Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Dr. Afroz Hafeez, Manager of Telemedicine at Rush University Medical Center

Transcript

Dr. Afroz Hafeez, Manager of Telemedicine at Rush University Medical Center · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips is a health tech leader focused on
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  innovation that improves the health and well-being of
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  people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
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  help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
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  patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
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  the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
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  with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
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  Podcast, and we are live at the 9th
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  Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM conference.
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  I am currently joined by Afroz Hafeez, who
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  is a manager of telemedicine at Rush University
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  Medical Center. So thank you for taking the
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  time to be here, and would love to
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  have you just introduce yourself a little bit
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  further as we get started.
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  Thank you so much. Pleasure speaking on Beth
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  Becker's podcast, and appreciate being here at the
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  conference. It's been a phenomenal opportunity.
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  My name is doctor Efrzafiz. I'm a leading
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  telemedicine at Rush University Medical Center. It's been
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  a transformative year working with the well rounded
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  team to launch multiple services within virtual care,
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  and it's a phenomenal opportunity to look at
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  how care could be directed towards community, especially
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  coming in from on the west side where
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  we have significant health disparities as well. So
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  outcomes is of our, utmost importance for our
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  patients and that quality of service.
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  Wonderful. Well, to get our conversation started here,
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  I'd love to begin with AI. Adoption of
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  this is obviously exploding in health care, and
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  it's huge in the telemedicine space.
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  So in your view, what is the most
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  significant or promising application of this technology right
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  now, and how is that informing your organization's
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  innovation strategy?
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  I think beginning with our strategy,
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  our committee that's working on developing out innovative
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  integration, AI tools, We look at what are
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  the the gaps of care at the current
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  moment and what we could do
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  to have that care seamless for our patients
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  and to improve that patient experience
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  and have that provider usage much more focused
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  on quality of that care. Beginning with, you
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  know, from an AI angle, we are, looking
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  at integrating a chatbot,
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  essentially a as a clinical symptom check checker
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  to give that point of direction for patients,
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  whether it be virtual care or in person
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  setting, as well as what type of virtual
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  services based on those symptoms appropriately. As of
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  right now, we have virtual urgent care, virtual
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  specialty care, and virtual primary care launched. And,
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  we're scaling across the board amongst the specialties.
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  And we hope to land the patient appropriately
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  as we kind of integrate that chatbot.
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  And shifting just slightly into the data side
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  of things, currently, health care leaders are managing
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  greater volumes of data and more devices on
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  a growing number of care settings,
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  and this has become a very complex environment.
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  So what clinical data integration tools or practices
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  are you seeing drive improvements in patient outcomes?
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  Well, yeah, being observant using data analytical tools
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  ranging from Maestro to Visian, I think we
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  identify what those utilization numbers are, where where
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  our disparities of cares might be, and where
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  we can essentially have that PI in our
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  operational effectiveness as well. It gives us an
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  opportunity to leverage what types of tools we
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  could substitute and where we could need to
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  identify a little bit more of an alignment
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  on that virtual care setting as opposed to
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  pushing out access at times. Allowing for our
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  virtual services help close some of those gaps,
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  especially
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  with virtual care turnaround time
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  of same day with our patients for virtual
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  urgent care and virtual primary care with an
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  average of 3 weeks at this present time.
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  Specialty is also,
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  reasonably immediate.
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  So that's one way of where how we're
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  closing and using our data,
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  led being evidence based to close those gaps
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  appropriately.
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  And as we talk about increased volumes of
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  data,
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  AI integrations, all of those things, the burden
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  on our IT staff does grow.
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  And so how can health care organizations better
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  support both our IT and our clinical teams
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  as we're carrying out this innovation?
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  And have you seen any common pitfalls in
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  this area? Well, at Rush, we've taken a
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  well rounded scope between involving the appropriate stakeholders,
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  the clinical leaders, administrators, as well as our
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  IT resources, and recognizing what that prioritization looks
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  like in an evolving landscape.
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  There's ample opportunity for ideas ranging from Ambient
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  to AI and other tools. We could integrate,
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  you know, that's how, we've able to come
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  to recognize the importance of ritual care and
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  how we prioritize that as a transformative mission.
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  And, you know, successfully, we've been launching
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  and trying to close those gaps accordingly. So
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  I think how that prioritization
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  and that hands all hands on deck approach
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  is very important in this time.
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  Absolutely. And as we wrap up our conversation
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  here, I'd love to know your top piece
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  of advice for health care leaders as they
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  prepare for further advancements in technology and greater
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  demands for care.
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  I believe being evidence based and looking at
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  some of the pioneers in the industry, you
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  know, we've involved having grand rounds with some
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  stakeholders
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  across the country,
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  such as Stanford and others, to see what
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  how they've taken that transformative experience and it
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  really impacted care in their region. We're looking
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  at virtual care integration into ED as an
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  example,
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  where they've seen 70%, reduction in wait time,
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  and we have a crisis on our end
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  as as as we go across the country.
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  So that's certainly an opportunity of significance where
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  we could integrate virtual care. We were looking
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  at telemedicine
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  kiosks as maybe outpatient posts of of sorts
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  to land those patients and see if we
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  could potentially close gaps and ease the burden
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  off of the our ED as well. So
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  I think partnerships and being evidence based is,
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  certainly
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  a great direction for all health care organizations
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  to go in.
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  Well, doctor Hafeez, thanks so much for taking
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  the time to join me today on the
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  Becker's Health Care podcast. Again, we are live
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  at the 9th annual Health IT Digital Health
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  and RCM conference. Thank you.