By Lisa Rossi
The Technology Association of Iowa interviewed Brett Taylor, chief technology officer at UnityPoint Health, during its recent TechBrew:AM event at West End Architectural Salvage in downtown Des Moines.
Tyler Wyngarden, TAI’s vice president of strategic partnerships, facilitated the conversation with Taylor.
Here are five takeaways from the March 13 discussion.
Eliminating ‘pillow time’
Taylor said he and his team are trying to figure out how to eliminate “pillow time” with their providers.
He’s referring to the phenomena of “when they get done with work, they’re not done with work. They go home, they have dinner and then they start working again until later in the evening.”
“So we’re trying to find ways now of taking that technology and helping them go home and just go home with the family and not have to spend hours charting and doing all the stuff after they get home,” he added.
Generative artificial intelligence in health care
Taylor said UnityPoint Health is “cautiously adopting” generative artificial intelligence.
“There are certain things that it doesn’t get right, and there still needs to be that human intervention or that human eyes on that, and that’s the part where we’re just trying to be cautious on, so we’re testing things,” he said.
He noted that if providers can have an “ambient scribe listening and doing a lot of that documentation for them, they don’t have to do as much when they leave at night. They can get a lot of their charting done while they’re at the office.” This would help stem provider burnout, he said.
Cybersecurity and health care
Taylor said cybersecurity is “by far the No. 1 priority” of his team.
When it comes to planning for cybersecurity, long-term isn’t the answer, he said.
“People think you can plot a five-year cybersecurity road map, and that’s just not true,” Taylor said. “You can’t. You can’t do a six-month cybersecurity road map without having to change.”
He said that every six months his team does a reevaluation, and every year they do a “deep dive into where we are with cybersecurity and a road map.”
“And we re-aim, and we re-aim, and we re-aim, and we basically start the clock over again and start down a new path,” he added. “And so [you] are constantly changing that technology in the cybersecurity space. If you’re not, you’re falling behind.”
The Internet of Medical Things
Taylor said in the future of health care, one question is going to be “how do we better find other patients at home?”
The answer is wearables, or what is referred to as IoMT devices, or Internet of Medical Things, he said.
“It’s generally things that we can track some sort of medical something on, and it’s sitting out there on the internet, and it’s easily accessible, which is kind of cool,” he said. “That’s what’s going to change health care.”
He said the devices are helpful for his mother, who has health problems.
“We’re trying to find creative ways to keep her at home, and it’s going to be through ways of monitoring,” he said. “So I have stuff set up. I can monitor them and keep an eye on them, so that if something starts to go wrong, I can intervene.”
He said that hospitals – brick and mortar — are expensive.
“So it’s how do we treat patients and keep them healthy, and keep them at home and keep them out of the hospital?”
Virtual care
Taylor said UnityPoint Health is doing a telehealth pilot in one of its regions to undergo virtual nursing.
He also said there are about 50 virtual nurses that are working throughout UnityPoint’s system.
“So we have to allow them to connect into the patient, see the patient, the patient can see them. And so we’re working through technology to do that,” he said.
He said people ages 40 to 45 most commonly use telehealth services and he’s seeing it more in rural communities.
“They want to be able to log on, get what they need, and not have to drive 50, 100 miles.”