Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT / Dr. Khang Nguyen on AI, Data Integration, and Healthcare Transformation at Kaiser Permanente

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Dr. Khang Nguyen on AI, Data Integration, and Healthcare Transformation at Kaiser Permanente · 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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  for every patient. Better care for more people.
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  Philips.
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  This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's 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 Kung Win, who is
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  the assistant executive medical director and care transformation
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  at Kaiser Permanente. So thanks so much for
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  being here today, and would love to get
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  us started by having you introduce yourself and
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  telling us a little bit more about your
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  role and background.
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  Great. Thank you very much, and happy to
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  be here. It sounds like a very, it
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  is has been a very exciting event. So
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  my name is, doctor Kang Nguyen. First and
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  foremost, a very proud family physician.
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  I'm a part of the Kaiser Permanente,
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  group.
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  Kaiser Permanente is actually made up of multiple
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  entities.
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  First and foremost, it is an insurance plan.
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  So that's the Kaiser Foundation health plan, and
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  that is national.
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  There's also Kaiser Foundation Hospitals that manages our
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  multitude of hospitals throughout the country.
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  And then the third entity is really the
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  Permanente medical groups. So that's the group of
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  doctors that that are independent.
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  And my group is the Southern California Permanente
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  Medical Group in Southern California.
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  They're actually in that, area. I have the
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  role and responsibility of being the care transformation
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  leader
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  over operations and technology in Southern California.
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  I'm also the founder and the current medical
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  director for Southern California's Virtual Medical Center that
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  helps assist in synchronous and asynchronous care.
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  And more recently, I'm, been appointed to be
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  the chief chief medical officer for care navigation
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  for the Permanente Foundation oversee, helping all of
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  our medical groups work with the Kaiser health
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  plan.
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  Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
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  to be here. And let's begin our conversation
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  with AI adoption. As you know, this is
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  exploding in health care. So in your view,
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  what is the most significant or promising application
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  of AI right now, and how is this
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  informing your organization's innovation strategy?
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  Yeah. That seems to be the question of
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  the day, if not the year, is where
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  is AI kinda
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  going? You know, I think there's, 2 ways
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  to look at it. There's the short term
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  view and there's a long term view. As
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  part of the health care being in health
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  care, obviously,
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  what we wanna do is have artificial intelligence
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  really help us out with
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  prevention of illness
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  and also help us out with prediction. So
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  prevention and prediction. And then we also want,
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  artificial intelligence to help assist our doctors and
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  our clinicians
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  with immediate care delivery.
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  These things are actually,
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  really, in my mind, more futuristic looking
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  because we we what we have to do
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  is really prepare our current datasets to be
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  able to have some of the algorithms
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  consume that.
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  So, you know, we Kaiser has been kind
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  of the early adopter for the electronic medical
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  record,
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  for more than 20 years now. And as
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  a result, we have a lot of data
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  that will help us out with that. But
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  that data has been largely unstructured.
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  Artificial intelligence is a is a fancy software
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  that needs to ingest that data.
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  So for the future for this, we have
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  to basically, effectively organize our data and then
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  build new datasets that are more curated so
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  that we can actually take advantage of AI.
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  So that's more for the future. The immediate
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  role of artificial intelligence, I believe, is really
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  in augmenting,
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  clinicians. So things that will, release the,
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  burden of care delivery. So one of the
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  biggest things we've done is to roll out,
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  ambient listening,
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  for the doctors. And what that is is
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  it's a scribe technology that will literally take
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  notes,
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  summarize it for the clinicians.
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  And in Kaiser Permanente, we've actually deployed it
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  now to over 14,000
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  doctors. So the largest deployment.
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  That's one example. Another example in terms of
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  augmenting is using natural language processing
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  to help classify patient emails.
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  And when we classify the patient emails
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  according to what they typed, we can better
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  direct that, for better care.
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  We're also using some early predictive models for
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  things like mammography screening, for high risk patients
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  as well as looking into imaging,
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  to look for cardiovascular disease, for example, imaging
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  in the back of the eye.
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  And chips and gears just slightly to data.
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  Currently, health care leaders are managing greater volumes
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  of data and more devices on a growing
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  number of care settings and populations.
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  And this is a very complex environment that
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  we find ourselves in. So what clinical data
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  integration tools or practices are you seeing drive
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  improvements in patient outcomes?
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  Yeah. You know, that's, it's funny because that
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  topic is coming up right now. But the
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  truth in reality is we actually have been
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  collecting data for a very long time in
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  health care. If you think about home cardiac
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  devices and cardiac monitors, they've been collecting
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  information forever,
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  and alerting, clinicians and doctors to,
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  things like, dangerous, arrhythmias and so forth. So
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  that's been going on for a while. I
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  think that the number of things that we
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  can do now is is gonna increase.
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  So what's really gonna have to happen is
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  our ability to synthesize the data and to
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  summarize it. So at Kaiser Permanente, we are
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  looking at things like, continuous glucose monitoring for
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  diabetics
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  and really being able to, put that into,
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  graphs and algorithms
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  that are able to alert us to changes
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  in therapy in the in the therapy of
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  the patient.
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  And we're also looking at home based monitoring
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  for things like o two sats
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  and weight based care. So that's that's all
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  the things we have, that are coming. The
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  real crux of data is basically what to
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  do with it. And so behind that really
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  is the, is a need to really, really
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  really to organize operations to be able to
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  consume all this data.
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  And as we talk about this great volume
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  of data, AI adoption, all of these technological
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  innovations,
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  our burdens on our a IT staffs are
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  becoming increasingly
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  great.
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  So I'd love to hear how you think
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  health care organizations can better support both our
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  IT and our clinical teams as we're carrying
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  out innovation efforts, and if you've seen any
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  common pitfalls in this area.
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  Yeah. It's a it's, it's, it's becoming a
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  a big question. You know, there are a
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  lot of things that are coming out. We
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  call them bright shiny objects,
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  from IT and, from devices and products that
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  people are seeing. And the real question we
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  have to ask ourselves is is really,
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  what problem are we trying to solve?
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  And I think that in health care, that
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  is a really, big challenge to really to
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  start off with that. Like, you know, what
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  are we actually trying to solve with these
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  tools? I think that actually will help out
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  our IT colleagues a lot because then they
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  will begin to know what to focus in
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  on. There's another, kind of phenomenon that's emerging,
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  and that is the the phenomenon of technology,
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  becoming,
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  more capable
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  and available than what we can possibly consume.
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  So there are 2 concepts that we're looking
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  into, and that is basically,
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  technology being a push and, operations and business
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  being a pull.
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  So those have to start to harmonize.
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  A lot of times, in when we start
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  to think about delivery of care, there are
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  things that we've done for a very long
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  time.
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  And we don't really go back to see
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  if we can do them better. It's just
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  the way we've always done it.
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  So having technologies
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  that have capabilities that are new, the bright
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  shining object, is good if we introduce them
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  in a way to to say, is there
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  a way to make your operations more efficient
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  than you would have ever thought?
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  So viewing these, these technologies is actually very,
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  very helpful. Ambi and Scribe is a good
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  example of that. I can tell you countless
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  doctors
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  who saw this technology and said I would
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  never use this.
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  But the moment they started using it, the
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  adoption goes through the roof. I I literally
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  have not met a single person yet who
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  hasn't said that they couldn't use ambient listening
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  in some capacity.
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  At the same time, the business pool has
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  to be we have to be able to,
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  on the operational side, really clearly define what
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  we need so that we can go ahead
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  and tell the technology. So you have to
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  reconcile these two forces. 1 is a technology
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  which we don't necessarily know what we're gonna
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  use it for
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  and finding ways that it can be used
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  better. It it can help us better. And
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  then really being able to define the operational
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  needs so that the technologist
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  can build it for us.
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  And as we wrap our conversation up, what
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  is your top piece of advice for health
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  care leaders as they prepare for further advancements
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  in technology and greater demands for care?
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  You know, keeping your, your mind open to
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  what technology can do,
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  the biggest barrier will be around,
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  adoption in my mind.
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  You know, by nature, health care is a
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  very conservative field. But at the same time,
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  there are certain risks that I think we
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  need to take with technologies
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  as long as there's some backup plan. So
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  that would be my biggest advice is being
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  willing to take a chance, but also being
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  able to develop the operations to catch the
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  system if there's something that's wrong and being
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  able to iterate and move faster.
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  Absolutely. Well, doctor Nguyen, thanks so much for
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  joining me today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
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  Again, we are live at the 9th annual
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  Health IT Digital Health and RCM conference. Thank
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  you so
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  much.