← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [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.
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B
This is Laura Dardo with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Ruben Pillay, who is the Chief Innovation Officer at UAB Health System, as well as Executive Director at the Hirsink Institute for Biomedical Innovation and Assistant Dean of AI and Biomedical Innovation at Hearsing School of Medicine. Doctor, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [01:06]
C
Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here with you, Laura. Thank you for having me.
- [01:10]
B
Absolutely. Now, I'm excited to be in conversation with you because I know there's so much happening in healthcare and innovation today, particularly thinking about how technology and AI are really making a difference on the operational clinical workflows at health Systems. So I'm looking forward to learning more about what you're doing at uab. But before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
- [01:32]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I am a physician who holds a Ph.D. in business administration. As you said in the introduction, I hold many positions within the UAB Health System and School of Medicine, and these are overarching roles. Chief Innovation Officer of the UAB Health System. I'm the Executive Director of the Hearsink Institute for Biomedical Innovation at the School of Medicine. And our focus there is on AI is leveraging artificial intelligence and digital technology. And then, of course, I hold a professorship in medicine. I'm also the Assistant Dean for AI and Biomedical Innovation at the School of Medicine. And all of these roles enable me to sit at the intersection of not just R and D and product development, but actually the implementation within the UAB Health System as well. So, you know, and we have designed the role to. To be able to execute those. Those functions seamlessly. So.
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B
Yeah, well, it's amazing to hear and, you know, certainly no easy tasks. You integrate everything together and have that kind of functionality. Now, what opportunities and headwinds do you have your eye on right now?
- [02:56]
C
Well, I mean, at the Moment. You know, there's a lot of discussions about artificial intelligence in health and health care, both clinical, non clinical. We're focused on what I would call highly feasible and impactful opportunities at this stage. And obviously when we look at those, the kind of key opportunities fall in the non clinical space. So obviously solutions addressing ambient intelligence and workflow related challenges, you know, are really for us a really high priority. Whether it's with documentation, triage, prior authorization, these are kind of key focus areas for us now. And that's premised on the fact that we're able to give immediate time back, you know, for clinicians, and reduce leakage and denial. So that to me is something that we're spending a lot of our time, energy and resources at the moment. We also are a pretty large health system with operations across the state. And so for us the predictive operations are a high priority. So, you know, in terms of predicting bed flow or scheduling, staffing, etc. Across our ecosystem is critical. So, you know, we're investing a lot of time and energy in building solutions to help us do that. I think the third area is remote patient monitoring and building out the hospital at home concept. And the whole premise of that is can we decant lower acuity care into patients homes, improve the experience for them and of course reduce the total cost for care delivery. So I would say those are the key areas that I'm focusing on at the moment. As you would have observed, none of those direct clinical. But I think it's just where technology is and AI specifically is at the moment that the highest value proposition is really in the operations space. In terms of, you know, headwinds. I think it's, you know, headwinds is a, I would say strong term. But yeah, I mean there are challenges we face always. One is getting the C suite buy in. I think that's always a challenge, you know, to be able to sell concepts and access resources, to be able to execute that. I think payment alignment is always a challenge. Trying to figure out how we can capitalize on the value from the operational solutions we're deploying as well as the hospital at home and remote monitoring. That's a big challenge at the moment. I think, not to be understated, is the issue of, you know, workforce fatigue as we aggressively try to get some visible wins. It, it means that, you know, it requires change management from a workforce point of view. And my sense is that there is some kind of workforce fatigue attributable to these chronic attempts to change, you know, by implementing technology. So I would say, you know, those are the three, three opportunities that I think are critical that we're focused on and three of the main headwinds that we're facing now. Having said that, you know, I think we have also put strategies in place to mitigate these headwinds to ensure success. I hope that makes sense.
- [07:25]
B
Absolutely. And I think that's really smart, especially looking at the big challenges ahead. As you mentioned, focusing on some of the AI and technologies that can help with operational workflows, but also understanding how you can make sure you've got that deployment monitoring across the board so that the technology continues to have the type of impact that you want it to have. And then two, to think about the workforce and make sure you've got the right plan in place to leverage your human strength as well as the technology too. So you know, when you think about those factors that are mitigating some of these risks, what have you built there at UAB that's been critical in order to keep the workforce on track as well as align with the payment and ideas of technology that are really critical for you today?
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C
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the key functions of our Institute for Biomedical Innovation is leading the literacy and capacity development component of this. You may or may not be aware, but UAB and the HearSink Institute, we have the largest training program in AI in medicine globally and we are one of the few schools of medicine that has training programs in healthcare innovation. So you know, it's, and these programs are both academic and credit bearing. So you can come and get a graduate certificate or master's or even doctoral level qualifications for us. But we have been very, very deliberate about making this literacy available in a non credit bearing platform to all employees within the healthcare system in the school of medicine. So, and you know, I think with literacy it's much easier to be able to communicate to the workforce what you're trying to do. One of the key strengths or one of the key kind of mitigating strategies is just really being able to communicate what you're trying to do in a persuasive manner. And you know, you're more likely to succeed if those that you're communicating with and to understand the language, understand the logic and rationale and you know, buy in is much easier when people are informed. And that's across the board. You know, if our leaders are literate and have a good understanding of technology, the impact, etc. You know, they're more likely to support it and buy into it. The same applies to the workforce. So I think it's been, I would say one of our key drivers of success is our focus on innovation, digital AI literacy across the board and of course, you know, a robust communication, stressless persuasion strategy. It's all about communication, you know, so we're pretty deliberate about how we go about that.
- [10:54]
B
That makes a lot of sense and it's helpful to dig a little bit deeper there. Thank you so much, Dr. Pillay. Now how are you thinking about growth and adding value to UAB overall as you continue down this path and examine new technologies and innovations that could make a difference?
- [11:09]
C
Yeah, I, I mean, you know, setting up a innovation institute like we had here was critical to our broader growth strategy. You know, I think every health system needs an innovation operation to be able to very, very quickly, you know, either source and validate and deploy and evaluate or develop them internally. So you know, that's the applied function that the institute performs as well. So you know, we work very, very closely with the health system and my role as chief Innovation officer, as I said, overarches. So I have real time knowledge of the challenges that we face and I bring it back to the institute and we try and design responses to that and we have a kind of kill fast scale, fast approach to this. You know, with 90 day sprints, pre agreed exit criteria, we shut down what doesn't move the needle and we over resource what does. So you have this kind of internal operation that you really need. I would say from a time and general resource allocation point of view, we spend about 60, 60% of all our efforts and resources solving challenges related to our existing operation. You know, as I alluded to in terms of the opportunities, I think we spend about, I would say 15 to 20% of our resources on what we call peripheral innovation, market expansion strategies, et cetera, and about 10% on really disruptive kind of ideas. So having that kind of strategic approach to innovation is absolutely critical to one, you know, maintain and be competitive with operations and then also become more competitive by value added products and services as well. And to have all of that in place means, you know, you have to have, you know, an approach to doing things. You know, we have a defined process in place, we have a clinician in the loop design approach, we have critical partnerships with health related accelerators, the startup ecosystem, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So you really need a robust innovation approach that's all encompassing to be able to succeed in doing that. And we're fortunate to have that here.
- [14:21]
B
That's amazing to hear and what great opportunity to have the Innovation Institute have that built out now, especially as I know things are changing so quickly. Technology is evolving rapidly, but so is the broader healthcare ecosystem. So to have that nimbleness, to be ready to change on a diamond, really meet the needs of the day, it seems like a huge, huge benefit on the strategy side.
- [14:45]
C
Absolutely. And one of the strengths is the institute has, I would say not 100% autonomy, but we're pretty close there in terms of being fully autonomous and you know, deploying or instituting our own processes, determining, you know, which projects require investment, which projects do we actually terminate, etc. Etc. So, you know, if you have an innovation operation, one of the critical success factors is making sure they, they have a, a fair amount of autonomy to do that.
- [15:22]
B
Absolutely. I can imagine, as you said, that makes a big difference. Now. What is one risk or investment that's still worth making this year or over the next 12 months? Especially as you know, there's some uncertainties ahead on the financial, economic and overall healthcare side.
- [15:38]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think we have to make an investment in some foundational, some foundational, I would say, structures because that, you know, that enables you to layer and capitalize on the technology and AI kind of opportunities that we're in the midst of at the moment. And I think to achieve that, I think any organization should consider what I call some kind of enterprise AI data layer, having an interoperable privacy preserving data fabric with appropriate guardrails and monitoring. And I think, you know, having that layer in place at an enterprise level pretty much de risks all other AI and technological innovation for us. So, you know, it gives us trustworthy data, it gives us an opportunity for rapid model deployment and it enables continuous governance. So to me, you know, it's almost make sure you invest in a solid innovation foundation first. I think that's a risk we're taking and in fact we're, that's the approach we're taking and you know, it's premised on the, on the principle that we have to own our own data flywheel or we'll just be renting for the future. So you know, strategically it makes sense for us to have our own data flywheel and that's what we're doing.
- [17:42]
B
Got it. That's helpful to know and really interesting to think about that data fabric and creating the data flywheel as well. I know data is so important to powering everything on the AI and technology side and really having a strong data system as well as clean data is essential, but not easy. So how have you gone about doing.
- [18:03]
C
That, yeah, and it speaks to the broader strategy I spoke about earlier on to grow value. I mean we've, you know, we're part of what the institute does apart from all of our training programs, et cetera. We also have an AI lab here that you know, makes hard to access models available to faculty and students who do R and D. But we also have an AI factory where we build our own solutions. It's been a strategy that's very deliberate to build as many of the solutions in house as possible. And so you can see from our strategic approach of insourcing that having our own enterprise AI data layer makes sense. So that's kind of our approach for now is to build an insource as approached as opposed to go the outsourcing approach. So I guess every health system will be different if they have a technology AI strategy that's leaning towards more an outsourced approach that may not be a priority. So our strategy has been one that is, is built on a insourcing self development. So, so I, you know, makes sense to us. It's an investment we have to make.
- [19:33]
B
That'S you know, really critical to hear and definitely part of the overall strategy. I know you mentioned, you know, working with other C suite leaders to make sure they understand those investments is important and critical. So I think when you're looking into the future as well, where do you see as some of the best opportunities for continued growth and development?
- [19:51]
C
Yeah, I mean it depends on your time frame that you're looking at. But I would say in the next decade two kind of key opportunities for us would be on autonomous care pathways, you know, ability to manage chronic disease at scale using AI navigators and remote diagnostics. I think that's going to be a, something that's, you know, really going to position us for success within the decade. I think precision operations, you know, from a cost point of view, especially as I said for hospital systems that are, you know, have big geographical footprints, you know, digital twins of hospitals and systems to simulate optimized capacity, throughput cost, etc. I think that is achievable within the next decade. I think, you know, post the decade we could start seeing robotics enabled service lines start emerging. So you know, that's kind of how I look at things. You know, I think the next decade is going to belong to health systems that are able to adequately combine humans with technology. You know, and our job is to, is to architect that future responsibly and make the ROI undeniable. I think that's, that's certainly been that's certainly how I look at the opportunities moving forward.
- [21:34]
B
That's fascinating to hear. Dr. Pillay, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a really insightful conversation and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [21:44]
C
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Laura.
- [21:49]
A
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier patients. But the complex 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 at athenahealth.
- [22:29]
B
Com.