Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with the
Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning
in to this episode. An exciting topic today,
building trust through innovation, technology and patient care
in modern health care. And I'm very excited
to be joined by doctor Ryan Fulton. He's
the section chief at Carilion Children's General Pediatrics
and an assistant professor
both at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of
Medicine
and Edward Via College of Osteopathic
Medicine. Doctor Fulton, thanks so much for being
here today.
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. Great to have you on. Well, for
us to get started, making sure our audience
knows who you are, Could you just give
us a a brief introduction to yourself and
your overview of your work and career in
health care?
Absolutely. Yeah. So
I started my career,
obviously, in med school at BCom,
in Blacksburg, Virginia
and ended up doing residency at, Carilion Clinic,
as well following that and then maintained,
my career through Carilion,
rising up to be section g for the
past, two years,
for outpatient,
pediatric medicine.
I've have a passion in both advocacy
and technology
and all kinds of things that are associated
with medicine, so it's a nice place to
be,
to really
hone my skills and develop the section in
a way that,
is most
advantageous to our patients,
as well as benefiting our physicians
as we move forward with,
the new technology and things that we've encountered
along the way.
And I love that you're an educator as
well.
That's that's that is fantastic.
And I again, you have so much clinical
experience
over a decade.
When we talk about technology
specifically,
it's evolved significantly. It continues to evolve. I
feel like every month there's something new that
we need to talk about.
What do you see as the major benefits
and challenges
of integrating new technologies
into medical practice today?
I think the biggest benefit is improving patient
care.
That's that's the goal of improving technology. Right?
So I I remember being the first to
use the digital stethoscope in my practice. I
remember
being, on the research team looking at putting
these devices
in Far Southwest Virginia
to allow us to do a full exam
remotely,
and allowing us, especially during COVID, to implement
those strategies
to improve patient care, not only for those
that can't get in, but for those that
don't have access at all. You know, many
of our states are
are very large much larger than Virginia. If
you think about places like Texas or California,
there are regions that don't have access to
health care at all. So that's the direction
that, you know, I really wanted to see
most benefit from the technologies that we have.
We off also have better diagnostics,
enhanced communication within health care teams,
and more personalized care,
that we're seeing. The movement of concierge medicine
and things like that would never happen without
improvement in technology.
Yeah. Absolutely. And you mentioned some of the,
advancements that you've sort of personally witnessed in
your own career, and this is this is
something that I was really interested in.
For you personally, what's the one technological
advancement that has really impacted your career the
most and your daily work when you think
back through this evolution?
I mean, I think that everyone's answer would
be the electronic medical record.
It's the most impactful and most all encompassing.
You know, when you think about,
the development of anything, whether it be the
machines that help us do remote
medicine
or whether it be,
you know, utilizing
AI and health care, Epic, You know, the
the Epic is what we use for EMR,
but any electronic medical record is the backbone
of how that technology
is put from our hands into the patient
hands, and that has really, really impacted health
care.
There are pros and cons to it, obviously,
but that is that's has had the biggest
impact overall.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Now with these advancements, there's a lot of
happening. A lot of folks touch these technologies
that that have certainly been in this space
for a while, and and AI has really
impacted
health care as well. And there there's a
survey from last year from 2024 that identified
that nurses still have a have significant doubts
over using AI driven technology,
specifically in regards to accuracy and cybersecurity.
How can leaders foster more trust, and and
where do you see AI making the biggest
difference for clinicians and patient care?
Yeah. I think I think any anyone any
advancement in technology or science
has its reservations and trust.
And this comes from even when we talk
about early inter early adoption of electronic
medical record.
And,
really, what it comes down to is that
the direction that we're moving in health care,
whether it be for AI or any other
technology,
is is the direction that we will be
going. So
I I always like to say that,
when when, ChattiBT and all the new age,
artificial intelligence started to come out,
they were worried about AI taking jobs.
And, one of my favorite quotes, and I
forget who said it, but it was that,
AI is not gonna take your job. Someone
who knows how to utilize AI is going
to take your job. And so,
it's kind of get on the train or
not leave the station sort of thing. So
how do we affect how do we affect
that?
It's really talking about it in less of
a scary way. As with anything, when you
adopt something new,
there are gonna be growing pains.
And so trying to discuss those growing pains
in a in a way that doesn't seem
like you're
preventing
information from being shared,
in a very transparent way,
will help,
both patients and nurses and and everyone that
is involved really get on board with things.
Yeah. And and you talked about the patient
piece as being
very important in in this space as well.
And, again, you have extensive experience specifically in
the pediatric space. When you work with younger
patients and their families, how have you seen
technology
change the doctor patient relationship there over the
years, and and what's important for health care
organizations to keep in mind?
The wonderful thing about
working with kids is that kids have almost
no biases.
Mhmm. And so
when they engage with new technology, it's more
of a curiosity
thing
rather than a fear thing.
So when I talk you know, when we
utilize,
DAX Copilot in in,
our work in the in the office, we
were initially, like, worried that there's gonna be
people that deny access because of the fear
of artificial intelligence.
And what what I have have been doing
is introducing it, explaining it, you know, asking
permission, but also kind of telling the telling
the patients that I have this little man
in my in my phone that's gonna help
me write my notes so I can sit
and play with them
and draw
and do trucks and cars and talk to
mom and dad instead of sitting on my
computer.
So I used to sit on my computer
ten, fifteen feet away from my patient until
the physical exam. Now I get to be
right up with my patient,
hanging out with my patient, building that patient,
doctor relationship
rather than being divided by a screen.
So technology, in this case, is really enabling
that that patient that relationship
and being able to focus more on the
relationship. Is that right? Absolutely. And I tell
patients all the time, you know, even with
older kids, I'm like, I would, you know,
I'd like your permission to utilize this technology
so I don't have to stare at a
screen, and I can look at you and
talk to you. And that immediately I've not
not had anyone say no, though, as far
as giving their consent because,
one, they trust me,
and they trust the process. And and
and really establishing that relationship
is so much of what people are looking
for in health care. And if we look
even more than that, if we look at
a global perspective
of
how do we change people's, you know, overall
trust of the medical community, how do we
change,
their interaction with the medical community, it's about
building that relationship.
Yeah. And with that, again, comes then trust
in the technology that's being used to be
able to advance patient care, which is was
the key it was the key here, really.
Looking looking ahead, obviously, 2025, but beyond that
too,
what do you think are some of the
aspects or the technologies that you think will
redefine family medicine,
and what advice do you have for other
providers who are looking to say, okay. We
want more technology. We want to implement more
AI and really leverage these new
tools. So I think as far as the
impact,
for health care as a whole,
you know, the possibilities are endless. My my
suspicion
is that, eventually, you will walk into a
clinic,
and you will be able to
be recorded. Obviously, you would have to have
your permission, but the the protected,
information
would get would check you in, get all
your information. They would take your history. And
while there's concerns about, you know, AI taking
over the diagnostic steps,
again, it's about the relationship.
So you want one person wants to talk
to another person. And so if you are
able to gather that information in an expeditious
way and then come in and have a
conversation
and talk with that patient meaningfully face to
face,
you're saving a lot of time that on
the back end is what is causing burnout
in physicians.
So the logistics of,
writing the note, of making the order, of
dealing with the health insurance. All of those
logistics is where AI needs to focus
as we move into the future because the
relationship,
person to person, is what we have.
But the burnout rate for physicians is why
we would is gonna be taken hopefully taken
care of by
AI.
And then in terms of the the provider
perspective too, as you've mentioned,
it's that trust, right, that's really important in
the technology, being able to have conversations with
everybody to say, okay. Hey. This is what
what the tools do. Here's how it can
help you. Are these conversations crucial for leaders
to have to be able to say, okay.
Here's how we're going to move this forward?
Absolutely.
I think that from the technology company
side of things or corporation,
there needs to be a significant focus on
how to keep patient information protected,
how to keep
the artificial intelligence
on track, which means that we're gonna have
lots of software updates. We're gonna have lots
of changes and and adaptations.
But a %, you have to explain to
the patient and their parent what this means,
you know, how the encryption works, why the
why I feel safe with this data,
or at least have it in your back
pocket if there's lots of concerns from the
parent.
Right. Absolutely. And that's why partnership is so
important with with these companies being able with
the vendors being able to do that, building
a good partnership as well.
Doctor Fulton, thank you so much for taking
the time. I feel like we could, keep
going on here with all of the great
things that are happening in this space.
Oh, yes. Absolutely. There's all always a change.
Every every new day has a new thing
to look into.
Absolutely. Thank you, doctor Fulton, for taking the
time, and we also want to thank our
podcast sponsor, Microsoft.
You can tune in to more podcasts from
Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at
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