Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Rich Zane, Chief Innovation Officer at UCHealth

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Rich Zane, Chief Innovation Officer at UCHealth · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips is a health tech leader focused on
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  innovation that improves the health and well-being of
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  people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
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  help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
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  patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
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  the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
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  with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Health
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  Care Podcast, and we are live at the
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  9th Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM
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  Conference.
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  I am joined right now by Rich Zane,
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  who is the chief innovation officer at UCHealth.
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  So, Rich, thanks so much for joining me.
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  And to get us started, could you please
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  share a little bit more about yourself, your
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  background, and your role?
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  Yeah. Thanks for having me. Really thrilled to
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  be here. I'm Rich Zane. I'm the chief
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  innovation officer for UCHealth, which is the University
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  of Colorado Health System,
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  14 hospital system based in Colorado, almost $9,000,000,000
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  in revenue.
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  My role as chief innovation officer is really
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  to interface
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  with technology companies solving pragmatic problems and building
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  solutions and then participating in value creation. I
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  also have another role as chair of the
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  department of emergency medicine. So the lens by
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  which I interact with these companies is really
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  from the lens of a physician
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  and what's best for our patients. So we're
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  very patient centered in the way we adopt
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  and utilize and deploy technology.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for taking the time to
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  be here. And first question,
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  AI adoption is exploding in health care right
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  now. So in your view, what is the
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  most significant or promising application of this technology?
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  And how is this informing your organization's innovation
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  strategy?
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  I think it's important that when you speak
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  about AI,
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  we understand what definitionally
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  we're referring to. And I bet that almost
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  everybody listening to this or here at this
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  conference will have a different definition of what
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  AI is. And the reality is that in
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  health care, like most industries, we've been using
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  AI for at least a decade.
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  The hype curve has certainly
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  increased and the curve is steeper than it's
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  ever been. But I think what's really important
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  when we think about AI is that we
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  really think about intelligence.
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  And just like AI, intelligence can mean everything
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  and nothing. And to us, it means making
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  better decisions in health care. So what AI
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  will do is allow us to adjudicate almost
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  infinity variables,
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  make better
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  decisions in health care, whether that's choosing pharmacotherapy
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  at the bedside,
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  deploying capital, organizing operating rooms, infusion centers,
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  more accurately doing revenue cycle. That's what AI
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  is to us. How it's deployed
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  is just simply math, not magic.
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  And on a daily basis, health care leaders
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  are managing greater volumes of data and more
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  devices across a growing number of care settings.
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  So in this complex
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  environment,
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  growing number of care settings.
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  So in this complex environment, what clinical data
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  integration tools or practices are you seeing drive
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  improvements in patient outcomes? And can you share
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  a specific example of
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  that? I would
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  love to.
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  So when we think about integration, we think
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  about workflows.
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  And when providers
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  deliver care, we have some guiding principles about
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  how we do that. One is we will
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  never make a provider leave their workflow. And
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  for us, our workflow is our electronic health
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  record. The other is the adoption of tools
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  cannot make it harder, has to make it
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  easier, has to be the path of least
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  resistance, it has to be bulletproof right. And
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  if we're gonna give a doctor one more
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  thing to do, we're gonna take 2 things
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  away.
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  So for
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  us, we use
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  AI in clinical workflows around intelligence. And a
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  great example for us is how we think
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  about incidental findings.
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  So if you have a chest x-ray because
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  someone's worried about pneumonia
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  or because you have been a smoker
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  and we find an incidental finding, very frequently,
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  those incidental findings are difficult to follow. So
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  we partner with a company that uses computational
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  linguistics
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  to follow these incidental findings, and we get
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  the patient connected with the right care and
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  the right time at the right place a
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  100% of the time. We've done that now
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  for lung nodules. We're doing it for thyroid
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  nodules. We're doing it for pancreatic
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  cysts and nodules,
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  for pap smears, really any screening test that
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  can have an incidental finding that requires a
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  follow-up, which prior to this deployment of technology
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  was really impossible for any single human or
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  group of humans to keep track of.
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  And when we adopt AI
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  and are managing greater volumes of data, IT
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  teams become critical. So how can health care
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  organizations
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  better support IT and clinical teams as they
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  carry out innovation efforts, and what are some
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  of the common pitfalls you see?
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  So from a perspective of how we integrate
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  and use our IT teams, we're very fond
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  of saying that our innovation strategy is our
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  IT strategy, is our quality strategy,
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  is our virtual health strategy,
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  etcetera.
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  So they are part and parcel of the
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  team. Just like a doctor, a nurse, an
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  executive, IT is really crucial
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  to how we deliver health care.
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  Some of the common pitfalls
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  are that if you ask someone what their
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  ideal state would be,
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  and they don't have to be a novice
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  in IT, but they simply want to develop
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  a tool or use a tool, there's a
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  1 in 3 chance that that tool already
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  exists and they don't know about it. There's
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  a 1 in 3 chance that they have
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  a great idea. We have something that can
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  be optimized to meet their needs, and there's
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  a 1 in 3 chance that's just impossible
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  technologically. So it's understanding
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  what the guardrails are around technology, being able
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  to execute, bring into workflows, change management, and
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  make sure that the tool is actually useful.
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  And finally, as we wrap our conversation, what
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  is your top piece of advice for health
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  care leaders as they prepare for further advancements
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  in technology and greater demands for care? To
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  really take a deep breath,
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  technology is a tool that will help us
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  deliver better care, faster, cheaper, but it's never
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  gonna replace
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  human interaction and human adjudication.
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  So it's really just a tool like anything
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  else,
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  and it's really the tool
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  that is being deployed, not
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  replacing humans or replacing interaction.
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  Well, Rich, thanks so much for joining me
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  today on the Becker's healthcare podcast. Again, we're
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  live at the 9th annual health IT digital
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  health and RCM conference. Thank you. Thank you
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  for having me.