Michael Dowling, president and CEO of New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, discussed the areas of healthcare he sees as ripe for innovation past the COVID-19 pandemic on a recent episode of "Becker's Healthcare Podcast."
Here is an excerpt from the podcast. Click here to download the full episode.
Editor's note: This response was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: Where do you see the biggest opportunity for additional innovation?
Michael Dowling: I think everything that we do is ripe for change. We should be looking at every component of our organization to see how we can enhance and improve and be more productive and efficient. But technology is a big part of this because it's not only telemedicine. It's how you use data information, how you use technology and the devices that are available to us — and all the tools are available to us to make all the components of your organization more positive and more improved. I think technology is a kind of cross-cutting issue across all domains. We will enhance telemedicine, but the technology can enhance our cardiology program, our neuro program. Only one caution with all of this is we can never forget the human element in care delivery.
The trick will be how to have a situation where you have the maximum technology with the maximum use of the appropriate face-to-face relationship. That goes for staff to staff, but it also goes for staff to patient, patient to doctor, doctor to patient. Healthcare, at the end of the day, is a human interaction experience. You must do something face to face. You cannot substitute what should be done face to face with technology. Technology can enhance it but not substitute for it. And that, I think, is something that every healthcare organization has to be very focused on: making sure we preserve the human element, despite the fact that technology will be used more and more.