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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Dr. Michael Han on Ambient AI and Governance Strategy at MultiCare Health System
00:16:45
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- [00:02]
A
This is where healthcare leadership comes together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives and nearly 800 speakers to Chicago, April 13th through the 16th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former President George W. Bush. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.
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B
This is Laura Darda with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Michael Hahn, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at MultiCare Health System. Dr. Hahn, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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C
Thanks for having me this morning.
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B
Now, I'm excited for our conversation because I know we'll spotlight some of the cool things you're doing at Multicare, as well as dig into your perspective on the future. But before we do, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself in Multicare?
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C
Sure. So my name is Mike Hahn. I am a urologist by background. I don't practice urology anymore, but I do actually miss it. I've been here at Multicare Health System as the chief Medical Information officer for almost five years. Yeah. And MultiCare is a 13 hospital, about 2,300 bed integrated delivery network based out of Tacoma, Washington. We have a very large behavioral health footprint. We have about 25,000 employees, about 3,000 physicians. And our mission here in the Pacific Northwest is to be the highest value system of health in the Pacific Northwest. So I'm really happy to be able to talk to you about what we're doing here at Multicare.
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B
Fantastic. Now, in thinking through kind of the last year or so, could you tell us about an initiative that you led? What did you do and what were the results?
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C
I think that the most important thing that we did at MultiCare from IT technology standpoint was an evaluation of three different ambient clinical documentation vendors. So early on in 2024, we trialed, I would say, a legacy vendor in this space. They were first to market. We started with a pilot of about 100 licenses. And it was interesting in that we thought that it was pretty sure that this would be an immediate game changer for our physicians and apps. And what we found was that it did indeed reduce time in documentation, but it did not decrease time in chart, it did not decrease time after scheduled hours, and it didn't increase productivity. Subjectively, our physicians and apps absolutely love this product. They thought it was great. We did have Some churn in that pilot. But after about a year or so, we saw other products that were coming to market and we were really interested. And so we engaged with two other vendors. And so we had a total of three vendors in 2025. And we enrolled about 550 physicians and apps into what we call the Bake Off. You know, during COVID we, my family and I spent a lot of time watching the Great British Baking show. And so we ended up calling it the Bake off. And we were able to evaluate all three of the vendors and our providers actually had a very clear favorite. The way that we evaluated this again was with those user activity log metrics that I just mentioned. Time and chart, time and documentation, time spent after hours. We also looked at productivity from an RVU standpoint as well as HCC coding and RAF scores. And then lastly, we asked our providers to fill out a survey. And the survey was quite eye opening. Number one, we got a greater than 50% response rate on that survey. And if you've ever tried to survey physicians and apps, you know that response rates can be quite difficult. And we were quite pleased with our results. I think that the most important result that we took home from this was that prior to using an ambient clinical documentation tool, 66,0% of our physicians and apps experienced at least one symptom of burnout. After using an ambient clinical documentation tool, 16% of our physicians and apps using the tool were experiencing at least one symptom of burnout. And so we were able to reduce symptoms of burnout by 75%, which was astounding. Prior to the trial, about 11% of our physicians and apps said that they enjoyed their work. At the end of the trial, we were able to move that needle to 37%. And this is agnostic of ambient clinical documentation vendor. And so I made the statement at Health in October, if you're not at least looking at an ambient clinical documentation tool for your physicians and apps, you don't care about your physicians and apps. And I'm quite serious. I think that this is, you know, after, you know, two and a half years, this is game changing technology and our physicians and apps are clamoring for it. We are ramping our choice for the solution quite quickly and so we're super excited about scaling this technology to the rest of our physicians and apps here in 2026.
- [06:06]
B
That's fascinating to hear. You know, I love that approach of being able to not necessarily jump on the first thing or technology company that you worked with on the ambient, but Then, you know, seeing as other companies came out with additional products and being able to put them against each other to bake off, quote unquote, is, you know, so such a fun and cool idea. And you know, when you were looking at how your clinicians and app are providing feedback and really playing a role in identifying which company you'll go with, how do you really keep that all organized and make sure that you are truly gaining the impact and ROI and value from each of those different opportunities. As you're looking at the pilots and then deciding which one to scale throughout
- [06:53]
C
the organization, I think that it's continuing to monitor the utilization data. I think that it's, you know, when you're looking at one of these tools, I think that you certainly want to look at the number of seats that you have, but you also want to look at the encounter utilization. So what percentage of encounters is this tool being used for? I think that when we, as we were negotiating the contract, the thing that I appreciated the most about the vendors was willingness to go at risk because we have this data in terms of utilization, because we had this data based on adoption, because we had this data on productivity, we were able to sit down with, quite frankly, all of the vendors and say, okay, let's talk about going at risk. And if we don't see an improvement in our top line revenue, if we don't see an improvement in burnout, if we don't see an improvement in productivity, then our fees are discounted or you get paid less money. And it was, they were quite willing to sit down and talk to us about that. And I think that it goes to show the confidence that these vendors have in their product. And so I think that that's certainly one way that we're looking at this and hopefully looking at, you know, implementation of any sort of any other technology based tools or you know, I'm going to say AI based tools because, you know, our CFO is really looking at a return on investment.
- [08:37]
B
Absolutely. Which is, you know, so critical across the board. I know every health care dollar is precious and especially those that are coming through, you know, for different tasks in aspects of the organization. So I think looking ahead for 2026, what are some of the big priorities and headwinds that you have your EY right now?
- [08:57]
C
I think that in 2026 that, that I'm trying to focus in on is, is AI governance. I think that, you know, here at Multicare we've done a fairly good job of standing up AI governance and understanding intake and how it fits into our overall new software governance process. We, we have embedded both AI governance and data governance into our new request process. And so we're doing a fairly good job of keeping up with net new vendors to our environment as well as new capabilities that are being introduced by our existing vendors. And so we have a multidisciplinary AI governance committee that I help to lead that is keeping up with this sort of new capabilities that are being introduced. You know, where, where I think that there is significant opportunity for, for us is to come up with a plan on how to monitor those vendors and software that is in our stack. How do we monitor these applications for bias, safety, drift, compliance and roi. Right. And you know, my dream would be to sort of have a single pane of glass where, where I can, I can look and say, okay, well this ambient clinical documentation vendor or you know, this radiology AI vendor, is it delivering on, on what, what, what they said they would deliver? And, and, and is it safe and, and bias free and drift free. So that way we feel good about this from a patient and physician and clinician perspective. And so that's really what I'm hoping to focus on for 2026. I mean, there are other areas that are certainly, I think, coming of age. I think that voice is certainly quite interesting. And I also am curious about applying agents to certain parts of our administrative workflow. But again, I think if we want to have nice things, and certainly AI and the technologies that are being developed at this point are those nice things, I think that we need to have that sort of governance safety layer put in place in order to make the most use of these tools.
- [11:48]
B
Absolutely. I think that's such a great point. And you know, having that more structured governance and safety, you know, I know in some ways slows things down a bit, but also make sure that you're moving forward, not putting yourself at risk and could actually unleash a bit more of, you know, potential there too. And so when you think about that governance process, who's typically involved in that and how, what's important, I guess today to make sure you're including. Because I know the world of AI especially is evolving so quickly and it seems like in many respects it can be, you know, challenging to keep up once you start putting the process in place. And then it almost becomes obsolete in a couple of months just because the way the technology is changing.
- [12:32]
C
Because, you know, I try and look, you know, as an informaticist, I try and look at a lot of things through a lens of people, process and Technology or supported by technology. And so, you know, I'm very proud of the AI governance committee that we've stood up. It includes, you know, medical leaders, pharmacy leaders, nursing leaders. It includes, you know, our chief compliance officer, members of our legal and risk team, you know, people who are just interested in AI. I think that the one voice that we are missing is the patient voice in this. And you know, we are all patients. But I am thoughtful about that part of this quote, unquote people equation. I think that, you know, we have, like I said, we have nailed down the process. Nailed down is probably a little bit too strong of a word. But I think that we're, you know, developing the process in terms of how we govern again net new capabilities, whether it's through an existing vendor or new vendor. But I think that we're really going to need technology to help us with the monitoring of those applications within our environment. And so I've seen some promising vendors out there and I'm certainly hopeful that over the course of the next year or so we're able to continue to develop that area that's helpful to understand.
- [14:04]
B
Thank you for digging a bit deeper there. Now, what do you think the hardest thing you'll have to do in the coming year will be?
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C
I think that the hardest thing that we do in general is having to prioritize with limited resources. I think that healthcare systems have always had very slim margins and I think that there are certainly financial headwinds that we're looking at over the course of the next couple of years. And how do we continue to deliver cutting edge technology for our clinicians to take better care of our patients in an era where every dollar is so important?
- [14:47]
B
Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. And having that ability to prioritize and then knowing what to say no to and how to either say no overall or come back to seems like a skill that has not always needed to be as sharp as it is today just because there are so many options in place. Before we wrap up here, I wanted to know what are you most excited about for the future as well?
- [15:17]
C
So I gotta say, you know, the data that I presented earlier today regarding the anti symptom of burnout from 60 to 16% and enjoyment of work from 10 to 37%. You know, I've done informatics for the last 15 years. I've never seen anything move the needle like that. You know, and I sit up there as a physician leader over 10 years ago talking about meaningful use, knowing that that a lot of what we were pushing wasn't necessarily meaningful. I'm extremely optimistic about what is being produced now in the technology realm that we're actually going to do a lot more meaningful things and we're actually going to be able to change. We're actually going to be able to move the needle, you know, bend the curve, whatever you want to use for our patients and our clinicians over the next five to 10 years. I think that large language models artificial intelligence. It's truly going to truly going to change the way that we deliver healthcare in this country and I'm just really excited to be a part of that.
- [16:24]
B
I love that. Dr. Hahn, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a fantastic conversation and you know, I'm looking forward to seeing you as well at our annual meeting coming up here in April. It'll be great to catch up a bit and you know, continue this conversation.
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C
Great. Thank you so much for having me.