← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Dr. Marcus Speaker, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at Carilion Clinic
00:14:30
Loading summary
Transcript16 lines
- [00:02]
A
@ Athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler. With Athenahealth, see how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.
- [00:44]
B
Hello everyone, this is Scott King with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Marcus Speaker, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer with the Carlinian clinic. Dr. Speaker, how are you doing today?
- [00:57]
C
I'm doing great, thanks Scott.
- [00:59]
B
Thanks so much for joining us. We have a lot of big topics, some trendy things to address here in healthcare, but before we get started, I wonder if you could please tell us a little bit about your background.
- [01:10]
C
Sure. I've been in healthcare IT now for close to 20 years. Started out here at Carilian and did a medical informatics fellowship back in the mid 2000s. That was after family medicine training, so family medicine board certified and also then along the way picked up a certification in clinical informatics, helped with our with our EPIC implementation and then have continued to stay on and work to optimize our EPIC solution and have worked in clinical decision support, worked through meaningful use, you know, and kind of all the changes that have taken place over the past couple decades and now most recently have been leading our ambient scribe rollout across the organization. So lots of, lots of fun things over the, over the past couple decades that we have seen.
- [02:12]
B
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing all that background info and definitely going to ask you about some of those areas in this conversation. But the first thing I wanted to ask you about is, you know, our research tells us that nearly half of medical practices reported using AI in some capacity last year and it remains a key topic obviously now for health IT leaders. From your perspective, what are the use cases that are making a difference right now and how are you leveraging them in your organization?
- [02:40]
C
Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question and certainly I'll attack it from two different perspectives. So there's the perspective of the physician or the frontline clinician and the things that those clinicians are doing in AI and probably three things bubble up. Certainly the one that has everyone talking these days is the Ambient scribe technology and the ability to walk in and have a conversation with a patient to set your phone down, press a button, record the entire conversation, have your notes written. That has been the first major positive game changer, I think for our physicians in a long time. And so I have physicians apps coming up to me, telling me about how impactful the ambient scribe technology has been on their practice, getting them home, getting home on time, getting their notes done on time, not having to work as much at night or on weekends. So incredible impact there. So I think that's probably the biggest one. But we are also seeing inroads into some of the augmented responses around in basket. When patients have questions through the patient portal coming in, being able to take the conversation and create a draft response for the, for whomever is responding to the message. Again, it helps with efficiency, in some cases, helps with tone, helps make those responses a little more pleasant and patient friendly. And so that has been a large success. And then finally a newer piece of technology that we have rolled out in the, in the generative AI space around note summarization. So being able to pull up a patient chart for a patient that I'm seeing today and see a summary of everything that has taken place, you know, in the, in the past six months or since the last time that patient was in to see me gives me the ability to, to kind of get all those, those really important points. And, and then if there's something in that summary that I want to drill into a little bit more, being able to, to click on some of the annotations and go back to the notes where, where the generative AI found, where it surfaced the information from, so I can dig in deeper. And so we're seeing that catch on. But, but really kind of these game changers for our clinicians, now that's on the clinician side. Now the other, the other hat that I wear is on the IT side. And so we are seeing generative AI through the business applications. So our application analysts, our solution architects, our project managers, all using generative AI to help put together project plans, help craft emails, help craft patient education. So being able to take information at whatever educational level you want to put together and then have the generative AI rewrite that at a sixth grade level or at a fifth grade level or to whatever target audience you're looking for and so gaining efficiencies in, in those spaces, obviously that's not, those are not the clinical applications, but other, other areas that we are, are using generative AI across the system. So just A variety of, of use cases.
- [06:53]
B
Yeah, it's definitely a variety. We, you know, we hear a lot about the note taking. Sounds like a simple use, but it really does free up clinicians and physicians. It frees up so much time and makes things more efficient just to, you know, gather what's going on with the patient and really make the most of that time with the patient and then hearing about how you're able to adjust it for, you know, different people at different levels, I think that's just phenomenal and just just tends to lead to great patient care. So yeah, wonderful use cases. And as we continue to see virtual care expand from AI enabled tools and remote monitoring to broader digital health platforms, introducing new technology always brings challenges. So what advice do you have for leaders navigating everything from governance to patient engagement? And can you share an example of how your organization has balanced innovation with some operational constraints?
- [07:50]
C
Yeah, I think at a high level having, having a good governance process is going to be absolutely key for organizations and in that governance process making sure that at least some of the people that are engaged really have a deeper understanding in terms of how AI and generative AI work. Some of the issues that can be found obviously both positive and negative. I also think at that high level, making sure, at least in the near term for most applications that organizations are looking for solutions to problems that they have. There are, there are a large number of generative and other AI companies that have some really interesting solutions to problems that we never knew that we had. And so having conversations with these companies trying to figure out if they're a good fit for us. We have every day talking to different leaders around the company about something new and exciting that they saw that maybe is not the best fit in the short term because it really is not addressing a problem that we currently have. And so really trying to figure out what problems are you trying to solve and then having conversations with, with those IT areas that can help solve the problem rather than putting in the new and bright shiny piece?
- [09:50]
B
No, I think it's a great question to start from and also wanted to ask how are you seeing recent legislation, both state and federal affect healthcare organizations and healthcare IT specifically. Have you had to adjust strategies in response?
- [10:07]
C
We, we have and probably the, the, the, the biggest thing that we are looking at right now involves payment and what, you know, looking out into the future and how is, how is reimbursement going to change? Trying to, to figure out what that looks like over the next couple years, especially around the governmental programs, Medicare, Medicaid, we have a large Medicare and Medicaid population within with our clinic. That makes us a little bit different than, you know, some of the other health systems a little farther north and east that have a majority of private payer system. So trying to figure out what that's going to look like and, and so scrutinizing our IT spend, so making sure that, that the systems that we have in place are truly needed. We have a number of legacy systems, our older systems that we're looking at, that we have recently determined that we could, with our core systems we can do maybe 80 to 90% of what the specialty system or the third party system can do. And so we're looking at moving away from some of these third party systems that we have had for a number of years, moving back into our core system and really beefing up in our epic implementation and again, some of those other core systems which results in savings and puts us in a better place as we look to weather some of the headwinds that are coming certainly in the telehealth arena. Looking very carefully at what's going to happen with telehealth, telehealth reimbursement, and so trying to keep our finger on that pulse so we can be reactive because and we want to keep those margins at a safe place.
- [12:24]
B
So for My last question, Dr. Speaker, you've covered so much in terms of AI and emerging technology and some great use cases. But if you had to kind of zero in on one top piece of advice for healthcare leaders as they prepare for further advancements in technology and rising demands for care, what would that be?
- [12:45]
C
Yeah, great, great question. And I think that goes back to what I said earlier. Make sure that you're focused on your, the health system or the organization's strategy, understanding what your problems and your goals are and then layering in the appropriate technology to help maximize those goals. There's a lot of really fun, exciting, cool things that people are showcasing from a technology standpoint, but really making sure that the technology that you're putting in is going to help solve those core problems, align with core strategy.
- [13:37]
B
I think that's a great piece of advice and thank you so much for a great conversation, Dr. Speaker. I look forward to working with you again soon.
- [13:43]
C
Absolutely. Sounds great. Thanks, Scott.
- [13:48]
A
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier, a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom lines. Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler with Athenahealth. See how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.