Transcription:

Carl Maronich (Host):  And we are joined today by Phil Kambic. Phil is the President and CEO of Riverside Healthcare. Phil, welcome to the podcast.

Phillip M Kambic (Guest):  Yeah, thank you Carl. I’m glad to be here.

Host:  And today we’re going to talk a little bit about technology, and it was recently announced that Riverside for the third year received the Most Wired designation from Modern Healthcare Magazine and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives. Sounds like an important group and certainly an important award, Most Wired. Riverside the third year that it’s won that award. And what it says is most wired hospitals are assessing how effectively healthcare organizations can apply core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs including cybertechnology all to improve healthcare and patient engagement in their community. Sounds like an important thing. Phil, as President and CEO, first of all, congratulations on being Most Wired and what does it mean for Riverside to be a technology leader?

Phil:  If you’re not keeping up with technology and with clinical technology, information technology; you are falling behind. And that’s just a reflection on the overall organization of you falling behind. So, I think it’s a great recognition to be able to get this and it just says heh, we’re keeping up, not only keeping up, we’re really leading edge with healthcare.

Host:  Yeah and maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the most recent advances in technology and I’ll back up a little bit and let people – you are in your 15^th year as CEO?

Phil:  15^th year as CEO correct.

Host:  Prior to that, when you first started with the hospital, you were in what then was IT.

Phil:  Right, it was actually called data processing way back then.

Host:  Data processing, a whole different name.

Phil:  And actually when I was CIO, so probably 20+ years, 25 years ago; Chief Information Officer, we actually won this award for our very first time. And then it was a very, very long dry spell and just recently we got it again for three years in a row.

Host:  So, from the data processing days to today, the world of hospital technology changed dramatically. In the last few years, I mean every few years it’s probably makes dramatic changes and changes even more frequently. So, how different, I mean can you go down to the IT department now and recognize anything from where you used to be?

Phil:  No, absolutely not. Back when I started, we had mainframes and minicomputers and those are all gone. You have server farms and SQL servers and everything else.

Host:  Yeah, so it’s a whole different world. Maybe you could speak a little bit to some of the more recent advances in technology that Riverside has undergone that really help win this kind of award.

Phil:  Absolutely Carl. I’m going to start with something different though. And I think it’s just a philosophy at Riverside and I want to highlight two big initiatives that are ramping up right now. One is we just installed four brand new state of the art cardiac catheterization laboratories. Just phenomenal technology. I had one of our visitors describe it to me as going into Tony Stark’s laboratory from the Iron Man movies. It is just so advanced with the technology, with the gigantic monitors and being able to pull up all of your packs from your x-rays and your CT scans from three, four, five years ago. Just amazing technology. But that all kind of leads into this award as well, right? So, everything kind of fits together.

The other recent initiative at Riverside that relates back to technology of all things we upgrade our boiler plant, right? So, you know boilers, big deal. Well this is a state of the art initiative. We replaced all of our 55 year old boilers with brand new state of the art technology, new chillers, new boilers, new everything is digital versus analog from the electrical substations. But again, you go into that environment and everything is push button, if there’s any sort of issue with our power plant whatsoever; our operating engineers get a text on their phone. It is self-diagnosing but all of that relates back to being Most Wired, really deploying technology to its most useful form.

Host:  Yeah. People think of hospitals and can clinical care they think of things at the bedside or in the operating room like you just talked about. But certainly the boilers, the chillers, the heaters, the air conditioning; I mean that all plays into patient care as well very dramatically.

Phil:  Yeah, absolutely. You need that base infrastructure to take care of patients.

Host:  Yeah, and the Most Wired accounts or descriptions of that really mention specifically both clinical and nonclinical applications of technologies within the hospital on the business side. I mean this is coming to you from the marketing office. We don’t take care of patients here, but we have a lot of technology that allows us to do things like this podcast. So, there’s a lot of both clinical and nonclinical technology in the hospital today.

Phil:  Yeah, absolutely. You know we have a couple of initiatives and right next door is our call center. All of our phone systems are being updated with all new technology to make it easier for patients to access our call center. Making it easier for those folks to answer those calls quickly and to monitor exactly what they’re doing and making sure we’re doing the right thing for our patients to really be able to access care at Riverside.

Host:  Key word there, access. And that’s really at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do for patients is to make the services we provide more accessible and that today involves technology.

Phil:  Oh absolutely. One of the things that we’ve also rolled out this year, we’ve been very busy. We’ve extended our Epic Health Information system, right, so that’s our electronic medical record for all of the hospital, now we’ve extended it into our nursing home and to Miller Center. We are extending it into our behavioral health center. At the first of the year, we’ll go live in home care. So, now as a patient, wherever you go within our system; your electronic medical record is available for that caregiver, that clinician to access so they get a better picture of everything that’s been going on with you and then to boot, given all the consents are signed et cetera; if you have to go up to another academic medical center or you’re travelling in Florida, many of those big hospitals down in Florida have the same system, so we can automatically send your information down to them so they can get a clear picture of what’s going on with you.

Host:  All right. All that available through what is commonly known as My Chart. Which we are promoting and in fact this podcast is sponsored by My Chart, so we are getting folks to sign into My Chart which allows them all the things you just talked about, their own patient portal.

Phil:  Right, absolutely. And again, you know well but even through apps on your telephone, you can get into My Chart. I use that all the time again as I’ve had lab work, all those test results get put back into My Chart and right from my telephone, I can go out and take a look and make sure everything looks good. I can schedule appointments with my physician, just endless uses for it. I can even do a video visit with a nurse practitioner if I need to.

Host:  Yeah, so just a world of technology involved and a variety of things that at the end of the day help make healthcare more accessible to patients.

Phil:  Yeah, absolutely.

Host:  What about cost? Does any of this technology or is there an application for it possibly to help drive down costs to the consumer of healthcare, which we know can be crazy sometimes.

Phil:  All of it, literally, it is just amazing to me. We’re looking at an application that will automatically take your voice and commit it to text so it can go in as discreet data elements into the electronic medical record. So, again, quicker, faster, better; that’s what this voice to text will do. Just through Epic and other resources we have, the whole concept of big data, right, of taking a look and downloading just enormous amounts of data and then analyzing that data to say how can we best take care of Carl, how can we best take care Phil, how can we best take care of Carl’s significant other, right? It’s those sorts of things with big data that really are going to help keep you healthy and keep you out of the hospital. You know that whole population health concept, that’s kind of our goal, right? How do we keep you healthy and keep you from coming into the hospital? The hospital is the most expensive setting you can be in. and if I can keep you healthy in the outpatient setting; it’s better for you, it’s better for the system, it’s better for everybody.

Host:  Yeah, most folks will find that interesting to hear a hospital CEO say the last thing we want you to do is come to the hospital and have a hospital stay. But that’s as you said, that’s really where the cost is.

Phil:  Absolutely and that’s where medicine is going in and again, that’s the new model of medicine. It’s really value based versus volume based.

Host:  Yeah, we’re going to come back to the future in a moment. I’m going to stop and ask a little bit about you know we’ve been talking about the Most Wired designation or award; but Riverside has won a number of other awards over the years as well. Watson Health 100 Top Hospital, Watson 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospital, a Magnet Hospital; plenty of awards from Health Grades including Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence. So, Riverside is an award winning organization. And now the third time for Most Wired. Is there a relation to all those? Winning those awards does –

Phil:  Absolutely. I think it’s really more a culture, right, a culture of excellence and I think if I’m going to go to a healthcare facility or I’m going to a doctor; that’s really what I’m looking for is a culture of excellence and it just permeates through our entire organization. So whether it’s plant operations and maintenance or whether it’s our cardiac cath lab or our IT department or our inpatient nursing units; everybody has that culture of excellence. That’s kind of an expectation of not just doing the bare minimum but going above and beyond and trying to achieve the best that we can for our patients, for our community, for everybody that uses Riverside services.

Host:  Now I know I happen – because I work in healthcare, I happen to know that every hospital CEO has a crystal ball in their office. So, when you look into that crystal ball that you have; what do you see for the future of healthcare and the future for Riverside?

Phil:  I see for the future of healthcare something very different than today. I touched on it, but we really – how do we help keep you healthy, so you don’t ever have to come to the hospital and use our services. That’s what we’re going to migrate into. And it is hard for I think the average consumer to understand but my goal is to keep you healthy and out of the hospital and out of our services. And quite frankly, that’s where the reimbursement models are going to change. And that’s okay. Again, I think Riverside is on the leading edge of that. I think Riverside is a very adaptable organization and that kind of goes with our whole culture of excellence. You have to be adaptable. And Riverside is going to adapt to meet the needs of the community and to continue to serve the community and our patients. That’s our mission and that’s really what we’re about.

Host:  We’re coming up to an election year. Is there anything you see looking in that crystal ball again, that will have a dramatic impact on healthcare one way or the other when it comes to election time?

Phil:  Yeah, you know no. Everybody talks a big game, and this might sound bad, but everybody talks oh we’re going to change everything. We have a big system in place that’s a big ship and turning that big ship is not going to happen overnight. And so, it’s going to be a progression. I think we’ll continue to get better and improve. We’ll continue to provide more access to more people. I think that’s a great thing. But again, any sudden dramatic change like Medicare For All, and I will just say if we ever get to Medicare For All; it’s going to be 8, 10, 12, 20 years out. It’s not going to happen overnight. Nothing happens that quick. And as we do that, we get better with each passing day. So, it’s a progression. It’s an evolution. It’s not a revolution when you’re talking about something that’s 20 to 22% of our GDP, it’s not going to happen overnight. And again, those adaptable excellent providers out there are going to be able to adapt and change and meet the needs of the new system.

Host:  Interesting. That’s a little political aside from the technology conversation. But back to technology and again, Riverside, third year in a row, has been named Most Wired hospital. Really again, maybe you touched on it some, but to repeat a bit, what does that really mean, that kind of advanced technology for the community and the folks that come to Riverside?

Phil:  I think what it means is that you’re going to get not only excellent technology at Riverside, you are going to get excellent care, you are going to get excellent service. It’s just a culture of excellence. And this is just another measure to say look, we’re trying to do our best for our community in everything that we do, not just one thing or two things or three things but in everything we do, we try to excel and do the best that we can for our patients and our community to keep you here, to keep you healthy, to keep you well and to keep you in the community.

Host:  Yeah, very good. Phil Kambic, President and CEO of Riverside Healthcare. I appreciate your time today and talking a little bit about how advanced technology is thriving at Riverside.

Phil:  Yeah, Carl, thank you very much. I appreciate it.