The Collective Voice of Health IT, A WEDI Podcast

Michael chats with Amanda Bury, Chief Commercial Officer with Infermedica about how tools like the digital self-triage are supporting the patient while also feeding physicians valuable information to create a more productive and accurate healthcare experience.

Michael chats with Akshay Sharma, Chief AI Officer with Lyric, a leading AI healthcare technology company looking to leverage AI to improve payment accuracy and efficiency. Akshay discusses the power and potential of AI, how Lyric is improving the healthcare payment process for all stakeholders and the importance of responsible AI and privacy when implementing this emerging technology.

Michael welcomes MedicareSchool.com co-founder Marvin Musick to discuss offering valuable education to Medicare-eligible patients and the affect of technology and policy on Medicare and healthcare in general.

From WEDI's Feb 2024 Health Equity Forum, Dr. Marc Rabner, Chief Medical Officer with CRISP Shared Services moderates a panel of CBO leaders on how they leverage data in their day to day work. The Panel: Leigh Ann Eagle, Director of Health & Wellness Program, MAC, Chief Operating Officer of the Living Well Center of Excellence Stephanie Archer-Smith, Executive Director, Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland June Simmons, President and CEO, Partners in Care Foundation Monique Powell-Davis, MD. Executive Vice President of Medical Services, Mary’s Center

This week, Matthew welcome Nick Adriance, Director, Global Software Product Management at CenTrak. The two discuss the evolution of Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) and how it can aid in streamlining cost, decrease lost equipment, increase security, and enhance patient experience.

At WEDI's recent Health Equity Forum and Workshop, Sagran Moodley, Chief Innovation and Technology Officer with Ontada spoke with Dr. Vindell Washington, former National Coordinator for Health IT and the Chief Clinical Officer and Director of the Health Equity Center of Excellence for Verily Health Platforms.

Michael welcomes Richard Wagner, a former WEDI Privacy and Security Workgorup Co-Chair who is the CEO of Raven Health (www.ravenhealth.com) a leader in data collection and analysis for behavioral health. Coming from a healthcare family, Richard learned early on about the frustrations of healthcare software from his clinician father, and worked to increase the time a clinician spends with their patients and decrease the time they spend doing "everything else."

Michael chats with Lisa Blue, Chief Clinical Innovation Officer with Providertech on how technology and policy is quickly shaping the future for patient engagement.

Matthew chats with Patty Hayward, General Manager of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Talkdesk. The two discuss healthcare's current problem areas, how patient empowerment can help turn the tide and how AI can address call center challenges.

Matthew welcomes a panel of healthcare professionals to discuss the power of SDOH data in changing communities. Brian Wikle, Principal Sales Executive, SS&C Health Amy Sall, Sr Director Strategic Business Consulting Executive Advisory (and self professed "Data Goddess") SS&C Health John Novak, CIO & VP of Information Services, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center The group discusses the data-centric challenges of collecting and analyzing SDOH data and the need for the healthcare industry to continue to collaborate with community based organizations.

"The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members" Michael welcomes Shweta Maniar, Global Director, Healthcare & Life Sciences with Google. Shweta shares how early experiences of volunteer service shaped her vision of how technology, along with trust and sense of community, can improve the healthcare ecosystem. Shweta also shares advice for women leaders and others in healthcare, and unveils the secret of how almond milk is made (it's probably not a secret, Michael just didn't know).

WEDI's Director of Events and Education Michael McNutt chats with Kim Perry, Chief Growth Officer at emtelligent, about the adoption of clinical AI and its potential to transform business processes in the healthcare market. The benefits of AI are discussed as well as the challenges that come with the technology. Read Kim's article on how NLP can aid payers and providers when exchanging patient information through continuity-of-care documents. https://www.ajmc.com/view/contributor-unlocking-the-value-of-unstructured-data-from-continuity-of-care-documents-using-medical-grade-nlp

Matthew chats with Artisight Inc. President Stephanie Lahr. Inspired by her experience with an EHR system during a hurricane in Texas, Stephanie discusses the urgent need to transition from paper records, embrace technology, and how AI can support hospitals by identifying and automating high friction environments, improving the quality of care, and reducing healthcare burnout.

Host Mike Kottmer (WEDI Board Member) talks with Dr Colin Banas, Chief Medical Officer with Dr. First. The two discuss how AI (Dr. Banas calls it Augmented Intelligence) has benefitted both patients (improved medication management) and physicians (burden reduction) as well as the challenges and future opportunities that AI will bring the industry.

Guest host and WEDI board member Mike Kottmer chats with Dr. Luigi Vacca and Aaron Holloway, the founders of tallywell, a digital health app that utilizes AI and ML to create a FICO-like "health score" for the user.

Michael chats with Dr. Michael Gao, CEO and Co-Founder of SmarterDx. The two discuss how Michael's origins in starting a free clinic for uninsured patients sparked his interest in combining technology and healthcare to address systemic issues. The two address the inefficiencies in the healthcare system, particularly the high cost of revenue cycle tasks, and how leveraging AI can offer immediately value to hospitals.

Matthew chats with Dr. John Blair, CEO of MedAllies (and one-time rodeo cowboy). The two discuss MedAllies position as a QHIN candidate, reinvigorating the interoperability movement, and how MedAllies and others plan to address those significant healthcare interoperability shortfalls that are impacting patient care.

From WEDI's 2023 National Conference, Greg Garcia, Executive Director, Cyber Security Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) hosts a CISO panel looking at security trends and threats in healthcare. Panelists: Paul Curylo, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, Inova Health Systems Bezawit Sumner, Chief Security Officer, Senior Director of Security and Compliance, CRISP Shared Services Beth Creed, Supervisory Special Agent, Major Cyber Criminal Squad, Federal Bureau of Investigations

This podcast is sponsored by Smile Digital Health. Your Digital Transformation Awaits at www.SmileDigitalHealth.com Michael speaks with Smile Digital Health's Director of Standards Strategy Bryn Rhodes about Clinical Quality Language, its challenges with large amounts of data and how FHIR helps mitigate data challenges.

From our recently concluded national conference in Washington DC, WEDI Board Chair Ed Hafner welcomes a panel of AI SMEs to discuss their successes and challenges in developing AI strategies in healthcare. The panel: Kevin Larsen, MD, SVP, Clinical Innovation, Optum Derrick Higgins, Head of Enterprise Data Science and AI, HCSC Jared Staal, Senior Director, Advanced Analytics and AI, Mayo Clinic

The continuation of episode 125, WEDI Board Chair Ed Hafner has a great conversation on AI best business practices with an impressive panel of SMEs: • Ram Rimal, Manager of Data Science Engineering, UNC Health • Jared Staal, Senior Director, Advanced Analytics and AI, Mayo Clinic • John Loomis, Head of Technology, AI, Engineering, Softheon • Laura Adams, Senior Advisor, National Academy of Medicine • Jigar Patel, MD, Senior Director, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Product Management for Healthcare, Oracle Cerner

Data is an asset and the need for Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI) to improve data quality for improving patient care, facilitating interoperability, and unlocking secondary analytics capabilities. Michael chats with Gregg Church, President of 4medica and Alaap Shah, lawyer with Epstein, Becker and Green and an advisor for 4medica about the importance of data to EMPIs, how artificial intelligence can address some duplication errors and how health care needs to follow other industries and "get the data right."

From WEDI's September 2023 virtual spotlight on Best Business Practice with AI in Healthcare, part 1 of our panel discussion on privacy and security concerns. Moderated by WEDI Board Chair Ed Hafner and featuring an esteemed panel of healthcare AI subject matter experts: • Ram Rimal, Manager of Data Science Engineering, UNC Health • John Loomis, Head of Technology, AI, Engineering, Softheon • Laura Adams, Senior Advisor, National Academy of Medicine • Jigar Patel, MD, Senior Director, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Product Management for Healthcare, Oracle Cerner

Michael chats with Scott Hondros, VP of Customer Excellence & Strategic Consulting at CenTrak about how Real-Time Location Systems can help healthcare create a safer, more satisfying and efficient environment for patients and healthcare facilities.

Michael chats with Jon Zimmerman, CEO of Holon Solutions about why now is such a critical time to get value based care right, how it will adjust administrative work in healthcare and how organizations can make the most impact with value based care.

Michael sits down and chats with Daniel Abrams, CEO of MassLight and zapEHR. MassLight invests capital and software engineers in digital health startups, and are in the process of developing an innovative new “headless” EHR development platform named zapEHR. The two discuss the landscape for healthcare startups, his time as a software engineer at Apple and how regulations and emerging technologies look to improve the healthcare experience for clinicians and patients.

The state of South Carolina is the first in the nation to offer families access to programs across the state’s early childhood system through a single web portal – increasing connections to government services for children ages 0-5, reducing administrative burdens on families, and creating cost savings for government. Michael speaks to Georgia Mjartan, Executive Director of South Carolina First Steps and the Early Childhood Advisory Council on her work on this first of its kind comprehensive portal that connects South Carolinians to the full spectrum of state- and federally-funded services available to young children. Learn more at https://first5sc.org/ and https://www.earlychildhoodsc.org/what-we-do/first-five-sc/

Michael chats with multifaceted Dr. Dan Blumenthal, President of Novocardia, the new value-based care division of Cardiovascular Associates of America. The two discuss the strides Dan and Novocardia have made in creating access to timely high-quality, affordable care by optimizing clinical efficiency, reducing avoidable hospitalizations and ER visits, and practicing evidence-based, cost-conscious cardiovascular medicine.

From WEDI's 2023 May Conference, updates on standards, the 2023 roadmap and ICD-11 from Tammy Banks, NCVHS Co-Chair, Subcommittee on Standards and Jamie Ferguson, Co-Chair, ICD-11 Policy Workgroups. Tammy and Jamie will be presenting at WEDI's 2023 National Conference November 6-9 offering updates on a variety of NCVHS activities. Register to attend at wedi.org

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference, WEDI's Payment Models Workgroup Co-Chair Michael Pattwell (Edifecs) speaks with Dr. James Dom Dera (Physicians Network) and Rick Foerster (Privia Health) about their successes and challenges with value based care.

Michael chats with Dr. Pawan Jindal, MD, CEO of Darena Solutions, A St. Louis-based tech company that delivers EHR and other health IT solutions for vendors and patients. How has technology, the 21st Century Cures Act, and patient literacy aided in the new evolution of data interoperability (not totally there yet though)

Michael speaks with Kermit Farmer, founder and Chief Ethos Officer of Paths, a service that gives doctors and team members the ability to create and share educational material to help their patients in the journey from diagnosis through recovery. Learn more at www.villagepaths.com

From a recent WEDI health equity workgroup meeting, a chat with Mark Megerian, Technology Fellow with Optum. Visit United Health Foundation's comprehensive data and SDOH tool, America's Health Rankings (https://www.americashealthrankings.org/) to see some of the work United and Optum are doing to leverage data to address health disparities in the country.

From a recent WEDI Health Equity Workgroup meeting, we welcome Tammy Weaver, VP Physician Professional Data with the American Medical Association

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference, 4 patient advocate professionals discuss how regulations and innovation are affecting patients. How close is the work of payers, providers and vendors to achieving "patient nirvana". Panelists: Andrew Scholnick (AARP), Melissa Williams (National Patient Advocate Foundation), Anna Hyde (Arthritis Foundation), Dr. Nicole Purcell (Alzheimer's Association). The moderator was patient advocate, influencer, and host of the HITea podcast, Grace Vinton.

From the WEDI Archives: Dr. Steve Waldren, Vice President and Chief Medical Informatics Officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians discusses how AAFP's Innovation Lab has embraced the power of artificial intelligence to aid their physicians with numerous functions and processes.

Matthew has a great conversation with Aaron Patzer, founder of AI-based health care company Vital about how artificial intelligence is quickly evolving in the industry. The former founder of Mint.com discusses AI's benefits, challenges and considerations as the emerging technology plans to redefine the patient experience.

In June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new primary care model – the Making Care Primary (MCP) Model – that will be tested under the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in eight states. We welcome CMS Deputy Administrator and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Director Dr. Liz Fowler to discuss the Making Care Primary Model, the process in developing the model, and it's connections with health equity.

Matthew chats with Derrick Higgins, Head of Enterprise Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Health Care Service Corporation (BCBS of Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas). Derrick discusses how his organization is leveraging artificial intelligence, his thoughts on future applications, and federal government role in AI governance.

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference. The Health Care Payment and Learning and Action Network (HCPLAN) established the Health Equity Advisory Team (HEAT) to help identify and prioritize opportunities to advance health equity through alternative payment models (APMs). The HEAT’s goal is person-centered and focuses on leveraging APMs to help make needed care more accessible, drive better patient outcomes, and reduce disparities. We welcomed HEAT's co-chairs, Dr Marshall Chin from the University of Chicago and Karen Dales from Amerihealth Caritas to discuss the group's work and their mission to address and eliminate health disparities while identifying payment models that aid communities. The session was moderated by Michael Pattwell from Edifecs who also serves as WEDI's Payment Model Workgroup Co-Chair.

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference, Michael and WEDI Board Chair Ed Hafner chats with Jonathan Burow, VP Customer Experience and Digital Transformation with Independent Health. Jonathan discusses best practices for measuring customer satisfaction across product lines and engagement channels including call, chat, website and app.

The concept of intersectionality describes the ways in which systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination “intersect” to create unique dynamics and effects. Regarding healthcare, collecting data on intersectional social factors like race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation can help identify disparities experienced by specific populations in order to develop initiatives that target community’s needs thus yielding (hopefully) positive health outcomes. Matthew speaks with 4medica President Gregg Church on how incorporating intersectionality and Social determinants of health (SDOH), healthcare systems can improve the quality of data used to address health equity.

Michael welcomes Scott Gray, CEO of Clincierge, a patient concierge services provider in clinical trials. The two discuss the current state regarding diversity in clinical trials and how the need for minority participation can help serve a more accurate, realistic population, establish trust between patients and providers, and improve the patient experience.

From WEDI's recent Spring Conference, a conversation on the importance of data, partnership, and health equity buy-in and bake-in with prominent health equity leadership from UnitedHealth Group and Mayo Clinic. U. Michael Currie, Chief Health Equity Officer, UnitedHealth Group Adam Milam, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Office of Health Equity and Inclusion, Mayo Clinic Ajay Jayakumar, Director, Strategy and Analytics Diversity Science, Mayo Clinic Marquita Davis, Enterprise Director, Office of Health Equity and Inclusion, Mayo Clinic

Responding to the commonwealth's public health and workforce needs, George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) launched the first and only College of Public Health in Virginia. Michael chats with Dr. Melissa Perry, Dean of the College, on her early motivations and inspirations, the school's importance in teaching, learning, innovation and community involvement and its importance to the state's future health.

This is an excerpt from a discussion from WEDI's Health Equity Forum earlier this year on how payers are leveraging data to address health disparities, prevent disease and promote health and digital literacy. His guests are Dan Rivas, Senior Manager at Blue Shield California and Kurt Johnson, Vice President Operations with UnitedHealth Group.

We chat with Elevance Health Chief Technology Officer Geeta Wilson about how her company is embracing artificial intelligence to improve and enhance the patient experience.

To commemorate our 100th episode, WEDI welcomes our founder, former HHS Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan. 30 years ago, Dr. Sullivan founded WEDI in an effort to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency of health care data exchange. After 3 decades, we ask Dr. Sullivan if the industry is on the right path, his thoughts on improving health equity in the country and how can organizations like WEDI continue the good fight toward reducing burden and establishing more efficient data exchange. Purchase Dr Sullivan's book, "We'll Fight It Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity", co authored by Dr. David Chanoff, on Amazon

Michael spends some time with Kristy Dickinson, founder of Chronically Simple, a healthcare app that hopes to end the fragmented healthcare experience and allows patients and caregivers to proactively manage their health data. Find out about Chronically Simple on the app store or visit https://www.chronicallysimple.com/

This week we hear from Angie Bass, Chief Strategy Officer with Velatura Public Benefit Corporation, an industry leader in providing HIT and HIE consulting, development, implementation and operation services across the nation. Angie offers insight on Health Data Utilities (HDUs), the differences between HDUs and HIEs, and why it's the next step towards interoperability and better public health.