Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Dr. James Blum, CHIO at University of Iowa

Transcript

Dr. James Blum, CHIO at University of Iowa · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by James Blum,
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  chief Health Information Officer at University of Iowa.
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  James, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  - Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
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  - Now. I know there's a lot happening
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  really in the healthcare space.
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  It's such a dynamic space,
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  and I know you're doing a lot at the University of Iowa
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  as well, so I'm excited for this conversation.
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  But before we dive into the meat of our conversation,
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  can you tell us a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Sure. Um, so prior to medical school, I was, uh, trained
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  as a computer scientist,
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  and then I, uh, I ended up spending a fair bit
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  of time in the research space doing large dataset analytics
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  after I got done with my residency and fellowship.
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  Uh, in addition to having an active clinical practice,
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  I'm an anesthesiologist and ICU doc,
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  and then about three years ago I was recruited, uh, here
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  to the University of Iowa to take the, uh, chief medical,
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  now the chief Health Information Officer role.
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  - Oh, that's fantastic to hear.
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  And what a great combination of skill sets
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  and backgrounds, especially for the current age
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  where technology and artificial intelligence as well
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  as digital health is such a big part of where healthcare
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  and healthcare delivery is headed.
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  - Yeah, it's a, it is an amazing time in medicine.
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  I think we're, we're moving into an era, uh, unlike with
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  EHRs, which I think were implemented a little too early, uh,
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  before the technology was truly ready.
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  I think we're, we're now moving into an era where
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  the technology is, is really primed for the problems
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  that we have in healthcare today.
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  So I'm, I'm super excited about what we're going
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  to see in the IT
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  and computing space in healthcare over the
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  next, uh, three to five years.
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  - Absolutely. So given where we're at right now,
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  and as well, uh, as an eye for the future,
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  what are the opportunities and headwinds
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  that you're looking at currently?
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  - Yeah, so I think like everybody we're looking at, uh, AI
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  as the current, uh, major opportunity
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  for us in the IT space in our provider space over the next,
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  probably as I said, sort of three to five years.
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  We're gonna start, I think, seeing benefits from
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  that in the next, next few months as we go through some
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  of our acquisition processes.
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  Uh, and I think that will just continue to roll
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  until it becomes more
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  or less kind of standard of standard of care
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  for mostly documentation purposes over the next, uh,
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  or I think over, it'll take us about five years
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  to truly change the way we're do doing documentation in
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  healthcare using ai.
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  - Got it. And I think too, as you mentioned, I can imagine
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  with those changes, even if it's a slow
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  and incremental change, can really make a big difference
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  for physicians and clinicians who are working
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  with patients at the bedside,
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  but also understanding how they could really optimize their
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  relationship with patients as well.
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  - Yeah, I, I think what we're gonna see is, uh,
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  I don't think this is gonna be slow and incremental.
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  I think this is gonna be truly transformative.
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  I think between, uh, generative AI
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  and communicating with patients
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  and being able to explain things to patient,
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  more patients more explicitly,
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  and communications that we write back to them,
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  and kind of asynchronous messaging, uh, in addition
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  to the ability for other technologies to make it so
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  that we can really spend time just communicating
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  with our patients and not be distracted, trying
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  to document things in the computer
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  is gonna really change the way the interaction, uh,
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  that we have with patients
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  and enable us to have a, a better, stronger relationship
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  with our patients, uh, over the, over the coming years.
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  - That's really great to hear.
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  And I'm wondering, given your role as chief health,
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  chief Health Information Officer,
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  how are you thinking about growth
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  and adding value to the organizational overall?
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  What does that look like for you?
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  - Yeah, so I think, um, growth
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  and value I think are, are terms that we throw around, throw
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  around a lot, and we don't necessarily, uh,
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  define them well.
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  When I think about growth as an organization,
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  typically I think about us serving more patients
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  and perhaps growing our footprint.
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  Well, I think that there's probably some technology now
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  that helps us determine where's the right place to move,
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  where there are opportunities for us to,
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  to influence healthcare, to provide care
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  that maybe doesn't exist in certain areas.
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  We're, we're a very large rural state, uh, you know, whether
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  that be in person or via, uh, telemedicine,
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  I think the opportunity for growth is actually pretty large
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  for us, but it's gonna come in very small bites, you know,
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  where can we provide additional care here?
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  There are other places, uh, in terms of value.
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  I stick with a very strict interpretation of that,
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  which is outcome over cost.
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  And I think the opportunity for value here is, is high.
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  I think that, uh, particularly on the, uh, on the cost side
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  of things, I think there's an opportunity for us
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  to dramatically reduce the cost of care using
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  advanced care models that are fueled by ai, that are fueled
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  by advanced technologies.
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  You know, you look at the combination
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  of remote patient monitoring with some AI
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  and communication tools, uh,
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  to help patients manage their chronic diseases such
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  that we can reduce the, the actual cost of that, such
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  that it becomes something that we really can coach a
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  patient, uh, intelligently
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  through their complex medical illness, I think is something
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  that we're going to see evolve over the next few, uh,
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  over the next few years.
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  Otherwise, I think the major area for us in terms
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  of growth locally is just in terms
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  of access at the University of Iowa, we are a profoundly,
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  um, fortunate organization in that we have the opportunity
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  to provide care to about one in four Iowans
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  and, uh, in, in any kind of regular budget cycle.
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  And we, uh, unfortunately have
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  not enough providers.
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  And so I think using these technologies we will be able
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  to make our visits, uh, more impactful.
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  Uh, we'll have fewer missed visits,
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  although I have to say most of our, most of our, uh,
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  our patients tend to be pretty compliant and,
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  and we have a relatively low nohow and cancellation rate.
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  Um, but I think we'll be able to maximize those visits
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  and perhaps have those visits be more impactful,
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  resulting in the need for fewer visits and, uh,
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  and deliver better outcomes for those patients, uh,
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  with the use of these technologies.
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  Not that the technologies will be making decisions for us,
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  they'll just make us more efficient.
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  And I think that we're truly to that point.
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  - That really makes a lot of sense.
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  And it's great to hear that you're already able
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  to leverage some of those technologies
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  to become more efficient.
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  And like you said, increasing access to care is so critical.
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  I know for a lot of organizations right now,
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  it's been challenging year financially.
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  And so when you think about one investment
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  or risk that's still worth making over the next 12 months
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  or so, what would you say that would be?
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  What's either worked well for you
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  or what do you see as being really crucial in places
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  that you're zeroing in on to spend some
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  of those precious healthcare dollars?
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  - Yeah. Um, I, I think that
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  this is on the provider wellbeing side of things,
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  the documentation, things that we've been talking about,
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  I think they are expensive.
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  I think we have to figure out how we're gonna pay
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  for these things long term.
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  But everything from generative AI
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  for asynchronous communications to those kind
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  of ambient listening to tools that exist in clinics, uh,
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  I think are gonna be the, are gonna be the,
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  the key things to invest in.
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  I do think that much of this is,
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  uh, gonna be erased to the bottom, uh,
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  because you already see the market getting super competitive
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  in the ambient space with contractual costs dropping,
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  uh, with every vendor that you talk to.
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  Uh, but at some point we're gonna hit a compute burden
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  and given the, the relative scarcity of GPUs
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  and other things, we're gonna face those challenges.
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  But I think this is gonna be expensive,
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  but I don't think it's gonna be expensive
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  as long in the long term as everybody thinks it's,
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  and so I think my approach to this is we need
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  to get these technologies in place.
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  We need to figure out where they're useful,
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  and then we need to figure out how we're gonna pay for them.
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  Whether that's either with increased productivity
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  or increased retention, whatever that might be.
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  However, we're gonna justify the investment,
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  but I think the, the size of that investment
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  is actually gonna go down per provider over, over the period
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  of years relatively quickly.
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  - I see. That makes a lot of sense.
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  And definitely taking a long-term view of
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  what the investments could do certainly is a smart
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  and strategic way to approach this situation.
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  Now, before we wrap up here, I'm wondering,
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  we've talked a lot about areas where technology
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  and healthcare delivery are coming together as well
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  as the provider wellbeing.
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  Is there anything else that you want to touch on in terms
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  of looking at the future of where you're excited about and,
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  and what additional professional growth
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  or growth areas for the health system are you looking at?
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  - Well, I think what I, what I'm really excited about,
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  I think a lot of the AI applications you see right now are
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  gonna be assistive as we sort
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  of talked about on this immediately.
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  I think the, the current height
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  and the current actual plateau productivity
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  are actually centered around documentation.
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  Um, I do think in probably
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  later this decade we will start
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  to see really assistive AI in clinical decision making.
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  And I think that's gonna be a, a very exciting time,
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  whether it's AI or just access to large sets of data.
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  I think we're finally gonna be to the point, uh,
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  that's taken us, you know, 40 years to get to
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  where we will actually be practicing medicine
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  that is AI
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  and really data assisted on a personalized basis,
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  which is, has been a long time coming.
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  Um, if you, if you look historically at the work
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  that was done at Stanford in the eighties, um, with, uh,
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  you know, di uh, with uh, uh,
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  differential diagnoses software,
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  we're finally gonna deliver on that,
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  I think in the next few years.
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  - That would be fascinating
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  and certainly to see that come to fruition, uh,
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  as you mentioned, really, really cool personalized medicine
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  and being able to more precisely treat people
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  and it seems like it would really be better
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  for outcomes in the patient experience overall.
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  - Yeah, I, I'm, I'm very excited.
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  I think we're gonna see, um,
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  I think we're actually gonna see you when you look at,
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  when you look at healthcare IT
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  and where it's actually demonstrated outcome benefit,
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  it's actually relatively limited.
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  You know, pharmaceutical barcode scanning and,
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  and things like that have definitely of, of value,
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  but a lot of things that we've done,
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  if not actually demonstrated improved outcomes,
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  but I think we're gonna see it with these,
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  with these technologies in the not to distant future.
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  - That's amazing to hear. James, thank you so much
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  for joining us on the podcast today,
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  and we're excited for you to join us
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  at our annual meeting in April.
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  I know it's a four day event.
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  We'll have more than 550 health system executive speakers
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  and leaders on some of the biggest issues and topics
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  and strategies for where healthcare is headed today,
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  especially focusing on technology,
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  artificial intelligence, and more.
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  So we're really looking forward
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  to those conversations continuing in this space.
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  James, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
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  It's been a pleasure.
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  - Thank you very much. - It's so important
• 12:07
  for leaders at the top of organizations to keep learning,
• 12:09
  stay sharp, grow their networks
• 12:11
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• 12:14
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• 12:16
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