Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / K. Nadeem Ahmed, MD, FACHDM, Chief Medical Information Officer at The Valley Health System

Transcript

K. Nadeem Ahmed, MD, FACHDM, Chief Medical Information Officer at The Valley Health System · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  The most important health care decisions don't happen
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  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right.
• 0:46
  This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:48
  podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
• 0:50
  doctor Nadeem Ahmed, who's the chief medical information
• 0:53
  officer at the Valley Health System. Doctor Ahmed,
• 0:56
  it's a pleasure to have you on the
• 0:57
  podcast today.
• 0:58
  Thank you so much, Laura. Very nice to
• 0:59
  meet you, and I appreciate this talk.
• 1:02
  Absolutely. Well, I'm looking forward to our discussion.
• 1:05
  I think it's such a unique time in
• 1:06
  health care right now and, you know, truly
• 1:08
  a a great place to be continuing to
• 1:10
  innovate, lots of opportunities. I know there's lots
• 1:13
  of challenges as well, but, you know, with
• 1:15
  every challenge, there there's also opportunities to get
• 1:18
  better. So,
• 1:19
  you know, looking forward to getting your perspective
• 1:21
  on everything you're doing at the Valley Health
• 1:23
  System and how you're thinking about the future.
• 1:25
  But before we dive in, can you introduce
• 1:27
  yourself and just tell us a little bit
• 1:28
  more about the health system?
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  Yeah. Sure. So I'm the, chief medical information
• 1:32
  officer for the system. We are a, single
• 1:35
  entity hospital based in Paramus, New Jersey,
• 1:39
  approximately 400 beds. We just opened a, this
• 1:42
  hospital, brand new facility that is the hospital's
• 1:44
  been around for for many decades in the
• 1:46
  community. But this brand new building back in
• 1:49
  April 2024 was opened, a billion dollar facility,
• 1:52
  lots of technology
• 1:54
  put into this facility.
• 1:56
  And there was so much technology that some
• 1:58
  elements of it actually had to be turned
• 2:00
  off because our clinical folks, nurses, physicians, and
• 2:03
  others were a bit overwhelmed with with the
• 2:05
  actual physical move from one building to the
• 2:07
  next. But,
• 2:09
  that was something that really excited me when
• 2:11
  I joined the Valley Health System. And I
• 2:13
  joined in April 2024. So I actually joined
• 2:16
  right after they opened the new building. So
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  I've had an opportunity
• 2:20
  to really get involved with how do we
• 2:22
  use
• 2:23
  the technology that we have and it's not
• 2:24
  just hardware. Of course, there's a lot of
• 2:26
  software elements and,
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  my background is I'm a hospitalist physician by
• 2:31
  trade, but I've I've had my own private
• 2:33
  practice that I ran for many years. I've
• 2:35
  also been a consultant in the past helping
• 2:38
  other hospitals in The United States and Canada,
• 2:41
  with EHR implementation. So I've been able to
• 2:43
  see other organizations and how they effectively
• 2:47
  implement their electronic health records and all the
• 2:49
  ancillary
• 2:50
  applications that go with. And then, my most
• 2:53
  recent role prior to joining the Valley Health
• 2:55
  System was with the Aga Khan University, which
• 2:57
  is an international organization.
• 2:59
  They have about 20 plus hospitals in six
• 3:01
  different countries, and I was their global CMIO.
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  So I started their informatics programs in two
• 3:06
  different countries.
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  And we went live with a unified electronic
• 3:10
  health record in Nairobi, Kenya, the first of
• 3:12
  its kind in East Africa.
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  But
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  the amount of travel and time I was
• 3:17
  spending away from family here in The US
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  was, significant. So after about four years with
• 3:21
  them, I joined the Valley Health System. And
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  we've been doing some exciting things at at
• 3:25
  Valley since I joined, and I'd like to
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  share that.
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  Well, fantastic. And, you know, what a great
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  experience being able to,
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  be part of healthcare organizations
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  and building,
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  some very, very needed hospitals and facilities,
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  abroad. And then great to have you back
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  in The US too Yeah. Doing some amazing
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  things. So let's get into it. Can you
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  talk a little bit about your experience over
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  the last year or two? What are some
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  of the most important initiatives that you led,
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  and what were the results?
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  Well, probably the most important one that I
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  led,
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  through the year last year was
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  revising or I should say renovating our clinical
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  technology governance.
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  One of the things I've learned over the
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  years,
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  and having seen many different hospital systems
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  in my career
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  is that you can have the best technology,
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  but if it's not deployed in an effective
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  manner that's useful to the end users,
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  that technology,
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  you could use the word fail, but you
• 4:22
  can also say it's just not optimized as
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  it probably could be. So a lot of,
• 4:26
  missed opportunities with good technology in it. And
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  you can blame the technology and sometimes that
• 4:31
  blame is well deserved, but also you can
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  blame the process
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  for not incorporating
• 4:36
  end user good end user feedback and understanding
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  what the actual workflows are. So,
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  and a lot of times you can ask,
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  well, why did that happen? And it's because
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  you don't have effective
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  governance. And so my biggest, goal after I
• 4:49
  joined the Valley Health System was let me
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  take a look at the governance structure. And
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  it turned out we had a lot of
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  silos.
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  Probably no surprise to anyone who's hearing this.
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  Any organization
• 4:58
  definitely does have silos for various reasons. And
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  I wanted
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  to kind of break down those silos as
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  much as possible.
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  So we have formed,
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  one committee called an Oversight Council and another
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  one that, not two other committees actually that
• 5:13
  were previously just a provider or physician
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  advisory committee types, and we wanted to have
• 5:19
  them more Inclusive and more multidisciplinary.
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  So we included nurse nursing leadership in both
• 5:25
  of those committees and we also included
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  administrative staff so that when we make decisions
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  about how data is being
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  presented. And when I say data, clinical data,
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  patient data, and how providers
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  and nurses
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  are taking care of their patients with that
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  data in mind,
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  those decisions are being made in a much
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  more
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  cohesive and comprehensive fashion.
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  And it's been very successful. We've made quite
• 5:50
  a few different decisions that are impactful for
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  the entire organizations, and it was done in
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  a much more collaborative fashion,
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  rather than, you know, going from one committee
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  to the next and a lot of back
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  and forth in between committees.
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  We were able to be more, I think
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  efficient in our decision making. So that was
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  a big initiative over the past year.
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  And in addition to that,
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  governance concept as you can as you probably
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  know and everybody knows, artificial intelligence is a
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  big question, you know, like how do we
• 6:19
  adopt artificial intelligence enabled technology
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  in a safe
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  and Protect you when I say safe you're
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  protecting patient health information. How do we keep
• 6:29
  that protected? How do we make sure that
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  it's clinically?
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  You know, it has clinical efficacy
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  and
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  at the end of the day, it's not
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  taking away
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  the decision making authority of our providers. So
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  we had to form a we formed a
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  AI task force to help vet vendors that
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  are using AI enabled technology.
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  And we look for AI specific
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  risks such as you know hallucinations
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  bias drift all the things that are fairly
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  unique to ai that doesn't exist or didn't
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  exist with other Previous technologies software technologies
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  that didn't have ai so we needed some
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  kind of vetting mechanism And so we formed
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  this task force we through this governance that
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  we established approved an ai policy so that
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  was the first of its kind last year
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  for our organization
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  and
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  and had the opportunity to present some of
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  this at the new jersey hospital association
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  and other forums where
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  many other health care organizations certainly in our
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  demographic region were quite impressed. And it turns
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  out, and I didn't know this, that we
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  are a little ahead of the curve when
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  it comes to some of our clinical IT
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  governance. So I'm very proud of that. And,
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  yeah, that was our big accomplishment in 2025.
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  Oh, that's amazing to hear. And, you know,
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  I I think it's so critical as you
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  mentioned to have,
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  that type of visibility across the organization, have
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  the understanding of, you know, what the guardrails
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  are, be building that governance, and then having
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  it flow through and to see some of
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  these results are are really impressive.
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  And I'm curious as you were, you know,
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  looking at,
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  connecting with leaders and building these governance processes,
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  especially with AI, how do you make sure
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  you walk that right line of balancing being
• 8:09
  innovative and moving quickly with also understanding
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  what you need in order to be safe
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  and and continue to, you know, keep that
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  culture of of,
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  you know, idea sharing in in in safety
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  in mind?
• 8:23
  Yeah. That's a that's a really good question.
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  So there's always risk with any new thing
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  you're going to try. And,
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  gosh, being a physician myself, you know, it's
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  like the conversation I have with with patients,
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  which is, look,
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  There's a procedure or a medication that you
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  need to be started on and there's a
• 8:39
  reason why we're even discussing it because there's
• 8:41
  a benefit a potential benefit to you by
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  doing this But there's a risk also there
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  there's our potential adverse effects of this medication
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  or treatment that you need to be aware
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  of so similarly for an organization
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  To try a new technology or try a
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  new process the same rules kind of apply.
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  You need to know. Why are we doing
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  this? What's the benefit? Is there a risk?
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  Absolutely. So in the in the realm of
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  ai, there's a lot of data that needs
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  to be accessible to that
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  AI technology so that it can take a
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  look and it can learn from that data
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  and then provide the analysis that you're looking
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  for. But then if that's the case, especially
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  with a lot of these vendors,
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  they subcontract
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  their AI,
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  models,
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  from other larger organizations. And the question is,
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  wait. What do you do with the data
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  that we have? Are you,
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  sharing our patient data? Are you not sharing
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  that, data with other organizations? Because that's a
• 9:34
  risk. And certainly, we wanna make sure that
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  the risk, is mitigated,
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  down to zero if possible. If not, we
• 9:42
  closely observe with a human in the loop
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  mechanism to make sure that the risk is
• 9:46
  mitigated, as much as possible.
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  So
• 9:49
  absolutely, it's a it's an ongoing challenge
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  and having a effective
• 9:54
  governance that can quickly make decisions. And one
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  of the things that we've been able to
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  do by having a more robust and collaborative,
• 10:02
  clinical IT governance
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  is our decision making is a bit faster
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  than it was in in the past. So
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  in the past, yes, it had to go
• 10:08
  from one committee to the next, and everybody
• 10:10
  has these concerns, and they send it back
• 10:12
  to the other group.
• 10:13
  And so you would have delays. And to
• 10:15
  your point,
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  would that slow down progress? And, absolutely, yes.
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  So with our revised governance,
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  we wanna make sure that the risk is,
• 10:24
  understood. It's mitigated, but at the same time,
• 10:26
  we're not slowing down progress. And the Valley
• 10:29
  Health System is a very technology
• 10:31
  progressive organization. I mean, we have AI embedded
• 10:34
  in many of our areas. Even before I
• 10:36
  came on board, it was just something that
• 10:38
  is a cult it's part of our organization's
• 10:40
  culture is let's not hold back on opportunities
• 10:44
  so that our patients can get better care
• 10:47
  vis a vis our clinicians having better tools
• 10:50
  to help them provide that care. And so,
• 10:54
  yes, that actually to to your point, are
• 10:57
  we gonna slow down with trying to understand
• 11:00
  the risks
• 11:01
  and and how to mitigate them? And the
• 11:02
  answer is yes. There's that's always there. But
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  with good
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  governance,
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  you can get through that very quickly. And
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  that was my goal last year.
• 11:13
  That's helpful to understand. Thank you so much
• 11:15
  for,
• 11:16
  going through that and digging a bit deeper
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  there. Now I'm curious looking ahead to 2026,
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  what are some of the big priorities and
• 11:23
  headwinds you're most focused on?
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  So you're gonna find this kind of counterintuitive
• 11:27
  with everything I just said. My goal is
• 11:29
  to have less technology.
• 11:32
  I think the reality is there's just too
• 11:34
  much tech out there and it is overwhelming
• 11:36
  for any organization
• 11:38
  because we get presented,
• 11:40
  and I'm sure every organization has this experience.
• 11:43
  Their CMIOs and CIOs and other folks in
• 11:46
  in such positions
• 11:47
  constantly
• 11:48
  being presented by different vendors offering products that
• 11:51
  can solve whatever problem they may or may
• 11:54
  not have, but there's a lot out there.
• 11:56
  And I think the biggest challenge we have
• 11:58
  had is because we're in a densely populated
• 12:02
  area.
• 12:03
  We are certainly attract a lot of vendors
• 12:05
  who wanna do business with us. And sometimes
• 12:07
  it's challenging to say which one to go
• 12:10
  with, which one to say no to.
• 12:12
  And we've experienced in the past that we've
• 12:14
  said yes to maybe two or three vendors
• 12:15
  doing the same thing
• 12:17
  and then we've had, opportunities where we should
• 12:19
  have said yes, but we said no to
• 12:21
  a vendor that maybe we should have had.
• 12:22
  So again, kind of going back to the
• 12:24
  governance piece of it, but,
• 12:26
  what I've determined,
• 12:27
  and not just me but the entire,
• 12:29
  team,
• 12:30
  at the valley health system is we have
• 12:32
  a lot of technology and I think I
• 12:34
  highlighted
• 12:35
  earlier that our hospital when it opened there
• 12:37
  was so much technology We actually had turned
• 12:39
  some of it off
• 12:40
  But remember in order to have that technology,
• 12:42
  we must have paid for it. We started,
• 12:44
  you know, there must have been some cost,
• 12:46
  not just, external providing to the vendor, but
• 12:49
  also maybe internal development, internal costs, staffing costs.
• 12:53
  And then we didn't then we didn't use
• 12:54
  it. So there's a there's a lot of,
• 12:57
  technology that we have in health care, not
• 12:59
  just at Valley Health System, but in health
• 13:00
  care in general
• 13:01
  that is not optimized for various reasons. And
• 13:04
  one of the most common reasons is, well,
• 13:06
  you know, we have this software application and
• 13:08
  it does 60%,
• 13:10
  70%, 80% of what we want, but the
• 13:12
  other 20% we don't like. So we're gonna
• 13:15
  deactivate it or turn it off. And I
• 13:17
  have to ask the question, well, we do
• 13:19
  really did we really look at the big
• 13:21
  picture when we decided to turn those features
• 13:23
  off?
• 13:24
  And you just multiply that by the number
• 13:26
  of application systems we have. And for us,
• 13:29
  the number is, you know, close to 300
• 13:31
  applications.
• 13:32
  And we're probably
• 13:33
  in the middle when it comes to a
• 13:35
  lot of organizations our size. I'm sure larger
• 13:38
  organizations have much more, but there's a lot
• 13:40
  of applications out there and all of them,
• 13:43
  I would say, are not being used to
• 13:45
  their fullest
• 13:47
  capability.
• 13:48
  And so for me, when I say less
• 13:50
  technology,
• 13:50
  I would like to consolidate the number of
• 13:52
  applications we have. I would like to
• 13:55
  make things more streamlined.
• 13:57
  And so for this year, the biggest decision
• 13:59
  for our organization right now is to have
• 14:02
  a unified electronic health record. So at the
• 14:05
  Valley Health System, we have two big EHR
• 14:07
  systems.
• 14:09
  We have, I would say,
• 14:11
  maybe no less than five,
• 14:13
  give or take a couple other
• 14:16
  applications that could or at least they tout
• 14:18
  they could be EHRs if they wanted to,
• 14:21
  but we use pieces of them. And I
• 14:23
  look at that and I say, wow, look
• 14:24
  at all this all of this software and
• 14:27
  we're using pieces of each of it. Can't
• 14:28
  we just use one? Because as you can
• 14:31
  imagine, when you have multiple applications,
• 14:33
  it's like Apple and Android, you know,
• 14:36
  devices. Right?
• 14:37
  They don't talk to each other very well.
• 14:39
  So as a clinical person, you get stuck
• 14:42
  in the middle with trying to take care
• 14:44
  of one patient. But in order to do
• 14:46
  so, you gotta log into
• 14:48
  a dozen different applications to do maybe one
• 14:50
  thing, which is care for that patient. And
• 14:52
  that's to me, contributes to our clinician burnout
• 14:55
  issues.
• 14:56
  And in order to help with clinician burnout,
• 14:58
  I think having less is more.
• 15:01
  And ultimately, that is my goal for this
• 15:03
  year. And for the organization, we we are,
• 15:06
  making a big decision to go with one
• 15:08
  electronic health record for the entire organization, inpatient,
• 15:11
  outpatient, home health services.
• 15:13
  So that's a big, organizational decision that's gonna
• 15:16
  be made actually within the next couple of
• 15:18
  weeks. So that's exciting.
• 15:22
  That's amazing to hear. And I know that's
• 15:23
  a huge undertaking having that, single
• 15:26
  EHR and bringing it into,
• 15:28
  the organization and figuring out how to optimize
• 15:30
  it and and truly having it be a
• 15:32
  tool that supports everything that goes on from
• 15:34
  the clinical,
• 15:36
  to the administrative,
• 15:37
  operations of the organization. So, that's exciting to
• 15:41
  hear and certainly a lot of possibilities and
• 15:43
  opportunities. And, you know, I completely understand your
• 15:45
  point too when you talk about having less
• 15:47
  technology,
• 15:48
  because there it seems like Yeah. A lot
• 15:51
  of opportunities out there, you know, and and
• 15:53
  a lot happening in the technology space. But
• 15:55
  at the end of the day, I know
• 15:56
  health care is such a human focused and
• 15:58
  oriented business,
• 15:59
  and it really should be in order to
• 16:01
  deliver the right kind of care.
• 16:03
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:05
  Well, perfect. I think, you know, when you
• 16:07
  think about the next year as well, what
• 16:08
  do you think is the hardest thing you'll
• 16:10
  have to do will be?
• 16:12
  Well, you know, I think,
• 16:14
  that that is the hardest thing. Which technology
• 16:16
  should we stick stick with and what technology
• 16:18
  should we turn off and how do we
• 16:20
  make that decision? So I think that's gonna
• 16:22
  be,
• 16:23
  part part and parcel of what we're trying
• 16:25
  to accomplish. If we're trying to simplify,
• 16:29
  our our
• 16:31
  when I say simplify, simplify the the amount
• 16:33
  of coordination and collaboration that has to happen
• 16:36
  just to make one thing work.
• 16:38
  At the same time, it might complicate
• 16:40
  the
• 16:41
  the items that we are using. So we
• 16:44
  might need to be a little bit dive
• 16:45
  in deeper. For example, when we talk about
• 16:47
  a unified electronic health record,
• 16:49
  a lot of burden comes with that. We
• 16:51
  need to make sure that that one system
• 16:53
  is doing what the other two systems could
• 16:55
  not. Of course, a no brainer would be,
• 16:58
  well, the nice thing is all the data
• 16:59
  is in one place or at least accessible
• 17:01
  in one area. So that's gonna be a
• 17:02
  huge win for our clinicians. But furthermore,
• 17:05
  there were some potentially
• 17:08
  features of a previous EHR that the new
• 17:11
  one does not have. How do we determine,
• 17:13
  Whether to use the one that the new
• 17:16
  EHR has even though it may not be
• 17:17
  as good or maybe doesn't have it at
• 17:18
  all So now we're we are having to
• 17:20
  sign in with a third party application. So
• 17:23
  certainly in the clinical IT space. These are
• 17:24
  the
• 17:26
  compromises we much, sometimes we have to make
• 17:28
  as we're moving forward. And I think that's
• 17:30
  gonna be difficult.
• 17:32
  You know, there's a saying that sometimes,
• 17:34
  you know, the minority has to sacrifice for
• 17:36
  the greater good, which means a small group
• 17:39
  of either it's a providers or a small
• 17:41
  group of nurses or pharmacy folks or any
• 17:43
  other clinical folks, you know, and it could
• 17:44
  be non clinical as well, might have to
• 17:46
  give something up that they really liked
• 17:48
  in a previous application because we're gonna turn
• 17:50
  that application off because the other 80% of
• 17:52
  it isn't being used or,
• 17:55
  the new EHR system is better and it
• 17:57
  does 80% of what you want. It just
• 17:59
  doesn't have that small thing that you liked,
• 18:00
  so you might have to just give that
• 18:02
  up and for the greater good. So those
• 18:04
  are the the decisions that are difficult.
• 18:06
  And as you can imagine all of this
• 18:09
  is under the umbrella of change management.
• 18:11
  So anytime you're changing,
• 18:13
  what someone has to do for a living
• 18:15
  there you will be defensive. Their initial reaction
• 18:18
  is why?
• 18:19
  Why do I need to change? I'm I'm
• 18:21
  content and I'm able to do my job
• 18:23
  the way I have it. Certainly, if there
• 18:25
  are challenges that they're having, they'll make it
• 18:28
  known. They'll complain to you as, certainly as
• 18:30
  a physician. We're really good about that. But
• 18:33
  even other folks that are in the healthcare
• 18:35
  space are very frustrated and I want to
• 18:38
  make sure that at least the first thing
• 18:40
  we do is eliminate
• 18:41
  Their frustrations that they voiced
• 18:43
  but similarly
• 18:44
  hope to accomplish
• 18:46
  our our larger goals,
• 18:48
  in a very collaborative fashion. And that collaboration,
• 18:51
  as I said, does involve a little bit
• 18:53
  of give and take from,
• 18:55
  the various areas of the organization. So that's
• 18:57
  gonna be a challenge and I and I'm
• 18:59
  looking forward to that challenge. I think all
• 19:00
  of us are accepting the fact that, in
• 19:02
  order to have a unified
• 19:04
  health record,
• 19:05
  there's gonna be some compromises because we had
• 19:08
  some small
• 19:09
  features or functionalities in the previous system that
• 19:12
  has been systems, I should say, that have
• 19:14
  been,
• 19:16
  built over the last
• 19:18
  teen years.
• 19:19
  Right? And so,
• 19:20
  giving that away,
• 19:22
  is not gonna be easy, but that's change
• 19:23
  management again for the greater good. So so,
• 19:26
  yeah, that's that's that's the hardest thing I
• 19:28
  think is change management.
• 19:31
  And absolutely a 100%. There's there's a lot
• 19:34
  that goes into that both from the tools,
• 19:36
  technology, infrastructure side, but then from the people
• 19:38
  side as well. It's, you know, not easy
• 19:40
  to,
• 19:41
  to actually
• 19:43
  make those change habits or or or do
• 19:44
  things a little bit differently, especially,
• 19:47
  you know, when you have built a career
• 19:49
  on on,
• 19:50
  thinking about it one way and then trying
• 19:52
  to be innovative in a new way. I
• 19:54
  I can imagine it takes some time, but,
• 19:56
  ultimately, it has has big results.
• 19:59
  Yes. Yes. Yes.
• 20:01
  Well, perfect. Well, I think before we wrap
• 20:02
  up here, I'm curious. Where do you see
• 20:04
  some of the best opportunities for organizational growth?
• 20:08
  Well, you know, I think for our opportunities
• 20:11
  is
• 20:12
  in line with,
• 20:14
  consolidating a lot of the different type of
• 20:16
  technologies and applications out
• 20:18
  there and at the end of the day,
• 20:20
  we want our patients to have a seamless
• 20:22
  experience.
• 20:23
  When we have so much technology, I'll give
• 20:24
  you an example. We have because of the
• 20:26
  fact that we have multiple electronic health record
• 20:28
  systems, you now have multiple patient portals.
• 20:31
  And from a patient experience perspective,
• 20:34
  that's frustrating. You know, you go to one
• 20:35
  portal to look at data from one EHR
• 20:37
  system. You gotta go to another portal to
• 20:39
  look at it from another system.
• 20:42
  Our
• 20:43
  IT staff has been amazing. They've developed a
• 20:46
  third portal to see if we can fill
• 20:48
  the gap between the two. But as you
• 20:49
  can imagine,
• 20:50
  it's not a perfect situation because now you
• 20:52
  have three portals. So we have unfortunately too
• 20:54
  much technology even on the patient side. So
• 20:56
  I feel that our opportunity for organizational growth
• 21:00
  is as we consolidate some of the technology
• 21:02
  not just for our Clinicians that work in
• 21:05
  the hospital system, but also for patients that
• 21:07
  go through the system
• 21:09
  That is going to allow them to keep
• 21:11
  wanting keep coming back not not because they're
• 21:13
  sick but also in the ambulatory space
• 21:16
  you know are providing our clinics will certainly
• 21:19
  grow because the patient experience is so good
• 21:21
  and keeping them healthy Of course is the
• 21:24
  number one goal and I and because like
• 21:26
  I mentioned earlier we're in a very densely
• 21:28
  populated
• 21:29
  Area, we have a lot of competition. So
• 21:31
  we're not like the only hospital in the
• 21:33
  in the region We have multiple hospitals in
• 21:35
  the region and patients have options they can
• 21:37
  go from one to the next so for
• 21:38
  us to grow I think if we make
• 21:40
  their experience more seamless,
• 21:43
  they'll want to come back and say I
• 21:44
  want to get my care at the valley
• 21:45
  health system because of this seamless experience So
• 21:49
  that's where I think we can grow,
• 21:51
  nicely this year
• 21:55
  I love it. Doctor Ahmed, thank you so
• 21:56
  much for joining us on the podcast today.
• 21:58
  This has been such a amazing conversation. We
• 22:01
  talked through a lot of different things, but,
• 22:02
  you know, I I'm so glad that I
• 22:04
  was able to learn from you and how
• 22:06
  you're doing our things at the Valley Health
• 22:08
  System.
• 22:09
  And I'm excited as well to see you
• 22:10
  at the annual meeting in April. I know
• 22:12
  you'll be speaking on a panel and, will
• 22:14
  be a lot of these same thing themes,
• 22:16
  I'm sure, but,
• 22:17
  you know, digging deeper into them and really
• 22:19
  connecting with other health care leaders across the
• 22:21
  spectrum to tackle these big issues that you're
• 22:24
  talking about So this is great. Yeah. Thank
• 22:26
  you so much. Laura. I'm very much looking
• 22:28
  forward to the conference coming up and
• 22:31
  Thank you for having me