Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / J.D. Whitlock, Chief Information Officer at Dayton Children's Hospital

Transcript

J.D. Whitlock, Chief Information Officer at Dayton Children's Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  The Becker's team is excited to announce the
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• 0:24
  This is Laura Dierdo with the Becker's healthcare
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  podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
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  JD Whitlock, chief information officer at Dayton Children's
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  Hospital. JD, it's a pleasure to have you
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  on the podcast today.
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  Thanks, Laura. Great to be here.
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  Now I'm excited for our conversation because I
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  know you're doing some amazing things at Dayton
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  Children's, and so we'll dig into that a
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  little bit. But before we do, you tell
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  me a little bit more about Dayton Children's
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  and what makes it unique?
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  Certainly.
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  So Dayton Children's
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  is a small health system. Our revenue is
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  about 750,000,000.
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  And if you know health care, as most
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  of your listeners do, you know, that is
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  a small health system,
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  but that does not mean to say small
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  organization. Right? 4,300
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  employees,
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  and there's a lot of things going on.
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  What I would say makes us unique,
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  we are an excess and experience
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  brand.
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  We do very well at that. We have
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  a net promoter score in the low eighties,
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  which is world class, of course,
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  And we compete with two of the top
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  10 ranked children's hospitals in The US, Cincinnati
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  and and nationwide in Columbus.
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  And we do that, successfully. Right? So we
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  we we can't compete on academic reputation, but
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  we do
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  compete
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  on on access and experience. So that's, I
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  guess, that's what I would say makes us
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  unique. We're blessed to be
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  in the Children's Hospital Association. The pediatrics community
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  is really tight. And even though we at
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  the end of the day, we are we
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  are competitors, we we do a lot of
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  really great collaboration,
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  which, of course, is true generally in health
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  care, but it's even more true on the
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  on the pediatric side.
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  And then one other thing I would say
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  is that
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  we are on Epic. We are on Workday
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  to shift to the IT side of things
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  for a second.
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  And, what that means is that so we're
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  on the best DHR and the best DRP,
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  and that's great.
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  It also means there's a lot of care
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  and feeding,
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  and we have to do all the same
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  things that a larger health system,
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  would do, to keep to keep all that
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  operating correctly and giving the, you know, the
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  best experience, the best best quality of care
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  to our patients, most importantly, and also, of
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  course,
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  best experience
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  for all of our caregivers.
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  That's really great to hear. And, you know,
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  definitely,
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  a lot happening,
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  within the that space and on the technology
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  side too. I know things move so quickly,
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  and so it's great to have that kind
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  of sophistication
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  behind you. Now when you're looking back in
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  the last year or so, what accomplishment are
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  you most proud?
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  The number one thing that I'm most proud
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  of is,
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  I wanna talk about the Class Arch Collaborative
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  Pinnacle Award, and I wanna
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  spend a minute on what that is because
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  there will be probably a lot of listeners
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  of this podcast that have been in health
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  care for a long time and may not
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  even have heard about this yet because it's
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  relatively new. It was awarded for the first
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  time last year.
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  So what it is is the Class Arch
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  Collaborative
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  is,
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  as the name implies, a collaborative
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  of health systems that sign up
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  to
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  survey
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  their caregivers
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  on their experience
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  with
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  the EHR.
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  And so it is a really nice of
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  course, in health care, we're we're we're very
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  used to very standardized
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  surveys that we give to our patients. Right?
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  That the government tells us how we're gonna
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  ask a lot of the questions on the
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  patient survey. So it's so it's benchmarkable.
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  And so now,
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  now CLAS is is doing this with the
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  arch collaborative for EHR experience. So we can
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  compare ourselves,
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  to all the other health systems. And, you
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  know, how are we doing delivering
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  a good EHR experience
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  to to our, providers and nurses and and
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  other clinical staff?
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  And so I am happy to report
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  that due due to our really stellar performance
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  when we look at the percentiles that we
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  get, the percentile scores compared to everybody else
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  in the partnership collaborative,
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  We score in the ninetieth percentiles for both
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  providers and nurses,
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  and,
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  and that that is,
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  good enough to win us the,
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  Class Arch Collaborative Pinnacle Award.
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  And so I would predict that, in coming
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  years, you know, more you'll see more people
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  talking about this and and striving to to
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  win this particular award. So it's a it's
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  a it's a it's a great way,
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  that we can talk about our dedication
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  to which we like to talk about the
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  quadruple aim. Right? The the fourth part being
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  being the the caregiver experience.
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  And so we we do a nice job
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  of that, and we're able to do it,
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  efficiently. Once again, it's it's a smaller health
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  system. Right?
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  So that's that's the number one thing I
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  would point to.
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  Got it. No. That's great. And and definitely
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  impressive to see what you've done with the
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  class pinnacle award and and being able to
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  achieve it there.
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  And I think especially, moving forward and looking
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  at, you know, standardizing, continuing to find best
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  practices and making things benchmarkable,
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  how do you, really change a culture when
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  that's not something that's been done in the
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  past? You know, I I know there's a
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  lot of health systems out there that are
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  trying to figure out how to wrap their
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  arms around a lot of the new processes
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  and systems to become better and better than
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  ever before, but it's not just the technology.
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  I know it's the people side of it
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  and making sure that we're able to go
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  through the change management processes there as well.
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  Absolutely. Absolutely. So,
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  what I would say there is there's this
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  really boring topic called governance
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  that we,
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  I don't think, talk talk about enough.
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  And
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  I think that part of our success is
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  due to that. So we have a really
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  great,
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  clinical informatics team,
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  and we have the committees that we have
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  put in place
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  to do the governance on, you know, what
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  are we building next in our epic EHR?
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  How are we doing that? How are we
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  making smart decisions
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  about,
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  you know, the opportunity cost? If we decide
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  to do one thing, that means we're not
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  doing something else or at least not doing
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  that other thing in the next couple months.
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  And so if you do that with good
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  transparency,
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  then your caregivers,
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  have a good understanding
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  of, well, that thing that, you know, somebody
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  asked for,
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  didn't get done by the EPIC team, but
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  that's okay because we understood that there were
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  five things, you know, that that were voted
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  as more important by by the governance committee.
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  And so the thing we asked for is
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  gonna have to wait. You know, that can
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  if there's good transparency around that, then then
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  it doesn't mean people are they're not they're
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  not happy that their thing didn't get done,
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  but they understand the reasons why. So that's
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  probably the one thing that I would point
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  to.
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  And that's really helpful to know. Thank you
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  for spelling that out for us. Now
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  I'm I'm curious. In looking ahead to where
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  do you see some of the biggest growth
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  opportunities for your team in the next twelve
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  months or so? So I'm gonna answer this
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  one not for my team in IT, but
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  but for the organization
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  as a whole. So, unfortunately,
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  we have an epidemic
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  in this country for adolescent,
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  mental health,
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  and I'm proud of what we at Dayton
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  Children's with with our
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  executive team and board has, they made it
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  impossible to stay in front of this,
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  but I would say we've done a good
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  job,
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  responding to it as best we can.
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  And we're we're actually in the next six
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  months, we're actually opening
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  two new buildings
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  dedicated,
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  for mental health,
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  at a new building on our main campus
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  that will double the size of our inpatient
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  behavioral health unit and then a well, not
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  a new building, but a repurposed building at
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  our at our secondary campus
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  for some intensive outpatient,
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  mental health treatment.
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  And so we
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  are just doing a a a really great
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  job as an organization
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  doing the very best we can to meet
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  the needs of our
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  adolescent community
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  in our market area,
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  for all their, unfortunately, increasing mental health needs.
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  Got it. That's such an important area to
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  focus in on and really, you know, great
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  work in that space. I can imagine added
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  capacity will
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  really help, serve the community better. And I
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  I know
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  from your side of things as a CIO,
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  what does that really mean for you and
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  how you're needing to move forward in the
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  next year or so?
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  What it means from the IT perspective
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  is that
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  there's just
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  so many cycles are taken up by that
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  as you can imagine
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  anytime that happens. Right? So there's the there's
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  the IT provisioning,
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  with the new buildings and everything that goes
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  along with that for the for the tech
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  team side of things. And then there's, as
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  you can imagine, a whole lot of epic
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  build that that needs to happen,
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  to support that. So and project management or,
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  really, almost almost everybody in the IT team
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  is contributing in some ways, you know, when
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  you open a new building. And and what
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  that means is because we're doing
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  two of those in the next six months,
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  it just means that there's less time available
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  for some other things. So there's a little
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  bit of a joke,
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  is going on at children's these days as
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  well. As soon as we stop building the
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  buildings, you know, we can we can do
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  some of the other things we've,
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  gotten a list to suit. Now for a
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  large health system, building two buildings, you do
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  that in your sleep, you know, every month.
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  For us, that's, like, a really, really big
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  deal. Right? And so,
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  so that's that's the challenge at a place
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  the size of Dave Jordan's.
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  Absolutely. And that's really helpful context to understand,
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  especially given, everything that you're undertaking, you know,
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  on a regular basis meant to add in,
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  like you mentioned, those two new buildings.
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  You know, is huge. Now I know a
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  lot of opportunities, a lot of exciting things
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  happening, right now, but I know there are
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  challenges as well. What are some of the
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  big challenges that you have your eye on
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  right now, and how are you navigating through
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  them?
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  Well, the first thing that pops into mind
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  with challenges is, of course,
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  cybersecurity.
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  Right? If if you talk to, of course,
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  any
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  really anybody in health care or leadership
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  that understands what's going on with cybersecurity.
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  It's it's a huge worry. You know?
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  Pretty much every week in in in Becker's
• 10:52
  and other trade publications, there's a a sad
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  story about some health system,
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  that's that's been ransomware.
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  I, for one, you know,
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  with a with an understanding of the threat
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  and understanding
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  of what's required to counter that
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  threat.
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  I'm really not sure how
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  organizations smaller than Dame Children's
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  do it.
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  We have a,
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  small but mighty cybersecurity team. We have a
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  good toolset in place. We have
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  a good partner for managed detection and response.
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  We but there's always more that can be
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  done for disaster recovery, business continuity,
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  and that is that is just always gonna
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  I don't unless the threat changes significantly, which
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  I don't see that happening,
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  that's just always gonna be a challenge for
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  the foreseeable future.
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  And related to that is the regulatory environment.
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  And, you know, one thing that we're all
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  scratching our head about,
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  right now,
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  yeah, are the new HIPAA security
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  proposed regulations,
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  because they're
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  if
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  they
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  come through,
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  it's massive change and,
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  pretty massive
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  amount of new work that would be required.
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  Basically, a lot of things that have been
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  in the past, things you should be doing
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  are gonna be things you must be doing.
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  And once again, for smaller organizations, I'm not
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  quite sure how that would be feasible to
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  do. So I'm on a couple committees.
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  I'm on the, China policy steering committee. We're
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  trying to figure out how, as an industry,
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  we we respond to some of these things
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  and say, hey. There's some really great things
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  in here, and there's some really there were
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  some things in here that are probably not
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  particularly doable. So
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  how can you know, what can we do
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  to to to advance
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  the regulatory environment smartly
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  to that would actually advance
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  cybersecurity
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  within health care as opposed to perhaps
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  putting a regulatory framework on things that that
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  have our cybersecurity teams
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  doing box checking exercises that actually that actually
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  reduce the cybersecurity posture of most health systems.
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  So that that's what I would
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  point as the biggest challenge right now.
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  Got it. Well, that that's really helpful to
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  understand. And in particular, knowing, obviously, cybersecurity, like
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  you said, is something on the tip of
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  everybody's tongue, coming off a really challenging year
• 13:23
  in 2024.
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  And then two, looking at the regulatory environment,
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  I know there's changes every day, in in
• 13:29
  in potentially, you know, even bigger shifts ahead.
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  And so
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  how do you stay, really focused on the
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  main thing and being able to, you know,
• 13:38
  steadily plan for the future when there's so
• 13:40
  many unknowns and and uncontrollables?
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  Well,
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  that I guess that's job security. Right?
• 13:49
  There's knowables and unknowables.
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  And related to cybersecurity,
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  you know, one of the debates, of course,
• 13:55
  is all the generative AI going to make
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  the bad guys
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  smarter, faster, or the good guys,
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  you know, smarter, faster? In other words, the
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  defense is smarter, faster. So,
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  as we explore
• 14:08
  some of the tool some of the cybersecurity
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  tool sets,
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  we I don't wanna get into exactly which
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  ones we're using, but,
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  we're using some tools within the last
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  year or so that are are powered by
• 14:20
  Generative AI and and and really have,
• 14:24
  advanced
• 14:25
  our defensive capabilities
• 14:27
  and
• 14:28
  and and allowed our small cybersecurity team
• 14:31
  to do less of the scutt work
• 14:35
  that is required for keeping things secure
• 14:39
  so that they can address
• 14:41
  higher end
• 14:42
  defensive
• 14:43
  posturing
• 14:44
  to to to bolster our cybersecurity
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  defenses. So I'll I'll leave that one there.
• 14:50
  Got it. Thank you so much for digging
• 14:52
  a little bit deeper. Now, before we wrap
• 14:54
  up our our call, I I'm wondering,
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  you know, what's the number one thing that
• 14:58
  you're doing right now to set your organization
• 14:59
  up for long term success?
• 15:03
  What I would point to is convenient timing.
• 15:06
  We are just literally today,
• 15:09
  signing the contract
• 15:11
  with a bridge
• 15:13
  for our Amien AI Digital Scribe vendor.
• 15:16
  We've been piloting
• 15:18
  it it successfully for the last couple months,
• 15:20
  and we are now committing to to an
• 15:22
  enterprise agreement with a bridge.
• 15:26
  It's always nice when the when the plucky
• 15:28
  startup
• 15:29
  is competing successfully with, with big tech, which
• 15:32
  is exactly what Abridge is doing.
• 15:34
  We're really happy
• 15:35
  with their Epic integration and with the experience
• 15:38
  that we've seen in the pilot, which which
• 15:40
  mirrors some of the early adopters that have
• 15:42
  been doing it, you know, before us. We
• 15:44
  like to say we're,
• 15:46
  we can't really be bleeding edge innovators at
• 15:48
  Dave Jordan's because of our size, but we
• 15:50
  wanna be fast followers. And I think we're
• 15:52
  doing a good job at being a fast
• 15:53
  follower,
• 15:54
  in this case. I would predict
• 15:57
  that
• 15:58
  in the not very far future, maybe a
• 16:00
  year out,
• 16:02
  you know, once the, I don't know, half
• 16:05
  health systems are
• 16:06
  using an ambient tool
• 16:10
  from from whichever vendor,
• 16:12
  there there there are multiple good tools out
• 16:14
  there,
• 16:15
  that it is going to be a challenge
• 16:17
  for health systems to recruit physicians if they
• 16:20
  are not using an Ambiad tool because it's
• 16:23
  it's just so popular
• 16:25
  with,
• 16:26
  you know, 90% of providers. I say 90%
• 16:29
  because there's there's,
• 16:31
  some providers that that just just don't want
• 16:33
  to use the tool because they have highly
• 16:35
  templated workflows or they are just very particular
• 16:39
  about the wording,
• 16:41
  of their notes, and they're going to rewrite
• 16:42
  everything that the AI generates.
• 16:45
  But for 80 to 90% of providers, it's
• 16:47
  just such a huge win,
• 16:50
  and it improves,
• 16:52
  the quality of their life and decreases their
• 16:54
  burnout.
• 16:55
  And so I think we're going to see
• 16:57
  a really rapid adoption,
• 16:59
  throughout the industry.
• 17:01
  And so I'm I'm I'm proud that we
• 17:03
  are moving forward with this, working closely
• 17:07
  with our,
• 17:08
  CMIO and the rest of our clinical leadership
• 17:10
  about how we roll it out, to whom,
• 17:12
  when, how we support it, how we train
• 17:14
  it.
• 17:15
  So it's it's one of those
• 17:17
  we don't we don't very often in IT
• 17:21
  get to roll out new tools that are
• 17:23
  so immediately popular
• 17:25
  with the users. Right? Oftentimes,
• 17:27
  we're saying, hey. There's this new thing we
• 17:29
  gotta do. We understand it impacts your workflow.
• 17:32
  Maybe not in a way you really like,
• 17:34
  but here's the reason we have to do
• 17:36
  it for compliance or whatever.
• 17:38
  But in this case, it's a here's a
• 17:40
  new tool. It actually makes your life better,
• 17:43
  and everybody
• 17:44
  wants it. So it's it's it's fun to
• 17:46
  be involved in a project like that.
• 17:49
  Absolutely. That that sounds amazing and definitely,
• 17:52
  good to bring such a relief to the
• 17:54
  clinical workforce,
• 17:56
  to support them and boost them in everything
• 17:58
  you're doing.
• 17:59
  JD, thank you so much for joining us
• 18:00
  on the podcast today. This has been a
• 18:02
  really fun conversation, and I look forward to
• 18:04
  connecting with you again soon.
• 18:06
  Thanks, Laura.