Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Mark Combs, Chief Technology Officer at Vandalia Health

Transcript

Mark Combs, Chief Technology Officer at Vandalia Health · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  Would you like to exchange best practices and ideas to improve care,
• 0:03
  enhance operational efficiency,
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  and address financial challenges with your peers?
• 0:08
  Becker's Healthcare is facilitating these conversations at their eighth annual
• 0:12
  health IT digital health and RCM meeting.
• 0:15
  You can check your eligibility for complimentary attendance at the Lincoln,
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  the description. We are excited to welcome you in October.
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  This is Laura Ddo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Mark Combs,
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  chief Technology officer of Vandellia Health. Mark,
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  it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  Thank you. It's great to be here.
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  Now, I know we've got a lot to talk about.
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  There's so much happening in healthcare right now,
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  but then for you in particular,
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  as you're working through a merger of two organizations,
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  but before we dive into my questions,
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  can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Yeah, so, um, I've been, been in it for over 25 years.
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  Uh, this is my second health health organization that I've been with,
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  have worked just about in every area of it you can think of. It's,
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  uh, it's a fascinating field and it's just constantly changing. So it's,
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  it's very, keeps me very interested, that's for sure.
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  Absolutely. I I can imagine there's never a dull moment, really, uh,
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  from the healthcare perspective. And, you know, I, I'd love to hear too,
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  if you could talk a little bit more about how vandellia Health it was formed and
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  you know,
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  where you're at right now in that process of connecting the two organizations.
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  Um, and,
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  and then we can dive into the broader technology and health IT questions.
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  Yeah, I would, I would love to. Um, in January of 2021,
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  I joined Mon Health System and we were headed down
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  one road and, um, in September of 2022,
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  we came together with Charleston Area Medical Center, uh, out of Charleston,
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  West Virginia. We're in Morgantown, West Virginia,
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  up in sort of the north central region of our state,
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  and we decided to come together and inform Vandellia Health.
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  The two organizations really have a lot of great synergy, and we're,
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  we're growing. Uh,
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  we've recently added two hospitals and we're looking at a lot of other
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  acquisitions around the state. It's a very exciting time to be a part of, uh,
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  Vandellia Health,
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  and I'm just really happy to be here and to be serving the people of the great
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  state of West Virginia.
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  That's fantastic and definitely exciting to hear about the growth and
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  development of the broader system. I, I know that's a huge undertaking.
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  So w with that in mind,
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  what are some of the opportunities that you're seeing right now, uh,
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  for the organization as well as the headwinds that you have your eye on?
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  Yeah, I think one area of growth that,
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  that we've really finally started to gain traction in is the area of
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  telemedicine. You know,
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  a lot of organizations around the country have been very successful with this.
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  It's something that we're really starting to see a huge pickup in
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  being able to reach out to the rural areas of West Virginia.
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  And almost every single area of West Virginia is rural. Uh,
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  we're a state of around 1.75 million people.
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  Most of your listeners live in cities larger than that, but that's us,
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  that's West Virginia. So population's scarce,
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  it takes 30 minutes to get anywhere, and good healthcare is hard to come by,
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  especially some of the specialty providers.
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  So we're really reaching out in areas like cardiology, endocrinology,
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  other areas that, you know, people really can't get access to in,
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  in some of these smaller places.
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  They just don't have enough population to support the higher end physicians or
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  salaries. There's just not the population or support it.
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  So in the population centers like Charleston or Morgantown where we have
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  access to universities and we have access to more physicians and,
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  and better infrastructure, quite honestly, um,
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  we're able to extend those physicians reach out into the smaller communities
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  throughout the state and really help improve the lives and health of the people
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  of West Virginia.
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  That's a really great point, and especially thinking through it,
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  as you mentioned, the distance in,
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  in a lot of the population living in remote areas, uh, how do you, um,
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  from the technology side make sure that, um, the different executives and and,
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  um, the,
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  the people that you're working with have an understanding of what it takes to
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  connect to the communities and, um, you know,
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  maybe they might not have great access to wireless or,
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  or some of those other types of things.
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  So how are you thinking through some of those challenges and, um,
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  making sure that you're still able to connect as much as possible?
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  Yeah, that's a great question. You know,
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  it always starts with process and people,
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  so a lot of times when, when we started the telemedicine discussion, it was, oh,
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  can we get this cart? Ooh, can we get this access? Can we get this camera?
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  Can we get this piece of technology?
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  And I kind of kept trying to push back saying, wait a minute,
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  do we even know what service we're gonna provide?
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  Do we have the physicians available to provide the service?
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  Do we know how we're gonna check patients in? Who's gonna bill for it?
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  Who's gonna do this? Who's gonna do that?
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  The organization has caught up and we have a,
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  a great director of telemedicine here and what we lovingly call Vandellia North,
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  and she's really been able to dive in and,
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  and help with these operational issues. Once we got those straightened out,
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  the rest that kind of fell into place,
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  we have a great telemedicine partner in, in Teledoc,
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  and we really have been able to reach out across the state. Now,
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  as you said, connectivity sometimes is a concern,
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  but usually, not always,
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  but usually in these areas where we might have a rural health clinic or we might
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  have, you know, a community hospital or, or a a, uh, critical access hospital,
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  they do have some sort of high speed connection already.
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  So if we're working within the clinics or working in and around that hospital
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  area and we're able to set up a room or, or set up something, you know,
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  connected to that hospital's network, we're typically okay, um,
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  we're starting to strike out with, um, some mobile solutions.
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  Those aren't fully formed yet, but we're definitely moving in that direction.
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  Absolutely. That's a really great point, and definitely great to hear that,
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  you know, you, you're seeing some traction with, uh,
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  those types of services now as we're moving forward with growth and development.
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  I know right now is, uh, important to be using resources wi wisely.
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  So what does that look like for you? Um, obviously,
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  especially as you've got two organizations coming together,
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  adding two more hospitals as well. Um,
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  what does growth look like and how do you,
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  are you adding value to the overall organization?
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  How are we adding value to the overall organization?
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  Isn't that the constant question we should all be asking ourselves?
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  We are trying to deliver our projects on time, under budget.
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  We're trying to be good stewards of the resources they give us in not
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  over purchasing things that, you know, hey, here's the next new shiny object.
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  We wanna make sure everything that we're doing aligns with the organization's,
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  um, strategic plan.
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  I think a lot of times that's where IT departments get lost in the shuffle.
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  Um, sometimes all they see us as is, you know,
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  fix the computer or fix this or keep the telephone system running or whatever,
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  but we really are and should be a strategic partner to the organization,
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  understanding the organization's vision,
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  sitting at the table with the executives, helping define that vision,
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  helping to drive it, but also running alongside it.
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  So we can't run ahead of the, of the company.
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  We have to understand what the organization's goals are and then find the
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  correct technology that will help enable those goals and enable, um,
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  what the business wants to accomplish.
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  Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. You know,
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  it is great to hear from your perspective that you're able to, uh,
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  really just align with the larger and broader goals and objectives of,
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  of the organization. Um, I,
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  I think I'd love to hear when you look at your technology teams and the people
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  that you work most closely with, how are they evolving?
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  Is there anything different that you're seeing, um, from,
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  from the teams that you're working with now as you're jumping into a high growth
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  mode, I guess, for the overall, uh, health system?
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  Yeah, it's, it's interesting, you know, the, the culture is evolving.
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  We're working with the teams to hopefully be more proactive,
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  understand that their individual scopes as individual contributors is
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  growing, learning and understanding that we can't work in silos anymore.
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  Everyone's gotta be on board and everyone's got a seat on the bus and everyone's
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  gotta move in that right direction, and there's no magic switch.
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  You know, we may have been working a certain way for the last five years,
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  10 years, whatever. We kind of get used to that, and it's,
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  it's my responsibility and,
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  and my leadership team's responsibility to help move people to a place where
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  they can be more successful, help them see themselves in a different light.
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  They're really part of a bigger picture, um, and,
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  and kind of help them look up out of kind of the day-to-day work,
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  if that makes sense.
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  Yeah, I I think that's great insight and perspective,
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  especially when you're at a time where, as you mentioned, you need everybody,
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  uh, to be moving the right direction and, and, you know,
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  there's high change happening. Um, you know, I think that's very,
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  very interesting to hear in a great mindset to have. Now, um,
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  you talked a little bit about some of the different changes that are happening
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  and how you really are, um, moving forward with the best, uh,
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  interest in, in the goals of the organization in mind.
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  What do you see as being one risk or investment that's really worth making this
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  year that will add leaps and bounds overall to patient care and what you're able
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  to do in the future?
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  Well, I, I, I think I would answer that in, in probably two different ways. One,
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  what would be right for our organization, because, you know,
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  generally when thinking about that question,
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  you have to think about where you are, who you are as an organization,
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  and what your goals are.
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  I feel like one of the investments that the organization is starting to,
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  to make is to, um, look at digital front door patient intake,
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  trying to better connect with patients on a, a one-to-one basis.
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  We haven't really got there yet. It's a lot of, a lot of discussion. Our, our,
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  uh, VANDELLIA south area is, uh,
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  probably ahead of that than the Vandellia North area, and I call them that,
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  that that's how we designate them between the two organizations.
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  We're early on in our merger process, so we still, you know,
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  we're still kind of running somewhat separate, somewhat together,
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  we're moving more together and we're moving more strategically together. And I,
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  and I, I think the,
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  the senior executive team is really doing a good job with guiding us, um,
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  that way. But it takes time.
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  But I do believe that as an organization we can do a much better job connecting
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  with our folks, our patients, our consumers. Um,
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  I was recently at an educational conference and they made an interesting point.
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  We spend so much time focused on the providers of healthcare and not on the
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  consumers of healthcare.
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  And I think that's a mindset change that all of us in industry could probably do
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  with. I think the second way I would answer that question is just looking at the
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  growth and explosion of this thing called artificial intelligence.
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  And it's such a buzzword, it's gotten so, so big,
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  but we recently saw out of hymns that Epic and eClinical Works works,
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  and I think even Salesforce are starting to integrate chat G P T into their
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  products. If we as, as technologists in the healthcare arena,
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  don't lift our heads up and kind of understand what this is and what it means,
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  it's quickly going to run over us.
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  So just a couple of thoughts on areas I think we we need to keep our eyes on.
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  Absolutely. I think that's fascinating to hear. And certainly, um,
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  as you mentioned, uh, having that chatt t generative ai,
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  it is something that's front of mind. We've seen the, through the news,
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  like you said,
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  having Epic and Microsoft work together on it and others is just really, um,
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  really fascinating to look at where the potential opportunities and then also
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  two challenges could be for some of that technology.
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  When you look at your own organization, um, how do you think about AI and is,
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  is that something that comes up in the boardroom or,
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  or something that's still primarily, you know, um,
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  something that you're thinking through from a technology perspective and
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  potentially, uh, you know, a as time goes on,
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  could be ready to bring it into the organization as it makes sense?
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  You know, I, I think it's interesting because it's,
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  it's not on a lot of people's mind right now.
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  We're trying to raise the consciousness of it and raise the awareness of it.
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  But like a lot of things,
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  we're all running so fast and we're trying to do all these great things that
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  it's sort of outside of our peripheral vision at the moment.
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  It is an area of potential risk that I think our risk and legal teams need to
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  take a look at. Definitely our technology teams need to understand and, uh,
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  our operational leadership needs to think through it as well.
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  It's not something we're going to be able to avoid.
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  It's here and it's just going to grow and continue to become more and more a
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  part of our daily lives.
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  Absolutely. Great perspective. Now, before we wrap up our conversation,
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  I just have one more question and looking into the future,
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  how do you see your role evolving in,
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  in growth for you and the technology teams at Valia Health? I.
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  Think it goes back to that comment around aligning with the organization.
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  You know, I think gone are the days,
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  and maybe they should never have been the days when we just deal with
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  the, the plumbing of it.
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  I think we have to continually work and think like business leaders and not
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  necessarily strictly technology leaders.
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  We have to make better purchases for the organization.
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  We have to do a better job at aligning and using our resources.
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  We have to be more efficient in how we're using what the
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  organization provides us. All of the, a lot of the funds,
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  I think about it this way, when I spend the funds,
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  it's from somebody's grandmother coming in to get a lab done. You know,
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  am I gonna take that money that they provided us and blow that on some piece of
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  technology that's just gonna sit on a shelf for the next three years?
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  And then one's gonna think about, or some piece of software,
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  we're only gonna get 10% usage out of.
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  I think we have to be smarter and wiser about our technology purchases,
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  our decisions, find ways to simplify our technology stack,
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  find ways to better leverage the cloud and just look at ways to,
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  to simplify what we're doing so we can be more efficient and more effective.
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  Fantastic. Well, mark, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.
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  This has been really a fun conversation and we're excited to have you join us as
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  well in October for the Health IT Digital Health and Revenue Cycle event.
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  I know there'll be a lot of discussions around many of the themes we've talked
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  about here, and so it'll be great to catch up, uh, later this year.
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  Yeah, I'm, I'm really looking forward to it.
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  Last year was a really fun conference and, uh, I think Becker's just does a,
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  a great job and, and I appreciate the opportunity to participate.