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Dominique Wells, MSN, RN is chief operating officer at Conduit Health Partners

Why optimizing patient transfer processes is more important than ever.

Getting in front of long wait times in emergency departments | Viewpoint

By 2050, it's estimated that 139 million people worldwide will have dementia, but by today's standards, 60% will be undiagnosed. It's clear that there's a significant gap in dementia detection and care, but what can your organization do about it?

Get perspectives from clinical leaders and neuroscience experts about the underlying causes and consequences of these gaps, practical opportunities to address them, and a proven roadmap that shows how leading health systems have successfully transformed their dementia screening and care processes.

Closing the Dementia Care Gap: Expert Insights and Proven Strategies for Health Systems

After more than a year of work, Penn Medicine has completed its acquisition of Doylestown Health, continuing the health system’s expansion in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Penn Medicine celebrated the completion of the deal Tuesday with an event at Doylestown Hospital. Doylestown became Penn Medicine’s seventh hospital, and it will now be known as Penn Medicine Doylestown Health.

Doylestown Hospital, a 247-bed community hospital, sits about 30 miles north of Philadelphia in Bucks County, one of the suburban counties surrounding the city. Doylestown also employs more than 600 providers.

Kevin B. Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, said in a statement that acquiring Doylestown has been “a key part” of Penn Medicine’s strategy.

“Our goal is to transform health care into a source of ease and reassurance—simplifying care delivery, making it more accessible for patients, and creating a seamless, supportive experience at every step,” Mahoney said. “By combining trusted community care with the resources and expertise available through Penn Medicine, we ensure that high-quality, compassionate treatment is always within reach of patients in Bucks County and beyond.”

Hospitals, insurers and life sciences leaders expect to see more mergers

 to acquire Doylestown Health in January 2024, and the organizations said in August that 

they had reached a definitive agreement to come together

Doylestown Health had been struggling financially in recent years, but has shown signs of improvement with stronger revenues recently.

Jim Brexler, CEO of what is now Penn Medicine Doylestown Health, said that joining Penn will give Bucks County residents more access to specialty care services.

“Doylestown Hospital was founded with the principal mission to bring quality health care close to home for the patients we serve, and I can think of no better way to do that than by joining our region’s leading academic health system, which will allow for patients in our community to receive even more advanced care options,” Brexler said in a statement.

Doylestown Health says patients will continue to be able to see their own clinicians. Doylestown will continue its partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to care for newborns in the intensive care nursery.

Penn Medicine and Doylestown had collaborated with greater frequency in recent years, with Doylestown participating in the Penn Cancer Network.

Over the last several years, Penn Medicine has also acquired Chester County Hospital, based in the Philadelphia suburbs; Lancaster General Hospital, based in Lancaster, Pa.; and Princeton Health, based in central New Jersey.

Penn Medicine also operates three hospitals in Philadelphia: Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, and Pennsylvania Hospital.

The Pennsylvania hospital market has seen some changes in recent months. Jefferson Health, based in Philadelphia, 

completed its acquisition of the Lehigh Valley Health Network last August

, forming a system of 32 hospitals. Lehigh Valley operates hospitals and clinics across northeastern Pennsylvania.

More academic medical centers have been acquiring community hospitals in recent years, and 

industry analysts expect that trend to continue

The health system says it has completed the deal. Penn Medicine has added other hospitals in the Philadelphia suburbs in recent years.

Topic

Penn Medicine continues growth with acquisition of Doylestown Health

Lawmakers have introduced a bill that’s aimed to help improve the flow of medical supplies to hospitals and health systems.

Republicans and Democrats are backing this effort. U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) are the lead sponsors of a 

 in the Senate. U.S. Reps. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) are sponsoring a similar 

Lawmakers say the measure is designed to reduce the healthcare supply chain interruptions that have become all too common for hospitals in recent years. The measure is dubbed The Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act.

Hospitals and health systems have seen shortages of key supplies repeatedly since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even in recent years, they’ve had problems when a critical supplier faces disruptions.

 last year. In 2022, health systems faced 

a shortage of contrast dye used in medical imaging

 after a GE Healthcare plant based in Shanghai was shut down for weeks due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. Health systems have 

regularly encountered shortages of critical medication

To bolster the medical supply chain, lawmakers say their bill would give America more options to negotiate trade deals with other countries to obtain essential products and materials.

Tillis said the bill offers “a critical step toward ensuring that America’s healthcare providers have reliable access to the essential supplies they need.

“By strengthening trade partnerships with our allies and expanding domestic manufacturing, we can enhance our nation’s preparedness for future health challenges. I’m proud to support this bipartisan effort to reinforce our medical supply chains and protect public health,” Tillis said in a statement.

Coons said the bill could help reduce interruptions in medical supplies. As he noted, “Life-threatening shortages of testing kits, drugs, and masks during the COVID-19 pandemic showed us just how fragile our medical supply chains are.

“Working with our most trusted trading partners to make our supply chains more resilient will strengthen our response to future public health emergencies while ensuring health care providers have access to essential medical products and patients have access to life-saving care,” Coons said in a statement.

Some key groups have come out in support of the legislation.

Soumi Saha, senior vice president of government affairs at Premier, Inc., said the legislation could help improve the supply chain for hospitals.

She noted that many healthcare products are dependent upon a single supplier, so if there’s a problem at a plant, health systems see shortages. Hospitals saw 

 when a North Carolina plant was shut down due to heavy flooding from Hurricane Helene.

“Building a stronger, more sustainable, and secure supply chain demands a balanced approach – expanding domestic manufacturing while fostering strategic trade partnerships,” Saha said in a statement. “The Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act is a critical step toward this goal by enabling the designation of trusted trade partners to diversify sourcing for medical devices and pharmaceuticals.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also spoken out in support of the bill.

“Enhancing the resilience of medical supply chains is important to both our public health and our national security,” John Murphy, the chamber’s senior vice president for international policy, said in a statement.

The National Foreign Trade Council and PhRMA have also endorsed the legislation.

Hospitals have faced disruptions in supplies repeatedly in recent years. Lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to tackle the problems.

Lawmakers tackle shortages of drugs and medical supplies | Bills & Laws

Dr. Marc Gorelick spent over 25 years in emergency medicine, and he says that experience proved to be invaluable in leading Children’s Minnesota.

Emergency medicine physicians have to think quickly, and he says that has helped him lead the system through the COVID-19 pandemic, its fallout, and a rapidly changing healthcare landscape. He says he’s developed a degree of comfort in making choices without having all the answers.

“The emergency environment is not conducive to having comprehensive information over a period of time,” Gorelick says. “You do the best you can with the information you have. And I think that's really important for leaders, because we are never going to have all the information we'd like to have, and yet we need to act anyway. So I think that's been important.”

After more than seven years as president and CEO of Children’s Minnesota, 

He’s overseen significant growth in Children’s Minnesota and the services it provides. He says he takes pride in the system’s accomplishments. He also sees urgent needs to adapt and deal with a changing pediatric population.

In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive®, Gorelick looks at the challenges he’s faced, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising number of kids with mental health needs, and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He also shares why he’s so passionate about focusing on health equity and improving diversity, and that also stems from his work in the emergency department.

“Over my 25 years in emergency medicine, I had sort of a frontline seat to some of the disparities in society, and that's really informed my commitment to equitable health care,” he says. “Again, not because it's woke. It's because of the people that I saw, the thousands and thousands of people that I had the privilege of serving up front and close, seeing what it was like for them, and that has informed the way I lead the organization.”

Children’s Minnesota recently celebrated its centennial, and Gorelick says he’s proud of the growth of the system. The system has expanded its outpatient and ambulatory services in recent years.

“We've had a great first 100 years, and I think we're really well positioned for the next 100,” he says.

Gorelick says he’s optimistic about Children’s Minnesota because the organization has embraced the need for continuous improvement.

“One of our organizational values is adaptability, and I think that is increasingly important for any health system to succeed in a changing healthcare environment, and that pace of change is accelerating,” he says. “So I think our embrace of that over the last few years is really setting us up nicely to be able to deliver high quality care across all domains of quality, regardless of the changes that come at us from the larger healthcare system.”

The system demonstrated its ability to adapt and be nimble during the COVID-19 pandemic. Again, he points to his time in emergency medicine in navigating the crisis.

“We just didn't have all the information we needed, but we still needed to get comfortable with making decisions knowing that some of them were going to be right and some of them were going to be wrong, but knowing that we had to proceed nonetheless. So I think that was helpful, having that mindset,” he says.

During the early stages of the pandemic, Children’s Minnesota, like many pediatric hospitals, saw fewer patients. If kids contracted the virus, they typically weren’t sick enough to require hospital care, and children were less exposed to other illnesses, Gorelick says. For the kids that did need hospital care, the staff was forced to try new approaches.

“We faced sharply reduced volumes,” he says. “We faced disruptions in our labor force, but we were constantly keeping the ‘why’ in mind. The ‘why’ is about the kids that we serve and their families and being comfortable trying things, seeing what happened, and then continuing what worked and changing what didn't.”

Children’s Minnesota has seen more kids requiring treatment for behavioral health needs, and 

that’s been a problem for many pediatric hospitals around the country

The system has seen “a real acceleration in the need for mental health services for kids,” Gorelick says.

“We've seen about a 30% increase in emergency visits for acute mental health crises and about a 50% increase in the need for hospitalization over the last few years,” he says.

Children’s Minnesota has been embedding more behavioral health within primary care clinics “so that kids can receive both physical and mental health services at the same time,” he says.

The organization has expanded acute care services, opening an inpatient mental health unit in its St. Paul hospital. Children’s Minnesota has also expanded outpatient programs around the Minneapolis region to serve kids.

“We've continued to build out the continuum of mental health services that we have,” Gorelick says.

After taking those steps, Children’s Minnesota has reduced the amount of time kids have had to spend in the emergency department for mental health crises. But he says there continue to be challenges, including kids who don’t need acute care but aren’t able to obtain the help they need from community providers.

“We continue to see those kids in our hospitals waiting for appropriate services, and we continue to advocate at local and state levels to try to get more resources in the community,” he says.

The killing of George Floyd spurred protests and calls for change nationwide. Floyd was killed just a few blocks from the system’s hospital in Minneapolis, Gorelick says.

After Floyd’s death, Children’s Hospital vowed to continue to work to improve diversity and health equity, but Gorelick notes that was not a new position.

“We were reaffirming an existing one, because it really is about how we do the best job of fulfilling our vision of being every family’s essential partner in raising healthier children,” Gorelick says.

When Gorelick first took over as CEO of Children’s Minnesota in late 2017, he signed a pledge with other CEOs to support a diverse workplace.

“That was really the start of our equity journey, and it came about because we recognize that we have a very diverse population here in the Twin Cities, again, particularly in the pediatric population,” he says. “We have a large immigrant community in the Twin Cities.”

Minnesota also has wide gaps among underserved groups, he adds. Those disparities also include maternal health, immunization rates and preventive care.

“We have fairly stark disparities in a variety of health outcomes for children and adults in the state of Minnesota …. So the problem is in front of us,” Gorelick says.

He says developing a more diverse staff is a key element in closing those gaps.

“There's a growing body of evidence that shows that a more diverse healthcare workforce delivers better outcomes for a diverse population,” he says.

Gorelick says he takes pride in Children’s Minnesota’s efforts to close disparities.

“We've really made a commitment to health equity and to fostering the kind of diverse and inclusive environment that allows for us to provide equitable care for all kids,” Gorelick says.

“I know that it's not necessarily particularly fashionable right now to talk about, but the population, especially the pediatric population, is getting more diverse, culturally, ethnically, racially, and we need to be able to serve an increasingly diverse population in an equitable way. And I think we're well positioned to do that.”

After leading the pediatric system for more than seven years, Dr. Marc Gorelick is retiring this summer. He talked with us about navigating the pandemic, adapting to change, and why he’s focused on closing disparities. 

Children’s Minnesota CEO talks about acting, reacting, and focusing on health equity

Much of the information in health care records doesn’t appear in text.

Google Cloud has been developing new AI-powered tools to help clinicians find the information they need in charts, images and X-rays. The company touted new generative AI capabilities in Vertex AI Search for healthcare at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas last week.

Aashima Gupta, Google Cloud’s global director of healthcare strategy & solutions, said the new improvements will allow a clinician to easily and quickly find out vital information that comes from charts or other visual images. A new “Visual Q&A” tool will also be able to analyze data in tables and provide relevant findings in searches.

Google Cloud also touted new advanced AI agents designed to help prepare patient charts and perform other administrative tasks. The company says Google’s Agentspace will make it easier for customers to build their own AI agents to do research more easily and to manage certain tasks. AI agents are designed to perform tasks autonomously.

In a conversation with Chief Healthcare Executive® at the HIMSS conference, Gupta says AI tools in the healthcare industry are maturing rapidly. She says healthcare organizations are able to adapt AI into more tasks to reduce administrative burdens and burnout of their workers.

“Healthcare used to be lagging behind on adoption of technology,” Gupta says. “This moment, in AI, is different. We are seeing Gen AI really help with some of that burnout, those administrative burdens.”

Using AI to help doctors connect with patients

AI’s use in healthcare is surging. More than half of America’s hospitals are using AI predictive models to gauge which patients could be at greater risk of complications, according to a 

 published in Health Affairs in January. 

 say they’re using AI in their practice, up from 38% in 2023, according to an American Medical Association survey.

Generative AI tools allow clinicians to quickly get summaries of research. Gupta says AI agents are going to be playing a bigger role. Basalt Health is using AI agents and other Google technologies to help medical assistants get ready for patient visits, she notes.

Hospitals can utilize AI agents to improve a number of administrative functions, including revenue cycle management, managing supply chains and scheduling surgical procedures.

“Agentic AI is able to plan for multiple steps ahead, create a goal, and be able to research it,” Gupta says. “So really, AI is a true collaborator.”

The emergence of “semantic AI” is also a noteworthy development, she says. Semantic AI tools aren’t bound by simply matching the keywords in searches. With semantic search, a clinician can look for shorthand, medical terminology and abbreviations and still be able to find the desired information.

Highmark has partnered with Google Cloud to use AI tools to improve management of claims submissions and authorization requests with Allegheny Health Network. Google Cloud has also collaborated with the Mayo Clinic to develop generative AI capabilities in clinical settings.

Mayo Clinic’s John Halamka: ‘We have to use AI’

Hospitals and healthcare organizations that are looking to acquire AI tools should consider what problems they’re trying to solve. “Not all AI products are Gen AI products, not all Gen AI products are agentic AI products,” she says.

Organizations shouldn’t be fixated on the latest shiny object. They should figure out the right use cases and “solve for that vision,” she says.

Customers that have made the most progress with AI tools have sound approaches and governance in place to examine new solutions and determine how they should be used. Health systems need to get input from across the organization in choosing and using new AI tools, and they should have mechanisms to evaluate how they’re working.

“You need a solid technology strategy guiding that transformation. And we see that with some of our forward leading customers,” she says.

Gupta says she’s hopeful that AI can be used to improve health equity and close disparities in outcomes among underserved groups. AI tools can help flag patients who are overdue for a colorectal screening or a mammogram.

Some health leaders have been concerned about 

 in health care, but Gupta says she’s optimistic that new technologies will help clinicians use the best information.

“If you think about health equity, there has been bias in the data for decades,” she says. “That data exists, but can AI be an assistive tool to help us understand bias? I see that as a promise of generative AI to help us be more cautious.”

The company launched new offerings at the HIMSS conference. In a conversation with Chief Healthcare Executive, Google Cloud’s healthcare leader talked about AI’s emergence. 

Google Cloud’s Aashima Gupta sees AI as a ‘collaborator’ in healthcare

- Hospitals across America have suffered 

the heavy costs and disruptions of cyberattacks

 in recent years, and executives say they struggle to find top cybersecurity pros.

Many industries find it difficult to attract cybersecurity talent, but hospitals and health systems have found recruiting and retaining experienced cybersecurity pros to be a particularly stubborn problem. They say cybersecurity pros often can earn more in sectors other than health care.

However, cybersecurity leaders also are pointing to another obstacle in their talent search. They said they need to get more women in the field.

John Frushour, chief information security officer for the New York-Presbyterian Hospital System, talked about the lack of women cybersecurity professionals in hospitals during a panel discussion at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition.

“If you have a young female in IT that is interested in this field, you better sponsor her or get her some doggone training by now, because we do not have enough females in this field,” he said. “I don't know why.”

When it comes to finding women interested in cybersecurity in health care, Frushour said, “I have a hell of a hard time.”

Frushour suggested a need for more internships, shadowing programs and STEM initiatives to help encourage more women to pursue careers in cybersecurity.

“This cannot be a male-dominated field,” he said.

Jason B. Griffin, managing director of digital health strategy and cyber practice leader of Nordic Global, agreed that it’s time to get more women working in cybersecurity in the healthcare industry.

“We struggle finding folks that are wanting to actively pursue it, and women as well, minorities as well,” Griffin said in the panel discussion at HIMSS. “And we've got to find ways to open doors and provide that first level of access.”

Men hold most of the cybersecurity jobs across all industrial sectors. Women hold roughly one in four (24%) of jobs in cybersecurity in all sectors in 2024, according to a 

 by Women in Cybersecurity, a group aiming to get more women into the field.

There is some progress being made, as the group said 

only 11% of cybersecurity jobs were held by women in 2014

struggles in recruiting cybersecurity professionals

About 3 out of 4 healthcare IT professionals (74%)

 said hiring qualified cybersecurity staff remains “a significant workforce challenge,” according to a report released by HIMSS last year.

 of cybersecurity professionals in healthcare, a majority said they were investing more in cybersecurity. However, 

only about one in three cybersecurity leaders (34%) reported significant increases to staff

, the survey found. Some systems are spending more on technology, including AI solutions to beef up cybersecurity.

Lee Kim, senior principal of cybersecurity and privacy of HIMSS, said in a news briefing at the conference that some hospitals may need to look at their hiring efforts for cybersecurity roles.

“I have personal knowledge of many colleagues that are looking for work that are very experienced in healthcare,” Kim said. “Why are they not necessarily connecting with the jobs where they would be easily qualified … that's kind of puzzling to me.”

Paul M. Nakasone, a retired four-star Army general who led the U.S. Cyber Command before retiring last year, said the country needs a concerted effort to develop a group of workers trained in cybersecurity and AI. He wasn’t speaking about women specifically, but he said there needs to be a broad national effort to train the workforce that is needed in health care.

“We have to be much more aggressive in investing in our talent,” he said in 

. “I'm very hopeful that we will have some type of National Defense Education Act that looks at technology for the future in the same way that we had a Sputnik moment in the 50s, and the result was a huge number of math and science graduates.”

Health systems have struggled to recruit and retain talent, and some leaders say they need to get more women in the field. 

Dominique Wells

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