Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Matthew Meyer, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at UVA Health & Co-Founder of PeriOp Green

Transcript

Matthew Meyer, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at UVA Health & Co-Founder of PeriOp Green · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Lauren D with the Becker health
• 0:02
  care podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Doctor
• 0:04
  Matthew Meyer, associate professor of,
• 0:08
  and c chair of the Uv Health sustainability
• 0:11
  community committee at Uv Health as well as
• 0:14
  c cofounder of Peri Green. Doctor Meyers, is
• 0:17
  a pleasure to have on podcast today.
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  Thank you for having me and. I'm really
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  thrilled to be here. Now I know we've
• 0:23
  got a lot to talk about, and I'm
• 0:24
  really looking forward to learning more about some
• 0:26
  of the
• 0:27
  sustainability initiatives that you're doing at Uv health
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  and how other their health systems can get
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  involved and do some more things as well.
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  But before we dive into my quest.
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  You tell us is just just a little
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  bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Shit.
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  So I am
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  a full time clinical anesthesia interest at this
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  point. I also work in the intensive care
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  unit. So that is
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  predominantly my day job.
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  However, under the product that really drives most
• 0:54
  of my
• 0:55
  my passion at this point is I didn't
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  do a lot of work this sustainable health
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  care area, and I consider myself to be
• 1:02
  an advocate and a researcher. I've had
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  really good fortune to ask some editorial that
• 1:07
  were published in instead news health affairs forefront
• 1:10
  scientific America,
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  American
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  in this area, which has given me the
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  opportunity to really
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  reach out and
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  that people excited about sustainable health and see
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  the potential of it.
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  I am also,
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  and this isn't... This is actually becoming almost
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  has much a full time job I'm also,
• 1:30
  A founder, Ceo of Peri Cream, which is
• 1:33
  a fuck where we're using computer vision to
• 1:36
  identify and help. Health systems eliminate unnecessary waste
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  in the operating room.
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  Most fascinating to hear and, you know, really
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  cool to have that abilities of of looking
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  in and identifying and then being able to
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  out upon for the unnecessary waste. Now, given
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  your and enroll. What are some of the
• 1:54
  biggest issues that you're following in healthcare right
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  now?
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  K. So
• 2:00
  she my focus is on sort of 2
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  sides of sort of the same coin. So
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  I'm very interested in
• 2:07
  in health,
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  then I'm very interested in sustainable healthcare care.
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  And I I'm happy to give sort of
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  the definitions. Because I think sometimes they get
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  a little them mush together in the healthcare
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  care system, but it took me a while
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  of really doing this to realize that they're
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  really 2 independent issues and really
• 2:22
  deserve
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  independent attention.
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  To what I'm talking about climate health, I'm
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  talking about,
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  I'm talking about the impact of climate changing
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  and really, you before it gets bumped into
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  it. Like all sort of pollution and waste
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  is having on human health.
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  And
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  just to support this during the pandemic in
• 2:42
  2021.
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  The there was an editorial that I was
• 2:45
  called simultaneously
• 2:46
  in 200
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  different journals including New england Journal on the
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  Bm, which are, you know, very important and,
• 2:53
  very important journals in Medicine.
• 2:55
  That said, the greatest threat to global public
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  health continued failure world leaders to keep the
• 3:00
  global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees anyway. And
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  so
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  that concept is that
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  we've you,
• 3:08
  collectively as humans contributed to,
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  we've changed our environment.
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  That we're changing our environment ways that we
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  can't necessarily predict and that our be coming
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  back to Harm us in the way of
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  health.
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  And
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  the thing about that statement was it was
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  saying keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade. We're
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  and arguably in the last 12 months,
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  we're above 1.5 degrees centigrade grade, If you
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  aggregate the weather in the temperature. From throughout
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  the world. So we may have already crust
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  that, and we haven't really organized
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  ourselves in a way that's going to, you
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  know, bring us back
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  And as a consequence of all this, there
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  going to be implications on Human Health and
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  quite honestly, there already are implications on Human
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  L.
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  And based implications and
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  they're broad. They go from some of the
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  more obvious ones, which is like a longer
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  allergies.
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  Season
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  to other respiratory concerns. We all have many
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  of us had exposure to the wildfires in
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  Canada
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  that brought the air quality index really high,
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  you know, far away from. I mean I'm
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  in Virginia, we had days where we were
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  we should really exert sides outside and camps
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  camps with canceled that summer. So the the
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  more obvious ones to less obvious ones which
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  are that
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  when there's large scale weather events,
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  patients can't get their cancer treatments have health
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  systems.
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  And everywhere in between... There's essentially no organ
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  system and that includes mental health that's not
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  being affected
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  by
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  solution and
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  the impact of us on our environment. So
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  that's climate health.
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  That's 1 only thing that I'm really paying
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  attention to because I think that there are
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  some institutions out there. There are some health
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  systems that are really starting to pay attention
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  to it. And in my opinion, that's a
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  marker of
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  basically quality. It shows that this institution is
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  looking to the future. And you're able, they've
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  manage they manage today's problems long enough that
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  they're able to look into the future and
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  try to figure out how to get themselves
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  to be the right provider community health for
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  the future. Which I think is just yeah.
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  That's that's top
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  top level strategy it from executive perspective.
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  And the second bid is sustainable healthcare, which
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  is honestly where the company that I started
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  and where I tend to find myself a
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  little more at hold. And this is really
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  what I love.
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  Sustainable health care is, how do we take
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  the health system that we have the U.
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  S. Keeping you in mind that that 17
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  percent 18 percent of U. S Gdp
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  or about 4 percent to 5 percent of
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  global Gdp
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  is the healthcare So this is a huge
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  amount of resources when you think about the
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  whole world that large. And how do we
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  take that and I we used them better
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  noise efficiently? How do we eliminate waste? How
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  do we make our health system not
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  contribute to pollution or climate changing mission
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  and I find that to be fascinating anything,
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  and that's that's where a lot of my
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  thought goes today. So I'm
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  very excited about both those concepts.
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  Less fascinating here and certainly, you know, really
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  interesting to go down that road and understand
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  how different climate change issues are affecting not
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  only people's health, but their ability to access
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  health care and what that means for us
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  in the future.
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  Now when you look ahead, you know, what
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  are you excited about and what makes you
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  nervous?
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  I mean, so
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  no I'm gonna I'm gonna bring it back
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  to those topics. So I am very excited
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  about
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  the sustainable health care movement. I... Think I
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  think since I sort of got myself involved
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  in it the past 5 or 10 years.
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  I've seen it go from, you know, like,
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  a bunch of people are really trying and
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  saying and
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  organizing to the best their ability, what I
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  would consider to be a relatively
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  strong,
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  you know, wealth organized
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  and growing
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  mission. Until I'll play a couple things. So
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  the first we can't talk about this in
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  this world without mentioning 2 organizations, which is
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  healthcare without harm and practice health. Those are
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  related organizations and they've really
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  didn't
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  they've been ringing the bell for a while
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  saying that there's problems in our environment that
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  our Human health? And then how can we
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  take health systems whose mission is that take
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  care of community health and ensure that
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  the systems the way in which healthcare care
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  is delivered
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  doesn't
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  worsening
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  the problems that cause humans to be sick
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  and pollution pollution remission etcetera. So
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  that organization practice free health
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  represents or has members of 14 100 hospitals
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  and health systems in the U. S and
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  Canada. So I think that in and of
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  itself
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  demonstrates genuine
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  buy in
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  with organizations.
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  There was also a petition that was signed
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  by about a thousand
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  possible. I think representing about 1000 hospitals by
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  the department of health and human services
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  that was
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  to really engage with cc car hospital organization
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  of the healthcare care system,
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  and that was signed. Nationally it was a
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  white house event. We're seeing the national adding
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  medicine
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  really focus in on how do we d
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  card medicine. And then just recently,
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  we've had this... The joint commission has created
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  a sustainable health their certification. And this I
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  think is really cool. This is
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  the
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  essentially the certification
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  structures it so that you
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  test yourself and organize your health system with
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  the building blocks to really drive sustainability
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  inside. It will accept leadership, it looks at
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  data collection and it looks at action. But
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  really I'm really impressed with the fact that
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  we're
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  that the joint commission has gotten into this
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  field. And,
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  I'm hoping that their involvement will only increase
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  from there. They've got great leadership. Think there's
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  a lot of potential for them
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  to really
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  help helps us become more efficient through sustainability
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  and helps
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  provide better value patient care through sustainability.
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  And I I remiss I don't mention that
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  someone I was hoping that you get health
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  with death but someone has gotten to get
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  the first certificate and it was hack secondary
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  meridian and health. So just real recognition to
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  them for b being, becoming real leaders in
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  this field of sustainable healthcare care. And they
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  were the first ones to achieve joint commission
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  sustainable healthcare care certification for other their hospitals,
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  Well, that's amazing to hear and definitely,
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  what a great goal to work towards. And
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  for you at Uv Health,
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  how does that sustainability show up? And especially,
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  I know quote the community committee,
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  you know, it is 1 way that you
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  could contribute in a big way, but
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  what types of things are you doing or
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  changes have you been able to make since
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  getting involved with these types of initiatives?
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  Sure. So
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  as everyone listening to this healthcare has been
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  for a lot the last couple of years.
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  But my real hope is we're coming out
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  stronger lessons learned from Covid and we're going
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  we're ready to,
• 10:03
  walk and chew bubble them and like really
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  move forward on this. So
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  what we're doing. So,
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  you tax sustainable sustainable health and all fronts.
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  First is largely organization, You know, finding the
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  people that are interested in. And I will
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  tell you that the minute you start talking
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  about this as you might gather, I talk
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  about this a fair bit to to many
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  get to hold listen. And and I find
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  that the many you start talking about waste
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  reduction efficiency getting it little solution.
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  You have hands raised all over the place.
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  This is stuff that is very
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  connected to people and a mission driven world
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  like health.
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  So first of all, it's finding the people
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  that are interested this and building your network
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  building your lives,
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  my next goal has been to do when
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  I can to empower those people to motivate
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  them To allow them to see that that
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  their wishes are their desires, their goals their
• 10:57
  project mix to reduce plastic waste to recycle
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  more
• 11:02
  coffers to
• 11:03
  whatever it is the not bone. And here's
• 11:06
  the network that we've developed to help you
• 11:08
  accelerate each projects. So we organize, we, you
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  know, find those people and then we help
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  them accelerate the projects.
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  We have directly done something things. You know,
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  my department was fairly early I'm not the
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  early. But we got rid of pretty much
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  all of our does flooring. That's the volatile
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  aesthetics, bad has a real outs outside impact
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  as a create greenhouse gas. It also happens
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  being more costly, so it's 1 of those
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  beautiful moments, which you find time time again,
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  where sustainability alliance with cost effectiveness.
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  So we got rid of that foreign. We're,
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  teaching a and talking about reducing the flows
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  of the operations in anesthesiologist. So that's that
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  that's where I have real domain.
• 11:47
  And we are also working across the healthcare
• 11:50
  care system. You, we're working we're working on
• 11:53
  talking about energy efficiency. There's actually great resources
• 11:57
  out there crew tremendous resources. And when I'm
• 11:59
  about resources, I'm not just talking about, like,
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  you know, a Pamphlet here Pdf there. I'm
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  talking about, know, millions of dollars
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  for
• 12:07
  energy efficiency projects
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  and,
• 12:11
  my Grow grids to build into your healthcare
• 12:14
  system that's being funded through the inflation reduction
• 12:17
  Act. And
• 12:19
  the
• 12:20
  health and human services through the office for
• 12:22
  climate change health equity has actually put out
• 12:24
  a cat program on utilizing the Irs. So
• 12:26
  it's basically a starter project for you to
• 12:29
  figure out how your health system hospital can
• 12:31
  access
• 12:32
  millions of dollars. I mean, in some looks
• 12:34
  like billions or tens of billions of dollars
• 12:36
  that are available for these projects.
• 12:39
  So
• 12:41
  we go every we go everywhere We're working
• 12:43
  on it. We're working on making sure recycling
• 12:45
  rolled out and not only rolled out the
• 12:47
  materials we collect get recycled.
• 12:49
  All the ways to trying to figure out
• 12:50
  how we can fund our renewable energy projects,
• 12:54
  energy storage and and the like to make
• 12:56
  our help systems more resilient, you know, in
• 12:58
  the face of the changing world.
• 13:01
  I love that. That is so helpful to
• 13:02
  know and understand just some of the... Little
• 13:04
  things that you can do that to make
• 13:06
  a big difference. Now before we wrap up
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  here, I'm wondering, could you talk about what
• 13:10
  the most effective health leaders will need in
• 13:12
  order to be successful in the next 2
• 13:14
  to 3 years or so.
• 13:16
  Sure. So
• 13:18
  what I want is I want people to
• 13:20
  craft on to this concept of Sustainable healthcare
• 13:22
  care. And I want people to make it
• 13:24
  theirs. Like, I I'm am, you know, I
• 13:27
  I'm an advocate for this. And we've talked
• 13:29
  largely about what it means from an environmental
• 13:31
  perspective. But sustainable health care is really a
• 13:34
  beautiful beautiful concept here. Right? And I want
• 13:37
  people to make it theirs make it broadly.
• 13:39
  I want us to have a healthcare system
• 13:41
  that clinicians wanna work at. I want it
• 13:44
  to be place where patients feel good where
• 13:46
  we know that this hospital that's been a
• 13:49
  part of our community is going to be
• 13:50
  here for
• 13:52
  the next decade, the next generation of people.
• 13:55
  I want us to know that we're using
• 13:56
  our resources
• 13:58
  intentionally and for maximum impact. There should be
• 14:00
  no on that necessary ways. That's a passion
• 14:02
  of mine I created a company around, you
• 14:04
  know, the identification of this, like, unnecessary ways.
• 14:07
  We have so much of it in health
• 14:09
  in in healthcare care.
• 14:11
  We need to focus on health
• 14:13
  instead of medicine.
• 14:14
  And,
• 14:15
  honestly, like, My livelihood is from you know,
• 14:18
  being an anesthesiologist.
• 14:19
  But if I put myself out of a
• 14:20
  job, if I can get everybody so healthy
• 14:22
  so that they don't need my work, like,
• 14:25
  what more for a life's mission, but we
• 14:27
  need to really think about health.
• 14:29
  Want I want this concept of sustainability way
• 14:32
  to be elevated.
• 14:34
  And when I say El, I mean put
• 14:35
  it in the C suite, like, we need
• 14:37
  people who are making the decisions to be
• 14:39
  having this as part of the conversation at
• 14:41
  the table. It doesn't need to be the
• 14:43
  only part, but it needs to be a
• 14:45
  part and we need to think about how
• 14:47
  the concept of sustainability will help address
• 14:50
  and will help a lot. Address a number
• 14:52
  of the pressing crises that we're all dealing
• 14:54
  with. And again, let me... Just give a
• 14:56
  shortlist list. We're talking about, you know, staff
• 14:58
  shortages in burnout out.
• 15:00
  People are inspired to work
• 15:02
  when hospitals align with their epics.
• 15:06
  Low value cost healthcare against sustainability efficiency moving
• 15:09
  waste. Like this is stuff that that brings
• 15:11
  up,
• 15:12
  improves our productivity,
• 15:15
  the it gets to managing social determines of
• 15:17
  health. There's the the impact of the environment
• 15:21
  on people's health. On
• 15:23
  barely
• 15:24
  impacts those people who have the few resources.
• 15:26
  And that's something that we see time and
• 15:28
  time again whether it's in our country and
• 15:30
  other countries and locally and you know, in
• 15:32
  other places like,
• 15:34
  we need we need to, you know, think
• 15:36
  about how the people who are being impacted
• 15:39
  the most, you know, how we can help
• 15:40
  them out.
• 15:41
  And then we also get the plans for
• 15:43
  the future
• 15:44
  and
• 15:45
  really think about community health problems that are
• 15:48
  forthcoming. And
• 15:50
  planning around them, we can hope to am
• 15:52
  that into something degree. And so I'm talking
• 15:54
  about bringing this into the C suite. And
• 15:55
  there's a couple of health systems out there
• 15:57
  that have have some sort of a Chief
• 16:00
  sustainability officer, and I'll tell you that these
• 16:02
  people are doing amazing things under that. But
• 16:04
  they haven't been they have been granted that's
• 16:06
  soul title. We have, it's usually a blended
• 16:09
  title of sustainability plus some other aspect.
• 16:13
  When sustainability is the so focus the the
• 16:17
  leader in the institution tends to be more
• 16:18
  at the Vp level. And I will tell
• 16:20
  you that I I know so of the
• 16:22
  people that are sitting in the Vp level
• 16:23
  at in of is hospitals.
• 16:24
  And
• 16:27
  the health system that they can elevate them
• 16:28
  into the Cc will will be wow by
• 16:31
  their ability to just, you know, like the
• 16:33
  world, that's probably of about how good the
• 16:35
  world fire was definitely the wrong analogy for
• 16:37
  my conversation right now. But just to really,
• 16:40
  like,
• 16:40
  just
• 16:42
  they're just going to do so well. They're
• 16:43
  primed.
• 16:44
  Largely these people are already doing that role.
• 16:47
  They've just been
• 16:48
  in off. That are are sort of independent,
• 16:51
  not terribly well resources and yet these people
• 16:53
  are succeeding. And so what I encourage people
• 16:55
  to do is, you know, think about what
• 16:58
  sustainability means to you for your healthcare system.
• 17:00
  Make sure that you improve the impact on
• 17:02
  the world because that's a large part of
• 17:03
  it. Do not get healthy people from unhealthy
• 17:06
  environments.
• 17:07
  But think about what a achieves sustainability officer
• 17:10
  is
• 17:10
  find that person in your organization fix that
• 17:13
  and put them into a position power motivate
• 17:15
  them and to see what happens. I expect
• 17:17
  great things,
• 17:18
  and that's that's that I think is gonna
• 17:21
  happen the next couple of years or at
• 17:23
  least what I'm really looking for to see
• 17:25
  happen.
• 17:26
  That's amazing to hear and and definitely
• 17:29
  I so appreciate that focus and drive and
• 17:31
  energy around the sustainability of bringing that into
• 17:33
  the C suite to.
• 17:35
  Is so important. For the future. Doctor Meyer,
• 17:37
  thank you so much for joining us on
• 17:39
  the podcast today. This has been such a
• 17:40
  fascinating discussion, and I look forward to connecting
• 17:42
  with you again soon.
• 17:44
  For Well, thank you so much for having
• 17:46
  me. I really appreciate your audience for listening.
• 17:48
  And I'm at Uv health available if anyone
• 17:51
  has any questions or we'll reach out to
• 17:53
  talk. Always happy to help more. Thank you.