Tag Archives: technology

Looking ahead to 2021 – predictions, emerging trends, and some advice

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The calendar is a familiar demarcation for the close of one year and the start of a new year. We celebrate together and make resolutions alone. Never in my lifetime has there been a year that I have wanted to see in the rear-view mirror more than 2020. I know that I’m not alone in that sentiment. But the true demarcation will only come later in 2021 when enough people have been vaccinated and we can say this pandemic is largely behind us.

Health IT leaders and their teams across the country have demonstrated incredible creativity, collaboration, resilience, and commitment to their communities this past year. I am in awe of and encouraged by what they have accomplished.

As we come out of this long, dark period in our history with so much loss and so much learned, like others I have some advice for IT professionals next year.

My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, has already shared his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the coming year as he does each year in a View from the Bridge blog post – “12 Steps to Prepare for 2021 – Big Challenges – Bigger Opportunities”. As always, David has done an excellent job of capturing the key ones with his comments on collaboration, reinventing your IT organization, partnerships, life-work balance, cybersecurity, SDOH, EHR satisfaction, ERP solutions, and more.

I’ll add a few to the list:

    • Capture and institutionalize what allowed your team to work at “COVID speed” – laser focus, fewer concurrent priorities, rapid decision making, and funding.
    • Double down on efforts to increase interoperability within your system and region. Enhance your analytic capabilities. Scale and extend virtual care options which will continue to represent a good portion of care even post-pandemic.
    • Establish the right balance of onsite and remote work for your team once it is safe to return to the office. Account for both the organization’s needs, and your employees needs. Continue to be flexible knowing your team delivers regardless where they are working. Use your new model as an opportunity to rethink your recruitment and talent strategy.
    • As CIO claim your expanded role whether it is as Chief Digital Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, or leading a non-IT operational area. You have more than proven yourself during this pandemic and the rest of the c-suite knows it.

Continue reading →

Say yes to students – they are our future

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There are just so many hours in the day. We can choose what we say yes to and what we say no to. As part of my commitment to developing next generation leaders, I always say yes to individual requests from students and invitations to be a guest speaker at a school. And I never know what other potential connections might come from it.

One of those requests came in October. I got a LinkedIn message asking to be on a panel at the annual Boston Young Healthcare Professionals (BYHP) conference. The young woman who reached out had been an intern in our program at Michigan Medicine when I was CIO. I quickly said yes.

The conference was on “Expanding Our View and Zooming In: What We Can Learn About Healthcare in Our Backyard and Around the World”. My panel was “Healthcare in a Technological Era: Making Boston’s Backyard Even Bigger”. Robert Schultz, managing director at Massnex, was the moderator. On the panelist prep call, I got to know Robert and the other panelists. Robert and I quickly realized that there might be opportunities to work together in the future, so we scheduled a separate call. That call led to another invitation.

Robert teaches the course “Entrepreneurship in Healthcare Organizations” in the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service MPA program at NYU. He asked if I would be a judge for the final class when the students make their business plan pitches – he said think “Shark Tank” but nicer. Of course, I said yes. Continue reading →

Digital health has arrived

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Every healthcare organization seems to be focusing on developing their digital health strategy these days. But do we have a common definition and understanding of what digital health means? A few months back I wrote a post called “Knocking on the digital front door” addressing what many organizations mean when they talk about digital health. Meeting patients where they are and guiding them along the right care pathway with efficient, consistent, and easy processes in the background. It was a very popular post, so I guess it resonated with many.

But digital health encompasses far more than just the digital front door. My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, has taken on the broader issues of digital health this year in a multi-part blog series on View from the Bridge. Here is his four-part series if you are ready to go deeper on digital health:

Digital Health – Is Healthcare Ready? Are You and Your Organization Ready?

Becoming a Digital Health System

Digital Health – Governance in a Digital Health System

Digital Health – The Role of Empathy and Understanding

If you are interested in future posts in David’s digital health series, subscribe to View from the Bridge to get notifications of new posts. Our team of advisors regularly contributes posts on a wide range of topics relevant to today’s healthcare executives and IT leaders.

And if you are looking for help developing your digital health strategy and roadmap, David or I would be happy to schedule time to talk.

This Week in Health IT – Keeping current

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I have highlighted Bill Russell’s podcast series, This Week in Health IT, in several previous blogs and shared many of the episodes on social media. If you work in health IT and are not yet listening to them and subscribing, what are you waiting for? This podcast represents some of the best content available in our industry.

Bill launched the podcast in early 2018. Starting this past March, he pivoted from twice a week to a daily podcast with a COVID-19 Field Report series made possible by the generous sponsorship of Sirius Healthcare. In the first six months of 2020, there were 100,000 downloads compared to 120,000 in all of 2019. With the Field Report series still available for listening, Bill has gone to a three day a week schedule – Tuesday NewsDay and Influence interviews on Wednesdays and Fridays.

There will only be one episode this week – Tuesday Newsday with guest host Drex DeFord as Bill is taking a week off. Drex is a frequent guest on the show and he offers yet another way to receive relevant content with 3xDrex – what he describes as “3 Must-Reads, 3 Days/Week curated by a real healthcare exec” delivered via text.

I highly recommend that you listen to three recent This Week in Health IT episodes:

Atmosphere: State of Healthcare – Bill was the guest speaker at the recent Aruba Atmosphere Digital Conference. His talk provides great insight on the major changes in healthcare and IT the past several months as well as projections for the future. It is truly a unique episode with lots to learn from one of the best! Continue reading →

Healthcare leaders continue to learn and share lessons

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Virtual learning opportunities have increased significantly in the past few months as healthcare leaders are eager to learn from the experiences of others or share their own lessons during this pandemic. There are far more webinars, live sessions, and interviews than I have seen in the past. Most of these sessions are recorded so you can listen or watch when you have time. The trick is to register – if you end up not being able to join at the scheduled time at least you will be sent the archive link. And of course there are always podcasts – so many good ones as I have recommended in previous posts.

This week, there is yet another virtual learning opportunity that I am excited about joining – the HealthIMPACT Live’s Summer Forum. I have participated in their previous in-person forums and found them to be very thought-provoking programs with top-notch speakers on relevant topics. With limited attendance, there is always plenty of opportunity for dialogue. The forum organizers have pivoted and are promising a great virtual experience. The topics are very timely and divided into four parts over two afternoons:

Part I: Your People – Healthcare Workforce Reimagined – From Crisis Management to System-Wide Transformation

Part II: Your Processes – Sustaining Gains in Telemedicine and Virtual Care Delivery- Building on Successes and Lessons Learned Connecting Patients and Providers in Response to COVID-19 Continue reading →

More podcast recommendations – going beyond HIT

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If you are like me, there is no gym time and no commute time these days. But there are still ways to get exercise every day. My long daily dog walks are one of those times when I try to get smarter. And podcasts are the means.

I have made podcast recommendations in the past and still have my favorite “go to” for health IT but I have added a few more in recent months.

ThisWeekinHealthIT – this has been my “go to” podcast since Bill Russell started it in 2018 as a weekly show. In 2019 he went to a twice weekly format. And during the pandemic, he went to daily podcasts with an excellent and very timely Field Report series – interviews with health IT leaders on how they are managing during this crisis and preparing for recovery and the new, better normal. Many great lessons and insights have been shared the past few months. Kudos to all his guests for their incredible work and making time to share with others. And kudos to Bill for his ongoing commitment to developing next generation leaders. My firm, StarBridge Advisors, is a proud sponsor of the show and share in that commitment.

Digital Health Leaders – this is a relatively new podcast series started by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) a few months ago. Russ Branzell, CHIME President and CEO, interviews IT leaders on a range of topics.

Relentless Health Value – this is a podcast I first became acquainted with when I was asked to be a guest back in 2018 – my episode was “The Evolving Role of the Chief Information Officer”. But IT is not the focus. Stacey Richter, a healthcare entrepreneur and innovator, has hosted the show since 2014. The website describes the podcast this way: “The show that connects you with other health care leaders trying to achieve the quadruple aim of improving population health and patient and provider experience, while managing costs effectively. Our mission is to help transform health care by breaking down silos and connecting disconnected parts of our industry. The first step toward collaboration is simply knowing what others are working on and wrestling to overcome.” So, if you want the big picture on healthcare and not just IT, add this one to your list. And like Bill, Stacy has a special COVID-19 series as well.

And continuing down the beyond IT path, I have recently started listening to a few other ones: Continue reading →

IT requests increase while budgets decrease

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As hospital systems develop their COVID-19 recovery plans, the financial impact of this pandemic is deep and far reaching. IT budgets are no exception. IT leaders are being asked to take salary cuts, furlough staff, and deal with a capital freeze for the rest of the year. This comes at a time when the demand for technology solutions is only increasing. And at a time when IT teams have performed at their peak in providing and supporting new solutions with agility and in record time.

In a recent Becker’s Hospital Review article, Hospital IT Spend Pivots to Mission Critical Projects: 7 Leaders on the Key Focus for the Next 12 Months, IT leaders covered telehealth, digital transformation, analytics, informatics, and of course the reality of cost reduction facing them and their organizations.

IT leaders have long faced the supply vs demand challenge. And they have long faced the need to reduce their budgets while meeting a growing user base and increased demand for technology solutions. The days of significant year to year budget and staff growth in IT are a distant memory.

As we look to the future after the COVID-19 recovery, some people talk about the “new normal” phase and others refer to it as the “re-imagine” phase. The latter certainly encourages us to think differently. Regardless, it will be with far less resources. So how does IT manage and ensure success in this ever more constrained environment? Continue reading →

What next for health IT?

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Two weeks ago, I wrote about looking ahead to the “new normal” post COVID-19. Since then some states have started slowly re-opening while other states are defining what their phased re-opening approach may look like. Hospitals have started to develop plans to expand their services beyond emergencies and COVID-19 patients – performing elective surgeries and opening outpatient clinics. All of this is new territory. Patient scheduling, workflow changes, and appropriate staffing and PPE to provide safe care must be accounted for and planned for very carefully. This will happen over the coming weeks and months.

Given the financial impact COVID-19 is having on healthcare systems, executives also need to be looking at how to position their organization for not just recovery but long-term success. One of the articles that I have seen on this is a white paper published by the Chartis Group – “After the Surge: Five Health System Imperatives in the Age of COVID-19”. In it they discuss how COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the care delivery landscape. They outline what they consider to be the five imperatives for future health system success:

  1. Engage consumers and other referral sources to recapture patients
  2. Fundamentally reduce the cost base
  3. Restructure the physician enterprise
  4. Transform the clinical operating model
  5. Closely evaluate partnerships, both horizontal and vertical, traditional and non-traditional

Other management consulting firms that work with healthcare providers most likely have a similar analysis and framework. Regardless what they may look like, all of these long-term efforts will require IT support. Continue reading →

Looking ahead – the “new normal” post COVID-19

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It’s hard to think about anything good coming out of this pandemic. Every story of a life lost is heartbreaking. Like you, I have shed many tears in the past month as I read and heard their stories.

And yet, it is encouraging to consider some of the positive changes we may see when we get to the other side of this crisis and are living and working in the “new normal”. We don’t yet know when that new normal time will come. But there are changes in healthcare and how we work that will hopefully be long lasting. I’m not talking about the overall healthcare system or macro societal and economic changes – I’ll leave that to others.

From a health IT lens, here’s my take on some of the positive changes:

Telehealth – There is no question that this crisis has led to a huge increase in telehealth and new use cases. Some organizations are seeing 50+ times the number of telehealth visits compared to before. With regulations relaxed and no alternative, telehealth is being used in many different scenarios. Training, broad deployment and adoption has accelerated as clinic visits are cancelled and telehealth becomes the primary means to connect with your physician. And on the frontlines of COVID-19 hospital care, leveraging it with inpatients to protect staff and reduce the amount of PPE used has also become common. We’ve reached the tipping point for telehealth and I expect we’ll see it continue to grow in the future. A recent article in NEJM Catalyst by Judd E. Hollander, MD, and Frank D. Sites, MHA, BSN, RN, titled “The Transition from Reimagining to Recreating Health Care Is Now”, covers how organizations need to look at expanded telehealth use post COVID-19.

Rapid deployment – From an IT perspective, supporting the effort to stand up a field hospital or alternate care site such as the 1000 bed Boston Hope Medical Center is like a “greenfield” hospital compared to rolling out a new EHR and the associated infrastructure at an existing hospital. What lessons can be learned and applied from these rapid deployments when it comes to getting all hospitals in a healthcare system on a common platform? Does it have to take years?

Interoperability – I use this term loosely here. New York considers all hospitals statewide as one system to share resources and staff. The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City quickly transitioned from an orthopedic only hospital to take other surgical cases and COVID-19 patients, credentialing physicians and providing access to systems. While state and regional Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) have varied in their successes over the years and physician credentialing is one of the slowest and most tedious administrative processes in healthcare, it gives me hope to see how effectively and quickly hospitals are working together in a time of crisis.

Workflow changes – With EHR systems it can often take weeks or months to identify requirements, reach consensus, make the changes, test, train, and implement. Those changes are now measured in hours or days if it’s needed for COVID-19. IT teams and their clinical partners should ask what processes can be streamlined when we are in the new normal. Continue reading →

COVID-19: Health IT collaboration and best practices

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We are an industry that shares best practices and continually learns from one another. As we all deal with uncharted territory, that sharing is needed more than ever before. In conversations with healthcare CIOs it

Message from Brigham and Women’s Hospital OR nurses: #StayHome

is obvious that the amount of work currently being undertaken by health IT teams is extraordinary.

In that spirit, this week I’m highlighting several resources that might be useful to health IT teams:

Through ThisWeekInHealthIT Bill Russell has produced valuable podcasts for health IT professionals for the past two years, interviewing healthcare executives and IT leaders across the country. Last week he pivoted to focus on COVID-19 with two new services:

COVID-19 Resources is a page dedicated to COVID-19 resources during this time. It’s a resource site for health IT teams when they are asked to stand up a relevant technology or implement a technology enabled process. Visit the page now to see what’s already been shared. And you can help him help others. Just forward any resources for health IT that you are willing to share to Bill at hello@ThisWeekinHealthIT.com

Podcast interviews with health IT leaders on the front lines of the pandemic who are willing to share some of their preparedness challenges, lessons and best practices:

COVID-19 Prep with Baptist Health KY

  • Standing on the lessons of the past
  • Protecting the care providers during COVID-19

COVID-19 Prep with Asante Health OR

  • Establishing communication in crisis
  • Preparedness huddles
  • Prioritization of IT work
  • Leadership skills needed

Continue reading →