Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Kelley Wells, Rph VP- Clinical Applications, Indiana University Health

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Kelley Wells, Rph VP- Clinical Applications, Indiana University Health · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  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 13 through the sixteenth.
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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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  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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  thirteenth annual CEO and CFO roundtable.
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  I'm currently joined by Kelly Wells, who is
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  the VP of clinical applications at Indiana University
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  Health. So, Kelly, thanks for being here. I'm
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  gonna have you start off by introducing yourself
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  a little bit more and telling us more
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  about your background. Sure. Thanks for having me.
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  So like you said, I'm the VP for
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  clinical applications for IU Health. We're a 17
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  hospital system in in Indiana.
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  I oversee all of our clinical applications, so
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  that includes our EMR, our, imaging systems, those
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  type of things.
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  I am pharmacist by background, so,
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  kinda kinda ended up in IT by accident.
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  I,
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  was implementing a lot of systems,
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  as the pharmacist
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  and just kind of over time, moved into
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  IT and have been doing this for about
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  ten years now.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for taking the time to
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  be here.
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  And let's have you start off by talking
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  a little bit about your growth strategy over
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  the next year or two. Yeah. So IU
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  Health is in rapid growth. We have, we've
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  really put we've kinda gone gone all in
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  on building. So we have a new academic
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  adult academic health center, Downtown Indianapolis,
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  and that's a consolidation of two hospitals that
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  are coming together. So that will open in
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  2027,
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  and we've spent a lot of time trying
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  to, make sure that that building is gonna
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  be smart. We're gonna have all the newest
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  technology. So really spending a lot of time
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  on that. We also have a new hospital
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  in Fort Wayne, Indiana
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  and a, cancer center and another hospital in,
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  in Lafayette. So we
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  have we have lots of growth going on.
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  In the meantime, of course, we're trying to
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  also
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  roll out new programs and all that. So
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  it it has been a pretty busy time
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  for us.
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  And tell us about the most exciting
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  or impactful initiative or project that you're working
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  on right now. Well, for me, it is,
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  our epic conversion. So we have been an,
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  Oracle Health Cerner client for about twenty five
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  years. And so we have deep, deep, deep
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  knowledge with Cerner.
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  And, we made the decision. We announced last
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  at the end of last year that we
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  were switching to Epic. We go live 05/01/2027.
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  We're doing it as an operationally led project.
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  So we have,
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  kind of the ex president of our medical
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  group is running the project, but you've got
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  a bunch of IT people behind him, that
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  are helping with that. We actually took our
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  team. My team had,
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  probably 250 people supporting all of our applications.
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  About a 140 of them went over,
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  to that Epic team, went through all the
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  training,
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  and we're kind of in that legacy support.
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  So we're trying to manage,
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  still the requests of the business, but at
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  the same time, trying to figure out how
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  to how to obviously deliver Epic on time
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  and on budget. So,
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  it it is very exciting time for IU
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  Health.
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  Wonderful.
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  And what is the most important thing you
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  think that health executives
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  should be doing right now to make sure
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  their organizations are successful in the future?
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  I think, really, as you've kinda seen in
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  this conference, there's so much AI that's kinda
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  been the theme. Right? And, of course, being
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  an IT person, this is, you know, this
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  is important to me. But, you know, as
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  you grow,
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  I in some sometimes you don't necessarily see
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  the spend in the IT space actually go
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  up, as a percentage of your revenue. So
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  I think really spending some time understanding, okay,
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  where do we want to invest? If we're
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  going to invest in these AI products, which
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  can can have great benefits,
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  you know, either either with your clinicians or
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  it could be, you know, back office type
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  things.
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  It takes IT people behind that to kinda
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  make that happen. So, you know, just making
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  sure that you're building that infrastructure properly
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  so that we can,
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  that we can deliver and and support our
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  users.
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  Wonderful. Well, Kelly, thanks so much for joining
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  me today on the Becker's healthcare podcast. Again,
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  we are recording live at the thirteenth annual
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  CEO and CFO roundtable.
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  Thank you.