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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
The Importance of Building Clinical and Technology Alignment in Healthcare
00:19:39
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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 the importance of building clinical and technology alignment in healthcare. And joining me for this important conversation are two leaders from Insight Global Health. We have with us Scott Smizer, Principal healthcare services advisor, and Dr. Jamie Brennan, chief nursing officer. Dr. Brennan, Scott, welcome and thank you so much for making time for the podcast today. Thank you.
- [00:32]
B
Happy to be here.
- [00:34]
C
Yes, Erica, thanks for having us.
- [00:36]
A
Well, great to have you both on the line. And before we talk a little bit more about clinical technology alignment, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about you both. So if you could just share a little bit more about your work and what you do in healthcare, that would be great. And Scott, let's start with you.
- [00:52]
C
Absolutely. Thank you. So, Scott Smizer, I've been in the healthcare industry for 34 years. I started as a baby right out of high school, so I've done pretty much every role in technology and healthcare. Spent mostly that time in IDNs, large IDNs, most recently a large academic medical center in the Southeast, but spent over 12 years doing healthcare consulting, merger and acquisition, large project installations like emrs. So happy to be here.
- [01:19]
A
Great to have you with us, Scott. Thank you so much. And Dr. Brennan, how about you?
- [01:23]
B
Yeah, thanks so much, Erica.
- [01:25]
A
So I have been with Insight Global
- [01:27]
B
now for just under a year, and I've been in nursing for actually over 20 years now, which seems crazy to say out loud, but for most of that time, I was actually in hospitals and healthcare organizations for about 15 years actually. And I was lucky enough during that time to go through multiple transitions for EMR integrations. So I got to transition from paper charting, you know, Cerner to EPIC to Meditech, so I got to experience them all. So thanks so much for having us.
- [01:56]
A
Oh, so glad to have you both. And it's great to know that you're bringing, both of you are bringing this experience with, not just, you know, on the ground, healthcare delivery kind of more broadly, how the industry is working as a whole, but you're also seeing that evolution of technology across your tenors in healthcare. And that's kind of where I want to start here. We see that healthcare organizations are embracing technology at a very rapid pace, but that can come with real challenges. So I'd love to hear from you both what you're seeing as the biggest obstacles that organizations are facing, especially as they're evaluating and implementing new tools, you know, where do things often go sideways?
- [02:36]
B
Yeah, I can jump in here first. So I think for me, really from my perspective and all of the go lives and things, I've been a part of a course on the, you know, frontline nursing side, a lot of times what I see is stakeholders all are not always at the table. So, you know, we might have some implementation from the IT side, we might have some executive leaders, but we don't necessarily always have frontline leaders who are going to be the ones using this technology day in and day out. And I think when we start with them at the table and when we start with getting their input, it just makes everything run significantly better and cleaner and you don't have as much of that kind of resistance when it comes to the rollout and go live.
- [03:24]
A
Great points. And Scott, how about you? What does this look like from your point of view?
- [03:28]
C
No, I concur with Dr. Brennan. You know, when I've led teams in these projects or advice clients, you know, a lot of times the mantra that I have is we're not doing technology for technology's sake. Right. You know, what is the value proposition that we're trying to give our operational leaders, but more importantly our clinical caregivers out on the front lines. And I think where things get sideways in some organizations is they either do not have an advanced informatic department whereby they can engage the informaticist and you see those roles from a physician, nurse, pharmacist on down through the clinical care setting, that individuals have moved into those informatic roles and are specialists in workflow and how the slightest of change sometimes in software or hardware can really impact or impede clinical caregiving. And that's not the goal. So, you know, making sure that the informatic teams are clearly engaged. I think where organizations get it right is where they've got a good governance structure and they've got experience counsels to. What Dr. Brennan is talking about is that they're engaged right from the very beginning. They're part of the decision making process, but they're a guiding hand throughout the delivery of the product or service or technology platform rolling out. But more importantly, you know, I think when organizations roll a technology out too often they find that they're done right. We're live, we went live with the product and we're done. And I think that's a missed opportunity for organizations where I think they could really go back and look at what were the key performance indicators we were trying to improve. Did we hit the mark, you know, doing net promoter scores and Surveys of where do we need to get it right? Because a lot of times, once you've got something in, too often, especially with an EMR system, you really need to optimize that in a way that brings the true value to what the organization is doing. So, you know, those are my thoughts on how, you know, organizations can try to get it right, but there's a lot of obstacles out there. Dynamic aid, for sure.
- [05:36]
A
Yeah. I appreciate the overview from you both. It sounds like that kind of starting point of needing to align stakeholders within an organization. When that goes wrong, it's almost like a domino effect from there and can result in some missed opportunities. Scott, to your point, and I want to make sure that we touch on, too, not just what's happening within the organization, but with many organizations who are pursuing technology innovation, a new partnership, a lot of the times that is with a third party. So, Dr. Brennan, let's start with you first. From a clinical standpoint, criteria matter when vetting a potential partner or a solution. And then, Scott, I'd love to hear how that equation shifts when you're thinking about it through a workforce lens. Yeah.
- [06:23]
B
Erica, thank you so much for that. So I think for each hospital system, it's going to be a little bit different because every hospital system has a lot of different technologies. There's a lot more technologies that we have to choose from. And how those technologies communicate with each other becomes really important in how they impact the frontline staff. And so from a clinical perspective, you know, having someone at the table that's going to be the user of the technology after those considerations have been met, making sure that all of the functionality has been vetted, we ensure everything communicates appropriately. I think it's so important to have that end user there because they're going to ask questions that we haven't thought of. You know, I've been out of frontline bedside nursing care for probably over 10 years now, and there are just things that I'm not going to think of. That nurse that's taking care of patients day in and day out is really going to take into account. And so I think, you know, not only thinking about that communication piece and how the trickle effect is right. You know, how everything impacts each other becomes really, really important.
- [07:33]
A
Yeah. Dr. Brennan, thank you so much. And Scott, when you're thinking about this through kind of that more operational workforce lens, what would you say?
- [07:42]
C
You know, I think that the biggest things that I see, a lot of organizations, some get it really right and some don't think about it at all is organizational change management for the front line. And how are you really rolling out those changes in a meaningful way that has the caregivers engaged? And you know, where I've seen it done right, the OCM program is clearly communicating what we're trying to do, when we're trying to do it, but more importantly, the value that we're trying to derive by doing that. And it's clearly communicated on the front end to the workforce. But more importantly, you've got informaticists and different teams as part of the deployment effort that are out there rounding, you know, prior to the change or after the change or during the change. So I think again, thinking through the different phases of a rollout and really getting the OCM part right and you're documenting it and you're clearly communicating it to the workforce.
- [08:39]
A
Yeah, Scott, I'm glad you, you brought up change management, because this is something that we hear in leadership conversations day in and day out at Becker, is that it's one of the most challenging parts of technology adoption. And of course, clinical operational alignment, to both of your points, is oftentimes at the center of that. So could you say a little bit more about what it looks like when that alignment is breaking down and then on the other hand, what does it look like when it's really clicking?
- [09:05]
B
Yeah, I can jump in here. So for nursing, you know, it's one of the hardest parts is there's so few things in nursing you can actually control. You can't control how patients, you know, are going to react. You can't control getting new admissions or discharges or things like that. And so the things we have that we can control is really, you know, the technology, how we use it, how we document things. And so transitioning away from something you're so comfortable with when it's one of the only things you can control in your day, can be really hard. And so when something is just dropped off on a unit or brought in after the fact, it's already been purchased, it's already been, the contract is signed, that buy in after the fact is really hard because you're going to have clinicians that just dig their heels in, you know, doctors and nurses alike. And so when things go sideways, that's really where it starts, is this was a decision that was made kind of in a silo. And when it goes really well, it's when all of the stakeholders are at the table. And it's when this was a decision that was made that's best for the organization, not just one or Two reasons. So when it goes really well, you have that buy in, you have the change agents that have been part of the decision making process and then those are going to be your cheerleaders. And then you will see nearly, you know, no pushback, no heels digging in, things like that, by getting people involved early.
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A
Yeah, really insightful, Dr. Brennan. And what would you add, Scott, you
- [10:45]
C
know, to what Dr. Brennan is talking about? I think when we've seen it go really well from the very beginning, we talk about who do we feel like on the front lines will have friction points with this technology. No names are mentioned. Right. We know who those leaders are, whether they're clinical, our operational leaders, really getting them on board with what we're doing and why we're trying to do it. But I think more importantly, what I'm seeing more and more, which is promising to me being a veteran in this industry, is you're seeing more organizations change their technology teams to digital teams or digital innovation transformation teams. And you're really trying to shift the lens from them being a cost center or back of house function to operations to a digital partner that is at the table with them. And I've seen that play out well in organizations where we're on an operational call and someone will say, is there a digital partner on the call? And that in itself changes the mindset of what you're trying to do because you're trying to. Every team that I've ever led, I've always said the one thing that keeps me in health care is what I know for sure is all of us will be a participant of the healthcare process and be a recipient of healthcare. And I want to know what we're doing today is going to make tomorrow and the next day and the next year better for the caregivers that we're trying to serve. So, you know, it gets down to change management for sure. But engagement of leaders that you know are going to have problems with any kind of technology rollout, getting them on board early and getting them aligned, they can be your biggest champions out there in a lot of ways.
- [12:28]
A
Thanks, Scott. So when we're talking about change management or just simply aligning teams and aligning stakeholders, can you share an example of where Insight Global has kind of stepped in to help bridge that gap for a partner? And what do you think really made the difference?
- [12:44]
B
I actually think I might kick this one over to Scott. He actually has firsthand experience with a time that Insight Global actually helped out in this way.
- [12:53]
C
Absolutely. I feel like there are so many times where we are with clients where, when it goes right, and we can provide value is when we're at the table at the beginning, and we're a guiding hand in not only the scoping, but the delivery and the execution of these initiatives. That's first and foremost. And then we've been in situations where clients have called that weren't part of our portfolio, have called us up and said, we've heard what you do, and we want to engage you, and we come in and bring a team that really comes in and stabilizes the situation or brings it back on track from a training and a workflow assessment standpoint. So those are the ways we can actually bring value to the clients. But I think that first and foremost is, you know, us being there at the beginning and helping guide our clients through success.
- [13:43]
A
Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much for adding some color there, Scott. And as we're looking ahead, what do you both think healthcare leaders should be prioritizing right now to further build that clinical technology alignment before the next wave of innovation arrives? Because we know it's coming and would love to know what you see as the payoff when that alignment goes well. Yeah, absolutely.
- [14:07]
B
So my recommendation is really to take a step back and really look at your organization as a whole and really look at your operational goals for the hospital. What I see so often, especially as we continue to move faster and faster and faster into technology, into AI, into these advanced processes that are so exciting, is we don't necessarily stop to see, where are we going in the next five years? How are these things going to impact all of the stuff that we already have in place? Is it a time that we need to make a shift? Do we need to more create a plan and chip away at the things that we really want to focus on? Because in five years, this is where we want to be. And so I think it's so important that we kind of, you know, get out of the silo mentality of, you know, my department needs this. And I'll be the first to admit I lived in a silo for a while and didn't necessarily see the importance of the operational goals because I wanted what was best for me, my nurses, on my floor, in my division. And so it's so important that we kind of, you know, back away just a little bit and say what's best for this organization to make sure that moving forward with all of these different technologies, we don't get super fragmented.
- [15:31]
A
Yeah. Appreciate that. Note about looking ahead to Dr. Brennan. I think that's a really Important, an important aspect here. And Scott, what would you add, you
- [15:42]
C
know, to what Dr. Brendan is talking about? I think too often we find organizations that are they internally know the technology teams, the informatic teams, know the building blocks for the three year or the five year clinical transformation journey. But too often we find organizations aren't communicating that to what she's talking about, to the front lines. And I think if you really get out and engage the clinical stakeholders in a way that, you know, you're sharing that journey. Like we have to do these three building blocks this quarter, this year in order to prepare us for the next chapter and the next phase of this journey. Those are often easier pills to swallow. Right. That you know why we're doing things in a certain sequence or certain order. But I think it often gets back to good governance, clinical and technology governance and engagement, and making sure you've got the right stakeholders at the table from the very beginning. You know, three weeks before a rollout is not the time to engage clinical operations. They need to be involved in the very beginning. They need to be your ombudsmans that are talking about evangelizing and shouting to the rooftops to their constituents out in operations. Why we're doing this and what is the perceived clinical value that we'll get out of that? That again, we're not doing technology for technology's sake. Right?
- [17:06]
A
Yeah. What's striking me, Scott, is how technology deployments, of course, can be a very complex thing. But so many of the key themes you both have hit on throughout this conversation, good governance, engagement, getting the right stakeholders at the table. In the very beginning, they're very basic principles. So just really appreciate the insights from both of you and kind of bringing this down to earth on what it really takes. That said, is there any anything we haven't covered today that you think deserves more attention in the conversation to close us out?
- [17:38]
B
For me, it would really just be to encourage everyone, whether you're planning something right now or just looking into the future, is to find a really good partner. One of the things Insight Global does really well is consulting and custom teams. And so if you're thinking, hey, we might have this big project, but we just don't even know where to start. Find a good partner, somebody that can really help you through that journey and it's going to make it a lot less stressful for you and your organization.
- [18:07]
A
Great note. And Scott, how about you?
- [18:10]
C
Yeah. To what Dr. Brennan is talking about. I think what we do really well in Insight Global Health is build a custom experience it's not a rinse and repeat experience for us. We really want to know what our clients want, and we want to build a custom experience. But I think it's a differentiator for us in that we allow our clients to convert talent. And a lot of organizations don't do that, whereby we may bring, you know, a pod of individuals, and the client at the end says, you know, half of these people, I want to be part of my team permanently. And we're like, we're great. Let's make them part of your team. Let's convert that talent to your operations permanently. And a lot of companies don't do that. And I think what sets us apart is that We've got over 2200 recruiters in a global scale that can go out and research and curate talent in a way that a lot of other organizations can't do.
- [19:04]
A
Fantastic. Well, Dr. Brennan Scott, it's been great spending some time with you today and learning from all of your experience in the field and how you're seeing clinical and technology alignment take shape at organizations. So just want to thank you again for making time for Beckers today. Thank you, Erica.
- [19:21]
C
Thank you, Erica. Thanks for having us.
- [19:24]
A
And we also want to thank our podcast sponsor, Insight Global Health listeners. Be sure to tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview. Com.