Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Anil Saldanha, Chief Innovation Officer at Rush University System for Health

Transcript

Anil Saldanha, Chief Innovation Officer at Rush University System for Health · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

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  Philips is a health tech leader focused on
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  innovation that improves the health and well-being of
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  people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
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  help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
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  patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
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  the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
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  with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Chanel Banger with the Becker's Healthcare
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  Podcast, and I'm recording live at the 9th
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  annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM conference
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  in Chicago.
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  And sitting down right now with Anil Saldanha,
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  the chief innovation officer at Rush. Anil, thank
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  you so much for joining me today. Oh,
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  thanks for the opportunity.
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  Perfect. Well, to get us started, can you
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  please share a bit about yourself, your background,
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  and your role at your organization?
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  Sure.
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  So my role is, chief innovation officer. So
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  I'm tasked with, bringing novel
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  ideas,
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  processes,
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  partnerships, and also
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  help out at the intersection of public health,
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  community health, and delivery
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  at, Rush.
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  The organization,
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  Rush,
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  you know, we are a 3,500,000,000
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  health care system here in Chicago as well
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  as Northwest Indiana. We primarily,
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  you know, 3 major hospitals,
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  with outpatient,
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  centers
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  across,
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  you know, the region.
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  We are also on the US News,
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  hospitals on a row for many years, and,
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  we've been highly ranked by, Innoviscient
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  and, CMS star ratings.
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  And multiple specialties at Rush are, the top
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  50,
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  for many specialties, basically.
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  Got it. Thank you so much for the
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  introduction.
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  And as the chief innovation officer at such
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  a prestigious
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  institution,
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  you're the perfect person to ask this. AI
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  adoption is exploding in health care. In your
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  view, what is the most significant or promising
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  application of this technology right now, and how
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  is this informing your organization's innovation strategy?
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  So, in the last, at least 2 or
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  3 years,
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  you know, AI has has become the buzzword
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  in
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  whatever the industry is trying to do. In
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  terms of,
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  I think the key,
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  applications or
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  strategies is is scribing, and you might have
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  heard this from many people.
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  So, you know,
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  physician, burnout and, you know, clinician burnout, it's
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  it's a big issue in,
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  in health care. And, Rush, just like any
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  other health care system, is basically looking at,
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  AI scribing
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  capabilities that are provided by various products.
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  And,
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  so
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  AI scribing, primarily AI has been pretty good
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  in, summarization.
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  So that's their, I would say, the key
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  or strengths of AI right now.
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  And, you know, definitely, like, Rush is looking
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  at, scribing,
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  partners,
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  that we are basically piloting,
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  at Rush. And, we've also,
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  looked at, you know, AI,
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  from a conversational AI perspective as part of
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  our, what do you call, rush access center.
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  And, we've introduced, like, Salesforce as a CRM,
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  but we also,
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  you know, brought in, like,
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  partners, doing conversational AI for IVR
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  because,
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  still,
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  when you look at, like, the first touch
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  point for a lot of patients is is
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  still through the telephone. And Rush gets a
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  lot of phone calls from patients,
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  looking for a doctor,
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  looking for guidance, and, you know so
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  to staff up,
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  to cater to the volume of, you know,
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  this touch point from
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  patients through, like, the phone or, you know
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  so we are looking at, AI based solutions
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  to, you know, kind of help us, particularly
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  in the rush access center, to help us,
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  you know, automate some of this,
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  you know, outreach from patients and better guide
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  them and, you know, basically,
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  you know,
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  take care of the volume that you're seeing,
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  basically.
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  Thank you for that specific answer. And kind
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  of going off of that a little bit,
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  On a daily basis, healthcare leaders are managing
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  greater volumes of data and more devices across
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  a growing number of care settings and populations.
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  In this complex environment, what clinical data integration
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  tools or practices are you seeing drive improvements
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  in patient outcomes?
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  And can you share another specific example?
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  So definitely. And, so, you know, Rush has
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  been, using the EMR, like, primarily Epic for
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  the last, I would say,
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  15 years, I would guess, roughly around that.
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  So we've built a lot of capabilities,
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  using EPYC and EPYC data warehouse. And our
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  EPYC teams have built a lot of, data
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  in clinical data integration tools over the years.
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  And one of the products that we primarily
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  use,
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  on the warehouse side is is called
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  the in InnoSystems,
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  HealthConnect.
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  And, that's been,
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  a product that our EPIC teams primarily use
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  in data integration.
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  But, also, we've seen,
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  a, I would say,
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  increasing,
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  adoption of the FHIR APIs,
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  in EPIC. And, you know, tools that help
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  with FHIR, based, interactions
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  are all are also on the rise.
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  And, with, you know, cloud platforms from,
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  Microsoft
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  and Amazon,
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  you know, they're very dedicated and focused FHIR
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  API. So we've seen a lot of integration,
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  needs using these cloud platforms,
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  Microsoft and Amazon, basically, AWS.
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  So these have been the primary or popular,
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  you know, tools that we have seen in
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  a clinical integration or data integration perspective.
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  Got it. And moving forward, how can health
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  care organizations
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  better support IT and clinical teams as they
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  carry out innovation efforts? And what are some
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  common pitfalls here?
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  So, basically, health care organizations
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  have to be on the lookout for
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  their business needs, which is in care delivery,
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  but also, like, you know, they need to
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  be patient centric. And, you know, the patient
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  is at the center of everything a health
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  care organization
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  such as Rush does.
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  So, you know, we have a lot of
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  pain points for patients in terms of access.
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  Health equity is is a big, you know,
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  goal strategic goal for Rush. So equity,
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  is is a driving force for, you know,
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  Rush in terms of the way we do
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  a lot of our clinical operations,
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  across across the system. So
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  in terms of IT and clinical team support,
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  you know, we've built a lot of expertise
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  over the years. I mean, I talked about,
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  you know, Rush embracing EPYC as their EMR,
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  like like, around 4 15 years ago. So
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  we built a lot of expertise around that.
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  But we're also seeing a lot of, like,
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  I would say, shifts in the way the
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  industry is moving. So there's a lot of
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  consumer,
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  you know, transition. You're moving from a inpatient
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  setup to more of an ambulatory
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  setup. We just had a pandemic. So that
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  kind of, you know, made a big push
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  towards digital health. Technologies
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  are,
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  things like, remote patient monitoring, telemedicine,
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  telehealth,
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  you know, think of survey capabilities.
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  You know, they've all been, you know, available
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  to health care organizations. So from my perspective,
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  I think health care organizations
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  have to be open to embracing, like, technologies,
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  companies, startups,
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  and just look around,
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  what other, health systems around the nation are
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  doing, and you don't have to reinvent the
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  wheel. And,
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  my,
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  recommendation for health systems such as Russia's,
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  lot of times it's easier to just partner
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  with another health system that has solved a
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  problem
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  because it's easier to, collaborate
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  and compete rather than just be working in
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  silos and competing, you know. So because we
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  are all work, facing the same problems and
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  challenges, so sometimes it's much easier to collaborate
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  with other health systems that have solved particular
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  problems, you know?
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  Absolutely. And kind of building up the advice
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  for organizations
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  and narrowing it down a little bit. Could
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  you share one piece or your top piece
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  of advice for health care leaders as they
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  prepare for future advancements in technology and greater
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  demands for care? So in terms of, health
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  care leaders,
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  the the big recommendation that I want to,
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  give
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  is is basically just be open, you know,
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  and, you know,
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  be, be open to new ideas, novel ideas.
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  Innovation is
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  is is is important, you know, and, like,
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  you might have,
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  you know, good times and bad times in
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  terms of, you know, like finances
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  or
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  just, you know, things like epidemics or pandemics,
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  you know, things
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  do happen at times. But
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  I would say technology and you know, innovation
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  is
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  something that you can embrace,
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  to bring in new ideas and collaboration
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  into the healthcare system.
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  And, you know, so that's the way to
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  solve problems, collaboration and partnerships,
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  and,
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  basically just experience that you have over the
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  years, you know. Yeah.
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  Absolutely. So remain open and embrace technology. I
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  love it. Well, no, I wanna thank you
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  for your time today. But before I let
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  you go, is there anything else that listeners
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  should
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  know? Oh, thanks for this opportunity,
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  you know? Love it. Well, thank you so
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  much, like, yet again for your time today
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  and for joining me on the Becker's Healthcare
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  Podcast. Thank you so much.