This is it. The last #interviewsinaction for 2021. Vishakha Sant stops by to discuss how Service Now is orchestrating workflows within healthcare. Hope you enjoy.
Today in health, it interviews from the chime
Bill Russell:conference in San Diego.
Bill Russell:My name is bill Russell.
Bill Russell:I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health.
Bill Russell:It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.
Bill Russell:Just a quick reminder.
Bill Russell:I wouldn't be dropping interviews over the next couple of days and into
Bill Russell:next week from the chime conference.
Bill Russell:And then I'm going to have some more interviews from the next conference I
Bill Russell:want to be going to, and then eventually I'll get back to Florida and to the studio
Bill Russell:where we'll start looking at the news.
Bill Russell:Once again.
Bill Russell:Hope you enjoy this interview.
Bill Russell:All right.
Bill Russell:So here we are from the chime floor with another interview
Bill Russell:we are with with service now.
Bill Russell:What's
Vishakha Sant:your.
Vishakha Sant:Um, I am the global head of healthcare at service now.
Vishakha Sant:So they brought me in to really figure out where should service now focus from a
Vishakha Sant:strategy, a market, a product perspective.
Vishakha Sant:As we look at increasing our footprint in the healthcare and life sciences industry.
Vishakha Sant:So
Bill Russell:when people hear service now it's called this week in health.
Bill Russell:It use the show, they're thinking ITSs, but you're looking at a lot more than
Vishakha Sant:that.
Vishakha Sant:It's this we are looking at.
Vishakha Sant:That actually can connect workflows across internal people, external customers, and
Vishakha Sant:all of the devices that are really needed to help provide care that is much more
Vishakha Sant:coordinated and efficient and optimized.
Vishakha Sant:And taking that from finance to project management to it SM to.
Vishakha Sant:That messaging and that pivot is what we're trying to do
Vishakha Sant:for healthcare at services.
Vishakha Sant:So
Bill Russell:when people think about service, now, they
Bill Russell:shouldn't be thinking I CSM.
Bill Russell:Cause that's from a technology perspective.
Bill Russell:That's what I think I should be thinking what workflow orchestrating workflows.
Vishakha Sant:That's right.
Vishakha Sant:Yeah.
Vishakha Sant:I would say that it's truly a workflow orchestration engine that could be
Vishakha Sant:applied in any scenario, whether it's it.
Vishakha Sant:So it, service management is what we use for it.
Vishakha Sant:All of, uh, you know, procurement, we have procurement services.
Vishakha Sant:Right.
Vishakha Sant:And so what I would really encourage is people start looking at service now, in
Vishakha Sant:terms of how do you define workflow based on the challenge that you actually have,
Vishakha Sant:what problem are you trying to solve?
Vishakha Sant:Irrespective of the product that's going to help enable you
Vishakha Sant:to move past the challenges?
Vishakha Sant:What are the challenges?
Vishakha Sant:And then how can we leverage a digital health plan?
Vishakha Sant:To solve for those gray areas in between an EMR in between a billing
Vishakha Sant:system that still need to be connected in order to provide this notion of
Vishakha Sant:consumerism and maintaining, you know, understanding patient expectations and
Vishakha Sant:providing products that are intelligent.
Vishakha Sant:So everyone's time is being saved at the end of the day.
Bill Russell:One of the things we do in healthcare as a former
Bill Russell:CIO, one of the things we do is we overlap technologies all over this.
Bill Russell:Uh, and it's interesting.
Bill Russell:Cause as you're sort of saying this, I'm thinking through, you know,
Bill Russell:we're probably out looking at a very specific solution that does this, you
Bill Russell:know, fills this gap between the EMR and communication with the, with the,
Bill Russell:uh, with the consumer communication, with the, uh, with the clinicians
Bill Russell:across various practices and whatnot.
Bill Russell:But what, when I hear you talking, I'm sitting there going, you
Bill Russell:know, maybe we should look at our investment in service now because
Bill Russell:potentially we could create those.
Bill Russell:We could orchestrate those workflows.
Bill Russell:With a tool that we already owe
Vishakha Sant:with a platform that we already own.
Vishakha Sant:And the beauty of the platform is that it connects to other offerings
Vishakha Sant:within service now, because it's all a part of the platform.
Vishakha Sant:And when you layer onto it, a data model, like we've done with healthcare and life
Vishakha Sant:sciences, service management, you are now opening yourself up to additional work
Vishakha Sant:folk flows in a very concentrated area.
Vishakha Sant:So for example, in.
Vishakha Sant:Discharge management.
Vishakha Sant:Yes.
Vishakha Sant:We have vendors that do it, but then there's also, uh, you know, perhaps
Vishakha Sant:the discharge is going to lead to a transitions to care at home.
Vishakha Sant:What does the workflow look like for clinicians to now know?
Vishakha Sant:We need to service this patient.
Vishakha Sant:Who's going to do home-based dialysis.
Vishakha Sant:How does the dialysis machine get there?
Vishakha Sant:How do you coordinate the patient being ready to get on a recurring basis
Vishakha Sant:and actually schedule the visits that are needed from a clinician to go on?
Vishakha Sant:Just to help you administer it, to teach you, to train you.
Vishakha Sant:And all of that is really a workflow applied in a very
Vishakha Sant:specific use case in healthcare.
Vishakha Sant:Right?
Vishakha Sant:And so when the biggest challenge and benefit that we have is really
Vishakha Sant:describing this word workflow.
Vishakha Sant:And if I could have people who are listening and understand that
Vishakha Sant:service now is now getting into, and we have been, it's just, what
Vishakha Sant:problem are you trying to solve?
Vishakha Sant:So as
Bill Russell:a platform, are you, are you connecting into EHR data
Bill Russell:and connecting into all the, all these various systems that we have
Vishakha Sant:for community?
Vishakha Sant:Yeah, so we have the ability to actually ingest data.
Vishakha Sant:We, so we're based on HL seven fire standards.
Vishakha Sant:And with our data model, we are able to listen to API APIs, you
Vishakha Sant:know, get interfaces built in.
Vishakha Sant:And so we do have spokes that connect to various CMRs.
Bill Russell:Wow.
Bill Russell:So you used the word platform and I love the word platform
Bill Russell:because it means flexibility.
Bill Russell:Did you say.
Bill Russell:The platform gets utilized through, through the pandemic in different
Bill Russell:ways that maybe people had
Vishakha Sant:envisioned.
Vishakha Sant:Yeah.
Vishakha Sant:So through the pandemic, um, you know, I was actually, uh, uh,
Vishakha Sant:working for Kaiser Permanente.
Vishakha Sant:So I have background in the healthcare industries and, and, you know, have
Vishakha Sant:just recently joined service now.
Vishakha Sant:But as far as the use of the platform, the uptake in terms of virtual health,
Vishakha Sant:um, you know, the uptake in terms of.
Vishakha Sant:Creative ways to service people, right?
Vishakha Sant:Grocery stores went to go to this lane, you'll get all your groceries.
Vishakha Sant:And we will never walk away from that.
Vishakha Sant:Now everything needs to be at the convenience of the consumer, um,
Vishakha Sant:at the right time, right place, right data and right security.
Vishakha Sant:And the benefit of our platform is that we have all of those kind of built in,
Vishakha Sant:and it's this notion of a component.
Vishakha Sant:Architecture it's modular.
Vishakha Sant:So we're not, if you don't, if you have great, um, uh, you know,
Vishakha Sant:security operations, it's, it's not something that's built in so heavy.
Vishakha Sant:It's a modular piece, same thing with healthcare and life sciences, right.
Vishakha Sant:It's modular and we're, we're wanting it to be low code, no code so that
Vishakha Sant:people who are closest to the work that know where the inefficiencies
Vishakha Sant:are, aren't bogged down with the development required to make a true.
Vishakha Sant:It's much more of a drag drop type of method.
Vishakha Sant:And I think that that's one of the simplicity because everything
Vishakha Sant:is on the platform, right.
Vishakha Sant:You're not having to go down the street to your cousin to figure out what's on
Vishakha Sant:that platform and then try to integrate.
Bill Russell:So you're, you're at the chime conference.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
Bill Russell:What, um, what's going to be your takeaways from this conference.
Bill Russell:Just, I mean, we're having some interesting conversation.
Bill Russell:It's great to be with people again and have these conversations.
Bill Russell:What are some of the takeaways?
Bill Russell:What are health systems?
Bill Russell:What are they challenged with?
Bill Russell:What are they looking to try to solve that they're talking to you about?
Vishakha Sant:Yeah.
Vishakha Sant:I think if I look at it from a sheer workforce perspective, how do we
Vishakha Sant:do more with less resources now?
Vishakha Sant:And that could be clinicians that could be financials that
Vishakha Sant:could be, uh, you know, grants.
Vishakha Sant:We're trying to understand nursing shortages.
Vishakha Sant:Are there ways for us to augment, you know, administrative things that they
Vishakha Sant:don't need to do in the first place?
Vishakha Sant:Right?
Vishakha Sant:So that they can focus on the patient, which every hospital,
Vishakha Sant:ER, is suffering right now.
Vishakha Sant:And so the takeaway here is how can we help augment some of the
Vishakha Sant:repetitive that lives everywhere in our life that doesn't require.
Vishakha Sant:To necessarily focus on it and it just becomes more intelligent.
Vishakha Sant:Right?
Vishakha Sant:The other thing is sensors and this notion of care at home, you
Vishakha Sant:know, it's a mixed bag out there.
Vishakha Sant:I think healthcare organizations want to get there.
Vishakha Sant:And the ones that have the resources available are, are on the path there.
Vishakha Sant:But there's still a little bit of a hold my hand, cause I'm not sure even how to
Vishakha Sant:start that dialogue and to understand what it's going to take to establish a care.
Vishakha Sant:And so if, as a healthcare industry, we are moving towards affordability
Vishakha Sant:and we see that we're going to need to get more out of the core care sites so
Vishakha Sant:that it's cheaper, faster, better using the best resources and not impacting
Vishakha Sant:outcomes if we're able to get to that.
Vishakha Sant:And I think that service now has a role in order to help us get there
Vishakha Sant:through the workflow automation of these redundant tasks so that
Vishakha Sant:people can focus on their core.
Vishakha Sant:Which will allow us to have better outcomes with the patients,
Vishakha Sant:which will allow us to be a less cost healthcare society.
Vishakha Sant:Yup,
Bill Russell:absolutely.
Bill Russell:I want to thank you for your time.
Bill Russell:Thank you.
Bill Russell:Yeah.
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