1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,000 Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:03,299 Becker's Health Care podcast. 3 00:00:03,679 --> 00:00:05,679 Thanks so much for tuning in today where 4 00:00:05,679 --> 00:00:08,980 we're excited to talk about navigating market dynamics, 5 00:00:09,199 --> 00:00:11,939 innovation, and the future of member care. 6 00:00:12,255 --> 00:00:15,134 Joining me today for our discussion is Rob 7 00:00:15,134 --> 00:00:18,095 Duffy, who is the chief technology officer at 8 00:00:18,095 --> 00:00:18,595 HealthEdge. 9 00:00:19,054 --> 00:00:20,574 Rob, thanks so much for taking the time 10 00:00:20,574 --> 00:00:22,195 to be with me on the podcast today. 11 00:00:22,414 --> 00:00:23,695 Hey. Thank you for the invite. I really 12 00:00:23,695 --> 00:00:24,975 appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the 13 00:00:24,975 --> 00:00:25,475 conversation. 14 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:28,300 Absolutely. Likewise. And before we dive into everything 15 00:00:28,300 --> 00:00:29,660 we wanna talk with you about, can you 16 00:00:29,660 --> 00:00:31,359 tell us a little bit more about yourself 17 00:00:31,579 --> 00:00:32,960 and your career background? 18 00:00:33,340 --> 00:00:35,739 Yeah. My name's as you've introduced already, my 19 00:00:35,739 --> 00:00:36,799 name's Rob Duffy. 20 00:00:37,739 --> 00:00:39,200 I come from a background, 21 00:00:39,899 --> 00:00:42,365 at, large tech companies like Amazon 22 00:00:42,744 --> 00:00:45,784 and, Uber and Expedia and Salesforce, you know, 23 00:00:45,784 --> 00:00:46,284 really 24 00:00:46,744 --> 00:00:49,804 developing large scale platforms and and creating 25 00:00:50,265 --> 00:00:52,984 these incredible pieces of technology that can be 26 00:00:52,984 --> 00:00:55,545 leveraged to unlock huge amounts of innovation and 27 00:00:55,545 --> 00:00:56,284 and velocity 28 00:00:57,179 --> 00:00:59,200 with the with their consumers. And, 29 00:00:59,899 --> 00:01:00,960 I joined HealthEdge 30 00:01:01,500 --> 00:01:04,219 nine months ago, ten months ago. And when 31 00:01:04,219 --> 00:01:05,760 I joined HealthEdge, it was, 32 00:01:06,299 --> 00:01:08,400 undergoing a little bit of a platform transformation. 33 00:01:09,019 --> 00:01:11,200 And, I brought with me, 34 00:01:12,034 --> 00:01:14,614 the the sort of non health care, 35 00:01:15,474 --> 00:01:15,974 technical 36 00:01:16,275 --> 00:01:18,275 expertise that you would find at these large 37 00:01:18,275 --> 00:01:20,614 companies, and the the job has been really 38 00:01:20,674 --> 00:01:21,174 transforming 39 00:01:21,635 --> 00:01:23,395 and bringing the the products that we have 40 00:01:23,395 --> 00:01:26,055 together and creating, creating this platform 41 00:01:26,620 --> 00:01:27,599 of converge technology. 42 00:01:28,619 --> 00:01:30,459 Absolutely. So it sounds like a unique career 43 00:01:30,459 --> 00:01:32,879 journey that brought you to HealthEdge, Rob. 44 00:01:33,579 --> 00:01:35,840 Let let's get started today by talking about, 45 00:01:35,900 --> 00:01:37,119 as you know, interoperability 46 00:01:37,819 --> 00:01:38,640 and integration 47 00:01:39,224 --> 00:01:43,084 becoming increasingly crucial in health care operations today. 48 00:01:43,465 --> 00:01:45,545 Yeah. In this environment, what do you think 49 00:01:45,545 --> 00:01:48,504 is the role of platform based technology, and 50 00:01:48,504 --> 00:01:49,805 what are some of the key advantages 51 00:01:50,105 --> 00:01:51,965 for health plans in particular? 52 00:01:52,849 --> 00:01:54,049 So if you think about a a, you 53 00:01:54,049 --> 00:01:55,109 know, a health plan, 54 00:01:55,569 --> 00:01:58,469 they have thousands, if not tens of thousands 55 00:01:58,530 --> 00:02:00,930 of different integrations and and pieces of data 56 00:02:00,930 --> 00:02:03,569 flying around and different data models and ways 57 00:02:03,569 --> 00:02:04,469 that they get, 58 00:02:04,930 --> 00:02:06,629 data from one place to another. 59 00:02:07,025 --> 00:02:09,425 And what we're looking at now is some, 60 00:02:09,905 --> 00:02:10,405 regulation 61 00:02:11,025 --> 00:02:13,185 that, is saying, well, we should we should 62 00:02:13,185 --> 00:02:14,944 try and talk in a standard format. We 63 00:02:14,944 --> 00:02:16,145 should try and talk in a in a 64 00:02:16,145 --> 00:02:18,465 single way. And when you have lots of 65 00:02:18,465 --> 00:02:20,625 in integrations and you have lots of pieces 66 00:02:20,625 --> 00:02:21,284 of technology, 67 00:02:22,069 --> 00:02:23,909 what you essentially have is is a large 68 00:02:23,909 --> 00:02:26,230 piece of technical debt that you have to 69 00:02:26,230 --> 00:02:28,310 deal with when you have to try and 70 00:02:28,310 --> 00:02:29,909 get all of those things to speak the 71 00:02:29,909 --> 00:02:30,650 same standard. 72 00:02:30,950 --> 00:02:31,849 And I think 73 00:02:32,310 --> 00:02:33,930 many people in the industry 74 00:02:34,514 --> 00:02:36,834 have seen in the last, you know, five 75 00:02:36,834 --> 00:02:38,454 years, maybe even ten years, 76 00:02:38,834 --> 00:02:40,775 that an approach of sort of stringing 77 00:02:41,155 --> 00:02:43,574 lots of different point solutions together 78 00:02:43,875 --> 00:02:46,034 means that anytime you wanna change something, you 79 00:02:46,034 --> 00:02:48,055 have to change it in many different places. 80 00:02:48,290 --> 00:02:50,870 And now that we're seeing this broad, generalized 81 00:02:51,010 --> 00:02:53,090 drive towards a standard data format and a 82 00:02:53,090 --> 00:02:55,969 standard data model, it means that this string 83 00:02:55,969 --> 00:02:58,689 of pearls approach is becoming increasingly difficult and 84 00:02:58,689 --> 00:03:01,650 complex complex to manage. So I I think 85 00:03:01,650 --> 00:03:03,909 when I think about platforms, I think about 86 00:03:04,574 --> 00:03:07,935 taking it away from a large number of 87 00:03:07,935 --> 00:03:10,254 point solutions and point tools that you have 88 00:03:10,254 --> 00:03:12,735 to constantly change to keep up with changing 89 00:03:12,735 --> 00:03:15,794 regulations and and changing standards and changing formats 90 00:03:16,254 --> 00:03:18,415 and really moving that across to, you know, 91 00:03:18,415 --> 00:03:19,955 a platform level approach. 92 00:03:20,519 --> 00:03:22,919 That means that companies like HealthEdge can do 93 00:03:22,919 --> 00:03:25,159 that work once we can do it in 94 00:03:25,159 --> 00:03:27,000 in the right places, and then you don't 95 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:29,239 have to worry about trying to keep up 96 00:03:29,239 --> 00:03:30,219 with all of these 97 00:03:30,599 --> 00:03:32,859 changes in standards and formats and regulations. 98 00:03:33,159 --> 00:03:35,504 As a health plan, you can really lean 99 00:03:35,504 --> 00:03:37,664 more on these platform based technologies or or 100 00:03:37,664 --> 00:03:40,084 technology platforms to do that work once. 101 00:03:41,025 --> 00:03:42,784 Let me follow-up with you there, Rob. How 102 00:03:42,784 --> 00:03:44,084 would you say that regulations 103 00:03:44,544 --> 00:03:47,104 are driving the push for a more connected 104 00:03:47,104 --> 00:03:48,084 health care ecosystem? 105 00:03:48,689 --> 00:03:50,469 I mean, we obviously have, you know, 106 00:03:50,930 --> 00:03:53,330 this buyer standard is coming on, coming on. 107 00:03:53,330 --> 00:03:54,689 We have the, you know, the the auth 108 00:03:54,689 --> 00:03:55,189 requirements, 109 00:03:55,650 --> 00:03:57,669 and and those are really driving this 110 00:03:58,210 --> 00:03:58,710 consolidation 111 00:03:59,010 --> 00:04:00,469 around a a data model 112 00:04:00,770 --> 00:04:02,229 and a way of communicating 113 00:04:02,689 --> 00:04:04,834 across different health health care applications. 114 00:04:05,294 --> 00:04:07,215 And it it's become not optional. You know? 115 00:04:07,215 --> 00:04:09,294 It's become a thing that the the regulation 116 00:04:09,294 --> 00:04:10,034 is driving. 117 00:04:10,334 --> 00:04:12,014 People have to keep up with that regulation 118 00:04:12,014 --> 00:04:14,334 and have to be compliant with it. And 119 00:04:14,334 --> 00:04:16,014 what that means is that, you you know, 120 00:04:16,014 --> 00:04:18,810 the CIOs and CTOs that I speak to 121 00:04:18,970 --> 00:04:21,209 are really looking at a a large project 122 00:04:21,209 --> 00:04:22,810 ahead of them to get all of their 123 00:04:22,810 --> 00:04:25,290 different systems and tools compliant. And and that 124 00:04:25,290 --> 00:04:25,790 means 125 00:04:27,370 --> 00:04:29,610 that the the work to do that is 126 00:04:29,769 --> 00:04:31,230 can sometimes feel overwhelming. 127 00:04:31,689 --> 00:04:33,529 And what we're seeing is people are looking 128 00:04:33,529 --> 00:04:36,254 for more converged solutions that talk to each 129 00:04:36,254 --> 00:04:38,115 other, that work together, and can handle 130 00:04:38,495 --> 00:04:40,914 the the changing regulatory environment, 131 00:04:41,454 --> 00:04:43,235 because I don't think anyone thinks, you know, 132 00:04:44,175 --> 00:04:46,194 this is gonna be a short journey, 133 00:04:46,740 --> 00:04:47,480 towards interoperability, 134 00:04:48,100 --> 00:04:50,660 but, they're looking for these converged technology platforms 135 00:04:50,660 --> 00:04:53,060 that can handle that for them and and 136 00:04:53,060 --> 00:04:54,660 allow them to keep up with the pace 137 00:04:54,660 --> 00:04:57,779 of change without having to make constant investments 138 00:04:57,779 --> 00:04:58,839 in in the technology. 139 00:04:59,224 --> 00:05:00,904 And then they can focus their energy more 140 00:05:00,904 --> 00:05:02,904 on helping their business users and helping their 141 00:05:02,904 --> 00:05:05,964 their their internal customers and their external customers 142 00:05:06,584 --> 00:05:08,284 with with more innovative products. 143 00:05:09,544 --> 00:05:12,024 Absolutely. And I think the the natural question 144 00:05:12,024 --> 00:05:13,519 to that, Rob, is what are some of 145 00:05:13,519 --> 00:05:17,339 the biggest challenges you're seeing payer organizations face 146 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,919 when transitioning from that siloed technology to a 147 00:05:20,919 --> 00:05:23,399 fully integrated platform? And and, ultimately, how can 148 00:05:23,399 --> 00:05:25,019 they navigate that effectively? 149 00:05:26,039 --> 00:05:27,884 Yeah. I think when you look at any 150 00:05:28,125 --> 00:05:28,625 large, 151 00:05:29,805 --> 00:05:32,125 ecosystem of tools that has been built up 152 00:05:32,125 --> 00:05:32,865 over time, 153 00:05:33,324 --> 00:05:35,964 anytime you you pick a tool and you 154 00:05:35,964 --> 00:05:38,384 implement something and you model a business process, 155 00:05:38,685 --> 00:05:40,365 you make some trade offs, you make some 156 00:05:40,365 --> 00:05:40,865 assumptions, 157 00:05:41,779 --> 00:05:43,139 and you have to, you know, change the 158 00:05:43,139 --> 00:05:45,379 way you work because of something that that 159 00:05:45,379 --> 00:05:46,839 tool does or doesn't do, 160 00:05:47,220 --> 00:05:48,500 in a way that you'd like it to 161 00:05:48,500 --> 00:05:50,819 do. And when you deal with that and 162 00:05:50,819 --> 00:05:52,519 you have a we have a large ecosystem 163 00:05:52,579 --> 00:05:55,000 of maybe twenty, twenty five, 30, 40 tools, 164 00:05:55,379 --> 00:05:56,439 that's, you know, 165 00:05:56,764 --> 00:05:58,685 a huge number of places where you have 166 00:05:58,685 --> 00:06:01,324 made assumptions and made changes to your business 167 00:06:01,324 --> 00:06:03,964 model, and you've made changes to your, internal 168 00:06:03,964 --> 00:06:06,845 process and maybe even the staff mix. So 169 00:06:06,845 --> 00:06:07,985 the the organization 170 00:06:08,524 --> 00:06:11,485 becomes a reflection of the technology that that 171 00:06:11,485 --> 00:06:12,420 you have in place. 172 00:06:13,300 --> 00:06:14,520 And that is a, 173 00:06:15,139 --> 00:06:17,060 hard thing to change because if you want 174 00:06:17,060 --> 00:06:18,360 to swap out tools, 175 00:06:18,740 --> 00:06:21,379 you can't just swap the tool out, replace 176 00:06:21,379 --> 00:06:22,900 it with a new one because that new 177 00:06:22,900 --> 00:06:23,779 tool will have, 178 00:06:24,259 --> 00:06:25,860 you know, assumptions and things that it does 179 00:06:25,860 --> 00:06:27,540 well and things does doesn't do. So you 180 00:06:27,540 --> 00:06:29,745 really have to think about this as a 181 00:06:29,745 --> 00:06:31,904 a transformation of the business and a transformation 182 00:06:31,904 --> 00:06:33,985 of the business models and business processes as 183 00:06:33,985 --> 00:06:36,485 well as just, a a technology transformation. 184 00:06:37,185 --> 00:06:39,264 And and that is, I would say, one 185 00:06:39,264 --> 00:06:41,904 of the biggest challenges, which is making like, 186 00:06:41,904 --> 00:06:44,620 figuring out what to keep and and what 187 00:06:44,620 --> 00:06:46,699 to throw out and what what is, you 188 00:06:46,699 --> 00:06:48,860 know, broken and and needs fixing and should 189 00:06:48,860 --> 00:06:50,160 be fixed and can be fixed. 190 00:06:50,939 --> 00:06:54,060 And, you know, doing that and doing the 191 00:06:54,060 --> 00:06:56,720 technology change is is a big challenge. 192 00:06:57,985 --> 00:07:00,085 Understood. So this has to be an enterprise 193 00:07:00,225 --> 00:07:01,525 wide approach. And 194 00:07:01,904 --> 00:07:04,944 as you see health plans continue to adopt 195 00:07:04,944 --> 00:07:06,645 a platform based approach, 196 00:07:07,185 --> 00:07:09,665 are there change management principles that they should 197 00:07:09,665 --> 00:07:11,585 be keeping in mind to ensure a smooth 198 00:07:11,585 --> 00:07:12,085 transition 199 00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:15,520 and to maximize their their impact? Any any 200 00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:17,300 resources you'd recommend, Rob? 201 00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:19,220 You know, change 202 00:07:19,839 --> 00:07:22,080 management for me and the the dealing with 203 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:24,900 the people aspects of of technology transformation, 204 00:07:25,824 --> 00:07:26,404 I think 205 00:07:26,785 --> 00:07:29,665 is 70, if not 80% of the job. 206 00:07:29,665 --> 00:07:31,904 I think I've I've been doing platform transformations 207 00:07:31,904 --> 00:07:32,404 for 208 00:07:32,785 --> 00:07:34,145 two and a half decades, and I think 209 00:07:34,145 --> 00:07:35,925 I've come to the conclusion that 210 00:07:36,785 --> 00:07:37,285 focusing 211 00:07:38,220 --> 00:07:40,139 on the people and focusing on the people's 212 00:07:40,139 --> 00:07:43,180 transformation and and helping people have agency and 213 00:07:43,180 --> 00:07:46,539 decisions and ensuring that you're not forcing technology 214 00:07:46,539 --> 00:07:48,220 on them that they're bought in. They understand 215 00:07:48,220 --> 00:07:50,620 the why, and you really dial on dial 216 00:07:50,620 --> 00:07:51,919 into the change management, 217 00:07:52,504 --> 00:07:54,504 the human elements of change management. I I 218 00:07:54,504 --> 00:07:55,404 think that is 219 00:07:56,185 --> 00:07:57,884 one of the key things to adopt. 220 00:07:58,345 --> 00:07:59,944 And I don't think any platform really is 221 00:07:59,944 --> 00:08:01,944 ever successful when it focuses just on the 222 00:08:01,944 --> 00:08:02,444 technology, 223 00:08:03,225 --> 00:08:04,764 and and sort of underestimates 224 00:08:05,064 --> 00:08:05,964 the amount of, 225 00:08:07,029 --> 00:08:09,430 people change management and and human change management 226 00:08:09,430 --> 00:08:11,269 that's gonna need to to go on. And, 227 00:08:11,269 --> 00:08:14,169 you know, in terms of frameworks or resources, 228 00:08:14,310 --> 00:08:14,889 I think 229 00:08:15,269 --> 00:08:16,329 as you go through 230 00:08:16,789 --> 00:08:18,729 this sort of change management process, 231 00:08:19,084 --> 00:08:20,845 there's there's a large number of, 232 00:08:21,645 --> 00:08:23,665 like a cloud migration is a good example. 233 00:08:23,805 --> 00:08:25,725 And there's a large number of resources that 234 00:08:25,725 --> 00:08:27,645 are are really applicable to any kind of 235 00:08:27,645 --> 00:08:29,024 any kind of large scale 236 00:08:29,404 --> 00:08:31,889 change management initiative that is put out by 237 00:08:31,889 --> 00:08:32,629 companies like 238 00:08:33,250 --> 00:08:35,250 AWS and Azure. And those those kind of 239 00:08:35,250 --> 00:08:37,330 cloud hyperscalers that it's their bread and butter 240 00:08:37,330 --> 00:08:40,129 to do large scale technology transformation. So they 241 00:08:40,129 --> 00:08:42,370 often have playbooks and frameworks that will enable 242 00:08:42,370 --> 00:08:44,049 you to do the cloud migration, but I've 243 00:08:44,049 --> 00:08:46,549 often found that they're actually just as applicable, 244 00:08:47,235 --> 00:08:48,134 if you're changing, 245 00:08:48,674 --> 00:08:51,095 what what ticketing system people are using or, 246 00:08:51,634 --> 00:08:53,394 you know, if you're changing Office or whatever. 247 00:08:53,394 --> 00:08:55,414 It's it's the same principles to, 248 00:08:55,875 --> 00:08:58,195 get people aligned, make sure people are bought 249 00:08:58,195 --> 00:09:00,195 in, make sure people understand why things are 250 00:09:00,195 --> 00:09:01,815 happening, make sure they have agency 251 00:09:02,220 --> 00:09:04,939 in the decision making. And and those those 252 00:09:04,939 --> 00:09:05,439 frameworks, 253 00:09:05,899 --> 00:09:07,740 they're published on these websites. They're they're very 254 00:09:07,740 --> 00:09:08,959 easy to consume. And, 255 00:09:09,339 --> 00:09:12,220 often, the large scale of cloud migrations means 256 00:09:12,220 --> 00:09:13,500 that they have to be very good and 257 00:09:13,500 --> 00:09:15,100 very robust. So you can sort of copy 258 00:09:15,100 --> 00:09:16,000 that as a template 259 00:09:16,445 --> 00:09:18,125 and move it move it across. And I'll 260 00:09:18,125 --> 00:09:18,945 say, like, 261 00:09:19,644 --> 00:09:22,125 never underestimate the amount of times you have 262 00:09:22,125 --> 00:09:24,845 to communicate with people. I think when you 263 00:09:24,845 --> 00:09:26,225 are a a leader 264 00:09:27,004 --> 00:09:29,184 leading change and leading transformation, 265 00:09:30,125 --> 00:09:31,024 it is your 266 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:32,179 day to day 267 00:09:32,879 --> 00:09:35,519 job to to constantly be thinking about the 268 00:09:35,519 --> 00:09:38,240 transformation and constantly be thinking about the the 269 00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:39,059 change management 270 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:41,919 and constantly be thinking about, like, how the 271 00:09:41,919 --> 00:09:43,840 communications go out and the why, and you 272 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:46,019 probably are, you know, giving the same presentation 273 00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:48,924 to 10 different people every week. But I 274 00:09:48,924 --> 00:09:50,924 always think about it in terms of what 275 00:09:50,924 --> 00:09:53,164 is that the person that I am talking 276 00:09:53,164 --> 00:09:55,804 to or I'm communicating with or presenting to, 277 00:09:55,804 --> 00:09:56,944 what is their worldview? 278 00:09:57,324 --> 00:09:59,184 And oftentimes, their worldview is 279 00:10:00,044 --> 00:10:01,884 thirty or twenty nine days out of the 280 00:10:01,884 --> 00:10:02,384 month, 281 00:10:02,690 --> 00:10:04,450 they are doing their day job and they 282 00:10:04,450 --> 00:10:06,450 have fire drills and customers to deal with 283 00:10:06,450 --> 00:10:07,429 and they need to, 284 00:10:07,889 --> 00:10:09,809 work on that. And then one day a 285 00:10:09,809 --> 00:10:11,970 month for, you know, thirty minutes, they hear 286 00:10:11,970 --> 00:10:13,970 a status update on your big change management 287 00:10:13,970 --> 00:10:15,970 approach. So while you feel like you're over 288 00:10:15,970 --> 00:10:16,470 communicating 289 00:10:16,835 --> 00:10:18,835 and you should communicate until you feel like 290 00:10:18,835 --> 00:10:19,735 you're over communicating, 291 00:10:20,274 --> 00:10:22,615 the people that you're communicating to are oftentimes 292 00:10:22,754 --> 00:10:24,914 hearing what you're saying, you know, in in 293 00:10:24,914 --> 00:10:26,995 a in a sea of other information that's 294 00:10:26,995 --> 00:10:29,154 that's very noisy. So the biggest thing I 295 00:10:29,154 --> 00:10:30,730 would say is treat everything, 296 00:10:31,110 --> 00:10:32,809 when you're thinking about change management, 297 00:10:33,429 --> 00:10:35,769 and you're thinking about adopting a platform approach. 298 00:10:37,110 --> 00:10:40,250 Treat everything as a large scale transformation 299 00:10:40,629 --> 00:10:42,250 because it is, and 300 00:10:42,684 --> 00:10:45,725 communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate almost until you're sick 301 00:10:45,725 --> 00:10:47,585 of communicating your message. You know? 302 00:10:48,445 --> 00:10:50,365 It's a lot of great advice for for 303 00:10:50,365 --> 00:10:52,305 our listeners. So so thank you, Rob. 304 00:10:52,684 --> 00:10:54,524 If you were to look ahead into the 305 00:10:54,524 --> 00:10:57,929 future, how do you see innovation then continuing 306 00:10:57,929 --> 00:11:00,889 to unfold at health plans? What's exciting you 307 00:11:00,889 --> 00:11:04,490 right now, and how can our audience listen 308 00:11:04,649 --> 00:11:07,070 listening in? How can leaders prepare 309 00:11:07,529 --> 00:11:09,230 for this future state? 310 00:11:10,024 --> 00:11:10,845 I am incredibly 311 00:11:11,465 --> 00:11:11,965 excited 312 00:11:12,504 --> 00:11:13,004 about 313 00:11:13,785 --> 00:11:16,924 the concept of having data in a consistent 314 00:11:17,065 --> 00:11:19,865 data model and stored in in, you know, 315 00:11:19,865 --> 00:11:21,804 systems that you can understand 316 00:11:22,424 --> 00:11:24,764 the entire enterprise data portfolio. 317 00:11:25,350 --> 00:11:27,669 I think once you have that, there are 318 00:11:27,669 --> 00:11:29,429 tremendous amounts of things you can do from 319 00:11:29,429 --> 00:11:32,089 a business intelligence and and data intelligence perspective. 320 00:11:32,309 --> 00:11:34,789 And machine learning and AI are are, you 321 00:11:34,789 --> 00:11:35,850 know, two obviously, 322 00:11:37,029 --> 00:11:40,225 top of everyone's mind examples of that. But 323 00:11:40,225 --> 00:11:42,644 you can also just start thinking about efficiency 324 00:11:42,865 --> 00:11:46,165 and and monitoring customer journeys through the system. 325 00:11:46,465 --> 00:11:48,625 And for us in this industry where we 326 00:11:48,625 --> 00:11:51,264 have this, you know, mess of integrations with 327 00:11:51,264 --> 00:11:53,345 thousands of different tools that we and then 328 00:11:53,345 --> 00:11:56,079 systems and APIs and batch jobs and messaging. 329 00:11:56,220 --> 00:11:57,659 For us to be able to consolidate that 330 00:11:57,659 --> 00:11:59,419 data into a single platform where we can 331 00:11:59,419 --> 00:12:01,199 start making really, really intelligent 332 00:12:01,659 --> 00:12:02,159 decisions 333 00:12:02,699 --> 00:12:05,179 about about the businesses that we're running is 334 00:12:05,179 --> 00:12:07,201 really exciting. And I think it's not just 335 00:12:07,201 --> 00:12:09,654 us making intelligent decisions about the business that 336 00:12:09,654 --> 00:12:11,894 we're running, but it's pointing these ML and 337 00:12:11,894 --> 00:12:12,954 these AI tools 338 00:12:13,254 --> 00:12:16,054 at that data and then training those models 339 00:12:16,054 --> 00:12:18,294 and and, you know, asking these agents to 340 00:12:18,294 --> 00:12:19,014 to make, 341 00:12:19,414 --> 00:12:22,669 decisions about about that data too and and 342 00:12:22,669 --> 00:12:25,309 asking them for input and seeing patterns across 343 00:12:25,309 --> 00:12:27,889 massive amounts of data. It's just it's incredibly 344 00:12:28,029 --> 00:12:30,509 exciting concept given the amount of data that 345 00:12:30,509 --> 00:12:32,829 that payers and health plans have. And then 346 00:12:32,829 --> 00:12:34,509 I think if I I sort of play 347 00:12:34,509 --> 00:12:35,649 that out in my mind, 348 00:12:36,284 --> 00:12:38,684 you know, you can take that data and 349 00:12:38,684 --> 00:12:39,904 you can take that intelligence 350 00:12:40,524 --> 00:12:42,544 and, you know, combine that with cloud, 351 00:12:43,245 --> 00:12:46,044 this the infinite scalability of cloud, and you 352 00:12:46,044 --> 00:12:48,845 can start doing digital twins of that data 353 00:12:48,845 --> 00:12:50,924 and digital twins of the plans and and 354 00:12:50,924 --> 00:12:52,720 using that to to do what if modeling 355 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:55,519 and and planning out different scenarios and saying 356 00:12:55,519 --> 00:12:58,159 if I change this this contract here or, 357 00:12:58,159 --> 00:12:59,919 you know, I change this plan line item 358 00:12:59,919 --> 00:13:01,600 here or this this, in our case, the 359 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:02,339 health rules, 360 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:05,039 you know, what impact would that have had 361 00:13:05,039 --> 00:13:06,865 over the last twelve months? Where do we 362 00:13:06,865 --> 00:13:08,225 think that's gonna go in the future? And 363 00:13:08,225 --> 00:13:10,004 you you can have tens 364 00:13:10,384 --> 00:13:12,465 of hundreds of or tens and hundreds of 365 00:13:12,465 --> 00:13:14,565 these digital twins of your business 366 00:13:14,945 --> 00:13:17,024 in the cloud that you're you're able to, 367 00:13:17,504 --> 00:13:19,985 to model different scenarios and different tweaks and 368 00:13:19,985 --> 00:13:22,580 different pieces of business efficiency and and different, 369 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:24,240 things that are gonna have a real impact 370 00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:25,840 to your customer and their customer experience. And 371 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:27,460 that's something that is just 372 00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:29,759 a vision that's almost unheard of right now 373 00:13:29,759 --> 00:13:31,620 where your data is everywhere. 374 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:33,840 You have to, you know, cut a ticket 375 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:35,379 to a a a business, 376 00:13:36,295 --> 00:13:39,735 analyst team or a business intelligence team. You 377 00:13:39,735 --> 00:13:41,975 know, they'll put the dashboard together or they'll 378 00:13:41,975 --> 00:13:43,975 put the report together. You know, you're looking 379 00:13:43,975 --> 00:13:46,535 at two, three week cycle times, sometimes at 380 00:13:46,535 --> 00:13:47,035 best. 381 00:13:47,735 --> 00:13:49,070 And then you finally get the data, and 382 00:13:49,070 --> 00:13:50,190 then you analyze it. You wrote something wrong. 383 00:13:50,190 --> 00:13:51,149 You have to go back. You know, there's 384 00:13:51,149 --> 00:13:53,470 this really long lead time on business intelligence 385 00:13:53,470 --> 00:13:55,149 right now. And I think as we start 386 00:13:55,149 --> 00:13:57,070 to consolidate data models and we start to 387 00:13:57,070 --> 00:13:58,929 consolidate our data infrastructure, 388 00:13:59,470 --> 00:14:01,470 we're gonna be able to, you know, get 389 00:14:01,470 --> 00:14:01,970 answers 390 00:14:02,355 --> 00:14:04,294 in in almost real time 391 00:14:04,674 --> 00:14:08,034 to very, very complex business scenario modeling, and 392 00:14:08,034 --> 00:14:10,855 that's gonna be incredibly powerful for for customers. 393 00:14:12,195 --> 00:14:14,674 Well, clearly, a lot of really exciting things 394 00:14:14,674 --> 00:14:16,754 on the horizon. So, Rob, I wanna thank 395 00:14:16,754 --> 00:14:18,850 you for taking the time to sit down 396 00:14:18,850 --> 00:14:20,690 with us and for sharing your insights with 397 00:14:20,690 --> 00:14:23,250 our listeners. We really appreciate it. Thank you. 398 00:14:23,250 --> 00:14:25,009 It's been a pleasure. I'd also like to 399 00:14:25,009 --> 00:14:27,179 thank our podcast sponsor, HealthEdge. 400 00:14:27,559 --> 00:14:29,159 You can tune in to more podcasts from 401 00:14:29,159 --> 00:14:31,799 Becker's HealthCare by visiting our podcast page at 402 00:14:31,799 --> 00:14:34,139 beckershospitalreview.com.