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  Welcome to This Week Health. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of This Week Health, where we are dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time. Today , we have an interview in action from the 2024 conferences, the spring conferences, VIVE in LA, HIMSS in Orlando.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Quantum Health, Gordian, Dr. First, CDW, Gozeo Health, Artisite, and Zscaler. You can check them out on our website, thisweekhealth. com. Now, onto our interview

(Interview 1)   📍 welcome from ViVE 24 in Los Angeles. I'm super excited to be here today with Jason Sabota, who is Director of Innovations at Tampa General. Jason, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for

inviting me to do this interview.

Great. This is your first

ViVE? No, I've been here ever since the first one.

Ever since the first one? Absolutely.

I love this. Year three then. Year three. What are you most looking forward to at this conference compared to years past?

Yeah, so I think, we've got a lot of strategic imperatives that we have at Tampa General that I think are shared across other health systems.

One of them is operational efficiency and provider burnout. Those are really top of mind. We're always looking to help improve quality outcomes. So those are some of the things that we're looking at for this one. not a

big topic for multiple organizations. When you think about your specific role, like you get to bring in innovation, are you looking specifically for net new ideas, or improvements to things that already exist that are maybe more complementary in your total

ecosystem?

I think what we do at Tampa General is a little different than other innovation departments. I think there are some innovation departments that look for those incremental changes. But what we come to by looking for are either startups or mature companies that have a new product that they're trying to fill that white space.

And so what we do at Tampa general with our innovation department is we look to partner with someone. Yeah. And help develop that product that fills out white space. So I'm looking for startups, I'm looking for mature companies that have a new product that we can take back, add a little bit of something.

and introduce it back into the health system. Those things like we talked about, the provider burnout, the efficiencies, of course, AI is on top of mind for everybody. And we're looking for companies that do that, but we're also looking for other solutions that kind of fill that

space.

So you have a unique spot, because you can actually give advice or ideas to some of these startups that you're curious and you think it's a great idea, you may not need it right now, but with your experience and the things that you know about, you can help them to also grow their brand while they're here as well.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I think that's the piece that we bring to the innovation space that maybe some other innovation departments don't do. But yeah, we like to add that special sauce, if you will, and it just helps improve not only the healthcare system, but it also helps improve that product as well.

We're

getting ready to kick the conference off tonight, so I can't wait to hear your perspective two days from now and say, after everything we talked about pre conference, what does that look like post conference? So it would be great to follow up and find out how it achieved what you were looking for and

That'd be great.

Every VIVE conference that I have, I've always left with, a lot of great contacts, a lot of great ideas. And this is one of our favorite conferences for sure.

Absolutely. The most important question I hope that anybody asks you all day is this one. Oh, what is it?

If you could have any fictional character as your life coach, who would it

be? Oh, that's a good one. I'm gonna go with Ted Lasso. Who wouldn't want to have Ted Lasso? I love that.

That's so much smarter. I'm thinking like Scooby Doo. So you brought it to a whole other level. And not for you, but for me.

So Ted Lasso, that sounds amazing. The Mystery Machine would be pretty cool. I have this thing. It may be shaggy, but I don't think they had big life goals. Whereas Ted he led Richmond all the way to the championship. That's right. Alright, thanks so much. Great to see you. Be well.

(Transition)   📍 📍 📍 ​

(Interview 2)   Welcome to ViVE 2024 live from Los Angeles. And I am fortunate enough today to be joined by Jeff Blade, who is Vice President of Applications at Fairview Health Services. Jeff, thanks for being here today. Oh, no problem. So you are a recent boot camp grad. Yes. And you took your CHCIO exam this morning.

Yes. What was the experience like? It

was a great experience. I learned so much. It was very interesting and the presenters were awesome. You got the faculty was awesome. Met a lot of really good people. Yeah. And, those connections are going to be invaluable. I think one of the great things I learned, too, was We're all on the same boat.

We're all fighting the same fight. And I was just in a meeting with Zopper on one of the focus groups as well. And we're talking about the exact same things and how do we work together to solve it for our

communities. I love that. You realize the synergy that comes together, especially when you're all literally trying the same problems.

what are you most excited about seeing at VIVE this week? The show floor, the vendors, like what to you is I'm going to bring this home with me when I go?

So there's a combination. There's the vendors that we already work with, that we already have a partnership with. But then there's the AI component that we're in the midst of talking to different groups and meeting with them here.

It'll be good to bring it back to my counterparts, but also with the people I already met in boot camp who are here, we're going to meet and talk about those things too.

What sense of almost like crowdsourcing, the ability to solve some of these problems? If you walk out of here with one solution, what would be the top one for you?

I would think ambient listening for our docs to make our IoT to make our providers more effective and efficient, reduce some of their burden, and give them the opportunity to work more with our patients as opposed to worrying about the technology. Okay.

Most important question of the day. If you could have any fictional character as your life coach, who would it be?

I was always a Batman

Excellent. So if we need something in healthcare, we'll put up the bat signal, and you'll be able to help us find the solution. Exactly. I love it. Thanks for being here. Alright. Take care. Good

  Thanks

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