Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Joel Gordon, CMIO at UW Health, University of Wisconsin

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Joel Gordon, CMIO at UW Health, University of Wisconsin · 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 Joel Gordon who
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  serves as a CMIO at UW Health, University
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  of Wisconsin. So, Joel, thanks for being here.
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  Let's start off by having you share a
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  bit about yourself and your work in health
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  care. Well, thanks. I've I've really enjoyed the
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  conference so far. My name is Joel Gordon.
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  I'm the chief medical information officer at UW
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  Health, and that's the health care, arm of
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  University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. And let's
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  start our conversation talking about AI as it's
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  such a hot topic right now. 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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  does remain a key topic for health IT
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  leaders specifically.
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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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  The use of AI and at UW Health
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  is is a constant conversation as in probably
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  most academic health care organizations.
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  Obviously, I can't go too far away from
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  that conversation without starting with ambient listening. It's
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  a revolution that, we're all going through together.
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  I I'm particularly impressed with how we've been
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  able to do it both in a nimble
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  way but with at an individual level. And
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  what I mean by that is that the
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  ability to use a dashboard that's real time
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  reporting
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  when someone is not optimized on it. Perhaps
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  their utilization rate is low or perhaps their
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  putting irregularities are occurring or perhaps they, don't
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  have their problem list adequate manicured or they're
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  consenting the patients isn't where we we have
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  for our expectations
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  and the ability to drop down and help
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  that person that's struggling. And one of the
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  best help that we can find is the
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  person next door that's just
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  nailing it, that that's working with the product
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  product so well
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  that,
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  there could be that internal,
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  guru for the person that is struggling. And
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  and it's so plug and play that we
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  sometimes
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  can think that everyone's doing awesome,
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  and it it is because eighty to eighty
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  five percent of people are doing fantastic.
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  But if we said eighty to eighty five
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  percent of your surgeons are great and the
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  others are struggling, would you leave surgeons to
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  be struggling
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  with the health care on the line? No.
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  You need to be looking out for those
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  20%
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  that maybe it's intuitive, but because their workflows
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  or their patient panel or their
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  expertise that they have in their subspecialty
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  is a little bit unique. You need to
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  be able to find those people and help
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  them along and optimize. That's one of the
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  things that we're doing,
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  with that.
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  AI is being leveraged all over the place,
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  frankly. And I think what what our organization
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  also is doing is really trying to figure
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  out or or implementing, I shouldn't say figure
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  out because we're figuring it out, How you
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  take the traditional
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  owners
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  and overseers
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  and support teams
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  of these traditional
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  factors of health care, whether it would be
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  documentation or whether it's ordering or whether it's
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  clinical decision support, and how do you inject
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  AI
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  into
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  them using
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  the tools, but also the
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  AI mastery that is in
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  specific skill sets. So we call it AI
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  enablement,
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  not AI initiatives because we don't want the
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  initiatives to because over time,
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  the groups that do AI will be in
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  charge of everything, and they can't be. We
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  are have already designated who's in charge of
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  what, but we instead of bringing on AI
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  as a project, we're bringing AI as an
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  enablement that injects in and supports the teams
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  to understand and learn the concepts, set up
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  the tools, but then kind of fade in
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  the distance. And I think that's a super
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  important part of the or or what health
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  care organizations need to understand.
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  Absolutely.
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  And as virtual care expands from AI enabled
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  tools to remote monitoring to broader health
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  platforms. Introducing new technology does bring challenges. So
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  do you have advice for leaders navigating everything
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  from governance to patient engagement, and can you
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  share an example of how your organization has
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  balanced innovation with the operational constraints?
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  Yeah.
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  It I've shared with several people that there's
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  that old saying that if you wanna go
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  fast, go alone,
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  but if you wanna go far, go together.
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  That's particularly important because
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  the whole world of AI,
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  the whole point of it is to be
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  fast. So we have a mindset
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  in our organization or mindset in the individuals
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  of being fast.
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  But what we do in the next six
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  months or twelve months isn't as important of
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  what the six to twelve months that we
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  do sets us up for the next three
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  to five, ten years.
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  And so I think that's where things are
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  super important for our organizations to understand
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  the partnerships.
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  Those partnerships might be in the people. Like,
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  for instance, I came to this conference with
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  our c I CISO, our CSO, and we
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  talked the whole way madly all the way
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  down. We I mean, we care about each
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  other, and he's a fun guy, but we
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  were talking about the critical elements of security
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  and safety and compliance,
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  that, that is upon us. But those
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  relationships also might be intraorganizational,
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  and I think one of the things I'm
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  gonna trumpet is with our Ambient solution.
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  It was a unique partnership between the University
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  of Wisconsin and their data science
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  and their implementation
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  scientists and their rigor that comes with benchtop
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  science
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  brought into our operational teams on the health
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  system side that interdigitated
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  it and worked in a way that allowed
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  us to
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  mutually benefit.
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  They got the needs of the research and
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  the needs of, the academia, and we got
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  the results and needs, required of a health
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  care organization.
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  And I think that marrying of that interorganizational
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  partnership was extremely important, and we celebrate that
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  in a couple of different articles, the New
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  England Journal of Medicine that came out here
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  this summer. And the third partnerships are gonna
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  be extra organizational,
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  those partnerships with your vendors.
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  And what I'm really celebrating is the partnerships
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  between organizations
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  so we can keep standing on
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  the shoulders of giants.
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  And so Mayo, for instance, did a a
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  nurse,
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  Ambient tool. We're we're inter and we're discussing
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  with Mayo Clinic about our nursing experience and
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  what they wish they would have done and
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  kind of altering and those sorts of things.
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  That's one example. But, also, I think more
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  so,
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  the sharing openly. So, in that experience that
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  I talked about with our providers,
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  it's not only is it a published paper,
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  but everything that we did, our governance, our
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  structures, our things that we did with our
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  patients and that sort of thing, those are
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  open source public,
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  domain,
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  sharing that's happening through a GitHub that's actually
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  in the paper. Because you never know when
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  you're standing on the shoulders of giants when
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  you're gonna be the next giant that someone
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  wants to stand on. I think that's uniquely
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  and very important part of how we get
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  from here to where we're going.
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  Absolutely.
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  And shift shifting gears just slightly, how are
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  you seeing recent legislation, both state and federal,
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  affect health care organizations
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  and health care IT specifically, and have you
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  adjusted strategy in response?
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  That's a very, very good question. I I
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  mean, there's so much to be said about
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  policy and regulations because that's a very
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  fairly, burning hole, I think, in the industry
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  right now. So there's so much to say,
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  but I'm gonna keep it simple is that,
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  yep, we were trying to make internal governance
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  first,
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  and we're trying to affect legislation on a
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  state and federal way the best that we
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  can. But things as such as with the
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  telehealth waiver being, you know, removed here recently,
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  and, of course, it's affecting us. It's it's
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  it was a new way of life in
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  the last five years that we're definitely,
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  having to adjust to that. Okay? But when
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  you think
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  of the regulations almost as if it's a,
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  you know, clean up your city sort of
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  thing, you can't clean up the city if
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  you don't start cleaning up your neighborhood, and
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  you can't clean up your neighborhood if you
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  don't clean up your own yard. Okay? And
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  so we need to make sure that we're
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  all the organizations are understanding the very, very
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  strict importance of of,
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  security, compliance, ethics that are involved with AI.
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  And you have to understand that in the
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  context of your organization before you can really
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  be applying that liberally on influencing,
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  state and federal regulations.
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  Absolutely.
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  And as we wrap up our conversation, I'd
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  love to know your top piece of advice
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  for health care leaders as they prepare for
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  further advancements in technology and rising demands for
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  care. Oh, boy. Top piece of advice.
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  You know, there's so much advice that's out
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  there and flowing around. I I guess remain
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  curious.
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  Just it seems like I I I vacillate
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  between
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  shock and awe and
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  excitement about the unleashed power, you know, and
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  and that's okay. I mean, it's okay to
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  be shock and awe sometimes, like, oh my
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  gosh. What's gonna come around the next corner?
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  And recognizing those emotional states. But at the
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  at the most at the, you know, at
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  the point of being a leader,
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  you you need to take the emotion out.
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  And so when things are great, they're never
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  as good as they seem. And when things
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  are horrid, they're never as bad as they
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  seem. And so kinda using, like, little statements
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  like that to keep your emotional mind in
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  check, it can be important,
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  as leaders.
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  And so I like I said, remaining curious
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  is so important because
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  if someone tells you what's gonna happen the
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  next twelve to eighteen months with AI in
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  health care,
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  take it with a grain of salt.
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  Absolutely. Well, Joel, thanks so much for taking
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  the time to join me today on the
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  Becker's Healthcare podcast and share these thoughts and
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  insights. Again, we are live at the tenth
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  annual health IT, digital health, and RCM meeting.
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  Thank you.