Cerner CEO pledges to zero-out ‘noise’ from EHRs, population health and revenue cycle

5 years in the past, in his then-capacity as president and chief government officer of Geisinger, Dr. David Feinberg keynoted Day 4 of the 2016 annual Cerner Well being Convention. On Tuesday, after simply days on the job as Cerner’s newly-minted CEO, Feinberg kicked off CHC21, which continues via Wednesday.

“Within the 5 years since I final talked at CHC, there have been some wonderful medical breakthroughs,” stated Feinberg in his digital keynote deal with.

“In 2017, gene remedy was used to remedy a teenage boy of sickle cell illness,” he stated. “That very same yr, FDA permitted good capsules. They alert customers in the event that they’ve already taken their medicine. In 2019, Google confirmed that synthetic intelligence can detect lung most cancers extra precisely than radiologists with eight years of expertise. And final yr, a COVID-19 vaccine was researched, developed and deployed nearly 4 years forward of the conventional timeline for a brand new vaccine.”

However nonetheless, stated Feinberg, “the noise stays. That is what we have now to take to zero.”

To clarify what he meant by “noise,” he gave a nod to Cerner’s late founder and his late spouse.

“Neal Patterson’s spouse, Jeannie, stated one thing profound when she and Neal have been preventing their battles with most cancers collectively,” stated Feinberg.

He defined: “It is the noise within the healthcare system that can drag you down, she stated. That noise she known as having to know when your final colonoscopy was as an alternative of your physician having that at their fingertips. It is spending seven hours in a reception space, ready for lab outcomes.”

Feinberg added one other instance: “It is having me – an MD, an MBA with many years of expertise as a physician and operating hospitals – but not with the ability to make sense of an evidence of advantages of my healthcare, from my very own well being system. That is all noise.”

Well being IT has enabled a whole lot of main progress lately, he stated, however there’s nonetheless a whole lot of heavy lifting to do.

“Information to do extra nice issues even quicker, that is the brass ring,” stated Feinberg. “However to realize that imaginative and prescient, fixing the EHR is job primary. The pipes are laid, which is great, however we have now to make it simpler to get the appropriate data to the appropriate individuals on the proper time to remove that noise.”

For too many sufferers, “healthcare continues to be damaged: unaffordable, biased – and largely nonetheless based mostly on acute care quite than prevention,” he stated.

“COVID-19 confirmed the world what’s incorrect: Not sufficient give attention to public well being, prevention and fairness. Social determinants play too giant of a task in our healthcare and mortality. However we in America stay centered on fee-for-service as an alternative of fee-for-value, or incentives that might push all of us upstream.”

Feinberg acknowledged the challenges of accountable care.

“Being present on complicated and altering fee fashions, staying on the appropriate facet of a razor-thin margin is a tough job even for the perfect managed well being methods and supplier organizations,” he stated. “And one factor I’ve heard loads about is how necessary it’s for Cerner to enhance our income cycle resolution.”

He stated the corporate’s new RevElate know-how, unveiled simply this previous week, may assist simplify billing for sufferers and suppliers alike, making RCM “extra built-in and seamless” for Cerner prospects.

Feinberg additionally pointed to the necessity for a extra intense give attention to EHR optimization and AI-enabled automation.

“We have not absolutely reached our potential,” he stated. “Digitized information, for one, must be usable. They must be measured by how they permit caregivers to spend much more time on the bedside and fewer time on the terminal. Bettering the usability of Cerner options is on the high of my checklist of issues to get achieved.”

He pointed to Banner Well being’s work with Cerner to enhance consumption types and different administrative burdens, “so their nurses can spend extra time serving to sufferers and fewer time documenting. The work goes effectively, and we’re on monitor to avoid wasting 9,000 hours and remove 10 million clicks yearly.”

And he described what he sought as a perfect state for digital information.

“Data ought to assist sufferers keep away from pointless checks and medicines as a result of the report is very easy to search out and perceive. Data ought to assist nurses and medical doctors keep away from errors and recommend what therapies is likely to be finest. Data ought to enable all of you to know the well being of your group, who’s in danger and what interventions are working. Data ought to predict. Data ought to assist the world keep away from, or at the very least reduce, the results of the subsequent pandemic.

“And all of this works provided that we share your information with everybody you inform us to,” he added. “If we use your information to enhance your well being, it will possibly additionally enhance the well being of your communities – and in the end our world.”

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
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Healthcare IT Information is a HIMSS publication.