Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Laura Prietula, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Transcript

Laura Prietula, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips.
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  Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Health Care
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  podcast recorded at the 9th annual health IT,
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  digital health, and RCM conference in Chicago. I'm
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  joined today by Laura Petula, deputy CIO at
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  the department of veteran affairs.
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  Laura, to get us started, can you please
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  share a bit about yourself, your role, your
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  background, and your organization?
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  Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me
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  here today. And, as you said, my name
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  is Laura Petula, and I am the deputy
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  chief information officer for the Department of Veterans
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  Affairs, the electronic health record modernization integration office,
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  also known as EHRM IO.
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  I love to say that I am a
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  geek. I'm a nerd, and I love being
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  weird, and I embrace every single one of
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  those,
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  characteristics.
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  I also love people, and I love to
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  serve. And that's what draw what draws me
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  a lot to the department.
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  I've been in the IT space for over
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  30 years, and over 20 of them, I
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  spent at the Department of Veteran Affairs serving
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  our beloved veterans.
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  So as a self proclaimed nerd, somebody obviously
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  with your ear down, like, listening to what's
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  going on in the industry, you know, as
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  I'm sure you're aware, AI adoption is exploding
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  in health care.
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  In your view, what's the most significant or
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  promising application of this technology right now,
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  And, how is this informing your organization's innovation
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  strategy?
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  So AI has woven its threads into the
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  fabric of our lives since 19 fifties or
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  or a little bit before that too.
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  But what sets this era apart is the
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  depth and breadth of its integration in today's
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  world.
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  We have huge challenges today in diverse environments,
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  and so I think that AI is allowing
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  us to help break some of those challenges
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  and barriers.
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  Like, for example, telehealth has brought them a
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  lot of good changes. We can now reach
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  people who are in rural communities who would
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  have had to travel a 100 miles or
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  more in order to receive care. So accessibility
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  and some equity has also been brought to
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  the table because of AI. And it has
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  had a a profound impact on individuals
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  like me.
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  I have a chronic condition, and AI helps
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  me monitor that and and and be able
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  to coach myself to ensure that I am
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  healthy. And many of these are are rule
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  based products and services as well.
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  But the impact of AI in health care
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  extends beyond just reaching individual experiences.
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  As I said, it is about breaking barriers,
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  and also,
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  I anticipate that the growth will continue.
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  Some of the three concepts that I usually
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  that I have
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  is,
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  I talk about empowering
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  patients,
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  sense making of data,
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  and access to all patients. And so we
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  will be empowering with AI capabilities and more,
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  not just AI, AI in the general term,
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  it's empowering patients to participate actively
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  in their health environment, as well as their
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  healthcare team. And since making of data and
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  information so their patients, clinicians,
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  and administrators
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  can focus on defining the best strategies for
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  the best healthcare outcomes, and finally,
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  access to all patients,
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  right, That regardless of their socioeconomic
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  background or factors, location, or otherwise,
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  we can be removing some of those physical
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  barriers to health care and allow them to
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  have a healthy life.
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  So
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  on a daily basis, health care leaders are
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  managing greater and greater volumes of data on
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  more devices across a growing number of health
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  care settings and populations.
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  In this complex environment, what clinical data integration
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  tools or practices are you seeing drive improvements
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  in patient outcomes and operations, and operations? And
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  can you share an example or 2?
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  So data is everywhere Mhmm. Today, and I
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  love data. Right? Data has been one of
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  the things that I've focused my career
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  for for many years.
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  And I believe that the greatest opportunities for
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  data might be,
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  is is how do we make it useful
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  to clinicians, especially in the health care space.
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  Right? How do we make it useful to
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  clinicians,
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  and how do we, also make it meaningful
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  and with the highest quality that we can
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  provide?
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  So as you know, we're implementing an electronic
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  health record a modernized electronic health record,
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  and, we currently manage around 70 terabytes of
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  information. So if you can think about that,
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  it's about maybe 23,000
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  high definition movies, you know, that can could
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  get stored there every day. We have that.
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  We manage that. We curate that. We make
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  out of the quality, and we make sense
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  of that data for for our clinicians. And
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  one of those examples that we have in
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  VA is, a a product, a combined product
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  that we have, we call it VX 130,
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  which is all of the information from our
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  own medical centers. We have a 130 different
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  medical centers.
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  We put it out into one big place,
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  and that's what we call VX 130.
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  And that information
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  now is being used for large language models.
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  We curate it. We we we also bring
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  it and make it avail available to our
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  our physicians
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  through a tool that we call Google.
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  And Google basically allows you to
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  search a patient and from that patient and
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  all the these notes that you and it
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  is across all of the longitudinal health record,
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  and it tells you exactly
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  what, diagnoses, what node, what lab result
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  was exactly that around that talked about die
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  diabetes. So that's making information
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  meaningful
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  to clinicians so that they don't have to
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  be sifting through all sorts of data for
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  hours to find out any of this information.
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  So how can health care organizations better support
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  IT and clinical teams as they carry out
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  innovation efforts? And, what are some of the
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  common pitfalls in this area?
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  Well, so
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  so with VA,
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  we have a long history of many decades
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  of innovation.
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  So for me, one of my main goals
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  as well is to make sure that not
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  only people love the electronic health record, which
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  is in itself a challenge because nobody loves
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  their their EHRs,
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  but I also wanna make sure that innovation
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  is at the forefront of anything that we
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  do. Not because we're implementing a a a
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  COTS product are we going to stop innovating.
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  We will need to continue to see
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  how do we become the those enablers for
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  the organization
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  so that we can continue to ensure
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  VA has that,
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  innovation
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  spirit and continues to deliver innovative solutions for
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  our veterans and our clinical workforce.
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  Out of curiosity, when it comes to adopting
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  some of these
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  newer technologies or innovations,
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  how does that differ at, like, an organization
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  like the VA versus a traditional health system?
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  So if you can imagine, VA, we have,
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  like I said, about a 132
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  different medical centers. Right? The way that we
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  grew up, and this goes to culture,
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  in VA, we were all different organizations,
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  let's say
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  50 years ago, right, 40 years ago, where
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  every one of those
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  facilities grew up with their own culture, grew
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  up with a
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  a baseline of a product,
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  but they each customized it to serve their
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  needs. Like our our facilities,
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  they know or whatever comes in because of
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  the the work that we do, they might
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  have come in when the the granddaughter was
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  being born, and now the granddaughter is in
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  college. Right? So all that cultural,
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  understanding of who the veteran is, we need
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  to take into consideration when you're implementing a
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  modernized technology.
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  You wanna make sure that you preserve the
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  culture of caring and the culture of making
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  sure that the patient is always at the
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  center of everything that we do while at
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  the same time making sure that our clinical
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  staff can really transform the way that that
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  they're doing work. So
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  this is a massive undertaking,
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  but the clinical community is really the one
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  that is really changing the practices and standardizing
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  the practices. So the clinical practices are changing.
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  They are evolving.
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  They're look looking and using new technologies.
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  They're looking and and understanding
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  what other concepts can they bring to the
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  table.
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  So I don't know that it is
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  markedly different than a very large organization,
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  that is trying to, change the the main
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  difference, I think, is that
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  VA grew from,
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  if you would, islands
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  of medical centers that they started to come
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  in through the years. We started to centralize,
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  and now we're starting to really modernize many
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  of those technologies.
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  Okay. I like that answer.
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  What would you say your top piece of
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  advice for health care leaders
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  is as they prepare for, you know, further
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  advancements in technology and greater demands for care?
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  I would say that one of the main
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  advices I would give
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  is be diligent
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  and be very, very disciplined.
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  You wanna make sure that as you're
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  bringing a new technology, as you transform an
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  entire organization,
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  that you know exactly
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  who you're doing it with,
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  not who you're doing it to, right, but
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  who you're doing it with, how you're doing
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  it, that you do have
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  groups of people that are working with you
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  to make these changes.
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  Make sure that you have a really good
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  process of identifying any changes,
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  and documenting the changes and how those changes
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  are going to be,
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  used. One of the things that I've talked
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  to all of my folks is always
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  you know, many people look as to what
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  are the resources you're gonna use, what are
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  the activities that you're gonna do, and what
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  are the outputs that you're gonna produce.
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  We always want to extend that. We don't
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  wanna get get stuck on the output. We
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  wanna make sure that we actually look as
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  to what is the outcomes that we're providing
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  and what is the value that we're delivering.
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  And so if you have that in mind,
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  I think that your focus will always be
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  towards doing the right things right and delivering
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  the right things to the right folks. Mhmm.
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  Mhmm.
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  Well, Well, Laura, thank you so much again
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  for joining us today on the Becker's Health
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  Care podcast. It was an absolute pleasure, and
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  I I hope you have a lovely rest
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  of your day. Oh, thank you so very
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  much.