The Collective Voice of Health IT, A WEDI Podcast

From our recently concluded Summer Forum, Part 1 of a discussion with 2 providers working on implementing the CMS Interoperability and PA Rule. Semira Singh, Director Population Health Informatics, Providence Anna Taylor, AVP, Population Health & Value Based Care, MultiCare Connected Care The moderator, from the AMA, former WEDI Board Chair Nancy Spector

Michael welcomes back Shweta Maniar, Global Director, Life Sciences Solutions and Strategy for Google Cloud. The two discuss the continued emergence of artificial intelligence in health care, the need for standards or a framework in health care regarding AI, and how people new to AI can brush off misconceptions and dive in feet first and learn how they can access and leverage this growing technology.

Michael welcomes 3 of the 4 co-chairs of WEDI's Prior Authorization Subworkgroup: Heather McComas, Director, Administrative Simplification Initiatives, American Medical Association David Delano, Senior Director of Services, Massachusetts Health Data Consortium Raj Godavarthi, Associate VP of Technology and Interoperability, MCG Health The 3 discuss the changes in the workgroup and the industry since the January 2024 release of the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization rule, the exciting role of artificial intelligence in PA, and how their unique stakeholder roles offer a full, detailed dialogue during their monthly meetings. Tons of Prior Authorization-related education coming to you courtesy of WEDI. Visit wedi.org and click CALENDAR for more information

Michael welcomes Donna Campbell (HCSC) and Amanda Abbott (BCBS of Kansas), WEDI's Eligibility and Benefits Workgroup Co-Chairs. The co-chairs discuss the workgroup's missions and the latest discussion topics that workgroup is undertaking, including improving efficiencies in the E&B process through standards and emerging technology. If you are interested in joining the workgroup, contact Ariana Poole at [email protected]. You must be a WEDI member to join. To become a WEDI member, contact Bill Allder at [email protected]

The threat from cyberattacks is growing exponentially and health care organizations are particularly vulnerable. Michael chats with WEDI's Privacy and Security Workgroup Co-Chairs, Lesley Berkeyheiser of DirectTrust and Thanh-Thien Nguyen of Kaiser Permanente on suggested actions that health care organizations big and small can adopt, customize, and implement as they seek to establish good cyber hygiene. The top 10 list will be available soon on wedi.org

From WEDI's Spring 2024 conference, Sequoia's David Pyke moderates a conversation with its Payer to Payer FHIR API Implementation Workgroup Co-Chairs, Robert Oakley with Evernorth and Nancy Beavin with Medica. Learn more about the workgroup here- https://sequoiaproject.org/interoperability-matters/payer-to-payer-api-workgroup/

Guest host Michael Pattwell, WEDI Board Members, Co-Chair of its Payment Models Workgroup, and Principal Business Advisor with Edifecs, chats all things value based care with Lynn Carroll, Chief Operating Officer of HSBlox. The two offer a fascinating look at the progression from fee for service to value based care, recent models launched by CMS, and the importance of data interoperability and standards in improving value based care delivery and contract administration.

Michael chats with RJ Kedziora, Co-Founder of software company Estenda about the evolution of digital health and digital therapeutics. The two discuss the advances in emerging tech, privacy and security challenges, the role of regulations and the hopes that digital health can break down those data silos that still plague us. Estenda is holding a webinar; Driving Quality in Digital Health: The Role of Generative AI in Testing, on June 14th from 12pm- 1pm eastern. Find out more below. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/driving-quality-in-digital-health-the-role-of-generative-ai-in-testing-tickets-902441475747

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services National Standards Group, within the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics, focuses on reducing administrative burden and advancing interoperability and national standards. CMS engages beneficiaries and the health care community to understand their experiences, inform solutions, and infuse a customer-focused mindset throughout the agency. Michael welcomes CMS NSG Director Michael Cimmino to the podcast to discuss the who, what, where, when and why of administrative simplification and burden and how a standard becomes a standard. This is part 2 of a 2 part podcast conversation with CMS NSG on Administrative Simplification. Coming soon, an episode on enforcement. Learn more about CMS' work on admin simp at go.cms.gov/adminsimp

In April 2024, WEDI held a member position advisory (MPA) event on the critical topic of maintaining business continuity within healthcare organizations in the wake of cyber-attacks. The event, entitled, From Crisis to Continuity: Maintaining Health Care Data Exchange Following a Cyber Attack, offered best practices, suggestions, and key steps that stakeholders from HHS and the private sector can consider when exchanging data, processing information, and maintaining lines of communication. From WEDI’s recently concluded Spring conference, a debrief of the MPA event presented by WEDI’s privacy & security workgroup co-chairs, Lesley Berkeyheiser with DirectTrust and Thanh Thien Nguyen from Kaiser Permanente.

Michael chats with returning guest Denis O'Shea, Founder and Chairman of Mobile Mentor, about their 2024 Endpoint Ecosystem Study, which explored the intricate dynamics of hybrid work in high-risk and highly regulated industries. Conducted across the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, the study involved 2,400 knowledge workers in healthcare, finance, government, and education to understand employee attitudes and their actions related to company security and their experience, and their productivity as remote workers. Review the study at https://endpointecosystem.com/

A continuation from last week's episode on health equity data efforts from the federal perspective. Our moderator is Nancy Spector, Coding and HIT Advocacy Director at the AMA and former WEDI Board Chair. Our panel: Kristie Clarke, CDR, US Public Health Service, Senior Advisor on Data for Health Equity, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, US Center for Disease Control and Prevention Kelly Cronin, Director, Center for Innovation & Partnership, Deputy Administrator, Administration for Community Living, HHS Jawanna Henry, Interoperability Systems Branch Chief, Office of Policy, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Meagan Khau, Director of Data Analytics& Research Group, CMS Office of Minority Health

From WEDI's February 2024 Health Equity Forum, we welcome federal representatives to discuss how they are using data, tech and standards to address health disparities and the importance of community relationships. Our moderator is Nancy Spector, Coding and HIT Advocacy Director at the AMA and former WEDI Board Chair. Our panel: Kristie Clarke, CDR, US Public Health Service, Senior Advisor on Data for Health Equity, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, US Center for Disease Control and Prevention Kelly Cronin, Director, Center for Innovation & Partnership, Deputy Administrator, Administration for Community Living, HHS Jawanna Henry, Interoperability Systems Branch Chief, Office of Policy, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Meagan Khau, Director of Data Analytics& Research Group, CMS Office of Minority Health

Michael chats with Chris Darland, President and CEO of Peerbridge Health about how artificial intelligence is helping diagnose heart failure quicker and more efficiently than traditional methods, which could assist all patients, but especially those in rural communities.

In January of this year, to coincide with the release of CMS' Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule, WEDI launched an ambitious 7-part education series examining the rule for the healthcare industry. Michael sits down with 3 of the moderators of the series, Ferris Taylor, Executive Director of the Healthcare Executive Group, Denny Brennan, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, and Robert Tennant, Vice President of Federal Affairs for WEDI to get their thoughts on the program and what it means for the industry moving forward. The entire Road to Interoperability and Prior Authorization series can be found on WEDI's Youtube Page, https://www.youtube.com/@wedionline

From WEDI’s Feb 2024 Health Equity Forum, Part 2 (Part 1 was episode 144) of a session moderated by Dr. Marc Rabner, Chief Medical Officer with CRISP Shared Services discussing the work CBOs perform to support Health Equity. The panelists: 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

Michael welcomes Taylor Webster, Head of Coding Quality with Fathom Health (https://www.fathomhealth.com/) to discuss how autonomous medical coding is aiding the industry, addressing workforce shortages, burden and revenue cycle management.

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.