The Becker's team is excited to announce the
launch of our new CFO and Revenue Cycle
podcast.
Tune in for conversations with finance experts from
the top hospitals and health systems. We'll discuss
key trends and ideas to drive meaningful change
in the industry. Look for Becker's CFO and
Revenue Cycle podcast wherever you listen to episodes.
This is Laura Duda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
Amit Patel, chief nursing informatics officer at Tampa
General Hospital. Amit, it's a pleasure to have
you on the podcast today.
Thanks for having me.
Now I'm looking forward to our conversation because
I know, Tampa General is such a innovative
health system and really cool things that you've
been able to accomplish over the last few
years and then some big things ahead as
well. But before we dive in there, I
was wondering, could you tell me a little
bit more about Tampa General Hospital and what
makes it unique?
Yeah. Tampa General Hospital is a private, not
for profit hospital,
here in Central Florida on the West Coast.
The main hospital is almost a thousand bed
facility, level one trauma center. We're an academic
health system partnering with USF Health. And
we really pride ourselves on the quality and
innovation that we do here.
And some of the good accomplishments as we've
had over the last year was we just
got to number one status in transplant volume
in the country,
doing
a little over 900,
transplants in in total. And we also just
got our fifth, consecutive magnet designation for nursing.
So we're truly proud of of that,
accomplishments.
Well, that's amazing to hear what great accomplishments
you've been able to achieve at the recognitions
in the last few years. Now I'm wondering
if you think back last twelve months or
so, for you in particular, what accomplishment are
you most proud of?
Yeah. You know, we we've done a lot
of work over the last year. You know,
we have a lot of projects going. But
the the big one that stands out for
me and my team is, we acquired three,
hospitals just north of us in the in
north of the Tampa Bay area
community sites. And,
we spent the last ten to eleven months
converting them
to our our EMR and and the rest
of the systems that we we handle. So
in total, we converted almost 70 plus systems,
including an EPYC integration.
And so
the team's really worked hard
and to get them onto our platform so
we can really start to transform care in
our area
and really become
more more of a health system than we
were previously with some of just the main
main hospital.
I know that's no small feat and and
really to
to bring those hospitals that have been acquired
onto that IT system and the EHR,
it requires a lot on the technology side,
but I know also on the people side
as well. What have you learned or that
worked well,
in really integrating that change management and and,
bringing Tampa general culture to to three new
hospitals?
Yeah. It's it's really getting out there and
and and getting to know those people up
in the new hospitals.
You know, they they already had a great
sense of culture and we're just kind of
adding to it.
That, you know, we all have one one
goal and that's, you know, to make sure
the patients get what they need and and,
you know, get in, get out as as
best as they can and and have great
quality care and experience. So
having that common goal and and really integrating
them into
our system has been a a great experience.
I I'd say that
they were more than glad to have some
some upgrades with their technology. So that made
the transition a little bit easier,
from what they were coming from. So
they they were really engaged in in the
projects
and and helped us kind of achieve our
goals of of getting them up on our
systems.
That's so helpful to know. Thank you for
digging a little bit deeper there. Now
looking ahead, where do you see some of
the big growth opportunities for your team in
the next twelve months or so?
Yeah. So the organization is just growing at
a rapid pace. You know, over the last
six years, we we we started with our
one main hospital site and,
about 15 or so clinic outpatient clinics. And
and now we're almost at six hospital sites
in over 150
locations. So
as you know, IT is kind of the
glue that keeps everything together.
And so
in our on our shop, we're really trying
to meet the demands of the organization as
we as we grow internally and even externally.
So
making sure the team has the tools and
things that they need to to help support
our operational partners and clinical partners.
So in terms of that, we're we're really
looking to help standardize some of our workflows,
establish some governance committees that, you know, need
to expand out past the main hospital now
that we've got up to six hospitals now
under our belt.
So it's really kind of create that health
system and the cohesiveness
that needs to happen between all of that.
You know, the
the challenge is is we have one big
academic medical center, which we've kind of
modeled everything under,
because that was what we had at that
point in time. But now that we have
community hospitals now and we have a behavioral
health hospital standing up here the next month
and we have a rehab hospital,
it's really about how do we make
the standardization really work for all the different
sites because they all have different needs. And
so that's really the challenge that we're we're
looking to to keep moving on.
That's helpful to understand. And, you know, I
I think really,
cool to have the opportunity
to then bring everybody together, standardize as where
it shows us workflows, establish what you need,
and,
move forward.
I know there's a lot of opportunity there,
but also challenges.
What are some of the things that you're
anticipating
and planning for over the next year or
so, that you have to navigate through?
Yeah. It's it's really about the technology and
pace of change right now, especially within the
AI space. You know, things are are rapidly
changing. But just overall with
with all of the cybersecurity
concerns and and kind of the infrastructure
pieces that a lot of our platforms
depend on.
Really just try to keep up with that
and and making sure we're agile enough to
change when we need to. We're we're gonna
continue to grow and move at a at
a rapid pace. So we as an organization
and as an IT shop have to keep
up with that pace and and and make
sure our end users understand that because I
think
a lot of that is dependent on them
and understanding why we're doing what we're doing.
And sometimes, you know, not everyone loves change,
but it's it's a necessary evil in this
day and age, especially with our IT infrastructure
pieces.
That makes a lot of sense. And, you
know, you, for the pace of change piece,
I think it it definitely takes, a specific
approach, as you said, being nimble in order
to keep up.
How do you build that into the larger
organizational culture as well as the IT team
in general,
in knowing and understanding that things are changing
quickly and it's not slowing down anytime soon
and potentially could get quicker?
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really about education
and and understanding the why. Right?
If you if you communicate with your team
members even down to the lowest levels, and
they understand the the vision, the the strategy,
and
communication channel open. They'll understand
the reason for for the change, and and
it won't be as much of a pushback
necessarily if if we have to rapidly,
move from one technologies to the other.
One good example of that right now is
we're we're really looking at our telehealth infrastructure
and
and seeing what can really kind of set
us up for the future. We've got some
disparate systems at the moment.
And really, how do we how do we
set ourselves up for the future so that
as the technology and the environment changes, we
can we can transform with it without having
to to rip everything out and start over
again.
You know, our main campus is almost 100
years old. And so if you have to
rewire rooms and things like that, it's just
not economical or or, you know, time wise,
you don't have the time to do that.
So
we're really trying to make sure we set
ourselves up for the future.
That's helpful to understand. And, you know, and
really, really
smart, I think, in terms of having the
strong communications and understanding
what it takes, to be transformative and and
think through,
what's gonna be best for the future. So
I appreciate your time there. Before we wrap
up, I'm wondering, if you could talk about
what the number one thing is you're doing
right now in order to set yourself up
for long term success.
Yeah. We're really trying to maximize,
our use of of technology and especially in
the AI space.
We wanna make sure our our team members
are are working at the top of their
licenses. So
using things like ambient technology on the clinical
side for for the doctors, but we're, you
know, looking at other disciplines to to roll
that out in because it can really take
away some of the non value added work
that they do today
and really focus them in on patient patient
care.
And then also setting our team members up
for kind of a digital transformation.
So,
you know, digital transformation is really the the
look of the future. And and how do
we set our team members up from a
educational standpoint to make sure that they know
what's coming,
why it's coming, and and really let us
be nimble,
to to take that technology to the next
level. You know, we we wanna make sure
our team members are not scared of things
like AI not gonna replace their jobs or
take away duties that that they feel that
they're important to the to themselves. So it's
really about making sure that they feel comfortable
with the technology that they're gonna be using
on an everyday basis.
That's amazing to hear.
Thank you so much for joining us on
the podcast today. This has been a really
fascinating discussion, and I look forward to connecting
with you again soon.
Thank you. Appreciate it being on.