Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / AI, Interoperability, and the Future of Community Health with Isaiah Nathaniel
Transcript
- 0:02- There's a version of AI in health care
- 0:04- that lives mostly in press releases,
- 0:06- pilot programs, partnership announcements,
- 0:09- theoretical
- 0:10- use cases.
- 0:11- And then there's the version that lives in
- 0:13- the work, the CIO trying to get a
- 0:15- model into production without breaking a dozen workflows,
- 0:19- the revenue cycle leader weighing automation against accuracy,
- 0:22- the CISO who knows that every new integration
- 0:25- is a new attack surface.
- 0:28- Becker's eleventh annual IT and revenue cycle conference
- 0:31- is built for the people doing that work.
- 0:33- More than 2,500
- 0:35- executive level attendees,
- 0:37- 600 plus speakers,
- 0:39- and four days of sessions designed around the
- 0:41- real operational questions behind
- 0:44- AI, cybersecurity,
- 0:45- revenue cycle performance, and digital health.
- 0:48- Join us September 14 through the seventeenth.
- 0:51- For the agenda and event details,
- 0:53- visit beckershospitalreview.com
- 0:55- and click on the events tab in the
- 0:57- upper right.
- 0:59- This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Healthcare
- 1:01- podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
- 1:04- Isaiah Nathaniel,
- 1:05- senior vice president and chief information officer at
- 1:08- Delaware Valley Community Health, as well as the
- 1:10- strategic CIO of the Pennsylvania Health Center Technology
- 1:13- Alliance and CIO executive advisor for the National
- 1:16- Association of Community Health Centers. Isaiah, it's a
- 1:19- pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- 1:22- Laura, I'm so grateful to be here today
- 1:24- talking to you. I love my Becker's community,
- 1:27- so I'm interested in how we have this
- 1:29- conversation, and hopefully, my colleagues will enjoy it
- 1:32- as well.
- 1:33- Absolutely. I think they will. I mean, you
- 1:35- know, there's so much happening within the health
- 1:36- care space right now. Technology is evolving so
- 1:38- quickly. And so,
- 1:40- it'll be really, really helpful to get your
- 1:42- perspective on everything that you're doing with the
- 1:44- health centers as well as, you know, the
- 1:46- more state level and and national level too.
- 1:49- So excited to dig in. But before we
- 1:51- do, can you just tell us a little
- 1:52- bit more about yourself as well as,
- 1:54- the community health centers?
- 1:57- Absolutely.
- 1:58- A little bit about myself is
- 2:00- I am a former division one basketball player
- 2:04- who turned into an IT executive
- 2:07- all by the sake and call of my
- 2:10- mother who said I had to be in
- 2:11- health care IT because I love technology.
- 2:14- I loved,
- 2:16- helping others with technology,
- 2:19- And I also had to pay her and
- 2:20- my father back for breaking our Windows 98
- 2:23- computer
- 2:24- back in the day. So I think I'm
- 2:25- living up to that because it's been nineteen
- 2:28- years, nineteen, twenty years at Delaware Valley Community
- 2:31- Health, four years in the for profit sector.
- 2:33- So I I think this career
- 2:35- has paid her back, I think, and just
- 2:37- we'll have to ask her in the next
- 2:39- podcast.
- 2:40- Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
- 2:42- Hopefully, she,
- 2:43- feels like it's done that and more.
- 2:46- Yes. I agree.
- 2:49- Perfect. Well, you know and I I I
- 2:51- love that passion for being technology and helping
- 2:54- people. Certainly, in the health care space, you
- 2:56- know, there is so much opportunity to,
- 2:59- support in health care being such a people
- 3:01- centered business. I can imagine it,
- 3:04- really dovetails nicely into,
- 3:06- your your interest and everything that you have
- 3:08- going on. So I'm curious. Let's start off
- 3:10- with talking about some of the things that
- 3:12- you're seeing shape the health care discussion. What
- 3:16- are some of the most powerful forces out
- 3:18- there right now for,
- 3:19- digital health and IT at your organization and
- 3:22- at the association level as well? What are
- 3:24- you thinking about, and how do you anticipate
- 3:26- these things will evolve in the next year
- 3:28- or so?
- 3:29- I think it's a really great question. And
- 3:31- the context in which we we keep talking
- 3:34- about it is the National Association Community Health
- 3:36- Centers, the PA Health Center Technology Alliance,
- 3:39- the Delaware Valley Community Health. We are in
- 3:42- the community health space. We consider ourselves at
- 3:45- the national level,
- 3:46- quite frankly, the primary safety net of of
- 3:49- the country
- 3:50- where we see one in seven and one
- 3:52- in three in rural America.
- 3:54- And that's through 1,512
- 3:57- independent FQHCs,
- 3:58- Delaware Valley being one of that 1,512
- 4:02- through 17,000
- 4:03- plus locations.
- 4:05- Annually, we see about 52, 54,000,000
- 4:08- patients.
- 4:09- And so in the context
- 4:11- of where my conversation goes is the patient,
- 4:15- the people, and serving the underserved,
- 4:19- community very well, and that's what we like
- 4:22- to do. And
- 4:23- that does not mean that you don't have
- 4:25- technology. We spend about $60,000,000,000,
- 4:28- which is 1% of the annual
- 4:30- spend in health care on primary care and
- 4:33- and our community health networks. And so
- 4:36- in that context, you can't have
- 4:39- good true health care without technology
- 4:42- even in the market of community health and
- 4:45- and rural health and and all of those
- 4:47- things that encompass what we call community health
- 4:49- center movement.
- 4:51- So for for me,
- 4:53- the technology
- 4:54- that is shaping the future is the same
- 4:56- as a hospital. It may just not be
- 4:57- on that same rapid pace of innovation,
- 5:01- but there's still clearly opportunities
- 5:03- of investment for artificial intelligence.
- 5:06- I just had to get AI out of
- 5:08- the conversation already because that's what everybody's talking
- 5:11- about. And same thing in community health, artificial
- 5:14- intelligence.
- 5:15- How do we introduce it with ambient listening?
- 5:18- How do we introduce it
- 5:20- with call center or agentic AI, voice AI?
- 5:23- How do we introduce
- 5:24- artificial intelligence into the revenue cycle process? And
- 5:28- then how do we enter introduce it into
- 5:30- the staffing profile, making their jobs a lot
- 5:33- easier and removing some of the administrative burden.
- 5:36- So that's at the national scale, and then
- 5:38- same thing happens on the local scale. So
- 5:40- that coordinated attack of how do we really
- 5:44- change in a digital health way that includes
- 5:47- both the preregistration
- 5:49- and the outpatient registration, and then passing that
- 5:52- information along
- 5:54- to our hospital partners or our subspecialty
- 5:57- partners
- 5:58- is really the the ecosystem of of population
- 6:02- health for us. So for me, I see
- 6:04- a true transition to
- 6:06- coordinated
- 6:07- care using digital activities, digital technologies,
- 6:11- be it smart on fire, be it
- 6:13- traditional APIs, but that ecosystem
- 6:16- of digital health where we are getting all
- 6:19- the information before,
- 6:21- and we're trying to take those discrete data
- 6:23- elements and make it possible
- 6:26- to all of the places that the patient
- 6:28- would actually go. And that is where I
- 6:30- see the trajectory
- 6:32- of health care going in IT. I have
- 6:34- some futuristic thoughts, but I'll wait till you
- 6:36- ask me what my future miss at Delta.
- 6:39- Yeah. No. I I can't wait to hear
- 6:41- them. This is great. So I I think
- 6:43- especially, you know, when you're talking about,
- 6:46- AI and how it is really revolutionizing
- 6:49- the way hospitals,
- 6:51- currently are are operating both on the clinical
- 6:53- as well as the administrative side.
- 6:55- You know, a lot comes with that. The
- 6:57- technology implementation,
- 6:58- selection, and and, you know, adoption is one
- 7:01- thing. But then when you look at, you
- 7:03- know, ensuring it is fully adopted by, the
- 7:06- people within the organization, that's a whole different
- 7:09- challenge. So can you talk a little bit
- 7:10- about,
- 7:11- what you're doing and and how you're seeing,
- 7:13- this technology coming into the health center space
- 7:16- and, you know, the the teams of people
- 7:18- that are working with it? You know, what
- 7:20- are are are some of the adoption rates
- 7:21- you're seeing, and how are you maneuvering to
- 7:23- make sure that, you know, the investment in
- 7:26- technology is making the biggest impact as quickly
- 7:28- as possible?
- 7:30- I love that question because it brings about
- 7:32- something that I say all the time is
- 7:35- even though I'm a technologist,
- 7:36- I I am introducing
- 7:39- technology by
- 7:40- removing the access barrier, not not introducing it.
- 7:44- And what I suggest by that is going
- 7:47- a little bit deeper and not just putting
- 7:50- IT in my infrastructure or my IT stack
- 7:53- or even consulting or even advising what IT
- 7:56- should be without truly understanding where the organization
- 7:59- is strategically,
- 8:01- what is in their next three to five
- 8:03- year plan,
- 8:04- and then also
- 8:05- where the patients are on that journey. And
- 8:08- we can't ever leave patients out of technology.
- 8:10- I think part of my success is wanting
- 8:13- to understand that ad nauseam, that psychology of
- 8:16- the patient. Are they coming in with a
- 8:18- smartphone just as simple as that? Or if
- 8:20- not, how do I design my technology or
- 8:23- my algorithms
- 8:24- to still give them the same patient experience
- 8:26- that it were will be if you do
- 8:28- have a smartphone?
- 8:30- So for me, the the adoption is two
- 8:33- lanes. It's one from the patient. And then
- 8:35- from the provider perspective,
- 8:36- how do we introduce training? How do we
- 8:38- bring them into the proofs of concepts? How
- 8:41- do we make it their product more than
- 8:43- an IT product? How do we solve what
- 8:46- they went to school for, which is just
- 8:49- to see a patient,
- 8:50- not to be documentation
- 8:52- specialist.
- 8:53- How do we introduce technology into the rooms?
- 8:56- And for me, part of my futuristic design
- 8:58- is a provider just walks in the room,
- 9:01- and the technology takes over. It's ambient AI.
- 9:04- It's it's scribing
- 9:06- automatically.
- 9:07- It's
- 9:08- doing the diagnosis
- 9:09- and the vital signs and primary care automatically
- 9:13- just walk and step into a particular space,
- 9:16- and there's a
- 9:17- overlay X-ray that's taking that information and then
- 9:20- ingesting that right into the SOAP note of
- 9:22- your EHR.
- 9:23- And your EHR might be an actual product,
- 9:26- or it might just be something that is
- 9:28- a discrete data element or an actual just
- 9:32- form that is carrying themselves and can just
- 9:35- transition that
- 9:36- natively to
- 9:37- your cell phone, to your Apple Watch, or
- 9:40- your Google Watch, and and all of these
- 9:42- things. So futuristically
- 9:44- knowing that that is potentially
- 9:46- possible, capable
- 9:47- in in many different areas, why not put
- 9:50- primary care into that space? And then what
- 9:52- does that do? That makes the patient happy.
- 9:55- Because guess what? They get to talk to
- 9:56- the provider, makes the provider happy because they
- 9:58- don't have to do all of this documentation,
- 10:01- and they can really spend the time that
- 10:02- they want on the patient. And then it
- 10:04- makes the organization happy because staff is happy
- 10:07- because we're able to bill appropriately at the
- 10:09- right levels and then making sure our revenue
- 10:12- cycle is doing what they need to. So
- 10:14- for me,
- 10:15- that's a really, really good question. You can
- 10:18- tell, Laura. I haven't thought about it at
- 10:20- all. I'll stop there.
- 10:23- Oh, absolutely, though. And, you know, very great
- 10:26- off the cuff.
- 10:27- But that that's kind of an incredible picture
- 10:30- you're painting in terms of,
- 10:32- what that future
- 10:34- could look like for clinicians just walking into
- 10:36- the room and being able to have that
- 10:37- interaction, that relationship with patients and trust that,
- 10:40- you know, technology has their back on the
- 10:42- other side of it and and can really,
- 10:45- optimize whatever the notes are in in the
- 10:47- different administrative aspects of their visit so that
- 10:50- they can truly, truly focus in on the
- 10:52- relationship and,
- 10:53- helping make the patient better. Now
- 10:56- on your journey to create that reality, I
- 10:58- I know you're doing a lot of different
- 11:00- things. So could you tell us a little
- 11:01- bit about a big project or a big
- 11:03- swing that you took in the last year
- 11:05- that has paid off? What are you doing,
- 11:06- and and what have the results been so
- 11:08- far?
- 11:09- Yeah. Well, welcome to the dark side as
- 11:11- some of my colleagues would say. And what
- 11:14- have I done in the past year? Well,
- 11:16- we did one big thing is we signed
- 11:19- an Epic contract,
- 11:20- and we signed an Epic direct contract to
- 11:23- bring
- 11:24- Epic to community health centers in Pennsylvania.
- 11:28- And
- 11:29- that is one big thing that I'm doing,
- 11:31- and we intend to go live this year
- 11:34- in 2026.
- 11:36- So working backwards from that go live date
- 11:38- in November,
- 11:40- we are working towards bringing a full instance
- 11:43- of Epic
- 11:44- to community health centers built for by us
- 11:47- and using our special sauce, our special gift
- 11:50- of being in primary care safety net,
- 11:53- and delivering that to all those that they
- 11:56- wanted in Pennsylvania from a community health space,
- 11:58- which is about 54 individual
- 12:01- organizations,
- 12:02- patient profile about 1,200,000.
- 12:05- So not doing anything. I I don't have
- 12:08- enough time in the day or,
- 12:11- my patients, they just need this. And I
- 12:13- really believe that, bringing Epic to the state
- 12:16- of Pennsylvania in this fashion and this way
- 12:19- will help the ecosystem
- 12:21- globally in Pennsylvania, not just from a community
- 12:24- health space.
- 12:26- That's amazing to hear. And I I know
- 12:27- a huge undertaking to really coordinate all of
- 12:30- that and then, get everything that needs to
- 12:33- be ready,
- 12:34- ready before that go live date. So I
- 12:37- can imagine. I know working, through this even
- 12:39- at a single hospital level or or a
- 12:42- health system, let alone, you know, a sprawling
- 12:45- organization of the health centers in Pennsylvania,
- 12:48- really
- 12:49- takes a lot of effort, to get everybody
- 12:51- in the same page and and figure out
- 12:53- how you're going to do all of this.
- 12:54- And so,
- 12:56- just kudos to you for doing that. And,
- 12:58- from a leadership perspective,
- 13:00- any advice for others who are are trying
- 13:02- to
- 13:03- undertake a a similar thing across multiple sites?
- 13:05- What do you need to do to to
- 13:07- make that, go as efficiently as possible?
- 13:10- No one person can do it alone.
- 13:13- I'd be remissed if I didn't
- 13:15- suggest that, and I mean that truly. Yes.
- 13:18- It it can seems oftentimes that it's the
- 13:20- CIO leading the charge, but the CIO is
- 13:22- only as good as the team behind them.
- 13:25- And when I say team, I'm not just
- 13:26- talking about the the department team. I'm talking
- 13:29- about the organizational team from CEOs to chief
- 13:32- operating officers to chief medical officers, chief informatics
- 13:37- officers. It takes the entire organization to do
- 13:40- something like this and change management and
- 13:43- understanding the vision clearly because if not, you
- 13:46- will fail, and you will fail
- 13:48- at every different level because this
- 13:51- is not an IT project. It is a
- 13:54- organizational
- 13:55- project no matter how big or how small.
- 13:57- So I think that
- 13:58- any advice I would say, and I've gotten
- 14:00- this advice from my colleagues who have done
- 14:02- this prior to us,
- 14:04- is it takes a team. And if the
- 14:06- vision is clear, if your guiding principles are
- 14:09- strong, solid, and foundational,
- 14:12- then refer back to them when times get
- 14:14- tough.
- 14:15- So that is one thing I would say
- 14:17- about that.
- 14:19- I love it. Thank you for, digging a
- 14:21- bit deeper there. Now I know we've touched
- 14:23- on AI, but I wanted to dig deeper
- 14:25- there as well.
- 14:27- What are some of the most important problems
- 14:28- that you're trying to solve with AI or
- 14:30- technology in the moment?
- 14:32- Could you explain a little bit more about
- 14:34- that? Because I know it's so important to
- 14:35- have that,
- 14:37- challenge in mind before going to find the
- 14:39- solution for it.
- 14:41- I think that is a very
- 14:43- intentional question that I'm gonna answer in an
- 14:46- intentional way. And
- 14:48- when I'm looking at artificial intelligence,
- 14:51- I'm not just looking at it from the
- 14:52- sexy term of it. I'm looking at it
- 14:54- from the use case perspective. And I talked
- 14:56- about it in my first answer to the
- 14:59- first question of four different use cases,
- 15:02- which is ambient AI, which is
- 15:05- revenue cycle, which is
- 15:07- call center activation, which is intake management
- 15:11- and document flow.
- 15:13- But, really, if I could, Laura, with some
- 15:15- leeway, I wanna talk about AI as it
- 15:18- relates to interoperability.
- 15:20- And and what I'm suggesting there is
- 15:23- there's this ecosystem of health care that we
- 15:26- have to deal with, and we oftentimes deal
- 15:29- with it in our own lanes, primary care,
- 15:32- hospital,
- 15:33- subspecialty.
- 15:35- And we don't often talk about it as
- 15:38- the collective
- 15:39- and
- 15:40- that patient being the center of it all,
- 15:43- and we share these patients.
- 15:45- And, Laura, back in
- 15:47- a couple of years ago, I I introduced
- 15:50- this concept
- 15:51- brand new, and it was done at Becker's.
- 15:54- And a webinar was this triangle offense and
- 15:57- how we can play
- 15:59- with the triangle offense. And the triangle offense
- 16:01- for those that are not sports
- 16:03- enthusiasts like me, it was an offense that
- 16:07- Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal,
- 16:12- They ran in succession, and they were very
- 16:15- successful with this, and it was created by
- 16:17- Tex Winters.
- 16:19- The concept or the parallelism that I'm trying
- 16:21- to make here is that in that offense,
- 16:25- it didn't matter where every player was on
- 16:27- the floor.
- 16:28- What predicted their movement, however, was where the
- 16:32- basketball was.
- 16:33- And the basketball in my health care context
- 16:35- is the patient.
- 16:37- The patient is the most important thing that
- 16:39- all of us are trying to make a
- 16:41- whole person at the end of the day.
- 16:43- But they're transitioning from these different perspectives,
- 16:46- primary care, subspecialty,
- 16:48- hospital. That's the triangle I see.
- 16:51- And
- 16:52- AI and policy
- 16:54- is going to allow us to
- 16:58- be interoperable
- 16:59- with all of these things with that patient
- 17:01- in the center.
- 17:03- And I'm I'm suggesting that because I think
- 17:06- AI, when you get specifically out of the
- 17:09- use cases for your industry in terms of
- 17:12- health care,
- 17:14- really what I would like to see is
- 17:16- AI
- 17:18- remove the administrative
- 17:19- burden,
- 17:20- remove some of these discrete data elements,
- 17:24- and transition the data where it needs to
- 17:26- be so that it can be at the
- 17:28- point of care for that practitioner
- 17:31- making that particular diagnosis
- 17:33- so that it's not erroneous,
- 17:35- it's not wrong, and it saves us all
- 17:38- money.
- 17:39- And I think in in my vision
- 17:43- of health care, I think it's more interoperability,
- 17:46- more collaboration,
- 17:48- and
- 17:50- more intentionality
- 17:52- or understanding really what's happening with health care
- 17:55- in this country and health care in in
- 17:58- our individual organizations.
- 18:01- That might have been a lot, Laura. You
- 18:02- let me know.
- 18:03- Oh, that was perfect. And, you know, I
- 18:05- I'm all about
- 18:06- the NBA references in there too. I think,
- 18:09- what a a great way to look at
- 18:11- and think about health care with that patient
- 18:12- at the center with the ability to have
- 18:15- everyone working together in in that flow of,
- 18:19- accomplishing the goal of what they need to
- 18:21- do. So, I think that makes a lot
- 18:22- of sense and and really being connected with
- 18:24- the technology and interoperability as you were mentioning,
- 18:28- puts health care organizations in a position to
- 18:30- actually do this in a a beautiful way
- 18:32- versus,
- 18:33- just thinking about it or or trying to
- 18:35- make it happen. So I really appreciate that.
- 18:38- Before we wrap up here, I wanted to
- 18:40- take just another couple of minutes to talk
- 18:42- about the future. What are you most curious
- 18:44- about, and and what else do you see
- 18:45- when you're looking into your crystal ball?
- 18:48- When I look into the crystal ball
- 18:51- and I try to predict
- 18:53- maybe what could be happening or what could
- 18:56- be going on
- 18:58- specifically in health care,
- 19:00- I think what we
- 19:02- ultimately are doing, and this is gonna come
- 19:04- like a funny, is we're getting rid of
- 19:07- the fax machines.
- 19:10- And
- 19:11- we are rapidly
- 19:13- adopting
- 19:15- a mindset that
- 19:19- we are bigger
- 19:20- as a collective.
- 19:22- Together, we achieve. Apart from that, we selfishly
- 19:25- proceed. That's my my that's my my saying
- 19:28- to myself.
- 19:29- Together, we achieve apart from that. We selfishly
- 19:32- proceed. So I'm curious
- 19:35- to see with all of these things we're
- 19:37- doing from Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, all the
- 19:39- way down to a little old primary care
- 19:43- organization called Delaware Valley Community Health. I'm really
- 19:46- curious
- 19:47- how we are going to
- 19:49- impact health care at a large scale from
- 19:51- preventative medicine all the way to the advanced
- 19:55- diagnostics
- 19:56- and using
- 19:57- these brilliant CIOs and their mind and all
- 20:01- of these organizational
- 20:02- strategies to collectively
- 20:05- deliver on what health care should be, bringing
- 20:08- whole person care to everyone that wants it.
- 20:11- I love that. Isaiah, thank you so much
- 20:13- for joining us on the podcast today. This
- 20:15- has been such a fun conversation and really
- 20:17- inspiring to think about what technology and health
- 20:20- care is gonna look like in the coming
- 20:22- years. So thank you so much for your
- 20:23- time, and I look forward to connecting with
- 20:24- you again soon.
- 20:26- Look forward to it. See you soon.