The future of health care and technology

September 9, 2021

Christine Cox

Covid tech and data in a hospital scene

[3 MIN READ | 10 MIN WATCH]

The future of care delivery has the patient – not the site of care – at the center, with innovations on how care is delivered. Digital acceleration to serve patients on demand, and increasingly, online, has remained especially at the forefront during the pandemic. Providence remains steadfast in the commitment to implement the latest technologies and best practices to meet and exceed their patient population’s needs.

B.J. Moore, the executive vice president and chief information officer for Providence, also oversees real estate and operations. He leads information services to support and enable Providence to achieve its vision of health for a better world. Following his leadership, the Providence information system team focuses on digital transformation defined by three pillars: simplify, modernize, and innovate.

Dr. Josh Luke, who left the hospital C-Suite to become a social entrepreneur and advocate for affordable care, sat down with B.J. to discuss an array of topics related to the future of health care. In a series of six short videos, B.J. and Dr. Luke discuss some of Providence’s top focuses to this end, including waste reduction, technology and innovation, partnerships, and more. You can watch the full conversation via the links below or read some highlights.

Intersection of innovation and delivery of healthcare

B.J. Moore worked at Microsoft for 20 years and moved to the Providence team about two years ago because, as he said, “there’s nothing more important in our lives than healthcare.” He was able to see how the field of healthcare is ready for a digital transformation and how that change can allow health systems to give back to their communities and improve the way they deliver healthcare.

One year into this new role, Moore found himself tackling COVID-19 pandemic issues. “At the start of the pandemic, hospitals worried that they didn’t have enough PPE and that the ICUs were being overwhelmed. In the case of hospital beds, we saw that there were a number of patients who could receive great care from home: When the COVID crisis first hit, the progress we had made migrating to the cloud and standardizing our productivity and collaboration tools enabled us, among other things, to build predictive analytic tools to optimize our resources and manage the surge. Thousands of caregivers who switched to remote work overnight stayed connected and productive thanks to the standard tools available to them:

Eliminating waste using predictive models

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Providence had a strong and growing telehealth program performing nearly 200 video encounters per day. At the peak of the pandemic in May 2020, virtual visits exceeded 16,000 per day. Sixteen months later, utilization remains strong averaging over 5,000 telehealth encounters daily.

Providence was able to use insights from artificial intelligence and predictive modeling to transform care not just for the Providence system but across the US: “We used technology to predict COVID cases and surges, which allowed us to move important resources such as PPE and ventilators around to places that needed them.” Efficient use of these assets meant hospitals could deliver better healthcare to communities in need.

This technology even allowed doctors on the west coast to monitor and manage patients on the east coast while hospitals there went through COVID-19 surges. As Moore explains, “pre-COVID, this concept of sharing resources across geographies just didn’t exist at scale.”

This same technology helps bring psychologists to remote communities, too, and ensures everyone has access to important healthcare resources. Learn more in the clip below:

Data and the future of health

The important thing about data is that it provides the foundation to do more innovative things. As Moore explains: “data gives us a framework and provides about 80% of missing information in a medical record that can give doctors better insights into how to best care for a patient.”

The data that Moore is talking about is small: a patient’s activity levels, heart rate monitor data uploaded in real time or images taken elsewhere put into a singular place. All of these small data points create a bigger picture and provide insights that doctors never had before.

Basically, the integration of all of these data points creates personalized medicine. Dr. Luke explains: those of us from Generation X were raised to think that healthcare is reactive—you get hurt, you go to the hospital. But that’s changing into the concept of healthy living because now you can have a personalized roadmap.” Learn more as Dr. Luke and B.J. Moore discuss personalized patient care in the clip below:

Using data and AI to advance care

The strategic alliance formed between Providence and Microsoft in July 2019 focuses on innovations in patient care delivery, virtual communication tools and artificial intelligence. Watch Dr. Luke and B.J. Moore talk about some specific examples of the way Providence is putting these technologies into action in the clip below:

Moore also explains how the trend in future healthcare delivery focuses on collaboration, from sharing data and technologies to improve personalized healthcare to making the systems more efficient for patients and communities. Learn more in the conversational clip below:

Find a doctor

Providence doctors combine advanced expertise and the latest techniques to protect your health. With Providence Express Care Virtual, you can access a full range of healthcare services. If you need to find a doctor, you can use our online provider directory.