Ep 181 – Finding Humility in Change: A New Era of Innovation for Clinical Informatics, AI, and Virtual Care, with Brittany Partridge, MBA, FAMIA

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare technology, humility is the compass that guides successful change management. It reminds us that the journey towards seamless adoption of health information technology is a collaborative one, where the wisdom of many outweighs the knowledge of one.  The humility to acknowledge one’s limitations fosters an environment where collaboration and learning thrive. In the context of clinical informatics, allyship and teamwork are indispensable. Effective clinical informatics demands a diverse skill set, often spanning healthcare providers, IT specialists, and administrative personnel. Allyship within this multidisciplinary team is essential, and applied clinical informatics can be the linchpin in the transition to value-based care.  Through successful HIT implementation, leaders can illuminate the path to better outcomes, reduced costs, and patient-centered excellence. A new era for Clinical Informatics is upon us and will empower healthcare with data-driven insights, AI capabilities, virtual care at scale, and precision medicine to ensure that quality triumphs over quantity in our pursuit of healthier communities.

On the Race to Value this week, we are joined by Brittany Partridge, a national thought leader on health data management and informatics.  Brittany is passionate about implementing technology that impacts clinical workflow in a positive way and increases patients’ access to care. Join us for an informative discussion on Clinical Informatics, the importance of allyship to mitigate medical technology risk, the impact of Generative AI and virtual care on health system transformation, and change management best practices to lead your organization to successful healthcare innovation.

Episode Bookmarks:

01:30 Introduction to Brittany Partridge, an industry leader in Virtual Care Technical Architecture and Informatics Implementations.

03:00 Recent book collaboration with Ed Marx – “Voices of Innovation:  Fulfilling the Promise of Information Technology in Healthcare”

04:30 The sub-disciplines of Health Informatics (e.g. Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Biomedical, Medical, and Clinical Informatics).

06:00 AMIA: Why Informatics? –  “Informatics is the overarching field of study that pulls all these subdomains into one discipline focused on improving health and healthcare.”

06:30 Applied Clinical Informatics – the frontline of healthcare innovation with direct clinician interaction.

07:00 Early experiences in e-prescribing implementations that led to other care delivery innovations such as virtual care and remote patient monitoring.

08:00 The intersection of Clinical Informatics and VBC (ensuring tech usability to optimize care workflows for clinical quality improvement).

09:00 Best Practice Advisories (BPAs) – pop-up alerts to empower clinicians to make the best informed decisions at the point-of-care.

09:45 Leveraging technology innovations to improve patient access and affordability.

11:30 The importance of shadowing and workflow analysis as a catalyst for innovation.

13:00 How shadowing is incorporated into user validation, user design, and Lean (“Go to the Gemba”)

14:00 Simply asking clinicians to describe a workflow is insufficient in understanding the entire process.

15:00 “Get a robust current state workflow before you implement any innovation project because you need to know what you’re going to be replacing.”

15:45 How virtual interactions with providers can complement provider shadowing in an embedded CI model.

16:30 Non-judgement in applied clinical informatics is required to build trust.

17:30 “The most important part of rolling out any technology project is clinician trust. They need to know that you have their best interests at heart.”

19:45 Allyship is key to reducing medical technology risk because the inclusion of diverse perspectives yields the greatest rewards.

21:30 “Fail fast and iterate” and “Perfect being the enemy of good” philosophies don’t work in healthcare technology adoption because human lives are impacted.

22:30 Leaders should not surround themselves with “Yes People” – you need allies with a different focus or strength to help you fully understand the risks.

23:30 Finding allies with certain traits and behaviors such as listening, empathy, communication and transparency.

24:30 Medical technology risk increases when trust is lacking and people try to hide things.

25:30 The future impact of Generative AI in the field of clinical informatics. (With the explosion of ChatGPT, how can Generative AI provide transformative opportunities in healthcare?)

27:45 The difference between Generative and Predictive AI.

28:30 The need for clinician trust with Generative AI models in healthcare.

29:00 How Clinical Informaticists can create transparency with Generative AI models to support adoption at the point-of-care.

30:00 “The biggest opportunity for Generative AI in medicine is the reduction of physician administrative burden so they have more time to meaningfully interact with their patients.”

31:00 How UC San Diego Health is piloting Generative AI to support more efficient Provider Inbox messaging to patients.

32:00 The application of Generative AI in ambient listening during the provider-patient encounter and how that will improve information capture and care experience.

33:00 Additional uses of AI in the clinical setting (e.g. medical imaging analysis, diagnostic decision support, diagnostic accuracy).

34:00 The development of a framework and standards to enable trust with AI models.

35:00 The success story of how UC San Diego Health rapidly scaled their telehealth program during the height of the pandemic (i.e. 1,200 visits a day — a 1000% increase).

37:00 Teamwork during a time of crisis.

39:00 Agile governance to ensure rapid decision-making.

40:00 Training and tip sheets to enhance communication during technology adoption.

41:30 Current telehealth utilization at UC San Diego Health post-pandemic.

44:00 Humility as a foundation for communication and collaboration in medicine.

45:00 Why the foundational premise of humility is antithetical to how medicine has been structured in our country (e.g. Flexner Report).

47:30 The challenges of ego in attaching self-worth to what you produce, what you know, and how you earn.

48:45 “Humility and vulnerability in health tech requires you to look at what you’re creating to see if it this making a positive impact in the lives of an end user.”

49:30 “Radical curiosity” as a key to humility in healthcare innovation.

51:00 Knowing what you don’t know.  Seeking first to understand prior to being understood. (how this drive success health tech adoption)

52:45 “Having an open mind and getting radically curious will make health technology have a better impact.”

53:30 Lessons learned from the “Meaningful Use” adoption of Electronic Health Records.

55:30 Using The Kotter 8-Step Process for Leading Change to guide effective Change Management.

57:45 Generating short-term wins with the use of AI.

60:00 Follow Brittany on Twitter and LinkedIn for more thought leadership on clinical informatics, AI, and virtual care!