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This is Kate Cruz, and I am at
the 8th annual Becker's HIT and Digital Health
Conference recording live.
I am with Isaiah and Nathaniel. And to
get us started, Isaiah, can you share a
little bit about yourself and your role at
your organization?
Well, first, it's a pleasure to be here.
I wanna thank Becker's for this podcast. I
wanna thank everyone that's here this year at
the conference for HIT revenue cycle and management,
and I think this is one of the
best conferences that I come to all year.
So a little bit about me, my name
is Isaiah Nathaniel. I just happen to be,
by day, the vice president and chief information
officer for Delaware Valley Community Health in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
And we're a local FQHC
that serves about 50,000 patients in an urban
market.
When you think of digital innovation in health
care right now, what excites you the most
and why?
That's an interesting question. And the way that
I like to tackle that is
technology in general is exciting, or I wouldn't
be a CIO. Right?
But I think that digital innovation
is great for health care, specifically
as we talk about
what has just transpired in terms of a
global pandemic and what we're on the precipice
with with artificial intelligence and machine learning and
all the things that we wanna learn at
conferences like this. Right?
So for me, what's exciting is the infusion
of all of these things that actually exist
into the way that we operate our business,
into the way that we try to deliver
quality patient care
by way of technology. So for me, the
excitement is at that infusion
of innovation
and that infusion of what is quality patient
care now
that we're outside of the global pandemic. So
when we think about instituting
these levels of technology,
health care has always been traditionally behind in
that innovation curve. And now we're starting to
see that curve dip a little bit because
of all the things that have happened.
Absolutely.
At your organization, what are your top priorities
for technology, and what are big issues that
you're trying to solve?
The top priority for us the best way
I like to state it is in terms
of what my mission is for my department,
and that is to remove access barriers by
way of technology.
And so some of the top priorities for
us
is to do just that, is making sure
that
preregistration
all the way to postregistration
that you have an excellent experience
with the technology that we offer. That could
be digital. That could be
traditional computing, and that can just be for
staff just to log in in the morning.
So by making sure that access is reduced
by way of technology,
we're really trying to make sure that
everyone is experiencing health care in a way
that they want to, similar to an experience
with Amazon, similar to an experience with some
of the consumerisms that we see in traditional
market share
outside of health care, particularly today. Yeah. Absolutely.
What's one piece of advice you would give
to health care leaders today regarding digital innovation?
The one piece of advice I would give
to leaders about digital transformation
in health care is to
not be afraid. I think sometimes we're so
fearful of making a mistake because we understand
that that mistake could cause
a life
or at the very extreme nature of it.
Or in addition, that that mistake can degradate
a business outcome that you're really looking forward
to. So the first thing is not to
be fearful. I tend to live by this
Kobe mama mentality
where you just gotta put the extra effort
into it, basically. And the same thing is
in business is put the extra effort into
making sure that you are really truly
putting your patients first.
Our patients, our patient experience scores are telling
us really driving our strategies today
in IT, and we need to listen to
that and not be fearful about that. So
some of the things I would tell leaders
is 1, not be fearful, 2,
be aggressive enough that you have a strong
research and development opportunity
that you're looking at that, and then you
actually implement.
And then last and finally, I would tell
leaders to have a strong PDSA cycle
where we're planning, we're doing, we're studying, we're
acting on what we're implementing so that if
something needs to change, we have a process
by the way it can change. That's some
really great advice. Thanks for sharing.
Could you provide examples of specific instances where
the integration of informatics solutions led to improve
patient outcomes or enhance patient provider communication?
Yeah. That informatics is, for me, top of
priority and where a lot of development from
my team goes into play.
Specifically, when we're talking about introducing anything new,
the role of informatics is
so paramount to anything that happens with
IS and IT and healthcare that you can't
do it. Some specific examples is introducing telehealth
applications,
introducing new workflows, and introducing clinical quality outcomes
that you're trying to attach.
Informaticis play a strong role for that. So
when we were launching a telehealth application where
we had none,
our informatics has played a great role.
In addition to that, the advice that informaticists
gives. Traditionally,
IS people were technologists. We don't really know
the clinical
background, but having an informaticists with that clinical
background, bringing that advice, that that strong advice
about what is actually happening at the point
of care because we just put the solutions
out, and we say go use it. So
making sure that the clicks are possible, the
meaningful use objectives are are here too. But
then also you have the collaboration. So specific
examples of that are telehealth applications. Specific examples
of that
are meaningful use objectives going up. Specific examples
are our clinical informaticist team deploying workflows that
actually change outcomes in hypertension or diabetes or
HIV care. So these are some of the
specific examples that informaticist has played a strong
role
in understanding, and it's bidirectional.
What I mean by bidirectional is while they
are introducing clinical outcomes, we're also, by them,
be able to introduce technology
in an adoption phase when I talked about
earlier that curve actually going down. So that's
where my role, as CIO
is making sure that our informaticist team has
a vision,
and it's a triad partnership,
between myself and our chief medical officer so
that they understand what the vision is between
both of us and then implement that in
a tactical day to day stage. Yeah. That
sounds like a really powerful collaboration that can
really, provide a lot. 5 years from now,
what do you think will be the most
significant change in health care delivery and operations,
And how can leaders prepare for this? That's
a funny question. And as I'm thinking about
it, a little funny to me is 5
years now, what I think will be most
impactful is that if we had no fax
machines. Okay. I think that would be a
very significant
change in health care delivery if we don't
have fax machines.
But taking the funny aside, what I actually
believe
second to the fax machines, I'm gonna stick
to my guns here,
is that
AI. I think
AI is really gonna revolutionize
what we do. Ethically
is obviously
a top of mind ethically and the security
of it, but I think AI can really
revolutionize what we're doing in terms of health
care delivery
because what it has the ability to do
is bring consumerism into health care. And I
think that's what patients are asking us for.
It it's interesting that you use the oldest
technology that there is and bringing up the
new technology.
Interesting perspective, and I love it. Isaiah, thank
you so much for spending some time with
us today. Is there anything else our listeners
should know?
I thank you for having me. I think
this was a great conversation. I think it's
a timely conversation to have. And last but
not least, I I just think that this
is a great time for health care. I
think all CIOs should be reinvigorated
with their day to day job strategically and
from a tactical perspective.
So last thing I would just say is
just double down on what you do best,
and let's watch our organizations grow because of
it. Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure talking
to you today. Thank you so much. Thank
you.
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