Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Tarun Kapoor, MD, MBA, SVP, and Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Virtua Health

Transcript

Tarun Kapoor, MD, MBA, SVP, and Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Virtua 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 Dr.
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  Tarun Kaur, senior Vice President
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  and Chief Transformation Officer at Virtual Health.
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  Dr. Kaur, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  - Hi. Thank you very much, Laura.
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  A pleasure to be here with you and with the audience.
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  - Now, I know we've got a lot to talk about,
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  and I'm excited to learn more about your
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  transformation portfolio at vir.
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  But before we dive into my questions,
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  can you tell me a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Absolutely. So to Kaur tk for short,
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  I'm an internal medicine hospitalist by training.
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  Um, and, uh, I'll just say it's, it's, if I had probably had
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  to look back 20 years ago when I started this journey,
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  I would've never planned this journey out, uh, on purpose.
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  It's one of those things where
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  wherever you go, there you are.
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  So I, um, I've had opportunities to,
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  to be a working hospitalist.
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  I've, uh, had roles inside of our informatics team.
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  I was actually the chief medical officer
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  of our, our medical group.
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  I had a stint in population health.
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  And then in 2019, I was asked to take on digital health
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  as a stretch assignment.
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  And, uh, the best career advice I can give to anyone is,
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  it's always better to be lucky than good
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  because March, 2020 comes along, uh,
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  covid pandemic accelerates digital health in a way we could
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  have never even fathom.
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  So, um, as such, uh, we at ua, which is in the southern part
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  of New Jersey, just right on that same latitude
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  as Philadelphia, uh, uh, we, um,
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  we created a digital transformation office right,
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  coming out of the second wave of covid.
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  And, um, glad to share more about our, our,
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  our office and our portfolio.
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  - Well, fantastic. That's great to hear it
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  and absolutely looking forward to it.
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  So, will you tell me a little bit about
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  that transformation portfolio?
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  What's unique about it in your program at Virtua?
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  - So, the reason we created a digital transformation office
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  was to,
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  because we, we were recognizing, my goodness, look at this
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  astounding rate of change that occurred
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  during the first couple ways of, of the pandemic.
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  I remember there was this headline in,
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  in the New York Times talking about the adoption
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  of telehealth in the United Kingdom,
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  and they said 10 years of change in one week.
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  And that's exactly what we saw.
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  And I, I think a lot of organizations were seeing levels
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  of change that they had never anticipated before.
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  And the question we, we knew that the pen,
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  so the pendulum never swings back to the middle.
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  It always tends to swing back to the other direction.
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  So we knew that once the, some of the urgency
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  of the pandemic were starting to would, would ease.
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  We knew some of those transformative energies
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  would start to ease as well.
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  And people potentially could go
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  back to doing it the old way.
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  And we as such created a digital transformation office and,
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  and took a model off of Silicon Valley
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  incubator accelerator model,
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  what we believe transformative things,
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  especially digital transformative things can happen
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  organically inside of an organization.
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  But what would normally take two
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  or three years to happen, we try to help accelerate
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  that process and do it in six months.
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  And, and the reason is, is
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  'cause the operators are constantly having to put out fires.
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  Uh, you know, today we're, we're recording this
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  and there's a pretty,
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  there's a pretty big breach happening at Change Healthcare.
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  Well, if I'm running a transformation off
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  or if I'm an operator, I gotta take care of that breach.
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  And, and so there's always an opportunity
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  for a fire to take over.
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  A transformation office lets a group of people continue
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  to move the transformation forward even when immediate
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  emergencies come up, uh, and could
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  otherwise distract people.
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  And that's what we did. So, uh,
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  that's the idea behind the office.
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  The office does not own any form
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  of transformation by itself.
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  It always partners with an operating unit.
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  We have a deep partnership
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  with our information technology team.
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  'cause we need, we need the digital
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  underpinnings to get it done.
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  And then the other piece of the transformation portfolio,
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  which, you know, we think is a little bit different than
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  typical projects in a health system,
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  is we don't rebalance it on an annual basis.
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  We rebalance the portfolio two, three,
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  sometimes four times a year
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  because the needs of healthcare are
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  changing faster than ever before.
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  You can't be on annual planning cycles for this stuff.
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  So I think that's where there's been some adaptability.
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  - Absolutely. That's just so fascinating.
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  And certainly as you mentioned, the pace
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  and rate of change in healthcare sped up so much
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  during the pandemic and it continues to seem like, you know,
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  there is a, a pretty fast rate of change
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  with new digital technologies
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  and artificial intelligence and so many other things.
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  And like you mentioned, needing to be nimble if there is a,
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  a cybersecurity incident
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  or something else impacting the system
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  or a, a business partner, um, I can imagine
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  that's just such a challenge when you look at, um, you know,
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  being able to make that pivot and,
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  and have teams go from what it used to be in or, and,
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  and now into a space where you can
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  be more nimble, make changes quickly.
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  What does that take culturally
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  and how do you make sure you keep
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  that momentum going even if there's not a
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  global pandemic going on?
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  - Yeah, so, uh, boy, I wish I had a, uh,
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  a simple answer for that.
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  And I don't because I'm constantly learning.
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  I think one of the important pieces though,
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  that we've learned here is,
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  and even though the word transformation is in my title,
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  not everything can nor should be transformative
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  and learning how to iterate, even if it's relatively simple
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  iterations and, you know, say, well this,
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  there's nothing transformative about that.
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  There are learnings that come along the way.
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  Uh, so I, you know, I'm, I'm a, a big, uh, believer in,
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  in reader of Hendrick Berg's work from his time back at, uh,
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  Spotify and Lego.
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  And, you know, he, he talks about not building
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  in a waterfall mechanism, but truly an agile methodology.
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  And what we try to do here is someone
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  says, I think I need a car.
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  And we go back to them and say, for what?
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  And that's a awkward question sometimes
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  to ask in healthcare, especially if you're talking
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  to other professionals, like physicians
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  who are extremely well trained.
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  Why do you need a car? I say, well, I want it
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  to get from point A to point B.
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  And you say, okay, well here's a skateboard.
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  Give that a try for a week.
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  And that's just a different way of thinking.
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  But a couple things happen along the way.
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  You learn sometimes that, well,
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  maybe a skateboard isn't good enough,
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  but maybe you can stop at a bicycle.
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  And you know, what we say is, well,
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  if you're designing transportation in, in the Netherlands,
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  in Amsterdam specifically,
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  you would always stop at a bicycle
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  'cause there's nowhere to park the car.
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  And it's just a different mindset
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  because in in healthcare, you know,
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  when we take the Hippocratic oath, we say premium numb,
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  necessary, first of all, do no harm.
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  That doesn't really sit well with a transformative mindset.
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  It's only if you're making mistakes
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  that you learn something.
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  And so what we had to find in balance is
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  we do make mistakes, but we will make sure we are safe.
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  Safety and, and learning
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  or making mistakes are two different things.
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  We can be safe and still make mistakes as we learn.
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  And I think that that's the mindset
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  and the cultureship change that,
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  that we we're still going under here at Virtual.
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  - That makes a lot of sense.
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  And you know, I love that analogy
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  and the way you explained it in thinking about
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  transformation and understanding, you know, what needs
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  to be iterative and how you can really approach some
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  of those things versus some
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  of the bigger transformation as well.
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  What are some of your top priorities
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  over the next 12 months?
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  What do you have top of mind and what are you focused on?
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  - We manage our portfolio in, in domains.
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  So we have consumer financial journey, digital doors,
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  uh, alternative term is digital front doors.
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  I'm not a big fan of the term digital front door.
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  When's the last time you went to the
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  front door of your own house?
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  Uh, so I think you have multiple doors into a,
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  in a house you should have multiple
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  doors into your health system.
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  What I would say if, you know, with all of our,
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  and I would, I be careful here, I sometimes say projects,
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  but in reality it's products.
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  And that's an entire mindset shift in, in healthcare.
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  But within our products,
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  if I just talk about three global themes,
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  we are talking about digital resiliency,
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  digital outcomes.
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  And perhaps most important right now is digital access.
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  Uh, there is an access crisis in the United States
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  and uh, it's not gonna go away for the next 10 years.
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  And so if we do not come up with alternative ways
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  of thinking about this, it's gonna be a rough 10 years.
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  - I think that's such a great point.
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  And definitely, you know, looking at, as you mentioned,
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  trying to solve some of those big problems, big challenges,
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  whether it's access
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  or other issues using some of the digital technologies in,
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  in places available, um, I really, you know, like you said,
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  think that it's so paramount
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  and can certainly make a big difference, difference
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  for the communities that you serve.
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  Is there anything that you're doing now looking ahead that,
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  um, you really feel like is going to be helpful
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  and beneficial, um, as you're making that transition
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  and really ensuring that you've got digital health access
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  and, and can improve that for
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  the whole community that you serve?
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  - Well, you know, I think this is one of those, uh,
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  an opportunity, one of those learnings.
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  We, um, we came along the way
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  and you remember I asked, I said about you asked,
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  someone says, I want a car.
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  It's like, to do what I,
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  I think a lesson we've learned along the way.
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  We've, we've had a lot of success with online scheduling.
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  We have really substantial numbers
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  of online scheduling appointments
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  that occur in the organization.
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  And if you think about all the phone calls that are saved,
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  both from the convenience to the patient, consumer,
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  but also to the operators, uh, the operations team, that
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  that can be avoided because of digital scheduling.
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  But I actually looking back
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  and kind of realizing, you know what, maybe we are,
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  we didn't ask enough of to do what I didn't ask enough of
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  what do you want the online schedule to do?
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  And so for example, way we've been thinking about it is
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  patients, do they really want an appointment?
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  Does anyone really want an appointment?
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  And I think, yes, there are some people
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  who absolutely just want an appointment,
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  but most people actually just want an
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  answer to their problem.
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  They're willing to make an appointment
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  as a mechanism to get the answer.
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  Are there other ways we can get them their answer without
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  them having to have an appointment?
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  And if we are talking about scarcity of resources
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  and our clinicians are probably our most scarce and, and,
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  and, and precious resource,
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  does every question need an appointment to get answered
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  or are there other ways we can do that?
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  And that's where we were talking, we're thinking
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  through some of the digital tools, et cetera.
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  You know, the reality though is, is that the structure of
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  how billing works is going to have
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  to be looked at differently.
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  What are, you know, what are consumers comfort levels
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  of getting their answers through digital means?
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  When is something appropriate for a digital answer
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  and when is something appropriate for an analog answer when,
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  you know, meaning in person with your clinician?
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  I think those are all the things we're trying to solve for.
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  And uh, you know,
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  I think we just recognize if you look at the numbers,
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  the population numbers in the United States,
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  you're not gonna recruit your way out of this problem.
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  We're all competing to have clinicians
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  and the pipeline will just not come fast enough.
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  So we're going to have
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  to think about other ways of doing this.
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  - That's a really excellent point. Thank you so much.
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  Now before we wrap up here, I'm wondering,
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  given everything we've talked about looking at
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  transformation, digital technologies, access to care,
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  how do you anticipate your role in teams will change
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  in the next year and beyond?
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  - Yeah, we think about this a lot.
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  I, um, you know, I, I think we we're spending a lot
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  of time here as mentioned we were a digital transformation
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  office, so it's a little bit more of a centralized function
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  function when we started, what I'd love to see is more
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  of a federated model or approach.
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  And, and that meaning like for example,
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  when Excel first came out, yeah,
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  the finance people use it a lot.
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  You, everyone uses Excel across an organization.
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  You don't say, well, only finance gets to use Excel. Right?
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  It's just, it's just not the way the world works.
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  I think similarly around digital, while there have
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  to be guardrails around digital guardrails
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  around artificial intelligence, how do you get these tools
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  into the hands of the front end users?
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  Because that's where the true innovation occurs. Yes.
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  You know, we have innovation labs where we experiment
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  saying, I, you know, I put out there is
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  that innovation without adoption is experimentation,
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  but innovation with adoption is true transformation.
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  And we have to spend a lot of time, we are spending a lot
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  of time around literacy, digital literacy, AI literacy,
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  explaining to our, our colleagues, our employees, these
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  what these tools can do.
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  These is what these tools can't currently do
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  and this is how these tools can be abused.
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  And, uh, so I'm spending a lot
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  of time on the education front
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  because, you know, these tools are not gonna be able
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  to be kept in a, in a bottle, the genie's out.
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  So we want to educate the people
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  around us in our organization how to
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  effectively use the tools,
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  but also be aware of where,
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  where there could be shortcomings.
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  - That makes a lot of sense. Dr.
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  Kaur, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fascinating conversation
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  and really covered a lot of ground,
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  so I appreciate your time here
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  and looking forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Appreciate your time and uh, the questions
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  and, uh, thank you to the audience
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  for giving the opportunity to share of some
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  of the things we're thinking about here at Virtua.