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This is Alan Conlon with the Becker's podcast,
and I'm thrilled to be joined today by
Noelle DeFeld,
vice president of perioperative
services at HonorHealth.
Noelle, delighted to have you make your debut
appearance on the Beckers Podcast.
Before we dive into some questions, I'd love
to turn the floor over to you to
hear a little bit more about your role
and your background at HonorHealth.
Fantastic. Well, thank you for having me today.
Yes. I am presently the vice president of
perioperative services
for the HonorHealth Network.
Previous to that role, I was the senior
director of perioperative
services
at the Scottsdale Shea location in the HonorHealth
Network, which logically is in Scottsdale, Arizona.
But with this recent move, I have network
oversight over the HonorHealth perioperative
services department,
and that does include
outpatient services.
So I'm very excited to be here today
and talk to you a little bit about
trends in the ASC space.
Yeah. Absolutely. Pleasure is all ours. So without
further ado, let's let's dive right in. I'd
love to hear obviously, there's so much going
on in health care at any one point
in time. But could you give us a
little bit of a breakdown? What are 2
or 3 key trends that you're really following
in health care, paying close attention to, and
why?
Yes. You know, I had the good fortune
of being able to live in both spaces,
being able to live in the inpatient environment,
and then also be able to live in
the outpatient environment.
And so, you know, we've all probably experienced
it where a lot of the inpatient hospital
stuff is migrating to the outpatient world.
And right now, there's an interesting development
in
screening colonoscopies.
The US Preventative Services Task Force has
lowered the age of screening colonoscopies
to 45
from the age of 50.
And, yeah, that doesn't sound like a big
swing. But what that does is it affects
19,000,000
lives across the U. S. And that is
huge for our outpatient space.
And along with that,
one of the things that I'm watching closely
is AI.
We're all talking about AI and how do
we effectively
use AI when we have these massive changes
like an age of screening colonoscopies
to get our patient population
into our centers
so that we can optimize
what the US feels is best for preventative
care while filling our centers.
Yeah. I'd love to hear a little bit
more on the first thing you mentioned. I
know we can touch a little bit on
AI afterwards. But in terms of that,
screening colonoscopy is, obviously, like you said, the
age has been lowered 245
from 50,
affects 19,000,000 lives. Can you talk a little
bit more about the significance of that ruling
and kinda how you're preparing for it?
Yeah. So, you know, I will say that
we still have opportunity even with our 50
plus age group to make it just more
matter of fact. You know, mammography as matter
of fact, PSA screenings as matter of fact,
gynecological
screenings are matter of fact. But a lot
of people still are very hesitant to get
a colonoscopy.
You know, we've done a lot of community
based outreach
for screening colonoscopies.
We have a big footprint,
here in Metro Phoenix for the HonorHealth System
in our primary cares
and having a lot of employed primary cares
and really measuring,
you know, our compliance rate with getting people
in for their screening colonoscopies.
You know, for us also, you know, as
we determine, like, people maybe have, you know,
something that is suspicious
with colonoscopies, we have a nice framework to
get them into the hospital or get them
into the next level of care. We also
are doing and I actually highlighted this at
a previous Becker's forum where we have a
program where women
are helping women
get into the screening colonoscopy
because we have found that women
are less likely
to seek that care.
And so we have a model where we
can do all female teams
to make women feel more comfortable
when they have their screening colonoscopies.
Mhmm. Yeah. What why why do you think
it is that women are less likely to
seek that care? And can you any any
early results that you can share about this
initiative that you've implemented?
You know, I wish I had better results
or more results that I could share with
you. I unfortunately don't have that in front
of me now. You know, I think it's
kind of back to basics with women. Right?
We
often are juggling a lot, whether it's our
families,
our work,
aging parents,
all of the above where
the likelihood of us to add this to
our list is fairly low. And we have
other things that we put as a priority
because it's more commonplace
and more kind of socially accepted, You know,
gynecological
screening,
mammography,
those are easier. But the colonoscopy
seemed to still be a barrier.
And I did kind of touch on AI.
And I know we'll probably get a little
bit more to that. But
with our AI platforms that we are using,
we can focus on any given population. And
if we take women
between the ages of 45 and whatever, set
an end date, our AI platforms
can send text messages.
They can call people. They can do a
lot of different things
to make it it like, almost like advertising.
Right? You know, why did I buy that
dress off of my social media platform? Or
why did I, go to that restaurant?
A lot of it's advertising or some sort
of a ping that's stuck in my mind.
And so we are using AI for just
that purpose,
to try to find the opportunities
for better health care so we can do
better preventative
and then
reduce risk, of course.
Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, it's it's as someone
who's a bit of a tech geek myself,
I often kind of geek out of here.
And just the the potential, the opportunities
of of AI in many walks of life,
where it's in health care, media, like myself
or whatnot. But I'm curious to hear, is
there anything else that you're working on on
our health, whether in the perioperative services department
or maybe more system wide in terms of
AI initiatives and how you see that benefiting
provider?
Yes. So
AI is playing a big role in our
perioperative space.
We are using a platform that will find
open OR time for our physician
partners.
It's all about ease of use right now.
And if we don't figure it out, my
competitor will. So we're using a platform where
our schedulers
can go in and they can find open
time much like you'd find an open time
for reservations at a restaurant.
And so we have had fantastic
results with that in our physician partners being
able to find time
outside of their block.
Or perhaps they're a practice that doesn't
yet warrant blocks, but they still need access
to the schedule. And, again,
if we can make it easier,
they will come to us.
Mhmm. Yeah. It sounds when you think about
kind of streamlining the whole process, maybe reducing
revenue leakage, filling that block time, and ultimately
keeping those positions happy, it sounds like certainly
a a great initiative there too. AI, like
you mentioned, super exciting exciting time in health
care. You talked a little bit about the
benefits there. I'm curious, Noelle, is there anything
else? When you think about the future of
health care, what else excites you?
Yeah. I'm really excited about robotics.
We do have robots in our freestanding centers.
And
robotics
was originally for cardiac surgery or kind of
entered into the market with a different
trajectory than it is today.
And robotics has really proven to get people
back to regular life quicker.
And our surgeons are now coming out of
their residency and their training programs
using robots in that and really expecting that
in whatever type of setting they're going to
be operating in, whether it's an inpatient OR
or an outpatient center. So I'm really excited
about the administrative
teams
embracing that as an offering in the lowest
level of settings.
Mhmm. Yeah. Is it is it a case
where, like you said, residents, fellowships are coming
out, having trained on the the latest and
greatest technologies, having used these robots?
Is that the case, especially when you think
about ASCs,
maybe that, you know, when you're looking to
recruit the the top talent, the next generation
of physicians, it's a simply must have, not
a nice have in terms of having these
robots?
Absolutely.
I was at a survey the other day,
and they were asking about robotics and
can you do it 7 days a week,
all hours of the day? And I said
absolutely.
It is simply another instrument.
And the public is asking for it. They
are doing their research.
They have that type of information at their
fingertips.
And what they're really looking for is, you
know, what's going to give them the best
recovery
and the shortest downtime in their personal lives.
And, you know, when we're looking at the
ASC space, you know,
so many different procedures can be done there,
and they can be done safely. And it
also helps kinda decant
those procedures
out of the main ORs
so the so that the access in the
main OR is appropriate for
cases that really need to be done in
that setting. So it seems like a win
win
for everybody, administration,
our surgeons, and most importantly, our patients.
Yeah. And interestingly said, I guess, robotics you
know, the next generation of surgeons are seeking
these out. They're joining health systems, hospitals, practices
with these technologies. But also interesting to hear
what you said, the patients are also doing
the research and seeking out,
practices which also supply these robotic technologies as
well.
Yes. Patients are very savvy these days. I
remember my mother-in-law at 93 learned how to
use FaceTime to do a televisit, and she
did it all by herself. And she was
so proud of herself. And so patients of
all ages are very tech savvy,
And so they do go on to various
websites. They do do their research.
And it makes sense to them that this
will allow them to get back to normal
life quicker.
I figured your your mother-in-law
using FaceTime at 93 years old. My niece
at 3 years old just, figured out how
to FaceTime during the day. So wondering what
the next generation is gonna be like.
Well Yeah. We'll be in those flying cars.
So, well, last question before I let you
go. Fascinating conversation so far, but how are
you thinking about growth over the next 12
to 24 months? What are you most focused
on? Yeah. I hate to sound like a
broken record, But in our growth strategy, it's
really about optimization of everything. We'll be talking
about key performance indicators forever.
How do we run an efficient OR?
And our AI partners are helping us. And
I think from
leadership perspective,
I've mentioned that we'll be doing KPI and
key performance indicators
for the rest of my career.
But it is different when we start using
AI.
We've been looking at case averaging.
And, you know, our normal platforms do an
okay job.
But AI is taking okay to, oh my
goodness, this is amazing.
I can build in different patient factors
to determine
the length of time of a hysterectomy
or the length of time
of a hysterectomy
versus
an oncology
hysterectomy.
And that is helping our administrative team
optimize the OR time better and have a
more predictable schedule. And greater predictability
allows for more case volume.
And at the end of the day, the
surgeon leaves and they've been on time all
day. The patient leaves. They didn't have to
wait, you know,
extra time in preop. They got everyone did
what they needed to do in the time
that was allotted,
and it really is a nice feeling. And
any type of technology we can incorporate
that helps that
along really helps us optimize our operating rooms.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, well, fascinating discussion and
great to kind of get the inside scoop
on everything you're working on, the great initiatives
that HonorHealth at the moment. Really look forward
to connect with you again down the line.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.