Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Garrett Olin, MBA, Chief Information Officer at Shasta Community Health Center

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Garrett Olin, MBA, Chief Information Officer at Shasta Community Health Center · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  This is Scott King with the Becker's Health
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  Care podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined
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  by Garrett Olin, chief information officer at Shasta
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  Community Health Center. Garrett, thanks so much for
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  joining us today. How are you doing?
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  I'm doing well. Thank you for the invitation.
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  Of course. I think we're having a great
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  conversation about a lot of the big opportunities
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  and challenges
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  in health care today. But before we dive
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  in further, could you please just tell us
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  a little bit about your background?
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  Sure. I've been in, technology. I've been the
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  CIO for, oh, about thirty five years now.
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  Been with Shasta Community Health Center for about
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  a year and a half.
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  Shasta Community Health Center is a
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  a federally qualified health center.
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  We're the largest in Northern California. We're located
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  in Redding,
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  about halfway between Sacramento and the Oregon border.
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  What are some of the accomplishments
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  over at Shasta that you're most proud of
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  from the past year?
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  Well, last year was a busy year for
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  us.
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  We actually opened a a new building
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  and unexpectedly
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  bought a a second building,
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  both of them around 35,000
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  square feet.
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  And in doing so, we consolidated
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  a number of our locations that were leased
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  and and basically relocated about 75%
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  of our staff,
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  over about a six month period.
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  So it was just good for everyone just
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  working together as a team,
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  getting everything up and running and
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  and everything, you know, working properly.
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  And then the other thing is just
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  we
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  when I came on, took a look at
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  what we had and
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  developed a,
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  stand alone,
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  cybersecurity,
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  department
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  and have been increasing our security posture.
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  I believe we we've been hearing more and
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  more about cybersecurity in these interviews. How much
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  is of an undertaking is that to kinda
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  just make sure everything's updated and current in
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  your system?
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  Oh, it it's never ending. I'm sure,
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  you know, it's it's one of those things
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  of,
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  you know, not a question of if, but
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  when.
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  We have,
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  you know, started with
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  a department of two. We're on to three
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  this year.
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  Our spend is, you know, increased.
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  We are
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  looking at just, you know,
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  best practices and and securing things down to
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  to the best of our ability.
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  It it's been an effort. It's always ongoing.
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  So, you know, we'll we'll see where it
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  goes, but we we feel we have a
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  a a pretty good standing at the moment.
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  What are the big kinda headwinds or challenges
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  you're anticipating for the next year or two?
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  Cybersecurity is always number one for us. You
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  know, we need to protect our patients' data,
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  obviously.
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  Like, I'm sure that you've heard from any,
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  you know, artificial intelligence machine learning
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  looking at that.
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  How do we, you know, implement it and
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  do it ethically,
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  the security around that also,
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  of patient data.
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  And then just,
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  finding the talent,
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  for both of those when you're in a
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  more rural area.
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  In terms of
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  finding staff to to kinda monitor things, like,
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  especially like cybersecurity, is that is there a
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  growing need for that? Is that, you know,
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  more employees than it it would have taken
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  just a few years ago?
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  Not necessarily more, because a lot of things,
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  you know,
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  can be more automated nowadays.
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  And,
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  more and more of the cybersecurity is also
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  implementing artificial intelligence.
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  You know, you you use it to
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  not only are are we using it to
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  secure ourselves, but, obviously, the the threats are
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  using it to try to break in.
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  So
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  it it's more
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  figuring out those gaps. So like I said,
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  you know, we went from two to three
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  this year.
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  I don't anticipate
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  that department needing to grow more as we
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  just utilize more,
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  and and better tools.
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  You mentioned some automation.
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  Obviously, with AI now, so many things are
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  benefiting from that to be automated.
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  How's your health system using AI, and and
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  do you have a lot of people kind
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  of consistently
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  checking? Yeah. We're still kinda just dipping our
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  toes in it. You know, we we've used
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  it on a digital health side of things,
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  you know, implementing chatbot and
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  and, for patients to answer some of those
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  easy questions that that they may have, more
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  common questions and things.
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  And and starting to integrate into our EHR,
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  we've been looking at the ambient technology to
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  create notes.
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  But we're we're kinda unique in the fact
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  that we have live scribes for our providers.
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  So they the the live scribes do more
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  than most of the Ambient technology can do,
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  like entering orders and making referrals or or
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  at least entering referrals for the providers to
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  just review and and,
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  authorize.
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  So it's a little more challenging
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  because if if our provider uses the Ambient
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  tech,
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  they actually have to do more,
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  or there's an increase of expense of utilizing
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  the Ambient technology and still having the LiveScribe.
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  So we're trying to balance that. We we
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  do think that we have found
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  a product that can also include the order
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  side of things. So it will be more
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  like a a LiveScribe at that point,
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  and we're starting to test that now.
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  When you look back at your career and,
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  you know, at the time you first started
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  in health care up to now, how do
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  you think you've evolved as a leader?
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  I guess it's just understanding that
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  every provider, you know, every specialty has its
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  own
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  needs.
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  They're very unique about how they they need
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  things done.
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  And just working as a team and and,
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  you know,
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  working to people's strengths. Right?
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  If you have a gap, trying to fill
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  that gap in your team with that strength
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  and just,
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  really building relationships.
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  You know, I think I've done that my
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  entire career, not just within health care, but
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  having those relationships so that that I can
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  trust who I'm dealing with and they can
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  trust dealing with me.
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  You know, that's that's the big thing.
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  How how important is
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  trust in a health system setting versus, you
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  know, just like you know, I don't know
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  if you know if you ever had, like,
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  a regular office job, but you just kinda
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  talk about a regular office job versus the
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  trust that's needed in in health care when
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  you have, you know, obviously, patients depending on
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  you.
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  Yeah. I think the the the difference is
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  the type of data that you might be,
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  dealing with. You know, I I've had, you
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  know, if you pull the the regular office
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  job and and things like that,
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  where the the data may not be as
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  sensitive
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  compared to, you know,
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  having access and and knowledge of,
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  patient's diagnosis
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  and medications
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  and,
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  insurance and and what have you.
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  You know, it
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  it it really comes down to
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  the the level of trust that you need
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  to make sure that, you know, we're all
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  taking care of things the way we need
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  to.
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  You know, we we had mentioned the the
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  cybersecurity of things. Right? So
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  the, you know, our end users are the
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  weakest link,
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  in in any chain,
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  around a a potential breach. So, you know,
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  we we need to make sure that we're
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  training staff properly
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  and
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  that, you know, we can identify those areas
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  where we may be weak and strengthen them
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  and,
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  and and have that trust in each other
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  to do the right thing.
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  Garrett, thanks so much for the great conversation
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  and for joining the podcast. Look forward to
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  working with you again soon.
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  Alright. Appreciate it, Scott. Have a good day.
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  You too.