Hospitals and Health System Executives Say Change Management is Essential for Innovation

The process in which hospitals and health systems identify technology with the potential to improve clinical decision support, the patient experience, and more, vary from one institution to the next. But a panel discussion of hospital executives at the ViVE event last month offered additional insight into the challenges of implementing innovation and what they have learned from the experience. Linda Finkel, AVIA CEO, moderated the panel discussion with the speakers including: Chris Waugh, chief design and innovation officer , Sutter Health Michelle Stansbury, vice president, innovation and IT applications, Houston Methodist Rebecca Kaul, chief of innovation and transformation, Northwell Health Sara Vaezy, chief strategy and digital officer, Providence Sutter Health announced plans to open a new innovation center this year last Fall. Waugh said its plans for the innovation center involve working side by side with companies. In contrast to many hospitals and health systems, Houston Methodist’s approach involves staff making innovation part of their “day job”. “It’s made up of individuals who are in operations. So it’s not our day job to do the center for innovation,” Stansbury said. “We collectively feel like we all own it. Innovation is everyone’s responsibility within Houston Methodist. We just collectively coordinate those efforts.” Stansbury explained that because it has the agility to pilot new technologies quickly to determine whether a solution will work, it can rapidly scale them across its organization because staff have dual roles. At Sutter Health, Waugh explained how it works closely with the people who will be using the new technology and offered an example. “Let’s say we’re bringing in a partner. Ferrum Health is a partner that we brought in using AI with our radiologists. We are catching cancers that we wouldn’t have caught before,” said Waugh. “But had we not done that in lockstep with our radiology department, it could have been a complete mess. Just working with them early in the process, understanding what we’re trying to do. We’re listening to them before we go on technology searches to understand what is their service line challenge, what are the biggest challenges that they face.” Waugh added that Sutter is centralizing some functions to ease the operational and physician burden, such as medication management and virtual care. All the panelists agreed that identifying and implementing technology in an effective way depends on involving the clinicians expected to use the technology early on. And yet, there are nuances to those interactions that are critical to get right. “There’s a difference between engaging clinicians and partnering with clinicians,” Vaezy mused. “I think we’ve historically made a deep error of engaging with them after the fact. It’s not about getting them on board. It’s about working with them to develop so that they have influence and provide direction earlier in the process.” Kaul with Northwell Health pointed out that the process begins with identifying the priority problems the institution needs to solve and the ownership of solving those problems. “We are a facilitator and enabler,” Kaul said. “You are helping them be accountable by offering up different ways to solve the problem and partnering with them to solve the problem. The operator has to sign up for the value proposition in their budget for you to be able to move it forward and scale,” said Kaul. “Articulating that value proposition and proving it is key because people are not going to sign up for it if they don’t own it, and then they’re not going to sign up for it if there isn’t evidence that it’s going to work.” Asked about some of the big bets they are making in innovation, ambient listening through AI/natural language processing was mentioned frequently as a way to help physicians be present with patients rather than focused on a computer screen. “Reducing the administrative burden, that is a very good place to start with these emerging technologies,” Kaul noted. Vaezy highlighted Providence’s work with chatbots by platforming chat capabilities. She also added that it’s making big bets with generative AI, tools for infrastructure and personalizing care. “We can now understand when someone comes to us with a text-based chatbot request. We used to not be able to parse out the intent whether they wanted to book or rebook an appointment or they wanted to pay a bill or refill a prescription. By parsing this information we’re able to do this with precision — navigation, ingrained with workflows, we’re bringing in context with the clinical record.” Stansbury noted that Houston Methodist is utilizing tech to improve services for patients and using tech for clinicians to improve communication with patients such as ambient listening. Although the Covid-19 pandemic forced hospitals to change how they delivered care, it has not changed the fundamental needs for successful implementation of innovative technologies — working with clinicians and other hospital staff as partners who can help identify challenges early. It’s essential for resolving inevitable problems that will arise and building on that innovation. Photo: HLTH Events