This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Michael Sod,
senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the University of
Tennessee Medical Center. Michael,
it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you, Laura. I appreciate you having me back.
Now, I know we've got a lot to talk about.
There's so much happening in technology as moving rapidly in the healthcare
space, but before we dive into my questions,
can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Sure. So I am the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the
University of Tennessee Medical Center. It is located in Knoxville, Tennessee.
I have just passed my seven year mark there now. Uh,
prior to that I was with a consulting firm that did healthcare consulting, uh,
a number of healthcare organizations across the country, and then prior to that,
really cut my teeth in healthcare at Henry Ford Health System based out of
Detroit, Michigan.
Excellent. Well, we're excited to have you here today. Now,
what are some of the big opportunities that you're seeing right now at the
University of Tennessee Medical Center and the headwinds that you had your eye
on too?
Yeah, I think from a headwinds perspective, you know,
we're seeing the same thing a number of health systems are seeing in that as
just financial pressures that are continuing to increase almost quarter by
quarter right now.
Many of those are driven by things that you're very familiar with, whether it's,
you know, supply chain, uh, inflationary costs, or, you know,
staffing costs. All of those are, are factoring into that healthcare is,
as you well know,
is an industry very somewhat unlike retail and other industries where we cannot
necessarily pass on those additional costs to our consumers. Right.
So that puts us in an interesting place where we have to either take that out of
our bottom line or find ways to become more efficient and offset some of those
costs. So, you know,
every health system across the country I know is dealing with these same
challenges and,
and I think it's trying to figure out how do we look at what tools are
available to us to, to perform some of that. Now from a technology perspective,
of course I'm biased and I do think that technology certainly can help with that
and aid in a lot of the optimization that, uh,
has the opportunity to take place across health systems in the country.
And University of Tennessee Medical Center is,
is a great example of that as well.
We're leveraging technology and certain and very specific and targeted areas
to really help and assist with, uh,
some cost containment and helping us to understand where we can drive additional
efficiencies that have an impact on our bottom line.
Absolutely.
I think that's a really great point and definitely something that you said a lot
of healthcare organizations are trying to troubleshoot. So, you know,
when you look at what that looks like from a technology standpoint, um,
bringing in additional, um, tools or, or technologies that can help with,
um, the the organization overall,
what does that mean for growth and development and, and for you as a,
the c I o adding value to the organization overall?
Yeah,
I think we are somewhat in a unique position from a growth perspective in that a
number of my colleagues that I speak with at other health systems during covid
took that opportunity to slow down some of their facility expansions. Uh,
we did, we,
we'd have a very different take on that and we actually in many ways accelerated
our facility expansion.
So we are just getting ready to open our first freestanding emergency
department. We have several regional health centers that have opened this year,
and a number of partnerships,
whether they're joint ventures or trives in areas like, uh, imaging,
behavioral health and, uh, rehab and patient rehab.
So we continue to expand in that space and,
and I think it delivers value in a number of ways as one enabling
all of those, uh, strategic priorities to happen.
And it's everything from infrastructure to applications to project management,
IT security, kind of all the facets of it.
And then it's also ensuring that those digital initiatives and other things that
are not necessarily facility driven still take place and that that work doesn't
necessarily slow down because we're doing these type of expansions.
So I think it can bring value to the organization in both delivering the here
and now,
but also setting us up for future success and making sure that we enable the
organization to be successful going forward.
Absolutely. I, I think that's a really great point and um,
definitely love that focus on making sure you've got the, um,
priorities in place. When you're looking at the broader team,
how do you communicate what's going to be most important for them on any given
day or week or, or, or month in terms of their projects,
and then how to make sure, as you were saying,
the other things that they're responsible for still get done, um,
especially in an environment where there's so much happening, um,
and change happens so quickly?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think one tool that we found very helpful is a,
is a roadmap. I mean, essentially it's,
it's communicating very clearly with the teams,
with the leadership in IT and making sure that's cascaded down and then directly
with the team members themselves to help them understand, one,
the mission and vision and value of the organization and how the work that they
do is integral to helping our patients.
Because sometimes when you're not at the bedside, you can lose sight of that.
And I think it's so important that even the support services like it,
for example,
feel that they can make a contribution and an impact in the lives of our
patients and the caregivers. So I think that's certainly one piece of it.
And then that roadmap where it's clearly laid out,
we know quarter to quarter or year to year, here's our focus and we can,
we can stay focused on the priorities on at hand and if there are other
strategic priorities that pop up, cuz that does happen from time to time,
it then gives us the opportunity to look and prioritize and reprioritize based
on our governance structure, what we should be focused on.
But I think having that roadmap and letting our staff know,
here's what is we're working on, here's why,
here's the value that we're going to bring to our community by doing these
projects. I think that really helps, um, them stay focused.
Absolutely. I love that. And you know, in, in along those lines,
you have the roadmap and you've got the team really focused and ready to go
other spaces that are gonna be most impactful for the organization. Um,
but when you look ahead,
what is one risk or investment that's still worth making this year,
especially thinking through some of the challenges and then I, in many cases,
um, you know, wanting to use the healthcare resources,
whether time or dollar as well.
From an investment perspective,
I think investing in the expansion of digital platforms and,
and that can be kinda all things digital platform,
and I know that's an all-encompassing term, you know,
we hear terms like digital front door and that can mean different things to
different people,
but what we're hearing from our patients and from our consumers is that,
you know,
60% of consumers expect digital healthcare experience to mirror
their retail experience or their experience in other sectors.
And we have a lot of work to do from a healthcare industry to get there.
So I think technology specifically, like, you know, telehealth,
I'm still very bullish on telehealth. Uh,
I think we have a lot of opportunity in that space. Uh, behavioral health,
rural health.
I think there's a tremendous opportunity in underserved areas for telehealth.
And if you look at who's making investments in that space right now, you know,
the payers are making significant investments in that space. Um, pharmacies,
you know, the CVSs, the Walgreens,
and then some of the large retailers like on Amazon.
So they continue to make investments in that space. So I,
I know some organizations have dialed back their telehealth strategy. I,
I think we still need to push forward.
I'm very bullish on that and think there's, there's a lot of value in doing so.
But, you know, digital registration and check-in process,
those type of things that, again,
we're familiar with from a consumer perspective. I mean,
you can have sit on your couch and literally order your food and have it
delivered right to your door and take care of the tip and everything.
And I think that level of convenience is what consumers are looking for and
frankly, starting to demand from their healthcare providers. And, you know,
you asked about the risk and the investment, I think the risk is not doing that.
I think organizations that are not venturing into that digital health space are
going to fall behind and do so pretty quickly and it will be hard for them to
catch up.
Absolutely. That's a really great point. And, you know, so, uh,
important in looking to the future and having that, uh,
digital health and the telehealth platform as you mentioned. Um,
is there anything when you think through, you know, policies or regulations, uh,
you know, could change at any point, , um, so you know,
when you're diving into some of these strategies that might be a little bit
uncertain, um, from the regulatory reimbursement perspective, uh, how do you,
uh, control for that, I guess if it's possible in, in, uh,
where do those discussions go when they're having,
you're having them at a high level?
Yeah,
and that we're very cautious in that space if you take things like hospital at
home, right?
I think that's one area where we're very cautious and trying to understand from
a legislative perspective what that looks like.
And that can change from election cycle to election cycle.
But I think some of those type of things were,
were more cautious and kind of dipping our toe in the water to make sure that
we're not expanding a lot of effort in that area only to later find out that it,
it it financially is not feasible or, or doesn't benefit our patients.
Some areas like telehealth, I think we're far enough down the road now. I,
I think that really is cemented into, uh, the, the payer process. And again,
if you look at some of the large payers they're requiring and,
and they're doing millions of telehealth visits themselves a year. So I,
I think from an incentive perspective,
they are certainly incentivized to keep that program moving forward.
And the federal government from a payer perspective is doing the same thing.
You know, the digital registration, all of that. I,
I don't know that that's necessarily impacted by legislation,
but you do make a good point, I think in some of those areas,
like hospital at home is a great example that we do need to understand from a
legislative perspective what that looks like before I think we kind of go all in
on that process.
Absolutely. Great point. Thank you for, for sharing a little bit on that. Now,
um, before we wrap up our conversation,
I wanted to look into the future as well. Um,
what do you see some of the best opportunities for growth and development,
whether it's for yourself as CIO or the teams that you lead most closely?
I I think expanding their skillsets from a team perspective is very important.
Um, especially, you know, it is unique in healthcare in some ways, um,
and in other ways it's not unique. What I mean by that is if you are a nurse,
you work in healthcare as a nurse,
now you can work at a skilled nursing facility,
you could work at an outpatient clinic, you could work in a hospital setting,
but you do work within healthcare, typically speaking in it,
unless you are a Epic or Cerner or something kind of focused on those type of
specific healthcare systems, you can work in any industry.
So if you're on the infrastructure team or the systems team,
you can go work in any industry. And so, uh,
and the same thing even on the application side or you know,
the e r P system support. So I,
I think it's important to continue to invest in our staff and help
them, uh, grow and educate and learn more about, uh,
the tools and technologies that are out there.
Because just as we're pushing healthcare forward to embrace digital,
that also means that we need to shift some of our skill sets in it to be able to
enable that. And, you know, as we move more towards the cloud, for example,
that means that we have less on-premise servers,
systems storage that we need to support.
But how do we refash those positions and take that skillset and make it so that
they now can support the cloud systems or pivot to more of a cybersecurity
posture. So I think those type of things,
I think we're gonna have to continue to constantly look at the workforce and
understand where is technology going and making sure that we've got the
expertise in the house that can help deliver on those, uh,
goals and strategic priorities.
That's a really great point. Michael.
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been a really fun and interesting discussion and I look forward to
connecting with you again soon.
Thank you having me, Laura. I appreciate it.