← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Kali Arduini Ihde, Director, NM Ventures and Innovation, Northwestern Medicine
00:09:47
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- [00:01]
Philips Representative
Philips is a health tech leader focused on innovation that improves the health and well being of people. Our healthcare technology and informatics solutions help care teams diagnose, treat and manage more patients with greater precision, speed and confidence. Across the care journey with Philips, clinicians are empowered with streamlined insights in the moments that matter for every patient. Better care for more people. Philips.
- [00:29]
Chanel Bunger
Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger and today I'm recording live at the 10th annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM Meeting in Chicago and sitting down with Kelly Heidi, the Director of Ventures and Innovation at Northwestern Medicine. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [00:46]
Kelly Heidi
Thank you for having me.
- [00:47]
Chanel Bunger
Perfect. Well, to get us started, could you share a bit about yourself and your work in healthcare?
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Kelly Heidi
Absolutely. So at NM Ventures and Innovation, we specialize in helping Northwestern Medicine develop partnerships with various commercial entities to solve the biggest problems in healthcare with technology. So think startup companies, think big tech, big healthcare companies with new products. We really facilitate relationships and connection with them to see how we can bring our expertise and our experiences to their solutions. And so that could be, you know, getting involved very early with co development. It could be simply piloting a new product or providing them feedback early on and it could be kind of working together to take a product to the next level. So we really kind of span perfect.
- [01:36]
Chanel Bunger
And we all know that AI is a big buzzword right now, especially in healthcare, and nearly half of all medical practices are reporting using it in some sort of capacity in the last year. With that, from your perspective, what are some use cases that are making a big difference for you right now and how are you leveraging them in your organization?
- [01:55]
Kelly Heidi
Absolutely. I tell people sometimes my life has become AI because just innovation these days in healthcare is such a big AI focus. And so I would say I'm going to highlight two of the AI solutions that we've had the most success with. I think one is one that many health organizations, especially healthcare providers, are having success with and that is ambient listening. And so really leveraging the technology to take administrative burden, take documentation burden off of our clinicians. We've been using it for coming up on two years now across our organization and we really leaned into helping our clinicians get onboarded and really embed the tool into what they do. So we don't just give them a license, then offer them a couple options for training. Instead we really work with them to get them up to utilizing at least 50% of the time for at least half of their visits. And this has really helped us ensure that our clinicians are getting the most value out of it. And what we're seeing is that we are seeing about 20% reduction in time spent documenting in notes. We're seeing more accurate, complete documentation which then ensures that we are billing properly, getting reimbursed appropriately. We are also seeing that with the time back, our clinicians are actually giving it back to their patients. And so they are adding visits, they are seeing more patients, which is very much helping with our access challenges as we want to get and meet our patients needs wherever we can.
- [03:18]
Chanel Bunger
Better patient experience, provider experience, all in one.
- [03:21]
Kelly Heidi
Yeah. And then I would say a more recent AI solution that we've had success with is related to specialty medication prior authorizations. And so patients who need biologics or other unique medications, there are often much more complicated prior authorization processes for those type of meds. And so we had a team of individuals in our specialty pharmacy who did this. It was taking them on average 17 plus minutes to capture all the right information, get it submitted and do some of the follow up for those patients because we don't want to put that burden on the patients when they're struggling to find care and don't want it to be delayed. And we were able to partner with an early stage company who specialized in prior auth especially for this space, and we were able to see a reduction of over 66%. So now those same prior auths are taking about five minutes. Wow. So really helping those teams get through more. We're able to do more of this for our patients. We were also able to take some of the burden from our clinics who were having to do their own prior auths in this space and bring that into a centralized team so then the folks in the clinic can just focus on patient care. So another really great example of how AI is helping with that administrative burden and making the patient experience better.
- [04:33]
Chanel Bunger
Love to hear it. And as virtual care expands from AI enabled tools and remote monitoring to broader digital health platforms, introducing new technology, bringing challenges, of course. What advice do you have for leaders navigating everything from governance to patient engagement? And can you share an example of how your organization has balanced innovation with operational constraints?
- [04:55]
Kelly Heidi
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say my advice and sort of what we've learned over the last few years as AI has just taken off so much is you need to lean in. You need to find folks within your organization that are passionate and curious about AI who can help you understand what's real, what's just catchy, flashy headlines where. Right. Where can it bring real value today versus where are a lot of the, you know, big bold statements that are out there? Where are they more three to five years out. And so my team has done that. We have a couple different teams within our organization who have that, I mean, from. And we are doing everything from monitoring headlines and attending conferences and bringing learnings back to, you know, bringing opportunities forward for the key areas where AI can make a big difference and is bringing real world value today. We've even stood up a program within our information services department for the next year where we're making it everyone's goal for the year to figure out how we can take on and leverage AI automation agents. All the buzzwords, but just general efficiencies within our IAS department. Since we're often the individual who are sort of commanding others to try new things and to try the latest tech, we're going to be a model for how that works. And so we're really driving forward with where can these tools make an impact in the everyday work that our support teams who support everybody in the technology they use do? And so, you know, advice and everything is really just make it a priority because whether we like it or not, it's moving very quickly and it can bring a lot of value. But it does take a bit of effort and experimentation to figure out where to get that value.
- [06:39]
Chanel Bunger
Absolutely. And kind of switching gears a bit and more like on the compliance side, how are you seeing recent legislation, both state and federal, affect healthcare organizations and healthcare IT specifically. And have you adjusted strategies in response?
- [06:52]
Kelly Heidi
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting time because you have the area of AI where I think we thought there might be more restrictive legislation and now it's looking like the current administration will not be going that route. And so it does though then put the onus and responsibility on our industry to make sure that it's safe for healthcare. And that's everybody from the healthcare providers to make sure they're testing and vetting these AI solutions and these different virtual technologies and these new platforms. But it also puts a lot on the developers, creators, inventors of these solutions to really make sure that they're keeping that in mind. And so really, you know, our strategies have adjusted to just monitoring everything and staying close, but also ensuring that our approaches to trying new things, whether it's AI, whether it's our virtual care, is flexible and allows for adjustments. We can't get too married to a single playbook or a single approach because it's going to change likely. And it's still up in the air. So I'd say with AI, it's being open and flexible. I think with virtual care, the regulatory space is a little tough right now because we could potentially lose our telehealth allowances. And that's just so hard because since the pandemic, we've really expanded our use of telehealth. We've stood up a hospital at home program. All of this is at risk. So again, I think it's staying close to it, helping your teams understand the impact and getting out there to help your legislators understand what this means and how it impacts and help your patients understand that too. So that they can be messaging that as well.
- [08:25]
Chanel Bunger
Absolutely. Well, Kelly, I've enjoyed our time today, but before I let go, I'm curious, what is your top piece of advice for health care leaders as they prepare for further advancements in technology and rising demands in care?
- [08:37]
Kelly Heidi
I mean, to summarize, I would say be curious with the AI world especially, but with every new technology that's coming out, if you don't have the interest or capability to really dig in and understand what it means and help your organization and your leadership do so, then find those people on your teams because they're out there. There are those people that are using the ChatGPTs and the AI solutions of world for Everything all day, and they're getting value out of it. And so even if it's as simple as figuring out how you can use those type of tools safely in the work you do every day, being familiar with the capabilities and possibilities is the key to helping your teams understand, accept and drive the benefit of them. Because AI is here. It's not going away. It's not something we can hide from. But it's all. There's so much potential. It is transforming and it can truly continue to transform the healthcare environment. So really just being open to that and ensuring you're helping your organization understand how they can be a part of it.
- [09:36]
Chanel Bunger
Absolutely. Well, that's a great note to end on, Kelly. I want to thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
- [09:44]
Kelly Heidi
Thank you.