This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's Health
Care podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined
by doctor Patrick McGill, chief transformation officer at
Community Health Network. Doctor McGill, it's a pleasure
to have you on the podcast today.
Thanks you. Thanks for having me on.
Now I'm really looking forward to our discussion
because there's so much happening in health care
right now, and specifically just looking at technology
and how it's transforming the health care space.
And so I I'm looking forward to your
perspective. But before we dive in, can you
tell us a little bit more about yourself
and your background?
Absolutely.
So like you said, Patrick Miguel, I'm the
chief transformation officer at Community Health Network.
I've been here about 15 years. I'm a
family physician by background, still practice
patients,
clinically.
As the chief transformation officer, I have a
broad range of responsibilities.
I oversee everything from IT and analytics, population
health, value based care,
health equity. I have some operational areas
such as
home care,
hospice, palliative care, geriatrics.
And then recently, we started personalized medicine. So
I have personalized medicine,
that rolls up to me as well.
Wow. There's quite a variety of accountabilities
that you have that, you know, really, I
can imagine they all weave together very much
when you're thinking about the entire spectrum of
patient care.
Yeah. You're exactly right. Then we've organized ourselves
in order to
be able to deliver on bringing these things
together.
And,
and and and you're right. When they roll
up to one vertical, it's easy to break
down some of those silos,
resource constraints,
and really, deliver on, you know, our brand
promise of exceptional care simply delivered. It's easy
to
allocate resources and have a common vision and
strategy
and just really move things forward.
Well, that's great to hear. Now from your
perspective, what are the opportunities and headwinds that
you have your eye on right now?
I think there's a lot of opportunities.
You know, a lot of talk around technology.
You know, there's a lot of skepticism on
technology. So I think it's a huge opportunity.
And one of the things we always talk
about is the technology is only gonna continue
to get better. So how do we lean
in and really see that as an opportunity
to,
drive that patient experience, drive the caregiver experience,
but really,
you know,
drive down the cost of care,
and just really make the entire
health care platform
better. You know, I think there's from headwinds,
I think there's some short term headwinds.
Certainly, what's gonna happen in the regulatory
space with the upcoming election,
artificial intelligence,
Medicare Advantage, that's been in the news quite
a bit. Certainly,
any changes in the economy,
the challenges that we've had recently from the
pandemic and after with the workforce, those challenges
and headwinds
continue. I think there's some long term headwinds
that we have to address. You know, what's
happening with our population, the aging population, and
is the health system gonna be able to
sustain,
the aging population? And how do we configure
ourselves,
to be able to do that, especially with
provider shortages, nursing shortages, and some of the
other challenges that we have?
Absolutely.
You know, I know there's, as you mentioned,
just across the board so much that, you
have to think about right now as a
leader in health care and really, you know,
technology, it seems like, gets into many of
those spaces and can be,
in part, potentially a solution in some ways,
whether it's looking at,
you know, the staffing challenges or how you're
utilizing
it with the revenue cycle or operations in
in clinical care. And I know you mentioned
precision medicine too,
funneling up to you. And and so,
it's it's really cool to just kinda think
about how all of those
areas are are really touching the technology side
of things as well.
Absolutely. You know, there's a lot of,
a lot of moving pieces and parts. And
so, again,
health care historically has really been
vertical vertically organized. You know, it's been primary
care, specialty care hospitals, ERs, outpatient.
Really, patients expect us to be
horizontally
integrated,
especially when you start to think about,
cancer screening, early detection of cancers,
treatments,
screenings, all these health equity, all these things
really coming together.
And you're right. The common thread through all
of that is technology.
Technology is gonna make it easier. We laid
the groundwork and the framework
many years ago with with, you know, with
the implementation of enterprise EMRs, and I think
now it's the next evolution, the next wave.
And I I'm actually personally
very bullish on AI and where AI is
gonna take us,
in the in the near and long term
future.
That makes a lot of sense. You know?
Really, just fascinating to see how fast AI
has grown and make a huge impact on
the health care space and, you know, possibilities
almost seem endless at this point.
But how are you thinking about growth and
adding value to, Community Health Network overall?
Well, I think the the number one thing
that we have to do to really add
value and and growth is we have to
address the cost of care. The health care
is expensive.
It's unaffordable for many people.
Our our first and foremost thing, we have
to address,
and bring down the cost of care. You
know, when we're thinking about growth, you know,
growth is predicated on on being able to
have,
access for patients. If patients can't get in
to see their primary care or specialist,
you know, there's no there's no growth. And
so how do you open up access but
deliver on that exceptional experience?
How do we think about opening the funnel
for on demand care, that virtual care, whether
it's urgent care or other convenience care. So
that's how we really feel like we're gonna
be able to grow
and add value. And, again,
technology is woven all throughout that,
to be able to deliver on on that
growth,
but also adding value.
That makes a lot of sense. And, you
know, it really just,
speaks to the mission of health care overall
and being able to expand access to care,
provide
the health care needed, in any many ways
for,
the folks across the community.
And so that primary care challenge, you know,
really is, something that I know a lot
of hospitals and health systems are trying to
figure out and troubleshoot for their own communities.
And so being able to leverage that virtual
care,
in other ways, you know, to to connect
with patients and and their providers,
seems like a really big opportunity.
Absolutely. We we made so
much progress through the pandemic with telemedicine and
virtual care, and I think we just have
to continue to build upon that. You know,
certainly, there's a regulatory,
component, which, you know, luckily, many many of
those regulations have been extended or the rules
have been extended.
But I think it's it's really how do
we drive continued adoption,
by patients. You know, a lot of patients
still prefer in person face to face care,
which is absolutely great. How do we continue
to deliver
high quality face to face care with with
supporting,
virtual and telemedicine
at the same time?
And that it definitely seems like, you know,
that striking the right balance for your community
and patient base, you know, is definitely
top of mind, I can imagine, for a
lot of, providers out there. Now, you know,
I know right now, as we talked about
a bit earlier in the conversation,
it is challenging, on the financial side for
many hospitals and health systems, you know, from
the pandemic to see margins tighten and and
not the kind of growth that we've had
in the past. And so, you know, when
you you look at
needing to make the right investments,
even on a tight budget, what's still worth
investing in this year?
We really you know, we're in the process
of moving our EMR. We have an enterprise
EMR. We're in the process of moving it
to the cloud. We really feel strongly about,
you know, where technology is moving, where AI,
that's gonna,
really set us up for the technology platform
of the future. So we're very excited.
You know, we're also investigating,
an enterprise
ERP platform. And I think that as we
think about workforce and planning
and bringing how do we bring down
overhead cost and and be more efficient as
a business,
that's important. And so those are those are
2 that like, you're right. You know, the
margins are tight,
but we've got to make some investments so
that we can grow. And then, again, how
do we invest,
smartly
to really,
place our bets to open up growth, improve
access,
lower the cost of care. So we've got
some specific technology,
investments on patient engagement and outreach. We've got
some investments on understanding that patient journey.
Those are,
those are really where we're focusing,
in, you know, late 24 moving into 25.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense,
and, I just love the focus on the
patient, the journey, and the experience there. Is
there anything in particular that you're excited about
or,
feel like has really yielded some good results
within those initiatives to just engage patients and
and really think smartly about how they're moving
through the system?
Yeah. We're really excited about a couple partnerships.
We've got a partnership with,
a company, Lyrio, about precision engagement,
precision nudging to get patients into the system.
And we've got another partnership with Notable to
really outreach the patients and engage them. Super
excited about,
our partnership with Nuance on ambient listening in
the exam room to help make the clinicians
more efficient. We just got a lot of
a lot of things going on that are
that bring a lot of excitement, and I
think it's it's an exciting time to be
in health care. It's a a scary time
to be in health care, but everybody always
says that. But I think that we have
a lot,
to be,
forward and a lot to be, the the
future is very promising.
And I think that we just have to
stay focused. And, again, we keep that patient
at the center
and and and stay true to our values.
I think we can deliver on
on on those promises.
I love that. I think it makes so
much sense. Now before we wrap up here,
I'm wondering, where do you see some of
the best opportunities for growth in the future?
I think there's a lot of opportunities.
We know that we can't do this alone,
so we're we're very excited about many of
our partnerships.
And so that's a huge opportunity for us.
We have to also,
through those partnerships, really reimagine how care is
delivered,
including pushing it closer to home. A lot
of patients
are gonna want care closer to the home
or in the home, so we've got to
reimagine how we function as a health system
to really move that care closer to the
home. And, again, that's that's predicated on some
partnerships, and so partnership are predicated on how
we train our physicians and nurses and others.
And so I think we see a lot
of opportunities,
in in pushing care closer to the home,
making it more patient centered,
and really,
again, improving access and leveraging technology
throughout the entire system.
That's amazing to hear. Doctor Miguel, thank you
so much for joining us on the podcast
today. This has been just a fun and
fascinating conversation, and I look forward to connecting
with you again soon.
Absolutely. It's always a pleasure, and I really
appreciate the invitation.