Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Health Systems Sharpen Their Focus and Oracle Expands Clinical AI with Laura Dyrda

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Health Systems Sharpen Their Focus and Oracle Expands Clinical AI with Laura Dyrda · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  This is where health care leadership comes together.
• 0:04
  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
• 0:07
  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
• 0:10
  speakers to Chicago, April 13 through the sixteenth.
• 0:14
  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
• 0:17
  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
• 0:20
  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
• 0:22
  visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:25
  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
• 0:29
  in Chicago.
• 0:31
  This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Health
• 0:34
  Care Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined
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  for a short episode with Laura Dierdott,
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  and we're gonna talk really about three different
• 0:41
  things.
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  The first couple are are big health care
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  institutions,
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  systems
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  sort of pruning what they do and and
• 0:49
  and pruning their their entire operations
• 0:51
  to be sharper going forward.
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  Those are first two stories. And then third,
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  we'll talk about some evolutions at Oracle HealthCare
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  and what they're trying to do to make
• 1:00
  things better as well. Laurel, let me ask
• 1:02
  you to touch on the first two stories
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  first, what you're seeing at community health systems,
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  what you're seeing at common spirit, then we'll
• 1:08
  talk a little bit about what you're seeing
• 1:09
  at Oracle Healthcare.
• 1:10
  Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Scott.
• 1:12
  I mean, I think, you know, looking at
• 1:14
  community health systems, one of the largest for
• 1:16
  profit hospital operators
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  have really taken some big and deliberate steps
• 1:21
  to, prune their portfolio and focusing on markets
• 1:24
  that make the most sense for them. Since
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  the beginning of the year in particular, they've
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  had a couple of big transactions, including one
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  where they sold 80% stake that they had
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  in a 270
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  bed hospital in system to Vanderbilt Health,
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  in around $623,000,000
• 1:39
  deal that took the the hospital and system
• 1:41
  into Vanderbilt's enterprise.
• 1:44
  And then CHS also
• 1:46
  closed a sale earlier this year in Pennsylvania,
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  which sold three hospitals to Tenor Health Foundation,
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  a newly formed nonprofit,
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  for around thirty three million dollars plus a
• 1:55
  $15,000,000 promissory note. So,
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  with that deal, CHS was really exiting the
• 2:02
  Pennsylvania market in the hole and and trying
• 2:04
  to get into a space where, they're able
• 2:07
  to double down. The health system still owns
• 2:09
  around 65
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  affiliated hospitals in 13 states, but we expect
• 2:13
  them to be more selective around how they
• 2:16
  deploy capital and manage that attention
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  in the future.
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  And we're seeing a similar move by CommonSpirit
• 2:22
  Health as well, another
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  huge,
• 2:25
  health system with
• 2:27
  locations across the country.
• 2:29
  CommonSpirit previously had been in a joint venture
• 2:32
  with Tenet
• 2:33
  Healthcare around, for health solutions, which is a
• 2:36
  revenue cycle management company and subsidiary.
• 2:39
  CommonSpirit
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  will pay Tenet around $1,900,000,000
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  over the next three years, and Conifer's paying
• 2:45
  540,000,000
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  to redeem CommonSpirit's
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  24%
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  equity stake. And so now Conifer will be
• 2:52
  fully tenants. And in that deal, tenant will
• 2:55
  be in a space where they have full
• 2:56
  ownership. It'll give them more flexibility to invest
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  in Conifer's future,
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  particularly in automation,
• 3:02
  artificial intelligence, and and global operating capabilities.
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  But for common spirit, that deal signals something
• 3:08
  a bit different. It's part of a multiyear
• 3:10
  integration and simplification
• 3:12
  strategy as stated by executive leadership,
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  framing it as a move to align more
• 3:17
  around a single operating model,
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  for the health system, which came together,
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  as multiple different systems in regions across the
• 3:25
  country. And so they're really focusing on on
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  how they can have a strategy that makes
• 3:29
  the most sense for their organization,
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  in in really serving the hospitals
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  that they have a mission to serve.
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  I I think too for
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  common spirit as well as many others, there's
• 3:41
  a really strong focus on expanding the ambulatory
• 3:44
  space as well and making sure that there
• 3:47
  are outpatient locations, ambulatory surgery centers,
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  clinics, and more where they really see opportunities
• 3:54
  to expand access to care as well as
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  in virtual care versus having more inpatient space.
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  And so I think those are some of
• 4:00
  the big trends we're seeing for the large
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  hospital operators as they're thinking about their portfolios
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  and sharpening their focus for the future. I
• 4:07
  mean, it is fascinating to see
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  tenant go back to owning Conifer a 100%.
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  I mean, tenants really remade themselves a lot
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  over the last decade.
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  Really an outpatient provider to USPI
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  back to the revenue cycle business through Conifer.
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  Just fascinating.
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  And then also community health systems really has
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  sharpened their footprint too to get debt under
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  control, to get those back to profitability, and
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  they really made great strides in that direction.
• 4:31
  Talk to us for a second about Oracle
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  Healthcare and what you see there. Absolutely.
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  So for Oracle Health, they're expanding their clinical
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  AI agent, recent announcement, and that goes beyond
• 4:41
  documentation into another clinician pain point, which is
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  order entry. So the company said that its
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  clinical AI tool will be able to automatically
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  draft orders,
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  during patient visits and continue to use ambient
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  listening to support physicians as they're trying to
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  have more time to expand their capacity with
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  patients, have more human to human interaction, and
• 5:00
  and less repetitive administrative work. And that really
• 5:03
  doubles into kind of a focus we're seeing
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  across the board. I I know clinician shortages
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  are something that is a huge challenge for
• 5:10
  hospitals and systems, as well as burnout. And
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  so when we're looking at how we can
• 5:14
  expand capacity and,
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  really make sure they're able to serve patients
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  in in a quick and effective manner,
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  you know, there's not gonna be a huge
• 5:23
  increase in the health care workforce that might
• 5:26
  have been needed in the past. But if
• 5:28
  they can leverage technology smartly, they can,
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  you know,
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  solve some of those problems. And so I
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  think some of these companies,
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  are really taking that to heart, and it's
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  been interesting to see how they do that.
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  Thank you so much. Laura,
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  fantastic to visit with you today.
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  Three crisp, clear stories
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  talking about common spirit, Tenet,
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  community health systems,
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  and and finally about Oracle Healthcare and what
• 5:53
  they're doing. The common spirit tenant stories are
• 5:56
  are related, so I count those as one
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  story,
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  and then separately, the community health systems and
• 6:01
  oracle. Laura, thank you so much for joining
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  us today on the Beckers Hooktail podcast. That
• 6:05
  was great. Thank you very, very much.
• 6:07
  Thanks, Scott. It's always a pleasure.