Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Michael Hasselberg, Chief Digital Health Officer at UR Medicine

Transcript

Michael Hasselberg, Chief Digital Health Officer at UR Medicine · 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 Gracelyn Keller with the Rutgers Healthcare
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  Podcast, and we are live at the 9th
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  Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM Conference.
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  I'm currently joined by Michael Hasselberg, who is
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  the chief digital health officer at UR Medicine.
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  Michael, thanks so much for joining me today.
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  We'd love to have you introduce yourself a
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  little bit further as we get started. Well,
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  thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
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  Hello, everyone. Michael Hasselberg.
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  First and foremost, I'm a nurse, a psychiatric
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  nurse practitioner.
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  I started my career in a very rural
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  part of New York state where I was
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  the only
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  psych provider for about 6 counties. So became
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  very passionate about how do we get high
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  quality care out to underserved patient populations. Ended
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  up going on
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  to get a doctorate, then a business background
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  after that, and I I currently serve as
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  the chief digital health officer for University of
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  Rochester Medicine.
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  Those who are not familiar with UR Medicine,
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  we are a large academic health system,
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  in upstate New York, the largest health system
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  outside of the New York City. And in
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  my role, I oversee the digital transformation and
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  innovation strategies.
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  Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. And we're
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  gonna start our conversation
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  with AI adoption. This is
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  exploding in health care, as you know. So
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  in your view, what is the most significant
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  or promising application of this technology,
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  and how is that informing your organization's innovation
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  strategy?
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  Love the question. I don't think we could
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  ever go with a conversation these days without
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  talking about AI, so thank you for for
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  bringing it up. You know, one of the
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  things that I think is super
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  exciting in terms of,
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  AI applications
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  are the actual generative AI foundation models themselves.
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  So not any specific tool,
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  not any specific
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  application
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  off of these foundation models, but just the
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  foundation models. You know? I think
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  that having access as a health system to
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  these foundation models is essentially a game changer.
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  It's it's level setting. It's never been easier
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  for a health system like mine to develop
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  our own AI tools using our own data
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  building off of these pretrained
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  large models that were already trained by
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  big industry corporations.
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  And so, you know, for an innovation team
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  like mine, you know, we are now developing
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  our own AI tools
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  in a development
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  time that has gone from 6 months to
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  a year to essentially days at this point.
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  And switching gears just slightly
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  over to data,
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  we're seeing health care leaders managing greater volumes
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  of data and more devices on a growing
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  number of care settings and population. So this
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  complex environment that has kind of popped up,
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  I'd love to know what your clinical data
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  integration tools or practices that you're seeing drive
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  improvements in patient outcomes, and if you could
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  share an specific example of that as well.
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  Yeah. You know, I think, you know, one
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  of the the biggest wins thus far, specifically
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  let's just stay with AI for a second,
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  generative AI. It's forced health systems to make
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  investments in their data infrastructure. And, you know,
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  not to say that we didn't
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  have investments in data infrastructure prior, but now
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  it's even more important that we have a
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  robust enterprise data warehouse
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  that, you know, we have cleaned and curated,
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  and that we have a governance process,
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  over our data. So in terms of kind
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  of best practices,
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  you know, we have spent a lot of
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  time specifically over this last year,
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  you know, setting up what our data governance
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  process is and, you know, essentially then on
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  top of that, putting an an
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  AI governance council together starting at the university
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  level then down to the health system. And
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  that's allowed us to really unleash our data
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  and drive insights into our health system.
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  And as we discuss data and AI and
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  technological innovation,
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  I'm curious your thoughts on how health care
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  organizations
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  can better support both IT and clinical teams
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  as we're carrying out innovation efforts. And what
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  are some common pitfalls that you've seen in
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  this?
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  You know, I'll I'll start with the pitfalls.
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  You know, one of the things that,
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  is, I think, pretty common across health care
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  is silos.
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  You know, we have a lot of,
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  disciplines,
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  you know, that work in silos,
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  and what silos create is essentially groupthink. And
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  groupthink is
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  the downfall of all innovation,
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  in my opinion. You know, one of
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  the things that is unique about University of
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  Rochester Medicine is we're one of only a
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  handful of academic medical centers left in the
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  country that is still fully integrated into our
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  parent university. And so when we think of
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  innovation,
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  we have a very diverse
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  group of thinkers around the table where we've
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  essentially broken down those silos. And I have,
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  you know, faculty from my engineering school and
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  computer science department and data sciences to even
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  faculty from my music school
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  sitting
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  elbow to elbow with faculty from my medical
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  school, dental school, and nursing school. And it's
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  when you have that diverse thought process that
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  we can really come up with some out
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  of the box
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  innovations to solve some of the most pressing
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  problems within our health system.
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  And as we wrap our conversation today, I'd
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  love to know your top piece of advice
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  for health care leaders as we prepare for
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  further advancements in technology and greater demands for
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  care.
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  You know, be okay with failure.
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  Just be able to fail fast. You know,
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  this technology is
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  is moving at such rapid pace, and there's
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  so much that we don't know about it.
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  And when we go in and test these
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  tools and applications within the health system,
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  we're bound to have failures. But to be
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  okay with that, because it's from learning from
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  those failures that we can really develop the
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  solutions that are are are gonna drive improvements
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  to our patient outcomes
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  and outcomes for our clinicians delivering that care.
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  Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for joining me
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  today on the Becker's healthcare podcast. Again, we
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  are live at the 9th annual health IT
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  digital health and RCM conference.
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  Thank you for having me. It's a lot
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  of fun.