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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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patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across

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the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered

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with streamlined insights in the moments that matter

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for every patient. Better care for more people.

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Philips.

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Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Health Care

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9th annual health IT digital health and RCM

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conference.

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I'm joined today by Ann Cavallari,

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chief medical information officer at SSM Health. Ann,

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thank you so much for joining us today.

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Thank you for having me. To get us

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started, can you please share a bit about

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your background and, your current role at your

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organization?

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Sure. I am trained as an emergency medicine

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physician, moved into an information

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informatics role,

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almost around 8 or 9 years now. The

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past 6 of which were at SSM Health.

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It's a nonprofit Catholic health care system that's

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based out of St. Louis, but spans

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across the Midwest in Wisconsin, Southern Illinois,

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Missouri, and Oklahoma.

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Well, AI adoption is exploding in health care

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currently.

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In your view, what's the most significant or

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promising application of this technology right now, and

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how is this informing your organization's innovation strategy?

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I will say the clinicians always wanna talk

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about ambient documentation,

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which is blowing up in interest

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and utility.

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I still think the technology

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is best in automating certain functions that humans

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have trouble doing repetitively.

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That is in the imaging space,

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being a parrot on a provider's shoulder to

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have overread

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insights into imaging studies and or in the

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pathology world where you're looking through slide after

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slide after slide, looking for different cancer diagnoses,

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cancer cells that the human eye can catch,

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but algorithms

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don't fatigue in the way the human eye

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or human mind can. So I think some

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of those

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applications

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will be

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huge and institutions,

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in the years to come.

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So on a daily basis, health care leaders

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are managing greater volumes of data and more

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devices across a growing number of care settings

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and populations.

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In this complex environment, what clinical data integration

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tools or practices are you seeing drive improvements

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in patient outcomes and operations? And can you

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share an example or 2?

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So I think we have to take care

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in our

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lust for

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the AI and digital

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in making sure we have

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definitions of the problem we want to solve

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and apply the technology to it. Too many

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people want just technology for technology's

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sake rather than really filling a niche.

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And one of our smaller innovations is using

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a

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imaging tool to preread

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radiology, CT scans, MRIs

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to look for

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more dangerous

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diagnoses

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that one could miss,

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like pulmonary embolism. And then not only do

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we have the technology to do that, we

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craft workflows around that to support the technology.

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So it isn't just the technology

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standing alone expecting to do all forms of

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health care

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management,

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but you you it is working within

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a larger workflow of clinicians,

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operations,

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and consult services.

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How can health care organizations

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better support IT and clinical teams as they

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carry out innovation efforts? And what are some

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of the common pitfalls you see here?

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So

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as long as my bosses and my bosses'

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bosses aren't listening to this,

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I would love to see

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some

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education

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of senior leadership teams

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that are not in tech or clinical,

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where they often struggle or don't have a

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lot of interest in tech and often have

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more

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conspiratorial

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attitudes sometimes or mistrust

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of what we are trying to do in

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tech. And every year I have to take

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all these modules within my health care organization.

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What is Stark law? What is compliance? What

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is HIPAA? I'd love to see some of

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those teams also have to take what is

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tech? What is AI?

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Where are the dangers? Where are the benefits?

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Mhmm.

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And that's that's what I'd love to see

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for better transformation of those services.

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So with your experience, what's your top piece

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of advice for health care leaders as they

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prepare for, further advancements in technology and greater

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demands for care?

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Be choose wisely is what I would say.

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In that

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too many

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of the tech spaces are feeding very niche,

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very singular

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services,

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and

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you can't look at that across the health

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care system and make that scale. The cost

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is too high. So once again, what is

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the problem you're trying to solve? Do you

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have support around that from operations and clinicians

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to apply the technology

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and support the technology long term?

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And

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if it is

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acting poorly, performing poorly, take it out. That's

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the other thing. We never wanna take things

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out when they aren't performing well.

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So that's what I would say about that.

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Well, before we wrap up today, it's, do

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you have any final thoughts you'd like to

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leave with our listeners?

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I would like to say,

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as we infuse more and more technology,

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let's let humans do human things and technology

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do technology and automated things, and that will

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bring wellness and humanity back into medicine.

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And thank you so much for joining us

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today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. It's been

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an absolute pleasure, and I hope you have

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a lovely rest of your day. Thank you

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much for this opportunity. You have a great

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day also. Thank you.