Imagine this. You're in the heart of Chicago
mingling with the brightest minds in health IT.
You've arrived at the 9th annual Health IT
plus Digital Health Plus RCM conference taking place
October 1st through 4th at the luxurious Hyatt
Regency Chicago.
Picture the excitement as you collect countless business
cards, forging invaluable connections with over 25 100
executive level attendees.
Feel the buzz of ideas flowing as you
engage in meaningful conversations about the future of
healthcare technology.
Envision yourself attending sessions led by over 415
elite speakers,
gaining insights that could transform your organization.
From digital transformation and telehealth to clinician burnout
and cybersecurity,
each topic is designed to spark new ideas
and provide actionable takeaways, but it doesn't stop
there. Imagine sitting in a packed auditorium listening
to motivating keynotes from some of the biggest
names in sports. Four time Super Bowl champion,
Rob Gronkowski,
WNBA
champion, and author, Lisa Leslie,
and NFL legend and ESPN
analyst,
Eli Manning, will be there sharing their stories
and inspiring you to reach new heights. All
around you, the future of health IT unfolds,
and you're not just a spectator.
You're an active participant.
Don't wait. You can find the event website
and get registered by visiting peckershospital
Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I am thrilled today to join by Shane
Rodebaugh.
Shane is a leader in in information technology
at Baptist Health System in Kentucky and Indiana.
He's gonna tell us about himself, about what
he's doing, his focus, and a lot more.
Shane, can you take a moment and tell
us about you and about Baptist Health System?
I sure can. Thanks for having me on
today.
I am,
been with, Baptist Health. We're a 8 hospital
system,
in covering Kentucky and Indiana. I've been here
for about the last 11 years.
We have about 20,000 employees,
23 100 beds. Most everybody wants to know
how many beds you have. That's why I
always toss that out there.
We've we've got about 1500
providers, 2,000 independent physicians.
We're about a $4,000,000,000,
in revenue
organization, so we're pretty pretty decent size.
I have, been in IT for about the
last 30 years. I'm currently over
infrastructure
at at this particular stage.
And,
yeah. So infrastructure technology, architecture engineering,
all that kind of good stuff. So pleasure
to be on board with you today. No.
And and and thank you so much for
having us, for for joining us. Shane, tell
us about what trends are you watching in
health IT currently?
What's top of mind in the system and
what you're thinking about and looking at?
So
top of mind, the the you're probably getting
just the whole
think about it like right now. We're in
an election year and you're tired of seeing
political ads. Well, for me, it's
it's AI. Right? We we beat AI down
just like we beat cloud down, but
it's embracing AI. And there's a there's a
ton of different things
that come into health care, and I'm I'm
watching that
very, very closely. And from from my perspective,
it's
about the preparedness
within our environment
for this because we're
what I love about health care is also
kind of a
not so good thing. We're we're behind.
So it's all about how do we,
accelerate things. So we're
embracing
AI as an organization much like a lot
of other folks are, but you gotta get
your data,
in line. So there's a lot of things
where we're trying to add capabilities for our
clinicians,
and that is something I'm watching
very closely and how we can bring,
and help them with some of the decision
making
that they have and create different,
diagnosis
options for them
throughout the technology platforms that that we're delivering.
So there's a lot of things with that.
There's a lot of things that that go
into,
how we're doing things better and faster for
our patients. How do we get them
in,
get them registered,
get them the the care that they need
throughout our system,
with minimal
discomfort in the scheduling process and making sure
that they've got something that meets their needs.
Thank you. When you look at your
let me ask you this question first. You've
been in the health technology world for some
time now. Mhmm. What are the biggest changes
you've seen over the last 10, 20 years?
Like, when you think about the biggest changes,
I'm sure you think about EMR and some
other things. What are the biggest things you
think about?
So
some of the biggest things that
I I I've been
really
seen over the last 10 years, I came
into
I guess I came here probably 11 years
ago.
Everything
really started changing much more rapidly.
So
there was a a lot of hosting that
went on in health care, and
there was a lot more embracing of technology.
You you saw that more
and more. You saw
demands
get much higher in the health care sector.
You saw more
patients with higher acuity levels, patients that maybe
20 years ago maybe didn't survive, but due
to technology and advancements,
you know, now there's treatments for them. So
that
brings a whole lot on to IT departments.
So there's nothing that that we're doing within
health care that doesn't touch
IT.
So
before we may have been involved in 50
projects to a 100 projects a year, you
know, to 10 years ago. Right?
Now we're involved in 202150
projects, and we've got another 250 in the
hopper.
So
when we think about things,
it
the demand is much more there to incorporate
technology in the health care that we deliver.
So the medical record systems, they've changed
dramatically.
Right? So everybody has that on their cell
phone today. They can they can see their
chart. They don't have to go to a
doctor's office to get a copy of it.
Right?
They can see everything
right there. They've got a lot more information.
There's a lot more transparency with patients.
All all of that is done with the
aid of IT helping to deliver that. So
those are a lot of the types of
things that are fun and and exciting from
my perspective.
Are you ever amazed
at how much IT is involved in every
part of patient care today
compared to 10 or 20 years ago?
Yep.
I think that's a that's a really good
statement. Probably the thing that's been
more fascinating than anything else, whether we're talking
about
AI or we're looking at,
you know, when you think about the things
that's that's fascinating and the things that's that's
generates a lot of excitement. It's how you
take maybe a a conversation and then maybe
you've got
something that's listening on the back end that
says, hey. Wait a minute. Shane Brodebaugh had
a a problem with this back 10 years
ago
and brings that to the forefront of the
clinician so that they don't have to go
digging for the information
or
the data. Right? How are we using the
data that's out there? So a lot of
the medical record systems today, now they're looking
at at taking that data
and
placing it in a cloud, and it doesn't
have any patient's information in it. But it's
they're sharing it so that they can do
what's called maybe a look alike. So that
if I had a problem with my back,
how does it match up to maybe somebody
else that had a similar
issue? And what was that diagnosis? And how
does that help the clinician
come to a better,
diagnosis for the patient? So
those types of things for me,
getting that data to where it's usable
to present options for the clinician
or, you know, to get that data over
to the patient so that they can see,
maybe what they can do and how they
can avoid
Maybe a catastrophic
problem
to me. That's that's a a big advancement
over years past
Thank you. When you look at this coming
year shane,
what are you most excited about when you
what you talked a little bit about AI
and some of those opportunities
and the explosion of the discussion of it
for better or for worse. But what are
you most excited about?
Most excited
right now, we've got a,
we've got a central pharmacy that's providing
a
huge fulfillment to our hospitals, mail order, central
fill. It's a community pharmacy.
It's it's very large.
It's
one of the largest in the region.
For for me, it's very exciting,
being a part of of that solution
and all the problems that go with it
in in getting it operational.
But that's that's pretty significant for our organization.
We're digging into
a lot of the virtual aspects too. So
what does the
exam room and the inpatient room of the
future
look like, and how do we
wrap in
virtual sitting? So, like, if you need a
sitter that needs to sit in the room,
we can do a lot of that electronically,
with cameras. And what does,
how does that play into, say, virtual nursing?
So we're looking a lot of those pieces.
And, yeah, AI is in that too.
Not to beat that dead horse, but
that's another piece of it.
The other thing that we that we look
at in those rooms is ambient listening.
So can the clinician come in, and do
they have,
can they have the discussions with the patient?
Do we have the technology on the back
end to help them chart that patient
and save them some time down the road
too so that
that clinician can focus more on the patient,
less time on the computer.
Those are big and exciting things of what
those rooms of the future look like.
And I I think that that to me
over the course of the next year is
gonna be very pivotal.
It it affects and touches a lot of
different things because,
our nursing staff right now, they're very taxed.
So we're looking at ways of optimizing time.
Staffing shortages in our hospitals are are
are significant.
So,
a lot of these things that we're looking
at is optimizing,
our current assets and and helping our helping
our staff,
operate very efficiently
and providing the best possible care for our
patients.
Thank you very, very much.
Talk for a second about when you
developed your leadership career,
what advice would you give to other emerging
leaders? I mean, you've had this fantastic career.
What advice do you give to other emerging
leaders?
The advice I would give to other leaders,
I would have to say,
Don't get comfortable. You know, we used to
think 3 year strategy and that was that
was a lifetime in IT. Now 1 year
is is a lifetime. So when you're thinking
about
1 year out, you don't want to get
comfortable because things are changing extremely
rapidly
so
Don't get comfortable
where you're sitting
Get used to being uncomfortable
Stay vulnerable.
It it takes a village
especially when you're in a no matter what
size of your organization, it it it takes
a village to pull things off. People with
a lot of different skill sets, you're never
gonna have every single subject matter expert
contained within one person. You're gonna you're gonna
have to have a village to get you
through it.
Development
is always top of mind.
And that goes for me personally. I have
to constantly
develop and my focus on developing my staff
always has to be there. So
always look to grow
as a leader
and make sure you're maintaining a mentor outside
of your organization
to
help you with checks and balances.
Shane, I I wanna thank you for joining
us today on the Beckers HealthCare podcast. What
what a remarkable career and can't tell you
how much I appreciate your perspective and what
you're looking at. Thank you very, very much
for joining us. You bet. It's been a
pleasure.