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Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Health Care
podcast recorded live at the 9th annual health
IT Digital Health and RCM conference. I'm joined
today by Garrett Olin, CIO at Shasta Community
Health Center. Garrett, to get us started, can
you please share a little bit about yourself,
your background, and your role at your organization?
Oh, sure. Yeah. As you said, I'm with,
Shasta Community Health Center, in Redding, California. It's
in Northern California.
My background, I've been a chief information officer
for 30 years or so. Also oversee the
quality and informatics
for the organization.
We're a federally qualified health center
and outpatient clinics.
We have 8 throughout Shasta County.
We do primary care, dental, behavioral health,
podiatry,
chiropractic,
optometry,
a little bit of everything.
Okay.
So AI adoption is exploding in health care.
In your view, what's the most significant or
promising application of this technology right now, and
how is this informing your organization's, innovation strategy?
So it is exploding.
The most significant or promising,
you know, some of the the vendors here
being able
to use AI in imaging,
detecting, you know, cancer or tumors or
brain bleeds and and what have you. I
think that's that's
pretty, pretty impressive
for ourselves. You know, we're looking at it
and other ways that we can being outpatient
clinics,
how we can
make our providers more efficient, you know, reduce
the pajama time, things like that.
Being able to increase patient access, patient engagements,
and just, you know, trying to
to get better patient outcomes overall.
So on a daily basis, health care leaders
like yourself are managing,
greater volumes of data and more device ac
across a growing number of care settings and
populations.
In this complex environment, what clinical data integration
tools or practices are you seeing drive improvements
in patient outcomes and operations?
And do you have an example or 2
you can share?
Yeah. I don't have a data integration tools
per se, but a practice you know, we're
looking at health equity. You know, we serve
an underserved population,
and health equity is always on our mind.
And
one of the things that we have tried
and, and it's showing great improvement for patient
outcomes, as far as getting screening, cancer screenings,
things like that,
instead of using,
just interpretation
services
is actually hiring native language speakers,
and doing outreach to get them into the
clinic, scheduling appointments, getting their screenings done, things
like that.
We've actually increased our scores from, you know,
patients being maybe
55, 60% compliant into the high seventies.
So coming from, an FQHC
with an underserved population,
you know, how would you say
especially in your role, like, how does your
outlook
on, you know, new upcoming technologies differ from
that of maybe somebody from a larger health
system? Like, what additional challenges or I mean,
are there things you see that maybe excite
you in somebody, like, coming from an organization
like yours that might not be as exciting
or might be, you know what I mean,
different to someone from one of those bigger
organizations?
Yeah. Obviously, you know, the the bigger organizations
for for us, we're about a $75,000,000,
you know, budget organization,
not a lot of resources,
whether it's human or cap or money. Right?
Financial.
But
what excites me is
with some of these technologies,
I can see how we can improve patient
outcomes. Mhmm. Mhmm.
One of the things that we're looking at,
we just aren't quite there yet, is
using AI. You know, we get a new
patient in.
We want their health records Mhmm. Wherever they
come from. And it might be a 500
page PDF. Right. Right. Right. Right. The clinician
is not going to take the time to
look through that document.
But using AI,
we can summarize what's in there Right. And
give the clinician, put that into the EHR
as a note Mhmm. Of here's their medical
history
that maybe has their late their their
most recent
labs,
diagnostics, etcetera. Mhmm. And it gives them a
quick overview that they can look at Mhmm.
Before they see the patient. Mhmm. And instead
of scheduling that 1 hour appointment,
maybe we can get it done in 30
minutes
Right. Which will help patient access. Right? Because
now we can see more patients if that's
the case. Right. And, hopefully,
that can,
again, help in patient outcomes in the long
term.
Can you talk a little bit more about
how,
technology
and AI or other tools might, you know,
help that underserved community, like, with the social
determinants of health and kind of, you know,
help these underserved communities in ways that it
might not in, like, a traditional setting?
Yeah. Well, we also have a street medicine
program. So,
you know, talking about interpretation services and things
like that, you know, we have our clinicians
go out into the woods to the camps.
Right? Mhmm. But we have some patients that
are are deaf. Mhmm. But using technology interpretation
services with an iPad that has cellular services
Right. We can now bring an ASL interpreter
Right. With video online to That's awesome. Yeah.
That connection with the patient and be able
to communicate with them in the field. So
That's really cool. That's really cool.
So how can health care leaders and organizations
better support their IT and clinical teams, you
know, as they carry out some of these
innovation efforts? And, you know, what are some
of the common pitfalls here?
So I think the the biggest thing is
to manage expectations.
Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.
The the common pitfall, I think, is scope
creep.
Right? Because we start with, you know, here's
our goal, and
as we approach it, they keep moving the
goalposts. Mhmm.
And managing the expectations,
you know, with the clinicians
on the the business side of things,
understanding that, you know, maybe
we we have to do this piecemeal. Right?
Phase 1, phase 2, etcetera.
And it's gonna take some time because
there's you always have projects that you're working
on, and then there's always something that comes
up that is a priority due to some
regulation change or what have you. Right.
And it may take you away from that
project for a little bit, and, and then
you have to come back to it again.
So just managing those expectations of, you know,
are we making progress?
And, you know, don't don't move the goalpost.
Just, you know, let's let's complete this step
and then start the next.
So, you know, again, being from an FQHC
in your role, do you feel like some
of the challenges that go along with that
force you to be, you know, maybe more
creative and more innovative than, you know, people
in your in your similar role, like other
larger organizations?
Oh, I think so. You know,
having having few resources, right, is we have
to think
of innovative ways,
alternate ways to get something done Mhmm. Or
negotiate a really good contract. Right. Right. Right.
And and we've done that too for for
some vendors.
You know, we've had some contracts cut
67%
just so we could just so we could
afford to put it in. Right?
So we're always, you know, thinking of
how can we, you know,
we we want the whole pie, but if
we can't get the whole pie, how big
of a piece can we do Right. With
what we have now? Right. And then maybe
we have to wait a year and we
get the rest of it next year's budget.
Right?
And like I say, just kinda
do what we can Mhmm. And then do
the next phase later. So, you know, you
said you've been in your role for, what,
30 years? Well, I've been a CIO for
30 years. Okay. I've been with Shasta Community
Health Center for just over a year. Okay.
Okay. So in in your years of experience,
if you were to talk to, you know,
younger leaders in health care or, you know,
emerging leaders, you know, what would be your
top piece of advice,
you know, as they prepare for further advancements
in technology
and greater demands for care?
I think the greatest advice I can give
is is never stop learning. Mhmm. Right? You
have to be a lifelong learner, be curious,
be
adaptable
because, you know, I I I look at
it as,
again, right,
with the resources that we have Mhmm.
I'm always trying to think ahead of what
are we gonna do in the future Mhmm.
And
expect that you're not going to get what
you really need. Mhmm. So think of how
you can find those alternatives.
Right. So I'm
always open to talk to vendors. Right? Because
I never know who may give me a
call or come across my path.
And that has actually helped us in in
so many different ways. So Mhmm.
In
my various careers, if you will, because I've
been in different industries
that that being open to to listen, learn,
and and just be prepared that Mhmm. When
the time does come, you you can pull
the trigger to do that project because you've
prepared yourself for that. Mhmm.
Well, Garrett, I really appreciate you sharing your
expertise,
today. Do you have any final thoughts you'd
like to leave with our listeners?
If you haven't attended, you should come to
Becker's conference. It's awesome.
All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much
for joining us today on the Becker's healthcare
podcast, and you have a lovely rest of
your day, sir. Thank you. Thank you.