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with our managed integration solution, not just waiting there for someone to assign it.

We actually know what's upcoming based on what we have already seen all the way from assessment and what new systems are being implemented.

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.

Now, onto our interview

Vik Patel COO of Teedo Inc. Teedo is a comprehensive healthcare IT solution provider specializing in modernizing healthcare environments. Securing interface infrastructures and enabling real time data connectivity. We're here today to tell some amazing stories about the work you two have done. Welcome to the show.

Thanks Sarah. Great to be here.

Absolutely. I'm going to start with the obvious. And can you both share how your initial meeting at HIMSS sparked the idea for collaboration and what made you decide to explore the Teedo product suite together?

Well, you know, I can kind of start us out there. Vik reached out to me prior to HIMSS.

We connected through LinkedIn. And we started talking found we had some common things from our past

I was telling him what we needed. But we met in person at HIMSS with his team and kind of started forging a relationship there. So, it's about relationships. So that was a really important component for

Yeah, and that was exciting meeting in person and I say that because you know, I have been following James on LinkedIn for a while and

We've been talking through the messaging and and I was like, hey, let's meet finally last year.

And so that was nice like I said, we both went to University of Kentucky We both lived in Lexington, Kentucky for a long time and which by the way I mean this year in Vegas March Madness should be a lot more fun You know, Kentucky's doing really well for all the basketball fans out there.

Well, last time I checked, y'all were ranked 8th nationally, so I guess it's okay to say go Wildcats.

We have hope and hope, too. Love it.

I can say for me, it's a core component of who I am.

far as a CIO it's a relationship game. If I just wanna buy a product

I can just do a basic, like, I need this, gimme that, and it's just a black and white transaction in this case. That's not what I like to do with partners that we look at. Beyond that, I think vendors who just want to give you something versus vendors who want to help you.

And I think that was a key component through the conversations with Vik. That started growing. But the face to face and in person, there was obviously, we connected, we linked up, and it was, how can I help? Not, what can you buy from me? And I'm always looking at these vendors. of like, you know, how do they want to treat the transaction with me.

So that was critical to me. And it felt obvious to me that Vik shared the same exact kind of mindset when he started speaking to us.

No, I appreciate that. And, you know, Sarah, I feel like, similarly, I mean, in somebody in James's position, or, you were CIO for a long time, too, I think it's easy for you guys to see when somebody's bringing value, right, and it's not just about selling a solution or a service, because sooner or later, you will you'll realize what's going on here and if you are actually getting any value out of it, so it's not the way we work and definitely want to make sure that that is actually a problem that we are solving and working together.

So I appreciate James's comments that he likes our approach.

What was interesting to me was initially when we spoke, I said, look, there's just because I'm asking you to do the assessment, there's no guarantee that we're going to ask you to be the solution provider with that. And again, it's kind of approach that I normally take.

So when they came in, it was just really honest. They talked to us about what they'd found. The opportunities for improvement with the current package that we had on our interface engine. And let's just say that the problems and opportunities , were vast. So, one of the things that they did is they put it very clearly and concisely together.

Showed us how we could have some quick wins, show we could have some immediate results. But they were very forthright and honest with us and said, this is going to be a bit of a long stretch on whomever you pick. You know, you're going to have to go do this for a while, make some good meaningful changes.

The person who had done that work had left before I actually arrived at the hospital. It was a bit of a sore point for us and it was a lot of difficult work. So they handled that with grace and that went a long way with us.

I love that. Vik, from your perspective, how do you approach assessments to ensure they deliver actionable insights to your clients like James?

So for us in the assessment, one of the things, you know, we try and understand is first of all, What is the current state, right? So starting from the current state and then what is the future vision? What are the strategic initiatives that the leadership has planned for? And you know, how do we get from the current state to that future readiness

And there are regular check ins to make sure that the milestones that we have in the plan are being met, just because we know that a lot of the future initiatives like, you know, cloud implementations are actually dependent on it. And I was just talking to Lance on James team that, hey, Once we have a milestone coming up, once we are fully live on the new engine and everything, you know, let's do another check in and make sure where we stand from a milestone perspective.

So, you know, it's not just about documenting, what we see, but actually kind of paying attention to what the goals are and then executing it.

We talked about these kind of things. It was obviously we shared the same mindset.

And the assessment led to impressive advancements for you.

Like seamless upgrades, real time HIE connections. You were the first in your area to do that. And proactive monitoring. Can you talk about the impact these changes have had on patient care and operational efficiencies?

Absolutely. So for us, like I said, we did not have a reliable interface. And so we spent a lot of time.

Kind of troubleshoot these things, work with some different third parties, or not even realizing that things were not working wasnt totally disastrous, but it made the work a lot more difficult. So when we first went into this they identified some of the immediate problems.

So we really like that approach. And the next thing you know, we said, well, Let's look at extending this for a year and maybe kind of going all in. By doing that, it allowed us to focus on where we really needed to do some enhancements in our Expanse build. Things that we'd not been able to do before.

It was noise, but it was a loud and important noise off to the side. But it took the focus away from the things that we were doing for our providers, for our clinicians so that they can serve our patients and residents better. Like I said, those are the types of things that we want those relationships.

So those are the kind of the challenges that we'd have to have. And the team honestly was a little reticent. They had not had good experiences with some vendors in the past because they had not approached the relationships, in my opinion, correctly and managed the expectations. This was one of two simultaneous relationships we had going on at that time.

And so the team really embraced this and they saw that, oh, this is a vendor that's here to help. This is actually a partner. And not just a money exchange, which is how they did it previously. So that really helped us a lot. that eased the tensions on my team. And it , allowed us to move forward and worry about the day to day

and it's being proactively monitored. And You know, this is where I think from a patient care, it's definitely a huge impact, so instead of having to call in and the end user having to call in tickets and someone trying to figure out what's going on instead, now our team. can actually proactively see what's happening, take care of the issues before even somebody has a chance to call in.

It's preventative care. I mean, we're, we're avoiding problems now that have been sadly routine and accepted. That's just what it does. It goes down and we're like, no, that's not that. So, we've They allowed us to set a new operational standard.

They should expect excellence and not accept mediocrity. And that's something we want to push.

A great example was last night.

We had a comprehensive update and upgrade from things going on across our entire. Server Farm and Metatech, everything was restarting you know, and that's always gives you a moment for pause when you're resetting everything in the data center pretty much, but there were some big patches that came out, big things we had to test, we were prepped, we were ready, we did that.

Interestingly, in the background, the interface engine really never really had any problems at all. recognized it, anything that was going on, there were no calls, there were no lost data, nothing. So, nothing this morning walking in. After the team was here last night, I didn't wake up to any, bad phone calls or texts.

And that was the first time we've had anything of that magnitude since we've had the partnership to do this type other than, , some major upgrades. But we went to bed last night and didn't worry about it. And I think that's a really huge component for us.

Yeah, and we saw it happening, our monitoring solution creates tickets whenever it sees issues or downtimes.

And I did inform the team that this is upcoming and, you know, it's okay. So when it does create it and it actually auto closes, the IIS solution actually auto closes the tickets too as things get resolved. So we did see it happening and things getting resolved as expected, which if it wouldn't have, our team would have jumped in.

And, you know, made the calls, or worked on the issue. But yeah, so, definitely both ways. If we actually do see an issue and it's not resolved, we would actually, we would be the one calling in somebody in IT and saying, Hey, we still see this issue, it's not resolved. This is how we should fix it.

So anyway, it's just a whole reversed case here, while, you know, IT knows what's going on before the clinicians ever realize. That was an issue.

You have a new marketing slogan, Vik. You can say, We don't keep you awake at night. Remember, that was always the question we get. What keeps you awake at night?

Like, you know what? Actually, part of Teedo , I don't have to stay awake at night during upgrades now. Which leads us to how you both emphasize the importance of Teedo becoming an extension of James's team. How has this cultural alignment and hands on engagement contributed to your success?

For us they are literally like a part of the team.

And then they just give us an update, let us know what's happening feed into, you know, the projects that we're doing. And I can't hire that out and put somebody here locally that can do that level of work. It's a challenge, you know, so where we are here in upstate New York. So again, it's a kind of the thing for the team to sit down and that team has to trust now.

And they represent us. And when we've been on the calls, they represent us very well. So we take pride, in our name and who we are and the work that we're doing. And they're an extension of that. So we treat them like the team and they act like our team. I can't really give a higher praise

how do you cultivate a culture within Teedo that actively drives client success and builds this level of trust over time?

That's where we are not delivering our promise of this is done. And, you know, being an extension of his team as he's talking about. So we strive very hard to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Back to your question I just want to add that the other thing about being an extension of the team we really Make an effort so that nobody on James's team has to tell us what to do, right? It's not about like, oh, here's the task go and work on it. Like that's not what it's supposed to be because with our managed integration solution, not just waiting there for someone to assign it.

Their team is amazing. They don't see us any differently. They'll talk to us as if we are sitting right there in New York, right? We're just part of a team.

So from a compliance perspective, staying real time is a game changer. And James, you've been at your organization long enough to really be on that complete modernization journey.

How has Tido helped Nathan the Tower stay ahead? Now in areas like regulatory updates and interface security.

So I, I think that the, we've started expanding and having conversations about going well beyond the interface engine with them. And obviously I'd be remiss if I didn't say they're, they're more than that.

Again, as you're looking at these things, who are we talking to? Where is that data going? And honestly, before Tido came in, we, we didn't know that. And that's really scary when you're a new CIO coming into a location. I'm like, okay, where are we sending everything? And nobody knows, honestly. And, you know, they kind of know, but there were old interfaces from years ago that were still up and functional.

And, you know, that, that really. Gave me a lot of pause really quickly. And we didn't understand the magnitude of that until the assessment began. We thought we had a good idea. So that allowed us again, to close a lot of loops, go into and find things out that put us at risk unnecessarily. And we're almost at the end of a nine month journey where we're, we're getting ready to settle everything in and be 100 percent on a new engine.

So that was a, sometimes that's a lot easier than I want to admit, but in this case it's just critical. We watch every day in compliance. We have to, you know, teach our teams, make them understand what that actually means. It's just not some words and some things and boxes that we check. People trust us and, you know, we see them at their most, sometimes at their most fragile state.

And we want to make sure that we meet every criteria to keep that data safe. And to be able to keep treating them close to their families, and having a valued partner is a huge component of that. That's the only way we can survive and move forward.

And, I mean, it's so important because I have seen situations where, You know, point to point interfaces where nobody knew that this data was going to this vendor when the vendor was already out of business. For at least a year. It was, maybe they still had that, you know, those data points, those interfaces open, and somebody was still sending data to someone who is out of business.

So who knows where that data is going. I mean, so that's where, you know, I think it's very important that if James ever tells us, hey, who are we sharing the data to today, internally and externally, that should be produced Within five minutes, right? It's like this is exactly where you're sharing your data.

It's a bidirectional interface in certain cases. So things are coming in and we're like, what is that? And those are you know, and I've seen that at other organizations, but that's something, you know, I want to know now We know exactly what's coming in and we know exactly what's going out we've had that solved for quite a while now.

And let's say at the end of the month, it'll be 100 percent fully automated. So, you know, we're looking forward to that. It's just one more step.

And there were conversations with CIOs when the change event happened this last year. And some organizations said it took us six to eight hours to figure out how to turn off an API because there was no documentation and nobody actually knew much about it.

And with a flip of a switch to a degree or a few strokes on a keyboard, I think you could shut that down in seconds.

Yeah, exactly. No, you wouldn't just, we were, we were shut down quickly and cleanly. So,

So you earned that title with me whether, you know, you're part of the team. A vendor or somebody that's in here. So I take it seriously. I just don't have the capacity and the bandwidth to do everything for everybody, but there's so many important roles and things that we have to do on a daily basis.

So that's a really huge component. And now from our interfaces and going forward, and as we continue to expand on that you know, that's one of the things we kind of said with them, they're a part of the team. So we give the assignment. They understand it, and then I can go on to the next thing. I get updates.

And because they're interacting with the team daily I really, personally as a CIO, I, other than like I said, Vik will text me and we'll talk about, you know, oh, that game was great last night, you know, go cats, but I'm not getting, you know, hey, this isn't working. No one's doing this. And that goes both ways.

Our team has to embrace that as well. And they have, like I said, so it's an earned trust to say that we can do that with somebody or a person. And so that's really critical thing for us. And, and It's nice to say it, but we don't take it

And for, I mean, that was really well put. So the only thing I can add to that, you know, for us set it and forget it. I think for us, you know, we want to make sure that our team knows exactly, you know, has the pulse for, Interoperability at Nathan Latour, you know, in terms of what projects we are working on, and even from an operations standpoint.

How has the partnership influenced the way your teams collaborate internally and externally with other stakeholders?

For us, it's, it's set a bar. So we have a couple of vendors who we say meet this criteria and the team has earned that. So now when we're talking to somebody new about a different project, you know, something unrelated, They compare how, how we work with Tido and how this new vendor comes in.

So they've already said that to me a couple of times. They're like, well, you know, it's not Tido. They're not doing this and they're not jumping on the calls and helping out the way we thought they would. So it, it set a bar and I've always said, don't lower the bar, people will drop to meet it. And we raised the bar and we've been trying to raise the bar high.

And I need to see how that vendor interacts with my team. That was a key component for the, for the way Quito did. They interacted with the team. Some vendors sometimes struggle and keep trying to sell me and I keep trying to tell them I'm not the one in the trenches doing the work. Sell the team, because if the team doesn't trust you and this doesn't work, then we're not going to be partners.

So, I like that, we refer to that, and, and they can look at that relationship, and that's how they expect everybody to be now,

So, that's actually really good that we are coming up with new solutions that's going to help not only this organization, but Probably help other organizations out there.

Well, I was asking what's next in your partnership, because you're creating an influencer environment at the same time, which I find fascinating in that aspect of the ability to share your story, but then truly be able to help people make change.

Better decisions in their organizations and that, that is a level of influence because when you're trusted in the industry and your partnership is highlighted in the industry, then they're going to come to you organically and say, Oh my gosh, James, I want to sleep at night. I want to free up time for my teams.

We're having some interesting conversations around some archival solutions for us. I think that's something in my experience that it seems we forget that we need to easily get to that other data or that old data.

And in our case, that's, that was not taken into account when they transitioned into Expanse. So we're looking at those opportunities and seeing what they can be. And nothing's Off the table we talk about it and we know that we're not going to possibly hire them for every single thing that we do, but we have enough of a relationship now.

But right now, I think, you know, we, we know we need some challenges around some archival and some data, and they're doing some interesting work with MetaTek. Obviously, that's important to us. So we're looking at being maybe on the tip of the spear or pretty close to it at this point.

Yeah, no. And so archiving is definitely something we have worked with many organizations and Hopefully, that's something we can also execute here for the legacy systems.

And, you know, I think, Sarah, we only focus on a few things at Tido. You know, integration, data conversion, data archiving, automation, you know, these are, we don't try and do everything, but I feel like what we do, we do really well. And we have actually said, You know, on certain new projects when somebody's excited about it, can, can you guys do this and it's like, you probably can, but you know, it's not our domain.

Because again, we know Especially nowadays from a security standpoint, the issues are many times with your partners, not necessarily in your infrastructure. So, so we'll definitely come up with, you know, from what we have done in the past, the architecture, the right architecture to have a framework in place that reduces a lot of that risk.

So there's a lot of things to do. And again, so in that regard, they've come back and they're helping us with that. And, you know, there'll be a partner for the future as we transition. And it's critical because we're going to have a multitude of applications of on prem, remote, hosted, cloud based. And it's complex, so getting all of that even more secure and keeping it secure in these new platforms is daunting.

So, you know, we're working with them in that regard as well, so that'll be a continued partnership.

And knowing what to move to the cloud, or what to archive, and really consider those aspects, and some things, you'll hear me joke about, there's a couple boxes that just need to die, and you actually decide what does stay on prem in some closet somewhere with some masking tape.

pointed in the right direction.

One of the successes in partnerships today is often about the geography of the organization, where data is housed, where the programmers and developers live, can you share with us some of your perspectives and how you've structured Tido for those very reasons?

Tido's team, is based only in U. S. and Canada, and it's, it's very important for us just because from the lessons that we have learned over time how, you know, the time zones and the culture and just having the team close by who understands the actual, you know, the health systems are located close to them, right?

And that's how we have been able to provide I think really good service and our our track record shows it because our executions, you know, they are on time and the time zone difference, I think makes a huge impact on projects many times. And we have learned it, you know, over in the past, having tried some of that.

So yeah, today our team is only based in North America and that has definitely helped us with our success.

Gentlemen, thank you for sharing this story and your ongoing journey with us. I know our listeners are going to love hearing about how this is working, the scalability factor of, regardless of the size of your organization, this is something you need to be thinking about and focusing upon.

Thank you.

Thanks

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