G.P. Singh stops by to discuss the state of interoperability in healthcare.
Today in health, it interviews from the chime conference in San Diego. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health. It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged. Just a quick reminder. I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into next week from the chime conference. And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio where we'll start looking at the news. Once again. Hope you enjoy this interview. All right. Another interview from the chime floor. We're here with GPC with LK. Hi, how are you? Good. I'm looking forward to the conversation. So thank you for having me. I would normally ask what's top of mind, but top of mind for you is interoperability. I
GP Singh:interrupted, but it is the big thing that everybody's spending Solomon. Yeah, that'd be at the
Bill Russell:top of my mind. So what kind of conversations in what aspect are they looking at? Interoperability? Is it, is it broadly to share information with, with other health systems? Is it sharing it with consumers? Is it RJ? Just all of it.
GP Singh:It's, you know, what's, what's been really interesting is that, uh, you know, the healthcare systems have really evolved around having shared data. So it isn't just between systems. It's now with a lot of the digital health systems that are out there, there's a lot of the digital front door applications. Patient engagement applications out there. Um, so digital health has really taken off in a big way in the last couple of years with COVID obviously in addition to that there's pop health platforms, there's life sciences, there's, uh, you know, working with all of the networks out there. So there's a lot that happens in the hospital or healthcare system around exchange of data. And so interoperability really plays
Bill Russell:a key role. What about, uh, so 21st century cures, is that spurred that on a little bit or. Naturally happening as a result of our digital transformation,
GP Singh:that's been part of the deal with the 21st century cures act as there's been a lot of emphasis on, on being able to allow for easy exchange of data. Uh, but also COVID Israeli, um, made that even more imperative because telehealth was almost like people were kind of working. It wasn't obvious that there was going to be a lot of folks using it, but COVID has really changed that around. It's gained a lot of acceptance and Vitale help, you know, a lot of the digital health applications that have really gained acceptance. So, uh, a lot of those factors out there, so
Bill Russell:LK is pretty much agnostic, right? You're not like pushing a single tool or, or solution at this
GP Singh:point, you know, elk is, has been in business for about what 20 years. Uh, you know, we've built the platform. Time, uh, we're known as a healthcare data plumbers, uh, for a reason because we understand healthcare data plumbing better than I think better than a lot of other folks out there. So, uh, we have a platform that's been built to enable, uh, data exchange across, uh, different entities, different types of applications. And we have our own interface engine that really has been developed within the organization. When you think about it, nine of the 10 labs in the country, work with us, we're pretty big in the lab space. We're pretty big into data, archiving data migration space. We're pretty big in the ambulatory space, right. And then of course, in the interoperability space, and now all of a sudden, the bare space, we're making some headway over there. So across a lot of segments in that sense. So I'm going to give
Bill Russell:you my use case and I'd love to just bat it around. Uh, Southern California, we weren't able to employ the docs. So we had a foundation model. We ended up with a hundred different instances of the EHR. It's not like we could have said, Hey, we're all going to a single EHR. That'll solve the issue that was not even on the table. Right. So we had to figure out how to build a first, the clinically integrated network. And so with the clinically integrated network, you have to have the metrics that you're going to be providing back to those, to those physicians, to, you know, make value, create value from that, from that network. So there was a lot of disparate systems. We had to bring all that data together. We had to put it into a, you know, some sort of, of, of data analytics engine. And then we had to produce things and get it back into the workflow so that they could, could utilize it. Is that, so I was trying to solve that in 20 12, 20 13. Have we solved that or
GP Singh:is that still so, so we've solved that to a large extent. Um, you know, we've got something known as a clinical data. Where we bring in data from disparate systems in a community health systems out of Indiana uses us. For example, you know, where, you know, when a patient walks into an epic instance, right, or into a hospital and they're primary care setting on all kinds of different systems out there, we're able to bring that data into our CDX platform, make that available through epic or through Cerner or whatever system they might be out there. So that you'll get the holistic view of what the patients, you know, uh, record. And then that same platform then becomes helpful to be able to feed a lot of the analytics and the quality platforms and be able to feed that. So the pop health vendors use us for that. Uh, a lot of the, uh, folks that are around aggregating data for life sciences, trials and clinical trials users for that, because, you know, we clearly have demonstrated the ability to bring all of that. And create that sort of a consolidated view of that data. So we are doing that right now across, so a lot of customers, the
Bill Russell:mature, and, and I'm not throwing this out as a buzzword, that's going to solve the world. I understand its limitations, but what's the maturity level of, of, of fire right now.
GP Singh:You know, um, fire has been on fire for awhile, again, kind of using the Domo. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Uh, just as an example, you know, a lot of the EMR companies have enabled fire to access data out of the EMR, but still not enabled to be able to write back into the EMR. So there's, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done around that, but it's definitely moving in the right direction. And I think in the next few years, we are going to see some more levels of maturity, but I wouldn't call it fully mature, but, um, you know, it's kind of getting there,
Bill Russell:right. Writing data back into the. Has has always been one of those things that we are very cautious of because you're, you're, it's, it's the system of record around the patients, right. Health and those kinds of things. Plus we don't want to, we don't want to clog it up. So even though we can connect to all these really cool devices and pull that data in, uh, the personal devices and whatnot, we're, we're still reluctant to bring that data in as are we, are we starting to figure out ways to, to incorporate that.
GP Singh:Yeah. So, so what you're saying is, right, right. I mean, there's so much data that ultimately is that data even going to get used by anybody that is in somebody even going to look at it with everything is just kind of put back into the EMR. There's gotta be a certain process and a certain, uh, way to kind of, you know, bring that data in maybe, you know, insights from that data is probably more helpful than just your raw data. Right. And maybe bringing those insights into the EMR might be a better way to, to kind of really have actually. Uh, you know, goals that are so instead
Bill Russell:of moving my, every time I step on the scale and to the EHR, you're essentially letting the doctor know this information sits outside of there, but there's intellects being run against it that says, Hey, Bill's put on 10 pounds since
GP Singh:COVID started. Exactly. I think something along those lines might be a better approach, although, you know, right now, when you think about it, right, this patient intake systems, patient intake systems are getting data from Pittsburgh data sources from the. And really taking a lot of information in front of help and move that into sort of a pre, uh, encounter sort of data, right. That data model works. Right? So those situations were, but then the RPN space where there's remote patient monitoring, that's happening, we're working with a lot of remote patient monitoring vendors. Uh, what we're seeing over there is the companies that have sending insights are actionable insights are probably have a better chance of engagement with the providers rather than. Plain and simple take all the data and throw it into the EMR, which really doesn't generate the same sort of that.
Bill Russell:I love the, uh, data plumbers. I don't know if you're trying to go away from it or whatnot. Cause I know some people struggle with that, but that is Indic that's essentially what you're trying to do is you're, you know, we look out in the city of San Diego, right? We don't see the plumbing. We don't see all the things, but if it wasn't there so many things.
GP Singh:Which is exactly what LK is about. There are so many places there they don't know LK is because they fully provide the plumbing, uh, you know, uh, for, for a lot of these organizations and health systems, but that's what we're really good at. And, uh, you know, we want to continue doing that and I don't think we're going to move away from plumbing. Plumbing is going to be our core business versus Chiefy. Thank you for your time. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it, bill.
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