Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Brian Shea, Chief Information Officer at MedOne Healthcare Partners

Transcript

Brian Shea, Chief Information Officer at MedOne Healthcare Partners · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  Would you like to exchange best practices and ideas to improve care,
• 0:03
  enhance operational efficiency,
• 0:05
  and address financial challenges with your peers?
• 0:08
  Becker's Healthcare is facilitating these conversations at their eighth annual
• 0:12
  health IT digital health and R C M meeting.
• 0:15
  You can check your eligibility for complimentary attendance at the link in the
• 0:19
  description. We are excited to welcome you in October.
• 0:23
  This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
• 0:26
  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Brian Shay,
• 0:28
  who's the Chief Information Officer of Med One Healthcare Partners,
• 0:31
  as well as the interim CIO at Lexington Clinic. Brian,
• 0:34
  it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
• 0:38
  It's a pleasure to be joining you.
• 0:41
  Now. I know there's a lot happening right now in the healthcare space,
• 0:43
  and especially thinking about digital transformation and technology and what
• 0:47
  role that can play within healthcare operationally as well as clinically.
• 0:51
  But before we dive into my questions,
• 0:52
  can you tell me a little bit more about your yourself and your background?
• 0:56
  Sure. Um, so as you said, I'm, I'm Brian Shay. Um,
• 1:00
  I've been in it for about 30 years, so been in it for a little while.
• 1:05
  Um, and about 20 of that has been in healthcare it,
• 1:09
  and I've held various leadership positions in healthcare. Um,
• 1:12
  it really, um, everything from a CIO to a ciso to a cto,
• 1:17
  to a compliance officer. Um, but really my background in healthcare,
• 1:21
  it has been focusing on kind of digital transformation, uh,
• 1:25
  IT operations and in compliance for organizations.
• 1:31
  Got it. Absolutely. I, I think that makes a lot of sense. You know,
• 1:33
  and it's really helpful to think about in, in, you know, from your perspective,
• 1:37
  when you look at where we're at today in healthcare,
• 1:40
  what do you see as being some of the biggest opportunities right now,
• 1:43
  as well as the headwinds that you have your eye on?
• 1:46
  Yeah,
• 1:46
  that's a really good question is healthcare kinda has been evolving quite a bit,
• 1:51
  uh, especially healthcare IT along along with that, um,
• 1:55
  I think some of the big opportunities at the moment, of course,
• 1:58
  the big buzzword, you know, with chat GBT and, and ai, I think, you know,
• 2:02
  when you kind of get through the buzz words and the, you know, kind of the,
• 2:07
  the sales pitches around chat GBT at the moment,
• 2:10
  I think a lot of it is gonna be focused around how do you leverage AI actually
• 2:14
  operationally, you know, for your organization in two, two ways. One,
• 2:18
  how do you, how do you leverage to improve efficiencies in your,
• 2:21
  in your day-to-day operations?
• 2:23
  But then also how are you leveraging that technology to provide differentiator,
• 2:27
  you know, better patient care type things.
• 2:29
  So I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunities around how people are using
• 2:34
  AI with, in conjunction with data analytics, uh, report generating,
• 2:39
  um, problem solving, all those kind of things, I think are gonna be,
• 2:43
  see a lot more healthcare organizations kind of, uh, dabbling in it, you know,
• 2:47
  more, more and more. Uh, there's gonna be a lot more vendors, of course,
• 2:50
  that are gonna be offering up different use case solutions for it.
• 2:53
  So I think that's gonna, this year,
• 2:56
  I think it's gonna be a pretty interesting year, uh,
• 2:58
  when it comes to AI and see where, uh,
• 3:01
  the use cases really kind of bubble up because, uh, as I said,
• 3:04
  it's kind of two pronged, people are trying to figure out,
• 3:06
  like in our side as a, uh, consumer of it, we're trying to figure out how to,
• 3:10
  how to leverage it to our advantage. And of course,
• 3:13
  there's a lot of vendors that are looking at how can they leverage it to have,
• 3:17
  um, you know, solutions that they could provide to, uh, to us.
• 3:20
  The other big one, I think is gonna be around, um, just continual,
• 3:25
  how do you find different ways to provide patient care? Um,
• 3:28
  I think there's been a lot of things on the news with, you know,
• 3:31
  Amazon making purchases of healthcare organizations or partnerships,
• 3:34
  same with like the CVSs and, uh, even Optum or UnitedHealthcare.
• 3:39
  So I think everybody's trying to figure out how are,
• 3:42
  what are the different mechanisms in delivering patient care? Let that be at,
• 3:46
  you know, hospital at home or, uh, remote patient monitoring, you know,
• 3:51
  those kind of technologies.
• 3:52
  I think you're gonna see some of that stuff continue to vet itself out,
• 3:56
  especially around, you know, when Covid hit,
• 3:58
  telemedicine was kind of the big hot topic, right? And how do you do televisits,
• 4:02
  uh, if you're a provider and, you know, if you're a patient,
• 4:05
  how do you make sure you could see your provider, uh, you know,
• 4:08
  in your home or wherever? I think, you know,
• 4:10
  that's kind of worked itself out a little bit from telemedicine type, uh,
• 4:14
  video type visits and consultations and things like that. But I think, you know,
• 4:19
  that everybody's still trying to figure out, you know, how is that paid for, um,
• 4:22
  you know, from an insurance perspective or, you know, how do providers get ran,
• 4:26
  you know, get re So that's still kind of out there,
• 4:31
  a little bit of trying to figure it out,
• 4:32
  but I think you're gonna see that go to the next level of all these different
• 4:37
  companies that are coming into the mix that are actually technology type
• 4:40
  companies that are trying to disrupt and figure out how to provide better
• 4:45
  delivery of care, um, to, you know, to people.
• 4:48
  So I think you're gonna see a disruption in our world from,
• 4:50
  from the health systems to the healthcare providers on, on how that comes,
• 4:54
  comes into play. But I think, you know, the,
• 4:56
  the whole care at home or care everywhere is gonna continue to be a real thing.
• 5:03
  That makes a lot of sense and certainly aligns with what I'm hearing from a lot
• 5:06
  of hospitals and health systems. And like you mentioned,
• 5:08
  trying to figure out what virtual care means and how they can get paid for it,
• 5:12
  what the reimbursement model is gonna be,
• 5:13
  and then how to efficiently and effectively execute that, uh,
• 5:17
  from an operational standpoint as well as clinical standpoint with their teams.
• 5:21
  Uh, and then what you mentioned on AI is very interesting as well. I,
• 5:25
  I know that's been on the tip of many people's tongues,
• 5:28
  especially in the last few months. Um, and so, you know,
• 5:31
  when you look at both of those areas,
• 5:34
  how are you thinking about organizational growth and development and adding
• 5:38
  value, um, when those are the trends that are upcoming in,
• 5:42
  in really where we see healthcare headed as being more digital,
• 5:45
  more technology enabled, uh,
• 5:47
  more space where technology and data are becoming increasingly
• 5:52
  important within the organization?
• 5:56
  Yeah, so I think it's one of those things.
• 5:57
  If you don't think about it and you don't embrace it and deal with it, um,
• 6:02
  you're gonna become irrelevant really quick. Um, I think it's important that,
• 6:06
  you know, not only, you know,
• 6:08
  med One Healthcare Partners or Lexington Clinic or any healthcare provider or
• 6:11
  really any organization,
• 6:13
  you need to focus on growth really through innovation and strategic
• 6:17
  partnerships, especially in healthcare partnerships. Uh, there's a lot of,
• 6:21
  you know, consolidations and, and acquisitions and, you know,
• 6:25
  health, you know, health systems are, uh, you know,
• 6:28
  their relationships to a partners or vi you know, vice versa. It's,
• 6:32
  it's one of those things that partnerships are gonna become critical,
• 6:35
  but I think every one of those organizations have to really look at, you know,
• 6:39
  their growth through innovation. They're not just a,
• 6:42
  say a provider group or a hospital or a clinic. You're almost a, you know,
• 6:47
  an IT company as as well. It's a combination of,
• 6:50
  and I think not having an understanding of those
• 6:55
  technology changes that are gonna be occurring with, uh, the enhancements of,
• 7:00
  of AI and how that, what that means with better
• 7:06
  business, you know, analytics or clinical analytics, you know, information.
• 7:09
  If you're not doing that, you're gonna be left behind in providing
• 7:16
  comparative care to some of your counterparts. Right. You know, and you know,
• 7:20
  what's the additional value add that you continue to bring to the table?
• 7:23
  And if you're not leveraging some of those technologies that are,
• 7:26
  that are coming out, you will get, you know,
• 7:28
  you'll be coming irrelevant or left behind.
• 7:32
  That's such a great point,
• 7:33
  and something I know so many different industries are struggling with is
• 7:37
  applying this technology and figuring out ways to make that transformation.
• 7:41
  Or from your perspective, when you're looking at, um, you know,
• 7:45
  the best way to create not only the technology change,
• 7:48
  but also the culture change on adopting ai, on adopting innovation and really,
• 7:53
  especially in healthcare space, where a lot of times there's been, you know,
• 7:57
  the culture around moving slow and being more thoughtful about making any types
• 8:02
  of change. Um,
• 8:03
  how do you make that transformation on the cultural side to really adapt to
• 8:08
  how fast technology is moving and how quickly change needs to happen in the
• 8:12
  healthcare space?
• 8:14
  That's a great question too. Um, I,
• 8:17
  change management is always the hardest part of, of anything. Uh,
• 8:20
  technology usually becomes the easy part of, uh, of things. Uh,
• 8:24
  change is always of the part that needs a little more finesse.
• 8:28
  It could take a little more time. I think it's baby steps a little bit, right?
• 8:32
  I think you have to find those quick wins within your organization.
• 8:35
  You have to tack it from multiple fronts. So Chape GT for instance, you know,
• 8:40
  or just using that I guess as an example, um,
• 8:43
  started even sharing that within some of our organizations of just the,
• 8:47
  the basic use cases for it, helping write, you know,
• 8:51
  policies or even job descriptions, you know, for that matter,
• 8:54
  those kind of things that are easy to understand, right?
• 8:58
  You are kind of more tangible and then you keep taking it and notching it up a
• 9:03
  little bit to the next level, right? Of, oh,
• 9:05
  they could understand that it could provide this kind of information back to
• 9:09
  them, or maybe make their life easier on how they're operating.
• 9:12
  Then you take that to the next step of maybe, you know,
• 9:15
  report writing or looking up certain information based on
• 9:19
  certain criteria out of a database, right? So it's,
• 9:23
  you keep think taking those baby steps and then it becomes more real for people.
• 9:28
  I think you definitely have to have true business case, because right now it's,
• 9:31
  you know, very nebulous to a lot of people of what is this? You know, you know,
• 9:36
  it's not like some magical thing, you know, it's, but it's how,
• 9:40
  how do they use it in their, in their world?
• 9:43
  And you have to make it very real for them, right?
• 9:45
  So I think it's finding specific business cases,
• 9:47
  showing how you get leverages technology to improve, um, you know, their,
• 9:52
  either the information that they're getting or improving their,
• 9:56
  making them more efficient through operational improvements.
• 9:59
  I think if you could take those baby steps in doing that, your adoption,
• 10:03
  you know, will, will be a lot better, right? You're a lot easier to, uh,
• 10:07
  to roll something out within the organization.
• 10:10
  That's so helpful to think through and understand, um,
• 10:13
  really those core concepts and then the steps to, to make it happen. Um, and,
• 10:17
  and, you know, along those lines, I think, uh,
• 10:21
  as we've talked about a little bit today,
• 10:22
  there's been a lot of change happening in healthcare,
• 10:24
  but a lot of organizations are really faced with some tough times,
• 10:27
  whether it's staffing shortages, financial challenges, inflation hitting,
• 10:31
  there's a lot going on within healthcare,
• 10:34
  but it's still important to think about the future.
• 10:36
  And as we were talking about earlier, making sure that hospitals,
• 10:39
  health systems, clinics, and practices don't get left behind.
• 10:42
  So where do you see, is it,
• 10:44
  where is it important for them to continue to make investments or take risks
• 10:49
  this year, even as healthcare resources become more and more precious?
• 10:55
  Yeah, so resources, we're all kind of fighting for the same resources,
• 10:59
  it seems like, um, let it be on the clinical side or the tech,
• 11:03
  the technology side.
• 11:04
  And I think making investment with the problem is gonna,
• 11:08
  and that's gonna continue to be, you know, the trend for, for a while, right?
• 11:12
  I think especially when you start getting into newer technologies that are
• 11:15
  coming into an organization. So when we say investing,
• 11:18
  if I'm gonna invest into more robust data analytics capabilities,
• 11:22
  for instance, and, and leveraging ai, you know,
• 11:26
  I might not necessarily have that skillset internally,
• 11:29
  and it might be hard to even find partners that have that skillset that we need
• 11:34
  really, you know,
• 11:35
  leverage it because everybody's trying to fight for these same, same resources.
• 11:39
  So, you know, I'd say from an investment perspective, you need to find,
• 11:44
  you know, if, if you can't do it yourself, which is difficult sometimes, uh,
• 11:48
  finding really good partnerships that are out there that have expertise,
• 11:52
  you know, in, you know,
• 11:54
  machine learning or AI and figuring out who can you partner with.
• 11:58
  As I go back to that statement earlier,
• 12:00
  it's a lot of it's about building partnerships.
• 12:03
  So I think you gotta really find good partners out there that have those
• 12:06
  resources available to you to actually do something in a timely manner.
• 12:11
  Cause again, otherwise,
• 12:12
  if you're trying to build a lot of this on your own and you don't have the
• 12:15
  funding or resources to bring in that talent in house,
• 12:18
  you're going to have to invest in external talent to,
• 12:22
  to help you move that ball forward with it. I think that's something, you know,
• 12:25
  where that's gonna be investment there.
• 12:27
  I think it's also just trial and error with certain technologies, um,
• 12:33
  figuring, you know, kind of figuring it out a little bit as we talked about,
• 12:36
  you know, care at home or hospital at home or remote patient monitoring.
• 12:40
  There's so many different technologies that are out there right now.
• 12:44
  There's not a good, um, centralized platform for a lot of these things.
• 12:49
  So there's a lot of startup companies and a lot of different companies that have
• 12:52
  different pieces and parts. But pulling all that together has really been, uh,
• 12:57
  difficult. But I'd say that for organizations that are trying to get into that,
• 13:01
  they gotta start, uh, investing and trying it, trying different things,
• 13:06
  um, getting a better understanding of how these things work, um,
• 13:10
  in some sort of kind of testing or piloting cap, you know, capabilities.
• 13:15
  So I think there's gotta be some investment there as, as well, uh,
• 13:19
  because if you don't do it again, it's like, where do you start? Right?
• 13:21
  You know, and how do you get, how do you get the ball moving?
• 13:25
  If if you're not consciously making those efforts with those different things,
• 13:28
  I think again, that's where you'll, you'll start to fall further,
• 13:30
  further behind.
• 13:33
  That's such an excellent point. And definitely, you know, kind of looking at,
• 13:36
  as you mentioned, assessing where you can really, um,
• 13:39
  most effectively and efficiently apply some of these technologies in spaces
• 13:43
  where, um, you know, growth and development will really add to, um,
• 13:47
  the, the bottom line as well as thinking about, you know,
• 13:50
  where you need to be positioned to be successful in the future is so critical.
• 13:54
  Um, before we wrap up our conversation,
• 13:56
  I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of the best
• 13:59
  opportunities you're seeing, uh,
• 14:00
  for growth and development for yourself as well as the teams that you're working
• 14:04
  with. Uh,
• 14:05
  what will it take in order to set yourself up for success in the future?
• 14:09
  Yeah, I think the most critical thing for organizations or individuals to set
• 14:14
  themselves up for future growth opportunities is really, um,
• 14:19
  prioritization, right?
• 14:20
  So it's really gonna be as a group prioritizing what you're trying to accomplish
• 14:24
  and what you're trying to, to achieve.
• 14:27
  And then that way everybody is kind of rowing in the same direction. Otherwise,
• 14:31
  if you don't set that first,
• 14:33
  you're gonna become very fragmented and you're only gonna be able to go so deep
• 14:37
  into any one area of, of focus. So for instance,
• 14:42
  you know, as a group, you might say, you know, we want to invest and focus in,
• 14:45
  um, we really want to take on telemedicine with an aspect of, uh,
• 14:50
  remote patient monitoring. Then you as a group, at least you're focusing,
• 14:54
  you could go that direction, or for instance,
• 14:56
  we want to use data to improve patient quality or have some sort of
• 15:01
  metric, and then, then you could dive into using, you know,
• 15:04
  what technologies are there, like AI or, uh, machine learning or whatever,
• 15:08
  right? But at least that way you're focused,
• 15:10
  and if you're focused on those type of things and you're really prioritize,
• 15:14
  you're more likely to accomplish those goals. Um,
• 15:17
  otherwise you could only go so deep into any one direction.
• 15:20
  And with all the different initiatives and technology that's, that's out there,
• 15:24
  uh, you could become almost paralyzed and not making traction or movement
• 15:30
  in the area of growth through the usage of technology because you're,
• 15:33
  you're too thin in any one area versus really prioritizing and focusing as a
• 15:38
  group. So that would be my recommendation for, for anybody,
• 15:41
  for future growth opportunities,
• 15:42
  is really make sure that you're prioritizing as a group, um, as an organization,
• 15:47
  and that you're all on that same page.
• 15:50
  Another excellent point. Brian,
• 15:51
  thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
• 15:53
  This has been a really fantastic conversation,
• 15:55
  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
• 16:02
  It's so important for leaders at the top of organizations to keep learning,
• 16:05
  stay sharp, grow their networks,
• 16:07
  help our audience better do this in a more simplified, personalized,
• 16:11
  and meaningful way. Becker's Healthcare has launched my bhc,
• 16:15
  it's your trusted Becker's healthcare experience and more with content,
• 16:18
  connections, events and learning opportunities.
• 16:21
  Join the community free of charge@www.my dot becker's
• 16:26
  hospital review.com, and we'll see you there.