Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Dr. Tim Calahan, CTO, Michigan Medicine

Transcript

Dr. Tim Calahan, CTO, Michigan Medicine · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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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 Healthcare
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  podcast, and we are recording live at the
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  tenth annual health IT, digital health, and RCM
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  meeting. I'm currently joined by Tim Callahan, who
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  serves as the CTO at Michigan Medicine.
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  Tim, thanks for being here, and let's have
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  you start off by sharing a little bit
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  more about yourself and your work in the
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  health care space.
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  Yeah. So my name is Tim Callahan.
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  I'm the CTO at Michigan Medicine. Michigan Medicine
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  is the
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  health care system that's attached to the University
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  of Michigan. So it's kind of the health
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  care system,
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  the medical school, and we have two affiliates.
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  So
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  when you look at the totality of the
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  organization,
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  it's a pretty significant
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  significantly sized
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  academic medical center.
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  Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here. And
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  let's start our conversation
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  talking about AI as that's such a hot
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  topic right now in health care. And nearly
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  half of medical practices reported using AI in
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  some capacity in the past year, and it
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  remains a key topic for health IT leaders.
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  So from your perspective, what are the use
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  cases that are making a difference right now,
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  and how are you leveraging them in your
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  organization?
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  Yeah. There's a lot of buzz, and there's
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  a lot of hype around AI. And we're
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  really trying to use it
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  not really as a replacement, a replacement,
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  for clinicians or for staff for that matter,
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  but really to augment,
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  how staff perform,
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  their jobs today. So whether that's using natural
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  language processing,
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  we recently just completed a project with
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  with Microsoft DAX,
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  to where we're doing ambient voice,
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  within our clinical space,
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  and that has provided a great deal of
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  benefit
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  for clinicians
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  in terms of engaging the patients,
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  and and also reducing the amount of time
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  it takes for them to process some of
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  their clinical work. So that has been
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  hugely transformative,
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  and,
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  certainly augments,
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  their work life balance. We've also
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  leveraged and turned on tools with Epic themselves.
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  Our Epic is our electronic health record, and
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  they're beginning to embed AI tools.
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  So things like,
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  message creation,
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  being able to synthesize
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  a message
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  or an in an in message that comes
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  in
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  and how to summarize that and provide a
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  response back to,
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  patients has been super helpful,
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  for those clinicians.
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  So whether we're using those types of tools
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  that are kind of embedded into the products
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  that we have or whether we're creating our
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  own sets of tools, which we're beginning to
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  do a little bit of as well using
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  some predictive analytics and things of that nature.
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  It's it's an exciting time, but we're using
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  it mainly to augment and enhance how we
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  provide care throughout the health care system.
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  And as virtual care expands from AI enabled
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  tools and remote monitoring to broader digital health
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  platforms, introducing new technology does bring challenges.
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  So what advice do you have for leaders
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  navigating everything from governance to patient engagement? And
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  can you share an example of how your
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  organization has balanced innovation with operational constraint?
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  Yeah. I think that's you know, obviously,
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  it's tricky with AI because there's so many
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  ethical considerations,
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  legal considerations,
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  governance considerations
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  that kind of,
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  go into it. I think early on,
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  Michigan Medicine and the University of Michigan at
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  large kinda recognized
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  not only the
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  power that,
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  generative AI could provide, but also,
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  the need to have,
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  proper governance
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  and ethics in place.
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  So we started early in some of those
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  work efforts to really pull together
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  key parts of the organization to kinda weigh
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  in on what those governance rules should be,
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  what the ethics around it should be, how
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  we would use these tools, how we wouldn't
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  use these tools.
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  We wanted to make sure that we're always
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  using, you know, kind of a clinician in
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  the middle
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  or, as I indicated earlier, this augmented
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  enhancement as opposed to a replacement,
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  and as well as getting, you know, patient
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  consent and things of that nature. So I
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  think that's been really important. And as we've
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  gone out with some of these initiatives,
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  we've also started very slow,
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  to make sure that we are optimizing the
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  workflow and and making sure that the operational
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  considerations are taking place, and then we scale.
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  And we've been able to scale very successfully
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  because a lot of that preplanning and prework
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  that we did at the very
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  very beginning of of,
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  of of some of these work efforts.
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  And shifting gears slightly, how are you seeing
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  recent legislation both at the state and federal
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  level affect health care organizations and health IT
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  specifically, and have you adjusted strategies in response?
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  Yeah. So,
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  you know, legislation will continue to evolve. It
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  it always has.
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  So whether that's, you know, the CARES Act
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  that has, you know, kinda mandated and required
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  us to provide,
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  quicker access to patient records
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  or whether it's local registration that has made
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  sure that, you know, we're ensuring
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  patient privacy.
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  We really use those as opportunities
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  to,
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  enhance the delivery of,
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  what we're doing from a from a health
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  care perspective. So,
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  it does enable us to potentially
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  integrate with third party tools,
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  faster, quicker, and easier than before.
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  But we really do use and and pay
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  attention to
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  legislation that's coming down, making sure that we're
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  adhering to them, making sure that, we have
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  good responses to them.
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  But we really do view it as a
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  strengthening mechanism,
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  you know, rather than anything else.
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  And as we wrap up our conversation today,
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  I'd love to know your top piece of
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  advice for health care leaders as they prepare
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  for further advancements in technology and rising demands
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  for care.
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  Yeah. I think the key thing that that
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  rises to mind is focus.
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  You know, I've also had the opportunity to
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  consult for a variety of different health care
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  organizations
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  probably over the last fifteen years of my
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  career.
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  And what I've recognized is every health care
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  organization is kind of on their own journey
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  and on their own maturity level as it
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  relates to different types of technologies.
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  So I think it's important to understand
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  what's the type of technology
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  you wanna get better at, and then how
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  do you focus on making sure that you
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  can execute on that particular,
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  effort. It's hard to do,
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  many, many things at once.
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  So it's really important to focus on whatever
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  it is that the health care organization wants
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  to do. So more recently at Michigan Medicine,
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  we've been super focused
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  really on a couple of different things. We've
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  been focused on how do we migrate and
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  modernize our infrastructure to and leverage public cloud,
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  and that's one of the reasons why I
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  came into the organization.
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  We've also been super focused
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  on the integration and consolidation of some of
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  the affiliates and making sure that we're interoperating
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  with them better, faster, quicker, and easier than
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  we have,
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  in the past. And as you've mentioned and
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  as we've talked about on this podcast,
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  how do we then begin to turn on
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  some of these AI tools? So,
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  it's important to stay focused on those initiatives
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  and not chase shiny objects,
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  and get distracted by all the various things
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  that may be out there.
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  Wonderful. Well, Tim, thanks so much for joining
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  me today on the Becker's health care podcast
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  and sharing your thoughts on these topics. Again,
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  we are live at the tenth annual health
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  IT, digital health, and RCM meeting. Thanks. Yeah.
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  Thanks so much for having me.