This is Scott King with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
Isaiah Nathaniel,
senior vice president and chief information officer at
Delaware Valley Community Health Inc. Isaiah, how are
you doing today? Thanks so much for joining
us.
It's a pleasure to be here, Scott. Thank
you for having me. Looking forward to the
conversation.
Yeah. We we were talking before. I know
you're in a pretty good mood because of
a, certain football team in the area winning
the Super Bowl. Is that correct?
That is absolutely correct. Being from Philadelphia,
born and raised,
being in health care, and being in Philadelphia,
it's such a great
time for Philadelphia fans because
the Philadelphia Eagles, my birds, have won Super
Bowl fifty nine
against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. So this
week, we're elated. We're happy, and I'm looking
forward to this coming Friday for the actual
Super Bowl parade.
It was quite the accomplishment, and now I
wanna get to the accomplishments over at Delaware
Valley Community Health. What what are some of
the things you're most proud of from last
year?
I think over the last year, what we're
very proud about is our interoperability
strategy that includes artificial intelligence, but also includes
cybersecurity,
some of the
things that you hear about
all across the country in health care.
I'm really proud that we have hunkered down
and really looked at all of our strategies
from making sure everything is working the way
that it should, not only for the patients,
but for our staff in general. So when
I talk about some of our biggest accomplishments,
what I'm really suggesting is that we really
looked at from LAN to the LAN.
Our infrastructure is impacting patient care, including the
patient experience. And we made some strategic decisions
to
thoughtfully include
AI, thoughtfully include digital transformation
into an ecosystem
that our patients are being able to take
advantage of.
What are some of the big organizational goals
you've set for 2025?
Some of the bigger goals that I've set
for 2025
is to really get into the optimization
of our overall
architecture.
And what I mean by that is I'm
really looking into
make things a bit more efficient from a
process perspective.
I can also talk about the workflow optimization
that we're doing. And what we're really trying
to say is, really, where is our data?
Where is it going in and out of
our system? And then how do we make
sure that at the point of care, our
providers are able to deliver the proper experience
that they want to with the infrastructure that
we have? And that goes all the way
to
a lot of the core principles in the
quadruple way.
So for us,
this year is really, really focused on
making sure that our systems are
coming on all speeds. And to parallel that
with the Eagles win, it's it's similar to
that, making sure
everyone understands the goals, the vision,
and the actual process to get done. And
if we're like the Eagles, we're gonna win
a Super Bowl ourselves this year.
Sounds like you might.
What what headwinds do you anticipate for the
next year or two?
Cybersecurity is always the biggest concern.
And part of what I stratify as cybersecurity
concerns is just understanding what the users are
doing each and every day. You can talk
about endpoint or device management,
but it takes one click as we know.
And if we learn anything from the last
year or last two years is that we
have to be really diligent in this space.
We really, as executives, have to have the
conversations
across the organization
to make sure that everyone understands that cyber
security is an organizational goal, not just a
department goal.
And so for me looking at cyber security,
what I'm trying to do is make it
that
so profound
and so diligent
and so thoughtful in
looking at zero trust, looking at the new
HIPAA rules that we hope will
be through and the actual rule in 2025,
looking at how do we make sure that
everything in our system can be as
thoughtful,
attentive,
and secure as possible. So that's that's really
what I'm really looking for for 2025.
Yeah. I I've heard a lot of people
kind of address cybersecurity
concerns.
I I guess to to to get into
it a little further, is
protecting patients' information, is that kind of the
the main thing you wanna that you don't
want the wrong people to get their hands
on?
That is really the main thing. And
when you wrap that in the center of
a bubble,
there's so many tentacles to that. It's
are your devices all patched?
Are your network infrastructure do you have segmentation
appropriately?
Are you really understanding where the flow of
traffic is going in and out of your
systems, and are you doing the proper upgrades?
And
that is really all encompassing of cybersecurity
and then including device and patch management
and device vulnerabilities.
But, really, for me, it's really the
end users and making sure that we have
a strong effort of training so that they
understand.
And
really taking an approach of
one user can cause a major disruption to
an
entire ecosystem like we saw in some of
the major breaches of last year.
Last question I have for you, Isaiah. How
are you evolving as a leader?
I think
it's very interesting that you ask me that
question.
And every year,
I try to give myself
not a New Year's resolution. I try to
give myself
more of
a marker on or marching orders that I
like to use for the entire year.
And just two weeks ago, I gave myself
my marching orders.
And it's a quote by Albert Einstein, and
the quote is,
no problem can be solved from the same
level of consciousness
that created it.
And so for me,
this year, my evolving
as a leader is looking at that
lens from a conscious perspective and saying,
okay. I might think I'm great
in all of these years previous, but how
do I really renegotiate
that greatness in myself?
And I'm a former division one athlete, so
I I live by this Kobe mamba mentality
attitude. And,
basically, for me and my role,
it's
saying every day, am I doing things the
right way? Am I leading my team the
right way?
What level of consciousness am I bringing to
my organization
to say, hey. I know we've done cybersecurity
training that we have to mention when we
talk about last year, but how do we
elevate that? How do I really look at
my entire stack? How do I look at
the quadruple aim? How do I just go
back and really look at problems
of yesterday
and give it a twenty twenty five
solving or solve the issue. So for me,
it's really no problem can be solved from
the same level of consciousness that created it,
and that has really gotten me going,
in this year.
So now I have to ask you. What
sport? What school?
So I played, Delaware State University,
and it was basketball.
Oh, that's awesome. So you're you're getting excited
for March here.
Oh, I'm really excited. Listen, man. This this
has just been a great couple of months
for me,
going from January to February
to March coming up very soon. So and
the fact that, my alma mater, Delaware State
University,
has signed a former Eagle, Deshaun Jackson, to
be our head coach of the football team,
it's just a very, very exciting time for
us. And that Eagle was that Eagle's connection
is just it's proven to be one for
the lifetime.
That's awesome. It's a great time to be
you. I I appreciate you joining us today.
It was a a great conversation, Isaiah. Some
good health care talk and and definitely some
good sports talk too. So thanks for joining
us. Look forward to working with you again
soon. Pleasure is mine. See you soon.