Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Intent, Integration, Impact: Jefferson Health's Operating Model for AI & Real Care
Transcript
- 0:00- Hi, everyone. This is Brian Zimmerman with Becker's
- 0:02- Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning into
- 0:04- the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
- 0:06- Today, we're gonna talk about intent, integration,
- 0:09- impact, Jefferson Health's operating model for AI in
- 0:12- real care.
- 0:14- Joining me for this discussion is doctor Patricia
- 0:16- Henwood,
- 0:17- executive vice president, chief clinical officer with Jefferson
- 0:20- Health. Doctor Henwood, thank you so much for
- 0:22- being here today. Can you introduce yourself to
- 0:24- our audience and tell them a little bit
- 0:26- about yourself and and and the work you're
- 0:28- doing now?
- 0:29- Yeah, Brian. Thank you so much for having
- 0:31- me. Glad to be here today. As you
- 0:33- mentioned, I'm the chief clinical officer at Jefferson
- 0:35- Health. We're a 33 hospital system in, Pennsylvania
- 0:38- and New Jersey. I'm also a professor of
- 0:41- emergency medicine and population health
- 0:43- and, help lead our AI strategy at Jefferson
- 0:46- Health, in addition to focused work on improving
- 0:49- outcomes for our patients and communities.
- 0:53- Yep.
- 0:54- Excited to dig in and and hear more
- 0:55- about that. Wanna start here, which is, you
- 0:58- know, you all just hosted an AI summit
- 1:00- in in Philadelphia
- 1:01- in October October twenty one, I believe it
- 1:03- was. Can you talk a little bit about
- 1:05- the why behind that that that summit, and
- 1:08- and what were some of the takeaways from
- 1:09- the meeting? What did you learn?
- 1:11- Yeah, Brian. Glad to discuss.
- 1:13- I think from our perspective, we recognize that
- 1:15- AI adoption in health care is inevitable, but
- 1:19- the impact of that is not.
- 1:21- And we wanted to ensure the the conversation
- 1:24- around meaningful impact and how we can,
- 1:28- move from conversations around tools and,
- 1:31- implementations
- 1:32- themselves to, I think, the broader conversation around,
- 1:36- really, the future design of care delivery,
- 1:39- what the implications of AI are for professional
- 1:42- practice,
- 1:43- for education.
- 1:45- We have a a university and one of
- 1:47- the largest medical schools in the country as
- 1:49- large... As well as one of the largest
- 1:51- GME training programs in the country. And so
- 1:53- I think a lot of focus that we
- 1:55- have in thinking about not only what does
- 1:57- this mean for care delivery today, but how
- 1:59- are we thinking about,
- 2:01- bringing considerations on AI's impact into, the trainees
- 2:05- of tomorrow,
- 2:06- across health professions, not just our medical students,
- 2:09- and really focusing on trying to shift the
- 2:11- conversation again from
- 2:13- a lot of the tool specific,
- 2:15- discussions that we've been seeing to more of
- 2:17- the focus on how can we leverage AI,
- 2:20- in delivering outcomes that we're looking for across
- 2:23- health care.
- 2:25- Excellent. And can you can you talk even
- 2:27- more about just why that's so important to
- 2:29- get to a place where,
- 2:30- you know, it's not just theoretical anymore. Right?
- 2:33- You're you're you're making things practical and tangible
- 2:36- for for for these leaders. Can you talk
- 2:37- a little about why it's so important to
- 2:39- move medicine forward in this way? Yeah. I
- 2:42- mean, I think it's very important based on
- 2:44- how fast the AI landscape is moving that
- 2:47- we are thinking and taking the time,
- 2:50- to be intentional
- 2:51- of how it comes into care delivery. I
- 2:53- think we're concerned, otherwise, it will happen to
- 2:55- us, and we need to really think about
- 2:57- steering how AI gets integrated into training and
- 3:00- care delivery
- 3:01- in an intentional way. I think we see
- 3:04- that there is, so much activity in the
- 3:07- health AI landscape.
- 3:09- But sometimes that's... Those conversations may often be
- 3:12- vendor driven, or we have a lot of
- 3:13- conversations,
- 3:14- happening with health systems and potential tech partners,
- 3:18- but not as much amongst,
- 3:20- the entire ecosystem and not as much amongst
- 3:22- health systems. So we really were trying to
- 3:24- bring the conversation together and thinking about a
- 3:27- more collaborative,
- 3:28- health AI ecosystem and how we can continue
- 3:32- to think and learn from each other as
- 3:34- we're, you know, living in this very fast
- 3:37- moving,
- 3:38- AI landscape.
- 3:40- Yeah. Yeah. Really important. And and and, you
- 3:42- know, probably some learnings there too about,
- 3:45- when technology has perhaps happened to health care.
- 3:47- Right? And and trying to... Try trying to
- 3:49- avoid that that that scenario with this very
- 3:51- powerful, very transformative technology.
- 3:54- Yeah. I think we we certainly see that.
- 3:56- You know, we do not wanna have more
- 3:58- considerations where we have just AI becoming this
- 4:01- bolt ons,
- 4:02- in different areas, and we've seen in health
- 4:04- care so often. Right? We just keep adding
- 4:07- onto
- 4:08- existing systems and processes, and and we don't
- 4:11- take the time to really,
- 4:13- have a first principles
- 4:14- consideration
- 4:15- of, you know, how should this work? What
- 4:17- would idea look like?
- 4:19- Where can we redesign
- 4:20- care delivery or work flows instead of, you
- 4:23- know, further automating
- 4:24- imperfect workflows that just start taking us, you
- 4:27- know, further down the wrong direction.
- 4:29- Right. Right. I wanna get to now too
- 4:31- sort of,
- 4:32- Jefferson presented at the the National Academy of
- 4:35- Medicine this month on what it takes to
- 4:37- make the learning health system real. I I
- 4:40- I would I would... I think it's fair
- 4:42- to say most systems probably share that goal.
- 4:44- What is the operating piece most of them
- 4:46- are maybe missing, and how did how did
- 4:48- Jefferson build it? How did you make that
- 4:50- a reality?
- 4:51- Yeah. Agree. I think a lot of us
- 4:53- share that, vision that the National Academy has
- 4:56- put forward and and others around the learning
- 4:58- health system, but I I do think making
- 5:00- it a reality is something that requires,
- 5:03- a bit more,
- 5:04- intentionality
- 5:05- in how we take that vision into action.
- 5:08- For us at Jefferson, we have,
- 5:10- focused on an accountable operating model to do
- 5:13- that. We call it OnPoint,
- 5:15- is our operating model, our care operating model
- 5:17- at Jefferson.
- 5:18- And that really entails us thinking very intentionally
- 5:21- around people, process, and technology,
- 5:24- recognizing the complex socio technical system that care
- 5:28- delivery,
- 5:29- is happening and,
- 5:31- that we really need to think about people,
- 5:33- and that may be... Depending on the case,
- 5:35- that may be our patients or our community
- 5:36- members. That may be our health care, workforce
- 5:39- in particular or leaders that we need to
- 5:41- engage in different processes.
- 5:43- The the processes, how the work actually gets
- 5:46- done, versus,
- 5:48- I think our sometimes imagination of how things
- 5:50- happen or how things should look on paper
- 5:52- versus how they're happening in reality.
- 5:54- And then technology, how we can leverage technology
- 5:57- to actually,
- 5:59- drive and support the outcomes and support our,
- 6:02- clinicians and our care teams in delivering those
- 6:05- outcomes,
- 6:06- rather than, again, more of the the bolt
- 6:08- on or technology for technology's sake. So,
- 6:11- really, the... Our, care operating model focuses on
- 6:14- how these three things interact to deliver outcomes.
- 6:18- And, again, we have a focused team,
- 6:20- that's really thinking about what our priority should
- 6:23- be and how we can work across these
- 6:26- different,
- 6:27- areas of people process and technology,
- 6:30- in order to drive those improved outcomes that
- 6:32- we're looking for.
- 6:34- I wanna build on that because I think
- 6:35- what you're what you're getting at too is
- 6:37- is really
- 6:38- measuring value, getting to the value of of
- 6:40- the technology. And
- 6:41- so most health systems now, it's probably safe
- 6:43- to say they have an AI governance committee.
- 6:46- But why hasn't that turned into more value
- 6:48- for folks? And and can you unpack Jefferson's
- 6:50- I three approach, which is intent, integration, and
- 6:54- impact,
- 6:55- and how you add that on top of
- 6:56- governance to really get that value and measure
- 6:58- it?
- 6:59- Yeah, Brian.
- 7:01- Agree. Governance is something that is obviously critically
- 7:04- important, but we see that as something that's
- 7:06- necessary but not sufficient.
- 7:08- And we recognize that there are so many
- 7:10- tools that are coming in that,
- 7:13- seem like they have potential and or we
- 7:15- hear anecdotally about potential, but we wanna make
- 7:17- sure that we're really,
- 7:19- taking that time to think about what the
- 7:20- right things to incorporate into the system are.
- 7:23- So for us, that framework is really, something
- 7:26- that our on point program,
- 7:28- has sort of built upon these principles and
- 7:31- that we really crystallize with our AI stewardship
- 7:33- approach.
- 7:34- Intent for us is is focusing on the
- 7:36- why. You know, what problems matter?
- 7:39- Why are we looking at this solution for
- 7:41- a problem? Is that something we wanna prioritize?
- 7:44- Integration is really the how.
- 7:46- You know, how is this tool gonna come
- 7:48- in? How is the work actually done?
- 7:51- What roles need to change if we're thinking
- 7:53- about incorporating, you know, this tool or a
- 7:55- different workflow?
- 7:57- Impact is really the so what. What outcomes
- 8:00- are actually better and what decisions
- 8:02- come from, from the consideration of integrating,
- 8:06- AI or changes in that sociotechnical
- 8:09- system. So,
- 8:10- for us, that's something that's been really helpful
- 8:12- in making sure we're focused on on platforms
- 8:14- and putting our attention in the right place
- 8:16- to drive value, and then also using that
- 8:19- to make sure we're circling back to ensure
- 8:21- we're having the intended,
- 8:23- impact that we're looking for in areas like
- 8:26- our, Ambient AI deployment,
- 8:28- other tools that we're using.
- 8:31- Really fascinating. And, doctor Hemwood, can you tell
- 8:33- me a little bit more about the Ambient
- 8:35- deployment and what what what that has been
- 8:37- like for you all?
- 8:38- Yeah. Glad to discuss that a little bit
- 8:40- more. For us, it has been, an area
- 8:42- where we've had that focus on returning time
- 8:45- to care and that we've actually seen a
- 8:46- lot of success with the tool.
- 8:48- We were hearing such good things from our,
- 8:51- clinicians and users and,
- 8:54- and not not hearing anything negative from a
- 8:56- patient feedback standpoint, but that was something that
- 8:58- we really wanted to, again, assess that impact
- 9:01- further.
- 9:02- So we actually have a study that came
- 9:04- out, in New England Journal Catalyst about Ambient
- 9:07- AI as a tool for returning time to
- 9:09- care where we focus not only in looking
- 9:11- at our, clinicians
- 9:13- in the ambulatory setting that we're using, Ambient
- 9:16- in their, visits, but also looking at,
- 9:19- the patient experience,
- 9:21- surveys matched with those encounters.
- 9:24- And we we felt that it was important,
- 9:25- again, to think about not only our clinician
- 9:28- experience but also the patient experience in that
- 9:30- space. And we're,
- 9:31- pleased to find that our Ambient encounter scored
- 9:34- equal or higher in, every domain from a
- 9:37- patient experience standpoint,
- 9:39- as well as,
- 9:41- significant effort reduction for our clinicians,
- 9:44- decrease in pajama time,
- 9:46- for our clinicians, which is so important for
- 9:48- them to not have to take their, work
- 9:50- home and be doing, charts, you know, at
- 9:52- home in the evening or the weekends,
- 9:55- faster chart closure.
- 9:57- And so just really, I think, great results
- 9:59- that we are seeing in our,
- 10:01- again, intentional approach to think about tools that
- 10:04- can help, deliver value,
- 10:07- improve the experience or, you know, maintain the
- 10:09- experience for teams while we're also thinking about
- 10:12- how we can,
- 10:13- address some of the burdens that we know
- 10:15- are, on our clinical teams.
- 10:18- Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating to hear about how this
- 10:20- is influencing the experience of clinical teams. I
- 10:22- also wanna maybe we... Maybe switch... And and
- 10:24- it says, apparently, the patients are enjoying this
- 10:27- as well, but wanna get to perhaps even
- 10:29- more patient facing technology with this next question.
- 10:32- So AI voice agents are now calling patients
- 10:34- about scheduling
- 10:35- care gaps and and follow-up care.
- 10:37- So in these scenarios, in these situation,
- 10:41- a call can start as an operational task
- 10:43- and really turn clinical quickly.
- 10:45- How has Jefferson approached this, you know, patient
- 10:47- facing AI? And and what have you done
- 10:50- to to to keep it safe as it
- 10:52- scales when you're building this?
- 10:54- Yeah. I think, certainly, we see it as
- 10:56- a as a really incredible opportunity for us
- 10:59- in delivering our mission to improve lives where
- 11:01- we can enhance that care connection more with
- 11:04- patients. But that in bringing in this agentic
- 11:06- voice technology, we really have to think about
- 11:09- kind of going slow at the front so
- 11:11- that we can scale faster.
- 11:12- We focused on that similar approach of making
- 11:15- sure we're creating systems and understanding
- 11:17- the people process technology that are involved and
- 11:20- that if we create those systems at the
- 11:22- outset, such as the work that we're doing
- 11:24- with Hippocratic AI now and Agentic Voice,
- 11:26- we can then essentially go faster if we
- 11:30- have that system and the safety and the
- 11:32- the confidence in that system.
- 11:33- We we recognize to your point that these
- 11:36- scheduling calls,
- 11:37- that we started with initially, we knew we
- 11:40- had to put a lot of the processes
- 11:41- in place in case something clinical were to
- 11:44- surface on those calls. And that each call,
- 11:46- while it might have been intended as a
- 11:48- a scheduling call, could turn into a clinical
- 11:50- interaction and that we need to be confident,
- 11:53- in where we were,
- 11:55- going and where we were reviewing things and
- 11:57- and, again, having the confidence in the system
- 11:59- to perform,
- 12:00- in those cases. So we created a,
- 12:04- a dedicated clinical safety and advisory council,
- 12:07- with essentially a wise table of our senior
- 12:10- clinicians and leaders to think about which use
- 12:13- cases,
- 12:14- we felt comfortable in,
- 12:16- advancing in the agentic voice platform and, you
- 12:19- know, considering the monitoring,
- 12:21- to that earlier point in tracking the outcomes,
- 12:24- how we're looking at, how things are performing,
- 12:26- where we might need to design or redesign,
- 12:29- and making sure that we have input from
- 12:30- that group as well as input that we
- 12:32- get from our patient and family,
- 12:34- advisory committee as we're thinking about further incorporating
- 12:37- this into care delivery. So I think that
- 12:39- approach for us in going slow to go
- 12:42- fast,
- 12:42- is, I think is paying dividends as we
- 12:45- start work on more use cases in the
- 12:47- agentic voice,
- 12:49- platform based on initial successes that we've seen
- 12:52- and,
- 12:53- safety that we've seen.
- 12:55- Yeah. It it... Couple follow ups here for
- 12:57- you, doctor Henwood, in terms of what kind
- 12:59- of volumes are you seeing now with with
- 13:01- with these kind of calls? How how many
- 13:03- interactions is is is this actually... You know,
- 13:05- how many patient interactions does this add up
- 13:07- to? And I guess maybe what surprised you
- 13:10- about this process?
- 13:12- So we've, again, been working kinda slow to
- 13:15- go fast, but we've been working with the
- 13:16- Hippocratic team over the last couple months, and
- 13:18- we've had
- 13:20- outreaches to over 15,000
- 13:22- patients.
- 13:23- Within that, we've had 1,500,
- 13:26- successful,
- 13:27- connections with those patients.
- 13:29- And we have seen some interesting results and
- 13:32- success in one of the early use cases
- 13:33- that we launched,
- 13:35- within a couple weeks of starting with the
- 13:36- team was in the mammography
- 13:39- care gap area.
- 13:40- We felt like that was a safe area
- 13:42- for us to initially
- 13:44- move in connecting patients that we knew had
- 13:46- scheduled,
- 13:48- had orders for mammography but hadn't scheduled them.
- 13:51- And we've been able to,
- 13:52- connect and schedule several 100 of those patients,
- 13:55- that we essentially otherwise wouldn't have had the,
- 13:58- the human capacity or the bandwidth to reach
- 14:00- out on those scheduling. So I think that's
- 14:02- an area where we see the opportunity to
- 14:04- leverage this in improving outcomes,
- 14:06- that we see some of that success. And
- 14:09- from a surprising standpoint, I think some of
- 14:11- the work in our, in our health plan,
- 14:14- we've been doing, member welcome calls.
- 14:16- And we've seen there that, the duration... Average
- 14:19- duration of those calls is around fifteen minutes.
- 14:22- And the, the satisfaction,
- 14:25- of our members in the interaction with the,
- 14:28- agentic voice platform
- 14:30- has been, you know, more than nine out
- 14:32- of 10 and higher than,
- 14:34- higher than it was at a baseline with
- 14:36- the team that had been doing that previously.
- 14:38- So we're having a higher rate of, actually
- 14:41- connecting with our patients... Or sorry, with our
- 14:43- members for new new member welcome call, and
- 14:47- we're also seeing higher satisfaction there. So I
- 14:49- think that is,
- 14:50- those are the kinds of wins that we're
- 14:52- looking for and looking to build on some
- 14:54- of that momentum forward.
- 14:55- Yeah. Really, really, really fascinating to think about
- 14:57- just the volume of this. You know, it
- 14:59- wouldn't be possible without this technology, but you're
- 15:01- also... To to your last point there, you're
- 15:03- also deepening some interactions here and and getting
- 15:06- off to a stronger foot, especially in that
- 15:08- that member situation. Right? You're sort of maybe
- 15:10- deepening that that relationship. Is that fair?
- 15:13- Yeah. Exactly. I mean, one of the the
- 15:14- areas,
- 15:15- we've had a focus across Jefferson is a
- 15:18- a focus on returning time to care.
- 15:20- And in that, we have a couple of
- 15:22- areas that we're focused. Where are we focused
- 15:24- on enhancing that care connection?
- 15:27- Where can we reduce some of that,
- 15:29- administrative burden for our clinicians? And where can
- 15:31- we strengthen the care operating system overall and
- 15:34- and some of the, nonclinical functions of the
- 15:37- system? So for us, that agentic voice, we're
- 15:40- looking at that and enhancing a care connection
- 15:42- with our patients, as part of why, again,
- 15:44- we have that clinical safety advisory council where
- 15:47- we're looking not only at the outcomes of
- 15:49- those calls, but, again, looking at the satisfaction
- 15:51- piece and our patients, or members' experience so
- 15:54- that we can make sure that that's something
- 15:57- that is helping to, you know, get them
- 15:59- to care,
- 16:00- get them awareness around the, the coverage that
- 16:03- they have with the health plan,
- 16:05- and making sure that we are achieving those
- 16:07- goals and the outcomes that we have, but
- 16:09- also ensuring that it's something that is, serving
- 16:12- as a point of engagement,
- 16:14- with our patients and members. Because, again, the
- 16:16- the use cases that we've focused on are
- 16:18- ones where we wouldn't otherwise have had the
- 16:21- capacity to, connect with those patients. So,
- 16:24- we're pleased with that.
- 16:26- Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. I wanna wanna move here
- 16:28- to to our final question, doctor Han Wood,
- 16:30- which is,
- 16:32- just to get a bit of advice from
- 16:34- you for for listeners out there. So
- 16:36- for for listeners that might be at a
- 16:38- health system sort of struggling to achieve full
- 16:40- value of their their AI investments,
- 16:42- what's the first thing to get right?
- 16:44- And what would you advise sort of maybe
- 16:46- even the board to ask to know whether
- 16:48- the strategy is working? What questions should they
- 16:50- be asking?
- 16:52- Well, I think from a big picture perspective,
- 16:55- having a strategy, one, I think that's something
- 16:57- that,
- 16:58- many don't. And when there's so much opportunity
- 17:01- and there's so much coming at us as
- 17:03- system leaders or even our clinicians
- 17:05- at the front line in in terms of
- 17:07- tools, having a strategy around how you're thinking
- 17:09- about bringing AI into care, I think number
- 17:12- one, can be very helpful in in helping
- 17:14- to steward that and not, distract,
- 17:17- with tools that might not get the outcomes
- 17:19- that we're looking for.
- 17:20- Overall, I think, you know, that, I three
- 17:23- framework that we were talking about earlier,
- 17:25- that focusing on intent. You know, what are
- 17:27- problems that matter to you,
- 17:30- or to your system, and what are issues
- 17:32- that you're trying to solve? Not a tool,
- 17:34- looking for a problem, but more of the
- 17:36- problem that, you know, aligns strategically for the
- 17:39- organization.
- 17:40- And then what's... What are outcomes that you
- 17:42- can measure associated with that? You know, that
- 17:44- would be the impact that you'd be tracking
- 17:46- towards.
- 17:47- And then really understanding,
- 17:48- you know, that that integration component, who is
- 17:51- going to be doing the
- 17:53- discovery work to understand how that work is
- 17:55- really done, how it might need to be
- 17:57- reimagined or redesigned, and and who's accountable for
- 18:00- that. So
- 18:01- I think the focus on, teams, like the
- 18:03- on point team that actually have that focused
- 18:06- accountability for
- 18:07- integrating these tools or redesigning the work is
- 18:10- really important,
- 18:11- because we've seen again and again, that if
- 18:14- you don't have that focus on how the
- 18:16- technology is gonna be integrated, then oftentimes, you
- 18:19- do not get the value that you're, you
- 18:21- know, driving for or anticipating
- 18:22- at the outset.
- 18:25- Very well said, doctor Henwood. Thank you so
- 18:27- much for for taking the time to speak
- 18:29- with me today and coming on the podcast.
- 18:31- Thanks, Brian. I appreciated the opportunity to chat
- 18:33- with you. Absolutely.
- 18:35- Folks, you can tune in to more podcasts
- 18:37- from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page
- 18:40- at beckershospitalreview.com.
- 18:42- Thank you so much.