Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings health care
leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues
facing the industry.
And every year, those conversations shift in profound
and unexpected ways.
This April, more than 3,500
healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's
sixteenth annual meeting.
Seven ninety five elite speakers will offer new
lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what
comes next.
Join us April 13 through the sixteenth.
For the agenda and event details,
visit beckershospitalreview.com
and click on the events tab in the
upper right.
This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
Scott McClain, senior vice president and chief information
officer at MedStar Health. Scott, it's a pleasure
to have you on the podcast today. Thanks,
Laura. I'm really happy to be here.
Absolutely. Now I'm excited to catch up with
you. I know you've, spoken with Becker's for
years and really been a great,
resource for us, you know, very much on
the cutting edge of technology and everything that's
happening in the digital health space. So this
will be a great opportunity to catch up,
learn a little bit more about
how you're thinking about the future as well.
But before we dive in, can you just
tell me a little bit more about yourself
and, you know, MedStar Health overall, especially for
our listeners who just started to to join
the Becker's podcast?
Sure. I have, been at MedStar Health for
eight years now, and we are a integrated
delivery system in the Baltimore, Washington, DC region.
We have 10 hospitals and over 300 ambulatory
care sites. We have a Medicaid insurer both
in,
Maryland and DC,
and we're a teaching affiliate of Georgetown University
Medical Center. And so
we're a a full service,
integrated delivery network with, insurer. We have a
a research institute, and as well as an
innovation
area.
That's fascinating to hear. You know, I I
know there's so much that goes into putting
it all together.
So, you know, I'm curious. What are some
of the big things that you're watching right
now, some of the trends that you're most
focused on as you're thinking about how you
need to prepare for the future?
Well, it's a great question. I I think
that the
strategy is to use platforms. I think a
lot of people are talking about the EHR,
ERP, the collaboration
platforms,
and making sure that those are implemented as
fully as possible. And we're going through
a rationalization of all our applications now as
we do our,
EHR install
and, making sure that we're getting the value
out of, those platforms. And then there as
you well know, and I'm sure we'll talk
about, lots of opportunities to
build functionality on top of those platforms and
use some of the technologies
around artificial intelligence and
ambient speech and and various things that will
make it easier for our patients and clinicians
to, go through the care process and and
lots of, good features and functionality in the
administrative areas too.
Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of
sense. And, you know, when you are looking
at, that process of doing that
rationalization of the applications, thinking through, you know,
everything that has to happen and go correctly
in order for,
it to be done and then continue to
add value to the organization overall.
What is really important within that process for
you and your team to stay focused on?
How do you make sure that everybody is
doing what they need to do, and you're
able to be efficient and effective
with that rationalization
process?
Well, I think it it starts with,
good leadership, and our CEO often talks about
having a strategy,
having leadership, and being able to execute on
that. And that's how we
approach things at MedStar Health.
And as part of this, strategic plan that
we're in right now, which,
we are
looking to, continue our growth and, ability to
serve our patients and and make a better,
patient access and experience,
in this time period.
The foundation of that is, organizational
transformation,
around not just,
technology and the EHR platform,
but, also
what it takes to have people change management
and the right standard processes to do that.
And
so I I think as we talk about
these things, you start with core values of,
again, making sure that,
we have the right approach for our patients,
and the access that we want them to
have to our caregivers and and system.
And then I think that there's a lot
of respectful
listening. You you can imagine we have a
good governance structure set up for our implementation,
and, we wanna hear from people about what
is important,
in the various care areas, the specific,
unique
locations that we have in different types of
hospitals and communities and ambulatory sites.
But, holding to those values of,
being standard about our approach that we would
have,
the best, level of quality and safety,
in all of our care, areas and things
that we do
and, the best patient experience from,
registration scheduling, handling, billing, and, various other communications
that we have with them. So there are
a lot of things in the environment that
have, come along and have been helpful with
the core systems we use today,
But we're going through a whole process of
evaluating every one of them and can the
new platform do that function,
at least for a great percentage of it.
And and then we're respectfully
going through and having conversations with important stakeholders
about how our our new platforms are gonna
cover the functionality that they they have in
existing systems.
And then you have to be rigorous,
about being able
to set up and support,
the new platforms
and any integrations that need to take place
there, but also be very disciplined about eliminating
and retiring the, the old systems
and making sure that you're
not in a place where you're
still using things that are confusing for clinicians
or patients,
or certainly not paying for things that are
not in use anymore.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense.
And, you know, it's really helpful to understand
the gravity of everything that goes into,
these types of processes,
you know, across the system. I think so
often it can be,
just seen as, hey. You know, we need
this to happen, and then,
you magically make it happen. But there's a
lot of work that actually goes into it.
When you think about the last six to
eighteen months or so, what work are you
most proud of? What are you focused on
and excited about?
Well, I think, you know, our our mission
is to,
deliver,
very high quality health care in this region.
It's a important strategic region in the country
with the nation's capital.
And, we wanna do that again by being
available to the patients that wanna see us,
And that's been part of
our way of going about things of of
being available and having lots of, physical locations,
in the region for people to access.
And we also have a digital strategy of
ways that, patients can connect to us through
our, MedStar Health app and, portals.
And, so I'm excited about the way that
we can can meet our patients for the
care that they need and, that that growth,
the ability to have good growth, but maintain
quality and patient experience,
across that that growth in the region.
Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And
I'm curious, when you talk about growth and
talk about that patient experience
and everything else, I I know that encompasses
many,
departments system wide in many initiatives. But from
your seat, and thinking about the digital strategy,
what are are are kind of the things
that are bubbling to the forefront for you,
especially in the next year, that are gonna
be critical for that patient experience? How do
you really,
see your efforts, you know, behind the scenes
and then in front to,
you know, becoming a big part of that
strategic value that you're looking for?
Well, I'm gonna go back to the the
platform idea and the what we talked about
of being able to utilize the functionality. So
with our our new EHR platform that we're
implementing
that we expect to go live in, late
twenty twenty seven,
we are,
looking at the ways that we can configure
that platform
to take advantage of best practices.
And this would
involve a
better patient experience
in terms of how they're able to,
seek and,
schedule,
appointments,
access,
urgent care or specialty care or, you know,
hospital,
ED if if needed.
And so,
that, I think, is what we're we're focused
on mostly
here and excited about. And I I think
that there are I know you're talking to
other CIOs and and leaders about the capabilities
that,
the technology environment is producing, again, with,
artificial intelligence algorithms that,
need to be experimented with and proven, and,
we're looking at at taking advantage of that
that functionality as well. Again,
hoping to take advantage of what is provided
through our core vendors,
but then also have some discussions about supplementary
interventions that that may not be provided yet
by by those vendors.
That's helpful to understand. Thank you for digging
a little bit deeper there. Now before we
wrap up, I wanted to ask you a
little bit about leadership.
What advice would you give evolving leaders today,
especially in the technology space? I know you
touched on AI, but that's making a big
difference, you know, across the board in health
care and everything else. And so how do
you, you know, talk, with leaders as they're
thinking about growing their careers in the health
care and technology space?
Well, thanks for asking, Lauren. And as I've
been reflecting, it it feels like it wasn't,
very long ago, although it was thirty years
ago that I was
an intern and an applications analyst at at
Mass General Brigham and kinda grew up there
before coming here to MedStar Health to to
be a CIO.
And I I just think so much of,
what leadership about is relationships.
And particularly
with clinicians, I find
being able to listen to them and,
be able to study their workflows and understand
what their
pain points are and how that they they
work and then, adapting technology the best ways
that can support them is is really important.
But it's,
you know, we we lead through teams,
sub leaders that,
manage a number of associates in in,
information services.
There are other,
administrative leaders that,
I need to relate to and and support,
as we work through the allocation of resources
because we can't do everything at once. Right?
So,
I I think that's so so important for
for younger folks. I always took advantage of
organizations like HIMSS and then later on when
I became a CIO in Chime.
I I think those are are really important
ways to get education. There's so much digital
online education now as well as the the
conferences that happen. So
I find, I found in in in my,
coming up as a leader participating in those
organizations
and
maybe experimenting with different types of leadership that
you wouldn't use at your home shop and
learning that way was, also really important.
I love that, Scott. Thank you so much
for your time today. This has been such
a helpful conversation. I I really appreciate the
opportunity to speak with you, and I look
forward to connecting you again soon.
Thanks, Laura.