Becker's Hospital Review

169 169 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP EY: We have relied on core vendors and in many cases asked for support with things like video monitoring capabilities for inpatients, working with vendors to expedite the equipment acquisition or on COVID-19 response capabilities; Epic was an important resource in those efforts. Both at the University and within the School of Medicine, Stanford has longstanding relationships with technology companies, which helped paved the way during the pandemic for robust initiatives on testing and research. ere are also many investors who presented us with a multitude of op- portunities, many of which we couldn't respond to during the height of the pandemic and had to set aside. But we're always looking at opportunities to accelerate clinical transformation — everything from analytics to di- agnostics with major companies as well as entrepreneurial organizations. It seems like now everyone is selling COVID-19 solutions and we must judiciously prioritize what is truly required to meet the needs of the or- ganization and our community, instead of investing in technology for technology's sake. We were very fortunate that we had strong, existing capabilities in many areas, so our first 60 to 90 days in response to the pandemic involved utilizing and optimizing those strengths and then filling in a few gaps where we needed to. Q: Where do you anticipate focusing your efforts in the next 12 months or so? EY: It's hard to know what the landscape will be like in 12 months; I think we have the capabilities we need to respond to future COVID-19 surges, but that could change. Beyond that, there must be a sustained approach to virtual health. We have strong leadership with our CMIO and IT team, and we are maximizing our virtual health capability, en- hancing it and looking to new models around consults, referrals and second opinions. Across Stanford Medicine, we are also developing a digital first strategy. We continue to explore new virtual health models and collaborations with organizations that provide tertiary and specialty care consults to patients outside the local area. Our priorities will continue to be deploy- ment of safety capabilities, contactless check-in, and making sure it's safe and convenient for patients to return to the hospital or doctors' offices. Other things that will be important in managing our resources are con- tinued ERP investments. We are working on our data center strategy now and looking to deploy robotic process automation for things like eliminating non-value-added process steps so we can reduce costs. ere will be other kinds of use cases for automation support that will allow us to strip out work that doesn't provide value as well. at will be a big push in the next 12 to 18 months. Q: How are you thinking about innovation in the coming months? EY: From the IT perspective, we still plan to do enterprise architecture programs and enhance analytic capabilities and warehousing to continue to leverage technology with the School of Medicine. How can we enable innovation in research and education? As we look to fall, winter and spring semesters, we expect the medical school's teaching approach to continue to evolve. Our Education Technology team pivoted quickly to support remote classes and our research tech support geared up and provided extraordinary support to quickly emerging COVID-19 related research. Managing our response to both the pandemic and the coming flu season will ensure we have a lot on our plate for the next 12 months. By this time next year we hope that much of this is behind us and we can really focus on the continued growth and development of our capabilities in research and education. We also have a very robust physician network with a community hospital as well, and fantastic ambulatory clinics. We will continue to develop those as- pects of our system for care coordination and deliver great clinical outcomes. Q: What trends concern you about the future? EY: As the pandemic continues to stress our healthcare systems, this will be the most defining and troubling trend we are likely to face, possibly in our lifetimes. Extraordinary progress has been made in technology for healthcare, with the potential to make the system more efficient and more inclusive for many more individuals. Our goal is to continue to pursue progress despite the most challenging circumstances, as more people than ever now need us to support their care. n Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, President and CEO, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dean, School of Medicine Melinda S. Hancock, CPA, FHFMA, Chief Administrative and Financial Officer, VCU Health System Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Geisinger Ketul J. Patel MHA, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, CHI Franciscan; Senior Vice President, Operations, Pacific Northwest, CommonSpirit Health Dr. Roy Schoenberg, President & CEO, Amwell Eugene Woods, President and Chief Executive Officer, Atrium Health Johnese Spisso, MPA, President, UCLA Health; Chief Executive Officer, UCLA Hospital System, and Associate Vice Chancellor, UCLA Health Sciences Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cleveland Clinic Michael Ugwueke, President and Chief Executive Officer, Methodi st Le Bonheur Healthcare Paul A. King, President and Chief Executive Officer, Stanford Children's M o n d a y , N o v e m b e r 9 t h - T h u r s d a y , N o v e m b e r 1 2 t h , 2 0 2 0 | 1 0 : 0 0 A M - 1 2 : 0 0 P M C T CEO + CFO VIRTUAL EVENT Go to beckersvirtualevents.com to see the full agenda and RSVP.

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