Philips is a health tech leader focused on
innovation that improves the health and well-being of
people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
for every patient. Better care for more people.
Philips.
Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Health Care
podcast recorded at the 9th annual health IT,
digital health, and RCM conference in Chicago.
We're joined today by Randy Farmer, chief operating
officer at Delaware Health Information Network.
Randy, to get us started, can you please
tell us a little bit about yourself, your
background, and your role at your organization? Yes.
Absolutely. And, Jeremy, thank you very much for
the opportunity. It's it's great to be here
at Becker's. This is an awesome conference. Love
coming every year.
Currently serving as the COO at the Delaware
Health Health Information Network.
We basically are the central nervous system for
health,
data for, Delaware and much of the surrounding
region. So, like, if somebody has a test
at a Delaware hospital, lab, radiology farm,
or even at like, let's say, Johns Hopkins
in Baltimore, Maryland, or George Washington Hospital in
Washington, DC,
we get information about that encounter to help
coordinate care. Our,
basic service lines go in the area of
results delivery,
and care coordination, as well as in data
analytics as and, including, supporting clinical trial research.
So it's a a pretty eclectic but a
very exciting,
set of services that we're able to engage
with and and help to make health care
data useful.
Great. As I'm sure you're aware, AI adoption
is exploding in health care.
In your view, what would you say, you
know, the most significant or promising application of
this technology is right now? How is this
informing your organization's innovation strategy? Well, you know,
that's a great question. I mean, AI is
the I guess maybe the the the next
big thing, obviously, in in in data, not
just in health care, but in so many
big data fields.
Of the way we see this as really
being an asset is an area both prescriptive
and predictive analytics.
You know, we we have, like, over 200,000,000,
medical claims over,
medical claims and pharmacy claims. We have well
over 200,000,000, I think around 300,000,000
clinical messages
and and results that have been accumulated
since 2007,
and over 3,000,000 unique patients across the this
landscape.
So with with that amount of data, we
should be able to start leveraging
AI tools to be able to identify those
pockets of patients that may be most at
risk at certain points of their health care
journey.
Case in point, let's say somebody is released
from a correctional institution.
Who are those patients that are most likely
to have a relapse, either in behavior health
and or substance abuse?
Can we use that data in order to
better allocate
care coordination resources
to better support those individuals so that, well,
you know, they they don't end up having
to need,
resources down the road or or or get
re incarcerated.
And the same thing for those folks that,
like, let's say, have substance abuse disorders.
Can we look at patterns in terms of
those folks that have,
had
to be readmitted
or have had relapses
in these areas? And identify folks prescriptively or
predictably
to say, hey, these folks are most at
risk. Put your care coordination resources here. And,
you know, by,
that extra effort, that extra energy, maybe help
save lives and save money in the process.
So as you mentioned, you know, health care
leaders are managing greater and greater volumes of
data across more devices
and a growing number of care settings and
populations.
In this complex environment, what clinical data integration
tools or practices are you seeing drive these
improvements in patient outcomes operations,
and can you share an example? Sure. You
know, to me, there's nothing more important
than, let's say,
the speed in which you're able to empower
decision makers, you know, with with the data.
You know, it's one thing if somebody's trying
to make decisions off claims data, which can
have, you know, anywhere from,
10 days to several months in in lag,
versus like the real time clinical data. You
know, is when somebody gets admitted to a
hospital, if you're a care coordinator, don't you
wanna know within minutes? And that's the power,
I think, of many of our networks,
or at least networks that are health information
exchanges.
We are able to empower payers and their
care coordination teams, as well as like the
care coordination teams of clinically integrated networks,
or with the accountable care organizations, the ACOs,
that are working really hard to get on
top of conditions before they graduate to more
severe cases and more expensive,
cases. So to me, I think like the
the real time notifications. When is somebody transferred
out of a skilled nursing facility or into
a skilled nursing facility? When are they discharged
from an ER with a potential,
diagnosis of having, let's say, congestive,
heart disorder? And if those are very expensive
type conditions, don't you wanna have your care
coordination teams right on top of that? I
mean, we did a great pilot with a,
with one of our commercial,
healthcare payers recently,
and we basically
doubled their effectiveness
in terms of,
getting it patient engagement.
And then in that group, we increased their
enrollment,
rate from 50%
of the folks that they were able to
engage with to 90%
of the folks that they engage with were,
enrolled in a care coordination program. And when
you're looking at, like,
ER cost of like an average visit of
like 15 to $17,000
or let's say in the more, like extreme
cases, like with a cardiology or an oncology
type,
condition
of being around 30 some $1,000,
Oh my gosh. That is such a tremendous
benefit to these care coordination teams and and
to the bottom line business of these organizations.
So, you know, as your role as COO,
you probably have a pretty good insight into
this.
How can health care organizations
better support,
you know, IT teams and clinical teams as
they carry out, their innovation efforts? And, you
know, what are some of the common pitfalls
we see here? Yeah. You know what? I
I think a a lot of it has
to do with, like, you know, how we
go with our speed to market in terms
of, like, how we how we innovate and
how we change, and understanding and scoping out,
how long it's gonna take for us, and
what's gonna be required for us to do
a deployment. I mean, that's kinda getting into
the, you know, nuts and bolts of, like,
you know, program management, project management.
So but that's and, you know, execute execution
is the chariot of genius. Right? Mhmm. You
know, and how well you can basically go
from a plan to something being real
is at the heart of of excellence. Mhmm.
So that's something that I think our organization
continues. And any
organization that wants to be, well, a problem
solver for its clients, that wants to be
a valued contributor, wants to be a strategic
partner to its most valuable customers,
you gotta focus on execution. So, yeah, I
I'd I'd say that that's where any good
organization that wants to be great needs to
focus.
Okay.
So what's your top, piece of advice for
other health care leaders as they prepare for
further advancements in technology and, greater demands for
care? Wow. Advice for for, like, health health
care, for leaders out there. Yeah.
Data is king, which they probably know. Mhmm.
Mhmm. And choose partners that are the best
at making health care data useful. Look, the
the the health care data landscape Mhmm. Is
full of chaos. There's a lot of hay.
There's a lot of needles,
but it's hidden within the hay. You know,
how can you leverage the the the outstanding
software tools that are out there with people
that are able to execute, companies that are
able to execute in order to find that
needles in real time Mhmm. And to be
able to make it actionable.
And, you know, look, just because you get
a lot of data or you you get
a lot of, reports doesn't mean necessarily that
it's actionable.
I think that in terms of, like, how
we serve our clients, understand one problem to
solve. If if if your client can tell
you one problem that they're committed to solving
with you, focus and execute. The the you
know,
be fierce in terms of your commitment
to conquer that problem.
And,
and and and yeah. I I think that
that's again, it goes back to, like, how
execution is king. Mhmm. Brady, I think it's
safe to say our listeners got a lot
out of this conversation. But before I wrap
up, do you have any final thoughts you'd
like to live with them?
Yeah. Number 1, Becker's is an awesome conference.
There's a lot of of of great high
level executives here. And I totally recommend,
of folks joining the conference and going to
the sessions.
They're very thought provoking,
and it's great to have the after panel
discussions with folks and continue the conversation.
In in terms of generally,
you know, how do you manage your business?
You know, look, I would just, recommend is
that you you you look to grow your
relationships.
Don't be satisfied with, let's say, your top
10 customers and just being an order taker.
Find a way to become a trusted advisor
and a strategic partner.
No. Understand that's a long, hard slog.
But put together a plan,
understand what problems they have to to solve,
execute, and you will,
eventually be elevated to a level of being
a strategic partner to your customers. Mhmm. Well,
Randy, thank you again for taking the time
to join us on the show today. I
really appreciate it. Thank you very much, and
you have a lovely rest of your day.
It was my pleasure. Thanks, Jeremy. Thank you.