Nurse Led Technology

Better, smarter, faster. The future of connected health care relies on a powerful digital ecosystem and robust neural network to drive better diagnostics, intelligent operations, and seamless care anywhere. Join us as we talk to the experts about transformational road maps for this evolving landscape, what's working, what's needed, and how we get there together. Welcome to health care on air, presented by Verizon. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to health care on air by Verizon. I'm your host, Robin Goldsmith. And as you can see, we're here live at Vybe twenty twenty four in Los Angeles, California. And it is my pleasure to be with two of my friends, Karen Finger, my colleague at Verizon, and Romina Elias, chief nursing informatics officer at Dell. Karen, a little bit about you to kick us off. Yeah. Hey, Robin, Remina. Great to be here today. As Robin mentioned, I am, one of our global leads for our connected health care strategy innovation solutions. And what that means is we really we take all the, assets and capabilities and expertise that Verizon brings forward into the marketplace and cocreate solutions with our health care partners Yep. To improve health outcomes. Awesome. Romina, thank you again for being here. Thanks for having me. Thank you for having me. So love to hear about your current role and what you do at Dell, and then we can kick into your origin story and go from there. Sure. So, as you mentioned, I'm the chief nurse informatics officer at Dell. Joined Dell about two years ago. And really looking at how do we integrate, technology into clinical work well. Right? So I'm a nurse. I'm always been a nurse. So I'm always gonna be thinking about in that clinician's head, but also lived in informatics. So what does that mean for technology and in health care, and how do we make it real and easy, for our clinicians to be able to do what they do every day and provide the care for their patients, allowing technology to assist them in that. So so we were talking earlier. You were, you were you're a nurse by education, by trade for a long, long time in New York. Yeah. My own state. So let's maybe let's start with how you got into nursing. What was the catalyst? Because I know I I love talking to nurses because you guys are the the lifeblood of a hospital and all your clients. What what decided what was the decision to get you in a nurse? So, actually, funny story, I didn't initially want to become a nurse. Okay. I immigrated here, first generation Filipino immigrant. Uh-huh. My my, like, good mother Filipino mothers, my mom told me to become a nurse. And I said, just because you said that, I'm not gonna be a nurse. I went into computer science. Just like all of my And do my dad wanna be a be a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Like, just because they said that, I'm like, not gonna do that. So I bet I did about a year in that, and I realized I really wanted, something more, in the service industry, really touching people people's lives. And then I said, you know what, mom? I'll listen to you. Became a nurse and ended up loving it. Just completely loving it. Yes. Just thank you, mom. My Elias. Alright. Noah, thank you for that. And I think, you know, we're here at Vybe at innovation focused conference and you're, you know, now working for Dell Technologies. What what was the shift from, you know, being a a nurse and a nursing director to make that shift to a technology company like Dell. For sure. So, in in nursing, and working for a health care system for so long, you, as a nurse, you know you make, you have a big impact on the patient. Yeah. But what but at some point, you kinda think of how else can it make a bigger income as a whole. Right? So working for our health system is great and love touching patients and affecting people's lives. But with technology and having that informatics background, had for for, very fortunate to have gotten a call from a network, from your peers to say we're looking for somebody in, in in Dell, and I figured this is how you make a bigger impact with a bigger, population is by working for a big company with a big footprint to to be able to affect the technology that we're recommending for our hospital. So Yeah. Really fortunate to be working for for Dell and and the support that I've gotten to be able to, kinda makes make those changes and make those, really clinically focused outcome based, technology recommendations. I mean, Karen, you and I see more and more nurses now in in positions of leadership, chief nursing information chief nursing informatics officer at technology companies. I think that's critical for this, like, nurse led design. Clinical background. I mean, I grew up in a have a clinical background. I mean, I grew up in a clinical environment, but, with my family, but it it's really helpful to have people like you in leadership positions that really understand the clinical workflow, to collaborate with. And I always kind of say, you know, you bring the clinical, we'll bring the technical. And and, again, it's just really about that collaboration to to drive home those those use cases and solutions that also the nurses and clinicians other clinicians will buy into as well. Absolutely. And and if you think about it, nurses are the biggest workforce in health care. Right? Yeah. So they end up being the biggest users of technology. Yeah. So they when you when you and when you think about innovation, it's it kinda spurred from beneath. So nurses see what they need out there. Yeah. So I love being in a conference like Vyde, where they're really honing in on nursing innovation and where nurses are and the voices of nurses, in a technology conference like this. So there's a big focus now, for nurses and nursing representation and companies and technology companies as well. Now I love all that passion behind it. We need to make it easier for the nurses because they're such a person. So that, and it can't happen fast enough. No. But that so we can get more people going into nursing and staying there as well to see patients. Yeah. Absolutely. No. I think and there's a big, you know, I think there's a bigger focus on nursing. There's a whole pod section over there for nursing, which is amazing. And I think I I'm a huge fan of nurses having been in a hospital and seeing what they can do for you as a patient, and they're really the lifeblood of the hospital. So our kind of, you know, theme here as Verizon is connectivity matters, to deliver, you know, those connectivity that that that's needed in the home and the hospital environments. From a Dell perspective, what are some of the big use cases? I know that hospital at home I'm gonna throw some out. So pick pick the one you wanna talk about. You know, Verizon is is this, you know, enablement layer that enables Dell technology comes in with the devices and a lot of the the strategy behind that. What are what are some of the big trends you're seeing from, let's let's start within the hospital environment. Sure. And and you mentioned this, right, the smart hospital or the smart boom, with, of the future in phytic or the now. Rhythm. But it's the now. Yeah. It's the now. Yep. And how do we enable those devices? And think if you think of a a patient room, how many devices in that patient room does the patient touch, does the nurse touch? Right? And everything has to be connected for that for that patient to be able to receive the care that they need. And and, Karen, you talked about the power of partnerships. In each of those devices, in the patient rooms that the patients and the nurses and other clinicians touch, You can't do that with just Dell powering the infrastructure or the devices. Right? Or, EMR systems and and that patient where you need that whole partner ecosystem. You need a connector. And I believe that that's where Verizon's tower is, is connecting all of those devices, connecting, all of the endpoints that the clinicians and the patients touch to be able to be, effective in how they provide the care and how really technology is enabling that. Right. And, I mean, within that patient room, and you probably can speak to this as well, That patient room is really becoming like another member of the care team room. Where it's through artificial intelligence Absolutely. Is, you know, an assistant to the clinicians in the hospital and relieving, you know, the nurses from having to go in as many times into the room, all those touch points or just, you know, fall detection and Right. Education and infotainment. Patient engagement. Remote patient monitoring. Right? All that automation is really, you know and even environmental controls for the patient experience. I mean, it just solves so many problems both on the provider side and the patient experience side. And for those the patients that are getting sicker and sicker, they need a lot more of those devices. And the a lot of those automation, like AI, like you had mentioned, computer vision, all of the IoT devices within that patient room has to be connected Right. Because we're we're putting a lot of the the burden on providing care for these sicker and sicker patients on the clinicians, and how can we leverage technology to be able to help them automate their documentation with ambient voice. Right? Right. Or, detect falls even before they happen with computer vision. So a lot of that, like you said, that patient room is now part of the care team as well, assisting the clinicians to be able to provide that delivering care more and more in the home. What's what's kind of your view on that and, holistically? And and where do you think we're kind of evolving to in those home environments? Sure. So, really, the prosecus of all of that was COVID. Right? Yeah. And the need to provide care outside of the hospital has only grown. And that's where I believe, like, hospital at home programs kinda started, gaining more traction, being able to be seen by your providers, not in their offices or, but at their homes. I think care and health care, it has truly evolved and will continue to evolve to not only be, chaired to be delivered at the bedside in the hospitals, but on but where the patients are. Yeah. And that could be at their homes, could be in their offices, that could be where they, you know and and the park where they're watching their tours. Yeah. On the go. Yeah. That counts. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's where and and and I also think there's a move towards preventative care rather than, you know, acute care. So, being able to get that prevention, that that care outside of the hospital, or even before they get to the hospital, with perhaps EMS services delivering that that care, on the field versus having to, wait until they get to the hospital. I think that's where the, our care or our health care I think we have to because we're at an unsustainable level and value based care, you know, another name for it. All right. So you brought up AI. So what are you excited about with AI? I know it's gonna be the a huge subject here this week at Vybe. What what's what's making you excited about it? I know the implications for health care are pretty profound, but from an informatics perspective, what do you see? Exactly. So I'm I'm I'm looking at it from a nursing perspective and also an informatics perspective. Right? So from a nursing perspective, the capabilities is in having all of that automation, all of the manual tasks that nurses are doing, documenting. Right? Clicking a button to to say that the patient arrived in the room or arrived in the OR. All of that can be can be, outsourced to AI. Right? And, b, document having that be documented more, real time. From an informatics side, it's the ability to garner all of that data that we're collecting for the patients and drive insights from that. So imagine, all of the documentation that we're putting in, in in the EMRs and outs, even outside of that and being able to really get a a full picture of your patient, of all of the patient data. And even collecting the data from outside of the hospital too and then saying, what does this patient kinda look like, and be able to predict perhaps, an untoward outcome like sepsis Yeah. Like your, all of the like, CHI. We've got a ways to go to connect those those connect a patient room, the hospital, and then the home. That kind of through line needs to be better thinking architects in. Well, I mean Trust. Do you think the clinicians are trusting with the information? Yeah. They are? Or do you think Yes. Ways to go? That's a very big factor. I think, and and I think we talked about this at a previous Oh, yeah. Kind of conversation. Clinicians have a harder time trusting technology. Right? And I think it's mainly because, for some aspects, it's been unreliable. My my work my workstation on wheels kept on, losing connection. Right? My bedside medication scanner is not working. So they're seeing if we can fix that if we can fix that underlying infrastructure, we can make it more reliable and consistent. They're gonna clinicians, nurses are gonna start trusting the technology that's out there. I think there's a lot of push towards AI because the tremendous capabilities that it can bring into health care. But I think we also need to not forget that there are certain health systems that need to get on board with what's today's technology. Right? Fix those, some unreliable networking issues, update or modernize their data centers so that there's no latency and downtime for the clinicians. And then I think they're gonna see the real value of what AI and technology now brings. I think it's a balance. Right? Because there is this huge staffing shortage, and then you've got technologies that can maybe, you know, fill in some of the gaps. But I think it makes people nervous, and it's it's kind of a Pandora's box. So I think yeah. So I think the one of the things that I'm looking at, and, Karen, I guess, moving to a couple final questions. I'm looking forward to seeing people's perspective on Aon in health care here, and we've heard it for a while now. Like, the next, you know, the the next evolution of that conversation and talk track around AI and what people are seeing. What are you hoping to see this week at Vibe as we're early in the week? Yeah. The same and and kind of, you know, we've been coming to these for a couple of years now, I think. So looking forward to kind of seeing the what progress has been made and what's really being it's, like, executed now, especially around AI. You know, you get a sense from just your day to day job and talking to different health systems and payers and med tech companies, but, you know, it is it are we really at that perfect storm now or things that really I I kinda feel like we are and just I think we've talked about this, you know, that so it'll be interesting to, yeah, see. Let's take I another thing that I'm actually also looking forward to and seeing how this evolves in in health care, the concept of digital humans. Yeah. And and how can they be assistive to clinicians? There's there's a lot there's A digital twin? Or The The one Digital avatars. Digital yeah. Yeah. Digital avatars and what their role is and perhaps. To join us. Gonna come to join us. I don't know. Oh, god. I love that. Yeah. You have an avatar. Right? Yeah. For for sure. For sure. And, you know, what they're both in in patient care, companionship. Right? Or perhaps in a digital assistant for clinicians. Yeah. It makes Providing education. Yeah. It makes total sense. I mean, you think about all the information that we have in our phone, just making that into something that can talk to us and and provide valuable like a chatbot that we we see now, but just evolve. Just be that companion to help, to assist. I mean, tons of use cases. Yeah. There's a lot of use. There's some, like, content patch. For sure. I mean come back. Well Or We're kinda seeing it in retail health a little bit with Yeah. You know, you walk in, you need to be directed, or even at the hospital around away from things. Like, wayfinding. But also, like, with, virtual nursing and discharging patients. So it just it takes the virtual care encounter to, like, a whole another level if you actually have the app. Absolutely. I think it'll be a cost balance, you know, and it'll be interesting to see the Or we see how Yeah. Yeah. And see how organizations roll that out. And think about so hospital, organizations are very, sensitive to patient engagement scores. Right? Experience. And social experience. Make it easier to access everything, for share list experiences. Absolutely. The response times for their call bell for the big factor. What if the digital assistant can be that first line of Yeah. You know, response? It's an instant response from, from somebody in their care team. So lots of use cases for sure. Love it. Digital human. Yeah. Well, I think Romina, thank you so much for joining us today. I think that's a good good good way to end it. Karen, my friend, thank you for thank you for being here. Let me participate. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Soon. And thanks to everyone here for joining us. Again, if you wanna access any of our content, please go to to Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and you can find us online at health care on air by Verizon. Until next time.