Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Cheng-Kai Kao, Chief Clinical Informatics Innovation Officer at UChicago Medicine

Transcript

Cheng-Kai Kao, Chief Clinical Informatics Innovation Officer at UChicago Medicine · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Chen, Kai Kao,
• 0:05
  who's the Chief Clinical Informatics Innovation Officer at Uch Chicago Medicine.
• 0:10
  Kai, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
• 0:13
  Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
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  Now, I know we have a lot to talk about.
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  There's so much happening in the clinical informatics space,
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  and certainly I'm intrigued by your title,
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  having both the clinical informatics and innovation in there.
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  But before we dive into my broader questions,
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  can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Of course. So, um, I'm a hospitalist by training. Um,
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  so I spend a lot of time seeing inpatients, um,
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  mostly general medicine patients, and have done that for, you know,
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  about 12 to 13 years by now. And I also hold, you know,
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  some administrative positions in hospital, including, as you mentioned,
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  the Chief Clinical Run Innovation Officer, which I really focused a lot of,
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  you know, um, informatics operations, especially for inpatient, uh,
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  capacity access and qualities. And also, you know,
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  thinking about on the innovative side, you know, you know,
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  all the interesting projects that really help accelerate the care. You know,
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  improving the quality and also expanding our access, uh,
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  sort of the things that I do as well.
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  Excellent. Wow.
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  So it sounds like you certainly have your hands full at your Chicago medicine
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  and you know,
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  from your perspective and vantage point with so many different roles,
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  where do you see the big opportunities for healthcare as well as the headwinds
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  that you have your eyes on right now?
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  Yeah, I think we have, you know,
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  obviously we are in the post covid era where, you know,
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  a lot of things are still, you know, being restored. Um, but in the meantime,
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  if one thing accelerated through covid, that will be the overall,
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  the telehealth and, and overall the informatics, um, you know, um,
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  opportunities. Um, so we're excited to see, you know, there's a lot of,
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  um, booming, um, programs around how do we spend, you know,
• 1:58
  outreach to the patients through, for example,
• 2:00
  remote patient monitoring or Apache Ho I spend a lot of time, um, um,
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  it's called Hospital at home, uh, ho essentially providing, you know,
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  acute hospital, um, care to the patients home.
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  So I see a lot of opportunity where home become a new alternative site
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  of care in the future. And, you know, a lot of these services, um,
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  enabled by technology informatics, um, solutions were, you know, um,
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  helping us to be able to provide the care in the patient's home, you know,
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  where they really belongs. Um,
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  so I think there's really a lot of opportunity here and that's why we have been,
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  um, you know, working on over the last three years.
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  That's great to hear. And you know, especially looking at the hospital at home,
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  I know that's a trend across the country and some organizations are further
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  along the journey than others. And, you know, in your experience,
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  what have you learned in, um,
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  setting up a program like that and what does it take to, to be successful?
• 2:57
  Yeah, we are just started, um,
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  we have been planning this for almost two years and we just saw our first
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  patients, um,
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  earlier this year and we are now planning to launch hopefully in the next few
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  months. Um, you know, officially, so very exciting for us. Um, and,
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  you know, you asked the key question, you know,
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  where it really takes a lot of resources and planning, um,
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  to kick up this such a program. Um, we, we think there is a lot of value. Um,
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  so I think recognizing what the value is for the organization,
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  cause the answer could be slightly different for organization to organization,
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  but for us it would be improving our capacity access. Uh,
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  we constantly are full all the time, um, in the hospital. Um,
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  so there's not a way to quickly, you know,
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  increase the bad numbers that open us up for more, um, you know,
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  sicker patients that can, um, you know, um, be hospitalized. Um, so really,
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  you know, hospital home becomes a way to really expand the access, um,
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  allow more patients to be treated. In the meantime,
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  I think there's a huge component for patient experience. Um,
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  so patients are up and mobile a lot more often than they traditionally are in
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  the hospital. In the first patient that we just had,
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  I observed the patient in the hospital where he was mostly bedbound because he
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  was deemed have to have certain floor risk.
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  And so even though he has his cane just right next to him,
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  it doesn't walk around.
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  He literally just pretty much tied to the bed and watch TV most of the time.
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  But once we transfer him home, we saw him actually get up, walk around,
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  uses Cane to walk in the living room,
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  he eating the meal that we send over to him,
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  and just quickly we see the smiley face, the energy in him just, you know,
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  after a few hours we return from him home.
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  So we believe home is really the optimal place for a lot of patients,
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  especially elderly patients to recover. And I think that's something that,
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  you know,
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  even though we know for sure we still not be able to provide care at home
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  because, you know, a lot of limitations we had before. Um, but now with the,
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  you know, with the covid, you know, with the waiver program in front of cms,
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  now we finally have the opportunity and also reimbursement mechanism to actually
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  make this work. So I think recognizing those values, um,
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  identifying if that's important for your organization, then it's all about,
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  you know, investments and, and software planning. Um, I would just say this is,
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  uh, a very, um, robust community, um,
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  given the programs still pretty young and new,
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  most of the hospital home programs across the country already supporting one
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  another. Um, so if there's any questions, you know, um, you know,
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  there's always a lot of people who were, you know,
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  happy to answering those questions voluntarily. And if anyone, you know,
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  is listening are interested in knowing more about Host Their Home, again,
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  I would really love to return the favor as well, and happy to get that resource,
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  um, provide you if there's any questions.
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  Fantastic. I, I think that's so helpful to know and just really great results,
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  um, even for a single person to be able to have that opportunity to go home and
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  really come to life more. I, I think that's so important. Now,
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  when you look more broadly,
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  how are you thinking about growth and adding value to the organization overall?
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  Yeah, so, um, it's just like I mentioned, I think, you know, um,
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  we need to really improve the access for both inpatient and outpatients.
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  And I think we are doing a lot more now through, um,
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  also at home and telemedicine, um, type of initiative, um, to expand the access.
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  Um, but in the meantime,
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  we also need to just make it easier for patients to actually, um, contact us,
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  make appointments, ask questions. So I think, you know,
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  a lot of the initiative around digital front door,
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  a lot of initiative around how do we improve the patient engagement, you know,
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  through the patient portal and how do we actually direct the patient to make the
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  appointment to the right providers. I mean, I think there's a lot,
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  still a lot of opportunities where, you know, um,
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  that we need to work on to improve the growth and also add more value. And,
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  and ultimately I think traditionally healthcare has been a very, a episodic,
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  um, services where patient gets sick,
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  they either go to our urgent care clinic or go to ED and be hospitalized even.
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  Um, but all we know is like per episode, like in between,
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  we don't have a ton of, um, way to engage and also, um, monitor,
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  um, you know, their progress. Um, and but now I think again,
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  with remote patient monitoring with, you know, some of the AI that's coming up,
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  I'm sure it's on hot topics everywhere, um,
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  that there's some interesting opportunity where we can provide more seamless
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  service, um, by leveraging these, um, new tools to, um,
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  engage patients and answer their questions.
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  That makes a lot of sense. You know,
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  and it's really fascinating to hear about how the Paradigm healthcare is
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  shifting and changing, you know, to,
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  to bring in more patient engagement as well as connection,
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  the episodes of care and, and really bridging that gap from your perspective in,
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  in thinking about how healthcare is changing, evolving,
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  what is an important risk or an investment that is really worth making this
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  year?
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  I mean, on the news, obviously LGBT is everywhere. Um, and you know, I,
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  I think all in all, I think we, it's worth to really, um,
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  not necessarily invest, but at least explore, um, you know, all these, you know,
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  AI solutions. It's ongoing.
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  It's not just about large language models such as J G B T,
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  but there's also a couple of others, you know, for imaging, for videos. I mean,
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  we are in the era where there's a revolution coming in, um, you know,
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  through these ai. So how would that impact our healthcare? Um,
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  how do we make sure we put that in the guard rail so you,
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  you would benefit our patients, but in the meantime we make sure, for example,
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  you wouldn't provide any false information to our patients.
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  I think that's definitely one thing worth exploring and,
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  and really coming up with the structure for that.
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  Like how do we government that in the meantime, being able to support and adapt,
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  you know, all these newest solutions, um, you know, from the market.
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  Fascinating to hear about. And, and, um,
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  I really love your point in terms of looking at artificial intelligence and how
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  that can incorporate in healthcare, especially clinical care, effectively in,
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  you know, when you talk about the images and, and, um,
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  I know there's a lot going on there as well.
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  Are there any technologies that you've been particularly intrigued by or just in
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  general looking at artificial intelligence, large language models and how that,
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  um, some of those, you know,
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  data-driven initiatives can really make a difference?
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  Yeah, we are looking at this in a couple different fronts. Um, so one is,
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  you know, you know, just on the news there's, you know, um,
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  partnership between Epic Open AI and, and Microsoft as well.
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  So we are also exploring, you know, the, the implementation of, um,
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  you know, piloting using essentially GD like, um, language models in, you know,
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  sort of the ehr, um, which can really help improve the documentation,
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  ease of practice in the meantime also potentially can improve the patient, um,
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  experience as well by having, you know, a more, you know,
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  human um, and model. They can talk to the patient, provide some of the feedback.
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  Um, but at minimum,
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  at least you can help us draft some of the messages and be more efficient, um,
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  which just help solve a lot of issues obviously around burn out. Um,
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  cause you know, we, we keep talking about,
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  so there's a lot of burn out not just in providers,
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  but in nurses and essentially everyone in healthcare. Um,
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  so this is just one example where I think AI can help us be more, um,
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  uh, more efficient, um, and in some way more capable, um, because, you know,
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  we usually wouldn't have that much time to really come up with, uh,
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  a long message thorough messages.
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  But now AI can actually help put together a lot of meaningful summaries in a
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  relatively be short period of time. And, um, you know,
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  we still need people to sign off and, you know,
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  before this message was sent out, but that obviously largely, um,
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  reduced the time, um, um, that we spent. You know,
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  I also think there's just a lot of opportunities in the future, you know,
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  in this regard. Um, you know, we are also exploring like, um,
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  you know, can we apply for example, some of the robots in healthcare?
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  So we have, you know, we are actually purchasing and not purchasing, um,
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  contracting with some monthly robots that can help to support, um, you know,
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  some of the medications or labs basements, um,
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  to help us just be more efficient. Um, you know, even including all of ours.
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  Um, there's also a couple of other like mbn um,
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  technical services we are also looking into to see if they can further, um,
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  improve our, um, care efficiency and, and patient experience.
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  Fantastic. And, and that is really great to hear. Now,
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  before we wrap up our conversation, I just wanted to ask,
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  are there any other opportunities for growth that you're seeing in the future?
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  Um, I would just say, oh no, I think the application of AI and the automation,
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  like, you know, if we can take off the burden, um, you know,
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  from essentially any clinician in the care processes by doing AI and
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  automation, then they can really be focusing on the more important stuff,
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  which is talking to the patients. Because I think really think nothing replaces,
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  you know, the face-to-face interactions and conversation. Um, so we,
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  we sh share a lot about, you know, the opportunities and,
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  and applications of these technology,
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  but I think fundamentally our goal is to be able to make us more efficient so
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  people can spend more time with the patients,
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  focus on more complex cases where AI won't be able to help, um,
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  fully and really, you know,
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  improve the care processes and experience in those regards. Um,
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  I think in the future, you know, um, everyone,
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  not just healthcare people just need to learn how to use these AI tools cuz the
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  people who know how to use them ultimately, you know,
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  will be a lot more efficient than those who don't. Um, and,
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  and so this becomes sort of a homework assignment or, or sort of things we, we,
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  you know, we, we have to learn, you know,
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  in the next few years about how we actually apply that in a good way in
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  healthcare.
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  Fantastic. Well, Kai, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fun and insightful conversation and I'm really looking
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  forward to your sessions as well at the Health IT Digital Health and Revenue
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  Cycle event in October. I think it'll be amazing time in such, uh, great,
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  um, information and data sharing and uh, all sorts of conversations going on.
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  So I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
• 13:28
  Thank you so much, and again,
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  thanks again for having me and very much looking forward to the event as well.