With July wrapping up, the second half of 2024 is in full swing. From efficiency, to EHR consolidation and improvement, to AI implementation, what are these healthcare leaders focusing on?
The 44 executives featured in this article are all speaking at Becker's 9th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Meeting: The Future of Business and Clinical Technologies which will take place Oct. 1-4, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
If you would like to join this event as a speaker, contact Randi Haseman at rhaseman@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: What is your No. 1 focus for the second half of 2024?
Bethany Percha. Chief data and analytics officer at New York-Presbyterian: In my new role at New York-Presbyterian, I’m leading a team of nearly 200 analysts from multiple, formerly independent sub-teams. My focus for the remainder of 2024 is on blending and organizing these teams around strategic pillars and moving away from a service desk, ticket-based model toward long-term, trusted partnerships with key operational stakeholders. I want to ensure we’re giving each team member the clarity and focus to do their most proactive, meaningful, creative work. I also want to ensure each person has a clear path toward career progression and technical growth.
Tom Consalvo. Associate executive director, vice president and site CIO at Northwell Health: My #1 focus for the second half of 2024 would be getting EPIC rolled out successfully as our live date approaches (April 2025). There is lots to do around education of all our staff both clinical and non-clinical. For example, not only will application training be paramount but also helping our staff understand what the new adjacent technology is and how it will work. For example, we are introducing badge/readers, so clinicians can have a single sign on experience using their badge. It is a lot for everyone to ingest, so we are not only using best practice but also focusing on delivering them key information incrementally so as not to overload them while they are still performing their day-to-day work. Also, their mobile experience will change to be more enhanced, so we are starting the conversations now before training on what that will look like and what is to come. More importantly, all of this is being put in place for more standardization and to make their lives easier, so that is the overarching message.
Zafar Chaudry, MD. Senior vice president, chief digital officer and CIO at Seattle Children's: In the second half of 2024, Seattle Children’s technological priorities will center on three key areas:
- Cost Optimization Initiatives: focusing on innovative technology solutions to streamline operations, reduce expenses and improve overall efficiency
- Cybersecurity Fortification: strengthening our cybersecurity infrastructure and investing in advanced technologies and practices to protect sensitive data, mitigate risks and ensure business continuity
- AI-Driven Innovation: exploring and leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making, automate processes and unlock new opportunities for growth and value creation.
Michael Hasselberg, MS, PhD. Chief digital health officer at University of Rochester Medical Center: There is no question that digital transformation has helped ease the acute financial strain on healthcare, but health system margins remain challenged due to nursing workforce shortages. Addressing nurse retention should be the priority focus area for every health system in the second half of 2024. It has been estimated that one in every five new nurse graduates will resign within their first year on the job, often citing long hours and feeling stretched thin as the primary reasons. It would be shortsighted for health systems to believe the hype that generative AI 'nurse bots' will replace the nurse in the future as a machine will never be able to replicate the art of nursing practice. However, the implementation of AI can substantially alleviate the growing administrative pressure placed on nurses. AI-powered systems can transcribe and organize patient notes, automate manual reporting tasks and optimize nurse scheduling. By alleviating these time-consuming responsibilities, AI can enable the nurse to spend more time on direct patient care while finishing their workday at a reasonable hour.
Divya Pathak. Chief data officer at NYC Health + Hospitals: My primary focus for late 2024 is advancing AI governance at NYC Health + Hospitals to ensure safe and responsible AI adoption in patient care, clinical and administrative operations. This includes enhancing the governance framework, implementing guardrails and local validation, and continuously monitoring performance and impact.
Joe Depa. Senior vice president, chief data and AI officer at Emory University and Emory Healthcare: We have two key focuses for the second half of the year. First, we are focusing on building out our unified data platform which will revolutionize data, analytics and AI at Emory by enabling us to further integrate research into clinical care by bringing together large, multi-modal data sets with AI to deliver near-real time insights and recommendations at scale at the point of care. These early wins include helping facilitate examples like our PRECISE AI clinical trial underway led by Dr. Siva Bhavani which utilizes the AI model developed by Emory in concert with live Epic data to identify patients who meet the criteria for trial enrollment and then notifying the patient's provider through an alert in Epic. We have already enrolled over 200 patients in the trial with over 70% of providers engaging with the model alerts thanks to the efforts of our clinical education team. Our second focus will be implementing and scaling the 10+ new large language model use cases we now have underway which aim to:
- Increase the number and diversity of patients enrolled in clinical trials while reducing overall trial timelines
- Help ensure Alzheimer's patients don't miss key treatment and safety monitoring visits while reducing provider administrative burn-out
- Enable infection prevention specialists to spend up to 50% more time rounding by expediting and facilitating CLABSI reporting
- Improve patient safety by ensuring nurses can find and better adhere to the latest policies and procedures
- Enhance patient health outcomes by better matching them to appropriate therapies using genomics, social determinants of health, imaging and other data
Richard Zane, MD. Chief innovation officer at UCHealth: Our primary focus for the second half of 2024 is no different from what it’s been and always will be: quality. We are on a path of continual improvement to deliver exceptional care every day, to every patient every time and that’s what drives us. The real question is 'how do we get there,' which is why our innovation strategy is our IT strategy which is our virtual health strategy which is our quality strategy. It’s a singular focus. By bringing intelligence – however defined be it generative AI, prescriptive analytics, machine learning or computational linguistics – into clinical workflows, we are making it easier to do the right thing faster. For example, we are launching a virtual transitions of care program to reduce readmissions, deploying AI predictive risk models to reduce falls; a pharmacogenomic decision support to reduce adverse drug events; and adding a novel algorithm into our inpatient surveillance program more quickly recognize deterioration, intervene and avoid escalations in care and reduce mortality.
Monique Diaz, MD. Chief medical information officer for physician enterprise - west at CommonSpirit Health: The first half of the year, for me, is focused on making sure we have the systems and workflows in place to maintain our competitive advantage in shared savings/capitated contracts through our standard, daily operations. The second half of the year is centered on finding those population gaps that need to be closed through focused efforts, typically with health information technology. An example of this is robotic process automation that is geared toward a specific cancer screening. A lot of testing goes into making sure such HIT is working as designed, and that we have the follow-up mechanisms in place to act on positive findings. This is an iterative process that hinges on both clinician and patient acceptance of the HIT, and it requires a lot of oversight to get it done right.
Jon Senkler, DO. Regional chief medical information officer at UnityPoint Health: My focus for the second half of 2024 is optimizing provider communication. We have many tools and modalities for communication. This results in confusion and redundancy that can lead to inefficiency and delays in care. Streamlining the communication process will not only help create better patient outcomes but improve provider satisfaction.
Praveen Chopra. Chief digital and information officer at Emplify Health: As part of the merger of two high-performing health systems Gundersen Health and Bellin Health, now called Emplify Health, our major focus for the second half of 2024 is the unification of two electronic health records systems. We are using this as a transformational opportunity to build a platform to enable 'patient first, clinically led and professionally managed populational health-oriented care model.' We are activating a confluence of well-coordinated capabilities such as team-based care, virtual care, ambient care, generative AI, customer relationship management, patient reported outcomes, SDOH, etc. to achieve our objectives.
Betty Jo Rocchio, DNP, RN, CRNA. Senior vice president and chief nurse executive at Mercy: My focus is on growth, throughput and workforce. It aligns the patient experience, caregiver engagement, and delivery of care and quality outcomes in the communities we serve.
Kipum Lee, PhD. Vice president for enterprise strategy and innovation at University Hospitals Health System as well as assistant professor, medicine department and assistant professor, design and innovation department at Case Western Reserve University: My No. 1 focus is facilitating the execution of our enterprise strategy work. The first half of the year was focused on refreshing our system strategy in a post-pandemic environment and restating them in a way that matters to all caregivers across the system. This included engaging caregivers and leaders, establishing and empowering co-captains, forming workgroups and bringing order to the messiness that is the hallmark of strategy making. We are now focused on bringing the following three strategies to life: making patient-as-consumer and caregiver experiences easy and delightful, right-sizing and optimizing our processes and structures, and building and testing risk-based strategies for value-based care.
A subset of this effort involves creating a playbook with each of our 19 departments and institutes. Working with each chairperson, we crafted a compilation of clinical strategies dubbed Vivid Visions. Each department or institute’s Vivid Vision is a singular disruptive idea or innovative program, which includes the articulation of a domain-level problem statement and a rollout plan focused on the prototyping and implementation of the solution. The value of this prioritization work is two-fold: first, the Vivid Visions initiative legitimizes the clinical innovation work because they are embedded within the highly visible enterprise strategies, and second, provides a way for the rest of the system to align its operational efforts with one or more of the clinical domains. For example, as a playbook containing priorities for each clinical domain, Vivid Visions will be used by the UH Ventures team to seek out collaborations and source solutions in the market to our high-value problems in a focused, proactive way.
Finally, we are using a transparent process that anyone within the organization can see – using OKRs (objectives and key results framework) system-wide – to rally around these prioritization strategies.
Nolan Chang, MD. Executive vice president for strategy, corporate development and finance at The Permanente Federation as well as regional medical director of business management at Southern California Permanente Medical Group: Our primary focus for the second half of 2024 is to establish robust systems and structures that instill confidence in our patients that they will receive the right care at the right place and at the right time. We remain fully committed to value-based care, which aligns our business with patient health outcomes. By prioritizing systems and structures, we aim to transform the healthcare delivery experience for our patients, offering care that is not only both impactful but also and more accessible, higher in quality and more affordable.
Stephen Parodi, MD. Executive vice president at The Permanente Federation and The Permanente Medical Group: My primary focus in the second half of this year will be on creating a policy environment to advance value-based care and sharing learnings from Kaiser Permanente’s nearly 80-year history. We provide value for our patients through the practice of Permanente Medicine, a team-based, technology-enabled approach to care that prioritizes medical excellence, prevention, affordability and equity.
Brian Hoberman, MD. Executive vice president for information technology and CIO at The Permanente Federation as well as CIO at The Permanente Medical Group: My focus is always supporting care delivery operations by optimizing the use of technology. A recent example is ambient AI listening, which assists physicians and clinicians with high quality documentation. I also continue to focus on several mega projects involving upgrades to our core care delivery IT systems. This includes maximizing what we can do with existing technologies and ensuring that we can operate the care delivery system in a cyberattack or a prolonged outage.
Khang Nguyen, MD. Assistant medical director for care transformation at Southern California Permanente Medical Group: I will continue developing and implementing AI tools to help our members, physicians and care teams. This includes improving our members’ experience by quickly and accurately connecting them to the KP care delivery and/or administrative services they need with message management and care navigation functionality and platforms. It also includes alleviating the increasing strain on physicians and care teams by using natural language processing tools to automate in-basket functions supporting documentation.
Thomas Bentley. Chief information and digital transformation officer at Ohio State University Hospital: #1 Focus: technology improvements and optimization that improve staff and organizational efficiencies. This guiding tenant is driving us to look at our EMR and other foundational systems to add AI and other capabilities to help our clinicians and staff to focus on delivering high quality care. Improvements that reduce organizational friction and administrative burden are a priority.
Will Johnson, MBA, CHCIO, FHIMSS. CIO at Tidelands Health: A top priority for our health system is aligning our organization to solve major clinical challenges through a digital footprint. This includes mapping, designing and deploying solutions that will drive clinical delivery and patient satisfaction. In addition, this includes mobilizing solutions such as virtual nursing and other innovative digital initiatives to an operational mode within the health system.
James M. Blum, MD, FCCM. Chief medical information officer and associate professor, anesthesia and computer science at University of Iowa Health Care: AI technology implementations. We are moving forward with a significant investment in ambient documentation and AI-based document processing which have demonstrated significant impacts on our quality, provider burnout and finances. It is an exceptionally exciting time at the University of Iowa.
Reid Stephan. Vice president and CIO at St. Luke's Boise Regional Medical Center: As the CIO at St. Luke's Health System, my primary focus for the second half of 2024 is to maximize the value of ambient listening capabilities beyond just scribing. We are dedicated to leveraging this solution as a platform to significantly enhance the experience and productivity in areas such as medical coding and pre-charting. By integrating advanced ambient listening technology, we aim to streamline documentation processes, reduce administrative burdens on healthcare professionals and improve the accuracy of patient records. This strategic initiative will not only elevate the efficiency of our operations but also amplify overall efforts focused on patient centered care.
Mark Townsend, MD, MHCM. Chief clinical innovation officer at Bon Secours Mercy Health: For Accrete, which is the digital transformation engine of Bon Secours Mercy Health, our number 1 focus is to operationalize the top-12 transformation priorities of BSMH. Having launched a voice-of-the-customer listening tour in 2024, our priorities were made very clear to us. We are now using those priorities to guide:
- Investment opportunities through Accrete
- Innovation co-development partnerships with third-party technologies
- Workgroups within BMSH tasked with responding to the voice-of-the-customer.
We view this cycle of 'listening to our organization and operationalizing what we hear' as a continuous process. Our listening tour is ongoing, ensuring that our top-12 transformation priorities continuously evolve to reflect the rapidly changing pace of both technology and our health system.
Susan Ibanez. CIO at Southeast Georgia Health System: For our organization the focus for the second half of 2024 is digital transformation and application rationalization.
Laurie Sicaeros, MHA. Executive administrator for clinically integrated network and chief strategy officer at MemorialCare Health System: For the second half of 2024, our efforts are focused on enhancing convenience and accessibility for our patients. Our objective is to streamline the process, enabling our patients to obtain all the elements of care they need in one place, eliminating the need for multiple calls or navigating through various links to make appointments.
We are improving the navigational coordination within MemorialCare, ensuring that the process is proactive and not a burdensome task that patients must decipher or endure delays in receiving care. Lastly, we are focusing on advancing clinical efficiencies for our healthcare teams. This includes the adoption of ambient listening and other innovative tools that enrich the interaction between providers and patients while eliminating distractions, like screens that block engagement between the physician and patient.
Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD. System chief and regional chief medical officer at Baystate Health: For the second half of 2024, my primary focus is to enhance patient-centric, high-value healthcare delivery by strategically implementing advanced data analytics and technology integration across our healthcare network. This approach is designed to drive improvements in patient outcomes, operational efficiency and overall care quality while maintaining cost-effectiveness and expanding access to care. By deploying comprehensive data analytics platforms, we can collect and analyze a wide range of metrics, including patient outcomes, operational efficiencies and cost structures. This enables us to make informed decisions that promote continuous patient care and resource allocation improvement. Complementing our data analytics efforts, we plan to integrate cutting-edge technologies into our operations, which will help optimize treatment plans and improve patient outcomes by providing predictive analytics and personalized care recommendations. Additionally, enhancing our telehealth capabilities will ensure that patients have seamless access to healthcare services regardless of their geographic location, thereby expanding the reach of our services to remote and underserved populations. Enhancing the patient experience remains a pivotal component of our focus, and we aim to develop strategies that prioritize patient satisfaction and engagement through personalized care plans and comprehensive patient education programs. By fostering a culture of empathy and responsiveness among our healthcare staff, we intend to create a more positive and supportive environment for patients, ensuring that every patient feels valued and receives the highest standard of care. Strengthening partnerships with regional healthcare providers, payers and community organizations is essential for creating a cohesive and comprehensive care network, and expanding this network to include more high-value specialists and facilities will guarantee that patients have access to top-tier care options.
Michael R. Jones, DHA, MBA, RN, NI-BC, CPHIMS, PMP, NEA-BC, CENP, FACHE. Regional director of clinic informatics at CommonSpirit Health: I don't know if there is a singular focus in this rapid, ever evolving landscape. There is a priority on understanding the quick evolution of AI and how to support clinical effectiveness and efficiency. This starts and continues with a clinically-led governance strategy.
Mandy McGowan, RN, BA. Director of home-based care programs at UWHealth: My focus for the second half of 2024 is led by our health system CEO’s words to our leaders –we need to think beyond best practices to 'next practices.' When it comes to home-based care, there is no template to apply to create the perfect infrastructure and ideal programs. We are committed to moving care into the home, and it will require continued collaboration, innovative thinking and comfort in the gray zone to get to the 'next.' This work is critical, fast-moving and dependent on forward thinkers that are supported at all levels of the health system.
Stephen DelRossi, MSA. CFO and interim CEO at Northern Inyo Healthcare District: NIHD will continue to focus on service line growth and expansion. We have been very successful over the last twelve months increasing revenues through this process; we saw a 14% increase year-over-year. We are extremely isolated, so every procedure we can do locally saves our patients a day of travel and expenses, which is very important to our patients. We have added services to orthopedics, surgery, urology, cardiology and others. I have other procedures and service lines we are adding in the future, but doing so slowly and purposefully in order to train staff and abate anxiety.
Olin McClain. Assistant vice president for hospital billing at Inova Health System: Our #1 focus for the second half of 2024 is around efficiency. We are looking at changing workflows in patient access, patient engagement, provider productivity and EHR customization. This should reduce wait times and keystrokes/mouse clicks while improving access to information and quality of care for better outcomes.
Thomas M. Maddox, MD, MSc. Vice president for digital products and innovation at BJC HealthCare and Washington University School of MedicineSchool of Medicine: Our system is focused on developing and deploying our analytic and generative AI strategy throughout our healthcare system. The potential for this technology is large, but it will take thoughtful deployment and rigorous evaluation to ensure that its value is realized.
Kerri Webster, MS, RN, CPHIMS. Vice president, chief analytics officer for Analytics Resource Center at Children's Hospital Colorado: The analytics division plays a vital role in supporting our organization’s strategic and operational priorities, so our focus aligns with those. To the extent that actionable insights are required in meeting organizational goals, our number one focus continues to be the delivery of timely, accurate, high quality analytics to make data driven decisions to support exceptional outcomes. That being said, earlier in the year, the quality and safety division of the organization was restructured under new leadership. In response, we were excited to realign resources in our division to support all of the quality and safety initiatives under one departmental leader. Throughout the remainder of the year, this new department will be focused on partnerships with the quality and safety team to design and implement solutions to support our bedside caregivers with tools to deliver the highest quality care possible. We are actively developing fingertip access to real-time analytics to impact care at the moment. We are designing a program to support this endeavor from bedside to boardroom. We’re committed to leveraging the latest tools and technologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Supported by continuous learning, iteration and collaboration, our aim is to continue to advance the exceptional care delivered to our patients.
Jasmine Bishop. Managing director for MedStar Telehealth Innovation Center at MedStar Health: Within our MedStar Institute for Innovation Care Lab, our team will continue to prioritize implementing our Acute Care of the Future model at full hospital scale. This connected hospital care model leverages advanced patient room technology and novel workflows to bring to the bedside specialty consultation, nursing support and patient monitoring enhancing the patient and clinician care experience. By using remote visual monitoring, virtual nursing and interactive patient care tools, we are increasing safety and delivering measurable value while expanding technological and workforce capabilities in acute care. Additionally, we are exploring leading predictive workflow management and real-time location tools to optimize resources and future innovation through these insights. These exciting efforts align with other strategic priorities to advance innovation, outcomes and experience through sustainable solutions.
Daniel E. Davis, MD. Senior medical director for continuing health and hospital at home administrator at Atrium Health: At Atrium Health, the number one focus of our hospital at home program for the second half of 2024 is to continue to scale our program in the greater Charlotte market to a target census of 100 to achieve a more meaningful impact on the capacity of the 10 acute care facilities we support. That would make our census roughly 5% of our acute care bed capacity in the market. We are also focused on scaling our program to other markets within our Advocate Health enterprise to bring this innovative care model to a larger patient population.
Michael Mercurio. Vice president of revenue cycle operations at Mass General Brigham: My focus for the second half of 2024 is getting past the 'forming' and 'storming' stages of our billing office merger, so that we can start to 'norm' and 'perform.'
Jag Maturi, PharmD, MBA, CHFP, CSAF, CRCR. System director for pharmacy business operations at Advocate Health: Automation tools and technologies for the front office function of revenue cycle management. The prior authorization process can be labor and time intensive; nobody likes delays. Improving this process would be a big win for patients as well as the health system/providers. A number of vendors are presenting incredible tools and technology, with capable integration into EHRs. We are excited to review these technologies, connect with partner health systems that have had success and implement them accordingly. It is exciting to see the practical utility of generative AI and automation in the RCM space.
Crystal Broj. Chief digital transformation officer at Medical University of South Carolina: For the second half of 2024, our number one focus is continuing our digital transformation by enhancing patient access in a few key areas. We're making it easier for patients to schedule appointments by expanding our online options and integrating voice-assisted bots to provide 24/7 coverage. Additionally, we're automating prior authorizations to streamline the process and reduce wait times. Another priority is minimizing redundancy in clinical forms, ensuring that patients and providers spend less time on paperwork and more on care. These initiatives are all about making healthcare more accessible and efficient for everyone involved.
Amy Zolotow. Director of operations at Mercy Personal Physicians: Burnout is a significant challenge we are collectively facing in healthcare. Addressing burnout in my clinical practice involves immediate short-term and long-term strategies with a focus on the human element to create a supportive and healthy work environment. In the following months, I will continue to reevaluate workloads and identify resources to assist where needed, recognize employee efforts and provide positive feedback, facilitate team bonding, and foster a sense of community by promoting collaboration and mutual support. By continuously prioritizing well-being, we can create a supportive work environment that actively combats burnout and fosters sustained team morale.
Anjali Bhagra, MD, MBA. Medical director for automation at Mayo Clinic: We are accelerating and scaling transformative automation solutions across Mayo Clinic that best serve our patients and staff. We are assessing outcomes and applying lessons learned as we plan for 2025 and beyond. In Q4, we are hosting an Automation Summit to celebrate and recognize the incredible contributions of our staff.
Justin Ryan, PhD. Director for Webster Foundation 3D Innovations Lab at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego: Intentionality is my number one focus for the second half of 2024. While the rise in AI, advanced imaging and automation is apparent to anyone in the medical domain, separating hype from true innovation is a challenge when a new product or service continually rises to the top in the zeitgeist.
Deepening partnerships with academia and industry in addition to exploring new research collaborations is key, but there also must be a significant focus on the intention to translate to patient care. Keeping patients first continues to be the driving force of Rady Children’s Hospital. We seek to ensure that the patient-centric approach is maintained in the face of emerging data management and sharing practices, as well as operationalization and integration of these new and exciting technologies.
Max Nicholson. Associate director of patient experience at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center: For the second half of 2024, the Cedars-Sinai patient experience team is focused on aligning our current programs around the organizational metrics set for FY25. This FY25 we will be focused on improving the patients’ perception of team collaboration in our staff’s efforts to provide outstanding healthcare. In addition to aligning our current efforts, we’re launching a new patient experience ambassador program designed to provide more frontline staff with the skills and knowledge necessary to be patient experience champions. We’re also launching our new 'Four Acts of Service' cultural framework where we’ll be providing employees with the knowledge on how to better exhibit the traits and behaviors our patients love most about their experiences working with our staff.
Neel Butala, MD, MBA. Assistant professor at University of Colorado School of Medicine: Our biggest focus for the second half of 2024 is to work with different organizations to build the appropriate data infrastructure to deal with exchange of data. There is going to be greater exchange of clinical data across entities in the coming quarters, and there needs to be a good infrastructure in place to ingest, clean and enhance that data to make it usable. This becomes important for downstream applications like NLP or AI.
Ken Dunham, MD, FAPA, CPE. Executive director medical operations for behavioral health at Sentara Health: We are focusing on how to best use AI in our system. We want to make sure we have the appropriate IT as well as clinical checks and balances in place. Quality and safety are our primary goals. As we build our own AI quality initiatives, we must ensure that we are keeping quality and safety standards front and center. A good mathematical model must also be a safe and clinically relevant model.
Jeffrey Sattler, PharmD, DO. Hospital medicine | medical informatics at Saint Luke's Health System: Start of a Gen AI /LLM pilot with our EHR vendor as both summarization of hospitalized patients (an GenAI produced 'tab' with pre-rounding information) and draft hospital course generation via Gen AI. We think these two items will help unburden front line providers and provide positive momentum on time savings with mundane tasks. This time can go towards patient care, care coordination and even personal wellness.
Jason M. Raidbard, MPA, FACMPE. Executive administrator, department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at UChicago Medicine and Biological Sciences: As we move into the latter half of the year, our ophthalmology department remains determined in our commitment to providing exceptional patient care, while advancing in the field through innovative practices and research. Our primary focus areas include:
- Enhancing Patient Experience: We aim to streamline our patient care processes to ensure a seamless and positive experience from initial consultation through treatment and follow-up care. This includes adopting new technologies, reducing wait times and improving patient communication.
- Expanding Research Initiatives: Our department will continue to place a strong emphasis on expanding our research efforts. By participating in clinical trials and fostering a culture of innovation, we aim to contribute significantly to the development of new treatments and therapies for various eye conditions.
- Community Outreach and Education: We believe in the importance of educating our community about eye health. Our outreach programs will focus on raising awareness about preventable eye diseases and promoting regular eye examinations to ensure early detection and treatment.
- Expanding Faculty: To support our growth and maintain our high standards of care, we are focused on expanding our faculty and onboarding of new physicians. This will allow us to meet the increasing demand for our services. We will do so while ensuring our physicians are fully engaged in day-to-day operations and have a voice in our decision-making processes.
- Fostering an Inclusive Culture and Promoting DEI Initiatives: We are dedicated to creating a quality inclusive culture that engages our patients, physicians and staff. This includes our ongoing efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion within our organization, ensuring that our practices reflect our organization's mission, vision and values.
By concentrating on these areas, we strive to enhance the quality of care we provide in the second half of this year as we continue to make significant strides in the field of ophthalmology. Our dedicated team is excited about the opportunities ahead and remains committed to achieving excellence in all that we do.
Paul Capello, PMP. Corporate IS project manager at Shriners Hospitals for Children as well as adjunct instructor at University of South Florida: The rapidly evolving landscape of technology, especially in the healthcare industry, demands a proactive approach to learning. I aim to immerse myself in emerging trends and innovations so as not to become obsolete. This involves staying up-to-date with the latest advancements in medical research, AI integration and digital health solutions.
By dedicating time to continuous learning and staying abreast of industry advancements, I hope to contribute meaningfully to the healthcare discourse and make a lasting impact on patient outcomes and the healthcare ecosystem at large. I'm excited about the opportunities that the coming months hold, and I'm thrilled to see how this focus on future-proofing my skills pays dividends personally and professionally.