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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
How AtlantiCare Is Transforming Care Delivery with a Connected Health System & AI Powered Clinical Workflows
00:16:14
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- [00:00]
A
Hello everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning into the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. Today we're going to talk about how atlanticare is transforming care delivery with a connected health system and AI powered clinical workflows. And joining me for this conversation is Jordan Ruck, the CIO at atlanticare. Jordan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.
- [00:25]
B
Thank you, Erica. Happy to be here.
- [00:28]
A
Really happy to have you. And before we learn a little bit more about atlanticare and some of the transformation going on at the health system, can you share just a little bit more about yourself and your work in the space?
- [00:40]
B
Sure, I'm happy to. So my name is Jordan Ruck. I am the Chief Information Officer at atlanticare. I lead our organization's it, including all of our technology and data, AI and IT operations. So everything from cybersecurity and core infrastructure to our EHR and ERP strategy and adoption. I've spent more than 25 years in healthcare IT across community hospitals, integrated delivery networks and academic medical centers. Working really at the intersection of technology and strategy. I've had the opportunity to grow through every layer of healthcare IT. I started my career as an HL7 programmer and moved to project management and ultimately began leading enterprise wide transformation initiatives, which has kind of stuck with me since then. Over the course of my career I've been a Chief Innovation Officer, a Chief Technology Officer, and now cio. I think what's remained really constant for me is my passion for using technology to improve patient care.
- [02:03]
A
Well, it's so great to learn more about you Jordan, and to have your expertise on the line with us today. What an impressive background you have and I think I'd like to start a little bit high level here and talk about AtlantiCare's second significant transformation that's taking place. I understand that transformation is part of its Vision 2030 strategy, so I'd love for you to briefly touch on this initiative, maybe give our listeners a little bit more context there. And as cio, from your perspective, what role has Oracle played in helping guide the organization through this transformation?
- [02:37]
B
Vision 2030 is AtlantiCare's strategic plan to redefine healthcare delivery in our region through innovation, workforce empowerment and community centered care. Our programs built on four pillars serving the community, workplace excellence, accelerating transformation and growing market share. And Vision 2030 is really what drew me to Atlanticare. It's has tangible community focused goals. So it's not an abstract strategy. It has very clear targets like goals for reducing unsheltered homelessness by 20% and expanding life expectancy in our, in our community by five years. And from my perspective, that level of commitment is, is rare in healthcare. So it was really exciting from a accelerating transformation standpoint. One of the four pillars, Oracle's been a really critical partner. So together we're implementing Oracle's latest ehr. We're implementing Oracle Fusion, the ERP platform, Oracle Health, Patient Accounting, life sciences and others. In total, we're delivering more than 20 new solutions and more than 60 capabilities across six work streams. We're moving most of our on premises data center applications to Oracle cloud infrastructure. And right now we're about halfway through the overall program. So we have a six wave transformation and three, three of the six waves are done. Really the through line across all of this work is a connected secure data foundation that improves outcomes, simplifies our workflows across clinical and administrative and enhances the day to day experience for clinicians, staff and patients.
- [04:40]
A
So Jordan, I know you mentioned a big part of this transformation is creating a more connected system across clinical and operational workflows. And I'd love to know, kind of at a more ground level what that single connected system, what it actually means for Atlanticare and how does having more connected data and technology actually help improve the experience for both physicians and patients?
- [05:04]
B
Yeah, the, the connected data and technology is really where it gets exciting. So for Atlanticare, a single connected system means seamless integration between our enterprise resource planning systems and our electronic health record. And the integration is foundational. So not just to operational efficiency but, but to keeping patient care at the center of everything we do. I think as you know, healthcare has made incredible advancements over the past decade. But the reality is most health systems still operate with deeply fragmented business processes. So supply chain hr, revenue cycle ancillary systems and the EHR largely function in silos across the country. Point solutions have helped, but no health system has truly achieved end to end integration across these domains. And Atlanticare in partnership with Oracle is going to change that. And it's not just a technology initiative, it's a transformation in how care and operations are connected. So by deliberately aligning ERP and EHR capabilities, we're able to link demand to staffing, supply chain and financial operations. And it creates a more responsive, resilient and patient centered health system overall. So let me give you a couple practical examples that always helps me understand a little bit better what, what the impact will be. So the first one is workforce optimization. So with integrated data we can make smarter decisions based on patient Acuity department workload, clinician skills, credentials and availability. We're moving forward toward smart scheduling that aligns clinical demand from the EHR with workforce management data in fusion, and even predictive scheduling models that anticipate volume based on seasonality so we can proactively address staffing shortages before they have an impact. Another practical example is our Global Item Master. So today most health systems maintain multiple versions of the same item across many different systems in their environment. So take the example of a pacemaker. We have a record of the pacemaker in our supply chain system and we have the supplier information, we have the cost, we have the manufacturer, how many on hand. We have another copy of the pacemaker in the EHR to track the procedure, who's performing the surgery, the implantable device information, the documentation for the procedure, et cetera. Many, many health systems also have a third or fourth copy of that same pacemaker in the dedicated cardiovascular information system and another copy or two in the finance and billing systems. So by standardizing on a single Oracle platform, we reduce complexity and eliminate a lot of redundancy and ultimately support safer, more efficient patients patient care. And this, this same paradigm, I think applies to any industry, not just healthcare. If you have four or five copies of the same item, you're not operating in an efficient way.
- [08:47]
A
Yeah, Jordan, appreciate the examples. They did a really nice job of giving our listeners some really rich detail here. And I know you had noted in your first example this idea of workforce optimization. And so I want to touch on administrative burden as it relates to workforce optimization. We know that's a major priority across healthcare right now is reducing that burden. And Atlanticare recently implemented Oracle's clinical AI agent. So I'd love to know what that experience has been like for your provider so far and any impact that you've seen on things like documentation, time satisfaction and the overall patient visit.
- [09:28]
B
Yeah, CAA has really been a great story for Atlanticare. And we were the first customer to deploy the clinical AI agent. And we've been part of that journey with Oracle since 2024. The impact's been really significant. So since implementing the technology, we have a few metrics that we've been tracking and we look at the amount of time spent in the EHR overall, and we look at the amount of time spent specifically in documentation, and we measure it per provider, per patient before the use of the technology and obviously after the use of the technology. And what we've seen is a 40% reduction in documentation time and a 30% reduction in EMR time. So really significant numbers. The feedback from the tool has been overwhelmingly positive. So clinicians consistently tell us they're able to focus more on the patient and less on the computer, which is really exactly the outcome we're hoping for based on that success. On the ambulatory side, we've already rolled out the clinical AI agent across all of our emergency departments as well. We're preparing to go live with the clinical AI agent for Nursing in the coming months and it's especially exciting because it extends those same benefits to nurses. And at most health care organizations, nurses are either near or the majority of the workforce. So really big impact on our, on our ability to be efficient. But our nurses are going to be able to use voice enabled documentation, intelligent prompts and have streamlined chart navigation to support their assessments, their rounding and their ability to search the chart. So we see this as redefining the nurse EHR relationship and I think that work is long overdue.
- [11:30]
A
Yeah, it's an exciting next step. Jordan and I appreciate all the details you've shared about the transformation with our listeners so far. I think we've got a really nice view of what that is looking like on the ground at atlanticare right now. And as you look ahead, how do you see AI continuing to shape care delivery and operations at the health system? And beyond clinical documentation, where are you seeing the biggest opportunities for AI and more connected tech platforms to really transform care in the next few years?
- [12:01]
B
Yeah, Erica, there's no shortage of AI agents in the market right now, which is why strong governance is critical. So we have a formal governance committee that evaluates where AI can deliver real value and where AtlantiCare is going to invest. So our governance committee has representation from across our health system and we're all extremely excited about the future, but we're taking the time to ensure that the solutions we're deploying have been fully tested and validated before using them in production. That's a really important point in healthcare. However, we're planning to roll out agents across clinical operations, finance, hr, supply chain, patient experience and in our command center. I'm particularly excited about agents that focus on where clinicians spend the most time in the ehr. So when we started this program, we laid out the areas in the system where the most time is spent and areas like searching for a piece of documentation, maybe a scanned document that isn't indexed in a way that makes it easy to find, or discharge planning. These are areas where there is a lot of time spent in the system, there's a lot of clicks and we've been able to improve, as I mentioned, documentation time on the ambulatory side by 40% and I want to see the same thing happen across other areas. I'm also looking forward to our ability to make improvements to administrative functions like prior authorization and predictive scheduling, patient throughput or utilization, and on the HR side, our process for onboarding and employee retention. There are agents to support all of these functions, similar to on the clinical side but on the administrative side. And another, the third area that I'm really excited about is AI for patient engagement. So Oracle's made major investments in the new portal which aligns very closely with Atlanticare's priorities and our our vision to create a more connected consumer grade healthcare experience. So our, you know, our patients and our communities are looking for their interactions with healthcare to be like their interactions with retail and with other industries and you know, we want to help get there. The next generation portal is going live in October for Atlanticare and it's going to streamline how our patients interact with Atlanticare. We want to make the process to navigate their records intuitive. We want to offer convenient registration and check in help making appointment scheduling easy. And all of those workflows are really supported with AI and guide the patient through those experiences. So in summary, ultimately AI when it's paired with a connected platform, I think particularly when it's fully integrated, you know, all of these are native solutions in Oracle, which is a big differentiator. All of this allows our team to free up from administrative work so they can focus on what matters most. And I think one thing we can all agree on is that's caring for our patients and improving the health of our communities.
- [15:36]
A
So well said Jordan. And I mean it sounds like there is just an incredible amount of innovation going on at Atlanticare. So I appreciate you breaking it all down for our listeners telling us more about Vision 20 where Oracle's support has factored in. It's been a really great conversation and I just want to thank you again Jordan for making the time.
- [15:56]
B
Yeah, my pleasure. Great talking Erica.
- [15:59]
A
And we'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor for today Oracle Health listeners. Be sure to tune into more podcasts from Becker's by visiting our podcast page@beckershospitalreview.com.