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This is Laura Doodo with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Omkar
Kulkarni,
chief digital officer and chief transformation officer at
Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Omkar, it's a pleasure
to have you on the podcast today.
Thanks for having me.
Now I'm really excited to talk with you.
I know there's so much happening in the
digital space, IT, technology, and then, you know,
transformation that how hospitals and health systems are
going through right now is really quite significant.
But before we dive into my questions, can
you tell me a little bit more about
yourself and your background?
Sure. So I have been at Children's Hospital
Los Angeles for a little over 5 years,
and I've led the innovation function, the digital
strategy, and the office of transformation,
in my time here. I also have the,
the
privilege of running our KidsX
Accelerator program, which is a digital health innovation
program,
focused on pediatrics, and we collaborate with 32
children's hospitals from across the country and actually
a few from around the world,
to collaborate to to drive digital innovation in
pediatrics.
Prior to my time at Children's, that that,
time at other health systems in in New
York and in Los Angeles,
driving,
you know, performance improvement, innovation,
different kind of activities, all kind of focused
around the same
general theme, which is solving big complex problems
in health systems and health care delivery. And
so
I love what I do, and it's it's
a fun job. And it's,
it'll be fun to talk a little bit
more about,
about the things we're working on now.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, what a fascinating career journey.
And, you know, when you look at where
you're at today at Children's Hospital Los Angeles,
what are some of the big opportunities that
you have? What are you most excited about?
And then, 2, the headwinds that you have
your eye on right now.
So I think the, you know, the,
reality that we're all facing
is that,
you know, as we come out of the
pandemic,
our
health systems
you know, the way we operate in our
basic,
kinda cost structure
is is under a bit of stress and
is across all health systems.
You know, our our revenues are generally,
you know, fairly flat, you know, unless something
dramatic has changed. And and even then, it's
it's you know, there's there's there's always pressures
to kind of,
from a reimbursement perspective as it relates to
as it relates to health system revenue.
But as has been well documented, the the
based on the market staffing shortages and and
a lot of other factors coming out of
the pandemic, you know, expenses for health systems
have have gone up,
largely
due to labor.
And, you know, that creates
margin pressures.
You know, many of us have thin margins
to begin with. I think they continue to
be thin
as we, you know, exit the pandemic a
bit.
And the way the reason that's important is,
you know, as you think about digital, as
you think about transformation, as you think about
innovation, it really it's really centered around a
lot of that. Right? I mean, we're trying
to
we're trying to enable the health system to
really thrive and achieve its big strategic goals.
And its strategic goals and priorities right now
are very much reflected on kind of the
the the the challenges around staffing, the challenges
around growing expenses
and costs,
and the reality that we're, you know, trying
to,
you know, grow
as as health systems. But in the pediatric
market specifically,
for example, in California,
you know, the the
population of pediatric patients seeking kind of inpatient
care continues to decline. There's there's,
you know, lots of lots of data showing
that kind of pediatric,
you know, inpatient
discharges and inpatient care
nationally and even in our region,
you know, it it's it's shifting away from
that inpatient care. So we're we're all trying
to figure out how to do it. I
think the exciting part is that,
is that,
you know, digital and innovation
are great
strategies to help us achieve that.
That's such a great point. And, certainly, you
know, looking at where the trends are headed
and and for hospitals and health systems to
really be
functioning in a way that's,
serving their patient populations well.
What do you think from your vantage point,
is, you know, ways that you can,
think about growth and adding value to the
health system overall? How do you do that
as a chief digital and transformation officer?
What does that really look like?
Well, I think, you know, at its core,
what we're trying to do is find ways
to leverage technology
to
solve really complicated
problems for our health system. And, you know,
as I as we were just talking about,
as an example, one of them is around
growth. Right? So how are we going to
leverage technology to attract new patients, to retain
patients,
to ensure that patients who are coming to
see us have a great experience, that they
come back, that they, you know,
talk about the the positive experience to others.
At the end of the day, you know,
we provide an important service to our community,
and that service is one that we want,
you know, as many people to access as
possible.
So, you know, digital is a great tool
to increase access and and attract and retain
patients. And so
we're always thinking about how we can leverage
the tools in our toolkit
to to do that. You know, we use
a product lens at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
When we think about transformation, we think about
innovation.
By that, I mean, you know, products
are, at least in my head, bringing together
people, process, and technology to solve a need
for a customer or end user. So in
our case, the customer is often the patient
or the family, the parent,
or sometimes the provider or the the staff
member, depending on what the actual thing is
we're working on. And so our goal is
to really orient all of our work, all
the things we're doing towards developing and, you
know, putting out the best products that,
really people who are using them love to
use.
The more they really engage in them and
they really find them valuable to their individual
lives, the more likely they are to use
them to their fullest capacity, which means that
we're gonna generate the most value out of
these products we're bringing to our patients, families,
and and staff.
Absolutely. That that's a really great point, and
I love that focus both internally and externally
too on the patients and their families. Now
when you're looking at both sides, how do
you make sure you're getting feedback and constantly
iterating on what you're doing in order to,
you know, get the the best, I guess,
product possible.
What does that look like, and how do
you move from the beginning of a project
to all the way through to where it
is today?
I mean, it really starts with understanding who
the right who the customers are for any
given,
any given product and really making sure we
have a full
breadth of the different types of customers that
exist. So even, you know, amongst our population
at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the
the the patients and families are very diverse
and,
have different, you know, perspective. They come from
different parts of the city. They come, you
know, with their own kind of set of,
you know, personal experiences they're bringing with them,
And we need to understand those. We need
to really deeply understand those so that we
can build design and develop a solution
specifically that's going to cater towards our broader
population. Because, you know, when you do that,
you get better adoption, and adoption is really
the value of of, you know, digital innovation.
So
so we we start with with deep kind
of discovery of kind of who our customers
are and and end users are, what their
what their, you know, experience is today, what
their journeys look like today given the existing
part of what we're trying to build for.
And then we learn throughout that process what
they're doing, and and then we we we
engage deeply with those customers
through and those end users throughout the product
development cycle
to think about how we can,
how we can solve specifically for that population.
And I think sticking to that and building
metrics around that and really orienting all of
our work towards
the the the end user as a central
part of that,
kind of product development journey is really crucial.
And we we stick to that as as
as closely as we can on all of
our products.
Absolutely. I love that. Thank you so much.
Now I know as you mentioned a little
bit earlier in the conversation, obviously, there are
a lot of challenges right now for hospitals
and health systems in general,
whether it's staffing,
shortages, or,
some of the other challenges with inflation and
the economy and whatnot. So when you look
at where we're at today, resources, obviously, are
are very valuable, especially in health care. So
what do you see as one investment or
risk that's still worth making this year even
given, you know, the the way that, a
lot of organizations are having to cut back
just a bit?
I mean, I think,
you know, it it's
instead of giving you, like, a technology answer,
I'll give you kind of the the problem
that I think we need to solve for.
And I think the problem
is a long term problem, and it's around
staffing. So, like, our traditional health delivery models
have involved, you know, a certain number of
staff providing a certain amount of care to
a certain number of patients, and a lot
of it a lot of it is live,
synchronous,
you know, and it's pretty much unchanged for
years, right, decades maybe, in terms of doctors,
nurses, therapists,
pharmacists kind of collaborating to deliver care.
It's often very episodic
and
and our reimbursement structures and others kind of
guide through that. But I think the challenge
is that we know,
you know,
given staffing challenges, given kind of data and
always coming out around kind of
the challenges we have in that space, it's
something that we need to think about. So
how can technology could you answer your question
around investment? How can we leverage and invest
in technology that's going to make it
possible for our clinical
health system to provide care,
great quality care,
perhaps with limited staffing. Right? So is there
ways to augment the staff leveraging technology like
artificial intelligence, decision support, you know, various kind
of algorithms that can support kind of co
pilot, the the clinical care team?
Is there ways to do asynchronous, you
know, care
delivery?
Again, we we have to think about how,
we can provide the same level of care
for, you know, a growing need of health
care,
with less, you know, with less people than
we probably had in the in the staffing
side of the equation 10 years ago. Right?
So I think technology is gonna that's gonna
be the key investment that we make is
how we can leverage technology to to plug
in there.
You know, a quick example, we've invested in
our you know, we we put we we
we we partnered with a company to to
put have a robot, that, you know, that
walk that roams around Children's Hospital Los Angeles
and delivers medication from the pharmacy to the
nursing unit.
Well, a year ago, there was a person
doing that, a few people doing that. And,
you know, we we given our challenges, we
can now have those people do other things
and have this robot, you know, do this
task just as well,
you know, and and leverage technology that way.
So what's one example of many that you
could think about how technology can can be
inserted
to help not help manage the realities of
our future staffing,
challenges?
Absolutely. Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense.
You know, it's just,
so fascinating to think about that robot going
through the hospital and doing, you know, that
job. Is how how do the staff like
it? Is that something that the kids also
see too, or or what's that like?
Yeah. The kids they're definitely public facing. So
kids see it. They love it. We've heard
lots of stories about this story I had
the other day about this this child
and his dad who would follow the robot
around even had even had nothing to do
with like, the the he just he was
so curious about the robot. He would just
kinda follow the robot around, and,
whenever the whenever they return, they would see
the child kind of looking from a distance
because he's so fascinated. So, yeah, I mean,
there's there's been some great stories about how,
in addition to everything else in terms of
efficiency and
and and all of that, that it's actually
added a great kind of experience to the
kids in the hospital. So,
definitely happy about that. Yeah. Absolutely. I have
a almost 7 year old son, and I
can imagine if he were there, he would
have a 1,000,001 questions about how the robot
worked and he'd be very curious about it
too. So that's fantastic to hear.
Yeah.
As we wrap up our our conversation, I'm
just wondering, looking ahead into the future, you
know, where do you see as some of
the best opportunities for growth and development,
for your department, the teams you work with,
and the hospital overall?
Well, so what I would say is, you
know, there there continues to be this kinda
gap in terms of
funding we have towards pediatric innovation and pediatric
digital innovation specifically.
And so, you know, my hope is that
as we continue to,
you know, think about how we wanna invest
as a nation, as a kind of as
a community in our in our, you know,
innovative innovative technologies and solutions,
let's pay more attention to pediatrics. I mean,
they've been well documented in the last year.
There's a crisis going on in pediatric mental
health.
Adolescents and teenagers and young adults are experiencing
really high levels of,
you know, mental health,
challenges.
And we just don't have the infrastructure as
nor as a country to really properly navigate
and and and meet the needs of these
kids.
You You know, these kids turn into adults
and the adults turn into seniors. So this
is this could be a problem for a
long time if we don't address it. And
I think the the way to one of
the ways to address it is going to
be to be innovative around how we, you
know, do everything from screen to to diagnose
to treat,
these these children who have anything. But in
this example,
you know, mental behavioral health
challenges they're they're facing. So
that's my hope, and I'm hoping that we
can, you know, collectively invest more and more
in pediatrics and and children, and see the
dividends pay off in the long run.
Absolutely. And that's such an important issue that
I know you just brought up in terms
of the pediatric mental health. It's something I
feel like every day we have new studies
on just the challenges and the breadth and
the depth of the problem and trying to
reach the these kids who have been so
impacted by the pandemic and everything else that's
happening in the world. So, I love that
there's efforts and investments in doing more with
that and really,
making that a a top priority. It just
seems like, it'll be so important for us
down the line.
Absolutely.
Well, Omkar, thank you so much for joining
us on the podcast today. This has been
such a fun and interesting conversation, and I'm
excited to have you as well. Speaking at
our health IT digital health and revenue cycle
event in October, I think, you know, a
lot of these themes we'll talk about and
especially looking at some of the digital innovations
and and leveraging technology for better patient care.
So I'm excited to hear more from you
at that point.
I'm looking forward to being there and and
sharing more of my perspective. Thank you for
having me.
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