Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Exploring Healthcare's Data and AI Landscape with Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of MediQuant

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Exploring Healthcare's Data and AI Landscape with Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of MediQuant · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  - This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined
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  by your brilliant chief executive officer and leader.
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  We're joined today by Jim Jacobs, the president
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  and the CEO of Quant.
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  Uh, he's gonna talk today about data management,
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  about artificial intelligence
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  and more Jim's the kind of leader who's been in the space
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  of sort of decision making, clinical decision making
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  and support, uh,
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  before it was something
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  that was talked about every single day.
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  He's got himself a master's in decision support.
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  Uh, he's been the leader of a few companies.
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  He's been now with qu leading quant for,
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  I think six, seven years now.
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  And just a terrific person to visit with.
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  Jim, thank you for being here.
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  Can you take a moment to tell us a little bit
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  about yourself and about Met?
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  - Sure, I'd be happy to, and thank you so much
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  for the opportunity to speak with you
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  and, uh, your audience.
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  Um, yeah, I've been in healthcare for a long time, uh,
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  currently president, CEO at quant.
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  I'm very fortunate to be a part of an amazing team
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  that's been pioneering active data archiving
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  and data management since 1999.
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  Very much look forward to the discussion,
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  and we are absolutely in an interesting time right now.
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  Uh, things are actually getting more interesting, uh,
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  the further we go, so I look
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  forward to having this discussion.
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  - Jim, thank you so much.
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  Uh, you know, we, we all know
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  that healthcare leaders are facing an overwhelming spike in
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  technology offerings.
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  So many d different offerings out there, sort
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  of amid this rapid innovation amidst so many offerings,
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  being, being sort of forward it or put in front of leaders.
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  What's important for leaders
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  to keep in mind and, and, and why?
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  Why is it important?
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  - Yeah. There's a couple of real important things
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  to keep in mind, which is, uh, are the new systems
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  that you're looking at replacing, uh, old systems?
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  Are there overlaps?
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  Do other systems need to be rationalized?
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  And are there systems that can actually be archived
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  to help free up dollars with the margin pressures that are
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  so extreme, it's often the case
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  that we can actually help free up the dollars.
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  And so really those two aspects.
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  Plus looking at security, are there systems that you have
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  that are older, that don't have good security?
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  As you're facing new choices,
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  making sure you're filling in the gaps
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  and creating a complete plan is one
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  of the recommendations we make.
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  - Thank you. And when you look at sort
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  of digital transformation to population health initiatives,
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  health organizations are relying on data
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  to make sustainable improvements as it comes
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  to data management and legacy data.
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  Everybody's dealing with so much legacy data.
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  Wh what key challenges are organizations facing
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  and what steps can they take to navigate those challenges of
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  how to deal with legacy data?
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  This comes up seemingly every day.
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  How, how can organizations deal with
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  and what steps they take to navigate that?
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  - Yeah, that's a great question
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  and it's an involved, uh, set of discussions,
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  but it, at the, at its most basic level, it's,
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  it's assessing the data you have, making sure
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  that you've got a good data governance program in place,
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  that the right stakeholders are at the table,
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  having discussions about the usefulness of data.
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  We're a big believer in leaving data in discreet form,
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  get it out of the systems, the older systems,
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  and put it all together so that it can be accessible from,
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  from new capabilities and new technologies.
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  And we'd also recommend people take a step
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  back and take a broader view.
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  There are, there are immediate short term cost discussions
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  that people have, but, uh, we found
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  that if you really take a step back
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  and look at total cost, uh, of what the data means,
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  what the value of the data is, what are, what are the risks
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  that you're really facing, it's a much better discussion
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  to think about, uh, overall cost of the organization instead
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  of just point expenses that you have, uh,
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  on any given day today.
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  - A hundred percent. And we hear that so often
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  as systems try
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  and hit this right balance between point solutions and,
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  and larger, broader solutions.
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  Talk about a data from perspective of
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  artificial intelligence.
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  Everybody sees artificial intelligence
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  becoming increasingly integrated into healthcare
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  in a lot of different ways.
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  How do you make sure that your data infrastructure
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  ultimately works in tandem with AI tools
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  and continuous advancements here?
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  How do you make that work
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  and maybe what do you see the next five,
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  10 years in data management, you know,
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  that you do this consistent
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  with the way that'll allow AI to work with you?
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  Well, any thoughts there for systems?
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  - Yeah, we think the data's foundational, uh,
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  getting the data organized, having it, uh, uh, in a way
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  that it's easily accessed
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  because it needs to be in discreet format
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  and organized around patients
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  or around whatever the entities are that you're going
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  to maybe use the data.
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  Uh, we've even recently seen people using long-term patient
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  accounting data for payer scorecards and denial management.
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  So making sure there's good hygiene around the data, uh,
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  is such a key, uh, that we see that, that, um, uh,
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  drives good AI projects.
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  Uh, we also recommend people stay away from sort of
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  what we call the easy button of just dumping
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  data into a PDF.
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  Uh, it makes it much more difficult to do things
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  with the data, uh,
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  and keeping it in a, in available form is critical as far as
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  what the next to five to 10 years.
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  Um, that just makes me smile broadly. I don't actually know.
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  I think that some of the biggest opportunities
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  around disease management answering questions like,
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  what are the early indicators of Alzheimer's?
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  Uh, when do we understand, uh, when,
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  when patients are actually starting to have issues years
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  before, uh, the significant events start to onset.
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  So we believe that the technologies
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  that are coming about are phenomenal.
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  They're amazing. The sky's the limit in terms
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  of the problems they can help solve.
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  And from a data management,
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  the hospitals just need to get ready.
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  They need to get prepared, they need
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  to make sure they have a good program for valuing the data,
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  making sure that data's gonna be available
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  and spend the money now
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  to make sure you're prepared for the future.
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  - And lemme ask you a another question.
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  I'm gonna drive into two different questions.
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  I I I'll ask you to wrap up.
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  What else should the listeners be thinking about leaders be
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  thinking about before we get there?
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  Jim, I'd love to ask you,
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  what are you most excited about this year?
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  What are you most focused on and excited about this year?
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  - That there are new use cases for data
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  that are already coming to light,
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  and they are sort of proving out the fact
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  that we're at the tip of the iceberg.
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  We're at the very beginning of
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  what I would call an AI adoption curve, if you will.
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  I missed, I mentioned the patient accounting, uh, one
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  that's brand new in the past, say, 12 months.
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  So I'm excited about the fact that the marriage of ai,
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  generative AI and, and data, uh, more
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  and more hospitals are valuing the data.
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  Um, they view the data more and more as an asset.
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  And the more that happens,
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  we think the richer the data sets will be,
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  the richer the analysis will be,
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  the richer the insights will be.
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  And AI has become a catalyst to really drive that forward.
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  I think Salesforce has a phenomenal commercial outright now,
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  and they say, if AI is the new Wild West, doesn't
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  that make data the new gold?
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  Uh, we've believed that for a very long time
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  and think it the, um,
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  what's happening now is proving that out.
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  - But, but it's interesting what you say
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  because if you just dump it into a PDF, it makes it very,
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  very hard for the ai, different sort of algorithms
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  that are coming, the different ways of driving that
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  to use that data.
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  So I think that point is so well taken.
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  Anything else our wizards should be thinking about? Jim?
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  - I think that, um, when you think about data, one
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  of the main drivers has always been around compliance.
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  And that's a, that's a very good driver.
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  If hospitals more
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  and more adopt the point of view that data is, is an asset
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  that it's valuable, then I think people are gonna want
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  to keep it around longer.
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  Because to your question about what's gonna happen in five
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  years, no one really knows.
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  So if you've gotten rid of a lot of data,
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  if you've deleted a lot of data under the guise
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  of a compliance regulation,
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  we believe there's huge opportunities that are being missed.
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  And that an eye to the future is critical
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  because it's a very exciting future that's in front of us.
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  - Jim, I wanna thank you for joining us.
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  You're one of the most principled
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  and centered leaders I get to visit with.
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  I can't tell you much. I appreciate your time in the
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  working with qu.
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  Uh, for those that are e listening in, uh,
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  quant will also be at the Becker's Healthcare annual
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  meeting, which is April 8th to 11th in Chicago.
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  They have a booth 4 27.
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  Would love to have you come by and say hello to Quant.
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  But, uh, Jim, what a pleasure to visit with you
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  and what an amazing career.
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  Thank you so much for joining us today
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  on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  - Well, thank you so much for your time.
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  I appreciate and have a wonderful day.