Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Putting Nurses at the Center of AI and Health IT Innovation with Lavonia Thomas

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Putting Nurses at the Center of AI and Health IT Innovation with Lavonia Thomas · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  - What we wanna do with AI is help
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  - clinicians go from being reactive
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  - to proactive.
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  - At Philips, we can recognize patterns in monitoring
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  - data across populations
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  - and apply those insights to specific patients.
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  - Safe and responsible AI can support sharper insights,
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  - pave the way for faster diagnosis,
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  - and help streamline care.
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  - That can benefit clinicians, it can benefit health
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  - systems. And most importantly, it can benefit patients
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  - and their families.
• 0:33
  - Phillips.
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  - Hi, everyone. This is Laura Dirda, vice president
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  - editor in chief at Becker's Healthcare. Thank you
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  - so much for tuning in to the Becker's
• 0:40
  - Healthcare podcast series. Joining me for today's discussion
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  - is Lavonna Thomas, chief nursing informatics and innovation
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  - officer at the University of Texas MD Anderson
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  - Cancer Center. Lavonna, thank you so much for
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  - being here today. Thank you for having me.
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  - Absolutely. Now I'm excited for our discussion. I
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  - know we're gonna talk a lot about patient
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  - data and information and technology, so I'm excited
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  - to dive right in. Health systems are receiving
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  - a growing stream of patient data from bedside
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  - monitoring and ambulatory devices and care delivered at
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  - home. Where is that data creating actionable insights
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  - for clinicians, and where does it still create
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  - more work than insight?
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  - So the places that it is creating real
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  - insight is the places that's fixing a problem.
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  - And so you hear a lot about early
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  - warning
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  - early warning systems for things like sepsis.
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  - That's fixing a real problem, and it's also
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  - accompanied with an infrastructure.
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  - When the signals come, they have to land
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  - on the right person to take the right
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  - action at the right time.
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  - Signals without that effective infrastructure
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  - fail and basically create noise.
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  - Oh, that's fascinating to hear, and it's so
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  - helpful to understand where the disconnect happens and
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  - where the failures occur. I know especially when
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  - clinicians are trying to reach a diagnosis, they
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  - often must piece together information
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  - from radiology, cardiology,
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  - pathology, urology, and many other systems.
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  - So where does this fragmentation
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  - create the most friction in your organization, and
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  - how do you bring together the data sources
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  - to address this fragmentation or close the gaps?
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  - So for nurses, we've often pulled together disparate
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  - places of of information
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  - to bear on our patient care.
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  - Where this becomes a challenge is when there's
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  - different systems that do not talk to one
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  - And pulling that data then together because it's
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  - such a data plentiful environment
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  - into a screen that a human brain can
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  - interpret it Mhmm. Becomes a huge challenge. So
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  - I would say one of the biggest challenges
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  - is having systems that are not connecting.
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  - Yeah. That, I can imagine, is a real
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  - problem and, you know, something that doesn't have
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  - an easy solution. So,
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  - so helpful to understand and look at, you
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  - know, where the technology is headed. Now I
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  - know patients also are increasingly move among the
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  - hospital outpatient settings and going to home. So
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  - where does that clinical context most often get
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  - lost during the transitions, and what is it
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  - like to give the care teams more continuous
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  - view of the patient?
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  - So when I think about this one, any
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  - transition
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  - is really capable of creating lost data. But
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  - when we think about leaving the hospital, going
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  - to the home, there is a portion of
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  - time that the patient may not be hooked
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  - up to any of this technology,
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  - and we lose a piece of the story.
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  - Mhmm. And then having the systems again, are
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  - you, going to an area that has providers,
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  - that has a system that will connect with
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  - the same system Mhmm. That the hospital, for
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  - example, used? And
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  - where's that data going? Yeah. What repository? Who's
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  - monitoring? And do they have the infrastructure to
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  - know who to contact? It's it's really the
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  - infrastructure
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  - and the connection of the technology that drives
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  - success.
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  - I see. That's,
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  - incredibly helpful to understand. And,
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  - when you think about your role and everything
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  - you're doing with the patients,
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  - I I know,
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  - AI use cases have really come more into
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  - the competing attention for how you distinguish some
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  - of the compelling pilots from something that's really
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  - ready to become part of everyday care. What
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  - do you look at in that perspective and
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  - what must be in place in order to
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  - scale some of these AI and technologies responsibly?
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  - First, I look to where nurses at the
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  - table to define the problem because out... Without
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  - a proper definition of a problem
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  - and the proper workflow mapped, the AI technology
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  - will only layer on a level of complexity
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  - and then generate data that may not be
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  - useful.
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  - Yeah.
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  - Absolutely. How do you ensure that connection between
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  - the nurses and nurse leadership with the technology
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  - when you're doing these types of projects
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  - at MD Anderson?
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  - So my role is integral in Yeah. Ensuring
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  - that the nurses' voice is at the table.
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  - And I've often said when I was leading
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  - nursing informatics that that's ensuring the voice of
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  - the nurse is present in health IT. And
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  - so it's having those key roles, those key
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  - nursing roles that then can connect as needed
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  - with other nurses across the organization. So when
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  - the initial decisions are being made,
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  - only a nurse understands who the right players
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  - are to bring to the table. So having
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  - that person at that level before the decisions
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  - are even made as your first defining the
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  - problem is crucial.
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  - Got it. That's so helpful to understand. I
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  - know as technology
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  - relationships move beyond then some of these onetime
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  - purchases that we've had in the past, what
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  - should a partner,
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  - remain accountable for after the go lives to
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  - make sure the relationship genuinely is valuable over
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  - time?
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  - Transparency
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  - and agreement to continue to work together and
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  - iterate based on
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  - our defined problems.
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  - It's really as simple as that.
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  - Got it. Incredibly helpful. I know that value
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  - is so important. So having that transparency, I
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  - can imagine, creates trust and continues on in
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  - the future.
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  - As care increasingly moves beyond the hospital walls,
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  - how are you using,
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  - connected technologies and AI to identify patients who
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  - need earlier follow-up support care coordination teams and
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  - close gaps in post discharge care?
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  - Well, it really begins with define... Defining your
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  - pain points as an organization, whether that be
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  - a certain patient population that's at higher risk
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  - of readmissions
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  - or some other criteria,
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  - defining what that population looks like, and then
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  - digging into your actual patients to determine what
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  - areas of the country, for example, or in
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  - your local community
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  - these patients tend to live to determine what's
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  - the technologies in those areas and what best
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  - to support. And then how can you scale
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  - existing resources
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  - across the organization and expand them into the
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  - ambulatory setting, virtual nursing
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  - being one such use case that I could
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  - see.
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  - That's amazing. Thank you so much, Lavona, for
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  - your time and insights today. We also wanna
• 6:41
  - thank our podcast sponsor, Philips. You can tune
• 6:43
  - in to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by
• 6:45
  - visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.