Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Dr. James Blum, Chief Health Information Officer at the University of Iowa

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Dr. James Blum, Chief Health Information Officer at the University of Iowa · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips is a health tech leader focused on
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  innovation that improves the health and well-being of
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  people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
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  help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
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  patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
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  the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
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  with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
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  Podcast, and we are recording live at the
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  9th Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM
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  Conference.
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  I am joined by doctor Jim Blum this
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  morning who is the chief health information officer
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  at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. So,
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  doctor Blum, thanks so much for joining me.
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  Would love to have you start off by
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  introducing yourself a little bit further. Well, thank
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  you. Thank you for having me this morning.
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  It's a pleasure to be here.
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  So I'm the chief health information officer at
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  the University of Iowa
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  and,
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  predominantly, I'm charged with making sure that we
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  acquire the best technologies possible for the care
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  delivery in our in our system.
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  And that may be everything for making us
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  more efficient to improving our quality,
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  to help making our providers' lives better. So
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  it really spans the gamut
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  of,
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  the typical chief,
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  chief health information officer role.
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  Wonderful. Well, Iowa is my alma mater, so
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  go Hawks. Glad to have you on this
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  morning. We'll see we'll see how the football
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  season goes. I don't know. I don't know.
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  I don't know. I don't know. I don't
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  know my I don't I'm not not holding
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  my breath this year, unfortunately.
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  No. Me either, but we can hope for
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  the best. Yes.
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  Alright. Well, let's start our conversation with AI
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  adoption. It's exploding right now in health care.
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  So I'd love to hear what the most
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  significant or promising application
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  of this technology is right now in your
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  view. And how is this informing your organization's
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  innovation strategy?
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  Yeah. So we've really invested very heavily in
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  AI in the last 12 months. Last year,
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  I think I had the privilege of joining
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  you folks and said this was gonna be
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  the year, and it it is the year.
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  There is no doubt. So in this year,
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  we've unleashed,
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  a torrent of AI technologies across our enterprise.
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  Everything from predictive analytics that we've both purchased
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  and acquired to look at patient deterioration,
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  identify patients that we could potentially intervene on
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  and improve their care,
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  all the way through addressing provider burnout with
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  ambient technologies and chart binding technologies to help
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  make it much easier to assess the patient.
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  I think the early investment where we're really
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  gonna see
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  the most significant impact in health care right
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  now is on that later end. We've got
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  really good data coming out of Iowa demonstrating
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  just how much these technologies reduce provider burnout
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  in a very short period of time.
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  And I think that's a very welcome change
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  in health care after the past 4 very
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  turbulent years.
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  Absolutely. And switching tracks just a little bit
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  toward data.
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  Currently, healthcare leaders are managing greater volumes of
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  data and more devices across a growing number
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  of care settings.
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  So this is a complex environment, and I'd
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  love to hear what clinical integration tools or
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  practices you're seeing drive improvements in patient outcomes.
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  And I'd love to hear specific examples of
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  that. Yeah. So we have really taken a
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  focus on centering our patient data around our
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  EHR.
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  So our approach right now is to really
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  bring we're at Epic shop, is to bring
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  everything we can into that Epic environment and
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  use it wherever we can to analyze and
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  present that data.
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  We are making a shift in sort of
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  our advanced analytics.
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  We are moving,
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  we we were a Tableau shop for advanced
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  visualizations.
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  We're moving more to Power BI, which I
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  think is a welcome change for better integration
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  with the Microsoft suite of tools.
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  We also have found a way to leverage
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  our internal
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  super high performance computing capabilities at the University
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  of Iowa to really do a lot of
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  model development.
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  That is,
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  I think gonna play very nicely with the
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  soon to be released Togito
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  cloud from EPIC that will enable us to
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  really integrate that data,
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  use SQL for more real time type works
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  as opposed to the traditional
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  modalities that are required for EPIC to do
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  real time analytics.
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  And as we discuss adoption of AI and
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  growing data and new technologies,
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  our IT teams become critical. So how can
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  health care organizations better support both their IT
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  and clinical teams as they carry out innovation
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  efforts? And what are the common pitfalls that
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  you've seen? Yeah. I I think
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  I think it's the key thing you said
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  there is integration. Right? The
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  my observation is that in health care, we've
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  done a even though there are people like
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  me sitting there trying to straddle the fence
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  of,
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  of being
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  a tech person and being a clinician,
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  there's a lot of
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  misunderstanding
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  as to from the clinician side as to
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  what's actually possible
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  and a lot of misunderstanding on the IT
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  side as to what's actually useful.
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  And so really when you get those teams
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  together, and I think when you put the
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  user and the pay whoever that user is,
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  whether it's the clinician,
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  it's the patient, it's one of the ancillary
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  services that's that's,
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  being that's interfacing with the IT system.
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  When you get those people that are the
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  users at this
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  at the
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  at the point of innovation,
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  and you really design the systems around them,
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  that's where you wind up with the maximal
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  impact.
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  The thing is you need to have those
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  users cognizant of what is possible. Otherwise, you
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  spend a bunch of time talking about how
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  unicorns are gonna come and fairies are gonna
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  make life wonderful and those types of things.
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  And and someday, I'll have gold delivered from
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  Fort Knox to my house. But until that
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  day,
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  we gotta understand what's actually possible before you
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  can go ahead and design the solution.
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  Absolutely. And as we wrap up the conversation
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  today, I'd love to hear your top piece
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  of advice for healthcare leaders as they prepare
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  for these further advancements
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  in technology and the greater demands for care.
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  I think I think where health care leaders
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  can really make a difference is making sure
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  they have an educated clinician workforce
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  that is able to sit and do that
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  design with the IT teams.
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  Also, I think we've had a historical approach
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  to the way that we implement technologies
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  that a lot of organizations wanna pilot things
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  for long periods of time.
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  And I think there's
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  that's a very justifiable thing to do. But
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  once you make the decision to invest,
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  spending months rolling out a technology
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  just is too long. Right? Months to years.
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  And so finding ways to shorten that time
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  to integration
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  is really key. That's how you maximize that
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  investment in your investment dollars.
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  Spending, you know, 1,000,000 of dollars a year
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  on contracts where you're only partially implemented doesn't
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  do anyone a favor.
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  Absolutely. Well, doctor Blum, thanks so much for
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  joining me this morning on the Becker's healthcare
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  podcast.
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  Again, we're live at the 9th annual health
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  IT digital health and RCM conference. Thanks so
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  much. Thank you.