Amy Oliver, Marketing Manager
What a fun and busy couple of days in Las Vegas. It was great seeing the Oracle Health Conference in a new location (and a location that us on the conference circuit are very familiar with!).The quality and production of the event top notch, and the attendee water bottle that donated to the Fill it Forward initiative was a very nice touch and way to give back!
I spent my time on the exhibitor floor and loved connecting with so many health systems at our booth. The power of all of these healthcare experts who are on the front line every day is pretty inspiring – and it’s great to connect with our current clients to hear how they are leveraging the power of Oracle Cerner and Xealth to engage patients and clinicians.
Here are highlights from the Xealth team:
Mike Deegan – Director, Business Development:
Oracle Health Conference Keynote – Steve Miranda, Travis Dalton, Mike Sicilia
Members of the strategic alliances, product, and leadership teams at Oracle health gave separate presentations all tied back to one common thread: making the exchange of health data easier & more straightforward. We heard from the Mace family, a couple who experienced first hand the difficulties with health data exchange after Tristan (26 yo M) had to undergo an emergency heart transplant after experiencing a catastrophic cardiac event. His wife Jordan was then responsible for communicating all of his pertinent health information at the most stressful point in her life. Medications, allergies, blood type, previous surgeries – not information everyone knows about themself let alone their significant other who up until now has been perfectly healthy.
Their story shed a light on the fact that while we, as an industry, have made significant strides in the digital transformation of healthcare and care delivery, we still have a VERY long way to go.
In addition to walking through Oracle’s vision for healthcare data interoperability, we were let in on how the Cerner acquisition is likely to fit into their broader strategy for the Oracle Cloud. As an industry leader in healthcare data and clinical workflows, Cerner presents unique value for becoming the foundation for which Oracle will build their next generation EHR. Comprised on ambient listening technology as well as generative AI, allowing clinicians to minimize their time spent documenting and spend more time with their patients. As Eric Topol said in his book Deep Medicine: “technology has the ability to bring humanity back to medicine” and that is exactly what Oracle aims to do.
University of Missouri & Banner – Workforce & Generative AI
This session was a great discussion about how these organizations were targeting their telehealth strategy, including hospital@home and virtual care.
Key takeaways:
- From a nursing perspective – focus on virtual nursing. How to be the eye in the sky. Leverage monitoring and telehealth technology in the hospital / clinic to allow a more experienced nurse to oversee more of the treatment of patients. This will do two things:
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- Improve the quality of the care being delivered with more experienced eyes on more patients
- It will expose nurses to more elements of the care delivery process making them better caregivers when they rotate back to bedside care
- From a medical perspective, the pandemic showed that virtual care is doable and the motivator is different now (fear vs staffing shortage), plus there are consumer and professional pressures to do it
- Efficiency is of an utmost importance. The physician is the most expensive “piece of equipment” but current workflows and requirements have them “idle” quite frequently.
- How can organizations make scheduling more efficient?
- How can organizations reduce administrative burden on physicians?
- How does generative AI help refocus the interaction between the physician and the patient?
Ultimately there are a lot of areas that health systems can improve and optimize their telehealth and virtual care strategies. Tailoring physician experiences, reducing interruption inside of the EHR, and eliminating as much noise (the interaction between clinician and EHR) as possible will drive efficiency, satisfaction, and value to the organization.
Cynthia Church – Chief Strategy Officer:
Northern Light
Northern Light has taken an impressively organized approach to digital health, across four pillars. Three of them are expected – access to care, patient experience, provider experience – but the fourth one is where they really excelled: Measurement.
A lot of health systems say they are using data to review, but when push comes to shove, they end up internal debates around correlation vs causation and what really matters. Even if they decide which data points are the most important, they are unable to isolate the impact of initiatives on those data points so then they do nothing. NLH did the opposite- they had very specific staff numbers, patient satisfaction percentages, number of appointments booked and hours saved amongst other metrics to highlight the impact that embracing digital care had on patients and providers alike.
A few highlights:
- Maine has a rural, elderly and dispersed population, making digital health a necessity. Through digital initiatives, they achieved:
- Access: 2800 new appts
- Patient ease: 42% appts booked outside of normal hours
- Care gap closure: 35% of wellness visits were overdue
- Front office: 35% decrease of hours spent answering phones – 10,000 booked
- Virtual pre-registration – drove patient satisfaction and reduced time
- Mammogram self-scheduling – reduces rescheduling
They also shared learnings:
- Patient advisory boards are important to ensure understanding
- Patient adoption strategy – a lot of education and communication is required, but worth the investment
- Likewise, increased staff education increases adoption
Overall they know that digital health is not one initiative, it is a journey of many initiatives contributing towards a broader goal. A comprehensive approach, centralizing consumer and patient management, while leveraging technology integrated into the EHR helps drive them toward their mission of “Make Healthcare Work for You.”
David Claxton – Senior Director, Business Development:
ChristianaCare – Dr. Shiuh
Dr. Shiuh showed how many different experiences a patient can have and spoke to the importance of driving a consistent patient experience.
It quickly becomes evident that Dr. Shiuh and his team are pioneers in digital innovation. Their presentation, “Ditch the Clipboard! Implementing Digital Patient Intake,” serves as a testament to their commitment to innovating and enhancing the patient experience.
The dedication of the ChristianaCare team to refining every aspect of the provider workflow and patient journey is vividly showcased throughout the presentation. Their strategic implementation of technology is designed to alleviate the clinical workload while striving for an unparalleled patient experience.
One striking data insight that resonated with me was the high adoption rates of digital technology among individuals aged 50-80. Often, we assume this demographic may struggle with technology adoption, using it as a rationale against digital solutions. However, Dr. Shuih and his team have effectively demonstrated that with a well-planned and elegant intervention, these individuals not only embrace the technology but also set an example for others.
Holly Hahto – Account Director:
Banner Health – Belinda Brummett
Belinda discussed how their organization implemented and now recently expanded their SilverCloud behavioral health app offering to better support patients between visits. Some of the challenges they’ve experienced while rolling out SilverCloud is training and reminding staff that SilverCloud is there for their patients, and ensuring their Banner Health Network patients are aware this digital tool is available to them. Banner continues to weave cutting edge digital technologies into their offering and to better support patients across the continuum of care.