Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Leveraging AI and Data to Strengthen Rural Health with James Wellman

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Leveraging AI and Data to Strengthen Rural Health with James Wellman · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  This is where health care leadership comes together.
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  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
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  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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  speakers to Chicago April.
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  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
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  visit beckershospitalreview.com
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  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
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  in Chicago.
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  Hello, everyone, and welcome to Becker's Healthcare podcast.
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  I'm Scott King, thrilled today to be joined
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  by very special guest, James Wellman, vice president
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  and chief information officer over at Nathan Littauer
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  Hospital and Nursing Home. James, how are you
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  doing today?
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  Doing very well. How are you doing today,
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  Scott? I'm good. Thanks. You know, it could
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  be a little warmer in Chicago as you
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  may have heard, but but, you know, we'll
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  get through it. And we have a lot
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  of of big topics to get to. But
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  before we do that, I was wondering, James,
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  if you could please just tell us a
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  little bit about your background,
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  in health care.
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  Sure.
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  So I am as stated, I'm the current
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  CIO
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  at Nathan Latower, but I've been in health
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  care,
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  IT for about thirty seven years.
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  Started out in a major university,
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  went to work for
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  for profit groups like McKesson,
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  and ended up in different hospitals around the
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  country where I've kinda
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  focused on cleaning up operations
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  and getting EMRs,
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  kinda back on track. Maybe that didn't have
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  such a great implementation or were struggling a
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  little bit, and that's kinda become a hallmark
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  of my career.
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  Appreciate you sharing your background info, James. And
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  now the the first
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  topic I kinda wanna get to is what
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  opportunities and headwinds do you have your eye
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  on right now in health
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  care? Sure.
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  I I think we're all facing a lot
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  of the same headwinds,
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  with with the way we're waiting on the
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  the final impact, I think, about the one
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  big beautiful bill, what that's doing to us
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  with our,
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  Medicaid and the Medicare and our reimbursement. So,
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  in New York, especially, it's having a major
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  impact on us.
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  You know, the opportunities,
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  we're using this one
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  to really start hyper focusing on the work
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  that we're already doing, making sure that we
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  are getting our full value and reimbursement.
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  And we're also spending a little time at
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  our particular organization,
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  moving forward with a lot of good new
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  technology,
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  some interesting things with Meditech and a few
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  other vendors that we're pretty excited about.
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  How are you thinking about
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  growth and and adding value to your organization
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  right now?
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  So for us, it's, I've been here just
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  a little over two and a half years,
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  and this year is a major transition for
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  us.
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  So from a growth perspective, we're really starting
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  to introduce data
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  to the organization
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  and, like I said, focusing
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  on what the needs are for our community
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  and for our families and residents
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  in our region of the Adirondacks.
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  The to do that, what we're we've done
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  is taken a pragmatic approach to AI,
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  And we think that we have a pretty
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  good four pillar process that we talk about
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  to introduce this and not just introduce a
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  an AI segment, for example, in ambient to
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  listen, that's great, and there's some fantastic products
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  out there. But how do we tie that
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  all the way through the entire process? So
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  we blended that with RCM,
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  with, search and summarization,
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  and gives us a soft audit capabilities going
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  forward to really make sure that
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  we're getting best information for our patients and
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  giving the best diagnostic
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  information to our providers
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  and also getting fully reimbursed for the work
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  that we're doing.
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  And, James, to follow that up, also, once
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  you you find these these uses for AI,
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  you know, after you you, do some research,
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  you implement them, and you work out the
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  kinks, are you already thinking of, like, the
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  next uses
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  for the system you wanna use, or you
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  still kinda wanna see this all run smoothly?
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  So what we're looking at right now is
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  we we spent a lot of time in
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  '25,
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  '24 and '25
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  speaking with multiple vendors about how we wanted
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  to approach this. So we went in kinda
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  all in with one vendor,
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  who's in happened to be a Meditech alliance
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  partner,
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  and we've now started deploying all of these
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  separate projects.
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  So that's that's a big
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  initiative for us. RCM is the one where
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  we think is gonna have the largest return
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  because that's the one that every one of
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  the payers that we're working with, they're already
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  using the AI to to work on denials.
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  So we kinda get ahead of curve is
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  what we're working on.
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  And so that's something that we think is
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  the future for a lot of organizations
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  to rural health organizations, but anyone's gonna benefit
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  from this.
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  What's one risk or investment you think is
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  is worth making in 2026?
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  So to to me, it's absolutely gotta be
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  the RCM, the mid cycle revenue.
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  Where can we make an absolute difference?
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  Rural health is, you know, under
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  amazing
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  pressures that we've never seen before. It's always
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  been a challenge.
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  It's something that, personally,
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  I really resonated with me and I devoted
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  my career to,
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  about twenty years ago.
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  But now we're seeing unprecedented
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  challenges for us. I really think the appropriate
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  use of AI
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  is something that can make a difference.
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  Bringing that data to us, letting us look
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  at information, making sure that we're getting
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  all the money and for everything that we're
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  being fairly represented,
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  that's a major initiative for us. And that's
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  something, you know
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  obviously, it comes with risk.
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  We have to make sure that we don't
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  impact cash flow. We have to make sure
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  that it's an already
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  tenuous situation in reimbursement,
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  but we feel like this can
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  make a very positive transition the other way.
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  Just the first run of data that we're
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  seeing
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  shows that we have a lot of room
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  for improvement, and we can make a a
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  better
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  impact on the bottom line.
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  What are some of the key things you
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  look for in that data to to know
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  that it's working the right way?
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  So one of the things that are challenged
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  for us when you're talking about a small
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  organization
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  is we do not have the ability to
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  have multiple people
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  watching everything that all our providers are doing.
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  So standardization,
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  pulling the data in,
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  improving the way that we can see patients,
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  expanding our schedule,
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  just setting up and creating,
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  chart prep,
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  you know, for a busy schedule on a
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  day and a provider
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  can take an an an enormous amount of
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  time.
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  And we are cutting that back to,
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  in a huge magnitude. Some of the providers
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  that we're talking to, and they're seeing this
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  because we're able to pull all the existing
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  data from our Mediatek expanse, but also our
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  previous systems that we were using, both Mediatek
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  Magic and MedEd for an ambulatory system.
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  And it's in a data lake, and they're
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  able to start they'll be doing a summarization
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  of this data.
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  And that gives them everything that they need
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  so that they can make the appropriate diagnosis.
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  We can actually help with the patient. And
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  then we also understand
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  it looks at our payer contracts, and we
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  know what our reimbursement should be.
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  And this helps us track it.
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  Otherwise, that had been a process that's, you
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  know, always available, and that data is there.
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  But actually running it all effectively,
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  without a large staff has been a huge
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  challenge. This is something we feel will make
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  a a big difference for us.
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  And the last question I have for you,
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  James, where do you see the best opportunities
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  for growth in the future?
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  I think that the thing for us is
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  we're going to go back to the basics
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  and foundations of data,
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  Understand
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  what your what your community needs.
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  We all have a lot of the same
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  standard, you know, diabetic,
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  COPD, something like that that we're tracking.
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  But it's the effective use of that. We
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  wanna make sure that I think if you
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  got a rural health organization and they focus
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  on providing
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  the best possible care and keeping the families
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  close to the patients
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  and not sending them away,
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  that's where we're making our investments. So we're
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  making clinical investments
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  that make a difference for our community. And
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  I think that's one of the things that
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  a lot of people can focus on.
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  Your satisfaction scores go up,
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  and you're doing what's best. And we are
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  integral part of the community. So that's where
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  our focus is right now. Well, James, thanks
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  so much for joining us on the podcast
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  and for a great conversation. Look forward to
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  working with you again soon. Alright. Thank you
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  so much.