Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Craig Richardville, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Intermountain Health

Transcript

Craig Richardville, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Intermountain Health · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Craig Richville,
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  chief Digital and Information
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  Officer at Intermountain Health.
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  Craig, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today,
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  - Laura.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  - Now, I'm excited to learn more about
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  what you're doing at Intermountain, and certainly it's
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  always a pleasure listening to you and having conversations
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  because I'm inspired by the way you approach your work
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  and, um, really some of the innovative things that you do.
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  But before we dive into that discussion,
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  and for those who maybe are just
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  now subscribing the Becker's Healthcare Podcast,
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  can you introduce yourself
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  and tell us a little about your background?
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  - Sure. Well, as you mentioned, I am the TE Digital
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  and Information Officer at Intermountain Health.
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  For those of you that don't know Intermountain Health,
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  it's a integrated delivery system.
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  Uh, we operate in seven states.
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  We have 34 hospitals, hundreds of clinics, thousands
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  of employee caregivers.
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  We have 1.1 million members, uh,
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  and we have a total revenue of about 16 billion.
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  Now, in terms of myself, I started my career
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  at Marathon Oil Company back in Ohio.
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  I then went to ProMedica Health for 11 years at Atrium now,
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  Health for 21 years.
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  I've been in this role for five years.
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  Um, I'm married to a beautiful wife.
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  I have three wonderful sons.
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  Uh, they're all in the healthcare IT space.
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  So my oldest, uh, is with an early company, early startup.
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  Uh, my middle physician is a,
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  or my middle, uh, son is a physician,
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  and my third son works at Advocate Health.
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  - Well, that's amazing to hear.
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  And you know, what an influence that you must have had
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  for them as they're, you know, choosing their careers
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  and they all go into healthcare and medicine
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  and really, you know, uh, this growing field.
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  - Yeah, it, it's, it's fun.
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  I mean, our conversations are great.
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  I learned so much from them and,
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  and their, uh, uh, networking and their experiences,
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  and I could take some of that
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  and apply it to, uh, my work here.
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  - Oh, that's awesome to hear.
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  What a, a a great situation to be in, you know,
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  in your family, um, you can really relate
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  to and connect with on that level.
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  And along those lines, what are some of the biggest issues
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  that you're following in healthcare right now?
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  What is top of mind
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  and keeps coming up in those conversations?
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  - Yeah, there's, uh, there, there's a lot
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  of opportunity in healthcare.
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  There's a lot of, um,
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  stress happening in healthcare, as we all know.
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  I want to share the two system initiatives
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  that we're focused on at Intermountain Health.
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  There's value-based care.
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  This truly is, uh, changing the way that we,
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  um, deliver healthcare.
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  As we start to move things upstream, start to keep people,
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  well look at early prevention
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  and also really transcend the traditional growth boundaries,
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  you know, be able to touch patients
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  and members in ways we haven't done in the past.
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  That whole transition to value-based care
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  is a very important, um, uh,
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  cornerstone for Intermountain Health.
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  And the second is simplicity.
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  Simplicity for us is to embrace the cutting edge technology.
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  We really want to enrich the experience for our consumers,
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  whether they're patients or whether they're members
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  or whether they're caregivers.
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  And it real just reimagine our work,
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  become a lot more efficient and just improve the experience.
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  So if we're looking at how we want to, um, shape
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  and be part of the future of healthcare,
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  it's really focused on the value-based care
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  and simplify all the processes that we have.
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  - Well, that's great to hear. And you know,
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  certainly really cool to think through.
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  Um, you know, what a great opportunity
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  that we have right now, like you were saying, there's
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  so many different, um, challenges,
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  but also really great solutions
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  and technology in the evolution of how healthcare delivery,
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  um, really benefits not only the patients and communities,
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  but also caregivers at the same time.
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  And, and given all of the, these things we talked about,
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  and you mentioned in, in terms of, um, big initiatives,
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  what are you most excited about
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  for the next year and what makes you nervous?
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  - Yeah, there, there's really two things.
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  One ties into each of the two above.
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  So on the value-based care, for example, the thing
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  that I'm excited about, but also very nervous
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  how the healthcare is gonna get reformed in terms of the
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  redi, redistribution of the dollar.
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  And, uh, when you look at healthcare,
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  you've got the provider side, you've got the,
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  the payer side, you've got pharmaceuticals, et cetera.
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  And, and really what we need to do is start to shift, um,
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  a lot of those services over into
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  that prevention and wellness.
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  So if we can start to, uh, incentivize, uh, providers
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  and plans to move upstream, that would be a great change
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  to transition, uh, for us.
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  Secondly is artificial intelligence.
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  You know, um, been in tech, you know,
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  for over 30 years in healthcare tech.
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  And on the artificial intelligence side,
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  we have the opportunities to greatly assist our workforce.
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  We can be more precise, we can enhance the efficiency,
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  enrich the experience.
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  Those are all things that, uh, we need to embrace
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  and bring full light into, um, our processes and workflows.
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  And on the same side of that, um, there's a nervous part.
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  There's some bias both into some
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  of the newer tech that's coming out.
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  There's some big consistencies in that.
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  Um, there's some reg regulations
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  that might limit our potential, um,
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  to bring this into our workforce
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  and into the, the hands of our patients.
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  So both of those, for me, the redistribution of the dollar
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  and utilizing the advanced
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  or um, artificial intelligence would be the two things
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  that are gonna be very exciting to watch
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  and have us, um, progress, but also was kind of nervous
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  because we don't really know
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  what the outcome is gonna be yet.
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  - I think that's such a, a really great point,
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  and definitely I, I love your thought process
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  around moving more of the healthcare services upstream
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  and then leveraging artificial
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  intelligence where it makes sense.
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  Um, you know, to really aid, I, I guess,
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  those goals in the healthcare space
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  for you at Intermountain, when you look at, um, you know,
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  kind of the intersection of
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  how technology can influence those things
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  and potentially support the organization's mission, both
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  with value-based care, and then, you know,
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  to looking at the workforce
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  and looking at everything else
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  that we've talked about today,
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  what role does technology play?
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  What role do you really see, um, yourself as well
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  as your team being able to, um, play
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  and contribute to some
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  of these overall big goals for the health system?
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  - Yeah, there, you know, when you,
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  when you look at the technology piece
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  and you see it in the other industries,
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  and you're starting to see it a lot more within healthcare
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  for sure, and it's the acceleration of the application of
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  that technology into our space.
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  So when you look at, um, from a replacement perspective,
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  we're not looking to see how we can use some
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  of this newer tech to replace what it really is.
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  It's a, uh, some people call it a copilot,
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  some people call it an assistant, really is something
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  to help the human workforce to be more effective,
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  to be more efficient,
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  and in many cases, start to move some of
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  that work toward our patients to give them the tools
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  and the technology or to our members, give them the tools
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  and the technology that's intuitive, easy to use.
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  It allows them to do a lot of that work.
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  Uh, and, and for the most part, that's what we really want
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  to do from a patient or a consumer perspective.
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  If you find yourself in the banking industry,
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  you moved a lot of clerical task of going into a branch
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  of cashing checks, um, withdrawing money, standing in lines.
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  Now I, I do that all on my phone
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  and I do it at three o'clock in the morning
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  or whatever time that I want to.
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  And that's the same thing when healthcare,
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  we've gotta take some of these tasks
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  that we've assigned in the processes that we've created,
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  we start to really totally reimagine what that is
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  and bring a lot of that back into the patients
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  and to our members and allow them to be able to take control
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  of their health and of their care as well.
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  - That's such a great point. And especially thinking
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  through, you know, how healthcare
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  has really moved into a space where, um,
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  the patients can drive so much more
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  of their care journeys than they have in the past.
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  It seems like a really cool opportunity
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  and, um, you know, a lot of opportunity again
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  for like innovation in that space
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  and technology being the driver there.
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  Um, from your perspective,
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  what will you do you think the most effective healthcare
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  leaders will need in order to be successful in the next two
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  to three years or so, especially given these changes
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  that are happening in healthcare?
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  - Yeah, I, yeah, I would say there's several things.
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  I think these are some, for some people
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  that are the same characteristics and some they're new or,
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  or need to be enhanced,
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  but we gotta get a lot more adventurous.
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  And that's going back to kind of reimagining exactly
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  how we do work today.
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  Uh, we have to be audacious.
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  Uh, we need to be courageous, have
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  to be very energetic in our work, excited about the work,
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  uh, but also very humble, uh,
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  and be able to continue to learn from others.
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  I think the boldness and the courage are the things
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  that we really need to do in the next couple of years.
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  This is no longer, you know, a continuous improvement
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  or a transitional, uh, change.
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  It really is truly transformational.
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  This is turning it upside down
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  and let's start to change how healthcare is administered
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  or delivered and finance, uh, in our country.
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  Gotta start seeking going to places we've never gone before.
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  Uh, but we have to do that in a very calculated way.
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  Uh, we do have to make sure that we ensure the privacy
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  of our data, uh, safety
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  and security, the services that we provide.
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  We have to use data to drive our decision making.
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  Um, you know, we gotta put the tools in the hands
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  of our patients as we mentioned earlier, and to our members
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  and to our caregivers,
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  and have them to be able to embrace where it's just another
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  tool for them on their tool belt
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  to help them do their job better.
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  - That's amazing to hear.
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  Well, Craig, thank you so much
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  for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fascinating discussion
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Okay, thank you, Laura. Appreciate it.