At athenahealth,
we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier,
a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier
patients.
But the complexities of modern health care tech
make it hard for you and your care
teams to focus on what matters most.
That's where athenahealth can help.
Our AI native all in one solutions reduce
administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most.
That means fewer clicks, more time for patients,
and stronger bottom lines. Practicing medicine is complex,
but running a practice can be that much
simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.
Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Health Care
podcast.
I'm Elizabeth Gregersen, a reporter here at Becker's,
and I'm thrilled to interview doctor Wayne Franklin,
senior vice president of the Heart and Lung
Center at Children's National Hospital on the podcast
today.
Doctor Franklin, thank you so much for joining
me. I'm very excited to chat as we've
connected before
when I was lucky enough to share some
of your leadership strategies with our cardiology report
newsletter audience.
Before we dive in, could you introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your background?
Sure. Thanks for having me, Elizabeth. So I'm
Wayne Franklin. I served as the senior vice
president of the Heart and Lung Center here
at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC,
our nation's capital.
I
started this role in June
2024.
So I've been here for a little over
a year here in DC.
And before this, I was,
the codirect of the heart center at Phoenix
Children's in Phoenix, Arizona
for five years. And before that, I was,
a faculty cardiologist at Texas Children's and Baylor
College of Medicine in Houston,
Texas for, for seventeen years, so a long
time. But in my role now as senior
vice president, I oversee all things heart and
lung at our hospital.
So that is cardiology,
cardiac anesthesia, cardiac surgery,
cardiac ICU, and pulmonary and sleep medicine. And
we also do heart and lung transplants, so
that falls under my center as well.
Perfect. Thank you so much for for setting
that up for us.
So our audience, you know, is full of
hospital and health system leaders. Some of them
touch cardiology.
Some are, you know, in other areas.
I'd love to get your insight
on what you feel are the top three
biggest issues
in cardiology today that you think the Becker's
audience
should be aware of.
Sure. So I I think there's three distinct
ones, and then they're all different areas. So
I think the first one is workforce.
I think we as cardiovascular care professionals,
are facing a a serious workforce
challenge in the next ten years. And
by 2035,
some studies have estimated that we'll be short
about 8,000 cardiologists.
And if you don't plan properly, that could
increase to 12,000.
Think about how many people and how many
lives those 12,000 cardiologists can impact. So I
think it's really important for us to plan
on ways that we could continue this workforce.
Many of our older cardiologists
are retiring, and we're not producing enough, you
know, younger cardiology fellows to offset those workforce
reduction. So I think we need to do
put some things in motion,
for making training more accessible to removing barriers
to enter the field to even streamlining
the certification, recertification
process and work on some of these ways
that can help impact the projected
workforce shortage. Next, you almost can't have a
podcast without talking about AI, artificial intelligence. Right?
So I think that that is also an
exciting,
area that is set to revolutionize
cardiovascular care and health care overall.
I think, there are so much data published
essentially every day that it's almost impossible
for a doctor, a clinician to keep up
with the most current practices.
And by using AI enabled tools,
we should be able to harness some of
these data
and therapeutic recommendations
and and hopefully develop
algorithms that can
sort of suggest therapies and and management plans
for almost any disease.
If you look at cardiovascular imaging itself, you
know, there's a ton of things we do
for imaging.
And what we need to do is use
AI to hopefully streamline,
the interpretation, maybe even provide a a preliminary
read, and that can help a lot of
the the cardiovascular imagers.
And then you as I like to say,
the mundane and simple things, the the things
that aren't very sexy like note writing and
billing
can be impacted with AI. The idea of
ambient listening where,
a a a bot can listen to,
an encounter between a doctor and a patient.
It can generate a note, and some technology
is even out there that can suggest what,
billing or or coding options would be available
is is huge. And that can really impact
of what we call the jammer time, which
is that time spent kind of after hours
and on weekends,
you know, doing documentation
and and charting. I know a lot of
doctors,
you know, we sort of dread that, but
it's part of the part of the process
now.
I think that'll help with burnout. The last
thing I would say, and then I'll go
it on a limb here,
is the impact of,
of private equity.
I think,
honestly, these private equity companies are are threat
to health care.
I think, a lot of times these companies
are just all about making a profit, and
they don't necessarily
give a real thought or impact to quality.
And so that can reflect poorly on the
physician and that can lead to to, you
know, worse patient outcomes. And so I think
we need to be really,
really aware that this is happening. A lot
of big private equity firms are are buying
physician practices
and a lot of times cardiology practices because
they tend to to make a lot of
money.
And I think that's part of the issue.
And so, you know, they come along with
these big incentives that buy out. And after
three to five years, though, doctors aren't left
with very much.
And, anyway, I know it's a controversial topic,
but I think that, it's not really the
right model for modern health care.
Thank you so much. I think, you know,
the workforce,
AI, and private equity, those are, you know,
three topics that we see come up almost
daily in our coverage across all specialties,
across, you know, our finance line. So,
I appreciate you kind of
letting us speak behind the curtain and seeing
how all those, you know,
topics are are affecting cardiology today.
I'd love to know
how you see
heart care evolving
over the next year, eighteen months?
You touched on a little bit with AI,
but are there any kind of events on
the horizon
that perhaps we should be preparing for?
Yeah. That's a good question. You know, I
think
to to address this AI topic again, I
think it's really a a great time
to to look forward to the future of
of cardiovascular care and cardiology. If you just
look at the basic things like ambient listening,
that can, you know,
translate a a note for us. So but
it's done by the time we get out
of the room.
Chart review and scanning. Right? So it can
really just digest the whole long
chart and and come up with some short
paragraphs that can summarize all of the imper
pertinent data.
I think to our revenue cycle folks,
I think, you know, the idea of a
software that can suggest billing and coding, that's
another,
big thing that that we,
sort of need help with. And I was
just in meeting today,
about,
prior authorization and and medication denials and procedure
denials. Again, these are basic
business of medicine things
that, you know, we as doctors may not
really think about but are so important as
you know for hospital,
financials and and for hospital leaders. And if
we could automate a lot of that and
decrease the administrative burden but also become more
effective at it, I think that would really
that's really where we need to go. And
there's so many
start ups and companies out there that are
investing in this and developing products. I think
it's an exciting time, and we're really really
gonna see a lot of these come come
through in the next year or two.
Yeah. Yeah. You're echoing a lot of things
that we hear where, you know, there's just
so many companies that are are getting their
foot in the door and so many solutions
that are popping up. So I think that's
definitely something we'll be seeing, like I said,
in the next year, eighteen months of which
ones are still working and which ones, you
know,
are actually moving the needle for for hospitals.
I guess keeping that forward momentum,
what are you excited about
today when you think about the future of
cardiology?
And, you know, candidly,
are there any aspects that
maybe make you feel nervous when you think
about the future?
Yeah. You know, I tend to be an
optimist. So I'm gonna start, with the nervous
part, and I'll end with the exciting part
so we can end on a high note.
Things that make me, yeah, things that make
me nervous,
are are really honestly the public's perception
of health care.
And even though I live and work in
Washington, DC, I won't get too political,
but I think it is really
incumbent on the physicians and the scientists to
lead the way regarding public health recommendations
and direct patient care. You know, I think
we need more humanism in medicine.
I remember when I was in medical school,
UCLA,
we would learn about the science of medicine.
We'd also learn about the art of medicine.
And when I think about the art of
medicine, I think we now call this care
delivery. Right? How do we foster and manage
the doctor patient relationship?
And I think it'll be really important as
a lot of changes are happening that, we
use evidence based medicine delivered in a humanistic
approach
where the patients and families can trust us.
So I think that's what makes me nervous
is that we really have to, you know,
drill down to the the way care delivered
on a on a, you know,
provider to
patient level in order to really
engender trust and to move forward together.
What am I excited about?
There's a lot of things that excite me.
I think it's a great time to be
in health care and as a physician.
I think modern technology, again, with the idea
of artificial intelligence or so called augmented intelligence
as one of my doctor friends calls it,
I think we're on the precipice of really
making huge impacts in how we care for
patients and how we deliver care.
I think things like telemedicine
and remote monitoring,
wearable technology,
I think we have such a large amount
of data
and, that we can use it at our
fingertips. But the challenge for us as providers
and as clinicians is how to harness these
data
and really how to translate that into better
health outcomes for patients.
But, you know, I don't want to say
that's the fun part of being a doctor
is to be able to use these data
and science in really an innovative way to
benefit patients.
That's what drives me,
and that's why I'm excited,
to wake up and to come to work
every day here at Children's National.
Amazing. Yeah. I think that's such a great
point. I never really thought about it that
way before, but hearing you talk, it's kind
of like, you know, even a few years
ago,
we would have or health care leaders would
have been desperate for the amount of data
that they have today. And but now we've
got the data, and it's now figure taking
that next step of figuring out, like you
said, how to harness it. I think that's
I think that's super exciting as well, so
I'm glad to hear,
it excites you.
That's all the time we have today. So
I just wanna thank you again for joining
me on the podcast.
I really feel like it's been a great
informative discussion,
and
I just wanna thank you again for sharing
your time and your insights.
Well, great. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Thanks
for having me, and I wish you guys
have a good day.
Absolutely. And I invite all of our listeners
to tune in to more podcasts from Becker's
Healthcare
by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.
Thank you again, doctor Franklin, for your time,
and I hope everyone has a great rest
of your day.
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants
healthier,
a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier
patients.
But the complexities of modern health care tech
make it hard for you and your care
teams to focus on what matters most.
That's where athenahealth can help.
Our AI native all in one solutions reduce
administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most. That means fewer
clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom
lines.
Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice
can be that much simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.