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This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
doctor Lisa Fort, assistant chief medical information officer
and system medical director of the virtual care
center at Ochsner Health. Doctor Fort, it's a
pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thanks for having me, Laura. Very happy to
be here.
Absolutely. And, you know, I'm looking forward to
our conversation because I know you are a
very technology forward health system, and you're leveraging,
technology and virtual care in very unique ways.
And so it'll be exciting to dig a
little bit deeper into that. But before we
do, can you tell us a little bit
more about yourself and National Health?
Absolutely. So I am an emergency physician.
That's my clinical background. Still practice and emergency
medicine. Typically work about a shift a week.
I, I lovingly term it my living laboratory
and still really enjoy patient care. It's very
grounding. Back to the mission.
I currently hold the roles of assistant chief
medical information officer
for our inpatient services. We
have a large integrated delivery network,
you know, more than 45 hospitals. And so
my responsibilities
include our areas, including not just the emergency
department, but our inpatient settings, our critical care
settings, our procedural settings, kind of everything that
happens,
within the hospital itself.
And my additional role is as our system
medical director
of our virtual care center, which is our
centralized,
quote, unquote, care traffic control center that focuses
specifically on
centralized monitoring as well as, resourcing like our
our virtual nursing program.
Absolutely. Wow. That's, incredible to hear and, you
know, helpful to understand everything that you're accountable
for and how that all works together from
the clinical side as well as the technology
and leadership side too.
I'm curious from the last year or so.
Could you tell us about, the most important
initiative that you led? What did you do,
and what were the results?
We had a really interesting project that we
kicked off actually in October
2024,
but last year was really the first year
first full year that was in place.
The challenge that we were presented with was
the,
the the the problem of ED overcrowding
and our observed versus expected ED utilization, our
patient population.
We're located in the Deep South.
We have facilities, you know, especially our inpatient
facilities throughout Louisiana into Mississippi, even a little
bit in Alabama.
And so we have tremendous
challenges in terms of patients ability to access
medical care, especially preventative medical care.
And, you know, it's even worse in rural
areas where we have many health deserts. And
so
what we saw was a lot of patients
by default or just having to go to
the ED to get care for routine things
and not just their bona fide emergencies that
they would need to be there for. And
so we were challenged by our executive team
to think about an innovative
way to be able to address that problem.
And what we came up with was,
virtual emergency department where we have a board
certified ED physician working with a navigator, and
we do this seven days a week, three
hundred sixty five days a year. We're able
to take escalations from various different places in
our organization, including our nurse on call line,
Ochsner on call, as well as our primary
care clinics, our urgent care clinics, and our
specialty clinics
to help to be a layer
to be able to determine if a patient
may have the ability to get what they
need in alternative
setting.
And so
patients that historically were just been referred to
the ED,
we're able to say, oh, you know, we
can we can help to facilitate some of
the care orchestration they may need to be
able to get
maybe a medication that they need, or we
can do a virtual visit with them and
and do some, you know, additional assessment of
what might need be need to be, taken
care of for the patient. And then also
provide direct linkage to care,
within or without our system so that we
can make sure we get them the appropriate
follow-up.
So the first year results were pretty exciting.
We saw more than,
16,000 patients through that program, and we're able
to keep
about sixty five percent of them out of
the emergency department and and provide alternative care
for them. And we were also able to
link about eighty two percent of those patients
to care so that they got their follow-up
steps since the things that we actually recommended
that they do. And so I think that
shows that patients are really engaged with this.
They believe that the advice we give them
is the right advice and they're able to
complete that. So,
very exciting as a whole and something we
look to build in 2026.
That's amazing to hear. And, you know, what,
fantastic results you were able to bring within,
you know, just making a few adjustments and
thinking about the preventative care side. I'm curious,
how much of a culture of mind shift
change was that? Or or was it really
pretty simple to get the team on board
and make those changes once, you know, you
decided to have that focus?
I think that there you know, we had
all these different stakeholders in this, and it
was a huge cultural shift. We spent a
lot of time, you know, talking about things
and and talking to people about what some
of the challenges they they saw were within
the existing system. One of the most important
things was just making this super, super easy
for people. And so,
the way it works is essentially we take
messages through our EHR,
and we're able to respond
almost immediately. I think we did a time
track where it was something like forty forty
seconds. And so really getting people real time
linkage to
assets that help them to manage patients was
was really key.
It has to be easier than what they
were doing or people won't do it, and
they have to see the benefit for themselves
and for their patients.
So I think that as we started, we
had,
really heavy
uptake and use. And our key user group
is still our OXENROL Choline. Of course, patients
who are experiencing
bonafide emergencies, they're having crushing chest pain or
having stroke symptoms or sensitive ED without that
intervening step. We don't want to delay care.
And then patients who have really low acuity
things, they can just be scheduled to see
their primary care doctor, their pediatricians,
that we still you know, that all still
happens, but it's all those patients in the
middle. And so a lot of it was
just describing how we can do those safely
and effectively, and then I think we got
people to get on board.
Got it. That's helpful to understand. Thank you
so much for, describing that process and, you
know, helping dig a little bit deeper there.
Now looking ahead, what are some of your
big priorities as well as headwinds for 2026?
So apart from just ED utilization, I think
one of the things we did really well
last year was we were able to impact
our framework of inpatient quality. So everything from
hospital acquired complications to hospital acquired infections. So
know, when patients come into the hospital and
they fall or they may acquire pressure entry
or they develop
a catheter associated urinary tract infection. So truly
by leveraging the virtual care center as a
whole, which is, you know, a set of
different
people working in a centralized fashion to be
able to help to screen through patients and
and put things into place to help them
to get out of the hospital quicker and,
you know, without experiencing any harm has been
a really big initiative, and we were able
to really kind of blow away our targets
and our goals.
I think that as we look at 2026,
it's about how to bring all these things
together so that we're looking at it, you
know, as a continuum of care for patients
and not in little buckets. So, you know,
to the patient, their care is going to
be
everything from when they see their doctor to
how they manage their chronic disease, to how
they take their medication, to how they communicate
with the health system and not just their
physician, but all the people that they interact
with. And then when they do have something
that's going on that is, you know, out
of their sort of normal,
expected course, how do we then
provide links to them so that we have
clean handoffs and we don't have fragmented care
across that journey? So when a patient needs
to go to the hospital, you know, how
do we make sure everybody on their their
care their existing care team knows about it?
How do we smoothly get into the hospital,
take care of them well,
and, you know, get them home as quickly
as possible or where wherever they need to
best be,
and make sure that we don't sort of
drop the ball at each step in those
processes.
And so
I think that when you have a large
system with a lot of different,
competing priorities, sometimes it's difficult to tell that
story. But if you reframe it from a
patient centric point of view, everyone
has experienced a time where perhaps they or
a loved one has, has gone through those
different stages. And I think they that that
frustration resonates with people, and we can see
certainly
outcomes,
that that we wouldn't want if we don't
make sure that we make all that a
lot more clean and smooth. And so
I think technology is gonna be extremely enabling
in that space, especially within those transitional moments.
And, you know, we're able to really kind
of leverage some of those centralized resources
on with the technology layered on top to
communicate and even evaluate what is the best
thing for for an individual. So I think
that's what we're looking at doing. It's you
know, I think we we expect it to
be challenging, but I think we're prepared for
it in 2026.
That makes a lot of sense. I, you
know, think that's really exciting prospect and and
definitely appreciate the idea of, you know, kind
of bringing that story and telling that story,
with with your team and so they can,
you know, really understand what you're trying to
do and how important it is, to continue,
down this path so, you know, the community
has access to care, and you're able to
continue to do things officially and effectively.
What do you think the hardest thing you'll
have to do in the coming year will
be?
The the hardest thing always to me is
just picking the things that you wanna work
on. We don't have infinite resources. I do
think that automation, technology,
all the exciting things that are happening with
artificial intelligence and, you know, the agents we
get to work with as sort of trusted
digital companions in our care delivery
are going to help us with that. But,
you know, ultimately, I think that you only
have so much even with those enablement
layers. And so I think we just have
to make sure that we tie everything back
to what are our north stars, what are
we looking at from aspirational goal perspective. So,
you know, how do we impact the the
things that matter to our patients the most
and our system the most so that we
can stay,
you know, financially well positioned for what's coming
in the next couple of years. Another thing
that I think is difficult to manage, especially
on the technology side, is it's just happening
at such a rapid pace that we're asking
people to think about things different and practice
differently. And, you know, that doesn't just that
doesn't just apply for for
physicians or clinicians. It's it's true for everyone
who's kind of done things almost,
by brute force, I think, over the past
several,
decades in health care. And so, you know,
change is hard, but showing people again, the
most important thing is what what is in
it for our patients and and how do
we make people's lives better and get them
out of work on time, get them home
with their families.
And so I think that we have to
be able to enable our workforce of the
future with the technology of today.
But how to do that is challenging, and
it's gonna be really different for different types
of of groups that we need to be
cognizant about. So but, you know, what's exciting
about that is now we have this whole
new set of assets and resources that we
can use to take better care of people,
and we can take some of that burdensome
work, the kind of the death by a
thousand clicks, I call it, and shift that
off of our, you know, the backs of
our our people.
And so even though it'll be hard, I
think it's very, very exciting and looking forward
to to seeing it play out.
Absolutely. I,
definitely
understand how challenging that can be. And I
think, you know, looking at,
AI technologies, there's so many different opportunities that
come available. I can imagine,
from your perspective, you're getting pitches
and new technologies every single day. So making
sure that you've got that focus, truly is
important. And I know every health care minute
and dollar is precious, and and thinking through
that lens can,
you know, really be grounding it, it seems
like. Now before we wrap up, I wanted
to ask as well about growth. Where do
you see some of the best opportunities for
organizational growth in the future?
So I I think this kinda goes back
to that that same concept of the patient
journey across the different types of the care
continuum. And so, you know, looking at patients
that are just, you know,
seeing their doctor, doing their regular
visits, getting their preventative care, how do we
make that really smooth and easy for people?
And, you know, I think that in that
space, what I see is being able to
apply,
some large scale population models to be able
to determine. Okay. So you may have, you
know, large large group of patients and a
certain percentage of them have different stages of
chronic disease.
Which of the patients that really need to
be able to see a specialist for that
particular disease state, and at what point do
we have the resources that match to it?
And then how do you think about, you
know, providing
virtual or telemedicine access or even asynchronous access,
to be able to deliver
care and help to guide,
local care teams like patients' primary care physicians
to be able to, you know, manage everything
up until that point.
You know, I I I think medicine's been
incredibly,
reactive
historically,
and we need to be able to use
these these real assets that we see
to create systems that are looking at the
looking at the future and,
matching patients to the resources they need the
most and the ones that need it the
most at the right time. So, truly, it
all just comes together to think about
how do we provide that orchestration layer and
care traffic control to patients in a way
that,
partners with them and and does it in
a way that seems right because it's not
gonna be one size fits all to everybody.
We can't just force people to use particular
types of apps or, you know, not everyone's
gonna feel comfortable using digital tools in the
same way.
But how do we make sure we're thinking
thoroughly about, you know, who does benefit from
it and how we get into their hands
as quickly as possible?
Got it. That's,
makes a lot of sense. It is so,
so helpful to think through that, perspective and
keep that in mind. Thank you so much
for joining us on the podcast today, doctor
Ford. This has been such a fascinating and
inspiring conversation, and I look forward to connecting
with you again soon. Thank you so much,
Laura. It was great talking to you and
looking forward to, being up in Chicago for
Becker's event in the next, couple of months
in April. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I know you'll
be speaking on a panel, and we'll be
able to continue much of this conversation,
and touch on many of these themes too.
And it's always such a fun opportunity to
see people in person and, you know, really
get to know them a little bit more
deeply. So I'm looking forward to that as
well. Thank you.