Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Albert Villarin, MD, FACEP, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuvance Health

Transcript

Albert Villarin, MD, FACEP, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuvance Health · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  Would you like to exchange best practices and ideas to improve care,
• 0:03
  enhance operational efficiency,
• 0:05
  and address financial challenges with your peers?
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  Becker's Healthcare is facilitating these conversations at their eighth annual
• 0:12
  health IT Digital health and RCM meeting.
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  You can check your eligibility for complimentary attendance at the Lincoln,
• 0:19
  the description. We are excited to welcome you in October.
• 0:22
  This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Albert Valar,
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  vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Neon's Health. Dr.
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  Valara, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  Thank you for the opportunity to present today with you.
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  Now, I know we have a lot to talk about.
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  There's really so much happening in healthcare and that intersection between
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  clinical care delivery as well as technology, you know,
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  is really so fascinating and moving quickly.
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  But before we dive into my questions,
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  can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Thank you. Uh, my, uh, background is in emergency medicine.
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  I was boy Certifi Emergency Medicine Medicine. Uh,
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  I was trained in the US military and retired at the US Army Reservist, uh,
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  major in 2000. And, uh, from then I, uh,
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  entered the life of a emergency physician for the first few years knowing that,
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  uh, computers technology will always be part of the care delivery model that,
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  that the future had to hold and, and we needed at the bedside. Uh,
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  then came across, uh, opportunity to be a C M I O.
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  I was c m I for several healthcare networks at that time,
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  but also noted that there's needed to be understanding that healthcare is a
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  business as part of the business, uh,
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  to go understand where healthcare fit in the business world and where the
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  business world health fit into the model of, um, of healthcare. So I, I, uh,
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  work with several companies and started a couple companies as well in terms of
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  utilizing technology and facilitating better care for our clinicians in
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  operations across, uh, several healthcare networks. Uh,
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  have some education and medical informatics,
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  and currently pursuing a healthcare sector in va. Thank you.
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  Oh, that's amazing. You know, what a great experience that you've had.
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  And I can imagine, you know,
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  all that leading into where we're at today in healthcare,
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  especially coming out the last few years during the pandemic, um, you know,
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  really has primed you to be a great leader in this space.
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  Where do you see as some of the big opportunities for, uh, yourself as C M I O,
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  but then others? Um, to really leverage the technology and,
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  and clinical care possibilities, um, to take care of patients better and, and,
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  and what are some of the watch outs and headwinds that you have your eye on as
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  well?
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  Post covid seemed to be a reset,
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  the reevaluation of our healthcare model.
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  What does it mean to be a care delivery network?
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  What does it mean to be a patient experiencing healthcare within that care
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  delivery model?
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  We had the regaining the trust of patients safe to come back and see us,
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  but also it's also safe to give information to us as we advance technologies.
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  Uh, another goal was advancing clinical efficiencies.
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  How has the m r changed over the last 10 years, 15 years,
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  and how do we better facilitate the utilization of that technology with the
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  changing demand of our patients who are used to modern day technologies such
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  as, uh,
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  Amazon and Google and search functionality and everything immediately available
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  to them within a, a touch of a search button, et cetera.
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  How do we bring that same experience to, uh, our, our,
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  our clinical care within healthcare networks?
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  Another piece is driving the efficiency of the emr. The EMR has to evolve,
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  has evolved.
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  We're working with our vendors and third party technologies to really bring the
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  experience for our clinicians to a much better, less burdensome, uh,
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  approach for patient care.
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  And then supporting the operational strategic goals of the network, financially,
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  healthcare as a business, how do we drive better documentation,
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  better facilitation,
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  access to care for all our patients by bringing unification around, uh,
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  the goals we have set for our network itself.
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  Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
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  and it's really fascinating to hear you talk about how all of those things come
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  together in,
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  in really making sure the care delivery and the network is supported.
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  E M R changes that, um, are gonna be impactful,
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  gathering data and getting them to the right people at the right times.
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  And then too just, you know, bringing, uh, everyone together,
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  the support teams coordinating better.
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  I know that's one of the things that I hear time and time again that, you know,
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  the care coordination is so critical, um,
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  and is something that a not lot of organizations are able to do well or,
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  or up to where they would like to be. And so, you know,
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  it'll be fun to see how technology can really help and support, um,
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  organizations, especially, I know, um,
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  one of the challenges for many is that they're short staff, uh,
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  or staff shortages and, you know,
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  having to still provide care during these times.
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  Absolutely. I mean, uh,
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  in terms of how do we go from where we work and grow,
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  how do we adding this value to the organization is utilizing technology.
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  I think we feel,
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  I believe that healthcare information technology is the enzyme and the
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  reaction that needs to be expanded.
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  How do we bring together all the facets of driving and transforming the clinical
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  experience for the patients,
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  clinicians and operational folks around this new
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  digital experience? We've heard before,
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  people process technology is orchestrating the symbiosis of
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  function or successful care delivery. We have to unify, uh,
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  make it a seamless patient flow,
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  driving clinical functions across the network so that clinician,
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  patient and operational, uh, uh,
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  participants within this healthcare model find the information they need,
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  care for the patients better, as well as be frictionless throughout the network.
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  Whether you're transferring a patient, patient, accessing clinical information,
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  operational financial leadership, accessing data, it should be in one place.
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  So we all go to that one place to facilitate, um,
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  understanding of who we are today and then predict utilizing the
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  technologies and information the future where we're going to ensure we get
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  there, um, both safely for the patient, but uh, financially,
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  uh, a profitable for the healthcare network.
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  Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
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  and it's really helpful to think about and think through how, uh,
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  that technology is supportive,
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  especially during a time where every resource and healthcare dollar is precious.
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  You know, when you look at the times that we're in,
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  and a lot of organizations as we've been talking about, um, you know,
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  really wanna make sure they're doing the best they can to provide patient care
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  and be innovative while at the same time they may not have, uh,
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  the financial infrastructure just right now to,
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  to spend on everything they would like to do.
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  So what is one thing you still think is important for them to do this year?
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  What's, uh, an investment or a risk that is really worth taking right now?
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  Well, for us it's understanding where the artificial intelligence, the chat,
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  g p t chat, four, how does it influence delivery of care,
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  automating the processes, deliver care,
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  reducing the burden of that care and advancing patient outcomes.
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  So those are the key pillars of health informatics we want to utilize today
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  as we're, like you said, losing healthcare employees.
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  How do we make the rest of those employees more efficient and automate the
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  process through robotic process automation, ai, evidence-based delivery,
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  clinical distance support, all those pieces now are available to us now.
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  It's our job to orchestrate and create the world that we will
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  live in for the next decade. Um, today's ai,
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  I believe changes will change healthcare like the way EMRs did 15 years
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  ago. We went from paper to the emr, stabilized that emr.
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  Now everybody's used to that.
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  Now comes the next big innovation with artificial intelligence.
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  How will we be speaking with the ai?
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  How will AI be influencing our clinical decisions?
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  How will we embrace AI not just from the current states of leaders in in
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  clinical care, but also those in in medical school?
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  How do we teach that so that they,
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  they develop their utilization of AI as a partner in care and not just a
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  side, uh, um, interesting, um, uh, delivery model.
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  It's will be and is important that we integrate this
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  artificial intelligence to the future.
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  Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate that and it's certainly, um, you know, a,
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  a great sign that AI has a lot of potential and a lot of ways that, um,
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  it's really making life ideally easier for clinicians and the patient experience
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  better. Now, before we wrap up our conversation,
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  I was wondering if you could look into the future and where do you see some of
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  the best opportunities and ways for growth, uh,
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  for yourself as your C M I O A, as well as the teams that you work with?
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  What do you see in the future and how, you know, will those things evolve?
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  Well, I think, um, going back and looking at our mistakes in the past, uh,
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  embracing health equity with technology terms, we,
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  we hear out there called equity is just bringing all patients evidence-based
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  care by removing the burdens of that care EMRs in the past
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  that were race-based calculators that predicted different outcomes depending on
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  race. Removing those,
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  removing the biases of healthcare will deliver better care in the future.
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  Uh, another one is collaboration between healthcare and private markets. A, a,
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  a synergy between the funding for investments in healthcare innovations
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  by leaderships who have guiding principles and evidence-based practice deliver
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  care in the healthcare networks. That synergy will grow, I believe,
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  as we really readjust to the current healthcare financial
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  issues, uh, plaguing many healthcare networks across United States. Uh,
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  cloud collaborations for research,
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  utilizing data lakes and collaborating not just within a network,
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  but across network.
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  We have multiple opportunities now to connect to national,
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  international databases for research so that one clinician at one network
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  can facilitate the data of a similar patient group and cohort
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  throughout the world. Uh, that's will be, uh, delivering better care.
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  Predictive modeling, of course, is definitely, uh, gonna be part of that. Again,
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  back to the artificial intelligence. AI is guiding evidence, pr,
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  evidence-based practice, but for all of us,
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  the patients will have apps to deliver care for themselves,
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  to help them make decisions, chat Botts, et cetera.
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  The clinically EMR will evolve over the next few years to become
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  a very powerful tool and a collaborative partner in the care we
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  deliver and for operations finance access to the data to create that
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  predictive financial modeling that's required to Del to, to,
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  to bring in the importance of where we are two weeks from now,
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  two months from now, two years from now,
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  and have confidence in our decision making processes because not just patient
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  care is reliant upon that, but the survivability of healthcare itself.
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  As we do more with less, there's less money, less people, but,
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  but the same number of patients and more are coming.
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  We haven't been prepared to be more efficient delivering that care for those
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  patients and all patients equally on bias and evidence-based.
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  Absolutely. I love that. Thank you so much Dr. Valara, for being here and,
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  and really talking through so many different areas that are exciting, um,
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  for healthcare and technology, as well as what to look out for ahead. Um,
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  you know,
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  this has been a really fun conversation and I'm excited to see you as well in
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  October at our Health IT Digital Health and Revenue Cycle event.
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  I know a lot of these themes will be, uh, talked about and touched on and,
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  and really explored more in depth. So thank you so much for being here, and I,
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  I look forward to seeing you soon.
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  Look forward to seeing you soon,
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  and thank you for your opportunity to present here at Bakers.
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