Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / From Digital Sprawl to Digital Strategy: How Health System Leaders Are Regaining Control of the Digital Ecosystem

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From Digital Sprawl to Digital Strategy: How Health System Leaders Are Regaining Control of the Digital Ecosystem · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with Becker's
• 0:02
  Health Care. Thanks so much for tuning in
• 0:04
  to the Becker's Health Care podcast series. It's
• 0:06
  great to have you. Today, we're talking about
• 0:09
  how health system leaders are regaining control
• 0:12
  of their digital ecosystem.
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  And joining me for today's discussion, so excited
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  to have him, is doctor Ricky Choi. He's
• 0:19
  strategic medical advisor at Xealth, head of digital
• 0:22
  health at Samsung Electronics and assistant clinical professor
• 0:25
  at Stanford University School of Medicine. Doctor Choi,
• 0:28
  thanks so much for being here today. It's
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  great to have you. It's a pleasure to
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  be here. Thank you so much.
• 0:33
  I wanna start us off just level setting
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  the conversation a little bit. We know that
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  health systems, specifically, in the last ten years,
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  have significantly
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  invested
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  in digital tools.
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  But, again, we're also now dealing with the
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  fact that they invested heavily, so there's a
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  lot of different tools and sort of this
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  term of digital sprawl
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  seems to be appearing
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  across
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  the industry.
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  What changed and why are we now
• 1:00
  rethinking
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  the value
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  of digital investments?
• 1:05
  Yeah. That's a great question. You know, I
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  think that as with any kind of change
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  or transformation,
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  you know, there were early adopters,
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  who are willing to take risks and try
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  new things. And I think that over time,
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  you know, more and more health systems, a
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  huge
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  proportion of health systems now, have really
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  invested in and have tried to really address
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  the many challenges they're seeing, in health care
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  delivery
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  in the quadruple aim,
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  through digital tools.
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  But I think what they found is that
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  early on, they were looking to solve,
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  specific problems.
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  You know, there was a particular workflow. There
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  is a particular disease process they're trying to
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  address, and they were really focused narrowly on
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  that solution, but really not thinking at a
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  systematic level. And so you do that a
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  few times, and before you know it, you're
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  at ten, twenty, even 30, or 40,
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  different solutions
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  that not surprisingly now don't talk to each
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  other and so creating a whole set of
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  problems.
• 2:00
  Now with my Samsung hat on, as a
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  participant
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  of and a watcher of of the market,
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  you know, we have we feel like that
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  there has been a lot of progress.
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  We're starting to see more and more ROI,
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  but we're definitely recognizing that there is now
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  we're at a different phase where that data
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  definitely needs a flow, you know, between solutions.
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  There needs to be orchestration behind the scenes.
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  And we'll hear over and over again from
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  all the stakeholders in health systems that needs
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  to fit in within the clinical workflow, and
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  it needs to be attractive for patients to
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  use.
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  I just wanted to really quickly repeat those
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  two numbers that you mentioned. Right? It's an
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  estimate, of course, but 30 to 40 different
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  solutions. Think about that for a second as
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  the listeners here. Those numbers are incredible.
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  You spent this morning here at the annual
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  meeting at Becker's in Chicago with health system
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  leaders talking about the cost of all of
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  this and potentially the hidden cost that this
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  all
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  creates. I'd love to know
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  what stuck with you in those conversations,
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  and what are some of the costs that
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  leaders underestimate with all of this?
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  So I think that, you know, health systems
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  came at this really trying to address, you
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  know, the quadruple aim, you know, quality,
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  access,
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  cost,
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  patient satisfaction, you know, clinician,
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  you know, burnout, and satisfaction as well.
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  And just just as you've emphasized, we went
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  from, you know, a couple,
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  one off solutions to very quickly to now
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  having tens of solutions. Actually, in the room
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  we had earlier today, we had about 30,
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  participants
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  coming from, a range of health systems.
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  When asked,
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  a good proportion of the room raised their
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  hand when they said they had 20 solutions,
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  digital solutions.
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  Another smaller group, but a significant group had
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  40. We even had one health system that
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  has said they have 200
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  different digital solutions.
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  So,
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  you know, hospitals are not IT companies.
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  Right? And so you can imagine how unwieldy
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  it is for the IT and IS systems
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  to manage. And so in in as hard
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  as it is to get some of these
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  things implemented, in some case, some cases, it
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  may be just as hard to unwind. And
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  so ironically, we end up with some of
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  the same problems we started out with Yeah.
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  Which is workflow fragmentation, which is alert fatigue.
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  And then now we add on vendor complexity
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  and and governance.
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  And at the end of the day, we're
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  all trying to achieve that ROI.
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  And that gets muddled when we see that
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  kind of fragmentation.
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  Now let's turn this around. Right? We're trying
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  to fix this. I think a lot of
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  health systems are moving in the right direction.
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  They are learning. They're understanding.
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  But, again,
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  what does it actually mean to move from
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  this collection
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  of tools that you've just mentioned
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  to a true
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  digitally
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  aligned strategy?
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  Absolutely.
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  I I think that, first of all, we
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  need to move from point solutions,
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  in single digital interventions Yeah. You know, in
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  the clinical setting to thinking more comprehensively.
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  And I think there's a couple of different
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  ways we can do that, but I think
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  one way approach certainly is to think about
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  the overall patient experience,
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  which often starts in the home. It's where
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  they first notice that they may get sick
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  or trying to manage their health health condition.
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  And so there are signals now that can
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  be collected to understand that context,
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  whether it be the way that they may
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  use technology in the home or some of
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  the now kind of cutting edge wearable technologies.
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  That technology, you can imagine now starting to
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  inform where patients go and provide a fuller
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  picture for clinicians.
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  And, of course, what we need to do
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  is start to start to figure out how
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  we're gonna orchestrate those technologies, how to help
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  those things start to work together,
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  and so that one can make the most
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  of the technologies,
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  that been implemented.
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  It's been often said that I'll say it
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  again. You know, it we would it would
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  be an utter failure. If we are basically
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  digitizing
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  the current flawed system, we need to really
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  think about our complete redesign of health care.
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  And I wanna talk a little bit about
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  that process because, again, we don't want to
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  repeat this. And what makes this hard is
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  that we now have a a suite of
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  tools,
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  innovation when it comes to AI that's sort
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  of entering the theater here, that's entering health
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  care.
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  Are health systems
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  a approaching
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  AI differently
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  than some of these other point solutions that
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  we've seen in the past? Right?
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  Or are we simply repeating some of the
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  things that you've just outlined?
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  Yeah. That's a great question. You know, I
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  think that in our conversations and include including
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  the panel this morning,
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  at the round table that we had this
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  morning, health systems are approaching it a little
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  bit wiser. You know? You know, they are
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  still fragmented. They still there's still many challenges,
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  and process and to go through. But they're
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  coming at it a little bit wiser, from
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  what they've learned around from digital, when when
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  they brought in digital tools.
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  But they also kind of view that there's
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  that the risk profile is a little bit
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  different when it comes to AI. I I
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  think that,
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  there is a little bit of a of
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  not a little bit. There is a significant
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  black box here, I think, when it comes
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  to especially,
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  generative AI. And so they're approaching it with
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  much more caution.
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  I think the health systems I've spoken to,
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  you know, who are willing to really start
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  to push those boundaries and recognize the value
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  you can create are thinking about it more
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  from the back office perspective,
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  revenue operations and etcetera, and then slowly dipping
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  their toe into now providing, you know, having
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  interact directly with patients.
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  I I think we all see the opportunity.
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  You know, when we think about having a
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  staff member who spends their day calling patients
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  all day long to try to get them
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  to come back to address a care gap
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  or a various need
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  versus having an AI system that can contact
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  hundreds
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  at once.
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  I think that that it I think the
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  opportunity just sounds absolutely tremendous. Now there's a
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  lot of consideration there, but I think that
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  opportunity,
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  from a cost and frankly to deliver better
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  care is really great.
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  That being said, you know, we need to
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  have the right list of patients that can
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  be contacted. That just doesn't appear on itself.
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  There needs a is a system connected to
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  it that then feeds into that calling system.
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  And, great, you contact all these people and
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  people are gonna come in, but how are
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  is the house system prepared to handle that
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  inflow? So and and from a technology perspective.
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  So
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  these cannot,
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  live on an island, cannot live in isolation.
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  We need to think about how these things
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  are integrated together, that overall orchestration and governance.
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  I think that's we're now in that phase
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  of of of technology maturity that health systems
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  really need to think about. Yeah. We come
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  back to the conversation about eliminating silos that
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  we've talked so much about in health care
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  so far. You've touched on this a little
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  bit in our conversation here today, but you've
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  also talked about this frequently,
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  across the board, which is the future of
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  health care being at home
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  and being powered by continuous patient generated data
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  that really, at the end of the day,
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  again, serves the patient,
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  which is the most important thing. What changes
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  when care
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  moves outside
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  of the hospital?
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  Yeah. I think that I would argue that
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  care began, you know, outside the hospital and,
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  in fact, in the home. We know, you
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  know, that it's in the home that people's
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  first are are overall managing their day to
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  day health, their overall well-being, the food that
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  they eat, the way they spend their time,
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  as as well as with their loved ones.
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  It's where they first notice and may discover
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  they get sick, and those signals may be
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  unbeknownst to them that would be only be
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  detected through a wearable technology, for example, which
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  nowadays can detect if you have atrial fibrillation
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  or you have sleep apnea.
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  It's about also managing conditions, encouraging people to
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  live healthier, eat and and stick to the
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  diabetic diet, their heart healthy diet, etcetera. And
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  we believe that those technologies can play a
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  really important role to then really helping that
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  clinician get a fuller picture,
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  and understanding, you know, the patients in terms
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  of their health challenges, how they've been managing
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  their overall health, but also getting them to
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  do the right side of care.
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  You know, I've we've talked to a number
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  of academic and quaternary health systems
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  and, you know, they want to deliver the
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  best care possible. They are there are some
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  things they are very, very good at, the
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  best in the world at, and there are
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  some things that are probably better off,
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  where care is delivered in a different part
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  of their system or a partner system. And
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  at the end of the day, patients want
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  their problem solved as expediently as possible. They're
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  suffering. They have needs that need to be
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  addressed. And so I think that with these
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  signals that we may be able to collect
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  in the home, that we, in fact, can,
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  I think there are opportunities to think about
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  how do we address both of those needs?
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  Yeah.
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  I want to close this off with something
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  that frequently comes up in health care, and
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  you've actually mentioned this here today as well,
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  which is the fact that data is at
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  the heart of everything in terms of success,
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  and we have the data. Health systems have
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  the data. It depends on the execution,
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  insights versus that action.
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  How do we close the gap
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  between insight and action?
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  Yeah. I think that's a very complicated,
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  question, but, at the same time, a very
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  simple point. And I I almost wanna say
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  it may start with me, and I'd say
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  myself as a clinician.
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  You know, with the implementation of EHR, went
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  from writing charts into now utilizing the electronic
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  health record. And now while though I don't
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  love it, none of us love it. We
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  are comfortable with the constant software updates and
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  those changes.
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  In that same way, as we think about
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  digital tools, apps, you know, services, AI, and
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  etcetera, if it helps my patient get better,
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  if it helps the health system achieve its
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  goals and our shared goals and the and
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  the success of the organization,
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  please make it as easy as possible for
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  me to do. Because I will be much
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  more likely, you know, to follow through with
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  that. You know, at Samsung, we've been thinking
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  a lot about how do we start making
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  these things easier to do. In fact, you
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  know, in clinical care too, my general mantra
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  is how do we make the healthier thing
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  the easiest thing to do? And in many
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  ways, I think there are signals in the
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  background that we just discussed that I that
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  Samsung's been thinking about how do we then
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  make it as easy as possible for doctors
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  then to absorb and understand the health status
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  of that patient so they can get going
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  to starting to address those needs. I I
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  think there's a lot of opportunity there.
• 11:53
  Warren's another podcast conversation, I believe. Doctor Choi,
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  thank you so much for taking some time
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  and being here today. What a fantastic conversation.
• 11:59
  Absolutely. Thank you so much. So great to
• 12:01
  have you. And we also want to thank
• 12:02
  our podcast sponsor, Zelleth. You can tune into
• 12:04
  more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our
• 12:07
  podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.