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Novant Health is a leading healthcare organization at the forefront of leveraging technology and advanced analytics to transform patient care. In this session, we will explore the specific types of technology and advanced analytics capabilities that Novant Health is implementing and how they are expected to improve patient care and outcomes.
Novant Health's investment in technology and advanced analytics can impact the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of its operations. We will delve into how this investment has impacted the organization's operations and what steps it takes to ensure that its healthcare providers and staff are properly trained and equipped to utilize the new technology and advanced analytics capabilities effectively. Join us for this fascinating interview to gain valuable insights into the future of healthcare technology and analytics.
Onyeka Nchege, SVP|Chief Information Officer, Novant Health
Thomas Hallisey, Digital Health Strategy Director, HANYS
Tom: Well thank you for the invitation, Health Impact Live. I'm Tom Hallisey, a longtime health system CO, and now working at the Healthcare Association of New York State.
And I'm here today with senior Vice President and CIO of Novant Health, Onyeka Nchege. So thank you for joining us as well.
Onyeka: Thank you. Excited to be here.
Tom: So today we wanna look at a lot of the technology and advanced analytics, AI tools being used at Novant Health. So I'd like to start right off with , what types of technology and, AI in particular are you implementing, expanding and using to improve care and outcomes at Novant?
Onyeka: Thank you. Thank you, Tom. You know, again, excited to be here, be part of the conversation. You know, I'd take a few minutes to just kind of touch on, you know, Novant Health is a integrated network of hospitals, physician clinics, outpatient facilities that delivers a seamless and convenient healthcare experience to communities in North Carolina.
South Carolina and Georgia, our network of more than 1800 physicians and over 35,000 team members who provide care at you know, over 800 locations, including 15 hospitals and hundreds of outpatient facilities and physician clinics. So, you know, we provide more than 6 million patients. You know, we provide care more than six, 6 million patients you know, every year.
So when I think about the technologies and capabilities that we have within Novant Health and what we're implementing, or either expanding, there are few things that come to mind. We're committed to innovation and continuously. Seeking solutions to some of our greatest challenges, while at the same time evaluating the quality and access to care that's out there.
So some of those examples for us include, you know, being a, being a national champion for AI medicine by partnering up with Microsoft, Vis AI, AI doc, you know, Lean Toss. And many other lead in edge AI companies. So we've been implementing a monitoring system that allowed us to focus on covid 19 surveillance, essentially utilizing resources and equitable distribution of the, the COVID 19 vaccine.
We've, done things like integrating swipe sense electronic hand hygiene monitoring across our system to enable real-time tracking of safety behaviors. Similarly we put some modeling and predicting healthcare associated infections before they happen. So we've got a number of things that are out there.
We've got developed a robust tele I C U program with custom-built I C U carts. That were made from a race car design firm, right? So again, another just unconventional partner to support a surge in intensive care patients beyond your traditional I C U rooms, regardless of the location right?
We, done some market leading you know, I'm gonna call it E I C U capabilities, right? Expanding our physical reach digitally in our acute facilities. Again, just an opportunity for us to expand how we use technology.
Tom: And you touched on a few topics there. I'd like to dig into one you mentioned Microsoft and the use of AI tools.
So are you looking to expand more into the use of cloud, particularly in ai?
Onyeka: Yeah, so we're having some conversations around that. You know, the question for us is, are we pioneers in the space? Are we, followers? Are we earlier adopters are, right? So there's lots of questions that, but we have partnered with Microsoft to better understand.
How we may be able to leverage those technologies in our environment. You know, one of the things that we're really proud of is this idea of co-creation, right? And partnering. Within our ecosystem and understanding what's available out there, right? And what can we do with the things that we either already have in our environment or we have partners in our environment who have developed some things that, that make a difference for our patients.
So, we'll partner in Microsoft to understand you know, what they've got in those, in that capability set and how we may be able to use that in our environment.
Tom: And I'm certainly seeing that across the country, even the largest health systems are looking at the big cloud vendors and saying there are tools here, particularly when it comes to AI and some more advanced technologies where they're likely to lead us.
Onyeka: Yep. So I, I'll tell you Tom, you know, Novant Health was, is one of the first in North Carolina to adopt AI docs AI platform. That includes seven f d a cleared solutions for triage and notification of patients with acute medical conditions. Right. So, you know, when you think about the way that, that, that is, the AI docs, AI technology serves as a second set of eyes for radiologists to detect AB anomalies.
So it is used for all patients receiving a CT scan. That includes the brain or chest to find intra cerebral hemorrhage. So I C h PE or, or just incidental pe. So our physicians are trained to assess triage care for the sickest patients first. With an added layer of technology to help identify brain bleeds, pulmonary embolisms, you know, our physicians are able to more quickly identify and prioritize these patients providing rapid lifesaving treatments.
So when you think about, you know, how we've been able to leverage ai. In our environment, you know, we're hearing from a ed radiologist that burnout is lower, right? They were just waiting for a, a ticking bomb going through scans and in the order that they were received. But now the most urgent patient scans goes to the top of the stack to be quickly triaged.
You know, these, the one thing I will say though is, You know, these digital capabilities will never replace providers, but we'll only augment the incredible skills that they have to deliver the best care possible. You know, we're improving, we're, we're improving patient outcomes and, and reducing their, their length of stay in our emergency departments.
Tom: So that sets up a next question for me. Probably less so in, in radiology, but in general, all of these new virtual tools that everyone rolled out on digital tools and digital services, and to your point, ai add-ons, if you will. Second almost a second look.
Set
of eyes. Yep. Second set of eyes.
That's the term I was looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen any issues or lessons learned in, in taking all of those types of tools and building them into operations or maybe even some pushback to your point of, boy, is this going
Onyeka: to replace someone? Yeah. You know, that's a great question.
So I think You know, when you think about bringing on, you know, advanced technologies and, and pushing the needle, if you will, in your environment, I think, you know, culture and alignment end up being the biggest challenges. So as with any considerable digital transformation, the organizational change management with top-down executive support is, is crucial.
In being successful so that that, you know, in our environment there's currently a realignment within the, our federated analytics groups within the organization and a stronger emphasis on executive support to ensure that we continue our kind of forward progress. But I think those, that's probably the one thing I see is the organizational change management.
Readiness, right? So often times we're eager to put a solution in place and get going with that. And I always say, can we take two steps back before we actually implement and ask the question. Is the organization ready for this change? I know we say we are, right, because it's something that we need. Maybe we want to optimize what we're doing today, but are we really ready for it?
So we've been, we've started to institute organizational readiness change readiness. Assessments, if you will, prior to implementing a technology solution. One, to understand are they things, gaps that we need to fail, training that we need to do, things like that before we get to that point. So those are the kinds of challenges that have probably been the most challenges for us as we've been doing this.
Tom: And I think that's certainly exactly what we're seeing across the industry. And if you had to put, let's say, not necessarily a number on it, but a percentage, you know, they, with an ultimate goal of providers your entire health system has a fully integrated digital and virtual tools with existing operations where the patient also seamlessly accesses all of that, you know, to throw a lot at you.
But you know, from zero to a hundred, where might we be on that process?
Onyeka: You know, I zero to a hundred. I'd say we're probably, you know, we're up there. Be honest with you, we're probably about 85, I'd say 85%. There's always room to do things a little bit differently. You know, one of the things that we have been able to get, to get accomplished is part of that education process that we want to put in place, right?
And making sure that everybody understands here's what's coming. But not only here's what we have, but here's what's coming. We created an innovation lab and the innovation lab is a very interesting concept. The technologies that we use within our environment today, we have actually put in an innovation lab where people can come and see here kind of some of the technologies that we use in our footprint today.
We took it a step further and we said, are they emerging technologies that we might be able to leverage? And maybe we don't have those in our environment today, but let's also include those in the lab. Let's see if they're partners out there who wanna partner with us to showcase. The technologies that they have and put 'em in the lab, which allows us the opportunity to continue to educate, right?
So you hit it right on the head. It's all about education. How do we educate the organization about the things that we have, but also the things that are possible, right? And I think if we can do that you know, we stand a much better chance of you know, understanding how we do that.
So, You know, when you think about patients, right? So all patients crave convenience, right? And access is more than, than just dots on a, on a map. You know, we think that patients want healthcare services to be easy to access and available from virtual care to expanded clinic hours to, you know, you name it.
And so our question is how do we do that? And how do we provide. Opportunities for that for our patients.
Tom: I have a couple follow up questions to that, but one are there specific examples you could share with how you've done the outreach to the patient and included them in this process?
Moved digital or specific tools?
Onyeka: Yeah. great point. So when you think about our investment in technology and, and how it it hits and touches our patients, you know, I think about some of the AI-based inpatient routing solutions that we've put in place that once we implemented, we saw a, I'm gonna call it a 40% decrease in wait times, even during peak hours and opened up free chairs.
For our patients with the same technology, you know, we were able to clear entire operating room backlog during the peak of the pandemic, which I, which accounted for, you know, call it seventy, seventy five to 90 days or so. You know, being able to provide solutions like that aid, I'm gonna call it, aid our patients in being able to see
how they can get into our locations faster. So we create digital enhancements to traditional care locations such that with a partner, we developed a solution that allows our patients to walk in at a scheduled time straight to their infusion chair. And this is made possible by an advanced scheduling mechanism with a lot of.
Predictive capabilities that are built in and accounted for. And again, you know, once the solution was put in place, we saw a decrease in wait times before we had a bottleneck of patients that were waiting for chairs and nurses schedules that were so tightly packed that they couldn't eat lunch. We were also able to identify some future scheduling issues and, and readjust as needed to provide waiting.
You think about operating rooms, you know, due to the pandemic we had, you know, I'm gonna call it 8,000 non-emergent surgical cases that were suddenly postponed and needed to be rescheduling with a partner, we implemented a solution set that made the available time in our nearly 140 or so operating rooms simple to view, access, share across the system.
You know, we look at that as a great example of the application of foundational capabilities originally devised for one use case, which we then have been able to find success with in, in other spaces as well.
Tom: So, you mentioned a lot about your innovation your partnerships. I'm wondering if you have any tips or h how you go about finding the right partners?
For the, the needs of your health system because the marketplace now is just outrageous. if you'll, there's so much out there and you know, I think quite a few of them are starting to show, you know, that they can provide real value, but how do you That's right. Narrow that down to real value for you and a pilot program at Novant.
Onyeka: Yeah. So, you know, when we think about how do we look at partners and vet partners? You know, for us it begins with relationships, right? Understanding the relationships that are out there and, and tapping into that relationship. But also spending time out in the marketplace and understanding with the trade show symposiums, you name it, understanding who's out there and what are some of the products that they have that are available to them.
And then the, the, the third thing I say is, you know, look at the partners that you have internally. You know, I'll pick on Microsoft for example. Microsoft has a ton of relationships with partners, you know, that are smaller partners within the ecosystem, startups within the ecosystem that are doing some really good stuff out there and producing some incredible products and services that, and so when we do a briefing with Microsoft, they do a great job of just saying, Hey, here's some of the partnerships that we have entered into.
And here are some of the things that we believe might, might help you. So, you know, we take those quarterly briefings with our partners to that level to ask, you know, what's out there. And then some of 'em are just folks who reach out to us. And then, you know, we have an opportunity to say, all right, let's understand what you have.
You think about the innovation lab, we can run you through the innovation lab and see if there's an opportunity for something that makes sense in our environment. The other thing that we have developed is a process, experimentation as a service. And experimentation as a service is simply that, you know, we wanna run some pilots.
We want to understand you know, do some, some trials, if you will, before we introduce that into our production environment. Right? Where we can say, Hey, did you know, you know, we can go to the medical group and say, did you know that you know this exists out here, and hey, we've had a chance to kinda run it through the paces of bed.
We believe it's a good fit. But we need you to say, you know, clinically, do we even need this service, this product? And if the answer is yes, then you know, we're further down the road. If the answer is no, not at this time, then we know that and we put it in our back pocket to know, hey, there's a partner out there that if we ever get to this need, here's who we're gonna call.
Because we've had a chance to, you know, get to know each other and go through the courting process, if you will.
Tom: That's a great point. That's such an important piece of all of this because there's so many technologies out there as we were just discussing that everyone's hearing about, but do they provide a specific value for you now?
Is this a solution that's right. That you need or is it a solution in search of a problem? We've certainly seen plenty of those. You know, as you mentioned partners. I wonder if the, you, I'm sure, know plenty about the recent privacy concerns and. H H S O C R work, the F T C all digging deeper into privacy, the use of trackers.
All these digital care tools. Can I pick on cerebral? I guess everybody is, but certain of them running themselves into quite a bit of trouble. Does that affect your digital work moving forward or who you can partner with? Or maybe more generally, simply, you know, what concerns have you had and has that affected how
you can move forward?
Onyeka: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, has that affected us in any way? I'd say the answer is yes, it has. It has ensured that we take a very holistic approach. To partners, to the requests that our internal teams have around data and what that might look like. You know, at Novant Health, we take a very holistic approach to addressing data privacy, security by leveraging the you know, this framework for cybersecurity to drive our cyber security program.
The, the, the reality is it ensures that we address threats to our team member, you know, patient data proactively and with a risk-based approach. But has it impacted what we do? Absolutely. It, it has. But I, I think it's also made us, you know, smarter and, and probably more diligent than we would have been in the past.
I, I think it has, it has forced us to, Ask some of the pertinent questions and maybe even ask 'em over and over again because we don't want to be, that, we don't wanna be that, that, that company, right? We don't wanna be the one that's in the news. We don't want to be the one that has to answer, answer that co that, that question.
And so it has forced us to, to really start to engage in some, some very, Pointed questions as we're thinking about implementing something into our environment. So, you know, our program, we've got a program that enlists all of our team members into our cybersecurity program. Whether it's through regularly, you know, awareness, education, training that's aimed at ensuring, you know, all the.
The, the remarkable patient experience is protected and seamless. So, you know, we, we take a very prescriptive approach, if you will because again, we don't want to be that company.
Tom: No. And I, I'm sure the FTC and OCR R are happy to hear that. I think that was specifically their goal here. And for those who may recall, you know, a lot of this came out of, it was about a year ago that report from a researcher Yeah.
Who found. First they did hospitals and health systems across the country, and then they also looked at those digital health tools and in both cases found the use of these trackers. And, you know, it just requires diligence. I certainly don't believe any of the health systems that were on that list, if you will, we're in that news.
They didn't wanna be, we're intentionally trying to violate privacy in any way. This is just a question. Absolutely. To your point, being more careful and, and looking at all of this, at every step and repeating yourself when needed. That's right. It's great to hear we're, we're all going that way.
Certainly still concerned about where we'll go with the app market, but along those lines you know, with the advent now of within our new digital world, the requirement for the. APIs and the patient direct access. What are you looking at at Novant in that area, and are you seeing patients yet requesting access for a certain app?
Onyeka: I think one of the things that all of us do, excuse me, that all of us do is. You know, we want life to be as it is on this device, right? So this is what I use every day. This is what I interact with. This is right. And I want my patient experience to be very similar to that, right?
And so, I think our role as it practitioners, our role as, as healthcare providers is to understand, What's the patient request? What is the patient need? What's the patient looking for? And once we understand what that is, then we've gotta figure out, okay, how do we go, how do we go do that? And so we've got focus groups that are within our communities that we rely on to actually provide some of that feedback to us.
To let us know what, what, what folks need and what they don't need. Even something as simple as, you know, we, we put echo dots in rooms right in our patient rooms so that they can stream music on 'em while they are, while they're in the rooms. It started out as something real simple, and it wasn't an enterprise, you know, initiative where you said, Hey, we're just gonna, we're just gonna put all these things in all these rooms and let's see how it plays out.
It was just a one or two rooms, you know, we started it in and we got such great feedback from that activity that we decided to push it across a number of other rooms in the facility. And continue to get really good feedback from our patients about the patient experience related to having that device in the room, you know, where they could, they could listen.
Now, o obviously we're, we're what we're asking all the right questions around, don't care. What does that mean? How does it work? You know, is there an opportunity that we need to look at what enterprise. You know, an enterprise implementation might look like. So again, it's that experimentation as a service I talked about earlier, right?
And if we understand what it is that our patients need, then we have a better shot at trying to figure out, you know, how do we give them the things that ultimately get back to our mission, which is to provide remarkable care to our patients.
Tom: Absolutely. And, and that's great to, to have the user groups, but to experiment with the patient as well, or the consumer groups.
Mm-hmm. I think you'll, because we certainly do that internally, but yeah, I think everybody needs to be looking at that. Yeah. So along those lines, and that's a great example of this, you know, where, where are you looking for the future? Because I certainly, I can picture myself, if I'm the consumer coming in.
So when does this echo integrate? So I can ask, what's my last lab result? What's my doctor's name again? Uhhuh, whatever it may be. But that's just one example. What what for the, you know, the next year, the 18 months.
Onyeka: Yeah. So, you know, Tom, our, our strategy for everything that we do at Novant Health starts with the patient, right?
You know, how can we eliminate their pain points? What do they need and, and how can we change to meet those needs? So it's a balanced approach to quality patient engagement, team member engagement, operational excellence. You know, those are the things that we get super excited about, to see the solutions that our team members and partners are able to generate and implement to continue to improve the remarkable care that, you know, we provide our, our communities.
You know, I'm particularly excited to see the patient experience evolve. Right. And, you know, just also being able to model and predict those healthcare associated infections before they even happen. But, so we get excited about, you know, how can we leverage monitoring devices, right? Predictive.
Before it happens, right? Those are the things that we get incredibly excited about. and, you know, as we look to the future, that's where we believe we're gonna focus some of our attention.
Tom: And what about the, the elephant in the room, if you will ha have to bring up everybody talking about chat, G P T three.
Now for the large language models Any thoughts on where that fits in? Or is there an area where knowing the errors they can make and, and that they're still evolving where that could fit into that?
Onyeka: Yeah, so I'll tell you at, at, at novant, you know, where we've kind of taken a learning stance with that just so that we can understand, you know, where, where is this going?
What are some of the, the, the learnings that others are getting out of this and you know, how does it, how does it play out? I believe personally that there are use cases for it. But I, I think with anything else, you've gotta understand what those use cases are and moving into a, I hate to keep using the word, but, but that's the best way I know they're gonna call it a pilot or call it an ex experimentation.
Until you know what that means and what that looks like in your organization, in your footprint, in your landscape. You know, bring it in, in a, in a place where it makes sense, and try it out and see how that goes up. But we've taken a, a wait, and I don't, I don't wanna call it wait and see as much as it is a learning mode.
Tom: Are you seeing any, as I was mentioning earlier, you know, with this being such a huge consumer technology, are you seeing any push. To move forward from physicians or others? I don't know if you saw the video of the physician down in Florida a couple months ago, who used it to write a letter to the insurance company.
So, you know, they're thinking they, those are great areas for this because I, you know, I don't see any potential patient harm there. But are you, are you seeing any
Onyeka: Yeah, we've gotten some folks who've asked us about, you know, are there any use cases that we may be able to put in our environment?
So one of the things I love about our physicians is the fact that they are willing to you know, champion. Things that, that they believe might make a difference. So, we've got a handful of providers in our environment that would say, yep, sign me up. I think I may be one of the ones that, you know, can help you learn more about this.
So we've found a couple of use cases where we think we're gonna lean in. So more to come on that. It'll be a fascinating conversation to have a few months from now. Yes. In terms of where we are.
Tom: It's certainly an exciting new area, but yeah, the parameters need to be put around that.
Absolutely. Yep. And, and having looked at your background, I just had one more question I wanted to ask. I wonder, because you, you've got a lot of background outside of healthcare, you know, there, there's two parts to that. What have you seen in healthcare that's different and, and what do you bring you feel that helps you improve healthcare?
Having learned from outside of our rather insulated marketplace for many years. I know i've been a healthcare for longer than I care to mention.
Onyeka: Yeah, you know that, that's a great question, Tom. So, you know, as Chief Information Officer at Novant Health, my teams and I oversee growth initiatives, excuse me, deliver world-class, consumer capabilities, you know, differentiating technologies, advanced clinical solutions, all the things that other healthcare organizations and their CIOs also develop as well within our organization. You know, I always say I wear multiple hats, right? So I shepherd digital solutions.
I wear a hat as an officer of the company where I get to participate in all kinds of you know, operations of, of the business. And you're right. Before joining Novant in 2020, I had the privilege of having worked in various industries, including the automotive industry, consumer package goods industry and retail holding.
You know, CIO roles at Toyota Industries Commercial Finance and also, you know, at interstate batteries and, and Coca-Cola bottling company. And I'll tell you, coming into healthcare you know, one of the things that, you know, folks would tell me when I said, when I would tell 'em, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm headed to, to Novan Health, be the C I O over there and they'd, go, why?
you're not part of, you're not part of healthcare. And I would always say, well, you know, I got it. But you know, they use technologies there, right? Last I checked, they need capabilities there, right? Last I checked. And and once you recognize that the healthcare industry is all about patients and, you know, patients are consumers of healthcare.
So when you think about a background where you know, you've been a part of. Consumer facing organizations like Coca-Cola, like you know, interstate batteries and others, you realize that you can bring the same thing. So I would come in and say, our patients are consumers as well. They're consumers of healthcare.
And so bringing some of that consumer facing, patient facing Capabilities into the healthcare space, I think has been, has been the difference maker in terms of the success that I've had here, is being able to say, Hey, I think about it in terms of non-traditional ways that we could look at doing some of the things that we do in healthcare.
So it's been, it's been a good ride for me. I've learned a ton. I've been in the healthcare space for, for three years now. I feel like I've been here 30 years.
Tom: We have that way on you. But it's great. And I think it's a, a great trend in healthcare that we bring in a lot of folks from outside now, that really wasn't the case for quite a few years particularly as we go digitally direct to the consumer, which has not happened.
Well, I think we've spent our time and it was a great conversation and thank you very much, Onyeka. This is very good Health Impact Live for inviting us.
Onyeka: Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Health Impact Live. Totally appreciate the opportunity to share as well.