Perspectives on Health and Tech – Details, episodes & analysis

Generative AI is a known disruptor in healthcare today. Will this transformational technology be embraced by clinicians, patients, and healthcare organizations? Listen in as two experts from Accenture Healthcare and Oracle discuss the difference between traditional AI and GenAI, the opportunities that GenAI is presenting to the industry, and the need to lean in to utilize technology as an enabler and a change agent. Hear how care delivery can be reimagined with GenAI and how this technology has the potential to be applied to help reduce clinician burnout, augment the clinician-patient relationship, bridge workforce shortage gaps, reduce margin pressure, and more.

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Episode Transcript

00:00:00:17 - 00:00:22:10
Michelle
You're listening to Perspectives on Health and Tech, a podcast by Oracle with conversations about connecting people, data and technology to improve health for everyone. Hi, I'm Michelle Flemings. I'm the industry executive director for Health Care for North America Cloud Infrastructure at Oracle. Glad that you're here. We're in the age of artificial intelligence.

00:00:22:12 - 00:00:41:29
Michelle
The opportunities that we're presented with using A.I. as an industry are truly groundbreaking. And to be honest, I think we're just getting started. I want to focus today on a subset of traditional AI and want to talk a little bit about generative AI, some of the ramifications, some of the risks, benefits and what does it mean to health care.

00:00:42:01 - 00:00:47:29
Michelle
I am delighted to sit across today from Tej Shah and I'll have him introduce himself.

00:00:48:01 - 00:01:08:00
Tej
Thanks, Michelle Tej Shah I'm an emergency medicine doctor, a managing director, and Accenture's global health care practice. I've got a ton of experience working across different parts of health care as a consultant, obviously, but also as a venture capitalist, investing in companies and most recently starting a company in the health tech space.

00:01:08:00 - 00:01:16:07
Michelle
We're talking about AI and we always have to start with what is the comparison between traditional versus generative AI?

00:01:16:09 - 00:01:17:21
Michelle
How would you put that?

00:01:17:23 - 00:01:41:11
Tej
We've been talking about AI for 50 plus years. This is not a new thing. We've been talking about how we can leverage data to get insights going from analytics to AI to  GenAI. Really the difference is, you know, before with AI we were able to extract data and insights from data so we could figure out what the next obvious data point was going to be.

00:01:41:13 - 00:02:19:03
Tej
And in 2017 there was an article that was published by Googlers around attention is all that matters, right? And what happened with that papers is we came up with a completely new framework where we're now able through  GenAI to not just predict what's the next data point, but understand what's the next word that we can generate. And it's taking into consideration the context of the sentence to be able to make that prediction so that it's actually appropriate and it's opened up a whole bunch of opportunities that we're going to talk about today that is really transformative.

00:02:19:05 - 00:02:30:03
Michelle
Let's get into some of those opportunities. I think it's fascinating that it's been as  long ago that A.I. came about and the general public really doesn't know.

00:02:30:03 - 00:02:35:14
Michelle
let's talk about some of the opportunities in patient care that exists because of where we are now.

00:02:35:14 - 00:02:40:28
Michelle
With A.I.. We do a lot around documentation. Where else should we be going?

00:02:41:00 - 00:03:08:03
Tej
Back in 1996, you know, we started using search engines and it wasn't really until early 2000 when Google came around and the search bot search box became our librarian and around that time there was an article that was published by Will Carr in The Atlantic called Is Google Making Us Stupid and what he really meant.

00:03:08:03 - 00:03:33:29
Tej
when you read the article was, are we thinking differently? Are we using our brains in the same way or reading as deeply as we did before? And obviously the answer is no. I think we continued to use our brains and we continue to, but we were using this tool as a librarian. We were using it to identify information quickly and be able to access it, you know, more readily.

00:03:34:01 - 00:04:04:19
Tej
And what GenAI has done for us is start to be an advisor. It's enabling this transformation from technology, being a librarian to an advisor and that's what we're using AI for now. And GenAI today, right? So this idea of documentation and this is all relevant because the next sort of wave of what we're going to do with GenAI is it's going to start to act as an agent.

00:04:04:21 - 00:04:30:28
Tej
It's going to start to enable us to take these tasks away from the from our day-to-day workflows and enable us to operate more efficiently. There is no reason, for instance, that a doctor like you or I should have to, you know, once we've submitted that a patient needs to do a specialist appointment, continue to follow up, make sure that that appointment was scheduled and have a bunch of people that are in that workflow follow up on it.

00:04:31:01 - 00:04:49:27
Tej
It should just happen. And I think that generative AI is going to create these agents and these agents are going to be linked to one another. We're going to chain them together and it's going to do that follow up. It's going to make that experience more seamless, really enabling clinicians to do the work that gives us joy.

00:04:49:29 - 00:05:07:07
Michelle
Let's drill down on that now, because you said something fascinating there being an agent. How I see it as being is now, I don't have that extra chaos and clutter to remember. As an ER doc, we're in the midst of the chaos we are in and we're trying our best to multitask. And there are fewer of us now.

00:05:07:10 - 00:05:25:16
Michelle
There are others that are doing an exit now and then. We also don't have as much of a pipeline because, as you know, some of our residency programs didn't fill out. So three years from now, we're talking a massive deficit. And across the board in health care, there has been an exodus and a shift out of health care to other careers.

00:05:25:19 - 00:05:45:23
Michelle
How do you see then us utilizing Gen AI to augment and maybe bridge some of those gaps with our shortages? The agent is great, but can we maybe think about a couple of other things that maybe might be even more magnificent? Like it's maybe front office, back office? Is there opportunity there, you think? Because we don't think about them a lot.

00:05:45:23 - 00:05:47:04
Michelle
I do believe, absolutely.

00:05:47:04 - 00:06:10:27
Tej
So let me just start. The clinician shortage is durable and it's secular. This is something that I say over and over again. You know, we have projected forward what we anticipate the workforce in health care is going to look like. We know there's going to be a shortage. But if you look at some of the research that's being published now, just at the end of last year, there was a study that published that looked at nurses and doctors that are in school today.

00:06:10:27 - 00:06:43:15
Tej
And, you know, you might know that of those surveyed students, between 20 and 30% of them said they're going to drop out. They don't see the future of health care as a promising career that they want to pursue. That's going to be fulfilling in the way that maybe when we were going to school, we saw. And I think that's really disheartening because truly I think that, you know, when the way I thought about health care and the way the reason I pursued a degree is because I wanted to take care of people.

00:06:43:18 - 00:07:05:18
Tej
And what's happened along the way is so many things get in the way of that, Right. That joy that we were talking about that I mentioned, that's gone because we've got so much administrative burden, so many distractions that sort of pull us away from that day to day care. It's actually started to deteriorate or continue to deteriorate.

00:07:05:18 - 00:07:28:18
Tej
That relationship between the doctor and the patient that I think is so sacrosanct. It's so important. And I think patients want it. Physicians want it that nurses want it back. And so when I think of front office and back office, it's not just agents that are going to be doing this work. What it's going to do is it's going to take those tasks away, but it's also going to start to transform.

00:07:28:25 - 00:07:55:11
Tej
What role, as a clinician, I play in the delivery of care, right, where maybe 30, 40% of my time I was it was taken up by doing that administrative work. Now I'm going to have it back to refocus on the patient. And it doesn't just drive productivity improvement, it drives greater engagement, it drives better experience for us as clinicians and for patients.

00:07:55:13 - 00:08:19:10
Michelle
So back on Joy, I would love to be back there as well, cause I remember that feeling my first, but the patients and I could do anything and everything and this was going to be magnificent. And then you're right. Little by little, the administrative stuff started to become a burden. With GenAI,, how do you see us being able then, in this world of technology, having unfortunately had that adverse effect?

00:08:19:10 - 00:08:45:15
Michelle
And I think it was an unexpected consequence of all of the information coming into the EHR and all of the information coming at us, period, whether it's on our phones, on our on our laptops and still faxes and message centers and inboxes. How do you see Gen AI as being able to be the thing that we can get providers to say, I trust this, I'm going to buy in, I will do this.

00:08:45:17 - 00:08:51:16
Michelle
Because the last time we petted the dog, that was technology, it bit us and we have a long memory.

00:08:51:19 - 00:09:23:16
Tej
Yeah, you know, the EMR is a beautiful thing, right? It actually transformed and improved the quality of care. It helped us, you know, document how we were taking care of our patients and enabled us to move patients seamlessly from one provider to another. But you're absolutely right. When you look at the data around the impact to productivity of the EMR, there's a 13% reduction in clinician productivity because of it.

00:09:23:18 - 00:09:51:05
Tej
And I think, as you said, clinicians have been burned by it. I think we feel as though we were betrayed. We feel as though, you know, it didn't help us do our jobs better. It didn't help us improve the relationships that we have with our patients. And I think as we think about deploying new technology into care delivery, we're going to have to do a much better job of articulating the value proposition of what the technology is.

00:09:51:07 - 00:10:07:24
Tej
And we're going to need to pull in clinicians to think about where it gets deployed, what part of the workflow should be addressed by technology and what should it take over. I think there's a lot of work for the industry to do. We're not good at it. We haven't been.

00:10:07:27 - 00:10:11:29
Michelle
So how does Accenture then take away that hesitation?

00:10:12:02 - 00:10:35:28
Tej
You know, so we're in the early innings of what GenAI is going to be able to do of where technology is going to be deployed. Truly, I think the organizations that are taking the leap forward and adopting and figuring out, you know, how technology is going to be integrated into care delivery, are taking some really basic steps. They need to have a policy on generative AI.

00:10:36:01 - 00:10:59:06
Tej
They need to have governance, they need to figure out what is their data architecture and what's that foundation going to look like so that they can access that data to enable their clinicians to deliver care. They're going to need to think about on the back end how they train their clinicians and, you know, when they actually eventually do deploy technology, what is it going to look like?

00:10:59:07 - 00:11:03:26
Tej
How is it going to transform the way that they work, the way that they deliver care.

00:11:03:29 - 00:11:25:28
Michelle
Wow, transforming the way that we do work? When you say that, I think to myself, gee whiz, it would be marvelous. And in my mind, I would love to be able to be the ER doc seeing the cardiac chest pain patient and the intuitiveness of the system being that it understands who I am, what I do, what's going on with my patient.

00:11:26:00 - 00:11:42:25
Michelle
It then brings in from the EHR what I need to know then, but then also helps me to go along with the best practice guidelines and recommendations while not forgetting that other stuff that you were speaking about before. With regard to referrals. Do you think that that's possible?

00:11:42:27 - 00:12:14:07
Tej
So when I built my company, the fundamental premise that I was going for is technology should always be in the background. It should not be the reason that we get up in the morning and do anything right. It should be the enabler, it should be the assistant, it should be that third year medical student or third year resident that just enables you to do your job and perform at your peak all the time and think somewhere along the way, you know, we didn't sort of catch on to that.

00:12:14:09 - 00:12:29:12
Tej
And I do think that with generative AI that we have the potential to drive that type of experience for clinicians who really are customers and clients of health systems. And we need to start thinking about them that way.

00:12:29:15 - 00:12:52:13
Michelle
So I have two questions on that. We also spoke about the P word productivity. And as physicians, especially ER, we know that that can be something of a double-edged sword. So a lot of us want to frame it, couch it, present it more so as efficiency and effectiveness. How do we bring that message across with trust?

00:12:52:13 - 00:12:54:22
Michelle
Because there is trust to be rebuilt.

00:12:54:24 - 00:13:20:08
Tej
Yeah, you know, it's a great question. I agree that it's a double-edged sword. I think, you know, we productivity is what the organization cares about, but it's not necessarily what a clinician cares about. You know, their schedules are full, they're overloaded already. They're seeing more patients than they want to, and they're stretched way beyond, you know, the schedules that they're supposed to be working.

00:13:20:10 - 00:13:40:09
Tej
And it's a lot a large part of why we're seeing the burnout that we're seeing amongst clinicians today. And so I think as we again, as part of how we think about technology and where it gets deployed and how it gets deployed, we have to bring the clinician along. And I think we have to think about what are the messages that are going to resonate.

00:13:40:09 - 00:14:04:12
Tej
Just like when you do any sort of change program at any organization, they care about taking care of that patient and how do we articulate it to them that this technology is going to enable that, that this technology is going to power the experience that they want? Again, going back to this idea of the clinician as a customer or a client of a hospital system.

00:14:04:19 - 00:14:27:22
Tej
Right. Because 75% of clinicians are employed now. Right. And if we think about them as customers that are, you know, they're producing the outputs that we want, which is units of care, we've got to figure out what resonates with them, what makes them tick, what's going to get them up in the morning and help them use the technologies that we're going to make available.

00:14:27:24 - 00:14:33:28
Michelle
What's going to get them back at the table to actually have that conversation right, Because they need to be there. We need to be there.

00:14:33:28 - 00:14:36:07
Michelle
So going back to burnout, burnout is not new.

00:14:36:07 - 00:14:52:20
Michelle
And the question I have for you there is with regard to burnout and AI, do you think that there is meaningful use in there that we can honestly really tackle that meaningfully and impactfully?

00:14:52:23 - 00:15:00:25
Michelle
Or do you believe it's going to take a long time, like decades worth of time to get there? Big questions.

00:15:00:25 - 00:15:24:22
Tej
Yeah. And you know what, Michel? I'm not sure I have the perfect answer to it. I think what I'd say is we have to try. I think this technology has the promise to change how we practice, to create the space for us to do the thing that we had intended to do and take away all of that distraction.

00:15:24:25 - 00:15:58:27
Tej
But I think we also need to think about ways that the technology can change the roles that we play as clinicians right. And you know, how it can augment us in different ways or automate some of the work that we're doing. And that's going to require real analysis of workflows. It's going to require real, you know, work and effort to rethink and rejigger the jobs for clinicians as a whole.

00:15:59:00 - 00:16:05:22
Michelle
So there's a receptiveness there to an acceptance there that we are going to have to change. And we're not known for being change agents now,

00:16:05:22 - 00:16:31:23
Tej
There's a lot of fear. I think there's,I want to keep doing things the way that I've done them, but I know that what I've been doing is not working and I think it's  going to be a very tricky sort of journey for health systems and for us as we work with them to help them navigate it, because every system is going to be different and you know, it's going to depend on the culture.

00:16:31:23 - 00:16:53:09
Tej
But I think we need to get to and this will take a little bit of time is for clinicians to start having the culture of being accepting of change because you know it, I know it. I think everyone that's going to be listening to this knows that this is not the end. This is really the beginning of real transformation.

00:16:53:11 - 00:17:10:01
Tej
And the change is going to come fast and furious. And what we need to do is prepare our clinicians and organizations to know and expect that and help them understand how to navigate that. And I think that's going to be a long and durable journey.

00:17:10:04 - 00:17:12:10
Michelle
It will be. And you say fear.

00:17:12:10 - 00:17:30:08
Michelle
how do we start working to allay some of those fears and trying to get to the point of balancing out even just being straight up facing Gen AI as a functionality that has so much opportunity and then proceeding to that lean in, how do we help people to do that?

00:17:30:10 - 00:17:34:02
Tej
I think we're never going to take humanity out of health care.

00:17:34:02 - 00:17:43:12
Tej
Health care is about, you know, the clinician and the patient in that relationship and navigating the health and staying and remaining healthy.

00:17:43:12 - 00:17:52:10
Te
In the short term and in the medium term, we're in this transition phase from technology being librarian to an advisor.

00:17:52:14 - 00:18:20:17
Tej
And it's going to be an advisor for a very long time. That transition to agent is going to happen, you know, very quickly on administrative work, but it won't become an agent on the clinical side because I think we still need to use our judgment. That's what we were trained for. We know what's right for that patient and getting that advice, getting that support being augmented by technology is not outside the realm of what should be possible today.

00:18:20:22 - 00:18:30:02
Tej
It's available right now, but that role is going to need to change. Right. What we do every day will change and will shift.

00:18:30:04 - 00:18:55:15
Michelle
I love, though, the vision of returning to being that empathetic partner who helps to guide the patient through this journey back to health or to maintaining wellness, that would be phenomenal as opposed to always having people fall into gaps and into holes. And with that, let's talk a little bit about what GenAI may or may not be able to do with regard to access and health equity.

00:18:55:17 - 00:18:57:07
Michelle
Let's  talk a little bit about that.

00:18:57:07 - 00:19:25:08
Tej
Yeah, You know, the shortage of clinicians that we're seeing around the world, it's not just the U.S., right. The projection is 10 million shortage over the next decade. And that disproportionately affects patients who don't have the means to access care. As an emergency medicine doctor, you appreciate the number of patients that come in as a site of last resort because they have no place else to go.

00:19:25:11 - 00:19:52:20
Tej
It actually is not very convenient because the wait times are just getting longer and longer. And so what we're seeing is the disproportionate impact of the clinician shortage on populations that, you know, have not historically had. The means to access care. And so what I think and what I believe is with technology, as we scale capacity and we retrain clinicians on what their role is going to be, we're going to create access.

00:19:52:20 - 00:20:03:28
Tej
We're going to start to address the health equity challenges and barriers and inequities, really that that we see as a society, not just in the U.S., but everywhere.

00:20:04:00 - 00:20:06:05
Michelle
Beautiful, beautiful.

00:20:06:05 - 00:20:25:16
Michelle
How do we introduce GenAI to patients and have them accept that sometimes they're not going to be able to talk to the nurse and ask the nurse when the pharmacy is open and understand why that's important and how this technology is also intended to serve them and to help them to do better.

00:20:25:16 - 00:20:43:19
Tej
there's really two things that are really important related to AI and how we make it available to patients. One is around having, you know, a framework around responsible AI. And when we make the technology available to patients and for what use cases, because you're not going to it's not general availability for everyone.

00:20:43:21 - 00:21:01:28
Tej
And then the second thing is, you know, we have to understand how we segment the patients that we serve, because your 91-year-old aunt may never want to interact with technology in the way that I do or that a 25 year old does. And I think we have to respect that and we have to appreciate it.

00:21:02:00 - 00:21:32:17
Michelle
So we've hit now patient, we've hit provider, let's hit the hospital organization. They're the decision makers ultimately as to what comes in, what gets implemented, what gets discarded or what what's put on by the backlog or the back burner or how do you see the conversation going with hospital decision makers about going forward with a roadmap that includes AI?

00:21:32:17 - 00:21:49:03
Michelle
Because a lot of the discussions that I'm having are we want to see somebody else dip their toe in, we want to see somebody else dive in and survive. How do you see that conversation going or how would maybe you approach that conversation with someone who is a bit hesitant and wants to stand back a little bit longer?

00:21:49:03 - 00:22:09:01
Tej
the truth is there is not a choice that health systems are going to have to make the investment in AI and GenAI, because we're all facing, you know, really critical workforce shortages. And we need to create capacity right now and we're going to need to do it in a durable, you know, long term way.

00:22:09:04 - 00:22:29:19
Tej
The truth is there's a billion different applications of GenAI and, you know, we don't need to explore all of them all at once. Right now. What we need to do is very simple things around the investments in AI. You know, we have to have a responsible framework and governance and a policy for how we're going to deploy it.

00:22:29:21 - 00:22:57:07
Tej
What's the oversight going to look like? We need to have that technology foundation and the data foundation to make sure that we're really leveraging all the data that we have. And truly we have to think about how we train clinicians and the rest of our workforce to adopt the technology so that when we get to scale, it's going to be used, it's going to create and have the type of impact and the ROI that we want.

00:22:57:09 - 00:23:17:26
Tej
I guess the last thing that I would say is right now,  GenAI touches so many different parts of a health care organization. It's not just the chief medical officer, it's not the chief nursing officer, it's not the Chief  HR Officer It's not the Chief Operating Officer. It's not the CFO, it's not the CIO, it's not the CTO.

00:23:17:28 - 00:23:43:23
Tej
And really figuring out in the context of, you know, an industry wide sort of, you know, crisis around margins, right? Where margins are in the low single digits, you know, and negative for more than half of the health care systems in the U.S.. How do you make this investment in the context of where a lot of other things are burning?

00:23:43:26 - 00:23:59:11
Tej
How do you prioritize it and who do you go to and who makes the decision? Who who's going to be accountable? Who's going to drive the transformation? Who's going to drive the training? Who's going to drive the change? I think health systems are trying to figure all of that out and they need help.

00:23:59:14 - 00:24:28:23
Michelle
They do. They do. They're going to need a partner who's going to be able to sit with them and understand where they are. More so, though, a lot of other discussions I'm having are people want to just kind of throw air out there as the panacea and the magic wand to fix everything. And there's a real struggle to contain it and say, let's pick one goal, something that is small yet impactful, that doesn't derail the ability to do care, doesn't disrupt your whole organization.

00:24:28:25 - 00:25:00:21
Michelle
And those are some of the most impactful and beautiful conversations. And then when you get it right and they have a win under their belt, maybe tomorrow, I in the way of provider satisfaction, retention, patient engagement is better. Those sorts of discussions and those sorts of wins are huge. So I think that it is incumbent upon us and our positions and others out listening to this and similar positions to be that selfless advocate slash partner to your customer and help them along this path because it is complicated.

00:25:00:21 - 00:25:16:00
Michelle
Let's talk a little bit then about health care, utilizing technology to catch up with other industries, because other industries are fairly far ahead of us when it comes to tech and efficiency and productivity, using technology.

00:25:16:00 - 00:25:41:12
Tej
A lot of us like to say that if you want to know what's coming next in health care, look at what happened in other industries 20 years ago. What's incredible to me is that generative AI is being contemplated and probably more advanced in health care than it is in several other industries today. And it's almost moving at pace.

00:25:41:15 - 00:26:03:14
Tej
And I'm not really sure exactly why that's happening. I think that, you know, maybe it's the shortage, maybe it's the margin pressure, maybe it's the potential, maybe it's, you know, some of these thought leaders that are really expounding on its use and its application, its potential in health care. Maybe it's just the burnout that's happening amongst clinicians.

00:26:03:14 - 00:26:17:14
Tej
None of my clients on the provider side can afford to wait for the perfect sort of, you know, what are all the use cases and how do I sequence them and everything that I'm going to do for as you said, for the next five or ten years?

00:26:17:17 - 00:26:52:29
Tej
I think we have to start now and there's a place to start right now. There are things to do to prepare yourself for that future and I think we're going to be astounded by the creativity of the clinicians that that you and I work with and that work for these organizations on how the technology can be deployed. And I think we have to just be open to it because I think we're going to see the potential and, you know, sitting behind a desk or sitting in a lab, you know, looking at the technology and thinking of use cases, that's going to get us only so far. We have to put it in the hands of

00:26:52:29 - 00:27:04:27
Tej
clinicians having the appropriate sort of governance and guardrails. But that's how we're going to learn what it can do and how it can help and how it's going to impact, you know, how we deliver care.

00:27:04:29 - 00:27:09:21
Michelle
That sounds like a great call to action. 'Come to the table, your seats waiting'. Let's do this.

00:27:09:21 - 00:27:13:05
Tej
Yeah, let's do it. I mean, ER doc, right? Like, let's go.

00:27:13:12 - 00:27:30:15
Michelle
I love it. I love it. Well, thanks for your time today, Tej. Thanks to our listeners. Be sure to subscribe to the Perspectives on Health and Tech podcast for more insights from industry experts, visit Oracle Dotcom Slash Health or follow Oracle Health on social media.

As society's focus on mental health intensifies, technology stands at the forefront of this evolving narrative. Listen in as this group of experts examines technology's paradoxical role in mental wellbeing: constant connectivity that reveals insights yet also increases burnout due to poor design, and social media, where overuse is linked to decreased mental health but provides a beacon of hope through innovation. Hear about the challenges and opportunities of using technology to enhance mental health, exploring how digital advancements can be harnessed for a healthier, more balanced future.    Featuring the following panel at SXSW Conference: Moderator: David Feinberg, M.D., Chairman, Oracle Health Danny Gladden, MBA, MSW, LCSW, Director, Behavioral Health and Social Care, Oracle Health Tracy Neal-Walden, Ph.D., Chief Clinical Officer, Cohen Veteran Network Michelle Patriquin, Ph.D., Director of Research, Associate Professor, Menninger    Listen as they discuss:

• The moment realized, that access to care needs to be fixed (0:40
• What is happening from a technological standpoint that is helping individuals, patients, families, and communities (4:33)
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  • The collection of outcomes data
• An example of something done based on data to change the way that care is delivered (6:20)
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  • Q15 (15-minute patient safety) checks
• Example of the effectiveness of telehealth (9:15)
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• Using technology to tell a fuller story (12:45)
  • Wearable devices
  • Digital therapeutics and inputs
  • Research to practice gap and the potential of technology (15:38)
• Concerns with technology not helping or distracting from human connection (17:05)
  • Social media and the link to depression (17:50)
  • People who are left behind; technology access and literacy (19:00)
  • Psychologic safety of technologies (20:00)
  • Concerns from the clinician perspective (20:45)
    • Helping clinicians with documentation and proper training of tools
    • leveraging AI (21:44)
    • Clinician burnout (22:34)

Notable quotes:  "This is why I love wearables, and I've always loved wearables, psychophysiology, because it fills a tremendous gap in our ability to measure the dynamic fluctuations and the way our emotions and behaviors change." Michelle Patriquin, Ph.D., Director of Research, Associate Professor, Menninger (15:10)   Learn more about how Oracle behavioral health solutions combine real-time clinical data from across each patient's unique healthcare journey.   Watch on-demand and live webcasts by registering for Oracle Health Inside Access.   --------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:

00:00:00

You're listening to Perspectives on Health and Tech, a podcast by Oracle with conversations about connecting people, data and technology to help improve health for everyone.

00:00:11

David
My name's David. I'm the chairman of Oracle Health. And before I introduce this esteemed panel, there's a few patients that I've cared for, and I'm a child psychiatrist that have just stuck with me. And for a lot of reasons. Well, I actually feel like for whatever long I've been in this 30 plus years, I'm just trying to make it better for these patients and their families.

00:00:34

David
So let me describe them. And I think it really sets the stage for the role of technology in mental health. Okay. This little girl in third grade at the local school where my kids actually went to school writes in her haiku poem that she wants to commit suicide. And this is pre cell phone guys pre technology. The teacher reads the haiku poem and tells the prince at home that night tells the principal.

00:01:01

David
The next morning, the principal then calls the mother at home. And then this is L.A. And because they knew people, they were able to get in to see me in three weeks. And I was like, my God, if my kid was suicidal, it doesn't matter who, you know, you got to be seen today, right? I didn't know this word, but I know.

00:01:22

David
And now I'm going to fix access. I mean, that's what we use is this term access to me is my kid is suicidal and I'm calling an 800 number and my insurance doesn't cover it or I got to pull strings and God forbid I'm from the other side of the tracks where I don't know anyone. I will never get it like.

00:01:40

David
So how can technology help there? Right now, I think what we're supposed to talk about, too, is the negative part of technology, right? I'm stuck on my phone. I'm not I'm not socializing. I'm, you know, we all go to dinner and we're like this instead of actually being together. So why don't we go down the line and introduce yourselves?

00:02:03

Michelle
Okay, everybody, I'm Michel Patrick Quinn, and I'm a psychologist and a child psychologist, and I'm director of research at the Menninger Clinic and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. I'm excited for this conversation. The Menninger Clinic is really known for humane treatment of mental illness. We are historic, known as an inpatient psychiatric hospital and really revolutionary and something called the therapeutic milieu.

00:02:30

Michelle
And so kind of actively intervene and doing psychotherapy while someone is inpatient. So it's not a passive intervention. And it's really just remarkable. We still hold on to that kind of psychotherapy within an inpatient context.

00:02:47

Tracy
I am Tracy Neal Walden. I'm a clinical health psychologist. I work for I'm the chief clinical officer for Coimbatore and Network. We're a network of mental health clinics across the US. We have clinics in 16 states covering, supporting 25 states. So and that's because of telehealth. So we utilize we don't do solely telehealth, but we've been able to utilize telehealth in order to expand our reach across the US.

00:03:18

Tracy
I'm also a veteran of the United States Air Force. I served for 24 years and served as a psychologist during that time in the Air Force as well. We serve not only the veteran but the veteran's family members. As a veteran, myself, my family doesn't have access to care in the VA, and that's no fault of the VA.

00:03:37

Tracy
It's the way the system is set up. And so we're able to reach and provide those resources to families and in a much shorter time period, especially due to the advances that we're going to be talking about now with technology,

00:03:53

Danny
Thank you and so I'm Danny Gladden. I'm the director of behavioral health and social care for Oracle.

00:03:59

Danny
Happy to be the social worker on the stage. And I really proud to work with just a whole group of social workers in the delivery of mental health services and all the great work social workers do.

00:04:11

David
Today, what in your organizations is happening from a technological standpoint that you think is improving access, improving quality, democratizing care, making care more affordable, more culturally sensitive, helping with, you know, inequities that we know that are in care? What are you doing to harness technology that's actually helping individuals, patients, families, communities? Sorry, go for it.

00:04:34

Michelle
Yeah. So it's not really revolutionary in any way, but we use iPads and research assistants and collect outcomes data across our whole hospital and with inpatients in outpatients, outpatients, it's pretty standard. People are able to complete, you know, outcomes, measure, self-report, inpatient. It gets more complicated. And we have to we have to guide people, help people. Some good times, people resist, don't want to do it, and that's fine.

00:05:00

Michelle
They don't do it. But that to me is the foundation, right? So if you collect outcomes data that gives people a voice in their treatment, particularly on inpatient. So our inpatient units are locked units, you have reduced someone's on autonomy when you measure how they're doing, from their perspective, it gives them some control back. And I think that is one of the most powerful things that we can do is give people control back through data and measuring these things and measuring the change over time.

00:05:32

Michelle
Whether it's positive or negative. And technology allows us to do that. So many of our patients want to use the iPad, and then we visualized the data in graphs that are provided to the treatment team through our electronic health record. And so that gives data driven feedback that the treatment teams can actually provide to the patients at the patient level.

00:05:50

Michelle
We also use it for research to understand like aggregate results, what's working for who and what's not. But I think, you know, I'm biased, I'm director of research, so I love data. I'm the PI over our outcomes. But I think that's tremendous. And we can advocate for better inpatient environments, better inpatient care, better inpatient outcome.

00:06:12

David
Can you? I think it's a great example. First of all, the simplicity of it is sometimes to make things simple. It's really hard and so this is great. Can you give an example of something you've done based on the data to change how care is delivered?

00:06:23

Michelle
Yes. So well, something we're working on right now, all of our results are lining up really around the role of sleep. One thing we are constantly thinking about is suicide risk with inpatient, and particularly suicide risk post-discharge for those of you who may not know post-discharge from inpatient is the highest risk period for suicide. Over and above any other time in someone's life and also relapse.

00:06:52

Michelle
So post in our highest level of care. And to us that is incredibly concerning. So we have been really thinking about the role of sleep as well as other measures and look at longitudinally outcomes while someone's inpatient what is predicting suicide risk and we have a paper that we published, we showed it is sleep over and above everything else that you can put in the model.

00:07:16

David
And you measure using our rings and things like that or how are you.

00:07:18

Michelle
Not yet. We are now because it is so important and we've now designed our own like API and with wearables to replace things that we do in inpatient that actually disrupt sleep. So like you, 15 checks and these checks. So there's checks done on inpatient to ensure someone's safety and sound checks. And these are often pretty disruptive. We have data now from active Griffey that we've lined up with the checks in about 75% of those checks.

00:07:48

Michelle
So someone going in their room, usually a stranger that they do not know, opens the door, sometimes shines a flashlight in their face to make sure that they're breathing and that they're asleep. Or if they're not asleep, they'll ask them to raise their hand. And so and for us at our hospital, it's every 15 minutes that happens. That equals about 36 times a night.

00:08:06

Michelle
Someone comes in their room. So we've designed our own kind of in-house homegrown system to replace that. And that is one and it's just one thing that, like we always say, you know, when technology is, you know, going to take over and ruin people's privacy, things like that. But in that situation, it improves people's privacy. People can sleep and be and have intact sleep.

00:08:29

Michelle
Great. So it's that and that has just that's one of our favorite examples. Right. Just kind of generic outcomes data into a new intervention that leverages technology that improves some of these outcomes. Hopefully in the end we're still working on it, but so cool.

00:08:46

Tracy
Yeah. I think it's really interesting what Michelle just discussed in terms of outcomes because we do measurement based care for all of our clients. So we measure their, their symptoms at every session and we do that via iPad. If they come into the clinic or we push it out electronically for those who are being seen for via telehealth.

00:09:10

Tracy
And one thing that we found is that we actually we want to take a look at how effective is telehealth, because many people say it's not effective. You know, prior to the pandemic, people were very skeptical. And we actually use this data and we have a research institute that's part of our and veterans network. And within the institute, they reviewed the data recently and we found clinically significant change in Q nine scores is for depressed individuals and for those with PTSD, a clinically significant change in their PCL.

00:09:50

Tracy
So these are the measures that are the standard measures given for those populations. And not only did we find clinically significant change, but we also found that those individuals were in remission. That's one of the things that I love about technology. It allows us to get those additional data insights. We rolled out telehealth in 2018, so before the pandemic, and we did it to improve access and not just access due to long wait, but to decrease no shows in to improve that accessibility for clients who were already in care.

00:10:29

Tracy
I remember a few years ago I had a client and we would advertise in our clinic. We had rolling slides that would tell about the different things that we offered, and we had a slide that talked about telehealth and it said, Ask your clinician if you'd like to know more about it. And my client came in that day and said, Hey, would I be a candidate for telehealth because I fall asleep on the drive home from here and I was like, Yes, you being silly.

00:10:59

Tracy
And that's also the beauty of telehealth, because it also it allows you to oftentimes squeeze additional appointments in if someone knows shows and it helps to prevent no shows, too, because oftentimes some people like to come in, they will they like to come in and see their clinician face to face, which is great. But sometimes life gets in the way.

00:11:23

Tracy
And so if someone calls to say, hey, I'm going to be late, then we say, Would you like to convert that to a telehealth appointment so that they don't have to miss that appointment?

00:11:34

David
Okay, Danny, take us home on that wonders of technology. Yeah. Then we're going to flip it.

00:11:39

Danny
We're going to flip it. Okay, Well, so. So for Oracle, we build tools. We build tools to ensure that the work that providers are doing with consumers of care have what they need to sort of ensure that that, you know, the clinical experience checks the box so that, you know, the 15 minute check that Michelle was mentioning is something that happens in our tools and the screening and the screening that happens in our tools.

00:12:05

Danny
We've embedded in the workflow for nurses, for oncologists, for the ED attending. We've embedded in the workflow a suicide screening tools and, and then and then alerts so that if someone is at risk, it's not just one person who's aware, but the entire treatment team can have this ability face up to this type of information. And so we sort of want to help folks use digital tools to be able to track patient information, to be able to get folks get folks in quicker.

00:12:37

Danny
But I think beyond that, the beauty of technology in general is there's an opportunity to tell a fuller story, you know, through wearables, through some of the cognitive behavioral interventions, the digital therapeutics. It just really provides a variety of different types of modalities for consumers of care to be able to sort of deliver inputs about their experience.

00:13:02

Danny
You know, if I have to get in the car, drive to a clinic to see Michelle in person, I'm putting on a mask. And all you really know about this individual is probably what happened an hour or two before they got to you. Like it's the stress of the moment using wearables, using sort of digital inputs throughout the week in between sessions, I'm able to I'm able to sort of have a more holistic picture of what your week looked like.

00:13:31

Danny
And because you're doing the session in your own home, you don't have to put on a mask. It is more intimate. And I'm able to, as the provider, just have a more holistic picture of what I'm working with. Okay. 

00:13:45

Tracy
Can I add one more thing?

00:13:46

David
You could add ten more things.

00:13:47

Tracy
It gives you more accurate information. You know, as I was thinking about what you were saying, Danny, about the technology and you, Michelle, when you were talking about sleep, sleep is one of the number one concerns within mental health. People may come in with issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, but there's usually an underlying sleep problem. And as a health psychologist, I love to treat sleep, but clients history directly underrepresented the amount of sleep that they actually get.

00:14:19

Tracy
And by using something like a wearable, a watch or a ring, you get that accurate data that then you can immediately share with them or they can see it immediately themselves.

00:14:32

Michelle
I completely, completely agree with Tracy and Danny, and I think the beauty of the data when we talk about outcomes data, self-reported data, those data are collected, you know, every week. So you have huge gaps in the information that you are getting about somebody's experience. You know, our emotions can change within seconds. You know, there's a you know, can be a traumatic event happen or just a, you know, an argument with someone.

00:15:01

Michelle
So our lives and our emotions behaviors are very dynamic and our outcome measures and the data that we have now is why I love wearables. And I've always loved wearables, psycho physiology, because it fills a tremendous gap in our ability to measure the dynamic fluctuations and the way our emotions and behaviors change. That is so important, I think, for understanding the ultimate outcome and just that that the kind of higher temporal resolution of the data is something we don't have now in practice.

00:15:36

Michelle
There's such a research to practice gap there that I think technology will certainly fill in and also has the potential. And one reason I love the wearables, because it really demonstrates that it's not all in your head. Yes, too, when you do a self report, that is your perception, right, of how you feel in and with the wearables, too, it gives an objective marker for the first time in vivo in the situation to show, Hey, I'm really experiencing this, this is real, this is how I'm inside.

00:16:11

Danny
Yeah. And I think about this just real quick. Like in our.

00:16:14

David
Now we're cooking.

00:16:14

Danny
Yeah, I mean, well, in our discipline historically, you know, we don't we don't get access to labs, We don't get access to some, you know, some good radiology scan. We find out something about someone by asking a bunch of really nosy and intrusive questions by observation or someone has sort of engaged, you know, has had a crisis in their, you know, the courts or corrections or a probation and it is point in time, like, how many times do you start a session where, you know, how have you been since I saw you,fine, right.

00:16:49

Danny
I mean, and that's sort of the starting point. So the ability to have real time inputs, the seven or the 14 days in between the times of seeing each other it just enriches the clinical experience so much.

00:17:03

David
We're flipping gears. What are your concerns around tech not helping us, tech distracting us from human connection?

00:17:14

Danny
I'll start us here. And so, you know, I, I still see I still see a few clients from time to time. I particularly enjoy working with adolescents and sort of the narrative from adolescence in the stories they sort of come up with in their mind about the world around them is really quite distorted, you know, based on the stories they get from social media.

00:17:40

Danny
And I'm not talking about sort of what fake news, which is its own lane, but sort of the attitude that, you know, folks around me are just having a much better experience than I am. And what we all know is that there's likely all of it is inflated a little bit or a lot of it.

00:17:59

Danny
Right. And so we know this. We know that the data on sort of overuse of social media and the link to depression and anxiety in young people is real. What we are seeing, though, is that transition, you know, it's not. So if I'm down, I'm feeling bad about myself. I'm now starting to engage in, you know, in ways to numb that pain.

00:18:25

Danny
And that's, you know, through self-harm, through self-injury. It's, you know, through alcohol use or other substances or it's sort of engaging in relationships that are unhealthy. So I'm really I'm from the adolescents that I get to work with. I'm really concerned about that. On the other side, the part that concerns me about tech is, is I mean, we've just sat here and talked about all of the benefits that technology can bring, the access, the data, physio, bio physiology data.

00:18:55

Danny
But the problem is there are people left behind, there are people left behind in the in the most remote parts of Alaska. There are there are folks that are left behind within a, you know, a mile radius around here. And so, you know, we have to ensure that that the tools that are created impact and benefit all of the people.

00:19:19

Danny
And you know, so I think tech access, tech literacy, all are concerning to me as so much of our particular discipline moves into the tech space.

00:19:30

Michelle
I'll kind of jump off from there. You know, I think when, you know, I'm not in the tech space, but I love technology. But I think technology does such a good job with some of these data privacy issues, and they do a lot in terms of the technicalities of how things are going to work with the interface. Looks like is are there protections in place, right, that safety is built in?

00:19:54

Michelle
I think one thing that is forgotten, though, and, you know, I don't know if we even knew that was going to be a consequence is no one was testing the psychological safety of these technologies, especially when it comes to social media. Right. As we, you know, are kind of zooming forward with technology. There's all these, you know, kind of ethical safety guidelines, American Psychological Association.

00:20:18

Michelle
These are really good job at starting to think about the psychological safety. What are the psychological kind of safety parameters that we need to test as we develop new technologies? But also then how do we put the guardrails up on the things that are here now?

00:20:35

David
Tell me other things that concern you about technology and mental health.

00:20:39

Tracy
I actually have another thing, and I'm going to shift it a little bit. I get concerned from the clinician perspective because we've technology has really helped us. We instead of, you know, giving a and I remember when we gave out the paper and pencil measures to our clients when they came in to the door, you had to wait for them to finish it.

00:21:01

Tracy
But the good thing about that is when they did, then I immediately had it. I reviewed the scores. Now measures are sent to us, you know, automatically, and then they go into our system. And so you really have to train the clinicians to utilize that data and not just have the client submit their data without it being utilized.

00:21:29

Tracy
Someone could submit data that could indicate that their risk status has changed. And if it's not being looked at, that's a huge concern. We're also looking at ways to help clinicians with documentation. However, a concern that I have with that too, is that, you know, if you're using AI to do your documentation, there could potentially be errors. And so we have to train our clinicians to properly utilize these wonderful technologies so that they can use them effectively.

00:22:03

David
Yeah, we're working really hard on that. I think we've got good stuff coming out.

00:22:08

Danny
Well, yeah, and, and actually so big because we don't have labs and radiology scan to sort of show a paper. Here's the evidence for the diagnosis. Our word, our discipline is very narrative rich. And you know, just to be able to sort of either get a prior authorization for service or to be able to continue service. And so we have a clinician burnout issue because of the administrative burden, the documentation burden.

00:22:36

Danny
And, you know, so that's and the tech just facilitates that. But I do think is exciting, you know, ambient genitive AI and ambient for documentation. Our little our slice of the pie has been carved out and I'm so excited. And, you know, so Microsoft has gone there's some other startups out there that got Oracle's working on its tool that will really shift the burden away from documentation.

00:23:04

Danny
I think it's going to be a game changer.

00:23:06

David
Great gratitude to all of you folks, and thank you for participating. Thank you.

00:23:11

Be sure to subscribe to Perspectives on Health and Tech podcast for more insights from industry experts, visit Oracle dot com slash Health or follow Oracle Health on social media.

 

 

The very definition of healthcare communication has shifted over time. Today, fewer clinicians practicing at the bedside have highlighted the need for advanced communication tools and processes. 

Join Jason Schaffer, MD, vice president and chief medical information officer at Indiana University Health and Liz Harvey, MSN, chief nursing officer at Oracle Health, as they discuss the evolution of clinical care team communications and how increased demand for healthcare has made better collaboration tools both a necessity and an opportunity for innovation.

Hear them discuss:
• How have trends in healthcare communication changed? (1:20)
• What types of technology are now available for teams and what are the benefits for patients and caregivers? (3:21)
• Important points teammates should agree on regarding critical communications (8:04)
• Knowing your message responsibility and escalation paths in critical situations (12:35)
• How to create flexibility with communication when needed (15:20)
• How can a unified communication strategy help organizations proactively address system-wide challenges? (17:20)

Notable quotes:
"We should be separating technologies for the right speed and urgency of communication." – Jason Schaffer, MD

"We can't solely rely on technology. We have to engage our brains and use the years and years of school that we have all spent learning how to be clinicians as we start to look as some of these messages that we receive and talk about the criticality." – Liz Harvey, MSN

Learn more about Oracle clinical communication and collaboration tools.

The Federal Joint Health Information Exchange connects the health records of the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Coast Guard by helping provide continuity of care from the time Veterans enter the service, throughout active duty, and the rest of their life.

Now that the Joint HIE has been live for more than two years, what successes are we seeing? How has it impacted Veterans and improved the care they receive?

Listen as Amanda Cournoyer, Interoperability Director of the Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, talks about advocacy and interoperability at VA with Sam Lambson, Vice President of Interoperability at Oracle Health.

Hear them discuss:
• Amanda's personal journey from active military service to working in interoperability at VA (1:50)
• An overview of a few of the interoperability solutions VA is implementing to improve care for Veterans (7:53)
• Why interoperability is a big deal for Veterans' and active-duty service members' care (11:45)
• Why it's a benefit to VA providers and community care providers (14:10)
• What she is looking forward to improving in data exchange nationwide (15:11)

Notable quotes:
"One of the things I don't think people understand is that 60% of the health care DoD provides to their family members and active duty is actually provided outside in the community. And on the VA side, 30% of our care is [health care] purchased in the community." – Amanda Cournoyer

"It's not just about making sure our VA providers, our DoD providers or our patients have access to their data, we want to make sure the providers taking care of our patients have access agnostic to their location or their affiliation or their health IT platforms." – Amanda Cournoyer

"We're putting this data into the workflows for the first time. It's not just a view, review, maybe decide you want to copy and paste into your clinical notes and your encounters—we're using it for care coordination." – Amanda Cournoyer

"That's some exciting work that you've accomplished bringing so many points of a disparate network that was trying hard to get together for so many years finally integrated as one body to support Veterans and active [duty] service members. It's truly phenomenal." – Sam Lambson

With significant and ongoing changes in the health industry in recent years, healthcare leaders have had to rapidly adapt to new ways of thinking and doing in order to stay resilient in the face of change. Yet some leaders push past the status quo and view these opportunities as a chance to explore new avenues for patient care, new partnerships for growth, and new ways to ease provider burden and boost their workplace culture.

In this episode, Stephanie Trunzo, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Health, shares her experiences within change management and how to instill enterprise-level thinking within one's team.

She discusses:

• Bringing entrepreneurial experience into larger organizations to become an intrapreneur (0:55) • How you need to think about the people first in transformation process (1:45)

• How to embrace and mitigate risk and create a safe space for your team to create change alongside you (3:54)

• How to avoid becoming stale and losing clarity and instead surrounding yourself with fresh ideas and people to stay sharp (6:58)

• Getting an entrenched workforce onboard with change (11:09)

• What we should be thinking about when trying to instigate long-term change (14:10)

• What they're excited about in bringing Oracle and Cerner together (16:50)

• Pandemic introduced change, but how healthcare can now bring consumers along (18:38)

Notable quotes:

"We don't work for org charts. We work for people we believe in. We work for the purpose that makes us get up and be excited about the work that we're doing. It's not different for the workforce you're trying to move forward – how do you connect them back to that purpose in the first place?" – Stephanie Trunzo

"Do you want to be right, or do you want to get it right? If you're on the path of 'be right' you're going to be blind to the kinds of changes that need to happen." – Stephanie Trunzo

"People sometimes fall in love with complexity. The very things that they want to change is what they derive their own value from … you want to help them see that by making this thing simpler they actually can show value in a much more important and different way." – Stephanie Trunzo

During the pandemic and social and economic unrest of the last few years, there was a dramatic increase in demand for mental health services. Stigma had already been on the decline, and now, available mental health services are on the rise. Some patients are now seeking treatment for the first time, while others are continuing decades-long treatment with better coordinated services. Many don't travel this journey alone. The help their family, friends and caregivers provide is critical—for some, a caregiver's records have provided the only continuity of care.

Travis Dalton, general manager of Oracle Health, and Danny Gladden, director of behavioral health for Oracle Health, talk about their personal experiences in this area and how Oracle Cerner and Oracle Health can work together with health systems and clinics to alleviate the administrative burdens of caregivers to provide better care for behavioral health patients.

Hear them discuss: 

• How do you think the last few years have changed how the general public talks about mental health and wellness? (3:30)

• Why is mental health and well-being a personal driver for you? Can you share more about your experience being a caregiver? (7:11)

• Recently, it's been estimated that 70% of behavioral health records are still on paper. And many patients don't have a personal advocate to help them keep track of their records and treatment plans. What are some of the biggest challenges that are still being addressed in behavioral health? (12:55)

• What are some ways health care systems and providers can help alleviate the burden for mental health caregivers and patients? (17:45)

Learn more about Oracle Inpatient and Outpatient Behavioral Health Solutions

It's estimated that 80% of an individual's health is determined by nonclinical factors, such as socioeconomic, behavioral and physical environments. Today more than 38 million people in the United States are facing hunger, including one in six children. Those struggling with food insecurity are at increased risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Hunger impacts their stress levels and ability to care for themselves and others. Hunger also impacts their performance at work and school; it's even been linked to suicide risk.

Yet some of the most vulnerable communities don't know how to take advantage of 
free food resources. In this episode, members of University Health, a safety net hospital in Kansas City, share how they've been working to increase access to resources for one of their most food-insecure communities—immigrants and refugees.

Guests:
• Gloria Diamond, Director of Health Network Product Market Strategy, Oracle Health
• Susan Oweti, Supervisor of Cultural Health Navigation / Arabic Interpreter and Director of UH One World Food Pantry, University Health
• Deborah Sisco, Manager, Patient Advocacy and Engagement – Quality Resources, University Health
• Alison Troutwine, Project Manager, University Health

Hear them discuss:
• How does your cultural health navigator program help identify patients as food insecure? (1:30)
• What feedback have you heard? (7:12)
• How are social determinants of health being addressed at the community level? (10:54)
• Tell us about how University Health formed a partnership with a local food bank? Why did you pursue that route instead of only doing referrals? (13:09)
• Since many recipients of your pantry come from different cultures, how have you provided foods that are tailored to your community's needs? (15:00)
• How do you build a food program that makes an impact and is sustainable for the long term? (20:10)

Notable quotes:
"Research shows by the time someone has made their home in the United States for five years, a lot of them aren't food insecure anymore. So we're really talking about helping people when they need it the most—when they're first getting here." – Deb Sisco

"You can hear the community saying, 'Thank you, thank you for doing this. This is what we really needed,' you know? 'Thank you for thinking about this—this is really appreciated.'" – Susan Oweti

"It's so important to build a team of passionate people that can work together to address the needs of our community." – Alison Troutwine

"That's beautiful: respecting people's culture, providing dignity, all very important work that you're doing." – Gloria Diamond

In general, 45% of individuals who die by suicide will have seen their primary healthcare provider within one month of their death, but only 20% will have seen a mental health professional.

During the last few years, there has been an increased awareness and focus on mental health. Despite the increased availability of mental health apps and virtual connections to providers, the demand for services is still high. Recently, a national three-digit crisis number, 988, was rolled out in the US to help connect anyone in need with suicide prevention and crisis resources. What can health systems and providers do on a larger scale to help prevent suicide?

In this episode, Danny Gladden, Director of Behavioral Health at Oracle Cerner, talks with Dr. Caitlin Thompson, Clinical Psychologist and Chief Clinical Officer at Red Duke Strategies, who formerly served as the National Director of Suicide Prevention at Veterans Affairs.

Hear them discuss:
• Demystifying crisis lines—what happens on the call, how it's utilized by patients and providers (2:34)
• With the increase in mental health screenings at non-behavioral appointments, the importance of training, and how to help your nonbehavioral staff feel comfortable talking about mental health and suicide with patients (6:47)
• How asking if someone is suicidal opens doors to conversation (9:30)
• The availability of training and safety plans to help staff (12:10)
• Non-behavioral staff mental health check-ins during appointments (15:10)
• Safer Communities Act and risk mitigation that has helped (17:00)
• New areas of research, interventions (18:25)

Notable quotes:
"I think that part of what needs to happen in talking about suicide, both with clients but with each other, is to get us get more comfortable in talking about it." - Dr. Caitlin Thompson

"Suicidal thoughts are very normal and they're not bad or good. They are, from a medical model, a symptom by which we want to focus then on intervention." - Danny Gladden

Learn more about Oracle Inpatient and Outpatient Behavioral Health Solutions.

In this episode – recorded at Oracle Cerner Middle East and Africa Collaboration Forum in 2022 – an expert panel, hosted by Dr. Mohamed AlRayyes, Oracle Cerner, addresses how recent advancements in data and technology, from the clinical level to the system level, have enabled health care innovation across the Middle East.

In this episode—recorded at Oracle Cerner Middle East and Africa Collaboration Forum 2022—Dr. Bashar Balish, Senior Director and Client Site Leader at Oracle Cerner, speaks with keynote speaker Himanshu Puri, Head of Information Technology, King's College Hospital London, UAE, about how the pandemic opened new opportunities for patient engagement and which innovations healthcare systems are utilizing to deliver better care.