← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
K. Nadeem Ahmed, MD, FACHDM, Chief Medical Information Officer at The Valley Health System
00:22:49
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- [00:02]
A
The most important healthcare decisions don't happen in isolation. They happen when leaders come together. Becker's 16th annual meeting brings together more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives this April in Chicago. With 800 speakers from Ascension, Cleveland Clinic, Common Spirit and more, the conversations get real. Leaders will share how their scenario planning for policy shifts brief, breaking through value based care barriers and building clinical teams that translate new ideas into real world care. Join top decision makers in the room April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right.
- [00:46]
B
This is Laura Deardle with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Nadeem Ahmed, who's the chief Medical Information officer at the Valley Health System. Dr. Ahmed, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:58]
C
Thank you so much, Laura. Very nice to meet you and I appreciate this talk.
- [01:03]
B
Absolutely. Well, I'm looking forward to our discussion. I think it's such a unique time in health care right now and you know, truly a great place to be. Continue to innovate, lots of opportunities. I know there's lots of challenges as well, but you know, with every challenge there's also opportunities to get better. So, you know, looking forward to getting your perspective on everything you're doing at the Valley Health System and how you're thinking about the future. But before we dive in, can you introduce yourself yourself and just tell us a little bit more about the health system?
- [01:30]
C
Yeah, sure. So I'm the chief medical information officer for the system. We are a single entity hospital based in Paramus, New Jersey, approximately 400 beds. We just opened this hospital, brand new facility. That is the hospital has been around for many decades in the community. But this brand new building back in April of 2024 was open a billion dollar facility. Lots of technology put into this facility and there was so much technology that some elements of actually had to be turned off because our clinical folks, nurses, physicians and others were a bit overwhelmed with the actual physical move from one building to the next. But that was something that really excited me when I joined the Valley Health System and I joined in April of 2024. So I actually joined right after they opened the new building. So I've had an opportunity to really get involved with how do we use the technology that we have. And it's not just hardware of course there's a lot of software elements and my background is I'm a hospitalist, physician, trade, but I've, I've had my own private practice that I ran for many years. I've also been a consultant in the past helping other hospitals in the United States and Canada with EHR implementations. So I've been able to see other organizations and how they effectively implement their electronic health records and all the ancillary applications that go with and then my most recent role prior to joining the Valley Health System was with the Aga Khan University which is an international organization. They have about 20 plus hospitals in six different countries and I was was their global CMIO. So I started their informatics programs in two different countries and we went live with a unified electronic health record in Nairobi, Kenya, the first of its kind in East Africa. But the amount of travel and time I was spending away from family here in the US was significant. So after about four years with them I joined the Valley Health System and we've been doing some exciting things at Valley since I joined and I'd like to share that.
- [03:30]
B
Well, fantastic. And you know what a great experience being able to be part of healthcare organizations in building some very, very needed hospitals and facilities abroad. And then great to have you back in the US too, doing some amazing things. So let's get into it. Can you talk a little bit about your experience over the last year or two? What are some of the most important initiatives that you led and what were the results?
- [03:55]
C
Well, probably the most important one that I led through the year last year was revising or I should say renovating our clinical technology governance. One of the things I've learned over the years and having seen many different hospital systems in my career is that you can have the best technology, but if it's not deployed in an effective manner that's useful to the end users, that technology, you could use the word fail, but you can also say it's just not optimized as it probably could be. So a lot of missed opportunities with good technology in it. And you can blame the technology and sometimes that blame is well deserved. But also you can blame the process for not incorporating end user, good end user feedback and understanding what the actual workflows are. So and a lot of times you can ask well why did that happen? And it's because you don't have effective governance. And so my biggest goal after I joined the Valley Health System was let me take a look at the governance structure and it turned out we had a lot of silos. Probably no surprise to anyone who's hearing this. Any organization definitely does have silos for various reasons and I wanted to kind of break down Those silos as much as possible. So we have formed one committee called an oversight council and another one that, two other committees actually that were previously just a provider or physician advisory committee type. And we wanted to have them more inclusive, more multidisciplinary. So we included nursing leadership in both of those committees and we also included administrative staff. So that when we make decisions about how data is being presented, and when I say data, clinical data, patient data, and how providers and nurses are taking care of their patients with that data in mind, those decisions are being made in a much more cohesive and comprehensive fashion. And it's been very successful. We've made quite a few different decisions that are impactful for the entire organizations. And it was done in a much more collaborative fashion. Rather than, you know, going from one committee to the next and a lot of back and forth in between committees, we were able to be more, I think, efficient in our decision making. So that was a big initiative over the past year. And in addition to that governance concept, as you can, as you probably know, and everybody knows, artificial intelligence is a big question, you know, like, how do we adopt artificial intelligence enabled technology in a safe and protect, When I say safe, you're protecting patient health information. How do we keep that protected? How do we make sure that it's clinically, you know, it has clinical efficacy and at the end of the day it's not taking away the decision making authority of our providers. So we had to form a, we formed an AI task force to help vet vendors that are using AI enabled technologies. And we look for AI specific risks such as, you know, hallucinations, bias, drift, all the things that are fairly unique to AI that doesn't exist or didn't exist with other previous technologies, software technologies that didn't have AI. So we needed some kind of vetting mechanism. And so we formed this task force. We, through this governance that we established, approved an AI policy. So that was the first of its kind last year for our organization. And I've had the opportunity to present some of this at the New Jersey Hospital association and other forums where many other healthcare organizations, certainly in our demographic region, were quite impressed. And it turns out, I didn't know this, that we were a little ahead of the curve when it comes to some of our clinical IT governance. So I'm very proud of that. And yeah, that was our big accomplishment in 2025.
- [07:42]
B
That's amazing to hear. And you know, I think it's so critical, as you mentioned, to have that type of visibility across the organization, have the understanding of, you know, what the guardrails are be building that governance and then having it flow through and to see some of these results are really impressive. I'm curious, as you were, you know, looking at connecting with leaders and building these governance processes, especially with AI, how do you make sure you walk that right line of balancing being innovative and moving quickly with also understanding what you need in order to be safe and continue to keep that culture of idea sharing in safety in mind?
- [08:24]
C
Yeah, that's a really good question. So there's always risk with any new thing you're going to try. And gosh, being a physician myself, it's like the conversation I have with patients, which is, look, there's a procedure or a medication that you need to be started on and there's a reason why we're even discussing it because there's a benefit, a potential benefit to you by doing this. But there's a risk also there, there are potential adverse effects of this medication or treatment that you need to be aware of. So similarly, for an organization to try a new technology or try a new process, the same rules kind of apply. You need to know, why are we doing this? What's the benefit? Is there risk? Absolutely. So in the, in the realm of AI, there's a lot of data that needs to be accessible to that AI technology so that it can take a look and it can learn from that data and then provide the analysis that you're looking for. But then if that's case, especially with a lot of these vendors, they subcontract their AI models from other larger organizations. And the question is, wait, what do you do with the data that we have? Are you sharing our patient data? Are you not sharing that data with other organizations? Because that's a risk. And certainly we want to make sure that the risk is mitigated down to zero if possible. If not, we closely observe with a human in the loop mechanism to make sure that the risk is mitigated as much as possible. So absolutely, it's an ongoing challenge and having effective governance that can quickly make decisions. And one of the things that we've been able to do by having a more robust and collaborative clinical IT governance is our decision making is a bit faster than it was in the past. So in the past, yes, it had to go from one committee to the next and everybody has these concerns and they send it back to the other group. And so you would have delays and to your point, would that slow down progress? And absolutely, yes. So with our revised governance, we want to make sure that the risk is understood, it's mitigated, but at the same time, we're not slowing down progress. And the Valley Health System is a very technology progressive organization. I mean, we have AI embedded in many of our areas. Even before I came on board, it was just something that it's part of our organization's culture is let's not hold back on opportunities so that our patients can get better care vis a vis our clinicians having better tools to help them provide that care. And so yes, that actually to your point, are we going to slow down with trying to understand the risks and how to mitigate them? And the answer is yes, that's always there. But with good governance, you can get through that very quickly. And that was my goal last year.
- [11:14]
B
That's helpful to understand. Thank you so much for going through that and digging a bit deeper there. Now, curious. Looking ahead to 2026, what are some of the big priorities and headwinds you're most focused on?
- [11:26]
C
So you're going to find this kind of counterintuitive with everything I just said. My goal is to have less technology. I think the reality is there's just too much tech out there. And it is overwhelming for any organization because we get presented. And I'm sure every organization has this experience. There are CMIOs and CIOs and other folks in such positions constantly being presented by different vendors offering products that can solve whatever problem they may or may not have. But there's a lot out there. And I think the biggest challenge we have had is because we're in a densely populated area, we are certainly attract a lot of vendors who want to do business with us. And sometimes it's challenging to say which one to go with, which one to say no to. And we've experienced in the past that we've said yes to maybe two or three vendors doing the same thing. And then we've had opportunities where we should have said yes, but we said no to a vendor that maybe we should have had. So again, kind of going back to the governance piece of it. But what I've determined, and not just me, but the entire team at the Valley Health System, is we have a lot of technology. And I think I highlighted earlier that our hospital, when it opened, there was so much technology, we actually had turned some of it off. But remember, in order to have that technology, we must have paid for it. We started, you know, there must have been some cost, not just external providing to the vendor, but also maybe internal development, internal costs, staffing costs. And then we didn't use it. So there's a lot of technology that we have in healthcare, not just at Valley Health System, but in healthcare in general that is not optimized for various reasons. And one of the most common reasons is, well, we have this software application and it does 60%, 70%, 80% of what we want, but the other 20% we don't like. So we're gonna deactivate it or turn it off. And I have to ask the question, well, do you really, did we really look at the big picture when we decided to turn those features off? And you just multiply that by the number of application systems we have. And for us, the number is close to 300 applications. And we're probably in the middle when it comes to a lot of organizations our size. I'm sure larger organizations have much more, but there's a lot of applications out there, and all of them, I would say, are not being used to their full, fullest capability. And so for me, when I say less technology, I would like to consolidate the number of applications we have. I would like to make things more streamlined. And so for this year, the biggest decision for our organization right now is to have a unified electronic health record. So at the Valley Health system, we have two big EHR systems. We have, I would say maybe no less than 5, give or take a couple other applications that could, or at least they tout they could be ehrs if they wanted to, but we use pieces of them. And I look at that and I say, wow, look at all this, all of this software and we're using pieces of each of it. Can't we just use one? Because as you can imagine, when you have multiple applications, it's like Apple and Android, you know, devices, right? They don't talk to each other very well. So as a clinical person, you get stuck in the middle with trying to take care of one patient, but in order to do so, you got to log into a dozen different applications to do maybe one thing, which is care for that patient. And that's, to me, contributes to our clinician burnout issues. And in order to help with clinician burnout, I think having less is more. And ultimately that is my goal for this year and for the organization. We, we are making a big decision to go with one electronic health record for the entire organization. Inpatient, outpatient, home health services. That's a big organizational decision that's going to be made actually within the next couple of weeks. That's exciting.
- [15:22]
B
It's amazing to hear. And I know that's A huge undertaking, having that single EHR and bringing it into the organization and figuring out how to optimize it and truly having it be a tool that supports everything that goes on from the clinical to the administrative operations of the organization. So that's exciting to hear and certainly a lot of possibilities and opportunities. And you know, I completely understand your point too when you talk about having less technology because there, it seems like a lot of opportunities out there, you know, and a lot happening in the technology space. But at the end of the day, I know healthcare is such a human focused and oriented business and it really should be in order to deliver the right kind of care. Yeah, yeah, well, perfect. I think, you know, when you think about the next year as well, what do you think the hardest thing you'll have to do will be?
- [16:12]
C
Well, you know, I think that is the hardest thing. Which technology should we stick with and what technology should we turn off and how do we make that decision? So I think that's going to be part and parcel of what we're trying to accomplish. If we're trying to simplify are when I say simplify, simplify the amount of coordination and collaboration that has to happen just to make one thing work. At the same time it might complicate the items that we are using. So we might need to be a little bit dive in deeper. For example, when we talk about a unified electronic health record, a lot of burden comes with that. We need to make sure that that one system is doing what the other two systems could not. Of course a no brainer would be. Well, the nice thing is all the data is in one place or at least accessible in one area. So that's going to be a huge win for our clinicians. But furthermore, there were some potentially features of a previous EHR that the new one does not have. How do we determine whether to use the one that the new EHR has, even though it may not be as good or maybe it doesn't have it at all. So now we are having to sign in with a third party application. So certainly in the clinical IT space, these are the compromises sometimes we have to make as we're moving forward. And I think that's going to be difficult. You know, there's a saying that sometimes, you know, the minority has to sacrifice for the greater good, which means a small group of either providers or a small group of nurses or pharmacy folks or any other clinical folks, you know, and it could be non clinical as well, might have to give something up that they really liked in a previous application, because we're going to turn that application off because the other 80% of it isn't being used or the new EHR system is better and it does 80% of what you want. It just doesn't have that small thing that you liked. So you might have to just give that up and for the greater good. So those are the decisions that are difficult. And as you can imagine, all of this is under the umbrella of change management. So anytime you're changing what someone has to do for a living there you will be defensive. Their initial reaction is, why? Why do I need to change? I'm content and I'm able to do my job the way I have it. Certainly if there are challenges that they're having, they'll make it known, they'll complain to you as certainly as a physician, we're really good about that. But even other folks that are in the healthcare space are very frustrated. And I want to make sure that at least the first thing we do is eliminate their frustrations that they voiced, but similarly hope to accomplish our larger goals in a very collaborative fashion. And that collaboration, as I said, does involve a little bit of give and take from the various areas of the organization. So that's going to be a challenge. And I, and I'm looking forward to that challenge. I think all of us are accepting the fact that in order to have a unified health record, there's going to be some compromises because we had some small features or functionalities in the previous system that has been systems, I should say, that have been built over the last 10 years. Right. And so giving that away is not going to be easy. But that's change management again, for the greater good. So, yeah, that's the hardest thing, I think, is change management.
- [19:31]
B
Absolutely, 100%. There's a lot that goes into that, both from the tools, technology, infrastructure side, but then from the people side as well. It's not easy to actually make those change habits or do things a little bit differently, especially when you have built a career on thinking about it one way and then trying to be innovative in a new way. I can imagine it takes some time, but ultimately has big results.
- [19:59]
C
Yes, yes, yes.
- [20:01]
B
Well, perfect. Well, I think before we wrap up here, I'm curious, where do you see some of the best opportunities for organizational growth?
- [20:08]
C
Well, you know, I think for our opportunities is in line with consolidating a lot of the different type of technologies and applications out there. And at the end of the day, we want our patients to have a seamless experience when we have so much technology. I'll give you an example. We have. Because of the fact that we have multiple electronic health record systems, you now have multiple patient portals. From a patient experience perspective, that's frustrating. You go to one portal to look at data from one EHR system, you got to go to another portal to look at it from another system. Our IT staff has been amazing. They've developed a third portal to see if we can fill the gap between the two. But as you can imagine, it's not a perfect situation because now you have three portals. We have, unfortunately, too much technology, even on the patient side. So I feel that our opportunity for organizational growth is as we consolidate some of the technology, not just for our clinicians that work in the hospital system, but also for patients that go through the system. That is going to allow them to keep wanting to keep coming back, not because they're sick, but also in the ambulatory space. Our clinics will certainly grow because the patient experience is so good, and keeping them healthy, of course, is the number one goal. And I. And because, like I mentioned earlier, we're in a very densely populated area, we have a lot of competition. So we're not like the only hospital in the. In the region. We have multiple hospitals in the region, and patients have options. They can go from one to the next. So for us to grow, I think if we make their experience more seamless, they'll want to come back and say, I want to get my care at the Valley Health System because of this seamless experience. So that's where I think we can grow nicely this year.
- [21:55]
B
I love it. Dr. Ahmed, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such an amazing conversation. We talked through a lot of different things. But, you know, I'm so glad that I was able to learn from you and how you're doing other things at the Valley Health System. And I'm excited as well to see you at the annual meeting in April. I know you'll be speaking on a panel and will be a lot of these same thing themes, I'm sure, but. But, you know, digging deeper into them and really connecting with other healthcare leaders across the spectrum to tackle these big issues that you're talking about. So this is great.
- [22:26]
C
Yeah, thank you so much, Laura. I'm very, very much looking forward to the conference coming up. And thank you for having.