Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Michelle Stansbury, Vice President of Innovation and IT Applications at Houston Methodist

Transcript

Michelle Stansbury, Vice President of Innovation and IT Applications at Houston Methodist · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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- Prepare to dive into the forefront
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- This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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I'm thrilled today to be joined by Michelle Stansbury,
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vice President of Innovation
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and IT applications at Houston Methodist.
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Michelle, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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- Well, thank you very much for having me, Laura.
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- Now I'm excited to have you back.
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I know you've been on the podcast a few times
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and speak with us regularly, which is great.
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Um, you're so innovative at Houston Methodist
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and it's really cool to see the projects you're working on.
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But for anybody that you know is just joining the pod, uh,
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Becker's Healthcare podcast is just subscribed.
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Can you tell us a little bit more
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about yourself and your background?
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- Sure. Well, um, as again, you introduced overall my title,
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but I have been with Houston Methodist for 31 years now.
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Um, I've had the complete joy
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and honor of being able to serve at this institution
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and see the overall growth of, um, how,
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what we have done in those 31 years.
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Right now, my role is really focused in two main areas.
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My traditional role, which is the vice president
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and IT over all of our applications
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that support Houston Methodist,
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but also, um, I am the vice president of our Center
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for Innovation and work very, very closely
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with our chief innovation officer, which is, um, Dr.
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Roberta Schwartz. So we all kind
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of hold these dual roles in the, in our organization
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and it has served us extremely well.
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Um, one and I will just speak kind of overall
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to Roberta's role.
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Not only is she our chief innovation officer,
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but she is the executive vice president
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and CEO of our largest, um,
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hospital within overall our system.
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Um, which serves her well in that aspect of being able to,
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you know, create sort of innovation
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and then be able to roll it out,
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but then working very closely with me that on the IT aspect,
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so she and I are able to bring IT
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and operations together to work, um, very quickly on a lot
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of these innovation initiatives.
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- That's great to hear. And you know,
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certainly your model is unique
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and impressive to see what you've been able to do,
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how nimble, um, you know, Houston Methodist is
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because of, of the way you operate
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and how you have those dual roles.
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So, um, it's always fascinating to think about.
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Now, I'm wondering right now,
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what are you working on at Houston Methodist?
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What's, uh, you know, your focus in top of mind?
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- Sure. Well, there's really kind of three main areas
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that we are focused on in the organization
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and lots of different initiatives within each
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of these three areas.
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And one is really on our patients
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and it is, you know, to really look at
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how can we make sure that
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the journey our patients take within our organization,
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whether it be through a clinic,
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through inpatient outpatient services, even on the backend,
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that they are getting the type
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of service in the way that they want to.
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And that is completely different for many individuals.
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One would prefer it mostly in a digital perspective,
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some prefer it still just the calling in on the phone.
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Um, but also two of how can we make sure that
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that journey is as seamless
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and providing that great service that they have come
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to expect overall from our organization.
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The other is how are we creating those
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efficiencies for our clinicians?
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And when I talk about our clinicians, it's our physicians,
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our nurses, our staff,
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and um, making sure that they're able to do
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what they do best
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with in working overall within this digital world.
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Right now, everyone has heard about all of the burnout that
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of course the physicians and nurses
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and so forth are having to deal with, with working overall
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with the EMR, but how can we make that that journey, um,
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that they're having to do with working in this, um,
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electronic world better
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and get them back to doing what they do best,
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which is taking care of our patients
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and that's what they were trained for.
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The third one is really gets down
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to operational efficiencies.
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And what I mean by that is we're all financially challenged
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and will just continue to become so, you know,
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in many organizations.
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And so what digital technologies can we bring into place
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that will be able to help the institutional become really
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more efficient in our operations, um,
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to help become more financially responsible?
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So that's kind of the big three main areas
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that we focus in on,
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but it's, you know, kind of looking at overall within
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the aspect.
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And I, I want to talk a little bit about when I talk to,
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you know, to say about our model
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and how we can scale quickly in our organization.
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I mean, um, I'll give you a couple
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of examples overall there.
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One is really on our virtual initiatives
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and I know many people have heard about our virtual ICU,
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but it's, it's, it's really the um,
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emphasis that helped us to be able to scale quickly
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because we created this virtual operations command center
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that is staffed by clinicians.
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So once you have that in place
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and which is what we created at over forwards,
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our virtual ICU,
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which has been tremendously value added to our organization.
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But now that we had that, we were able to be able
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to do many other things from a virtual perspective.
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One was our virtual nursing program.
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Um, and not only with that
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but our virtual, um, our telestroke, tele neuro
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telepharmacy being able to do virtual consults.
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But the other piece was on we, we utilized one technology
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for our virtual ICU,
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but as we're moving towards in our OR organization
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and understanding the multiple use cases from a virtual
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perspective, we've been working with overall an organization
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to be able to put cameras
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and audio technology in every one of our patient rooms.
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And we're doing that so that
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we can expand all of these other use cases.
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So late last year we sort of went into a pilot mode
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of working with this vendor, saw the potential,
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and now it's about expanding.
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So within summer, probably June
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and July, we will have expanded across 2,600 rooms
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of being able to have this camera technology integrated
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with the TV so
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that our virtual command center can now have conversations
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overall from a virtual nursing perspective.
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We can do virtual consults, we can have overall, um, virtual
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pharmacy services, anything that needs
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to be done overall with these cameras.
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We're also working to put these same kind
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of camera technologies within overall in our eds.
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So that's kind of one area
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that we are really just overall just expanding
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and quickly rolling it out across our institution.
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The other is within using um, biomedical devices
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and there's an organization that we're working
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with right now that has um, a device
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that captures vital, vital signs.
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And that device is probably about the size
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of a silver dollar that you can place on a patient when they
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come over all into our institution.
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It captures vital signs information as I said,
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that quickly goes over all with into the EMR,
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but also has alert watch capabilities
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that our virtual command center is monitoring as well
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to be able to help predict
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or look to where there's um,
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potential decline overall within a patient.
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And I will see, we've seen like three instances
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where these devices, uh, being able to watch um,
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overall within our operations command center have detected
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things from our patients that weren't detected on the floor.
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And it's not to say that um,
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anything was being done wrong on the floor,
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it was just they were able to detect it earlier,
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notify the nursing staff, which they were able to go in then
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and be able to take, um,
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action on overall what was happening.
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So we've expanded that across very quickly since we saw
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such value add overall in utilizing these devices.
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And so now it's being used across our organization
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and overall within our patient care unit.
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But again, also for those patients coming into our ED
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that um,
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or look to be admitted,
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we are also using these devices on them as well.
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We've also been able, because,
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and this is where I get into really of clinical efficiency
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and operational efficiency, most organizations
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that are still taking vitals are doing it from a Q4
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perspective because these devices are, um,
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monitoring constantly.
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We've been been able to reduce those Q4 vitals down to Q six
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and sometimes Q eight.
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So, um, really being able
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to help overall from a patient perspective if you think
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about patients that, you know, trying to rest at night
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and also from the nursing perspective of having to get
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around and be able to take all of those vitals.
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Um, so that's kind of another area.
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Another big area is really overall kind of in the AI space.
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And I will tell you, I know AI is really that, um,
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what I say is kind of the next frontier that everyone's
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so excited about and such great opportunities.
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We've been able to see some unique opportunities
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with not only creating those efficiencies
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by using the technology within our ORs,
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but also being able to use it through vendors
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who are using our data.
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And it's our data to overall compare, create sort
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of this digital twin and,
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and compare it to multiple years of Medicare data to be able
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to help predict overall
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what is a potential necessary need for patients coming back
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or could be readmitted.
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Um, so to tell you whether
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or not you should be able to, you need
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to see this patient in seven days.
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'cause typically you have people or patients coming back,
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you tell them, I need to see you in 14 days.
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This is now better able to predict by patient to say, Nope,
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I need to see you within seven days,
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but based on what we're seeing, I could see you in 21 days.
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So it's really targeting more towards the patient
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and not just a general sense of overall in 14.
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And then another vendor that we're working
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with is helping us overall with um,
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having our clinicians be able to better predict
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where it is from a length of stay perspective,
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what is preventing us from getting patients discharged.
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It will over all real time take our data
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and say as monitoring to be able to say, here's
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what is lacking that needs to be done in order
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for these patients to be discharged.
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So getting the right information at the right time
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to be able to help with operational flow
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within our organization.
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And I mean, you know, those are just kind of a few things
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that we're working on, um,
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that have helped us overall expand in the organization,
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but many other areas that we're looking at, um,
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how we can use the technology to in our organization, kind
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of those three key areas that I talked about.
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- That's amazing to hear. And you know,
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certainly I appreciate you going into all
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of those three areas and, um, explaining, you know, what is
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so crucial about them because as you mentioned, you know,
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um, having the technology
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that can support becoming more eff efficient and
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and cost effective can make such a big difference
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for the institution overall.
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And you know, I I think is so cool what you're talking about
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with the virtual pharmacy services
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and some of the other areas where, you know, um,
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bringing in additional opportunities and access points
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to patients so that they can continue to receive care
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and just make it easier for that patient journey overall.
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- Well, and that's kind of the ultimate goal for us.
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I know a lot of organizations, um, up north kind
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of in the east have really had
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to focus in on value-based care and remote services at home.
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Um, you know, in
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that aspect we're very fortunate in the state of Texas.
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It's, you know, the, we're still kind of a big fee
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for service state,
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but we want to learn from technology on how that we can, um,
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utilize those virtual services
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overall within our operations.
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Um, one to create the efficiencies
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that overall we're looking for, you know, for our clinicians
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and our patients, but learning from that technology as well
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so that we can begin to expand when it makes sense
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for our organization for those
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external virtual type services.
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And that's what we've had this other unique opportunity
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where I think is, you know, some people had
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to really focus on how do you do it externally
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before you could learn it internally.
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We've had the fortunate to be able to say, Nope,
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we're learning all how to utilize this technology first,
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you know, internal to our operations
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and gain those efficiencies, um, while still now learning on
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how that we could begin to explore utilizing those services
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for external, um, opportunities as well.
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- That's amazing to hear and
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and really cool to, to think about now from your
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perspective, what are the technologies
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and concepts that you're wasting towards
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and what are you pivoting away from?
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- Well, I, uh, it is an interesting question
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and, um, I think it is something
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most everyone is looking at.
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And I kind of talked about those items that we're,
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we're racing towards right now.
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And it, it, it's, this is a year
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that we're calling expansion overall in
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our, in our organization.
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We've got so many new technologies, technologies that
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have worked for us
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and I kind of talked a little bit about those.
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And so our goal is
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to get those expanded across our organization
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as quickly as possible.
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We also have our new hospital, um, our hospital
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of the future that is gonna be opening up in 2025
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and that will be here before we know it.
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So while we have planned, um, overall
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for those new technologies,
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we're utilizing them in our current facility.
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So of course when that facility does open up,
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it is not net new,
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but it will have all of the new technologies
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that we've been, you know, kind of using throughout,
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scattered throughout our organization.
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So we've got that big piece.
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So really this was the year of expansion for us.
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I will be honest, we're not, um, out um,
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sort of exploring every new opportunity
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'cause we have a lot on our plate right now,
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but we are keeping our eyes open for anything, you know,
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that is potentially new and exciting.
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I would say AI as a big, um, opportunity.
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And when you talk about ai, there's kind of two,
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two concepts to think about.
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AI was built in overall from a vendor's product, which many
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of those we're using today.
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And the other is generative ai. How are you using it?
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You know, such as a chat GPT
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or Bard of those kind of concepts, you know,
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that you build yourself.
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And we're, we're looking at both of them.
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I mean, we are beginning to explore the opportunity,
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which I know that some groups are right now today,
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which is creating our own cat, GPT
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or bared type environment with our own data.
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'cause we can trust our data.
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That's the big piece that I think many organizations are
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struggling with is how do you trust the data right,
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that is being created on some of these items.
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So, you know, it's just conceptually we're looking at
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that right now, um, wanting to explore use cases prior
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to it being open up from a clinical perspective.
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And that's what I would say, you know,
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we're looking at are there things we can do in the backend
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from a revenue cycle to learn from it prior
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to us opening it up.
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So, you know, kind of racing forward, here's what I'd tell,
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I think every organization,
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and I can't tell you how many conferences I go to today
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that everybody wants to talk about ai.
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So I, I think that's going to be,
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I think 2024 is gonna be the year of ai.
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I really do. Um, things we're pivoting away from.
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Um, I, I, I can't, I don't know
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that there's things we're pivoting away from.
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I think we're being very cautious on some of the new items
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that we're looking at because one of the things
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that's very important for Houston Methodist on any
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of these new technologies that we look at is that it has
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to have a solid ROI has to it.
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You know, we don't just bring in technologies just
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because they look good
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or wow isn't, that has the cool factor to it,
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but what problem is it solving for
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and what type of ROI, um, so I would say, well,
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and one last piece Laura would probably be what it,
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how much, um,
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because cyber is such another issue going on today,
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and especially with what happened overall with the recent,
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um, with change healthcare, every vendor
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that we're looking at, we really have to evaluate them on
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what type of security have they built into their system.
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Is it fairly close to
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what we would have our expectations to?
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If so, maybe we work with them
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to really get it built out from the security standards we
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need, or if they haven't even thought about it,
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it may be something we will not even consider
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until later on that they do.
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So I don't know, it's kind of to be able to say things
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that we're pivoting away from other than
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what we're keeping an eye on in those aspects.
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Um, I do know in, you know, we've looked at a couple
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of vendors here recently
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that we just could not put a solid ROI on.
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We really liked the technology, but the return wasn't there.
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And so that's sort of probably the things
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that I would say most that we're kind of pivoting away from,
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not overall in general.
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- That's fascinating to hear it
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and just really helpful to think through your strategy
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and how you really approach, um, what technology
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and digital health and transformation looks like for you.
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Looking ahead, how do you see healthcare delivery changing
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in the next five years or so?
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What do you see as continuing to elevate and rise
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and how will things change?
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- Well, I have to tell you, I love every the,
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when everyone asked me,
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what do you think five years from now,
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probably 10 years ago, I think it was easier for anyone,
18:37
especially in the technology space to be able to say, sure,
18:40
five years from now this is what we will probably see
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because technology is changing so quickly and rapidly.
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Um, you know, it's very hard to predict kind
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of what's gonna happen in the next five years.
18:51
But where I would tell you, I think that you're going
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to see, you know, more advancements,
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I would tell you in this space kind of overall with ai,
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how is it really going to help overall with patient care
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help our clinicians?
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Um, I know some people are worried, it's like, oh,
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is AI gonna take over physician?
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No, I think you, you need, um, someone referenced it
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to me here the other day as the co-pilot, right?
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AI is gonna be the co-pilot to our physicians to be able
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to quickly be able to generate information
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that the physicians who've had the medical training
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and knowledge to be able to say, yes, that is valid.
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No, I, you know, no, I need more information.
19:30
So I think you're going to see more
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of an advancement in that area.
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And then the other piece that I really think that is going
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to help jumpstart
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and really help us more is
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getting patients the services from a virtual perspective
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where they need it, when they need it
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and at the time that they need it.
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Um, you see sort of this massive sort of movement now
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where you're able to do virtual urgent care, you're able
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to do virtual type services when and where people need it.
20:00
No longer do they have to end up running to the clinic
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or having an appointment.
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I think you're gonna start to be able to see, as I told you,
20:07
with these, um, with this device that we're working on.
20:10
Part of the what is
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that we're ultimately looking at is when patients come
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to the ed, do we really feel that they're acute enough
20:19
to be overall admitted to the hospital or, or no.
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But we do need to continue to watch them
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so we can send them home with overall these devices
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and monitor them from home.
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So that's what I think you're going to see is really more so
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of how are some of these services being
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provided outside of the physical space
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of a healthcare institution
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and more of kind of this, um, home
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or in, in digital kind of space to be able
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to provide more services there, which keeps people, I mean,
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look, the reality is is most people don't wanna have
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to go into a hospital if they don't have to.
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And so could you see some of those services?
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That's where I see where it is big health,
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health systems can really begin to work towards.
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And, and again, that's kind of what we're,
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we're working towards is looking at over
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how could we utilize the technology, how can we use
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what we have already structured
21:11
with our virtual operations command center.
21:13
That helps us to be able to provide now more
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of those services externally.
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I also think you're gonna see a lot
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of these big health systems
21:20
that are gonna really help overall with
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smaller community hospitals.
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And I would not say, you know, these are kind of rural kind
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of hospitals that needs more of the acute type services, but
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but don't have the services available
21:38
in their own hospitals.
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So they're gonna be looking for these big health systems
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that could potentially offer those services to them
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and to their patients who are there in
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the surrounding community.
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But very much it is, I think advancement in AI's,
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advancement in wearable
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and the data that's coming in, um, in virtual services.
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I just think there's so much potential that is out there
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for overall for not only just patients, clinicians,
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but health systems as well.
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- That's amazing to hear.
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Michelle, thank you so much for joining
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us on the podcast today.
22:09
That's been such a fun and interesting conversation
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and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
22:15
- Sure. I look forward to see you in April.