← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Dr. Peter Chang, Chief Transformation Officer at Tampa General Hospital
00:12:26
Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by a remarkable leader. We're joined by Dr. Peter Chang, and Dr. Chang is the Chief Transformation Officer at Tampa General Hospital, also known as tgh. And TGH is this amazing institution that is both a leading academic medical center. It's one of the leaders in the country in transplant and also a tremendous safety net place for the people in the Greater Tampa area. Dr. Chang, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about TGH and Tampa General?
- [00:36]
B
So much for having me today. Scott. So, again, my name is Pete Chang. I'm the Chief Transformation Officer at Tampa General. I've been in this role for probably the last two years, but I've been with the health system in one fashion or another for the last 21 years, starting my career here as a medical student with the University of South Florida. Scott, as you mentioned, we're a big academic health system. And me getting my roots here at the university and then transitioning to be a TGH team member has really been instrumental in my growth here. Our leadership is transformational. I'm sure many of you have heard of the name John Koris. He is our president and CEO and really sets the vision and allows me the freedom to get out and do some of these really innovative projects here at tgh.
- [01:21]
A
Fantastic. And talk a little bit about, I mean, the transformation of TGH from sort of very local to having a much bigger national spread. It's amazing. I'm in Chicago and I saw a TGH billboard recently. We're on the east coast of Florida sometimes, and we hear about TGH the same in New York. Talk about sort of the transformation and the impact that TGH is having.
- [01:43]
B
Scott. I mean, it really centers around our academic mission. We really do feel like that differentiates our health system from other healthcare systems, not only in our market, but I would say in the Southeast and even the country. When you combine that with our community practice physicians, that you create an environment that's really one set for innovation, sort of setting the model of healthcare around the country. First heart transplant that we did here over 50 years ago was really the start. And now we've grown to become the largest transplant center in the United States from both a volume and a quality perspective. So taking that lens of innovation and continuing to push and innovate to provide better care in our community is really kind of what it's centered on.
- [02:28]
A
Thank you. And talk about a little bit, you know, with tght, your mission, supply Demand challenges in the country, the academic, medical center to go with the safety. And what are some of the trends that you're watching closely in healthcare? You're obviously in a growth market versus so many other markets in the country. But what are some of the trends that you're watching closely?
- [02:49]
B
Peter Something we're really looking closely at is the acuity that defines the type of patients that we see. We have to create mechanisms to take care of all patients. So in doing that, we are able to create capacity by doing innovative programs like hospital at home, being able to decant the patients that still need acute care out of the health system, leaving room and capacity for those highly complex patients that need care. Taking that model and sort of extending it out and making sure that the patient's getting the right care in the right location and level of care at the right time is something that we're really centered on. And it really kind of leads to our thesis on coordinating care or care coordination. It's really become a big part that's driving the vision of the future of the hospital. And that's powered by, of course, amazing people, which we've always had, but really the burgeoning technology, generative AI that's coming into play, and most importantly, wrapping that in a really bulletproof process to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks.
- [03:51]
A
Thank you. Peter. Can you take a moment on what you're most focused on and excited about as we get to the end of 2025 and heading into 2026?
- [04:03]
B
I think there's two things. Of course, we have very close eye on the regulatory aspects. As you had asked earlier. We're not getting paid more as time goes on. We know insurance companies have to continually curtail reimbursements. We know that there's large cuts coming from the governmental perspective in a challenging labor market where we have supply costs continuing to increase and increase. We're really trying to set ourselves apart from other health systems by diversifying our portfolio, so to speak. And that only becomes the things that we pursue from how do we make the health system viable from a quality perspective, from a financial perspective, but at the same point leveraging technology. So the second thing, Scott, is really the entry of generative AI into healthcare in a really big way. I could say it's the first time in my career where technology is not a limitation, which is a pretty powerful statement. Just five years ago, if I wanted to do something, we would say, well, the technology won't allow us to do that. That's really not the case today. So the Only thing that's really limiting us at this point in time is of course your budget, because generative AI is not cheap and your imagination. And if you're able to sort of balance those two, you can really make a big impact on healthcare in your community.
- [05:26]
A
And let me ask you a question, because we're all trying to figure out where AI is going to have the biggest impact on both the clinical and administrative side. Give us a sense where you see the bigger impacts that will be the most noticeable sooner rather than later, maybe short term, where you see some of the bigger impacts that AI can have.
- [05:49]
B
You know. You know, it's funny, Scott, when I switched from the bedside to becoming a hospital administrator in a more full time basis, my, my, my boss who hired me is the chief Innovation Officer. He said, Pete, you really need to get good at the administrivia because that's what you're worse at. I jokingly say that that's what AIs role in health care is. There is so much administrivia. When you start to look at how we submit a claim, how we get authorization, how payments are structured, how patients are scheduled, how a physician documents in clinic, all of these things are sort of what I call the administrivia of healthcare that I think generative A is perfectly poised to help us out with. And we worry about generative AI and AI. When you start talking about it, making a clinical diagnosis, I think that's always something to consider. But the other 95% of healthcare that we could automate, we should really be focusing on that and not worrying about AI getting a diagnosis wrong. How about AI getting a schedule right? Or AI helping to free up a clinician to provide more time to really spend with patients? And that's really kind of the focus we have here at T. We've got.
- [07:03]
A
This tremendous shortage of physicians and nurses in the country, but particularly physicians and specialties and primary care across the board. Is there a place and a time when you think AI will have a bigger impact on solving some of those challenges as well? That sort of go beyond the administrative trivia and all the rote and administrative tasks. Is there a time where we think AI will have a bigger impact on helping us deal with the physician shortages and specialty shortages that we face?
- [07:38]
B
Exactly, Scott. It's kind of what I just spoke of. It's really being able to provide more time back to patients that it's sort of a double edged sword with physicians. Right. If you look at ambient listening for note transcription, that allows a physician or an advanced practice provider to spend more time with their patients, but we can't necessarily expect them to see, see more patients. That's not really an appropriate return on investment because of the time that they're actually getting to the point where they actually feel they're spending the time that they need to with the patients. If we add more to their schedule, it just makes it less. And so my hypothesis is really, it's a really interesting one because when we look at patient care, our nurses, our physicians, our advanced practice providers, we are tasked with changing how a patient interacts with the rest of their life. But yet the time we spend with that particular patient, either on a telehealth visit or an in person clinic visit or here in one of our hospitals, is so short. And the impact we have to make on that patient's life could be pretty profound. And so what we really think is happening is we have to find a way to use generative AI to better engage with our patients and actually potentially decrease the amount of touch points they have with our clinicians. But when they do have touch points with them, they're much higher impact because we're able to gather much more extensive of telemetry on what's going on with a patient when they're actually not in front of us. I. E. What's their lifestyle like? Are they taking their medications, are they doing what they're supposed to do, which so much better informs the time where we do have with them? And that behavior modification is actually in the place of what generative AI can do to continually keep tabs on the patient and actually decrease the amount of pressure when they're actually in front of a clinician. It's kind of an interesting lesson.
- [09:33]
A
No, no. Fantastic. And your point is so well taken that just because we take some of the load off of physicians, if we immediately say to them, okay, this means you could see 10% more patients, there will be really no benefit in that in terms of the physician's ability to avoid burnout and manage their lives and take care of themselves. So your point there is so well taken. Let me ask you another question. You've been at TGH now for more than a decade. Just take a moment on some of the transformation that's happened in that last decade or so.
- [10:07]
B
I've been a hospital administrator, like I said, I've been here for 21 years, but in various different roles, been with the hospital on the administrative side for a little over 11 years. And in that time we've seen our revenue increase Almost fivefold. Along with the number of team members we have, the number of patients we treat, we've also seen our quality improve markedly where we're approaching the top, top quartile of our vizient peer group. And in doing that, it's really that mindset to figure out we have to do more with what we have. Right. As you mentioned earlier, the only way to really get there is through innovation. We have to innovate ourselves out of this situation. I always say the last two industries to innovate are healthcare and education. Because the final product that you're producing is not a product actually, it's a human being. And in doing so, scalability becomes one of our biggest challenges. Challenges across. If you had asked me what is the number one challenge I have today, we do such amazing work, but it's always focused in a very tight pocket. The innovation really lies in how you scale that across your entire health system.
- [11:17]
A
Thank you. So, so that's remarkable. So I, I was looking at your CV and saw the 11 years there in administration, but you've actually been at TGA's for 20 years so you must have seen an amazing transformation in that period of time.
- [11:30]
B
Of course, yeah. I mean, I remember walking into this hospital as a medical student. I remember doing my first surgery as a third year medical student in the bariatrics team. And just to see the growth, I think the improvement in culture, the focus on team members which ultimately help take better care of our patients. We can say we focus on patients every day, but part of our big cultural transformation is making sure our team has the knowledge to stay skills, the equipment, the training to be able to provide world class care for our patients. Because if we don't have that, then we really aren't focused in on providing the best patient care possible.
- [12:09]
A
Dr. Chang, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Beckers Healthcare podcast. It's always remarkable for me to hear the TGH story and what's going on and what you're doing. It's a real leader in the nation. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [12:21]
B
Yeah, always appreciate the time. Scott.