Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Dr. Bashir Agboola on AI Strategy, Governance, and Turning Digital Investment into Performance

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Dr. Bashir Agboola on AI Strategy, Governance, and Turning Digital Investment into Performance · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:01
  This is where health care leadership comes together.
• 0:04
  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
• 0:07
  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
• 0:10
  speakers to Chicago
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  April.
• 0:14
  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
• 0:17
  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
• 0:20
  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
• 0:22
  visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:25
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:26
  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
• 0:29
  in Chicago.
• 0:31
  This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:34
  Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by a
• 0:37
  brilliant physician leader.
• 0:40
  We're joined today by doctor Bashir Agboola.
• 0:43
  Doctor Agboola
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  for for for more than a decade,
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  served at Hospital for Special Surgery,
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  becoming the vice president, associate CIO, and chief
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  technology officer. Just an absolutely brilliant person.
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  He's now doing some consulting and some other
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  things, but an absolutely brilliant career. Doctor Agbula,
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  can you take a moment and introduce yourself,
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  and and tell people a little bit about
• 1:06
  what you've done and what you're doing today?
• 1:08
  Thank you very much, Scott. Thanks, for the
• 1:10
  opportunity to,
• 1:12
  chat with you and and your audience. It's
• 1:15
  been it's been a minute since our last
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  conversation.
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  So, as you mentioned, I was most recently
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  at the hospital for special surgery,
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  for a long stretch. And before then, I
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  was with Memorial
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  Kettering Cancer Center also in New York City.
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  Currently, I am with Interdigm. At Interdigm, we're
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  a technology consultant and advisory
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  firm.
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  We advise health care systems and enterprise
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  enterprises on digital transformation,
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  AI strategy, infrastructure modernization, and governance.
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  Our focus is really not just on deploying
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  technology, but operationalizing
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  it, ensuring that investments in AI, cloud, cyber,
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  data platforms
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  all translate into
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  workflow a workflow integration and financial performance as
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  well as improved patient experience.
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  My careers in health care technology
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  has largely been at the intersection of technology,
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  operations, and executive leadership, helping organizations
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  move from
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  experimentation
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  to sustainable
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  execution.
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  I'm not a clinician.
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  I'm a technologist
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  and business
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  leader, but I've spent,
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  a long time
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  hanging out with doctors and, clinicians enough to
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  know what their pains are and,
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  to to assist them in the mission of,
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  efficient care delivery. Happy to happy to talk
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  more.
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  No. Thank you. As hospitals' health systems utilize
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  technology, work with technology,
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  what's working?
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  Where does AI meet the hype? Where does
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  it not? What's going well?
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  Yeah. I'm really excited at the prospect of
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  AI,
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  helping with some of the pinpoints we have
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  in health care. You know, often health care
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  gets to bad rap as being sort of
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  a laggard to technology adoption. But in the
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  case of AI,
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  the industry has actually been
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  really at the forefront in in certain aspects
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  of,
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  AI adoption because there are some real challenges
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  that we can address
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  and, realize value quickly,
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  with, with AI. So,
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  I'm excited, for example, at,
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  one of the big problems that we struggle
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  with in health care, which is with the
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  workforce and and clinician burnout.
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  And we we all we've all heard about
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  the how much time clinicians
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  spend,
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  doing,
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  things other than
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  being in front of a patient and caring
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  for a patient and being
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  present with a patient. And so we we've
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  seen examples where, for for example, with things
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  like ambient,
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  AI scribes, where the AI listens to the,
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  conversation between the clinician and the patient
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  and is able to capture clinically relevant information
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  for insertion,
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  into
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  the,
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  the medical records of the patient. I mean,
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  that's just
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  it's one of the fastest
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  growing instance of technology adoption that I have
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  seen in my career in health care.
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  And and it's the impact is dramatic. Giving
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  time back to physicians,
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  improving the quality of their interactions with their
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  patients. And that's just one example of where
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  AI is helping to solve real world problems
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  in health care, and then there are many,
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  many more in in the works.
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  Where do you see for we see sort
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  of cascading
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  use cases for AI.
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  Talk a little bit about where you're the
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  most excited about some of those use cases.
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  Yeah. So, so the, clinical documentation, as I
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  I just described in the case of Ambient
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  AI Scribe is one.
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  Predictive analytics is another area
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  that act and that act interestingly, that's one
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  area that we've been working on for many,
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  many, many years in the background before the
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  whole,
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  excitement about g and a that g and
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  a I created a few over the last
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  few years. Predictive analytics is one of the
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  areas where AI can actually help to
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  bring about the promise of personalized medicine that
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  we've talked about for a long time.
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  In healthcare, we have lots of data. Fragmented
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  data, you know, data in dark places. But,
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  we're learning, and we're learning to bring the
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  data
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  together.
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  And with that, to do predictive analytics,
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  off of that data that would allow us
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  to personalize the care
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  that each patient would get, you know, develop,
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  therapeutics that are tailored to the peculiar needs
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  and the peculiar physiology
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  of a patient. And that's that's another area
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  where,
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  we can we can finally,
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  over the next, I hope, few years, come
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  up with the the promise of,
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  personalized,
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  medicine.
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  Thank you. And talk about doctor Abolak.
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  What are you personally most excited about currently?
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  Where are you most focused and excited this
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  year?
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  So,
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  there's a lot to be
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  excited excited about, you know, in the midst
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  of all the hype that's out there. And
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  there there's always so much hype in technology
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  and so much buzz.
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  But for me, personally, I've I've been really
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  excited at the opportunity to work on building
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  structured governance frameworks,
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  to, assist technology leaders and executives
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  in in optimizing their technology investments. And I
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  I I I did some work last year,
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  some research, some doctoral level research work on
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  the effective strategies for,
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  health care leaders to optimize their their technology
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  investments. Because we we we live in a
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  particularly in health care, we live in a,
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  capital constrained
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  environment.
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  In in health care, our spend,
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  as a percentage of revenue
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  is probably about maybe a thought to about
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  half of what you might see,
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  for for health care, for technology that is,
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  compared to what you might see in other
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  industries like the financial services sector. We'll probably
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  spend, like, four to 5% for many systems,
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  as opposed to 10% or more in financial
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  services
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  and some other sectors. So,
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  so the it's important for technology leaders to
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  to know how best to optimize
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  the spend
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  in technology in health care. So I'm I'm
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  excited and focused on,
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  unearthing
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  the best strategies that some of the best
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  technology leaders out there have found,
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  to make sure that every digital dollar that
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  they spend
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  is well spent towards achieving,
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  the aims, the the quadruple aims of of
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  of health care.
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  Thank you very, very much. And and talk
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  a little bit about doctor Bill. You've had
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  this great career.
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  What advice would you give to emerging leaders?
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  What do you tell them?
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  So there's a few things.
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  So one,
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  I'll I'll start with the, an advice,
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  a statement of that I learned years ago.
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  And I've and and I love to to
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  repeat this quote as often as I get
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  the chance to. This is a quote attributed
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  to a former head of strategic planning at
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  the Royal Dutch Shell,
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  many decades ago, he said something to the
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  effect that your ability to learn faster than
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  the competition might be the only sustainable advantage
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  you have in the future.
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  So I I that I think that's a
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  powerful,
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  statement.
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  So both as individual leaders and as organizations,
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  we have to adopt the practice of being
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  fast learners.
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  So we have to learn. So I would
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  say to leaders that you have to learn.
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  There's a lot that's changing right now.
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  You know, so as leaders, you have to
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  learn technology. You have to learn finance. You
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  have to learn the core business operations of
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  the enterprise that you're part of. So learning
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  broadly and learning fast would be my, first
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  advice. The second advice would be to think
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  in terms of systems and not silos.
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  You know? There there's,
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  systems thinking isn't, recognized,
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  as a as a capability and a strength
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  as as much as it should in our
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  enterprises.
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  And we often tend to just think very
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  narrowly within our our peculiar domains. You know,
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  the technology teams might just think solely about
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  technology and the finance thing,
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  teams, team leaders. Think in terms of systems
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  because,
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  any
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  enterprise, any modern day enterprise
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  is not one thing. It's a it's a
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  it's a a a system of parts that
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  work together, and
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  decisions made in one part of that systems
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  would
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  have effects elsewhere within the larger systems. So
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  always think in terms of systems when you
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  think about digital investments
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  and,
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  in in digital innovation.
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  Thirdly, I would say,
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  in order to build credibility as a leader,
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  you really need disciplined execution. So so what
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  what do I mean by that? It means,
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  you have to be sure that there is
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  a a a structured governance that that you
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  use to manage what you set to do
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  for the enterprise.
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  Doing technology for the sake of technology or
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  just because it's the latest innovation
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  isn't good enough, and it would not build
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  credibility. But having
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  a a structured governance where you have stakeholder
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  representation across your enterprise,
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  the voice of the customer is at the
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  table. And perhaps most importantly,
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  you tie what you're trying to do to
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  the, enterprise strategy. It needs to support the
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  enterprise strategy. It can't be something isolated from
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  it. So having that and then implementing
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  and realizing value iteratively,
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  meaning you implement,
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  you you test, you measure, you readjust,
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  you derive value quickly, give value to the
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  represent value to the organization quickly, and adjust
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  as necessary.
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  That builds credibility
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  within the organization.
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  That that those those would be some some
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  of the, advice I'll give to, to leaders.
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  Well, yeah. I I love that. And just
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  for our readers taking or listeners taking notes,
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  would you synthesize those few pieces of advice
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  just in a in a thirty seconds for
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  a listener taking notes? So so learn always
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  and continuously. Keep learning. Learn fast.
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  And learn broadly.
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  Build credibility
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  through structured
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  disciplined governance.
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  Tie what you do to corporate strategy.
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  It must not be disconnected
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  from what's important
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  to, to the enterprise.
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  Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Doctor
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  Agbola, it is great to visit with you,
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  Basheer. What a what a tremendous career and
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  tremendous leadership. Thank you. Thank you for joining
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  us today on the Betteridge Health Care podcast.
• 11:45
  You're just fantastic. Thank you so much.