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AI in Action: Reducing Burnout and Driving Value in Behavioral & Community Health with Mike Harris & Erik Lyon 12-22-25
00:14:01
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- [00:00]
A
Hi everyone, this is Lucas Voss with Becker's Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Beckers Healthcare podcast series. It's great to have you. Today we're talking about how Feather River Tribal Health center uses technology and AI to streamline behavioral and community health workflows, reduce provider burnout, and certainly in turn improves patient outcomes. And joining me for today's discussion, very excited to have them both on Mike Harris, he's the Chief Information Officer at Feather river. And Eric Lyon, he is the CEO at @ Feather River Tribal Health Center. Mike and Eric, it's great to have you both. Thanks for being.
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B
Here. Lucas, thanks for having.
- [00:33]
C
Us. Happy to be.
- [00:34]
A
Here. Yeah, absolutely. Eric, I want to kick off with you here. Can you just give us a brief overview of Feather River Tribal Health center, the organization itself, what you do? Yeah, it'd be great to hear a little bit more about.
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B
It.
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C
Yeah. So Feather River Tribal Health is a tribal health program in California. We consist of three tribes. We're a consortium of three federally recognized tribes, Berry, Creek, Morton and Enterprise. And our service area encompasses Butte, Yuba and Sutter. All of Butte county except for Chico and Durham, which is a carve out for for a different program. We have a vast array of services. Dental, medical, we have a pharmacy, we have behavioral health services. We have a full gym, we have an aquatic pool. We have acupuncture, chiropractic services, physical therapy, endocrinology, rheumatology, podiatry. We're working on getting an ent. We have a kind of a one stop shop for our patients. It's pretty.
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A
Nice. Certainly technology is an enabler in all of those areas. I would say absolutely, sir. When you were thinking about AI and digital and the journey that you've been on itself, what led Feather Rivers to begin integrating AI into behavioral and community health programs.
- [01:55]
C
Specifically? Yeah, I think that that's something that Mike and I have been talking about for a while was technology and upd. I think we were running kind of an antiquated shop for a while and one of our biggest things was moving to the EHR next gen. And that was kind of a big deal for us at the time and just the things that we could do. Looking at, I started listening to other radio stations and things and talking about AI about two years ago and how that's being used for helping run reports or drafting emails or, you know, essays, those kinds of things that people are doing at school. And I was like, this has to. There's got to be implications for health care. And so I Started talking about Mike, started talking to Mike about that. And then you started hearing some of the things that other places were doing with AI. And so we were really, it was something that we had really wanted to bring to Feather River Tribal Health to try to streamline some of our processes and make things function better. There was, it was sort of a you so much opportunity. Didn't know what really AI was going to be capable of doing and what it could help with. I just knew that I wanted to be at the forefront of.
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A
That. Yeah, Mike, once that direction was set, right, once you decided, okay, this is really where we want to be at, what are some of the things that you did first thing, right. What were some of those steps that you had to take to be able to say, okay, technology and operations, right, they need to be on board. What was key to bring this to life for.
- [03:23]
B
You? You know, I think from the IT operational perspective, it's really looking at a use case that's going to be both of value to the organization and benefit to the patient. So taking Eric's objective, hey, you know, this is a, these, we can do some great things with this technology, but going back and looking at our workflows, looking at the processes in house where we're struggling, that are bottlenecks, and using AI to automate those processes to free up time for staff members where they could be better served doing other things. So I think finding and identifying those processes in house was, I think, the first step for.
- [04:06]
A
Us. And in terms of the use cases itself that you just mentioned, Mike, I was wondering, when you're looking at the day to day experiences for providers, for staff, in what ways has it helped ease workload and also then in turn reduce burnout? What are some of those results that you've seen and how much of an impact has AI really had on these.
- [04:27]
B
Workflows? I think we're looking at AI. AI is a big kind of sexy term that encompasses a lot of stuff, but for me it's really about automation. Because in healthcare we don't want AI replacing the clinician or that visit. It needs to be the supplement to the clinician. And so looking at reminder calls and documentation, those types of things, and having a partner with NextGen, with AmnAssist and Patient Engage, those are the types of places where we've really kind of doubled down on our.
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A
Investment. Eric, from a leadership perspective, then what are the conversations that you are hearing from your staff, from your departments about how this has impacted them? What does this look like from your.
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C
Perspective? So it's been interesting. I think it's been a growth. So when we first started doing things like Ambient assist, which is the scribe technology, our scribes and MA started getting anxious. The providers, bless their hearts, they have a hard time kind of adjusting to the new technology. Same thing with the ehr. So I think there was an initial decrease in morale as far as that was concerned. But I think that some of the providers have been starting using the immunosys more, seeing the benefits of it. The scribes are realizing their jobs are safe and secure. They're not going anywhere. It's freed them up to do other things like digging deeper into pre audits and those kinds of things. When we started implementing luma, the staff who would normally make all those patient call reminders were anxious. All our front desk staff. But it's freed them up to do a lot of other things and now they're seeing the benefits of luma. Our no show rates gone down. We use it. Just the other day I was praising the team because I got this really great message through the LUMA system about an event we're actually having today that I was just a really good reminder to send out to all the patients. And so I think that staff are buying into it now. Where at first there was a lot of anxiety and apprehension, now they're seeing that their jobs aren't really at risk, they're able to do more things and they can see the benefits for the patients and for the.
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A
Clinic. When we're talking about the patient experience itself. Right. And you've touched on the importance of community health in your intro as well. Have you seen impacts in behavioral health and community health specifically in implementing this? Has this really made a difference for you as well in those two.
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C
Regards? I think the community health. Absolutely. So far what we're able to do as far as the community health is concerned has been pretty remarkable. So we've really harness like the LUMA specifically to help us get improve our HEDIS measures and our quality care measures. And you know, as a result, we have kind of the highest scores in the HEDIS measures that we've ever had, hitting almost all of our targets because we really have leaned into that technology to reach out to the patients and educate the patients more. We are looking at behavioral health, we're looking at, you know, ambient assist and using that for dictation services for bhs. Right now BHS uses a lot of the AI for things like helping them write their treatment plans, you know, making sure that golden thread is there between the Diagnosis, the symptoms and the treatment plan. And what does the treatment plan look like and how do you write smart goals? And so they've really leaned in on that to help. But as far as like being able to use it for the dictation services, we're still working on that. I know a few of them are chomping at the bit. They're super excited about those opportunities.
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A
Coming. Mike, here's the million dollar question for you. How are you evaluating whether these tools are actually delivering the value that you want to see and the impact that you're aiming.
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B
For? So I think from, from an analytics perspective, we, we're looking at, you know, are there measurable patient outcomes? So you know, specifically, Eric's talking Luma, right? Can we see a drop in. No shows. Are we getting, are we, are we getting more appointments scheduled? Are the notes done on time? So there's a lot of metrics that you can use and I think those are just, you know, your standard ROI metrics that you're going to use for anything and especially if you already have, you know, KPIs that are, that are designed for, for what's going on. But you know, we've, we are just kind of using those things, those same systems that are already in place and just saying, you know, are the, are the providers getting out on time? Right? Is there, are their notes done when they should be or are they staying over? And I think since we've implemented a lot of these systems that our providers are now able to go home. You know, not everyone, you know, there's still going to be some stragglers. It's, you know, but I think on the whole that most, most of our providers are getting their notes completed on time and you know, they're able to kind of keep that work life balance that everyone so desperately.
- [09:28]
A
Needs. If you had to point to one thing that was really challenging for you in implementation. I know we talked about the change management piece here a little bit. Eric touched on it, the importance of communication and making sure folks understand what the tools are actually doing. But Mike, when you're looking at some of the workflows and redesigning these workflows, is there a challenge that sticks out to you and how did you work through these with your.
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B
Teams? I think with the security background, I'm always evaluating, where does this information go? Where does the data go? Because AI doesn't exist in a vacuum that a lot of times these are in big data centers. Where is my data living for us as a tribal healthcare program? Data sovereignty is always a concern. And so making sure that any system, not just AI, but any system that's going to be incorporated into our workflows are done in a secure and safe manner that protects our patient confidentiality first and foremost. So I think going through that, you know, analyzing any sort of technology, given that context, I think is where my mind.
- [10:39]
A
Goes. Absolutely. You've both gone through the process. I'd love to touch on this a little bit because I think it's important for other organizations as well. What's one piece of advice or best practice that organizations should know that you want to share with other behavioral health or community health organizations that really want to leverage a the right way and successfully? What's that one piece of advice that you really want to stress with folks? Eric, we'll start off with.
- [11:08]
C
You. Yeah, I think for me, one of the biggest lessons I learned is be mindful of my own naivete. I really thought the things like ambient assist, the providers are just going to absolutely jump in head first with and really buy into because I was really excited about it. Being a behavioral health provider in the past, one of the things that really bogged me down was documentation and notes and I thought Ambassys was going to be the game changer for them and they're all going to buy into it. They didn't buy into it. So one of the things I would definitely recommend is get your stakeholders involved from, from early onset when you're exploring these things. Have a medical director or a provider who's a little more tech savvy join that. Because if you can get a provider to buy in, they can speak to the other providers and get their buy in where nobody wants to hear from the CEO about how this is gonna be so great for them because they don't, they don't care. But if you get a provider who buys into it and they see the benefits of it and it'll, it just makes it so much better to get the other providers buy in. I think that's one of the, the biggest things that I've taken from some of the implementations we've.
- [12:12]
A
Done. Mike. I like to hear from a CIO how great it is. I know, Eric, but Mike. Yeah, go ahead. What's that from your perspective? Right. What's that one piece of advice? What's that insight that, that you want to have folks go along.
- [12:25]
B
With? No, I think I'm, I'm going to, you know, copy and paste Eric's answer here. But you know, getting that provider involved because, you know, as, as a technologist. Right. I can discuss the benefits and all the great things about this technology and how it's going to save time, but you know, I'm not in the trenches. I don't necessarily speak the same languages as those providers. And so it really means a lot if you can get that provider on board and really, really buy in and see, see the benefits of whatever, whatever platform or technology that you're implementing and get them on board. It also helps to have them in the decision making process prior to implementation because, you know, again, I'm running the systems, I'm keeping things afloat. But you need a clinician, you need a provider to say, hey, this is going to work. Because what I see is the perfect magic pill. They may not. And so ensuring that you have a provider perspective in choosing a system as well, I.
- [13:32]
C
Think. Yeah, make them think it's their.
- [13:34]
A
Idea. Always a good idea for sure. Mike and Eric, it's such a great pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for your time and insights today. This was a fantastic conversation. Thanks for being.
- [13:45]
B
Here.
- [13:46]
A
Absolutely. It's great to have you. And we also want to thank our podcast sponsor, Next Gen Healthcare. You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast.
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D
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