This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Chen, Kai Kao,
who's the Chief Clinical Informatics Innovation Officer at Uch Chicago Medicine.
Kai, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Now, I know we have a lot to talk about.
There's so much happening in the clinical informatics space,
and certainly I'm intrigued by your title,
having both the clinical informatics and innovation in there.
But before we dive into my broader questions,
can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Of course. So, um, I'm a hospitalist by training. Um,
so I spend a lot of time seeing inpatients, um,
mostly general medicine patients, and have done that for, you know,
about 12 to 13 years by now. And I also hold, you know,
some administrative positions in hospital, including, as you mentioned,
the Chief Clinical Run Innovation Officer, which I really focused a lot of,
you know, um, informatics operations, especially for inpatient, uh,
capacity access and qualities. And also, you know,
thinking about on the innovative side, you know, you know,
all the interesting projects that really help accelerate the care. You know,
improving the quality and also expanding our access, uh,
sort of the things that I do as well.
Excellent. Wow.
So it sounds like you certainly have your hands full at your Chicago medicine
and you know,
from your perspective and vantage point with so many different roles,
where do you see the big opportunities for healthcare as well as the headwinds
that you have your eyes on right now?
Yeah, I think we have, you know,
obviously we are in the post covid era where, you know,
a lot of things are still, you know, being restored. Um, but in the meantime,
if one thing accelerated through covid, that will be the overall,
the telehealth and, and overall the informatics, um, you know, um,
opportunities. Um, so we're excited to see, you know, there's a lot of,
um, booming, um, programs around how do we spend, you know,
outreach to the patients through, for example,
remote patient monitoring or Apache Ho I spend a lot of time, um, um,
it's called Hospital at home, uh, ho essentially providing, you know,
acute hospital, um, care to the patients home.
So I see a lot of opportunity where home become a new alternative site
of care in the future. And, you know, a lot of these services, um,
enabled by technology informatics, um, solutions were, you know, um,
helping us to be able to provide the care in the patient's home, you know,
where they really belongs. Um,
so I think there's really a lot of opportunity here and that's why we have been,
um, you know, working on over the last three years.
That's great to hear. And you know, especially looking at the hospital at home,
I know that's a trend across the country and some organizations are further
along the journey than others. And, you know, in your experience,
what have you learned in, um,
setting up a program like that and what does it take to, to be successful?
Yeah, we are just started, um,
we have been planning this for almost two years and we just saw our first
patients, um,
earlier this year and we are now planning to launch hopefully in the next few
months. Um, you know, officially, so very exciting for us. Um, and,
you know, you asked the key question, you know,
where it really takes a lot of resources and planning, um,
to kick up this such a program. Um, we, we think there is a lot of value. Um,
so I think recognizing what the value is for the organization,
cause the answer could be slightly different for organization to organization,
but for us it would be improving our capacity access. Uh,
we constantly are full all the time, um, in the hospital. Um,
so there's not a way to quickly, you know,
increase the bad numbers that open us up for more, um, you know,
sicker patients that can, um, you know, um, be hospitalized. Um, so really,
you know, hospital home becomes a way to really expand the access, um,
allow more patients to be treated. In the meantime,
I think there's a huge component for patient experience. Um,
so patients are up and mobile a lot more often than they traditionally are in
the hospital. In the first patient that we just had,
I observed the patient in the hospital where he was mostly bedbound because he
was deemed have to have certain floor risk.
And so even though he has his cane just right next to him,
it doesn't walk around.
He literally just pretty much tied to the bed and watch TV most of the time.
But once we transfer him home, we saw him actually get up, walk around,
uses Cane to walk in the living room,
he eating the meal that we send over to him,
and just quickly we see the smiley face, the energy in him just, you know,
after a few hours we return from him home.
So we believe home is really the optimal place for a lot of patients,
especially elderly patients to recover. And I think that's something that,
you know,
even though we know for sure we still not be able to provide care at home
because, you know, a lot of limitations we had before. Um, but now with the,
you know, with the covid, you know, with the waiver program in front of cms,
now we finally have the opportunity and also reimbursement mechanism to actually
make this work. So I think recognizing those values, um,
identifying if that's important for your organization, then it's all about,
you know, investments and, and software planning. Um, I would just say this is,
uh, a very, um, robust community, um,
given the programs still pretty young and new,
most of the hospital home programs across the country already supporting one
another. Um, so if there's any questions, you know, um, you know,
there's always a lot of people who were, you know,
happy to answering those questions voluntarily. And if anyone, you know,
is listening are interested in knowing more about Host Their Home, again,
I would really love to return the favor as well, and happy to get that resource,
um, provide you if there's any questions.
Fantastic. I, I think that's so helpful to know and just really great results,
um, even for a single person to be able to have that opportunity to go home and
really come to life more. I, I think that's so important. Now,
when you look more broadly,
how are you thinking about growth and adding value to the organization overall?
Yeah, so, um, it's just like I mentioned, I think, you know, um,
we need to really improve the access for both inpatient and outpatients.
And I think we are doing a lot more now through, um,
also at home and telemedicine, um, type of initiative, um, to expand the access.
Um, but in the meantime,
we also need to just make it easier for patients to actually, um, contact us,
make appointments, ask questions. So I think, you know,
a lot of the initiative around digital front door,
a lot of initiative around how do we improve the patient engagement, you know,
through the patient portal and how do we actually direct the patient to make the
appointment to the right providers. I mean, I think there's a lot,
still a lot of opportunities where, you know, um,
that we need to work on to improve the growth and also add more value. And,
and ultimately I think traditionally healthcare has been a very, a episodic,
um, services where patient gets sick,
they either go to our urgent care clinic or go to ED and be hospitalized even.
Um, but all we know is like per episode, like in between,
we don't have a ton of, um, way to engage and also, um, monitor,
um, you know, their progress. Um, and but now I think again,
with remote patient monitoring with, you know, some of the AI that's coming up,
I'm sure it's on hot topics everywhere, um,
that there's some interesting opportunity where we can provide more seamless
service, um, by leveraging these, um, new tools to, um,
engage patients and answer their questions.
That makes a lot of sense. You know,
and it's really fascinating to hear about how the Paradigm healthcare is
shifting and changing, you know, to,
to bring in more patient engagement as well as connection,
the episodes of care and, and really bridging that gap from your perspective in,
in thinking about how healthcare is changing, evolving,
what is an important risk or an investment that is really worth making this
year?
I mean, on the news, obviously LGBT is everywhere. Um, and you know, I,
I think all in all, I think we, it's worth to really, um,
not necessarily invest, but at least explore, um, you know, all these, you know,
AI solutions. It's ongoing.
It's not just about large language models such as J G B T,
but there's also a couple of others, you know, for imaging, for videos. I mean,
we are in the era where there's a revolution coming in, um, you know,
through these ai. So how would that impact our healthcare? Um,
how do we make sure we put that in the guard rail so you,
you would benefit our patients, but in the meantime we make sure, for example,
you wouldn't provide any false information to our patients.
I think that's definitely one thing worth exploring and,
and really coming up with the structure for that.
Like how do we government that in the meantime, being able to support and adapt,
you know, all these newest solutions, um, you know, from the market.
Fascinating to hear about. And, and, um,
I really love your point in terms of looking at artificial intelligence and how
that can incorporate in healthcare, especially clinical care, effectively in,
you know, when you talk about the images and, and, um,
I know there's a lot going on there as well.
Are there any technologies that you've been particularly intrigued by or just in
general looking at artificial intelligence, large language models and how that,
um, some of those, you know,
data-driven initiatives can really make a difference?
Yeah, we are looking at this in a couple different fronts. Um, so one is,
you know, you know, just on the news there's, you know, um,
partnership between Epic Open AI and, and Microsoft as well.
So we are also exploring, you know, the, the implementation of, um,
you know, piloting using essentially GD like, um, language models in, you know,
sort of the ehr, um, which can really help improve the documentation,
ease of practice in the meantime also potentially can improve the patient, um,
experience as well by having, you know, a more, you know,
human um, and model. They can talk to the patient, provide some of the feedback.
Um, but at minimum,
at least you can help us draft some of the messages and be more efficient, um,
which just help solve a lot of issues obviously around burn out. Um,
cause you know, we, we keep talking about,
so there's a lot of burn out not just in providers,
but in nurses and essentially everyone in healthcare. Um,
so this is just one example where I think AI can help us be more, um,
uh, more efficient, um, and in some way more capable, um, because, you know,
we usually wouldn't have that much time to really come up with, uh,
a long message thorough messages.
But now AI can actually help put together a lot of meaningful summaries in a
relatively be short period of time. And, um, you know,
we still need people to sign off and, you know,
before this message was sent out, but that obviously largely, um,
reduced the time, um, um, that we spent. You know,
I also think there's just a lot of opportunities in the future, you know,
in this regard. Um, you know, we are also exploring like, um,
you know, can we apply for example, some of the robots in healthcare?
So we have, you know, we are actually purchasing and not purchasing, um,
contracting with some monthly robots that can help to support, um, you know,
some of the medications or labs basements, um,
to help us just be more efficient. Um, you know, even including all of ours.
Um, there's also a couple of other like mbn um,
technical services we are also looking into to see if they can further, um,
improve our, um, care efficiency and, and patient experience.
Fantastic. And, and that is really great to hear. Now,
before we wrap up our conversation, I just wanted to ask,
are there any other opportunities for growth that you're seeing in the future?
Um, I would just say, oh no, I think the application of AI and the automation,
like, you know, if we can take off the burden, um, you know,
from essentially any clinician in the care processes by doing AI and
automation, then they can really be focusing on the more important stuff,
which is talking to the patients. Because I think really think nothing replaces,
you know, the face-to-face interactions and conversation. Um, so we,
we sh share a lot about, you know, the opportunities and,
and applications of these technology,
but I think fundamentally our goal is to be able to make us more efficient so
people can spend more time with the patients,
focus on more complex cases where AI won't be able to help, um,
fully and really, you know,
improve the care processes and experience in those regards. Um,
I think in the future, you know, um, everyone,
not just healthcare people just need to learn how to use these AI tools cuz the
people who know how to use them ultimately, you know,
will be a lot more efficient than those who don't. Um, and,
and so this becomes sort of a homework assignment or, or sort of things we, we,
you know, we, we have to learn, you know,
in the next few years about how we actually apply that in a good way in
healthcare.
Fantastic. Well, Kai, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been such a fun and insightful conversation and I'm really looking
forward to your sessions as well at the Health IT Digital Health and Revenue
Cycle event in October. I think it'll be amazing time in such, uh, great,
um, information and data sharing and uh, all sorts of conversations going on.
So I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
Thank you so much, and again,
thanks again for having me and very much looking forward to the event as well.