Hi. Welcome to the Becker Health care podcast.
I'm Paige 20. I'm a assistant editor here
at Becker Healthcare care, and I'm thrilled to
interview. Doctor. P Via today. She joined us
from Bj Christian Hospital as Vice President and
Chief Medical Officer.
You know, thank you so much for, joining
us, but before we dive in, you know,
I'd love to have Doctor. Villa, introduce themselves
and tell us a bit about background.
Hi. Thank you for having me. So I'm
an internal medicine
physician, and I practice as a hospital list.
I've been at Bj since 2019,
and I've been in my current role as
the Chief Medical Officer for the past 2
and a half years.
So
thank you for having me. I'm excited to
be here.
Yeah. And we're we're honestly thrilled. So can
you kind tell me about, you know,
your most successful project initiative from the past
few months or even from the past 2
and a half years that you've been Cmo.
I would love to. So, you know, the
1 thing that I'm sure most hospitals are
trying to tackle is length of stay.
Last year, we started what we call the
contemporary care model with our case managers and
social workers.
This really helped to align their rule at
the hospital with what their
education was that they went to school for.
This sort of deviation between the 2 roles
helped us improve our length of stay last
year from I would say
6.5
when we first started to a arrange of
0.2 to 5.7
when the year ended.
To add to those efforts, this year, our
hospital decided to do inter
rounds on our floors.
And to just explain our inter
rounds are meant for the hospital list.
The case manager, social workers, diet,
pharmacists,
and nursing to all come together and discuss
the patient in a cuddle
to make sure everybody's on the same page,
and, you know our big question is,
what is the reason the patient cannot go
home today. And we try to help
alleviate the barriers to discharge as quickly as
we can to get the patients back home
where they really want to be.
So if I heard correctly, the length of
stay average in days went from 6.5
to 5.2
dash 5.7
range. Was this gonna be expected
results or product?
It was, you know, our overall busy index
length of stay dropped significantly,
and we're starting to see that our inter
rounds are also making an effect. So I
think by the end of this year, we're
really hoping to bring down our length of
stay even more.
Mh.
Yeah.
Statistic number in mind for that length to
stay average by the end of 20 24?
I would love to surpass 5.2
if possible, but we'll just see.
Okay. Right down of my nets, less than
5.2.
Is the goal.
Yes.
So whether it's related to Length of stay
or another initiative,
you know, what I've Bj Christian
is kind of the biggest challenge you expect
to face in the next coming months.
Biggest challenge, you know, I think for us
is really to help our patients,
get the care that they need outside the
hospital set setting. We really wanna hire more
Pcp,
get the patients the care they need in
the outpatient setting,
get them the resources that they need to
be able to
get to their appointments and help with transportation
or
get them to healthy food ops, you know,
where our hospital is located, we're in a
food desert, and it's really difficult for patients
to find healthy options when they really needed
the most.
We have a high diabetes
population, lots of patients that have end stage
renal disease in heart failure.
So you can imagine some of these resources
are really important for them.
I know that 1 thing that we'd love
to do is see if there's ways that
we can touch those patients so that they
don't need to come to the Ed,
but the care can be taken care of
even at home.
There's 2 projects that we're really proud of.
1 is our chat program, which is our
community health access program.
We have community health workers, nurse practice
social workers helping to reach out to these
patients. And really, there is no rule. The
idea is to be able to help the
patient in whatever they need to get them
the health care that they need. And another
program we have is our paramedic program that
tries to reach out to our C patients,
congestive heart failure patients,
We try to get them the care they
need at home as well from taking care
of their lower extremity edema to any issues
with shortness of breath, equipment issues, medication changes
and things like that so that they don't
have to travel away, and they can get
the care they need where they feel the
most comfortable?
And are those programs the check program in
the paramedic program, are those fully flush out
or those being launched in, you know, waves
or phases?
I will say our chat program is pretty
fully launched.
The paramedic program is what I'll say in
semi pilot phase. We've done. We've started a
while back, and now I think we're starting
to
get more robust. We're learning from our own
process and, you know, just trying to continuously
improve the program.
And I think we're off to a great
start.
Yes, I mentioned, you, growing just
overall growing that outpatient, care capabilities, especially in
the home.
The stuart you mentioned having more of Pcp
which I know is a big struggle across
the Us with, you know, physician shortages and,
you know,
expectations and forecasts of, even a larger dear
of Pcp,
what has been your strategy, your thoughts on,
bolstering that workforce.
I think we really need to focus on
physician well being,
you know, to be a primary care provider,
it really needs
to
happen when
somebody
when somebody is able to spend the time
that the patient needs,
without worrying about the other burdens of health
care is when you can really have a
program that works.
And I believe that the providers will want
to be primary care providers when being a
care... A primary care provider becomes a bit
easier.
Right now, with physicians, there's a lot of
you know,
administrative burden in terms of
documentation and how long
documentation takes
we spend a lot of time actually away
from the bedside, and you rather be with
the patient more and be able to problem
solved together and have those conversations
rather than be stuck behind a computer screen.
I think artificial intelligence, there's a lot of
programs that are coming out that are gonna
make it easier for the provider,
so that we can spend more time talking
to the patient rather than being behind a
computer screen.
And also be able to get the patients
the care they need without having to jump
through so many hurdles.
Do you think those Ai capabilities are viable
option of or viable kind of
pollution or kind of mitigation strategy to, you
know, that time spent?
Patients and kind of encouraging more to enter
the physician practices.
You know, I do. I think it depends
on what you use and how that Ai
tool is able to help you. We've piloted
a few at our hospitals,
and we've learned that
1, the user needs to be able to
use it. So if the physicians are struggling
to use the tool, it's not gonna be
helpful. So
instead of it, all burden, it's causing more.
The other thing is that Ai learns the
more you use it. So I do believe
that when you find a good product, the
more you use it, the more likely it's
gonna start to incorporate into your patient to
visit and
make it easier each, time.
The 1 that we use was about just,
you know, as scribe and Ai being able
to listen to the conversation and creating a
note for you that the provider can edit
afterwards.
Just that basic concept is very popular because
providers love the idea of not having to
write down things or be behind a computer
when they're talking to the patient. This really
allows you to just have a conversation with
the patient, explain the plan, talk about what's
things the next step. And then once you're
done with that visit, you could quickly just
look at your note even on your phone
and and make edits if you need to,
and then sign it on your way to
your next patient's room.
I I feel like what I just said
there sounds great, but I think it it
will require a lot of work and a
lot of education to get the full value
and benefit out of it.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Is there Anything I know we're
coming up on time, but is there anything
that I haven't gotten the chance to ask
about that you'd like to add or,
like to mention?
Nothing in particular, You know, I think nowadays,
being a chief medical officer, you're you're starting
to think more
about
strategically growing
care and increasing access to health care. And
I'll say that the work that I've been
doing with length of stay or community health
or even just trying to tackle some of
our metrics like quality metrics in in the
hospital versus read admission rates
it it really all comes down to us
coming out of what the typical Cmo role
was and and venturing out into areas where
you learn more about
how to really make an influence and
grow
financially as well as in quality realm without
having to decide... Precise 1 or the other.
Right. Right. Well, that's all great. I wish
we could talk more, but we promised our
podcast
short. But, you know, thank you so much,
For Joining me today,
ensuring nurse thoughtful and insightful
points. And for audience, we'd love to see
you all and for hear more of these
conversations happening at our upcoming clinical leadership forum
at the Becker Ceo and Cfo Round table,
which is taking place Chicago, November 11 through
to fourteenth.
There's limited space available, but please let us
know if you're like to join. Alright. Thank
you again so much.
Thank you. In