Exciting things are happening at Becker's Healthcare. Stay
ahead of industry trends with the new Becker's
CFO plus Revenue Cycle podcast,
your go to source for insights from top
healthcare finance leaders. Tune in wherever you get
your podcasts.
And don't miss the tenth annual health IT
plus digital health plus RCM conference, happening September
30 to 10/03/2025
in Chicago.
Join thousands of
executives, engage with industry leaders, and explore the
future of health care innovation.
Learn more about our upcoming events at beckershospitalreview.com.
See you there.
This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
doctor Sarah Pletcher, chief digital health officer at
Houston Methodist. Doctor Pletcher, it's a pleasure to
have you on the podcast today. Thank you
so much for the opportunity to have a
chat.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'm excited for our conversation
because I know Houston Methodist is certainly on
the forefront of a lot of fascinating things
happening in health care innovation, in digital technology,
and so it'll be great to get your
perspective on some of the cool projects you're
doing right now as well as what's ahead.
But before we dive into that discussion, can
you tell us a little bit more about
Houston Methodist and what makes it unique?
Sure.
So Houston Methodist is,
a nationally
recognized
high quality health system,
right here in Houston, Texas,
which is part of the Texas Medical Center,
the largest medical center in the world, which
I,
learned only in the last, six or seven
years since relocating here. And we have a
network of now,
eight hospitals
around, Greater Houston.
That's amazing to hear, you know, and a
really,
great area that you're you're serving. So, from
your perspective, what is the accomplishment that you're
most proud of from the last year or
so?
Well, gosh. There've been there've been so many.
I think some of the highlights that stand
out,
you know, we've really leaned in to make
some big bets in terms of digital health,
tools and innovations.
So some of those include, we've completed
installation
of
a lot of tech. So we now have
state of the art virtual care and ambient
care sensors and cameras in every patient room
across the health system through our partnership with
Kari Eye Stryker.
And that includes integration with Epic,
to really launch
very cutting edge educational
and care team content and support through the
television in the room.
We put a wearable
sensor on every patient that comes into any
of our hospitals through our partnership with Bio
Intellisense
to do vitals monitoring.
We have ambient,
sensors in our operating rooms through our partnership
with Appella.
And really a long long list of really
key AI investments,
including
tools for prediction and summarization,
like our partnership with HDAI,
and Scribe documentation
solutions, like our partnership with
and many of these, are showcased across the
system and in particular,
in our newest hospital, which we've, you know,
we've referred to as a smart hospital, and
it just opened on Monday.
Oh, wow. That's amazing. You know, and I
I I know that smart hospital was certainly,
many years in the making. So,
I'm curious, you know, when you look at
it in developing
a smart hospital,
what, goes into that? What really is different
from the typical hospital that we've traditionally seen
that goes into making actually a smart hospital?
And and, honestly,
you know, the the a smart or smart
hospital is our newest
facility, and so where we could
intentionally,
build
and design,
around some of our new tools.
But really the important part is in how
you design the programs that leverage those tools.
And and that's certainly smart, but also just
good old fashioned,
hard work and protocols and education and designing
your programs thoughtfully.
So we've rolled out all of the care
programs that I mentioned across our whole system.
So the technology
might might look,
slickest in our newest facility,
but the care programs
that,
that are utilizing
that technology
were really developed through tried and true
change management,
process improvement,
you know, implementation
science,
all across our legacy hospital system.
That's great to hear, and I appreciate that
description. Now looking into the future, where do
you see some of the biggest growth opportunities
for you and your team in the next
twelve months or so?
Yeah. I mean, I think with with all
of these technology investments, you know, where we
really see the opportunities
is
I mean, it sounds,
sounds sort of obvious, but using the stuff.
Right? So,
really looking at opportunities
for care redesign and well, hey. Couldn't we
do this differently given that we have this
new highway?
So I think a lot of it is
in,
beginning to reorganize
the way we deliver care, the way we
think about work. You know, what can we
automate?
What can we centralize?
What can a virtual team do?
What are ways that we can reorganize,
the effort? You know, how can we better
personalize care? So rather than every patient
gets the same 20 things,
can we be more efficient and effective
by delivering the right five things to each
patient, which takes,
you know, unnecessary
work away from the care team and ensures
that the patients that need the services get
them more quickly?
So a lot of it is really in
redesigning
our care,
enabled by and empowered by these latest digital
health technologies. So I think that's where we
really see growth opportunities
is in
continuing to transform how we deliver care with
the use of these,
innovation investments.
Got it. That's helpful to know and understand.
And it really seems like a a cool
opportunity to continue to stay on the forefront
of,
how health care is evolving and changing for,
the betterment of patient care as well as
the care teams.
I'm curious. A lot of opportunities ahead, but
I know challenges as well. What are some
of those big challenges that you're anticipating for
the next couple years?
Yeah. I mean, look, like, all you have
to do is go to a health conference,
and everybody's talking about pretty much the same
big challenges in terms of headwinds.
You know, the aging population,
challenged populations, shifting
expectations, the, you know, post apocalypse
health care delivery system we have right now
in terms of cost and payment,
political complexities,
you know, all of our endangered species out
there in terms of workforce.
I mean, so there's there's plenty of big
challenges,
and there's also plenty of tools, which is
great, but that also brings a new
complexity
for health system leaders in trying to navigate
the vendor landscape.
So the, you know, big challenges, lots of
opportunities, and lots of opportunities
for, you know, what I call quadruple wins.
But
I think the the really the true big
challenge is is not the ones I mentioned.
It's
just the everyday
resistance
in terms of change management and change fatigue.
And that doesn't come through as a big
thing. It comes through as lots of little
things,
lots of little barriers,
communicating, communicating, communicating again, you know, project management,
education.
So, you know, the focus is often on
the big challenges
and not enough appreciation for
this death by a million paper cuts that
you can face when trying to
move people forward to do things differently.
Absolutely. You know, and I I think that's
a really important point you made, because I
do feel there's a lot of,
organizations struggling with, you know, trying to get
that people part of the change management,
into,
you know, operating as effectively,
as it needs to be. And,
I know there's a lot of complexities there.
And so, you know, when you look at,
all the change happening, all this accelerated,
evolution with technology, with AI,
with different, you know,
sociopolitical
landscape just,
changing very rapidly. How do you keep it
even keel as a leader and make sure
that the team,
you know, is,
kind of thinking about things in the right
way so that you are able to realize
the benefits that you need to make the
changes you need to make without,
creating a lot of stress and burnout on
on the team.
I mean, it's it's it's certainly tough. I
I think you do have to be
you do have to
be,
you know, really resilient
optimist. And an optimist doesn't mean you think
everything is great. You can be an optimist
and be very realistic about the challenges as
long as you can always see
some way that something could be better.
And a belief that if
if if you remember what your true north
is, right, like, your why,
and you keep chipping away and trying to
find little ways to make things better, that
that there are opportunities
to, in fact, make things a lot better.
So I think trying to trying to bring
a
realistic,
resilient optimism to the table helps.
Never forgetting the importance of why. And and,
again, I know that's a cliched thing to
say,
but it's surprising the number of times I'm
in a meeting,
with a group where you're just trying to
kinda solve some really mundane thing
and kinda stopping at the beginning to just
ask, hey, you know, do y'all know
why we're doing this overall project?
And
and having people say, hey, I'd really love
to hear, you know, to hear just a
few minutes and doing that level set. Say,
well, here's why we're trying to do this
and we think this will be better for
patients in this reason.
It only takes a few minutes, but
not kinda gatekeeping the why from all of
the of the distant stakeholders who only touch
part of it,
you know, kinda goes back to that theme
story of,
you know, Kennedy asking the janitor her ride
on the tour, and the janitor knew they
were putting a man on the moon, not
forgetting to share the why with everybody involved
in trying to get a project over the
finish line. So those are some of some
of the things,
along the way,
that have, I think, proved helpful.
I love that. Thank you so much. And
I'm gonna have to start using that term,
you know, the realistic optimism. I think that's
so powerful. It definitely speaks to, you know,
finding that opportunity or figuring out a way
to,
make a difference regardless of the challenges that
you see before you. So I love that.
Before we wrap up here, I'm curious. What's
the number one thing that you're doing right
now to set Houston Methodist up for long
term success?
I mean, well, certainly the,
you know, the really
pioneering
investments that we've we've made and have really
just kind of put into implementation
is is is huge.
You know, but I think now we're really
trying to remember to look just a bit
further ahead. So, again, with all the challenges
that everyone's facing,
you you do have to strike this balance
between
keeping your eye on the current,
you know, the current
operational design performance,
but also looking ahead to try to get
in front of where things are going. You
know, so thinking about, okay, we're we're struggling
to cover certain shifts.
We have to push our current team to
cover them. Like, right, you've gotta cover the
shifts today.
But if is that an opportunity for us
to look ahead and say, how can we
redesign this to have a more sustainable
workforce for this particular thing? So I think
that's a that's a key is leaning into
the bets we already made,
focusing on keeping current operations
high performance,
but looking at all of our challenge points
as opportunities to try to think further ahead
about what
transformation opportunities we have to, you know, as
I mentioned before, centralize, automate,
you know, be more precise,
think differently
about
how we deliver supply and demand, you know,
breaking free of the tyranny of,
integer thing. Right? Like, we have to staff
in ratios, we have to staff in twelve
hour shifts, we can only staff per unit,
and recognizing that with these modern tools,
you can deliver services very differently. So I
think that trying
to keep your eye on the now, but
looking ahead,
is is the number one thing that we're
trying to do as an organization.
That's fascinating to hear. And certainly breaking free
from all, you know, the
those things that, were traditionally the case in
in thinking differently and redesigning,
seems like a a really great opportunity again
to just,
redevelop care in a way that makes a
big difference for patients as well as the
caregivers. Doctor Fletcher, thank you so much for
joining us on the podcast today. This has
been a really fun and enlightening conversation, and
I look forward to connecting with you again
soon. Absolutely. Thanks so much for the opportunity
to chat.