Improved care through technology and scale

Braden Lang, Managing Director, Strategic Portfolio Services, Optum

- I know that part of what drives your strategy is that JMH has some really ambitious goals around expanding access to care for underserved communities. Can you tell me a little bit about what your digital transformation strategy will do to allow you to reach those goals?

Bill Hudson, Former Chief Information Officer at John Muir Health

- This was really exemplified in how we made sure that when we rolled out the vaccinations for COVID that we used data and technology combined with our clinical staff to make sure that the entire community was being served. And what we saw was when we started our initial efforts utilizing digital and analog technologies, to reach out to our patients and community, we saw that those communities specifically were not getting vaccinated at the same rate, whether minorities are prevalent in those communities. But when we took a proactive step of using data analytics to target, to make sure that we were getting the message out to them about the vaccination, about the vaccination that was available to them, the vaccination was safe for them, and making sure they understood that, we saw those numbers increase dramatically.

Braden

- Can you tell us a little bit about how you see your digital transformation strategy involving virtual first care delivery models, when you'll get there, how you think they'll work?

Bill Hudson

- At John Muir, we want to make sure that our patients don't just have access to that digital care for that one digital care type of event, they have care for the entire continuum. I'm not going to start all over again with somebody new explaining everything new. I'm going to continue my same visit with a physician that I have a relationship with, that understands me, that has listened to me, that hears me, understands me. And I think that is a very powerful differentiator that I don't think any of these organizations that are focusing on digital only or digital first can match. And I think that's one of the powers of being a digitally integrated organization that is focusing on consumer experience and, you know, not forgetting the physical component of that. And I think that is a big differentiator for John Muir.

Braden

- You are a big believer in a sprint-based approach, having been a sort of key to John Muir Health's success. Can you tell us a little bit about why this approach through sprints, and what that means to you?

Bill Hudson

- You know, you break off things into these bite-size elements, work with cohorts of physicians that are tightly aligned, making sure you're solving for a very specific problem, don't get it overly complicated and move that forward in a good and safe way, and make sure that you communicate, educate along on the way. And so, one of the things that we've done just recently, which I think is pretty cool, we've implemented translator services for our digital visits. And so, if you don't speak English, and you speak one of 200 languages, we can bring an interpreter in to that call within 30 seconds.

Braden

- What recommendations would you have for other health systems, as they're thinking about engaging external partners for supporting their digital transformations?

Bill Hudson

- You know, when I talked to Cal Knight, and Cal talked about his vision about how we're going to leverage partnerships, it was really a partnership vision. It wasn't like, we're going to do these things, and the things we don't want to do, we're going to give it to somebody else. We're gonna focus on the things that we're really good at. And we're going to bring partners in for the things they're really good at. And those two organizations being really good at their own individual things, is gonna create some synergies where, you know, it's not one plus one is two, it's one plus one is something really interesting, which is we're providing care in a different way.