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Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast
recorded live in Chicago at the 9th annual
Health IT Digital Health and RCM conference.
I'm joined today by doctor Suresh, vice president
and chief medical information officer at UPMC Children's
Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Doctor Suresh, to get us started, can you
please share a little bit about yourself, your
background, and your role at your organization?
Sure. I am Srinivasan Suresh. I go by
Suresh. I'm a pediatric emergency physician at UPMC
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. I serve as a
vice president and chief medical information officer of
the hospital. I have a faculty appointment as
a professor of pediatrics with the University of
Pittsburgh.
My scope of responsibilities
are the electronic health record and related, technology
applications,
patient portals, digital health, and now AI and
ML based tools.
Chillis Hospital of Pittsburgh is a leading
nationally ranked, Chillis Hospital with over 1,400,000
patient encounters annually,
and we are part of a large 40
plus hospital health system, UPMC,
which is an integrated
payer provider system and also an academic medical
center.
So AI adoption has exploded in health care.
In your view, what would you say, you
know, the most significant or promising application of
this technology is right now, and how is
this informing your organization's innovation strategy?
Sure. There are
lots of use cases and, practical applications of
this relatively
new technology.
AI is not new, but, generative AI is
new.
And
one of the applications that we have,
in our hospital, which has been adopted pretty
well, is Ambient AI Technology for clinical documentation
and note creation. The reason why it has
been successfully adopted
is because it saves clinicians time.
We're talking about Ambient AI Technology,
which is in use currently for clinical documentation
and note creation because it certainly saves clinicians
time. And the cognitive overload and documentation
burden that clinicians have has has worsened over
the past few years post pandemic.
So
such efficiency and productivity tools will be will
be very helpful. And generative
AI outside of this application has tremendous potential
in clinical research and patient engagement and hospital
operations and and the like. So health care
leaders like yourself are, on a daily basis,
managing
greater volumes of data
and on more devices 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 few you you can
share?
Sure. I would go with the self-service
analytics.
You know, reporting tools and, requirements,
are pretty complex. So the more we engage
clinicians and researchers and administrators on what exactly,
you know, data and, reports they need and
build the tool so that they can access
it, themselves
is a huge win. It does require a
little bit of, learning curve. But once
that time is spent by,
the end user to know how to use
it, it really saves a lot of time,
for everyone
if, self-service analytics can be,
can be used appropriately.
So how can health care organizations better support
IT and clinical teams as they carry out
innovation efforts, and what are some of the
common pitfalls here?
Sure. A fairly common pitfall is not engaging
clinicians
early. And it's not just physicians. It could
be nurses,
pharmacists, other technologies.
So for any kind of IT operation, which
essentially in a hospital or health system is
a clinical operation supported by IT, is to
engage the clinicians early.
And I would say have a very clear
understanding of what the goals and targets are,
what are the priorities
from a clinical perspective or a research or
an administration or a hospital operations perspective because
they're always gonna be competing priorities.
So,
a key point for success for
health care organizations
when they embark on
especially large IT projects is to engage all
the stakeholders,
really early and really often.
You know, how does your role being at
a children's hospital make that unique as compared
to maybe a hospital or health system that
sees, patients of all ages? Yeah. That's a
great question. I think we have additional
needs and checks and balances, I would say,
when you work at a at a children's,
hospital.
The needs of our patients are unique. The
needs of our pediatric clinicians are, unique.
And taking care of children in a complex
environment,
we also have additional
safety and quality of care
regulations.
And and if you think about it at
a individual patient level, whether it is dosing
of drugs
or
how does a 14 year old child access
his or her patient portal. I mean, these
are very unique needs Mhmm. For
pediatricians and other clinicians taking care of, children,
and working in a children's hospital.
So in your role, are there, you know,
any pieces of technology or AI that, you
know, you see that might have a great
impact on,
you know, pediatric hospitals in the future that
you're particularly excited about that may be something
that, you know, someone in more of a
traditional hospital might not be? Absolutely. That's a
great question. I've had the opportunity to use
generative
AI driven
patient care instructions Mhmm. At the patient's bedside.
I'm an emergency physician, so I practice in,
a busy,
emergency department in the city. And I've had
the opportunity to use this technology at the
bedside
where
you can have the aftercare instructions being read
out
by a smartphone Mhmm. To directly to the
child,
which is very interesting. So somebody's actually talking
to the 5 year old or the 10
year old or the 15 year old child.
And, that way we're addressing,
something which typically does not happen in traditional
care. So it's it's combining the newest technology
with good old fashioned medicine,
you know, taking care of,
the patient and the caregivers and the family
as a whole. It is a huge plus
for patient engagement and experience. Mhmm. Mhmm. So,
you know, I can hear the passion in
your voice as you talk about your job
and and, you know, your organization.
So, obviously, you know, fostering that next generation
of leaders in health care and health care
IT is very important. So but what would
you say your top piece of advice for
health care leaders as they prepare for, you
know, further advancements in technology and greater demands
of care? What would that be? Yeah. It's
a great question, but I would say it's
an easy answer.
Always keep the patient in mind.
At UPMC Children's, we actually do not have
technology goals, but we have goals for patient
safety. We have goals for quality of care.
We have patient engagement and, employee experience goals
and goals for growth and access. And technology
is an enabler. Mhmm. Sorry. Technology is an
enabler
and a medium, but not the solution.
So the key is not to deviate from
our mission, vision, and goals. If we have
to include technology and digital tools and generative
AI applications to get there, that's great, but
we should not lose sight of the values
of our organization.
And finally, I would say
for upcoming health care leaders, to focus on
execution.
Implementation in health care settings
is incredibly hard, and most of us do
not need more ideas. We just need to
focus on our current goals and execute.
Well, doctor Suresh, this has been a great
conversation. But before I let you go, do
you have any final thoughts you'd like to
leave with our listeners today?
I would say especially for, the younger generation,
you know, please, get into health care. Health
care information technology is, at an inflection point,
especially with the promise and the potential of
generative AI,
what it can do to
medical research and and patient care in general.
So
if you're considering a career, please look into
health care information technology.
That was awesome. Thank you so much for
joining us today, and I hope you have
a lovely rest of your day. Likewise. Thanks
for having me. Thank you.