeah. I think we are certainly one of
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  the new groups of people that are burdening
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  IT,
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  and asking a lot of them. And we're
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  asking a lot of them because now as
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  we put in
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  4,000 cameras into our infrastructure,
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  building out this Internet of things,
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  in both the patient care rooms and or
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  sending the patients home with them,
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  we're doing a lot. And the in what
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  we found is the infrastructure of our organization
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  had to change
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  from one that was kind of an on
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  prem,
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  you know, boxes in a data center to
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  one that was really
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  would
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  have the ability to to have
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  multiple points of use,
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  both in the hospital environment and home, and
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  that's that's a challenge.
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  I think one of the pitfalls is is
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  siloing and also sort of managing new complexities
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  of contracts
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  and data management
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  and technologies that some folks haven't seen before.
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  And so really to try to improve that,
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  recruiting and fostering
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  people and a culture where your IT leaders
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  get genuinely excited about the clinical
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  side and improving the care experience. And you
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  have clinical leaders who are genuinely interested and
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  willing to learn about IT where they can
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  kinda come together and maybe not be fluent
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  in one another's language,
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  but at least make an effort to be
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  conversational
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  in one another's language to really help you
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  integrate,
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  across the teams because
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  Roberta's right. The the complexity of these of
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  these new endeavors is great. So you need
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  you need all the people in the village
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  leaning in to try to solve a common
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  problem.
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  And as we wrap up our conversation,
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  I would love to hear your top piece
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  of advice for health care leaders as they
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  prepare for further advancements in technology and greater
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  demands for care.
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  You know, our health care leaders and our
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  innovation leaders as well as IT need to
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  be bold and not back down.
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  And if we all kind of are out
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  there being bold and not backing down when
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  it gets difficult,
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  then we will push through and drive transformation
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  in our industry.
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  And I would just say beware of the
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  pilot. It's okay to start small, but you
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  really do need to be dreaming and planning
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  big,
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  in order to move beyond,
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  the death of a 1,000 paper cut pilots.
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  Wonderful. Well, Roberta and Sarah, thanks so much
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  for joining me today on the Becker's Healthcare
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  Podcast. Again, we're live at the 9th Annual
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  Health IT Digital Health and RCM Conference. Thank
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  you.