Mar 1, 2024
Healthcare is ever evolving and new trends and tech capabilities are on the horizon for 2024 and beyond. What should healthcare organizations, clinicians, and patients be prepared for? How might healthcare delivery and operations be impacted? Listen in as two leaders from Oracle and Deloitte Consulting LLP dive in and share their perspectives from industry clouds and AI adoption to burnout, workforce shortages, rising costs, consumerism, and more.
Featuring:
Hashim Simjee, Principal, Global Oracle Healthcare Leader, Deloitte Consulting
LLP
Sarah Matt, M.D., MBA, Vice
President of Oracle Health Product
Strategy
Hear them talk about:
Healthcare organizations adopting industry clouds (1:30)
Utilizing AI to improve operations, support caregivers, and make diagnoses (4:32)
How AI adoption can help free clinicians’ time, improve clinician workflows, and decrease burnout (6:49)
A recent JAMA study comparing empathetic responses of physicians and chatbots and how AI, augmentation, and telemedicine could help offload clinician workload and address workforce shortages (9:02)
Consumerization of patient care and how tech can help (11:23)
Interoperability, and accurate and accessible patient data’s potential to influence health outcomes for populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of health (14:15)
How to make use of IoT with data from wearables and hospital at home (16:54)
How tech innovation can make a difference in healthcare’s biggest challenges this year (18:05)
Notable quotes:
“You can’t replace the bedside manner, you can’t replace the empathy for a clinician, but you can replace the components around pulling together information and coming back with a reasonable diagnostic that can be done and that has to be reasonable and validated.” – Hashim Simjee
“So what we're really looking at is, as we think about AI and access—we really want to start to think about equitable access and using technology to drive easier access for consumers.” - Hashim Simjee
Learn more about how Oracle is connecting healthcare with cloud capabilities through products and solutions.
Watch on-demand and live webcasts by registering for Oracle Health Inside Access.
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Episode Transcript:
00;00;00;11 - 00;00;23;18
Sarah Matt
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. We're at the start
of another new year, and I can't help but be curious about what's
coming in the health care industry in 2024 and beyond. More
specifically, the tech capabilities and trends that are ramping up
to support health care delivery and operations.
00;00;23;29 - 00;00;42;20
Sarah
Now, Deloitte published a 2020 for Global Health Care Sector
Outlook report that shared several key trends that are anticipated
to make quite a splash in the future of health care delivery. And
I'm excited to dive in and hear more. So with that, I'll introduce
our guest speaker with us today, Hashim Simjee. Hashim, introduce
yourself a little bit.
00;00;43;26 - 00;01;04;19
Hashim
Thanks, Dr. Matt. Great to be here with you. The way to help your
practice, primarily focusing on technology and health in the
intersection of health care. And I'm responsible for our global
Oracle health care practice, including clinical plan analytics,
HRA, HCM, ERP. So happy to be here with you today.
00;01;05;03 - 00;01;23;05
Sarah
Nice. We're happy to have you. You know, in our last podcast, we
discussed cloud tech for health care. And looking at this year's
health care predictions, I was really excited to see that in a
recent report published by the International Data Corp.. So I see
that 70% of health care organizations are going to adopt industry
clouds by 2025.
Can you share with us a little bit about the emerging technology prediction and how it aligns with the Deloitte's 2024 outlook?
00;01;29;18 - 00;01;58;08
Hashim
Yeah, it aligns very nicely with that. We expect to see AI cloud
interoperability as kind of huge, huge upturns in the market with
air driving potential savings of $300 billion through 2026 relative
to the broader market and think that cloud is going to continue to
drive adoption and continue to drive efficiency in the market as
well as help to improve access and equity as well.
00;01;59;16 - 00;02;21;06
Sarah
So you know, when I think about AI, just in the last year, we've
had such a huge exponential increase in visibility use cases, you
name it. You know, it was maybe last spring when chatbots really
just kind of blew it out of the water. We think about AI to improve
operations or support caregivers or do diagnostics, you know, Hash,
where do you think it's really going to touch us the
most?
00;02;24;25 - 00;03;15;29
Hashim
So we see it in a few major areas right in. But think about it.
It's really streamlining of administrative tasks, improving overall
quality of care. Again, you mentioned access to expanding access to
care and really around helping clinicians spend more time with
patients. So looking at next-best outcomes, suggesting outcomes,
looking at case histories and really being able to consolidate test
results and whatnot and allow the physician to spend less time
inputing all that information together where the clinician can pull
all that information together, allowing for admin tasks such as
clinical inventory, or to be able to say, you know what the stock
levels are and using algorithmic components to really be able to
drive that improving quality of care, really looking at time cost
to outcomes, to being able to say, you know what the optimal
procedure or so on and what location, as an example, to say, how do
we pull some of that together and using all of that information
that reside in the facilities today and being able to do that much
more automated fashion in in a predictive fashion. And so we think
those are probably going to be some of the biggest or option these
out there that are going to help.
00;03;48;03 - 00;04;20;09
Sarah
That's very interesting. Let's dig in a little bit. You know, IDC
also shared some interesting stats around AI and Jenny AI and they
estimated that 60% of health care organizations will see a 60%
increase in AI solution adoption by 2025. And by that time, just
like you mentioned, clinicians, time will free up 15% due to Gen
AI. So these are pretty incredible stats considering health care
organizations have realized the difficulties of rising costs and
they're really trying to improve care, quality and clinician
satisfaction. So when we think about improving clinician workflows,
quality of life for providers, decreasing burnout. What are your
thoughts on how we can really make an impact There.
0;04;33;28 - 00;05;05;26
Hashim
Prior in the conversation, Sara, you're going to kill me for this
is, you know, one of the one of the thoughts that I've had over the
years and I've had this discussion with physician friends is
physicians are really an amalgamation of a lot of data. So they
are, you know, one of your quintessential as you can't replace the
bedside manner, you can't replace the empathy for a clinician that
you can replace the components around pulling together information
and coming up with a reasonable diagnostic that can be done and
that has to be verified and validated.
00;05;06;08 - 00;05;26;08
Hashim
And so as I think about it, how do you free up the time for them to
be able to pull that information together, being able to utilize
that time to spend time with the patient and then being able to be
much more in the moment with the patient and not have to do all of
the routine things that they historically had to do around filling
out notes, filling out paperwork.
00;05;26;20 - 00;05;42;17
Hashim
How do you use ambient listening to be able to support that and do
some of the other tools that are already in the market or coming to
market to better describe the position on the clinician experience
and then improve the overall patient experience.
00;05;43;21 - 00;06;09;21
Sarah
So when it comes to decreasing paperwork as a provider, I am all
for that. No problem. When it comes to helping you with diagnosis.
Again, I'm not that concerned about that because we've been using
clinical decision support tools for 100 years, whether it's a
rules-based engine, whether it's a third party bringing in crisp
data. I mean, just prescribing medications, especially in
pediatrics, can be really difficult if you're just trying to do it
off the top of your head.
00;06;10;04 - 00;06;39;16
Sarah
I think where I'm the most concerned is really about the bedside
care and the empathy piece. There was a recent JAMA article that
was from last year that compared ChatGPT both on its ability to
make diagnostic kind of inquiries and answer medical questions. It
did great on that. Okay, no problem. Not surprised. But then it
also showed that the answers it was giving were more empathetic
than providers. Now that makes me a little anxious. What do you
think about the empathy gap and how AI could cross that chasm at
some point, and perhaps I'm going to be replaced?
00;06;51;22 - 00;07;14;08
Hashim
I think, you know, I think the diagnostic element, you're spot on,
right? I mean, we to your point, we have been using WebMD or
whatnot for well over a decade in your self-diagnosing and now
actually putting it into a clinical setting is interesting and
important where I think the empathy gap is big cross.
00;07;14;13 - 00;07;53;08
Hashim
I think the models are we're training the models to be empathetic
and to actually listen. And I think part of it is the clinicians
are so overwhelmed with so much when you look at what we had to do
with COVID, where the decrease in the number of clinicians who are
actually available to support the run through the need for more
primary care physicians and whatnot, I think is as a interim step
in that is going to be important because then you can start having
the clinicians be in the spots we need done and then use at the
more general questions and care and still have patients feel like
they're being closed and then having that information recorded in
in the notes and then using those notes to then further inform the
clinician, you know, becomes that virtual loop that you
want.
00;08;02;16 - 00;08;27;06
Sarah
So I'm wondering if there might be additional ways to help with
burnout, because when we think about this empathetic response from
AI, now Dr. Matt, the surgeon, when I was working hundreds of hours
a week, I admit I was a little cranky. I admit maybe I was living
on Rock Star Energy drink and in a dream. But he doesn't get tired
and doesn't get hangry.
00;08;27;10 - 00;09;01;15
Sarah
Dr. Matt absolutely does. So I'm wondering if I can offer
clinicians, perhaps the rest that they need or the time for
clinicians to offload some of those smaller tasks, again, that are
patient centric, but perhaps the doctors need to do themselves. So
I'm interested to see how we start utilizing either a AI-augmented
telemed or other ways of doing it, not just for doctors, but for
nurses, for other health care workers, or any of the workers, for
that matter, within a health care system. How do you think this
might address workforce shortages?
00;09;05;00 - 00;09;35;03
Hashim
100%, last year at CVS one of the companies introduced a sensor for
the toilet where you can actually pee and it would measure 300
metabolites. This year. There was another century introduced that
was looking at breathing and kind of being able to look at what was
coming from an oxygen intake standpoint. We look at being able to
look at what's on your wrist from a whether it's a Garmin or an
Apple or whatnot.
00;09;35;03 - 00;09;56;26
Hashim
I mean those are those are devices that are starting to bring
together information like nothing else. And all of a sudden you
don't need to go to a lab, you don't need to go do different
things. You can start pulling all that information together into
clinical records and being able to then start offering diagnoses
that presentation time, but also present clinician time and frees
up lab time.
00;09;56;26 - 00;10;22;08
Hashim
It frees up lots of other things when we're actually starting to
have these devices embedded within the home in the air, I can start
our models can start looking at consuming that data, especially in
our models and coming up with a health record that you will never
have access to and a much more complete health record. So from that
standpoint, I think getting noticed in patient history and all of
that becomes a background task which then allows for the commission
to have significantly more time.
00;10;23;26 - 00;10;51;14
Sarah
So when we think about the patient, we're truly consumers now. And
I think that COVID-19, you know, it was a mass trauma for all of
us, but it made patients really think about what they want for
health care, whether that's comparing prices, self-selecting where
they want to go, go get care, especially in the United States. But
we think about the patient as a true consumer and we think about
some of these nontraditional care models and the importance of
patient convenience.
00;10;51;25 - 00;11;24;13
Sarah
You know, I'm seeing a lot of focus really on how can we move
things to different venues, whether that's my favorite truck that
comes to my house every day with my packages not to be named, or if
it's getting my care within a retail organization like a Costco or
CVS or whatnot. You know, when we think about how this
consumerization of patient care is really not just at the
forefront, but it's now, what are your thoughts on how either I can
help their patients and tech can help their what is Deloitte
think.
00;11;25;07 - 00;11;57;00
Hashim
So that aligns with our future of healthcare already. So we've seen
a shift. And to your point, we don't we don't see them as patients
anymore. We see them as consumers in healthcare. And much like
anything else, they're looking at the lowest price for the best
quality, just like you would with your favorite retailer online.
What do you have the ability to start comparing now with price
transparency in the US, you're starting to see the ability for a
patient to go across multiple hospitals for elective procedures and
say, Where am I going to get the best price?
00;11;57;10 - 00;12;23;03
Hashim
Understanding the quality of care now that that needs a little bit
more elucidation or elimination relative to quality of care versus
price. But beyond that, you know, we're starting to see even states
with Medicare being able to go out and start doing competitive
bids. Now for the first time, Florida recently, as of I think two
weeks ago, said they were going to start looking at importing drugs
from Canada.
00;12;23;14 - 00;12;50;25
Hashim
It was an article out today, I think, in the Journal or New York
Times that said Ozempic is about 75% cheaper in Mexico and it is in
the States. And so we continue to see kind of this massive
proliferation of information and data that's coming out for
services that are extremely useful for people. And from a retail
perspective, you know, whether you Google or whatever other search
engine we're using to go start shopping, we're going to see that
significant through July here.
00;12;51;08 - 00;13;21;14
Hashim
And it's going to be incumbent on providers to be able to say what
differentiates me in the market as a quality of care, as a service,
and what is it not offering multiple versions of service. The other
thing that we're we've seen significant rise in is medical tourism
for elective procedures. That there's a funny name that I recently
saw around the backside of a of plane and there's a bunch of guys
coming back from Turkey who are being managed up in the Carolinas,
essentially said that they were all returning from heart
transplants.
00;13;22;05 - 00;13;39;01
Hashim
Right. And we're starting to see a lot more of them across the
globe going for dental work in India or going to Southeast Asia for
some of the medical care. It's a lot cheaper and doing a four-star
resort than actually having a full service down here in the
States.
00;13;40;10 - 00;13;59;22
Sarah
When we think about getting care, whether it's in another country
or even just in a different town or just down the street. You know,
we're really speaking about the necessity of accurate and
accessible patient data and interoperability is really another hot
topic in which we've made great strides as an industry, but we
still have a really long way to go.
00;14;00;02 - 00;14;14;08
Sarah
So I know Deloitte highlights that committing to information
sharing has the potential to influence health outcomes for
populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of
health in particular. Can you kind of expand on this and what you
folks have mentioned in the outlook.
00;14;16;01 - 00;14;45;08
Hashim
What we’re really looking at is, you know, as we think about A.I.
and access and just more generally where we see it as, you know, we
really want to really start to think about equitable access and
using technology to drive easier access for folks, for consumers.
And as costs are continuing to drive higher, how do you continue to
manage the access point on that?
00;14;45;28 - 00;15;16;29
Hashim
Everybody's got a phone, right? Being able to automate a lot of the
tasks that are on that are on a common device that everybody has is
really helping. So access is really linked back to or portability
is really going back to access. So how do you continue to drive
access to information? Use your access to your point around
telemedicine and the ability to get care in than during COVID, a
lot of rules were suspended specifically around licensing across
state.
00;15;17;13 - 00;15;43;07
Hashim
We've seen a lot of mobility for workforce that people don't want
to go back, people don't want to move back to where they were and
their physicians didn't move in. They were still getting the same
level of care, if not improved care, because it was easier to get
telemedicine from that standpoint. So we continue to see we
continue to see access to being able to afford being able to drive
that, especially as the costs continue to drive up.
00;15;43;07 - 00;15;47
Hashim
And then we're expecting to see the costs in inequality rise to
well over $1 trillion.
00;15;48
Sarah
That's a ton of money. I don't even know how to fathom that much,
to be honest. You know, it's interesting when I think about some of
the ways folks have been trying to take care of themselves with or
without their doctor. And a lot of the new modern wearables are a
very interesting example of that. I remember just a few years ago,
having been in this industry for a long time, doctors were very
hesitant to bring all that data into the electronic medical record
because it was overwhelming at the time and there weren't really
great ways to show it was, you know, out of normal to make sure
that the right people were notified.
00;16;28
Sarah
But I'm really thinking that with more advances in the AI,
disability for wearables, which before were okay, now, even with
the same data, I feel like we can do a lot more. What are your
thoughts on wearables and more of the hospital at home and other
ways of bringing patients, not to a doctor's office, but keeping
them in their homes and utilizing more IoT?
00;16;54
Hashim
So to me, it's where it's where the industry is headed, especially
with labor shortages. And I mentioned this earlier with regards to
whether it's Garmin or an Apple named in favor of product, that the
amount of data that those devices are capturing is incredible and
the ability to actually get a full view of the patient is much
easier now for a position than before.
00;17;19
Hashim
When you took patient history, natural poor technician often
admitted they were eating all these sweets or they didn't do their
work out or whatnot. But you can't hide from the Apple Watch that's
counting your steps or the glucometer that's automatically
measuring your blood glucose level every 30 seconds or so, and that
you can scan at any time and get that from your
Bluetooth.
00;17;44
Hashim
And from that standpoint, it's I think it's a much better position
because now you can actually make informed decisions, versus in the
past where it was you were getting 50% of the information from the
patient. And these devices have come down in cost and significantly
cheaper to obtain an available library everywhere,
frankly.
00;18;05
Sarah
Well, I know we're almost out of time, Hash. So fast and furious.
Let's think to what your predictions are for the next year. What do
you think are healthcare's biggest challenges and how is tech
innovation really moving the meter? Give me two examples.
00;18;20
Hashim
I think Staffing and the ability to support staffing is going to be
huge. We've seen inflation coming down and cost of care is
continuing to still hold steady. If not, why so? And staffing is
going to play a huge part in that. And then the other big challenge
is continuing to access and how do you make the information more
accessible to consumers to improve the overall patient
experience.
00;18;45
Sarah
All right, I'll take it. Well, Hash, thank you so much for joining
us today from Deloitte. It has been an absolutely wonderful
discussion.
00;18;55
Hashim
Thank you. This is great. Really appreciate the time talking you as
well.
00;18;58
Sarah
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