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forward slash beckerspodcast.

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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast, and we are recording live at the

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twenty second annual Spine Orthopedic and Pain Management

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Conference.

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I'm currently joined by John Lucio, who is

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the regional chief medical officer at SSM Health.

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John, thank you for being here. We'd love

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to start off by having you share a

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little bit more about yourself, your role, and

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your organization.

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Sure. Hi. Hello, everyone. My name is John

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Lucio. I'm a physician,

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and I'm the regional chief medical officer at

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Saint Mary's,

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health system in Jefferson City, Missouri. Prior to

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that, I was in the Navy for twelve

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years,

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served as a,

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flight surgeon and nuclear weapons engineer prior to

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going into medicine.

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And my current role now is I do,

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somewhat clinical,

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one day or two days a week, and

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then I also involved with

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hospital and outpatient operations in Jefferson City for

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our company.

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Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time

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to join me. And let's start our conversation

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with what trends or shifts you're currently seeing

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now in the industry that you think are

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most, important for leaders to pay attention to?

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Yeah. I'm I'm from the perspective I have,

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and my background was that I did have

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an outpatient,

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practice, and now I have an employed I'm

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employed by the system.

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And I have a perspective of looking at

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what what shifts

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leaders need to look at, not from the

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outpatient side, but also from a more broader

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health care delivery system side.

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And one of the major areas that I

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I do pay attention a lot now is

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our supply chain management. It's a very,

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common word tossed around right now.

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Last year, it brought to, supply chain became

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a very popular topic once we had that

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hurricane and we had a shortage of IV

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infusions.

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And,

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throughout even before then, we had, periodic,

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supply chain shortages in the most mundane things.

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And even since we re partially recovered from

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the IV shortage,

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we have seen

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supply chain,

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shortages even with most common drugs that you

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would have never expected that to happen.

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We even had one,

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with disposable blood pressure cuffs for a while.

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So it's

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I I think it's forced the systems and

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the physicians to kind of focus more on

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where the supply is coming from,

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not put so much effort and, not so

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much put emphasis on a single,

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supplier for many things that you

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need to operate.

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And I think that's one been one of

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the biggest issues. The second one

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is, we're watching very closely the market power

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of our insurance companies,

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that does affect,

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outpatient delivery care, it does affect inpatient delivery

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care.

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And we've seen that, like, a lot of

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the,

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the companies have merged and have had gained

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market share.

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And so we watch this very closely, and

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it's very important for

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everyone to understand why it's happening.

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And they need to start developing better and

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and different how to change your relationship with

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the payers at some fashion, positive or negative.

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This is not a judgment statement, but it's

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extremely important that, that they look at that.

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The next thing is, of course, the artificial

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intelligence. I've since I've been in this conference

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for two days, I've seen they mentioned no

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less than 10 times a

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a breakout session. So,

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but there's very the applicability to it is

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not just diagnostic, but even we're seeing it

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in terms of

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automation for billing,

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for die diagnostics,

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of course. And one of the things that

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intrigues me the most is the what they

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refer to as health gamification.

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And as anybody's heard used that term before,

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basically, it's allowing

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trying to engage the patients more in their

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health and well-being

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by,

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making it, game kind of format, something that

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they're familiar with. And so I've been watching

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that to see how how if that takes

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shape and if that's gonna be a practical

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solution.

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The other one is,

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basically a lot of labor trends in terms

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of how we hire and who we hire.

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One of the biggest issues we've had in

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the hospital system as well as outpatient is

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just

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staffing issues.

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Problems seem to be endless. It's, it's not

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just,

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shortage of nurses, but even front office staff

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that you typically

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would need just to answer telephones and provide

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a way of finding for patients. The other

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one has to do with getting the right

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type of person. And in the past, because

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of the shortage, there was a big push

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to just take in whoever you

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you could get into work and do the

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job. And now we've actually become a little

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bit more selective with that.

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And some of the the strategies we've used,

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and that's this is nothing new, is a

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lot of times we will look at flexible

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hours for a lot of our staffing,

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upscaling in terms of,

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staff that want to promote their careers and

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advancement.

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We've even started to embrace more of the,

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gig employees population, which are these are folks

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that have been normally locums, say, travelers.

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And, we tried to minimize that, but we've

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discovered that if we don't we have to

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have a better

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strategy in order to integrate folks like that

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into our our organization.

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So those are the things we've done. And,

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also, too, we even have,

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some of the soft skills that people people

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call them soft skills, but you really have

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to make it a a positive work environment

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for the employees. If they're not, then they're

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not gonna stay with your organization

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or they're gonna rotate out

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for, you know, various reasons, even if you're

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competitive in terms of salary and benefits.

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Absolutely.

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Well, I guess we can move on to

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outpatient care as this continues to grow. How

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do you see the role of ASCs and

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orthopedics

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evolving within the broader health care ecosystem?

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Well, I think it's fantastic, actually.

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Orthopedics

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and pain management actually lends itself to this

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type of transition.

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It's a very episodic,

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care delivery system, whereas if you can safely

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bring the patient in, have the procedure,

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post and,

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have a safe post op period,

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it's a it's a it's a great great

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way to treat patients. You don't have subjected

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to the hospital acquired infections.

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You don't subject them to all the other,

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delays in care that you might receive in

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a bigger institution.

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And so

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orthopedic

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and pain actually has allowed the

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entrepreneurial spirit of many physicians to bloom in

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ways that they couldn't have had it in

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the past.

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And I find this very intriguing because now

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you're starting to see more and more discussion

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about

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developing,

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having

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other specialties trying to be be more involved

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with it. Historically, they haven't been, but typically,

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I think there were only four

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specialties that were mainly interested in and, outpatient,

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surgery centers. Now you're starting to see more

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folks that are actually interested in in in

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in being involved.

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So that's just I I orthopedics has actually

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been the groundbreaking, especially it's been able to

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do that.

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And as we round out our conversation,

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many organizations are exploring new technologies, partnerships, or

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care models to improve efficiency and outcomes. So

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are there any innovations or initiatives that you

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found particularly promising?

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Well, one of the most intriguing ones are

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the, use of artificial intelligence in wearables.

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One of the variables that we never discuss

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hardly

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in health care is really the patient factor.

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You know, how do how does the patient,

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where where they where where is their accountability

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outside of listening to the advice of, a

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provider in front of them, which, by the

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way, is they only, retain 30% of

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how do you get that feedback back to

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the patient and allow them to be involved

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in their their care? We have heart rate

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monitors now already, and,

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those things have limited applicability.

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But some things like blood sugar monitoring,

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exercise

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measurements,

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blood pressure,

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weight, so on and so forth. Those things

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can actually help the give the patient feedback

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and let them be more involved. I think

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that's one of the glaring things we have

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in health care right now is that we

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do not have good systems that,

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allow for patient accountability

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and feedback for their own care.

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Now the other things that are coming up

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with,

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some of the new innovations innovations I'm seeing

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is sort of the,

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implantables, which I'm fascinated with because I'm kind

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of a tech guy. We already have

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pacemakers. We have deep brain stimulators. But I

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think that there's gonna be,

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smaller and smaller gadgets that you can put

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in bodies, and it makes people healthier. And

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they can actually get better feedback,

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with their well-being.

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Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the

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time,

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to join me. And again, we are recording

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at the twenty second annual Spine Orthopedic and

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Pain Management Conference.