HealthIMPACT Live Presents: Improving the Clinician Experience and Relationship with Technology to Support the Ever-Changing Healthcare Environment
Originally Published: Nov 15, 2021
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoaEh0RQIjQ
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to persist, it has already made permanent changes in how we live and work. One seismic change is clear: the remote and hybrid workforce is here to stay, and healthcare is no exception to this rule. With clinicians exhausted and hospitals overwhelmed, and more patients than ever accessing care virtually, a responsive, agile technology team is more essential than ever to patient satisfaction, clinician workflows, and the hospital’s bottom lines. Join us as we discuss improving IT and Employee workflows and providing service excellence with remote or hybrid technology teams.
John Kravitz, MHA, CHCIO, Chief Information Officer, Geisinger Health System
Sandra Powell-Elliot, Vice President, Life Sciences and Innovation, Hackensack-Meridian Health
Sameer Badlani, MD, Chief Information Officer, M Health Fairview
Rhonda Blatti, Sr Director, Employee Workflows, ServiceNow, Moderator
Rhonda Blatti: Well, greetings everyone, and thank you for joining our session with health impact today and improving the clinician experience and relationship with technology to support the ever changing healthcare environment. My name is Rhonda Blatti senior director at service now for employee workflows and i've been passionately focused on making the world of work, work better for people within the healthcare workforce for the past 10 years joining me today are three very incredible healthcare leaders, so I will ask to introduce themselves so ladies first Sandra.
Sandra Elliott: Hi I’m Sandra Elliot. I’m the Vice President for innovation and health ventures that Hackensack Meridian Health, which is a very large health system in the State of New Jersey.
Rhonda Blatti: All right, thank you Sandra and john.
John Kravitz: Hi my name is John Kravitz and the corporate CIO at Geisinger Health System, which is located in Pennsylvania, and we are an academic integrated delivery network.
Rhonda Blatti: All right, thank you John and now, one of my local new neighbors so welcome to Minnesota Samir.
Sameer Badlani, MD: Thank you good morning, Sameer Badlani, I’m a physician by background and currently serve as the chief digital officer and the VP for technology at M Health Fairview. They're also an academic idea in Minnesota area.
Rhonda Blatti: fabulous well, thank you all three of you for joining us today and being willing to share your perspective let's set the stage for today's conversation as the Cobra 19 pandemic continues to resist it is already made permanent changes in the way that we all live in work one seismic change is clear through remote and hybrid workforce is here to stay and healthcare is no exception to this rule.
With clinicians exhausted and hospitals overwhelmed they have more patients accessing you know remote care So how are we going to respond with an agile technology. At this critical time within the healthcare space, we also want to like take a look at how do we improve the work or the remote workforce or digital acceleration across the enterprise by capturing what will call the digital fingerprint.
More to be explained as we go and then last but not least, we're really going to take a look at the strategies that are going to allow for optimizing the clinician time with patients to improve those patient outcomes.
As well as the overall clinician experience so now that the stage is set let's go ahead and begin our conversation.
First of all, I really want to spend a little time, focusing on what are the unique challenges to your organization with this hybrid workforce that's being presented now during this point in time so Samir I know you've got some really great thoughts around this Maybe you can kick off our conversation today.
Sameer Badlani, MD: yeah absolutely. You know the hybrid workforce is not new, for us, especially in the digital technology space, but then, also in the healthcare environment we had some roles like abstract terms of clinical data, who had started moving remote as well, so it was definitely not new, but like you said it was a seismic change and everything happened at a very rapid phase two weeks went from on a bad snow day, as you know, living in Minnesota to maybe 5000 remote workers, if that do almost being able to support 20,000 remote workers in a matter of two weeks and.
I know john and Sandra’s organization definitely you know, been through the same paradigm shift, I think the biggest challenge is mobile factorial line is cultural, which I believe Sandra will speak about, so I will skip that for now. The other was what work means to people, and that was the most fascinating aspect for me to observe very selfishly I enjoyed.
The flexibility remote work gave me I enjoyed the options, I had to get work done and you know I think I settled in reasonably villain sorted many people, but there are a significant people in our workforce for whom the human interaction at work, definitely was a big loss and I had a couple of retirements just because after 40 years of coming to work and being with their friends. You know that was something they missed so it's a big challenge for us to think about engagement to think about productivity and then what is the appropriate work life balance, as we go into this mostly remote way of doing our work.
And those are areas where you know, we have put in a lot of effort in trying to understand. In the early days, there was a lot of focus on our people being productive how many people are logged in thankfully that fell by the wayside, very quickly, it was very clear that. Productivity was no longer an issue it's more of the other side, people are working too long, and you know not. Keeping eye on you know their work life balance so that's what I would summarize, as you know, adding to burnout adding to stress and managing engagement were the three areas that we thought awful lot and still do.
Rhonda Blatti: Yeah I agree with you in terms of the overall productivity at the beginning, right everybody was concerned about the productivity of the workforce, can we deliver them the services that they need to be productive because we don't have. You know the workforce down the hall, in which they can go ask the question So how do we distribute that will bring that up with john from a technology standpoint but love to understand your perspective on this Sandra from a culture standpoint and how did you face that within your organization yeah.
Sandra Elliott: I think it's it's a interesting kind of concept to begin to think about you know, everybody kind of was forced to work remotely. From the pandemic, but at the same time, while you have a lot of people working as Samir mentioned kind of long hours on it from a remote perspective.: You still had a tremendous amount, particularly for our health system, a tremendous amount of people who are literally having to still go in into very stressful environments, and so it created some interesting tensions, to say the least, but I think. One of the things that we've tried to do as well is really begin to kind of walk in the shoes of, even if it means virtually. And I know that sounds kind of bizarre to a lot of people, but it helps us begin to have shared experiences, and I think that was one of the things that helped culturally.
People feel comfortable that they were also contributing very during a very stressful time, even if it was remote and and and the staff, understanding and realizing that support was there, and a lot of activity was going on, it wasn't that people were just sitting home in front of their computers doing. You know, basic kind of computing in many people's minds, I think one of the other components, you know we we much like everybody else went from patients coming to us to us going to patients virtually and I think it puts a very interesting highlight on in a spotlight on where our technology gaps were and also our training and education gaps and I think as people wanted to begin to feel a little bit more engaged and also understanding kind of in their own right, how to work remotely.
They began to want more support and structure to increasing their skill sets and doing that, both from a clinical interaction perspective, but also just in working with other people throughout the organization. You literally have one screen as compared to a whole row of offices that you can go to. Right so. It created a very different kind of communication challenge and as a result, we started to realize that our communication strategies were not necessarily the best. To really map be maximized during a remote monitoring our remote work force, environment and that's you know something that we're continuing to work on, but I think that the the power of empathy is still something that can come through technology, and I think that people beginning to understand how to do that, and I think it's it's creating a much more in some respects connected culture. Even though we're talking about connected I think people are starting to realize that they have to connect in very different ways, and I think they're coming along but it is about trying to engage as many staff members as you possibly can, whether they're working remotely or not and key decisions and how to move forward and how to make it work easier in this new and improved environment.
Rhonda Blatti: Interesting you know I work with healthcare organizations across the US, and what I noticed was the shift in the workforce, and so, whereas before we had so many full time employees and a smaller population of let's say contractors or contingent workers. In some cases that's been totally offended and maybe it was 75% full time and 25% contingent it's now gone more into almost a gig economy where we've got 25% that are full time in the 75% and the contingent, which I never expected to see that in the healthcare arena. You know, but I think it has a lot to do with employees their burnout factors. Are they staying connected if they're not there they've got choices, because you know. You have a lot more other organizations that have entered this race right, you have Walmart’s in the space competing for our talent, we have amazon's in the space competing for a talent CVs and Walgreens and so.
They have a lot more choices, especially if we're asking those same workers to be in the clinical experience or being in front of patients and they don't feel comfortable with that, so we.
While we continue to evolve we're learning that we've got a whole set of dynamics that we need to manually solve for so thank you for that perspective john I know that you are on the back side right of. Trying to keep up with the technology to support this ever changing remote and hybrid workforce and we no longer have the role of offices to provide that support we now needed to deliver that what through what i'd call the digital acceleration standpoint so so share with us your perspective you're still on mute john.
John Kravitz: So sorry the largest component of this is really and I have to say, you know I agree with smear and sandra's comments, because they are applicable to everyone.Even from a technology perspective right, this is really important, and I know the examples you just use were for clinicians that can get you know taken out and used by other organizations, you know that are healthcare delivery type organizations, but we say see the same thing for technology it's even worse because remote workers now people can can just work for anybody it doesn't you know it doesn't have to be a healthcare institution, it could be anyone.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And, and so you know what to me is really important is something xander talked about the human interaction because you've got to have a stronger culture to maintain your people because they're getting offered very large increases in salaries and, in some cases i've had people with six figure increases in salaries and I can't keep. I just can't keep them there's just no way, so what I focus on is is the culture for the rest of the organization to try to keep them as tight as possible to do things that keep them engaged and keep them connected.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: You know, when it comes to technology, I think smear had talked about you know snowstorms and things and we live in the northeast so nor'easters are not unusual for us.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And and at one point, you know, we had about 2000 people working from home all the examples that's marry us which were really relevant.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: But then, you know when we'd hit nor'easters we might spike to five to 6000 people well overnight within two days we went to 10,000 people remote.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And it stayed there and I got to tell you I was a little bit worried because it's a lot of stress on your systems.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: From that perspective, but you know we didn't have all the appropriate tools and and we did put up the Microsoft suite.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: office 365 during the pandemic because we knew the value of teams, for us to be able to communicate effectively would be really helpful.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: It has been it's been a godsend to us to be able to connect our remote workforce together and and connect them with people that are in the office, and then we get the second bout to the delta variant.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And we just had people in the office without masks it was great that all of a sudden masks come back on people shoot back at home.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: It was a challenge and and we're still in that so we you know we go to the office couple days a week, and and we do that work we have in person meetings but.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: The prevalence is no don't bring people together for meetings, because they're wearing masks you can't really hear them very well and you can't communicate well, so you might as well be at home, we could talk freely and.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And so that's part of the challenge, but I think things that we done and we continue to do.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: Is the ability for us to scale to use telemedicine effectively to provide the tools for our clinicians to be effective and doing, new technologies to help the patients from a customer's perspective is really, really important.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And that's been really taking you know getting a lot of leg behind it, if you will, and lifting it.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: For our organization and we're excited about that using things like facial recognition for patient identification.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: You know and salesforce for outreach and patient preferences things like that has been really good and so we're excited about this actually going forward it's a whole new way of working.
Rhonda Blatti: yeah It really is, I think it has forced us to you know take down those boundaries people would be for what say we can't actually deliver.
Rhonda Blatti: A digital footprint or a fingerprint of our workforce, because these firewalls and we wouldn't support, and then we all had to make those choices overnight to.
Rhonda Blatti: To support that you know i've been working on something for very long time really this digital fingerprint of our workforce and it says.
Rhonda Blatti: I want to capture the information about my workforce from pre hire all the way through retire and into alumni status right that's how healthcare typically supports that workforce.
Rhonda Blatti: And we've got to be able to capture that in this it's not really a one stop shopping it's kind of a one start I come in with a singular experience i've got a singular engagement layer
Rhonda Blatti: into all of my systems and now i'm working on a on a horizontal digital workflow across the enterprise.
Rhonda Blatti: or, at any point in time john you know that member of the workforce Sandra you know and Samir you know, and you all have very different roles within your organization, but you've captured the digital fingerprint of your workforce.
Rhonda Blatti: And you know how to engage with them and where do we engage with them.
Rhonda Blatti: And so i'd really like to just get a perspective I know john you are big service now customer and I find that those those organizations that had service now in place, were able to make that digital acceleration leap a little bit faster, so any thoughts around that.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: No, I just think you know we've used service now because it's really a tool for the employees right it's a tool for the organization that we've leveraged.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And it's it's helped us considerably, you know through change management and other factors that used to be hard findings all the time, but they are no longer issues for us because we automated processes streamline them and in invoke people in the process.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: But I think there's just so many opportunities and now the organizations behind using it used to be an IT tool for I tell.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And we were all over right we're excited about this it's like yeah we got everybody I tell certify foundations everybody in the whole team in the entire it shop have over 900 people at a time.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: and contractors, you know well beyond that so.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We really engaged in that and we said, this is a great tool let's talk about it now for the organization to be able to track things through facility engagement and other areas throughout the organization it's really been well received.
John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We are still continuing to enhance and build out I think it's a lifelong process, obviously, but you know it's it's ways to improve our environment as a whole and keep people connected, and so I think it's been valuable rhonda from that perspective for us.
Rhonda Blatti: Good a severe quick question for you i'm thinking about the positions right and how do you, you know typically people want to have that white glove treatment with the physicians but we learned during coven that that actually.
Rhonda Blatti: Those walls had to be taken down to because there was just the speed at which we all had to execute and change directions and pivot so how did you guys stay connected to the physicians you know that most expensive resource that you have during the pandemic.
Sameer Badlani, MD: yeah great great question couple of thoughts there one, even when we thought we were giving white glove treatment, we were really not able to cover the entire spectrum.
Sameer Badlani, MD: You know, and the next point we'll touch on your previous question to john as well around digital fingerprinting the way I think about that is.
Sameer Badlani, MD: There are personas off our patients and there are personas of our employees and of our clinicians as well.
Sameer Badlani, MD: And we are on a journey at ml fairview and a lot of credit goes to our chief marketing and design officer Scott Weber.
Sameer Badlani, MD: Where we started digital design lab both of us work together to get it going, and we are creating employee personas and patient persona so on the patient side we started with breast cancer.
Sameer Badlani, MD: You know unfortunate diagnosis, you get it, not everybody reacts the same way in the moment has the same needs but we get happy if you know we have a piece of paper or an email that has the right phone numbers.
Sameer Badlani, MD: In the right order for somebody to leverage so it's not as straightforward as that same logic with supporting our clinical workforce nurses physicians extenders the whole spectrum.
Sameer Badlani, MD: What going virtual allowed us to do is, we were able to serve a lot more people through teams and other ways that typically we were hesitant to we were always it's very interesting it's exactly like healthcare.
Sameer Badlani, MD: Access to a doctor been sitting in their office or in the hospital access to support equals I show up to your clinic and spend half an hour 45 minutes with you, and it comes with all the.
Sameer Badlani, MD: Time waste and the silliness that is associated with it, so we were able to do a lot more by going we're 12 initially by.
Sameer Badlani, MD: necessity, but we have kept that going now and we do very little face to face support we log in through our desktops or it's a teams chat and in the middle of.
Sameer Badlani, MD: Right after the third wave and before the fourth wave that we are in the middle of right now.
Sameer Badlani, MD: We completed a large single instance epic program for hospitals and six hospitals that were on different two instances we combine them and the.
Sameer Badlani, MD: command Center was all virtual the support was 90% virtual except for the first few days and it went beautiful.
Sameer Badlani, MD: I mean that was one of the best things i've seen in terms of our ability to cover large grounds and in the end.
Sameer Badlani, MD: it's not about giving white glove treatment to doctors it's about meeting any employee, where they are and solving the problem, as is the best for them.
Sameer Badlani, MD: And it's the same thing as Sandra said, we need to go to our patients, where they are and how they need us and it shouldn't always be come to my clinic or come to my office hours as an ID or a digital leader and that's been the paradigm shift.
Rhonda Blatti: guys.
Sandra Elliott: follow up on that a little bit as well, because I think you know, there are new expectations that our patients have.
Sandra Elliott: On service as a result of not only us going virtual but the rest of the world's going virtual as well, so I think that is going to push the envelope of really transitioning and transforming healthcare is distributed.
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Sandra Elliott: delivered in a marketplace, as compared to in the past, and I think the development, for example, personas.
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Sandra Elliott: For specific patient populations is going to be a critical element moving forward, because then, how does the digital infrastructure, support that, how does the workforce support those personas and trying to.
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Sandra Elliott: really achieve what they need to or what they're trying to to to achieve in their own care and their own care journey.
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Sandra Elliott: No longer is it going to be.
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Sandra Elliott: Just totally fine for a physician who's doing a virtual visit, for example, to put in an order for an imaging a procedure, and then the patient's.
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Sandra Elliott: Seemingly having to go to the hospital to get that imaging procedures they they want the same easy access in and out because the expectation is I don't want the exposure.
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Sandra Elliott: I don't want to risk that and why do I have to anymore, so I think that the disruption of how care is delivered today, even today, will change and transform and as a result, the digital roadmap will also either.
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Sandra Elliott: also accelerate but also change as we're continuing to move forward, and I think that it's mere mentioned the design around that experience and how it gets digitally transformed is going to be a critical factor in any organizations real honest to goodness success in those marketplaces.
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Rhonda Blatti: yeah that digital acceleration, is a real thing, and the other piece of it is the consumerization right we've all had.
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Rhonda Blatti: smartphones for a very long time and we've learned how to consumerize all those other applications but healthcare was one of the last holdouts in terms of how we could consumerize something so now.
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Rhonda Blatti: we're having to solve for the personas as you indicated most severe and Sandra we're having to consumerize it right mobile access.
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Rhonda Blatti: Tele health what percentage of your organizations are actually now doing Tele health i've seen it's almost become a 50% blend here but, but how is it within your organization Sandra how much Tele health are you guys delivering in comparison to at the start of the pandemic.
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Sandra Elliott: um I would say it's interesting because it's gone and peaks and valleys and I think that we went from you know 80% of it being you know down back down to a 20 to 30% and I think that's kind of.
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Sandra Elliott: Where our peak is ended up at this point, but a lot of that has to do with.
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Sandra Elliott: really taking a look at overall you know in certain areas like behavioral health it's it's skyrocketing, so I think a lot of it has to do with individual use cases and clinical needs and where we already have gaps and services.
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Sandra Elliott: Or at least the capacity to provide enough service to the marketplace behavior health being one of those it really enabled us to also.
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Sandra Elliott: push the envelope with our own clinicians to really just you know kind of you know, put the chart down get in front of the computer and let's actually have an interaction with the patient.
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Sandra Elliott: But a lot of that has to do with always of working versus new ways of working and that change of just managing change, and what that means to all of us is very different.
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Sandra Elliott: So I think that you know, over time, our overall clinical approach will change and we'll have more and more.
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Sandra Elliott: So, but right now it's it's very use case dependent, but I would say, within our physician practices about 30%.
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Rhonda Blatti: Okay, and Samir how about you what percentage of the work is now being done via Tele health and I know you sit in the Community and I seen the ebbs and flows of Sandra was alluding to within her organization within their view, but what are you noticing today.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: I would say very similar range in some areas like behavioral health and fear of you has a much larger.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: footprint in behavioral health in the state, so we almost went up to 90% and sandra's point is very valid that that's a particular speciality that lends itself very well for privacy comfort level and usability from a consumer and user mindset to Delhi held.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: I think what we have had is very similar ebbs and flows, and I would say our ranges from 10 to 30% depending on.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: The specialty it is behavioral health is still on the higher side, the one quick comment i'll make and it's sort of one of my pet peeves is when digital health is equated to Delhi held.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: A Deli visit has been around for 25.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Years I did my first, and I said this in every chance I get in every forum I get I did my first Tele health visit 21 years ago for the utah state prison.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: So I used to work for a cardiologist and was helping him so that was my first experience.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: We finally realized hey we have something that works really well and patients will actually like it so it's Shame on us not it's not a technology issue as most often is the case.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: But digital health is a lot to do with asynchronous care pre and post diagnosis.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: And then also really turning the concept of access on its head access is not when you get to see me in person in a room or now even on a virtual visit.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Access is when a patient gets the care and the access and the information they need in the modality that serves them best.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: And that's why consumerism as Sandra pointed out, is where people bring their experience outside healthcare into healthcare healthcare is struggling right now is to understand the concept of service and to me what that means is if.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: I go to john he's my art support, and you know he takes gear off my knee and I don't have to wait for parking and I get my pain medicines on time and I do well, we all high five each other that that particular incident went well.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: If you go into banking and retail that's a missed opportunity, not only do they want to do very well for their consumer in that knee pain transaction they want to say hey send me you haven't had your labs done in the last six months.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: While you're here and waiting for john, can I just draw your blood and take care of it.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: service and consumerism also means hey some year we see that you're eligible for your colonoscopy given the guideline change, can I just sit down with you and schedule that for you.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: yeah that's The experience I get when I go to discount tires and, yes, I will bring up discount tires in this conversation in healthcare, because they look at every chance I walk into their.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: shop, to make sure they take care of all my tire related needs that's how we have to look at healthcare chance that I get to interact with my patient face to face.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: And when they show up on my digital asset is my only chance to interact with them earn their business earn their trust and take care of everything they need.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: and very quickly i've shared the story at other forums as well CVs health is getting into chronic care and when question why do you think you can get into chronic care, this is not minute clinic.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Their appropriate responses that they see our diabetic patient nine times a month in their clinic and maybe 20 times on their website vcr own diabetic patient maybe twice a year, and maybe once on the website when they forgot my phone number and that's it.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: that's the problem we are trying to solve here is how to maximize the physical and the digital interaction with our patients.
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Rhonda Blatti: Very good, so i'm going to you guys have brought up some great fodder here because really john you are sitting behind the scenes, so now we have had town that.
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Rhonda Blatti: runner tell.
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Rhonda Blatti: me one time.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: i'm actually in the middle of the scene i'm not behind it so what's mirrors talking about.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: that's why I talked about facial recognition identify the patients coming in, we have a list of those touch points that you talked about.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We do that all the time, and you know with with those you know people that have chronic disease conditions we know those gaps in care remind them and we fire those orders that back to the next touch point so they can be addressed with the patients.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And we've been doing that for probably 10 years, if not more so I think smear spot on with the discount tire example.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We do that in health care, but you're right there is so much more touch points with CVs or walgreens or anyone else than we're actually doing so, we.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We just started something with salesforce where we're doing outreach to those patients and they could self schedule their own appointments we link them out, give them to make it easy make it so seamless and simple that.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: They can't it's infallible they could just do it and Lincoln right back into their appointments so.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: yeah these points i'm very much engaged in the operations i'm not i'm not a technology cto i'm a CIO and i'm out in the business so.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: What you're saying is spot on, and I see it all the time it's really important and engagement with our clinicians and the and the customer, no matter where the customer is and then in grade level network is really, really important for us.
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Rhonda Blatti: Well, I love what you're saying and you're right, you are on the front lines with it and kind of arm in arm, we all are kind of solving for that.
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Rhonda Blatti: What was the biggest challenge for you during code, but then, how you know, because you would have met with considerable challenges.
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Rhonda Blatti: To deliver this service in a new way and let's just be honest, the CDC requirements were changing daily.
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Rhonda Blatti: And so, all of a sudden, our reporting needed to be in a daily format, we needed to start leveraging more artificial intelligence and machine learning so so let's share with me what were some of the biggest challenges, did you face them.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: Well, I think our biggest challenges were analytics right because we were doing predictive analytics so we knew based upon trends happening in the country what's coming our way.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And we're close to New York City, so we had a lot of proliferation of people from the city from Philadelphia from New York coming into our areas.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And that was really important that we were up on this, we had to make sure we had bet capacity.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: Shifting closing down operations to shift that I know Sandra you're closer to this New Jersey, so you felt it much, much harder than we did, but we, we felt it in our northeast regions, you know our all of our hospitals up in the northeast part of the state.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: really got hammered with Kobe I mean full full capacity, all the way through with overflow going down into other hospitals.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And so you know what do we do, we were very much engaged in the supply chain processes well for pee pee and other things that are necessary for our clinicians.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: Being out there being out on the floors you know myself I would do it too and we're out amongst.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: Kovac positive patients, you know and and getting you know any type of technology that we could do getting ipads in with the patient, so they can communicate with their families, because we locked down visitors right.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And unfortunately, and I just read an article about it's so sad, you know about people still today.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: hospitals are still walking out visitors from meeting with their loved ones and a 17 year old girl couldn't be with her mom when she passed so.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: She went to excruciating extensive state to go with a construction group to get to her window on the third floor of hospitals your mom before she passed.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: I mean that is heartbreaking to hear about that, but we provide the technologies that could help it's not the same, you know it's just not the same, but.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: We do what we could to try to bridge that gap for patients, for their loved ones and it's hard, it was it was really hard on them and it's hard to be a clinician in those areas to experience that on their behalf and.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: it's just difficult but we've we've done that you know we've we've continued to provide all types of resources to make the jobs of the clinicians hopefully a little bit easier it's a really difficult job we recognize that.
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John Kravitz - Geisinger Health: And they've really hung in there and did a phenomenal job throughout all this pandemic period.
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Rhonda Blatti: No, you know my hats go off to all of the healthcare organizations out there, because of the you know 24 by seven care that was needed for the patients and the employees.
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Rhonda Blatti: themselves right, I mean everybody has been working overtime nonstop for eight months and.
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Rhonda Blatti: You know that does lead to this conversation we've hit upon it a little bit in terms of mental wellness and mental health, because I think we've all seen a very large increase not only the number of cases that are coming in from our.
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Rhonda Blatti: patients but also our employees and the other thing is really this burnout factor, and I know Samir you have some thoughts around this clinician and provider burnout and.
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Rhonda Blatti: You know what things we could be doing to help really alleviate that as much as possible, so just opening up the floor for that conversation.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Absolutely and i'll put my doctor hat on for a.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: few minutes, the first thing I would say is that burnout is not just for clinicians it's for everybody, so john's team Sandra esteem my team's everybody for three of us four of us.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Count anymore, this morning, all of us face burnout so i'm going to address or not, as a human issue, not just faced by clinicians.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: And it's Multifactorial you know we used to love saying that ehr still do that ehr are causing burnout.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Which is, I would say halfway there because ehr are often the way we surface, a lot of legal compliance financial documentation requirements.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: quality improvement requirements to our clinicians so ehr unfortunately take some of that blame because that's the window through which you experienced that particular requirement.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: Now that does not absolve ehr because they also still have to do a much better job in being usable.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: But if you peel the onion back one more layer, the problem has been that because of meaningful use and a few other federal mandates like that, and I call it, meaning less use i've done that a couple of times on stage as well, but meaningless use caused.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: proliferation of checkbox medicine, where health ID became.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: A challenge for physicians because they saw it as being pushed down on them versus working with them, so a lot of leaders like us, are trying to get that out of under that historical you know.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: perception and get it to a different place because technology can help with burnout.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: But it is neither the only reason for burnout, nor is it the only solution for burnout it's a balancing act of the engagement you feel at work.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: it's a balancing act of your cultural aspects like Sandra spoke about my biggest thing in dealing with burnout is for myself and my team Take your time time off, you know.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: If you are off on a weekend don't log on the computer and make that we can count it's something I had to reteach myself, you know your day starts at 5pm fine, you have to work till 6pm but don't work till 9pm every day.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: do that when it's absolutely necessary, what kind of role modeling Am I setting up for my team.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: So the same thing goes everywhere clinicians definitely feel a lot of burnout because they are actively dealing with the patients with go with.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: The vaccine hesitancy denial or push back whichever term is popular and politically correct these days, you can pick that.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: That causes extra stress when you see actively people dying and the example john shared about you know the 17 year old unable to see her mother, when you are the doctor in the middle of that.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: or a nurse in the middle of that that's heartbreaking that soul crushing to go to that every day so.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: We do recognize it and again it's Multifactorial I will not sit here and say technology can solve it a better software or a better iPad is the answer.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: I think we all have to take a step back and recognize these are tough jobs.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: For clinicians and HR finance ID everybody in the healthcare system, and we all have to take personal agency in finding our balance that's what I try to talk a lot about take personal ownership of your work life balance so.
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Rhonda Blatti: I like that and i'm going to go turn it over to Sandra to give us advice as well, so what advice you have, for your peers out there Sandra in terms of what you've learned.
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Rhonda Blatti: And what you could impart to really help carry organizations forward, because you are all doing an incredible job solving for this and sound let's see what we can share.
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Sandra Elliott: yeah I think you know, one of the things that's a big challenge as well isn't just solving for the problem that's you're in front of us, which is.
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Sandra Elliott: As smear and john both articulated not only the covert patients but vaccines getting vaccinations supporting vaccinations and the amount of workforce required to do that as well, has really.
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Sandra Elliott: strapped the systems as they exist today but we're also all challenge, particularly at a senior executive level of saying okay.
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Sandra Elliott: i've got to deal with what's in front of me, but at the same time i've got about a year and a half of strategy.
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Sandra Elliott: For growth that i've got to figure out how to move that forward so it's it's full pedal to the metal for most organizations, right now, not only how to.
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Sandra Elliott: manage today but also building for tomorrow, and how do we transition in that space, and I think one of the things that Samir talked about a little bit was.
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Sandra Elliott: it's not about what you do it's it or how you do it it's also making sure that the work that we are doing.
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Sandra Elliott: Is the most valuable and focused in on the strategic direction of the organization is it solving for the problem today.
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Sandra Elliott: But at the same time creating a foundational element for tomorrow, and I think that's it's not necessarily the easiest way to go, but sometimes.
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Sandra Elliott: It makes it a little bit easier to begin to understand how we can merge all of our efforts together in a way that continues to move us forward, I think one of the biggest things is we do all have to figure out.
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Sandra Elliott: The work is increasing, for all of us.
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Sandra Elliott: it's not deep.
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Sandra Elliott: So what is it or how do we.
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Sandra Elliott: How do we work it to get through that day, how do we change what we do in order to accomplish the outcomes that we need, I think that's a that's just kind of a soul searching at an individual level but also.
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Sandra Elliott: How do we as an organization support that and helping people make some of those transitions I think.
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Sandra Elliott: One of the biggest challenges that we, as an organization, are facing is also understanding that when everyone had a single focus, which was coven and getting through the code of crisis was a lot easier to make decisions is a lot easier to get rapid decisions.
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Sandra Elliott: Now you know, trying to keep what was good about coven which was everybody coming together and focusing in on making quick decisions moving forward.
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Sandra Elliott: we're now back where the alcohol, the cultural summit is starting to solidify and if we're not careful we're going to.
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Sandra Elliott: Really kind of strap ourselves will have better tools, but we're not necessarily going to be able to move differently, which the technology and the infrastructure shouldn't allow us to do a lot easier we've got to be able to.
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Sandra Elliott: move with the ebbs and flows of what's going on in our marketplace, I mean just the fact that we have staffing shortages.
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Sandra Elliott: there's a deployment shortage, I mean there are not enough people to do all the work, but yet trying to so it's not just us it's everybody.
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Sandra Elliott: And so it's an interesting kind of time, but I think keeping an assessment of how you get through your day and how you work but also how you make decisions is going to be a critical factor going forward no.
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Rhonda Blatti: very good point you know we've touched on so many of those human elements right we've touched on empathy, how do we continue to have that layer of empathy with our employees and our patients because.
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Rhonda Blatti: You know what happens during burnout is those sometimes are the first things to go.
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Rhonda Blatti: we've talked about engagement, how do we create that engagement because it's the technology does a piece of it but it's that human connection still, how do you.
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Rhonda Blatti: You know leverage your 68 hours worth of zoom meetings every week and and feel like you're actually leaning in and engaging with, whether it be your patients or your employees, you know.
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Rhonda Blatti: and recognizing that are still our most valuable asset to us are those employees and you know the technology is really just there to help support.
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Rhonda Blatti: The employees and what they do so those really, really brilliant thoughts there, so thank you Sandra Samir any final words for our guests today joining.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: final words I guess you know, first of all thank you for this opportunity to share thoughts and listen to Sandra and john admire both of them deeply.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: From my side, I think.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: The balance that we had to strike 10 years ago still remains, we have a human tendency to run after shiny objects, new technology, new analytics new tools.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: But we forget to spend enough time to first understand what the problem to be solved is, what are the human factors, what are the design elements I mean the whole idea of creating personas.
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Rhonda Blatti: personas, by the way, I do the same thing with my team, and my customers it's really how.
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Rhonda Blatti: To solve for those outcomes by persona what do they do it looks very different so.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: yeah So how do you really understand what is the problem, who are you trying to solve for and have empathy for the user it's Chapter one in any design book is empathy for the user.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: And unless we put that as part of every project plan as much as we build and should be attention to security and architecture is paying enough attention to design and correct outcomes.
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Sameer Badlani, MD: We will still have the problem where we will keep thinking, the new technology implementation or the next upgrade is going to solve the problem in front of us it never has never will you have to approach it differently yeah.
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Rhonda Blatti: I agree, well, thank you john Samir and Sandra for your time today, I think this was really a delightful session of conversation.
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Rhonda Blatti: Sharing some of those best practices and ideas with our peers and thanks to all of you who joined us today.
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Rhonda Blatti: To you know just lean in on how do we solve for this together, because as a healthcare organization and an industry, we are solving for together and we do need one another in this process so.
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Rhonda Blatti: Thank you all for joining today we sincerely appreciate you be well be safe out there, and thanks again enjoy the rest of your day.
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Sandra Elliott: Thank you good care.
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Emily Raisch: Thanks everybody that was really great actually a one thing I did we get a final word from you Sandra did you have anything like that we wanted to wrap up for you from because I can cut that back in.
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Sandra Elliott: yeah I was, I was just going to make a comment about the fact that it's, this is a health impact.
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Sandra Elliott: session and it all of our changes should have a positive impact on health, and I think that's that's really what we all need to use is kind of our lives to make decisions, but that was the only other thing potentially was going to say so, I but.
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Emily Raisch: I think that's good i'm gonna see if I can I can.
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Emily Raisch: Get that in there.
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Emily Raisch: Are editing available ability over here.
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Emily Raisch: But yeah I think that was those are really engaging session I really enjoyed being part of that amen Thank you so much for your time RON and rhonda and Sandra and sorry that I spoke to you with moderating but she weren't.
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Emily Raisch: I would also mean really alarmed if I.
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just asked to do.
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Rhonda Blatti: know this was delightful I think it was so much to learn, and what we were sharing is going to be very valuable to the Pier so.
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Emily Raisch: Always actually if we're going to do this, let me just do.
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Emily Raisch: One like thing just because we are still recording would you just ask Sandra she hasn't risen and Sandra we're just going to cut that back in and then we'll go back to where where you are so go ahead.
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Rhonda Blatti: And Sandra any final parting words, for your peers that you'd like to share today.
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Sandra Elliott: I think the, the only thing that I would say is because everybody's here it's a health impact session and I think, as long as we keep in mind that our goal is to always have an impact on people's health.
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Sandra Elliott: Both our TEAM members and our patients, I think you know we just have to keep that lens on is we're starting to make decisions on where the next stage of health transformation begins to emerge yeah.
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Rhonda Blatti: And speaking of lenses I love your glasses, by the way, are awesome.
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Rhonda Blatti: All right, well, thank you, everybody for joining us today it's really been a delightful conversation enjoy the rest of your day.
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Sandra Elliott: Thank you.
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Emily Raisch: That was great yeah and I will, I will make sure that we get that at all and it's gonna yes Sandra always has the best classes.
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Rhonda Blatti: She does.
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Emily Raisch: So, so there is this is it, this is a pandemic related thing but i've been I watched several times, the great British baking show over the pandemic and one of the leaders season judges pru.
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Emily Raisch: Always she does out her glasses to match her outfit and I always think of you, because you always have glasses that that match your outfit and glasses are always so cool.
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Emily Raisch: I was able to do that same thing.
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Rhonda Blatti: I want to be as cool as Sandra and.
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Emily Raisch: I know you have like you in red one and i'm forgetting what else but you always have.
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Sandra Elliott: I got all kinds.
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Emily Raisch: Clearly amazing it's I aspire to have a live one pair of glasses right now working on it.
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All right.
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Emily Raisch: minutes, and this is going to be awesome and I will follow up and hopefully we'll get some really cool clips that we can share ahead of time and really get the news out about us.
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Rhonda Blatti: yeah Thank you so much Emily for all your work and coordination, it was a delightful session so.
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Emily Raisch: Great Oh, thank you.
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Rhonda Blatti: Joe.
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Rhonda Blatti: Thanks bye bye.
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bye.