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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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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast, and we are live at the 9th

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Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM conference.

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I am currently joined by Afroz Hafeez, who

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is a manager of telemedicine at Rush University

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Medical Center. So thank you for taking the

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time to be here, and would love to

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have you just introduce yourself a little bit

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further as we get started.

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Thank you so much. Pleasure speaking on Beth

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Becker's podcast, and appreciate being here at the

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conference. It's been a phenomenal opportunity.

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My name is doctor Efrzafiz. I'm a leading

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telemedicine at Rush University Medical Center. It's been

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a transformative year working with the well rounded

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team to launch multiple services within virtual care,

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and it's a phenomenal opportunity to look at

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how care could be directed towards community, especially

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coming in from on the west side where

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we have significant health disparities as well. So

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outcomes is of our, utmost importance for our

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patients and that quality of service.

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Wonderful. Well, to get our conversation started here,

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I'd love to begin with AI. Adoption of

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this is obviously exploding in health care, and

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it's huge in the telemedicine space.

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So in your view, what is the most

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significant or promising application of this technology right

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now, and how is that informing your organization's

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innovation strategy?

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I think beginning with our strategy,

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our committee that's working on developing out innovative

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integration, AI tools, We look at what are

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the the gaps of care at the current

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moment and what we could do

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to have that care seamless for our patients

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and to improve that patient experience

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and have that provider usage much more focused

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on quality of that care. Beginning with, you

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know, from an AI angle, we are, looking

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at integrating a chatbot,

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essentially a as a clinical symptom check checker

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to give that point of direction for patients,

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whether it be virtual care or in person

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setting, as well as what type of virtual

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services based on those symptoms appropriately. As of

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right now, we have virtual urgent care, virtual

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specialty care, and virtual primary care launched. And,

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we're scaling across the board amongst the specialties.

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And we hope to land the patient appropriately

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as we kind of integrate that chatbot.

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And shifting just slightly into the data side

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of things, currently, health care leaders are managing

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greater volumes of data and more devices on

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a growing number of care settings,

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and this has become a very complex environment.

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So what clinical data integration tools or practices

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are you seeing drive improvements in patient outcomes?

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Well, yeah, being observant using data analytical tools

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ranging from Maestro to Visian, I think we

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identify what those utilization numbers are, where where

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our disparities of cares might be, and where

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we can essentially have that PI in our

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operational effectiveness as well. It gives us an

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opportunity to leverage what types of tools we

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could substitute and where we could need to

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identify a little bit more of an alignment

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on that virtual care setting as opposed to

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pushing out access at times. Allowing for our

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virtual services help close some of those gaps,

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especially

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with virtual care turnaround time

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of same day with our patients for virtual

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urgent care and virtual primary care with an

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average of 3 weeks at this present time.

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Specialty is also,

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reasonably immediate.

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So that's one way of where how we're

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closing and using our data,

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led being evidence based to close those gaps

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appropriately.

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And as we talk about increased volumes of

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data,

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AI integrations, all of those things, the burden

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on our IT staff does grow.

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And so how can health care organizations better

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support both our IT and our clinical teams

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as we're carrying out this innovation?

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And have you seen any common pitfalls in

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this area? Well, at Rush, we've taken a

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well rounded scope between involving the appropriate stakeholders,

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the clinical leaders, administrators, as well as our

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IT resources, and recognizing what that prioritization looks

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like in an evolving landscape.

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There's ample opportunity for ideas ranging from Ambient

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to AI and other tools. We could integrate,

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you know, that's how, we've able to come

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to recognize the importance of ritual care and

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how we prioritize that as a transformative mission.

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And, you know, successfully, we've been launching

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and trying to close those gaps accordingly. So

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I think how that prioritization

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and that hands all hands on deck approach

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is very important in this time.

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Absolutely. And as we wrap up our conversation

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here, I'd love to know 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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I believe being evidence based and looking at

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some of the pioneers in the industry, you

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know, we've involved having grand rounds with some

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stakeholders

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across the country,

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such as Stanford and others, to see what

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how they've taken that transformative experience and it

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really impacted care in their region. We're looking

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at virtual care integration into ED as an

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example,

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where they've seen 70%, reduction in wait time,

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and we have a crisis on our end

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as as as we go across the country.

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So that's certainly an opportunity of significance where

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we could integrate virtual care. We were looking

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at telemedicine

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kiosks as maybe outpatient posts of of sorts

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to land those patients and see if we

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could potentially close gaps and ease the burden

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off of the our ED as well. So

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I think partnerships and being evidence based is,

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certainly

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a great direction for all health care organizations

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to go in.

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Well, doctor Hafeez, thanks so much for taking

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the time to join me today on the

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Becker's Health Care podcast. Again, we are live

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at the 9th annual Health IT Digital Health

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and RCM conference. Thank you.