Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Shelly Nash, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Medical Information Officer at Fresenius Medical Care

Transcript

Shelly Nash, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Medical Information Officer at Fresenius Medical Care · 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'm joined currently by Shelly Nash, who is
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  the senior vice president and global chief medical
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  information officer
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  at Fresenius Medical Care.
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  So, Shelley, thanks for joining me this morning.
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  To get us started, could you please share
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  a little bit about yourself, your background, and
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  your role? Sure. Thanks for having me. I'm
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  happy to be here. So my name is
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  Shelley Nash, and I am a physician by
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  background, but I've worked worked in technology
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  for over 20 years. I currently work with
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  Fresenius Medical Care, which is the
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  largest company in the world to supply,
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  services and,
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  machinery for dialysis. So we are a kidney
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  care company.
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  And that may sound like, you know, kidney
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  is very specific, but actually kidney disease affects
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  1 in 7 people in the United States,
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  over 35,000,000
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  people that means. So, you know, we play
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  a role in providing dialysis services.
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  We play a role in providing machinery for
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  not just our specific dialysis centers. We have
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  about 4,000 dialysis centers worldwide,
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  and we provide, devices
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  in about a 150 countries. So we're we're
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  a very large global company.
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  My background before coming to Fresenius was that
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  I was a physician,
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  chief medical information officer with AdventHealth
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  out of
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  Florida.
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  I had my own practice.
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  My background before becoming a CMIO was I
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  worked
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  in obstetrics and gynecology and then in clinical
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  informatics.
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  So I really always felt like technology could
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  really improve the care of patients and improve
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  the experience for providers, doctors, nurses as well.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. And speaking
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  of technology, we're gonna start our conversation today
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  talking about AI adoption. So this is exploding
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  right now in health care. And in your
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  view, what is the most significant or promising
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  application of AI right now? And how is
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  this informing your organization's innovation strategy?
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  Yeah. I don't think you can read an
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  article online or go to a conference or
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  talk to someone in health care, especially health
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  care technology without AI coming up. Right?
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  AI, you know, has been used for a
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  while in the form of machine learning.
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  But I think now with large language models,
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  with ChatGPT,
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  it's it's really, as you said, exploding.
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  I think it can really play a place
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  in health care,
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  in frontline health care, even when we start
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  using it to decrease what we'll call administrative
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  burden. So doctors, nurses,
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  front desk folks do so much work every
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  day that could be done much easier by
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  technology.
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  So, for example,
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  the ability to summarize
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  information from a chart for someone who's doing
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  billing. Right? The ability
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  to answer simple questions around policies and procedures.
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  We're doing some work around that. So
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  I know there's vendors who are doing work
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  around, using AI for answering emails that doctors
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  get because they spend over half their time,
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  the literature shows, answering emails to patients and
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  doing those types of things. We're focusing more
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  on administrative
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  work
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  to make the life
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  of humans easier. Right? So, you know, we
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  always talk about in medicine,
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  people working at the top of their license,
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  but it's not just that. If we can
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  really take away some of those, I don't
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  wanna say mundane, but they are mundane tasks
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  of looking through, you know, screen after screen
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  and having summarizations.
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  I think that's the first place we'll go.
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  I do think we'll we'll move into things
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  like and we are doing that now, predictions.
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  So
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  having AI be able to look through the
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  chart in a way that a human could,
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  but in a faster way with AI so
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  that they can come to conclusions and predict
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  outcomes and really improve the care of patients
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  in that way.
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  And shifting gears just slightly to data.
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  Currently, healthcare leaders are managing greater volumes of
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  data and more devices across a growing number
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  of care settings and populations. This is a
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  complex environment that we find ourselves in. So
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  what clinical data integration tools or practices
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  are you seeing drive improvements in patient outcomes?
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  And I'd love to hear a specific example.
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  Yeah. Yeah. So you're right. I mean, we
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  have over 200 clinical applications that our clinicians
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  use every day. And if you think of
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  every hospital or every unit on a hospital
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  or every doctor's office, and in my case,
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  every dialysis center as its own little
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  company. Right? So someone, let's say the manager
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  is the CEO of the clinic. Every day,
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  there are so many different applications and places
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  they need to look. Right? They need to
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  look to see who hasn't showed up, what
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  patients are missing. Have there been any adverse
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  events?
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  You know? What's going on with their billing?
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  Have they not got bills out and they
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  need to do that to keep the lights
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  on? So one thing we did with all
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  these hundreds of applications,
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  because our users were telling us, you know,
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  we have to go to 5,000 dashboards. We've
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  got all these dashboards. We need to check
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  what's going on with so we created kind
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  of a we call it daily hub. So
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  one place which integrated information from dashboards. It
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  doesn't have the dashboard, but we created something
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  that
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  told our users, our clinic managers, and we've
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  rolled it out for clinicians as well. What
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  do you need to look at? And we
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  we, you know, we did something simple, and
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  you'll see EHR vendors do this as well
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  with green, yellow, red. So if there's a
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  new adverse event that happened, safety issue, it's
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  red. And they come in right away. They
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  just look at the list and they see
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  green, yellow, red. And then we just link
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  them through this hub, it's called it's called
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  their daily hub because it's their first place
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  they go every morning. Click that and it
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  gets them to go see what they need
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  to go to to review. So we did
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  integration kind of at a high level, but
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  it's been very successful.
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  We've seen a decrease in
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  days for billing to go out because they've
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  been able to find that. We've seen some
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  even increased
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  ability of filling open slots. So we've really
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  done a lot of work on that. And
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  I think that's kind of the way to
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  go. It's gonna be really difficult to get
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  rid of all of the applications hospitals and
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  doctors offices use, even though everyone's trying to
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  align them. So really trying to create tools
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  that make
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  people aware of what they need to look
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  at, I think are is really important.
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  And
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  how can healthcare organizations better support our IC
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  and our clinical teams as they carry out
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  these innovation efforts? And do you know of
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  any common pitfalls that you've seen here?
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  Yeah. I I think that what happens sometimes
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  in large health systems having worked for 1
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  for 10 years,
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  or in companies is that, you know, you
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  have folks that get ideas and they may
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  be in the c suite,
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  and they don't include the IT teams either
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  early enough or the clinical IT teams early
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  enough. So I think it's important to if
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  you come up with an idea for something
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  you wanna do, and I was in a
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  session yesterday where a CMIO said, you know,
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  often the clinical IT folks aren't pulled until
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  later. So So making sure that, you know,
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  you don't start projects without having everyone having
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  a seat at the table. And I'm not
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  saying everyone has to make the decision, of
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  course, and maybe the CEO who makes the
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  decision, but including everyone in the discussions early
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  because they may have a viewpoint that you
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  didn't think of. You know, people on the
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  front lines really might understand the workflow, so
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  you don't wanna create
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  tools that you think are going to work
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  for what you what you need if you
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  don't really have the direct input. So silos
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  is a big problem, I think, in health
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  care. My advice would be to include people
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  early, you know, to listen to everyone's opinion.
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  Obviously, you know, you can't always make decision
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  by consensus, but listen to them because otherwise,
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  what happens is you create these tools, and
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  I've seen this happen, and then people don't
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  use them. You think it's gonna be great,
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  but it isn't. But, I think one way
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  to avoid it is to really engage everyone
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  early on.
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  Absolutely. And as we wrap up our conversation,
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  I'd love to know your top piece of
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  advice for health care leaders as they prepare
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  for further advancements in technology and greater demands
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  for care. That's a big question. But, probably
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  my top piece of advice is don't be
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  afraid. You know, it's kind of interesting because
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  I'll be out talking to doctors and everyone
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  is scared. Oh, AI is taking over the
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  world. AI, I'll get rid of doctors. You
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  know, you can read articles online. And and
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  if you start thinking about
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  AI, you know, not as a scary thing,
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  I mean, anyone who you've watches Netflix, right,
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  AI is there. It's telling you what your
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  next pick is. Or if you use Spotify,
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  AI is giving you suggestions.
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  So I think health care organizations
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  really need to recognize that,
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  the way that they approach this,
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  should be very thoughtful. Don't just throw something
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  out that, you know, you think is gonna
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  save the world if you haven't engaged your
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  end users, your doctors, your clinicians,
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  and also patients. You know, patients are
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  have the idea that, you know, AI may
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  be replacing doctors. So, you know, be thoughtful
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  in the applications
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  that you create. Be thoughtful in how you
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  market this and really think of it as
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  a tool.
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  It may be, you know, we always talk
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  about how there's always, you know, a a
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  peak of excitement and then a trough of
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  disillusionment, you know, and that that may happen
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  as well, but don't give up on it
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  because I really do think the technologies that
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  are out there and how they're evolving is
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  really gonna change how we can take care
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  of patients and improve the experience for everyone
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  who works in health care.
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  Absolutely. Well, Shelly, 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're live at
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  the 9th Annual Health IT Digital Health and
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  RCM Conference. Thank you. Yep. Thanks so much.