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the description. We are excited to welcome you in October.
This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Albert Valar,
vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Neon's Health. Dr.
Valara, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you for the opportunity to present today with you.
Now, I know we have a lot to talk about.
There's really so much happening in healthcare and that intersection between
clinical care delivery as well as technology, you know,
is really so fascinating and moving quickly.
But before we dive into my questions,
can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Thank you. Uh, my, uh, background is in emergency medicine.
I was boy Certifi Emergency Medicine Medicine. Uh,
I was trained in the US military and retired at the US Army Reservist, uh,
major in 2000. And, uh, from then I, uh,
entered the life of a emergency physician for the first few years knowing that,
uh, computers technology will always be part of the care delivery model that,
that the future had to hold and, and we needed at the bedside. Uh,
then came across, uh, opportunity to be a C M I O.
I was c m I for several healthcare networks at that time,
but also noted that there's needed to be understanding that healthcare is a
business as part of the business, uh,
to go understand where healthcare fit in the business world and where the
business world health fit into the model of, um, of healthcare. So I, I, uh,
work with several companies and started a couple companies as well in terms of
utilizing technology and facilitating better care for our clinicians in
operations across, uh, several healthcare networks. Uh,
have some education and medical informatics,
and currently pursuing a healthcare sector in va. Thank you.
Oh, that's amazing. You know, what a great experience that you've had.
And I can imagine, you know,
all that leading into where we're at today in healthcare,
especially coming out the last few years during the pandemic, um, you know,
really has primed you to be a great leader in this space.
Where do you see as some of the big opportunities for, uh, yourself as C M I O,
but then others? Um, to really leverage the technology and,
and clinical care possibilities, um, to take care of patients better and, and,
and what are some of the watch outs and headwinds that you have your eye on as
well?
Post covid seemed to be a reset,
the reevaluation of our healthcare model.
What does it mean to be a care delivery network?
What does it mean to be a patient experiencing healthcare within that care
delivery model?
We had the regaining the trust of patients safe to come back and see us,
but also it's also safe to give information to us as we advance technologies.
Uh, another goal was advancing clinical efficiencies.
How has the m r changed over the last 10 years, 15 years,
and how do we better facilitate the utilization of that technology with the
changing demand of our patients who are used to modern day technologies such
as, uh,
Amazon and Google and search functionality and everything immediately available
to them within a, a touch of a search button, et cetera.
How do we bring that same experience to, uh, our, our,
our clinical care within healthcare networks?
Another piece is driving the efficiency of the emr. The EMR has to evolve,
has evolved.
We're working with our vendors and third party technologies to really bring the
experience for our clinicians to a much better, less burdensome, uh,
approach for patient care.
And then supporting the operational strategic goals of the network, financially,
healthcare as a business, how do we drive better documentation,
better facilitation,
access to care for all our patients by bringing unification around, uh,
the goals we have set for our network itself.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
and it's really fascinating to hear you talk about how all of those things come
together in,
in really making sure the care delivery and the network is supported.
E M R changes that, um, are gonna be impactful,
gathering data and getting them to the right people at the right times.
And then too just, you know, bringing, uh, everyone together,
the support teams coordinating better.
I know that's one of the things that I hear time and time again that, you know,
the care coordination is so critical, um,
and is something that a not lot of organizations are able to do well or,
or up to where they would like to be. And so, you know,
it'll be fun to see how technology can really help and support, um,
organizations, especially, I know, um,
one of the challenges for many is that they're short staff, uh,
or staff shortages and, you know,
having to still provide care during these times.
Absolutely. I mean, uh,
in terms of how do we go from where we work and grow,
how do we adding this value to the organization is utilizing technology.
I think we feel,
I believe that healthcare information technology is the enzyme and the
reaction that needs to be expanded.
How do we bring together all the facets of driving and transforming the clinical
experience for the patients,
clinicians and operational folks around this new
digital experience? We've heard before,
people process technology is orchestrating the symbiosis of
function or successful care delivery. We have to unify, uh,
make it a seamless patient flow,
driving clinical functions across the network so that clinician,
patient and operational, uh, uh,
participants within this healthcare model find the information they need,
care for the patients better, as well as be frictionless throughout the network.
Whether you're transferring a patient, patient, accessing clinical information,
operational financial leadership, accessing data, it should be in one place.
So we all go to that one place to facilitate, um,
understanding of who we are today and then predict utilizing the
technologies and information the future where we're going to ensure we get
there, um, both safely for the patient, but uh, financially,
uh, a profitable for the healthcare network.
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You know,
and it's really helpful to think about and think through how, uh,
that technology is supportive,
especially during a time where every resource and healthcare dollar is precious.
You know, when you look at the times that we're in,
and a lot of organizations as we've been talking about, um, you know,
really wanna make sure they're doing the best they can to provide patient care
and be innovative while at the same time they may not have, uh,
the financial infrastructure just right now to,
to spend on everything they would like to do.
So what is one thing you still think is important for them to do this year?
What's, uh, an investment or a risk that is really worth taking right now?
Well, for us it's understanding where the artificial intelligence, the chat,
g p t chat, four, how does it influence delivery of care,
automating the processes, deliver care,
reducing the burden of that care and advancing patient outcomes.
So those are the key pillars of health informatics we want to utilize today
as we're, like you said, losing healthcare employees.
How do we make the rest of those employees more efficient and automate the
process through robotic process automation, ai, evidence-based delivery,
clinical distance support, all those pieces now are available to us now.
It's our job to orchestrate and create the world that we will
live in for the next decade. Um, today's ai,
I believe changes will change healthcare like the way EMRs did 15 years
ago. We went from paper to the emr, stabilized that emr.
Now everybody's used to that.
Now comes the next big innovation with artificial intelligence.
How will we be speaking with the ai?
How will AI be influencing our clinical decisions?
How will we embrace AI not just from the current states of leaders in in
clinical care, but also those in in medical school?
How do we teach that so that they,
they develop their utilization of AI as a partner in care and not just a
side, uh, um, interesting, um, uh, delivery model.
It's will be and is important that we integrate this
artificial intelligence to the future.
Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate that and it's certainly, um, you know, a,
a great sign that AI has a lot of potential and a lot of ways that, um,
it's really making life ideally easier for clinicians and the patient experience
better. Now, before we wrap up our conversation,
I was wondering if you could look into the future and where do you see some of
the best opportunities and ways for growth, uh,
for yourself as your C M I O A, as well as the teams that you work with?
What do you see in the future and how, you know, will those things evolve?
Well, I think, um, going back and looking at our mistakes in the past, uh,
embracing health equity with technology terms, we,
we hear out there called equity is just bringing all patients evidence-based
care by removing the burdens of that care EMRs in the past
that were race-based calculators that predicted different outcomes depending on
race. Removing those,
removing the biases of healthcare will deliver better care in the future.
Uh, another one is collaboration between healthcare and private markets. A, a,
a synergy between the funding for investments in healthcare innovations
by leaderships who have guiding principles and evidence-based practice deliver
care in the healthcare networks. That synergy will grow, I believe,
as we really readjust to the current healthcare financial
issues, uh, plaguing many healthcare networks across United States. Uh,
cloud collaborations for research,
utilizing data lakes and collaborating not just within a network,
but across network.
We have multiple opportunities now to connect to national,
international databases for research so that one clinician at one network
can facilitate the data of a similar patient group and cohort
throughout the world. Uh, that's will be, uh, delivering better care.
Predictive modeling, of course, is definitely, uh, gonna be part of that. Again,
back to the artificial intelligence. AI is guiding evidence, pr,
evidence-based practice, but for all of us,
the patients will have apps to deliver care for themselves,
to help them make decisions, chat Botts, et cetera.
The clinically EMR will evolve over the next few years to become
a very powerful tool and a collaborative partner in the care we
deliver and for operations finance access to the data to create that
predictive financial modeling that's required to Del to, to,
to bring in the importance of where we are two weeks from now,
two months from now, two years from now,
and have confidence in our decision making processes because not just patient
care is reliant upon that, but the survivability of healthcare itself.
As we do more with less, there's less money, less people, but,
but the same number of patients and more are coming.
We haven't been prepared to be more efficient delivering that care for those
patients and all patients equally on bias and evidence-based.
Absolutely. I love that. Thank you so much Dr. Valara, for being here and,
and really talking through so many different areas that are exciting, um,
for healthcare and technology, as well as what to look out for ahead. Um,
you know,
this has been a really fun conversation and I'm excited to see you as well in
October at our Health IT Digital Health and Revenue Cycle event.
I know a lot of these themes will be, uh, talked about and touched on and,
and really explored more in depth. So thank you so much for being here, and I,
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Look forward to seeing you soon,
and thank you for your opportunity to present here at Bakers.
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