Speaker 0: The most important health care decisions don't happen in isolation. They happen when leaders come together. Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings together more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives this April in Chicago. With 800 speakers from Ascension, Cleveland Clinic, CommonSpirit and more, the conversations get real. Leaders will share how their scenario planning for policy shifts, breaking through value based care barriers, and building clinical teams that translate new ideas into real world care.

Join top decision makers in the room April 13 through the sixteenth. For the agenda and event details, visit beckers hospital review dot com and click on the events tab in the upper right.

Speaker 1: This is Laura Dirdle with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Imran Kadir, president and chief executive officer at Allegheny General Hospital. Imran, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me to speak here today.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. And, you know, I'm excited for our conversation because I know we'll be spotlighting some of the cool things you're doing at Allegheny General Hospital as well as your perspective on the future. There's so many changing dynamics right now that is truly, truly, a fascinating conversation. But before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and the hospital?

Speaker 2: Sure. I'm doctor Imran Kadir. I serve as the president and CEO of the leading academic level on trauma and transplant center here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We're a proud part of Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network system, comprising of 14 hospitals submitting to world class integrated health care to, to our community and beyond. We have a specialized center of excellence handle the most complex medical cases and are at the forefront of medical innovation.

Speaker 1: Got it. That's helpful context to know. And, you know, in jumping into our conversation here, could you tell us a little bit more about the most important initiative that you led in the last year or so? What did you do, and what were the results?

Speaker 2: I'm proud of our team work in many areas last year, including quality, safety, patient experience, population health, growth and strategy. You know, this question kind of asked, like, you know, who's your best child here? But I'll do my best here. I think our one of our most in important initiative last year was the implementation and scaling of our integrated AI driven virtual nurse model called Care AI and, Ambient Listening partnering with Abridge for our clinician. It offers a transformative approach to health care delivery by leveraging artificial intelligence.

These solutions aim to optimize workflow, enhance patient safety, and free clinicians to focus on direct patient interaction. And a little bit about care.ai, it's a proactive detection system for bedside. We have cameras installed in the patient's room and has the ability to continuously monitor patients' vital signs, activity levels, and other key indicators in patient's room. Can detect subtle changes that might involve otherwise go unnoticed. And so one of the couple of the areas that we have used care.ai for that we started to use are using virtual nurses.

So our nurses, are doing admission and discharges, and freeing our bedside nurses to per to focus on, you know, hands on care. On average, by doing those admission and discharge, it's saving an average of about fifty minutes, per nurse on their shift. The other area we've used CareEye is the use of virtual sitters, freeing our nurses and patient care technicians to take care of sicker patients, while virtually nurses or PCTs and monitoring patients. In the future, we plan to unlock other AI driven tools, that CareEye has to offer, including reducing alarms and, an alert fatigue. For ambient listening, we partner with Abridge.

And what it is is it's a voice to text clinical note generation. And being listened accurately transcribes clinician patient conversation directly into the electronic health record, capturing the nuances of the interaction, reducing the time a clinician has to spend documenting manually into chart and search for information. We've seen anywhere from one to two hours of safe time per day allowing clinicians to spend more time with patients in charting. This also, I believe, and we haven't measured this yet, but reduce burnout, alleviating documentation burdens and alert fatigue that contributes to a less stressful work environment, potentially reducing clinician burnout. And the other things I I I think it will show us in future is that enhanced team collaboration.

With more accurate and timely documentation, interdisciplinary teams can communicate more effectively and make more informed decisions, reduce medical errors, no more accurate documentation, and proactive monitoring can lead to reduction in medical errors related to communication or oversight. And lastly, it does have a potential to enhance revenue capture and billing accuracy, reduce documentation and quoting errors leading to less denial. We expect about 5% increase in claim submission and reduction in denials.

Speaker 1: That's fascinating to hear, and I know that's, you know, a huge, huge undertaking to bring on those different technology platforms and partners and really leveraging, you know, AI in a different way than it ever has been before, whether it's some of the clinical applications on the bedside, inpatient safety applications, or if you're looking at virtual nursing. And then two, the ambient technology, it seems like it's been a game changer in so many different ways. And so, you know, when you're going through a huge transformations like this and bringing the technology really into the workflows and embedding it into the broader hospital in in culture within the the organization, how do you make sure that the team is doing everything they can to leverage the potential and possibility as well as, you know, finding new ways to keep transforming, within this space? Because I know, you know, it takes so much effort and resources to bring technology in. How do you make sure it's actually optimized and in creating that value that you hope it would, you know, when you make that, decision to move forward with it?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the team does a great job of, implementing the technology, making sure the users understand what the technology is aiming to accomplish, to the obviously, there's a lot of education and hands on, training for our frontline staff, but also a continuous monitoring for results that we are aiming to achieve. So, you know, we're constantly looking at, is the technology delivering on the promise that that it's set to do. So very result oriented, launch of these products.

Speaker 1: I love that. That's so important and so critical, especially as I know every dollar in health care is precious. So from your perspective, looking into the future too, what are some of the big priorities and headwinds that you're focused on in the next year?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Looking ahead to to 2026, and we're already month into it, our big priorities are centered around our mission and vision and being the leader in population health. How we are going to get there is by focusing on six pillars, including being employer of choice, which means addressing workforce challenges, being provider of choice, which means continuing to enhance clinical excellence, and fostering innovation, also growth, pioneering health solutions and business development to support exceptional growth, and leading in population health management with our enterprise strategy named Living Health Strategy, and lastly, financial sustainability. We believe if we work on the five pillars that we set for, the financial will follow, and we'll see great results. And we have seen that in 2025.

The priorities, obviously, that's one in advanced digital health and telemedicine. The headwinds, I think, you know, we expect to continue to see the ongoing national shortage of nurses, physicians, and allied health professionals coupled with persistent burnout remains our most significant challenge. Recruiting and retaining top talent alongside developing robust wellness program will be paramount. Also, escalating costs and reimbursement pressures. We continue to face increasing operational costs, pharma pharmaceutical expenses, and pressure on reimbursement rates.

Navigating this economic landscape while maintaining high quality care requires constant innovation and efficiency and value based care models.

Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. And I truly appreciate that focus on, you know, how you can be innovative looking at value based care and truly figuring out the ways that your organization is on a daily basis meeting the needs for their patients. I think, you know, one of the things that you mentioned is is just this evolving, economic landscape. And when you look into the future, where do you see, you know, the spaces where you're, trying to whether it's new avenues or current existing avenues to double down on, that will help ensure financial stability. Just how are you thinking about all of that when in knowing that there's so much uncertainty around some of the traditional reimbursement models, fee for service, and other, you know, ways that hospitals traditionally, were able to fund everything that they were doing.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think, as I laid out earlier, our six pillars, five of them focused on being employer of choice, being provider of choice, addressing quality, safety, patient experience, population health, management, you know, focus on the value based care. And and it's paramount that we focus on innovation and growth. And I think those pillars get us to a financial sustainable model, that will be successful for years to come.

Speaker 1: Got it. That's helpful to understand. Now what do you think the hardest thing you're gonna have to do in the coming year will be?

Speaker 2: I think the hardest thing we'll have to do in the coming year will likely be making tough decisions regarding resource allocation in the face of ongoing economic pressures and expanding patient needs while simultaneously maintaining our commitment to innovation and growth. This will involve balancing competing priorities such as investing in new technologies, expanding crucial service lines, and adequately compensating our dedicated workforce, all within the constraints of a challenging financial environment. It required difficult conversations, strategic prioritization, and clear communication with all stakeholders.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think that's something, you know, so many different hospital CEOs are faced with today and trying to understand how they can make those right priorities, invest in the technologies that are gonna make the biggest difference as we talked about already today. And then, you know, your focus on clear communication as well, is just so, so important. How do you typically communicate with a broader organization as well as your executive team? What do you do to make sure that everyone's focused, in spending their time and energy in the right things that are going to get you into the stability you're looking for in the future?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think, obviously, health care challenges abroad. That's why our focus and our goals, we have laid out in our starts from our CEO and president of Highmark Health, David Homburg, to the president of Highmark Health, Karen Hamlin, and, our, you know, our CEO at AHN, Mark Sefco. They've laid out a clear vision and goals and priorities for, not just this year, but through 2030. I think having a clear strategy and what our focus is gonna be is what's gonna drive that clarity and communication in in all levels of the organization.

Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, having that type of alignment, at the top really then trickles down, it seems like, to the clarity that you need across the board. Before we wrap up here, I wanted to ask, what do you see as being some of the best opportunities for organizational growth when you look into the future as well?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I see the best opportunity opportunities for organizational growth in several key areas. I think one is strategic partnership and collaboration within Highmark and AHN. And our CEO has famously coined the term one AHN, you know, working truly as it's, you know, one system, one enterprise, leveraging the strength of broader Highmark Health and AHN system offers significant growth potential. This could involve joint ventures for new facilities, expanding access to our specialized care across the network, or collaborating on population health initiatives that drive referrals and improve community health outcomes.

The other, you know, specialty service line expansion, our reputation as level one trauma and transplant center coupled with our academic mission positions us uniquely to expand highly specialized and complex care offering. This includes areas like advanced neurosciences and cardiovascular surgery, complex surgery, and complex oncology, which often serves at the broader regional and national population, and developing a center of excellence for AI and health care, given our success with predictive analytics and AI tools that I spoke about earlier, we have an opportunity to further solidify a position as a leader in applying AI to improve clinical care, operational efficiency, and even medical education, attracting top talent and research funding. I'm confident that by focusing on these strategies strategic priorities, navigating the challenges effectively, and continuing to foster a culture of innovation and excellence, we can achieve significant growth and continue to serve our community at the highest level.

Speaker 1: That I I think it's so critical to have all of that in mind and, you know, that technology analytics backbone to then drive forward everything else you're looking for, with the team, the talent, the, retention of great, team there at, Allegheny Health Network is just so critical. So thank you so much for your time today, Imran. This has been such a a great conversation, and I look forward to connecting with you as well later and continuing on with with, this conversation.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Lara. Thanks for having me.