On Monday, we had a full day of education sessions, two evening keynotes and the opening of the 90,000-square-foot Solutions Gallery which features a closer look at Cerner solutions and services, as well as, innovations from more than 140 supplier organizations. Here are the highlights from the exciting start of CHC19:
Cerner Physician Community Forum explores health care disruption and innovation, honors Physician All-Stars.
Cerner Chairman and CEO Brent Shafer welcomed attendees to the Cerner Physician Community Forum with a nod to Cerner’s 40th anniversary celebration and a focus on the company’s commitment to simplifying the physician experience.
“The journey is far from over,” Brent said. “We have much more we can do, and we're committed to making the user experience better for you.”
Mike Neal, Cerner senior vice president of client relationships, provided an overview of the topics that will be top of mind throughout the conference, including physician burnout and satisfaction, interoperability, innovation, moving from episodic care to wellness and prevention, and building intelligent health solutions.
“Health care will never stay stagnant. It's progressing at a rate that is faster than we’ve ever seen before,” Mike said. “Our responsibility is to continue to make our solutions easier to use and to be ready for what’s coming next. Driving better health outcomes will always be our duty.”
Health care futurist and best-selling author Nicholas Webb, CEO of Leader Logic, delivered the keynote on the disruption of health care.
“In a time of disruption, you must understand innovation, and apply it in every area of the health care ecosystem,” Nicholas said. “Innovation is the creation of new value that serves your organization's mission and customer. If disruption is real, innovation is mandate.”
Nicholas listed hyper-consumerization, connection architecture and the impact of a new economic model as the top three disruptors in health care.
"This is good news,” Nicholas said. “It means we can do a far better job of caring for patients. We can apply new methodologies and practices and get excited again about the journey we are on to deliver care.”
After 2 awesome opening keynotes, we’re now having our Solutions Gallery reception. Never ceases to amaze me how incredible it is seeing @Cerner bring the convention center to life with the latest in HCIT innovation. Now time to connect with new and familiar faces! #CHC19
— Lu de Souza (@drludesouza) October 7, 2019
Nicholas pointed to companies outside of health care, such as Amazon, Netflix, Uber and Spotify, as examples of how to win through customer experience design. “These brands are doing a great job of understanding people at their core and delivering better moments. The health care industry has to understand what patients love and what they hate to deliver far better experiences and get better insights about the human beings that are trusting us to care for them.”
Before dismissing the crowd for their breakout sessions, Dr. Lu de Souza, Cerner senior director and CMO, presented the 2019 Physician All-Star Awards to Dr. Andy Horine of Carroll County Memorial Hospital, Dr. Michael Ross of Northern Light Health, Dr. Peter Basch of MedStar Health, Dr. Jeff Hackman of Truman Medical Centers, Dr. Sashi Kodali of Community Health Systems, Dr. Jeremy Leslie of CHI St. Joseph Health and Dr. Susan Locke of Adventist Health. Dr. de Souza described the honorees as, “a group of high-achieving individuals who make significant contributions in areas like process improvement, workflow enhancements, peer collaborations and innovation.”
Revenue Management Forum shows why health care should be more like retail - seeking to gain consumer trust and respect through personalized experiences.
Health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn delivered the opening keynote for the Revenue Management Forum, a series of sessions that examine the financial side of health care. Jane explored how the expectations of health care consumers are evolving around smartphone mobility, proliferating retail health and consumer technology options. Amazon Prime, an emerging player in the health care space, was used as a model for how health care can deliver the value, trust, respect and personalized engagement that patients are seeking. Jane also touched on how technology, education, home-based care, data and a shift toward wellness are influencing the next wave of health care.
“Value-based payments require valuing what matters to patients,” Jane said. “The industry must adapt to the new ways that people want to receive care and pay for care.”
At the Revenue Cycle Management State of the Union, Brenna Quinn, Cerner senior vice president of revenue cycle management, provided attendees with an update on Cerner’s revenue cycle management progress and current initiatives. She also shared the areas of focus for the next 12 to 24 months that will help clients improve their revenue cycle experience and overall successes.
"We've made significant improvements to our revenue cycle management offerings in recent years; from investing in the engineering space, hiring more experienced talent and expanding training for our associates," Brenna said. “We're focused on improving key workflows, increasing efficiency and driving maximum value to our clients."
The code Learning Lab offers deep dive into the technical and business sides of health care.
At CHC19, the Cerner Open Developer Experience (code) Learning Lab is offering sessions on coding topics related to Cerner’s HealtheIntent® population health platform and Fast Healthcare Interoperabilty Resources (FHIR), a standard for exchanging health care information electronically. Educational tracks on revenue cycle, API governance strategies and understanding the code ecosystem provide nontechnical insights. There’s also open labs where conference participants can work one-on-one with Cerner engineers. Matt Obenhaus, director of code, said about 400 people will participate in the Learning Lab this year.
Great lesson for all of us. Failure is the price of entry for achieving something great. “No dream is too big for you - Nicole Malachowski” #CHC19 @Cerner pic.twitter.com/5fzSoMOek0
— Kashif Rathore (@k_rathore) October 7, 2019
“We’re excited to see more health systems themselves, and not just third-parties, starting to develop apps for their own use cases.” Matt said.
Canadian software developer James Agnew, CTO of Smile CDR, presented the code Learning Lab keynote. Throughout his address, James emphasized the positive impact that FHIR has on promoting innovation in health IT. He defined FHIR as “a flexible data model for representing all things health care, a friendly but powerful API for exchanging this data and a global community of developers solving problems together.”
James also talked about challenges and strategies for getting consumers involved in health care and how to build apps that people want to use. He noted that user experience, interoperability and regulations around developing software as a medical device are some of the main roadblocks that health care app developers face.
“People are more demanding when it comes to health apps,” James said. “Building an experience that people like and that keeps them coming back is difficult. Service design is essential to successfully roll apps into health care delivery.”
Cerner Physician Community Update focuses on AI tool, Cerner and AWS collaboration.
The Cerner Physician Community Update served as a state of the union for Cerner solutions and services aimed at improving clinician workflows. Dr. Tanuj Gupta, senior director and physician executive, Cerner Intelligence, gave the audience a live demo of Cerner’s virtual scribe tool, which is currently in alpha testing.
Dr. Shez Partovi of Amazon Web Services (AWS) gave an in-depth look at the new strategic collaboration between Cerner and AWS and how it will help combat some of the challenges that physicians face.
"It's not just about moving data into the cloud,” Dr. Partovi said. “AWS has built many ‘Lego pieces’ for cloud technology such as blockchain, IoT, machine learning and more. These are the underpinnings of innovation differentiation.”
Cerner ITWorks celebrates 10 years of supporting IT and operational success.
Cerner’s ITWorks ─ a strategic outsourcing model for IT solutions, services and teams ─ held its annual Truman Group meeting that brought together more than 100 C-suite executives, clinical and client leaders from the ITWorks community. The full day of education sessions covered consumer-driven strategies, quality-driven projects, provider wellbeing, health care outside the hospital setting, and organizational governance and change management.
We focus so much on results from #QualityImprovement but what if ongoing quality improvement IS THE RESULT we are looking for? Question inspired by Chris Barron from Fort Healthcare at #CHC19. #CultureOfQuality
— Nate Kelly (@Nate_Kelly1) October 7, 2019
The 10-year commemoration of ITWorks capped off the event. Cerner ITWorks Senior Vice President Dick Flanigan and Cerner Chairman and CEO Brent Shafer spoke to the accomplishments of the past decade and where ITWorks is headed as it continues to support health care organizations in tackling the challenges of transforming care.
"The 10-year anniversary of ITWorks is a landmark that makes me reflect on Cerner's mission to ensure we're staying on track to meet our commitments and to continue to innovate for the future," Brent said.
Monday night keynotes address the future challenges and opportunities of care delivery.
CHC attendees gathered at Municipal Auditorium for the Monday evening keynotes. John Peterzalek, Cerner executive vice president and chief client officer, addressed the audience as “the best and brightest minds in health care.”
During his opening comments, he also added context to the conference theme of "Now and Next."
“In the now, we’ll focus on the real-world challenges that the entire health care ecosystem faces every day,” John said. “In the next, we’re focused on the emerging era of cognitive systems ─ living intuitive platforms for health that address the challenges of the day, anticipate our next move and enhance the care process.”
Up next was Wendy Marshall, director and sales leader for Cerner UK. She used her time to highlight Cerner solutions, conference themes and emphasize the company's commitment to preparing clients for what comes next in health care.
“As a nurse in my early career, I dreaded having to ask patients to switch off their phones because they interfered with the monitors and equipment,” Wendy said. “But now, tech underpins care delivery. I never thought alerts from those machines would be routed to our pockets. We can now better care for our patients without having to go back and forth.”
Remove Friction, Deliver Moments, and Think About Connections to get in the Disruptor game and create an innovation ecosystem . Well that is what I am taking away from @nickwebbcom #CHC19 @Cerner
— Jigar S Patel, MD (@JSPatelMD) October 7, 2019
Nicole Malachowski, the first woman Thunderbird pilot, delivered a keynote that compared the challenges of being a fighter squadron commander with the challenges facing health care.
“The ground beneath all of us is constantly shifting and changing,” she said. “It can be confusing and challenging, but you can harness these headwinds to your benefit. The path to success is always nonlinear. It always has twists and turns and obstacles along the way.”
The combat Veteran also shared her story of losing her career and her health to a late stage neurological tick-borne illness that still affects her life today. She used her battle to encourage the audience to keep fighting for change in health care, despite the hurdles.
“Transforming the way health care is delivered is important and noble," Nicole said. "You’re all here to enable and empower each other to do big things. If you’re going to take health care to the next level, you have to accept discomfort along the way on behalf of the patients, their caregivers and their families.”
The New York Times tech columnist, TV host and best-selling author David Pogue delivered the evening’s second and final keynote with an engaging and humorous look at the next wave of tech and what it means for our daily lives. His talk centered on sensors and how they have shaped many parts of the technology landscape from smart appliances, buildings and cities to augmented and virtual reality, robots and AI, and self-driving cars and trucks. He circled back to health care with a look at advances in telesurgery and the use of digital cadavers in medical school anatomy classes.
"Technological change is scary, but we’ve always overpredicted its impact on society," David explained. "It’s a failure of the imagination that we don’t know what we’ll be doing in the future. I don’t know exactly what the future is going to look like, but I can guarantee it’s going to be a wild ride.”
To learn more about what’s happening at Cerner Health Conference this week, be sure to follow #CHC19 across social media and check back each day for a wrap up of the hottest topics being discussed.
