Today in Health IT Top 10 takeaways from the VIBE Conference. Do I have 10? I have no idea. We'll see how many I end up coming up with, but it's gonna be the top takeaways from the VI conference. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former C I O for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week Health, A set of channels dedicated to keeping health IT staff current.

And engaged. We wanna thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Sure. Test and Artis site. Check them out at this week, health.com/today. All right. Having a child with cancer is one of the most painful and difficult situations a family can face. And in 2023 to celebrate five years of this week health, we are partnering with Alex's Lemonade stand all year long to give back.

As you know, we did the Captain Captain's campaign for cures. For childhood cancer at the VI event, and we were able to raise $16,500, 1500, of which was people going directly to the site and giving, and we are so thankful to them. You can do that as well. Hit our website. Top banner says Alex's Lemonade Stand.

If you click on that, you'll be taken to the site where you can give directly credit card, you name it, you can do it however you want to do that, and it is greatly appreci. To give you an idea that takes us up over, let me go to the site real quick. There it is. We are at $28,620 towards our goal of raising $50,000 for childhood cancer.

I couldn't be prouder of my team, , of the industry that we serve in together and the generosity of the community. Really exciting. , we are gonna do the same thing. Captain's Campaign for Cures for Childhood Cancer at the hymns event. And if you see Captain get your picture taken, that's one way you can participate very easily.

You can hit the website and give directly, or if you are a vendor partner, we have a special program for you, , to be a part of. Captain's Campaign for Cures for Childhood Cancer, and we'll bring Captain by your booth and a couple other things like that. And, , we would love to have you participate If you want to just shoot me a note, bill at this week, health.com.

All right. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna start by hitting other people's stories on their top five, top 10, top six takeaways, and just giving you a brief overview of what I've read so far. So, , let's see. This one is from Modern Healthcare, top five Takeaways Chat, G P T is All people wanna talk about.

I will concur on that. Absolutely. We had a lot of conversations about chat. Chat GT's potential and potential failings in healthcare. , the economy hurts. Absolutely. There's an economic, , headwinds that are facing us, and I don't think it's headwinds anymore. There's a economic hurricane that's washing over.

Healthcare, I think is a better way of saying it right now. , not to be too dramatic, but, , it, no health system has gone unscathed and the cuts that people are being asked to make are pretty trauma. , FOMO is over. Fear of missing out is no longer a part of the conversation at health systems looking to adopt tech solutions.

Okay? , they have to be very focused and this is also part of the economic downturn. , don't disagree with that. That sounds good. Fear of being creepy is real. This is talking about. , companies utilizing stuff on their website and giving away personal health information. , not really seen as, , , you know, impacting the health tech company or the healthcare provider too greatly.

But it is, , it's, it's, it's a bad image. It's a bad, , look on you when you're losing patient data. , and it really depends on the data. Cuz we had a conversation, , talking about the most egregious things that were, that have happened. And, , it's beyond a bad look when it's, some of the data that gets out there is highly sensitive.

, let's see. No interest in American gdpr. , that's probably true. , I, I didn't hear, not one person I interviewed talked about it, so I can't imagine that there is a lot of interest. , this is a good one. It's, , medium. So if it's medium, it's Jess Schramm, j e s s s c h r a M. And this was a pretty good one.

Key takeaways for B2B healthcare startups and what I learned from enterprise buyers. Okay. This actually, this is. So health systems and hospitals priorities operate faster and more efficiently. Check, do more with less. Check. Grow the business through specialty services. Check address workforce burnout.

Absolutely improve overall roi. Yep. Improve patient outcomes. These, again, this is from an investor standpoint and what she's saying is, Hey, these were the priorities she heard from hospitals and health. And I couldn't agree. I heard the same thing. I mean, these are all spot on areas of interest. AI for automation.

Yep. , SAS to streamline workflows. I would go one step further and say platforms, right? So we're consolidating around platforms. We have the ehr, that's one platform within the system, a lot of e r p movement, , Workday and others. , automation of those workflows and those, and streamlining those things I heard.

, some other things like service desk or ServiceNow, , being used to automate workflows and whatnot. So, , we're looking at platforms that can automate, , the, the experience and the workflows for the clin clinical staff and even the patients from one end to the other. So it's, it's platforms to do that.

So she says SAS to streamline workflows. I would say more maybe SAS platforms to do that. , risk compliance, data security tools. As an area of interest, , absolutely. That's still top of mind for all health systems. Staffing, resource management. Absolutely. I would move that up higher on the list, but Absolutely.

And then solutions that improve timeliness, communication and administrative ease, that's always the case. I mean that, that will be on the list every year from now until the end of time. So, , and then she goes on to talk about Medicaid payers commercial payer. What they're looking for. Employment be, , employee benefit managers.

So again, really good article that captures what those various groups are looking for. I highly recommend that article. , again, it's on medium five, day one. Three takeaways. Alex Kane. This is from LinkedIn. Digital transformation is about the bottom line. Agree, workforce experience is in the spotlight.

Absolutely. And the desire for interoperability and consumerism and how they play together is bigger than ever before. Yep. Yes. Yes, yes. And yes. Key takeaways, , healthcare executives. This is it, consultant. See who they talk to. , Karen Health, John Irwin, ceo. Common thread throughout my conversations at Vibe was increased competition for health consumers.

Okay. , again, I don't disagree. We I heard that as well. , CEO of League, I was encouraged by the overall emphasis on health consumer experience. Yep. , so he's saying the same thing. Five attendees. , this is Kristen Russell, chief Marketing Officer. A simpler five attendees this year reiterated the challenge health systems face when working with multiple vendor solutions.

, you gotta keep in mind all of these are partners, and so they're gonna be highlighting their solutions. , for example, Priscilla Sandberg with Pure Storage, who's a partner of this week, health highlights that. The, the use of data and how important it is in the healthcare, , ecosystem for data analytics and capabilities, as well as for supporting AI models.

, and it leads to the need for pure storage and storage of that data. Again, don't disagree. Pretty good. , observations? There are nine, five takeaways. Let's see what this person has to say. This is Chief Healthcare Executive. , dot com staffing, cybersecurity, health equity, focus on patients and clinicians know the business interoperability, mental health regulation and legislation concerns the kids, , talking about mental health and triple dam.

, okay. I mean, those are, those are very high level general categories. , in terms of the takeaways, let me give you my five just in the convers. That I had with people. , the economic headwinds are real. This was both on the camera and off the camera. They're very real and very, , disruptive. Right now for CIOs, we're being asked to do some things that we've never been asked to do.

, I heard, , various stories that were, , concerning, you know, health system, , not able to do testing on their EHR before they take it live because they just don't have the. All right. So it's, it's that level of, , it's that level of cuts that are going on in the health system. It's, , where our health system's going on low power mode.

, our health system is, has gone into a break fix only mode, no projects. Okay? So I don't, I'm not sure how long that is sustainable, but the financial headwinds are real. They're real, and they're. It's not like, Hey, the Southwest is doing fine, but the Northeast is not doing well. This is healthcare across the board.

We can talk about what's causing it and whatnot. But suffice it to say in terms of the takeaway from the conference, that is one of them that you have to walk away with. , the, the second is that there is a, , there is a need to drive better. A, a better experience and that better experience, I'm gonna say was more important.

Most, most talked about in terms of the clinician experience. The providers, the nurses, the, the, the various, , you know, at the bedside in the acute care setting. We talked about experience a lot. We talked about automating those experiences. We talked about supporting the lack of clinicians in some of those spaces with technology that is going to allow them to be much more efficient that's gonna allow them to practice at the top of their license.

Now, I know these are terms that we've been talking about for years, but it, it's much. , pragmatic and it's much more what can we do today? What can we implement today, and what, what can we get done in the next year? To alleviate the burden on, especially on the clinicians. I will say that there was some conversation and talk about the consumer, but it was more along the lines of how do we get people back into their normal flow and their normal habits into seeing their primary care physician into getting the surgeries done that they have been pushing off.

And in a down economy, that's a, that's a. That it's gonna be hard to roll that, that stone up the hill, but that's what we need to do. We need to engage them more often. Our workflows need to be cleaner. There needs to be less friction. We need to be bringing those, those people back into the health system, reaching them where they're at more touchpoints with those people.

Right. So there was, , there was all of that talk around that. So I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna lump staffing in with. Yes, there are staffing challenges, but specifically the conversations I was having is how are we going to bring technology to bear on the staffing challenges? How are we, are we going to alleviate the burden of our existing staff so that they, , are, , I don't know, not as o overwhelmed, , that they are not as burdened by the technology, that they are empowered by the technology.

So that's, , you know, that's the, , second group I would say. Number three, I would say cybersecurity was, was very well represented at this conference. There was a lot of really good conversations about cybersecurity. There was a lot of good conversations, , about the, , threat vectors and how they're changing and how AI changes those threat vectors.

And how the, , how the adversaries are gonna use those AI tools. As much as we use those AI tools and how we need more sophisticated, , ways of tracking what's actually going on in our health system at all the way down to the data level, right? We have that in the ehr. If somebody comes into the ehr, And access is something they shouldn't access.

Moves data out of the ehr. We know that that's happening. That needs to be pervasive. That needs to happen across all of our systems. And so it needs to happen at a different layer so that we know in PHI where PHI is at all times, not only within our health system, but also within our business partners and how that data is moving and we need to be responsible.

So, Again, the cybersecurity pavilion, great talks, good conversations. , it is, , definitely not one of those add-ons. I mean, that, that happened a little while ago, that it's now, , integrated into the architecture. It's integrated into the conversation of any new technology that we're bringing in, , to the organization.

But it's, , I don't, I, I'm not sure how to say this, but it's like it's, it's even more pervasive, right? It's like more health systems understand that, hey, if we have to sacrifice, we can sacrifice in other places, but we can't sacrifice on cybersecurity. All right, so again, I would say, again, I'm, I'm talking about the intersection of technology and healthcare.

Sure. There was a lot of conversation around health equity. There was even some conversation around how technology is contributing to health equity problems and how technology can help alleviate some of the health equity problems. That was definitely a theme. I wouldn't say that it was a primary theme amongst the conversations I was having outside of, but it was definitely on stage and it was definitely talked about and, and a lot of health systems talked about how that was a.

, for them, I will say there is a, , there is a growing need for the CIOs to really understand the financial underpinnings of healthcare. To understand the business model of healthcare, it is no longer acceptable to just say, I'm the technology guy. When you need technology, gimme a call. Now, we've been talking about this for years.

If you're gonna have a seat at the table, if you are going to be one of the trusted advisors within the health system, you can't just be the innovation guy or, or person, the innovation person. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to, to, , I'm just using colloquial language here, but you can't just be the innovation.

And you can't just be the innovation or the the IT person. You have to be, , somebody that really understands the business, how money moves so that you can make decisions to allocate the technology and allocate the resources. Cuz you're one of the largest resources of any health. The IT organization is one of the biggest parts of any organization and allocating that, really understanding the business.

And being a part of driving success in an economic downturn like this, , there is no application of technology to anything other than what is going to shore up the underpinnings of the health system and what is going to move it forward to get us back into a, a model that is sustainable long term.

Right. So there is, that, that business model, I I, I'm definitely putting that in my top five. That was definitely part of the conversation. I'm trying to think. Interoperability. We did have a couple of really good conversations about IOP interoperability, and I would say what's interesting about this is it's, we are now looking beyond just the basic pipes.

Getting the data from point A to point B was the point of interoperability, maybe two or three years ago, but now we're looking for smart interoperability. Interoperability that is supported. By, by AI models that's supported by, , I just, I mean, quite frankly, just a lot smarter tech. So you're not moving bad data from one place to another.

You're only moving good data from point A to point B that you're keeping on lineage, that you're, you're, you're keeping the raw data so that we can, , source it and we can reference it. But you're also on the fly. You're potentially normalizing some of that data. For use in the delivery of care. So we're talking about smart interoperability in a way that we haven't in the past.

It's one thing to build the pipes, it's another thing to actually get a return on the investment in the interoperability that is actually being delivered. So again, good, good set of conversations around that. I was, , actually quite encouraged around that convers. , I'm trying to think. , you know, absent, obviously chat, G p T was everywhere.

I mean, literally, , we started giving money to Alex's Lemonade stand based on the number of times I've heard the word chat, g p t at the conference. And I, I was part of the problem, right? I am enamored with chat G P T I can see a ton of application within healthcare and so I'm talking about it a lot, which I think leads to conversations that are happening.

So, , that was Absolut. Front and center, not, not only on the provider side of, Hey, I think we're trying to use it over here. And it was pretty interesting. , also on the, , , on the health tech partner side, they were talking about how they're integrating it into their solution. So very interesting. , absent was the word digital transformation.

Which is really interesting. It's, it's either we have already transformed digitally or the, , the focus is not on digital transformation in and of itself anymore. , what is f What we are focused on is better workflows, more efficient workflows, more , it's workflows that serve our populations, both our clinicians and our patient.

Right. And so what I've heard is a lot of organizations stepping back and saying, okay, we have digital underlying this entire process from, from identification, , to diagnosis, to, , procedure, to, , you know, whatever, all the way through to SNS and acute care rehab and all that. We have the digital.

Foundation in place from one end to the other, but it's still really clunky. The information still doesn't move real well and the person's experience of that, it might as well be, I went to 10 different places. Right. And so we, we now have stepped back, I, I heard this over and over again. We are, we are, , optimizing our workflows from one end to the other, all from a digital perspective, right?

So the, from a digital perspective, it will look like a single. Native kind of, , workflow or experience from one end to the other. Even if the backend digital infrastructure is still a little clunky, we're going to build something that's very seamless on the top. Oh, heard it over and over again.

Communication again, heard over and over again. We are going to utilize technology to communicate with our workforce, , with our healthcare workforce, with our, , patient. , better than we ever have before. , trying to think if there's anything else that I, , would want to, , that I heard in my conversations that I'd want to pull up here.

I dunno, I'll think about it some more. I'll probably share a little bit more. But those were, those were the primary things that I was hearing in the conversations. Again, not as crisp. I didn't write 'em all down. , I'm just going from memory of the, of the conversations that I did have. , I will say another thing, just as a a side note, is the nurse has been elevated in the health system, and it's about time, but regardless of, it's about time or not, the nurses is, are the nurse are being listened to.

The nurse is being thought of as a digital leader in, , utilizing technology to provide better quality outcomes, better care for the patient, a better experie. , for the patient and the families that they serve. So, , I thought that was interesting as well. I talked to several nurses and that was a recurring theme.

It's like, we are at the table, we are part of the solution set. We are part, we are so helping solve these problems. And I don't know why it didn't happen sooner. It just feels to me like it, it, it's now happening in a way that it hasn't happened before. ,

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