>> You know, healthcare professionals are healers, not data clerks,
Yet today many spend half their day on a computer
navigating their EHRs and other systems.
Since a patient's health records are
sometimes scattered across multiple systems,
getting a full picture of a patient takes up
valuable time, energy, and resources.
The tools we're developing for
health systems like our collaboration with Ascension
aim to make health information more accessible and useful.
We're committed to understanding
the unique challenges clinicians face
as well as the concerns and preferences of their patients.
Today I'm joined by Dr. Richard Fogel,
Chief Clinical Officer at Ascension,
to dig into the potential clinical impact of our work.
Dr. Fogel, welcome to the program.
Uh, let's start with taking a step back.
When we think about organizing information,
what challenges have you and your clinicians been
facing that prompted your company
to seek a tech solution?
>> Thanks, Paul.
You know, I've--I've been a doctor for
a little bit more than 30 years now.
And when we started out, we were using paper records.
And if you saw a patient for the first time or the second time,
the chart was relatively slim.
But as you saw the patient longer and longer,
the chart got bigger and bigger and bigger.
And frankly, finding information
in that chart got harder and harder.
It became like a scavenger hunt.
Around 20 years ago or so,
we converted to digital format.
We converted to electronic health records.
And you would think that that would have
made the process easier.
And in fact, it did make it easier,
but it still created a problem.
You see, the way that electronic health records or
paper charts were organized are,
they were organized in different sections.
And very often we want to find
this specific piece of information, and there's not--
and the--the piece of information is in a section,
but it's not the only piece of information in the section.
So for example, I'm a cardiologist.
I'd like to find an echocardiogram or
all the echocardiograms that a patient has had over time.
Echocardiograms are typically in the imaging section,
but so are chest X-rays and CT scans and
MRIs and many other imaging tests.
So often, even in today's electronic health records,
what I have to do is, I've to sort through
that imaging section to find
the exact information that I want to see.
That can be very time consuming and can take me
away from being with you, the patient.
And we--we began to
think there just had to be a better way.
>> Finding data like that can be really difficult,
and so one of the key things we're doing here is,
you know, our teams are creating
a harmonized and normalized view of
data across multiple systems.
Now, thinking about this multisystem view,
why is that so important?
What are the risks associated
with relying on a seiler data?
>> If everyone worked on
the same electronic health record or
the same database underlying the electronic health record,
that would be great, and that would
make things a lot easier.
But that's not the current reality.
There are multiple different
electronic health record systems,
and information comes into it in many different ways.
Sometimes it comes in digitally,
sometimes it's scanned, sometimes it's faxed.
It becomes a mishmash of different types of data,
and that mishmash makes it really difficult to
really understand what's going on
and get a complete picture of the patient.
The reality is,
the better picture of the patient that I can get,
the better the--the information is organized,
the better care I can give you as a doctor,
the better I can present
you with information and options,
and the better choices we can make
together for the betterment of your healthcare.
>> Agreed. So let's say we now
have all this data in one place
and we've done the hard work to
normalize it and made it searchable.
How does it actually plug into
the day-to-day workflow for clinicians?
How does it enable you--you to deliver better care?
>> So when I see a patient
or I think when most docs see patients,
we typically see patients in the outpatient setting in
the office on every 15 minutes or every 20 minutes or so.
So in my particular workflow,
what I like to do is, I like to review
the record before I go in and see the patient,
I like to see how the patient
was doing-- was doing the last time.
And then I like to see if there were
any updates to the patient's condition.
The more efficient I can do that,
the more time I can spend with the patient.
If I'm seeing patients every 20 minutes or so
and it takes me 5 minutes to review all the information,
including all the new information which has come in,
then I have 15 minutes with the patient.
But if it takes me 7 or 8 or 10 minutes with
a patient and I have a 20-minute appointment book,
I can see the patient in only 10 minutes.
So it takes time away.
So the more the information is brought together,
the easier it is for me to integrate the information,
for me to form an electronic--
to form a picture in
my mind of what the patient's needs
are and to present that information to
the patient for good decision making.
Some docs like to take the computer into
the office with--into the exam room with the patient.
And one of the issues with that is, if you have to search for
information and you're and--
and you can't do it efficiently,
then what can happen is you're looking
down at the compute-- at the computer,
and you're not looking--you're not
making eye contact with the patient.
And it's so important to have
that critical doctor-patient bond
that you can have by just
looking at a patient and
looking in--looking at them in
the eye and looking for all the nonverbal cues.
The better the information is presented to me,
the more efficient I can be,
the more time I can spend with you,
the better care we can give
and the better decisions we can make together.
>> Amazing, in the end,
we hope to save time with
better workflows and ultimately improve outcomes
by helping clinicians find
that information they need to care
for patients, because that's
what it's all about, patient care.
Thank you, Dr. Fogel, for your insights.
It's an absolute pleasure
working with you and your teams.