Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / James Lindgren, Executive Director of Revenue Cycle Systems Optimization at University of Miami Health
Transcript
- 0:00Would you like to exchange best practices and ideas to improve care,
- 0:03enhance operational efficiency,
- 0:05and address financial challenges with your peers?
- 0:08Becker's Healthcare is facilitating these conversations at their eighth annual
- 0:12health IT digital health and R C M meeting.
- 0:15You can check your eligibility for complimentary attendance at the link in the
- 0:19description. We are excited to welcome you in October.
- 0:22This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
- 0:25I'm thrilled today to be joined by James Linn,
- 0:28executive director of Revenue Cycle Systems Optimization at University of Miami
- 0:32Health. James, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- 0:35Thank you so much. Happy to be here, Laura.
- 0:38Now I'm looking forward to our discussion because I know that the revenue cycle
- 0:41is such an important area of any organization,
- 0:43but especially for hospitals and health systems,
- 0:45and there's a lot changing around the revenue cycle right now.
- 0:48Some very exciting things happening. So I'm looking forward to our discussion.
- 0:51But before we dive into my questions,
- 0:53I was wondering could you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your
- 0:56background?
- 0:57Yeah, absolutely. Um,
- 0:58so I've been at the University of Miami for about a year and a half now. Um,
- 1:02came down in October of 2021. But, um, in this role that I'm in today,
- 1:07sort of building a team of architects that works collaboratively between
- 1:10operations and it, um, to develop solutions,
- 1:13whether it's core revenue cycle or some of the ancillary administrative things
- 1:17that surround revenue cycle. Um, before coming to the Miami,
- 1:21I did work for Epic Systems, um, large E M R in the,
- 1:24in the healthcare space in Verona, Wisconsin. Um,
- 1:27had a privilege of working with a lot of health systems, um,
- 1:29throughout my time there,
- 1:30understanding various revenue cycle demands and revenue cycle needs, um,
- 1:35before making the jump over to Miami.
- 1:38Amazing. Wow, that's awesome to hear. And definitely from your time at Epic,
- 1:42you know, I know that's a huge organization and like you mentioned,
- 1:46I'm sure you connected with and touched on lots of different health systems.
- 1:49Was there anything that you consistently saw, um, with the systems that were,
- 1:53you know,
- 1:53kind of the top performing ones or those that were really able to adopt the
- 1:57technology in and move forward in the swiftest fashion?
- 2:02It sounds cheesy sometimes, but the an,
- 2:05the honest answer is those that truly put the patient at first. Uh,
- 2:09and I mean that in the sense that while obviously financials matter,
- 2:13while obviously everything around a health system is important,
- 2:18those that made their decisions and drove every single aspect
- 2:23of their business around the patient's experience,
- 2:25both medically from an administrative perspective,
- 2:28from a financial revenue cycle, statements, claims and billing perspective,
- 2:32if they use that as their true north,
- 2:35those are the groups that are consistently in the news of of being outstanding,
- 2:38the doctors of technology, outstanding industry leaders in other all aspects.
- 2:43It that,
- 2:43that seemed to really be the common thread because it allowed them to be,
- 2:48it allowed them,
- 2:49it opened them up and allowed them to be more focused on questions around,
- 2:54you know,
- 2:54what's best for the business through the lens of what's best for the patient.
- 2:59And if they focus on what's best for the patient, the business comes. Um, and,
- 3:03and I'd say that's probably the most common theme is, is,
- 3:06is making sure that the patient part was in the very forefront of their,
- 3:09of their decision making,
- 3:11both at the clinic clinical and clinician level all the way through the,
- 3:14the business and the administrative function.
- 3:17That's such a great point. Thank you so much for pointing that out, James.
- 3:20Now what are some of the opportunities that you're seeing from your vantage
- 3:24point at University of Miami Health as well as the headwinds that you have your
- 3:27eye on?
- 3:29So the University of Miami and,
- 3:30and not unlike other academic medical centers all across the United States,
- 3:35we pride ourselves on being, having the best faculty. And,
- 3:39and I think when I worked at Epic, a lot of people said that,
- 3:42and I think Miami means it and they have the data to support it. Um,
- 3:45in terms of, at the forefront of it is how do we empower our faculty,
- 3:50our our physicians and our providers to do what they do best. Um,
- 3:55so the opportunities we have in front of us is how to make their job more
- 3:59efficient in what their core mission is.
- 4:01Their core mission is caring for patients.
- 4:04The core mission is designing and developing in new research studies to find new
- 4:08treatments and new diagnoses, methodologies. Um,
- 4:12and if we are not doing everything we can in from a revenue cycle perspective
- 4:15and from an IT perspective, then we're not doing our jobs.
- 4:18So the opportunities are to find ways to make what they do more efficient.
- 4:24So I see AI as a huge opportunity for physician efficiency and physician
- 4:27development. I see automation and coding, um,
- 4:31and automation of understanding what the physician's documentation are.
- 4:34I think if you look back over the last 20 years, the,
- 4:37the driver of clinical documentation wasn't necessarily medical necessity.
- 4:41It was billing , um, and billing requirements and,
- 4:44and and billing obligations to in,
- 4:47whether that's insurance audits or insurance payments and insurance
- 4:51reimbursement. And as we move to a more AI driven or automation driven world,
- 4:55we can infer and drive the conversation to the right place and empower the
- 5:00physicians to say what they wanna say,
- 5:02say what they need to say to speak to their peers.
- 5:05The the doctors they're referring to the pathologists,
- 5:07they're sending lab labs to the patient who's trying to understand and,
- 5:11and deal through this treatment plan or various diagnosis or comorbid conditions
- 5:16that they have. The, the physician at the,
- 5:20at the fundamental core of what they do is to translate what's happening into an
- 5:24actionable next step. And I think through AI and through automation,
- 5:27we can make it easier for them to document charge, um,
- 5:32and prove the level of medical necessity to meet the requirements that we have
- 5:36for charging and doing those various other things.
- 5:39And I think the headwind in that is the industry's moving there fast, right?
- 5:43We're seeing massive developments, um,
- 5:46both from Epic but also all many other tech companies and other health systems
- 5:50like the University of Miami who are innovating in this space.
- 5:52And so it's actually the type of work that gets me most excited, um,
- 5:56cuz it truly has an opportunity to benefit without getting in the way. Um,
- 6:01I think the next big category, if you think of,
- 6:04if you think maybe go more broad outside of just providers and think about how
- 6:08do we make sure their prov their schedules are as full as possible, um,
- 6:12in a way that is meets the expectations of their contract and their clinic
- 6:17panel.
- 6:17So we obviously don't wanna overburden providers with more than what they're
- 6:20expected and are capable of doing.
- 6:22So I'm not saying go to five minute slots or something that's unattainable and
- 6:26un non feasible. We're not trying to work like a factory here,
- 6:30but patients knowshow for reasons we can predict, um,
- 6:34patients late cancel for reasons we can predict and intervene against. Um,
- 6:37and provider time might not always be optimally used, um,
- 6:42both in a clinic, in a hospital, in a research setting.
- 6:45So thinking about how can technology inform operational decisions.
- 6:50Um, and so that's one of the big opportunities we have is leveraging these,
- 6:53you know, you know,
- 6:54machine learning and natural language model processes to understand where the
- 6:59opportunities are,
- 7:00both for documentation but also just using time that the providers are giving us
- 7:05most efficiently and effectively.
- 7:08I love that. I think it makes a lot of sense, you know,
- 7:10and it's really forward looking in terms of how the technology can
- 7:15boost the providers, make them happier, make the organization more efficient,
- 7:19and certainly get to a space where you're smartly um,
- 7:22connecting with patients and,
- 7:23and doing what needs to be done to deliver that care.
- 7:26So I think that is such a great example in and really dovetails into my next
- 7:30question.
- 7:31And looking at revenue cycle obviously is important for the entire organization
- 7:35as a foundation for it. Um,
- 7:36but as you're thinking about growth and development in the future, how, uh,
- 7:40are you,
- 7:41I guess how are you adding value to the health system and and what does that
- 7:44really look like?
- 7:45That's great. So the, from a true finance perspective,
- 7:49from my finance hat on, there's two ways to grow a business,
- 7:54grow revenues or reduce cost.
- 7:57And we are focusing on both very aggressively.
- 8:01The University of Miami is making substantial investments in our community in
- 8:05terms of additional facilities. We have a lot of,
- 8:07we have three major construction projects in flight right now that are
- 8:12deploying new state-of-the-art facilities to various communities within the
- 8:16Miami-Dade Broward County area. Because at the end of the day, in order to grow,
- 8:19you have to physically grow, you have to hire more faculty,
- 8:22create new positions,
- 8:23create new state-of-the-art facilities that have both research capabilities as
- 8:27well as patient care, um,
- 8:29facilities to see patients across all the spectrums of all of our service lines
- 8:33cuz we're, you know, a fully diversified academic medical center.
- 8:37So when I think about growth,
- 8:38I think about making sure that we can do those investments and do those
- 8:40investments smartly. Um,
- 8:42that means making sure we have the margin to purchase and pay for the
- 8:47construction,
- 8:47but also we have the technology that allows us to be innovative in the way that
- 8:51those clinics are being built.
- 8:52So we're not just building another 1980s hospital,
- 8:55we're building something that would be appropriate and we'd be proud of in the
- 8:58nine, in the 2000 forties or 2000 fifties.
- 9:01I think the way that we help with that and the way that my team focuses
- 9:06on this is how do we do more with less than, um,
- 9:09so as we scale up and add more visits per day,
- 9:12add more providers on in our clinics,
- 9:15how do we make sure we're doing that in a way that empowers the patient to
- 9:18schedule themselves, to register themselves,
- 9:21to reach out and get ahold of someone when they have a question and get to the
- 9:25right place most efficiently?
- 9:26And that's all focused primarily on the revenue side and a and a lot of those
- 9:30things, I'll admit, they drive cost, right? We do.
- 9:33We have to pay for the technology, we have to pay for the faculty,
- 9:36we have to pay for the construction. Um,
- 9:39and so it's important that we're also having,
- 9:41we're focusing on the other side of that equation, which is cost. Um,
- 9:44and that's the, the work that we do, the,
- 9:46the relationships we have with vendors, um, whether that's one,
- 9:50how we process statements or how we process insurance verifications or
- 9:54authorizations.
- 9:55If they were being strategic about are we leveraging all the technology we
- 9:59should and are we getting all, everything we could out of it? Um,
- 10:03a good example is Epic comes out with new technology,
- 10:06new code sets every quarter. Um, something that is,
- 10:10is hard for a health system to keep up with at our scale, but we,
- 10:13we've put a lot of energy into making sure that every time Epic says, Hey,
- 10:17university of Miami and all their other customers,
- 10:20look at this new programming that we developed or this new workflow or this new
- 10:23content that we're putting out. Use it. Um, and we find ourselves if,
- 10:28if health systems don't focus on that and make sure that's a core priority is
- 10:31keeping up to date with your, with your software updates,
- 10:34so to say that you then are not taking advantage of the licensing costs you're
- 10:38spending money on. So it's a big focus. So it's not all,
- 10:40it's making sure we're not duplicating our costs fo buying things more than once
- 10:45to do the same outcome, outcome and function. Um,
- 10:48and then making sure that for everything that we're doing we're appropriately
- 10:53incurring the right at cost and not over not too many costs that we shouldn't be
- 10:57incurring overall in the first place.
- 10:59I think the combination of those two things, the, you know,
- 11:02making sure that we're actively growing and growing at the rate that we need to,
- 11:06we're keeping our costs controlled and then also finding places to reduce cost.
- 11:10That's where my team,
- 11:11and that's how we think of where our value is to the organization. Um,
- 11:15because at the end of the day, you can keep, you can keep adding more people,
- 11:18you can keep dropping more charges,
- 11:19but if you're not doing it within the realm of what is needed,
- 11:23you're doing something because of something of a workflow you did 20,
- 11:2630 years ago,
- 11:27you're gonna fall behind and your cost curve's gonna catch up with your revenue
- 11:31curve. Um, and you're gonna, you're, you're,
- 11:34it's gonna happen before you realize it and before you know it,
- 11:36you're gonna be losing millions if not billions of dollars a year,
- 11:39which we see in the press all the time.
- 11:41But these massive health systems all over the US that are, you know, for many,
- 11:45many quarters,
- 11:47not just cuz of covid but even post covid we're reporting massive operating
- 11:50losses is because they really struggled to control cost while,
- 11:55while also pushing various levels of, of revenue growth.
- 11:58I think the last thing that I would note on this topic is
- 12:03there's always opportunity in your existing, we call this your same store.
- 12:07So the existing faculty with the existing clinic time with the existing or time
- 12:12with the existing inpatient beds,
- 12:14we find that we're not always utilizing those resources to the highest
- 12:17potential. So a lot of our projects are actually just analytics in nature.
- 12:21It's helping develop reports that aren't just numbers on a page,
- 12:26but are are, you know,
- 12:28graphical representations that provide a directional recommendation for what the
- 12:32business can do. A good example,
- 12:34we recently had a project where we started monitoring more discreetly all of our
- 12:38outpatient ambulatory rooms, um, when were patients being put in them,
- 12:42when were they being removed, when were providers and c nurses entering them,
- 12:46and how effectively were we using that real estate because as we add more
- 12:50faculty,
- 12:50we can't all of a sudden add a bunch of more rooms unless we build a new
- 12:54building. Um, and we found that we had a bunch of,
- 12:56of our satellite locations that were operating at like 70, 80% utilized.
- 13:02Um,
- 13:02and we were able to use the data to find out where was the time not being used,
- 13:06um,
- 13:06and then suggest that maybe that's where we put the new faculty member or maybe
- 13:10we could adjust some sessions or some panels around to be a, uh,
- 13:14to be aligned in a model that is more conducive to the real estate that we have.
- 13:19Just one example of, of a project that we've done that doesn't,
- 13:22it's not changing the revenues, it's not changing the costs,
- 13:25but it's providing insights into the, the how we're using the things that,
- 13:30that we have at our disposable, whether that's real estate or time, um,
- 13:35you know, advanced practitioner time, physician time, et cetera is a, you know,
- 13:39big analytical focus for my team to, to drive growth at the organization.
- 13:45Absolutely. I love that.
- 13:46I think that makes a lot of sense and definitely great examples of areas and
- 13:49spaces where it really is helpful for the organization to make sure
- 13:54that, you know, as you mentioned, the revenue's in a good spot,
- 13:57their costs are controlled,
- 13:59they're set up for the future and success once you know you're able to do that.
- 14:02And along those lines, you know, I,
- 14:05I know as you have been talking about a lot of the hospitals and health systems
- 14:09are in a, a more financially challenging spot than they were a few years ago,
- 14:13especially before the pandemic,
- 14:14but it's still so critical and crucial to make sure you're set yourself up to be
- 14:18successful in the future for growth and development, et cetera.
- 14:21So from your perspective,
- 14:22where do you see is one area that's still really important to make investments
- 14:26in this coming year?
- 14:30The, the first one is people. Um, I think the,
- 14:35you can't build greatness without greatness, right?
- 14:39You need people that have experience, passion,
- 14:43and a desire to be involved in the mission of the business.
- 14:48So, and that means, you know,
- 14:50evaluating our people in the right positions that they're currently in,
- 14:53are there people that aren't here that we need to bring here?
- 14:56And that's hard cuz it's a, it's ultimately just a game of, of, of good,
- 14:59good challenging recruiting.
- 15:00I think there's a recruiter here that I talked to on a regular basis. I,
- 15:04as I find, you know, great talent for my teams and they said to me,
- 15:08and I'm sure they're quoting someone else,
- 15:10so I don't know the appropriate original quotation on this is that the best
- 15:14people aren't looking. Um,
- 15:17so the most talented employees that you could have, the most gifted, creative,
- 15:22um, urgent individual who can help drive innovation,
- 15:26whether it's clinical or IT or business administration,
- 15:30most of them aren't looking for jobs, right? They're in a job,
- 15:33they're doing outstanding work, they're crushing it, right?
- 15:36They're doing something, adding a ton of value at another organization.
- 15:40And in order to recruit, you can't always go to the, the, the,
- 15:43the places that you think of when you think of recruiting.
- 15:46We can't just post on LinkedIn,
- 15:48we can't just post on Indeed or post on our jo in Workday for a job posting.
- 15:52You'll, you'll absolutely find great people doing that.
- 15:54I'm not saying that no one great is looking,
- 15:57but a lot of the people that you want are in a stable job that they like
- 16:02and you have to find a way to convince them that your mission is worth them
- 16:06leaving and fighting for. So that, that, that's one,
- 16:08and I'm gonna cheat and add another one, um, because I can,
- 16:11I guess since we've got the time, um, is that the,
- 16:16the other big I think place that I think it's worth taking risk on is
- 16:21pushing the envelope on ai, right?
- 16:24And I think it's easy to sit and wait for some tech company with a bunch of
- 16:29venture capital funding to come around and offer you this product at 50% margin
- 16:33that adds value to the business. That's easy, that's lazy.
- 16:37I would almost say I don't,
- 16:39I don't mean that to say there's no good products out there, but that's,
- 16:42that's the, that's the,
- 16:43that's the reactionary approach as a business or as an innovative,
- 16:46as an innovative company.
- 16:48What a company who's innovative should be doing is get out in front of this and
- 16:52play with the technology. Go invest in chat G B T private for healthcare.
- 16:56Go invest in, you know,
- 16:58Amelia AI for conversational s m s and voice conversations.
- 17:02Go invest in, um, Microsoft facial recognition api.
- 17:07So like,
- 17:07go find something that even though there might be a big sticker price for what
- 17:11it's going to do, invest in it, bring it in and challenge the heck out of it,
- 17:16right? Rip it apart,
- 17:18put it back together and build something that can help disrupt the way
- 17:23you do the business today. Um, because the worst thing,
- 17:26the worst you could do is that you install a product that
- 17:31works somewhere else, right? You,
- 17:33you help build your portfolio of tools to help empower users.
- 17:36That's the worst thing that could happen. The best thing that could happen,
- 17:39or probably the most likely thing is you're gonna disrupt so many workflows and
- 17:44so many things that you do in your health,
- 17:46in the health system to help improve the patient experience,
- 17:49improve the bottom line, increase utilization for providers,
- 17:53do all these things that we've talked throughout this podcast about, um,
- 17:57in terms of, you know,
- 17:58innovating and disrupting the way that business is done in healthcare.
- 18:01But the only way health systems can do that is if they take a risk and invest in
- 18:06those technologies and invest in the base technology.
- 18:09Don't invest in the most shiny thing over here that has the prettiest sales
- 18:12pitch deck.
- 18:13Invest in the best brain and the best tech stack that you can get your eye
- 18:18hands on and then play with it,
- 18:20invest in it and spend the time that you need to spend to make it work for you
- 18:25and it'll pay dividends down the road. Um, those are,
- 18:28those are things I think it's worth taking a risk on cuz you're, you're,
- 18:31you're gonna make your r o i it might not be right away. Um,
- 18:34but as long as you believe in the product, you believe in the technology,
- 18:38it's gonna pay dividends. And then to my first point,
- 18:40if you've got really smart people working for you,
- 18:43people that are motivated by the mission, motivated to do good,
- 18:48motivated to care about the patient first,
- 18:53you're gonna make magical things happen. Um, in terms of innovation, innovation,
- 18:57growth, reducing costs, improving the patient experience, all the things that,
- 19:02that those fancy pitch decks that you got from the venture firm show you,
- 19:06you're gonna do that yourself. You're gonna do that with your team,
- 19:09with your technology, with your partners that care about you, um,
- 19:13rather than just being another line item in someone else's p and l.
- 19:18I love that. That's such an amazing way to look at it and think about it.
- 19:21And I can imagine, you know, it's uh, easier said than done,
- 19:25but certainly it makes a lot of, uh, um,
- 19:28a lot of sense for hospitals and health systems and you know,
- 19:30when you have your internal team set in place,
- 19:33how do you empower them and embolden them to do some of these exciting,
- 19:36the fancy things that you're talking about?
- 19:39Freedom. I give them freedom, right? And I,
- 19:42and that's because I'm given freedom. I'm, I don't, you know,
- 19:45my boss and my leadership team gives me the ability to go kind of
- 19:50take risks and,
- 19:51and tackle projects that I think you're gonna help us in partner with operations
- 19:55and convince them of the value. They, they, they trust me in doing that.
- 19:58And I do the same thing for my team. Um, I have a good example.
- 20:02I have this patient flow architect who I recruited out of a happy job.
- 20:05I went and called him and I said, I want you down here in Miami.
- 20:08After some negotiation, I convinced him to move down to the, the beautiful,
- 20:12the beautiful south Florida. And he is not,
- 20:14he's not turned back or regretted it, but I said to him when he first came here,
- 20:18I'm not just gonna assign you tickets.
- 20:21I'm not just gonna assign you a PM and assign you a project and tell you to go
- 20:24do it. I'm gonna introduce you to people that matter here.
- 20:28I'm gonna introduce you to our c e o of the hospital.
- 20:31I'm gonna introduce you to the head of patient movement.
- 20:33I'm gonna introduce you to the head of patient safety and, and public safety.
- 20:38And I want you to work with them and figure out what they need. I,
- 20:41I think I know what they want.
- 20:42They've talked to me about it before and here's some starter points to start
- 20:45preparing. I, you know, I don't leave them stranded off in the world,
- 20:48but I just sort of say,
- 20:50I'm gonna let you go figure out what you want to do and come back to me and let
- 20:54me know and then we'll workshop it together.
- 20:55Then in our one-on-ones that we have every week, they bring in ideas,
- 20:59we workshop 'em, some of 'em die, some of 'em evolve,
- 21:02some of them get put on the table for later. Um,
- 21:06but I sort of, I, you know, like I said, I, I'm trying to find these geniuses,
- 21:10these unicorns out in the industry, bring them to University of Miami,
- 21:14the exciting place to work and then give them freedom to do what they do best,
- 21:18which is think creatively develop. And then I sit there,
- 21:21I sit in my seat and one help workshop with them,
- 21:25hoping if I can even keep up with their speed of, of work, um,
- 21:29and then help bring down barriers, whether that's an IT barrier,
- 21:33whether that's a decision making barrier or operational barrier,
- 21:36a technical whatever the thing is, the,
- 21:37the thing that could potential potentially roadblock a project like this. Um,
- 21:41and then I intervened to help with that type of stuff to keep them out of the
- 21:44messiness of some of that. Mm-hmm ,
- 21:46I'm sure a lot of people listening experience that in their own,
- 21:49in their own in, in their own industry or in their own health systems. Um,
- 21:52and I try to tackle that for my team cause it can be really easy for them to get
- 21:56these really creative minds to get bogged down in politics
- 22:01or bogged down in process.
- 22:03And I see my role as their leader to help push through some of that and help
- 22:07them just do what they do best, which is, you know, create creative ideas, um,
- 22:11and get them deployed as fast as possible.
- 22:13I love that. Thank you so much for going through everything there and, and just,
- 22:16you know, what a, a fabulous system you have set up. It sounds like an amazing,
- 22:21um, department and organization to work for. Now, before we wrap up,
- 22:24I wanted to get your thoughts on growth and development.
- 22:27Where do you see some of the best opportunities for yourself as well as the
- 22:30teams that you work with?
- 22:32It's a good question and I think about this a lot. Unfortunately.
- 22:35I have a boss who, who, uh,
- 22:37asked me that question on a regular basis cuz he sees the vision, he's,
- 22:41he has his own vision and I have mine and we try to find places to align them
- 22:45together. I think the best opportunities that I have, we have, um,
- 22:50is to continue to go down this path of painful automation.
- 22:53I think we've gotten to a point where we are playing off of,
- 22:56we've already taken the low hanging fruit. It was delicious, it got,
- 23:00it had great outcomes. We, you know,
- 23:02we baked an amazing apple pie with the low hanging fruit,
- 23:05but now we gotta get the stuff that's a little bit higher up and a little bit
- 23:08harder to operationalize, a little bit harder to change it infects more users,
- 23:12affects more maybe, you know,
- 23:15technology debt that we have to take that we have to deal with in terms of bloat
- 23:19or things that need to be cleaned up.
- 23:21So the biggest opportunity is building a stronger foundation, um, and,
- 23:25and finding a way to not only think about the really cool things out there like
- 23:29ai,
- 23:30but use that type of project to find things in your foundation that are
- 23:34cracking. Um, and maybe I don't, I don't,
- 23:37maybe not there's no structural integrity issue, but, or hopefully there isn't.
- 23:40But if there is, obviously deal with that first, but if there isn't,
- 23:43it's doing the preventative maintenance you need to do, um,
- 23:46to ensure that that building continues to stay strong and you can add more
- 23:50floors, add more, diversify your team and, and do over mul bigger opportunities.
- 23:54And I,
- 23:55I think of the things that my architects are focused on and our team is working
- 23:59on and the things that constantly hold them up. Um, and it's, it's,
- 24:02it's some of the debt in terms of historical decisions that were made that need
- 24:05to be revisited. And that's not easy work. I mean that's time intensive.
- 24:09It's selling the idea to the business owners.
- 24:12It's convincing them that it's worth the risk of changing,
- 24:14it's helping them understand the opportunity. Um, and I think the biggest,
- 24:19the best, biggest,
- 24:20best opportunity for growth that I see for us is to continue to do more, right?
- 24:24Find more areas to tackle within the business,
- 24:27partnering with operations to, to help them deliver faster.
- 24:31So I think for all the, you know,
- 24:33for all the greatness that I think I have on my team in terms of the great
- 24:36people that I, that surround me, um, there's equally,
- 24:39if not more talent in the business that's being maybe held back by current
- 24:44policy or current procedure or current decisions. I mean like any health system,
- 24:49it's every once in a while you gotta open up that policy and say,
- 24:51is that the right one? Does it need to be redone,
- 24:54re revisited reoriented to b to better oriented to the new technology we have or
- 24:59just the new ecosystem.
- 25:00I think a good example of this in my mind is a lot of workflows got quickly
- 25:04developed around covid arrivals into clinics. The ways that,
- 25:08the ways that patients were screened before surgery.
- 25:10We had to really quickly as an industry figure out how to deal with this,
- 25:14you know,
- 25:16this pandemic that came upon and came back multiple times to haunt us
- 25:21and now we have to sit here and say, how do we continue to drive us, you know,
- 25:26prioritize the safety of our employees and the safety of our patients while also
- 25:30innovating and being more creative around how we,
- 25:32how we can adjust our workflows, not necessarily to a pre pandemic state,
- 25:36but to a new state in terms of what do we want our arrival to look like?
- 25:40How do we wanna leverage kiosks or,
- 25:43or digital front door type experiences now that we have can rethink cuz we have
- 25:47different things that are pressuring us. Cause it's not that none,
- 25:50not everything shut down because of the original, you know,
- 25:52the covid pandemic errors that we, that we saw across the community.
- 25:57So that's what, that's kinda what I would mention is just the,
- 25:59the opportunity is to do more by, you know, focusing on the foundation,
- 26:03developing more core functions, making sure those are running efficiently,
- 26:08and then intentionally build on that with,
- 26:10with additional areas of focus and rethinking the way that, you know,
- 26:14workflows or processes or policies are, are employed.
- 26:18Fantastic. James, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
- 26:21This has been such a fun and insightful conversation and I'm looking forward to
- 26:25meeting you in person as well at our Health IT Digital Health and Revenue Cycle
- 26:28event in October.
- 26:29I know we'll definitely be continuing the conversation and it'll be fun to see
- 26:33you there.
- 26:34Absolutely. Thank you so much for the time.
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