News Day – Back to Work in Verona, Patient ID, and HIMSS Dates

News Day – Back to Work in Verona, Patient ID, and HIMSS Dates

Episode 288: Transcript – August 11, 2020

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[00:00:36] welcome to this week in health. IT  it’s Tuesday news day, where we look at the news, which will impact health IT today. Epic takes heat from employees and adjust their course. HIMSS announces new dates, patient ID, chaos, and compliance, and telehealth is here to stay. I think my name is Bill Russell, healthcare, CIO, coach, and creative this week in health, it a set of podcast videos and collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of [00:01:00] health leaders.

[00:01:00] This episode, every episode, since we started the COVID-19 series has been sponsored by serious healthcare. Now we’re exiting the series and Sirius has stepped up to be a weekly sponsor of the show through the end of the year. Special thanks to Sirius for supporting the show’s efforts during the crisis and beyond, if you haven’t signed up for three extracts, yet you are missing out texts.

[00:01:18] Directs D R E X to four eight four eight four eight and receive three texts every week with stories that will help you to stay current helps me prepare for the show. This is a service of directs to Ford, a frequent. Contributor of the show now onto the news. I want to do something in the first 10 minutes of the show before I jumped to the news that, I haven’t done before.

[00:01:38] I’m going to go through the headlines and modern healthcare and just riff a little off the headlines themselves, just trying something out to see how it goes. And then we’ll jump into the stories that I have selected. So, you know, this idea came because I was just shocked. I, you know, I’m sitting here looking at the, modern healthcare.

[00:01:57] A website. And by the way, all this stuff is behind a pay [00:02:00] wall. I’m unless you worked for a health system, in which case, just walk around, you’ll find a copy of modern healthcare sitting around somewhere. There was so many great headlines that I didn’t. I just, I thought this is, it would be interesting just to, just to riff now.

[00:02:14] I haven’t read these stories. I am just going. Off the headline. Okay. So, so cut me a little Slack here. I’m trying something new. The first story here is Kaiser Permanente. Post 4.5 billion in Q2, net income. Couple of things jumped out at me with this. One of the things we did when I was a CIO is we created a thing called it university.

[00:02:35] And part of the it university was we had. People from my team and my direct reports and myself each had to lead a class. So we had to teach a class, had to be at least, you know, four hours in duration. And the CFO for my group decided to teach a class on understanding healthcare, finance, and understanding how to create a budget for, within health.

[00:02:54] It. And, it was interesting, when he created the class, it was, it was really well [00:03:00] attended and received class. As you can imagine, a lot of people don’t understand healthcare finance and how healthcare, healthcare organizations make money and, you know, all the money they give to public good and how they, you know, all those things.

[00:03:11] So that was an interesting conversation in and of itself. but he, he covered a lot of things like operating income. And, what that means and how we look at those things. And we looked at, I don’t think the word is endowments, but the investments that healthcare organizations have, and when I’m reading this, this headline, the first thing that pops out at me is Kaiser posted a four, four and a half billion dollar, net income in Q2.

[00:03:36] Okay. So the first thing you have to ask is how much of that is operating income. And I don’t know, I haven’t read the story, but I would imagine a fair amount of that’s operating income. They probably use the crisis as an opportunity to reduce costs. So they probably had a percentage or two dropping costs.

[00:03:50] They had, an increase in revenue because Kaiser is a. Payer and a provider. So anytime somebody tries to compare your health system with [00:04:00] Kaiser, you have to ask how much of the percentage of your overall business is, is as a payer. Right? So that’s not always a good, a good comparison. So the reason I, I look at this story is to say, understand what you’re reading when you read these things, understand the comparisons that are being made.

[00:04:17]cause you could just go down on the same page. Down to the bottom here. And it says mass general, Brigham reports, 12% loss in margin, amid patient care drought. And so what there, you have to look at the timelines. And you have to look at what they’re actually talking about. That the first was talking about a net income.

[00:04:36] The bottom one’s talking about a margin drop and margin drops happen when profitable business, when you’re doing less profitable business and some of your profitable business has dropped out. So when we stopped doing electric procedures, that was very profitable business and we started doing more COVID that maybe wasn’t as profitable of a type of business.

[00:04:56] So I cover that to say, you know, as healthcare it [00:05:00] leaders within the organization, part of our job is to help our organization and our people to understand the, the, the finance of healthcare, the finance of healthcare, it where the money’s coming from, and that money should get allocated to drive what’s best for the community.

[00:05:17] Not only best for the community, but also is good for the business to keep it going. Okay, next story was nine healthcare policies at stake. If Congress COVID-19 package stalls, you know, I am actually going to pull this up just to see what the nine are. More provider relief fund money could be at risk, relaxing, Medicare loan terms, ability, protection, cell health policy, extension, a COVID-19 testing funds, state, and local funding.

[00:05:42]you know, it’s interesting as I read that article as I just hit those headlines real quick, this is an alarmist article. How I read this as, you know, first of all, there is going to be something passed, right? So, this is one of those things that you, ratchet up the pressure by writing these kinds of articles, getting people [00:06:00] concerned about things.

[00:06:01] So they push this thing forward. And that’s generally speaking how I read this article. I don’t think first of all, I think telehealth is going to continue. I think. this package is going to pass. We’re not going to have to worry about additional funding coming down to hospitals through the largest employers in all these States, there’s an election going on.

[00:06:19] No party wants to tick off the electric during an election. So that’s how I read that. Let’s see Epic systems make sense, return to in-person work voluntary. I’m going to come back to that story because it’s actually one of the stories we’re covering because when I picked the stories, it was that the Epic.

[00:06:37] Employees have responded unfavorably. The reason I pulled that article out is because I think we’re all going to have to face that how are we going to bring our employees back? Is it going to be a voluntary thing? Is it not going to be a voluntary thing? And what are we going to do when people just refuse to come back?

[00:06:51] And so I want to talk about that a little bit, a little bit in the, so what, in that story, when we take a look at it, I’m not taking a look at it to say, Hey, Epic did this right. [00:07:00] Or this wrong. I’m really looking at it to say, what can we learn from that? Because we’re going to have to do something similar in the not too distant future.

[00:07:09]Then there’s a, of course, Trump orders to defund Medicare, social security, social security encroaches on Congress’s power to invite you challenges. again, another one of those stories that’s written mostly lead to a, to agitate people and get them excited for the most part that the executive order that he signed.

[00:07:28]doesn’t really do much. I think if you read into it, it authorizes people to go in directions, but it doesn’t in and of itself, doesn’t appear to do much, from what I’m reading. but it does do the, does do what it is intended to do, which it, takes the ground away from the opponents so that they are forced.

[00:07:48] To the negotiating table and it moves it forward, in a little fashion, at least that’s the point  maneuvering. That’s going on again, not a political show. I’m not commenting on it. I’m just [00:08:00] saying, that’s how I read this. As a, as a CIO, I’m sort of reading this going, Hey, there’s really nothing. I need to worry about year because this is going to be, this is going to play out.

[00:08:08] Like all of these things play out, which is eventually a there’s enough pressure. A deal gets done and all that. stuff gets, gets taken care of the, the funding, the telehealth, and all that other stuff gets taken care of. So there’s nothing for me to really function from. I can get agitated by these stories cause that’s why they’re written.

[00:08:25]but it doesn’t really do anyone any good. I think there’s two stories here that are really fascinating and relevant for us. One is emergency department visits, continue to lag a post COVID. Right. I, again, I haven’t, I’m just reading the article. This is not surprising to me. we did a good job of moving.

[00:08:43] I’ve said this before. We did a good job of telling people, Hey, stop coming into the emergency department because we need to do social distancing and we need to create a safe environment while we went and re went ahead and created those safe environments. And now people aren’t coming back because people generally.

[00:08:57] Are still making a lot of decisions out of fear. And so it’s [00:09:00] our job to help them to overcome that fear, but we have to present the compelling case. Why should they come back to the emergency department? And a lot of them are choosing to use telehealth, which is good. Right. And a lot of them are, are, are trying to use a different avenues to get care, which is interesting.

[00:09:17] Cause the very next article is rethinking ed waiting rooms in response to COVID-19. And I think that is where we need to go. This is a very relevant conversation for healthcare and healthcare it right. Emergency department visits, continue to lag and rethinking the ed waiting rooms in response to COVID-19 no one, I don’t sit in a waiting room now to get my haircut.

[00:09:38] Why would I sit in a waiting room full of sick people, to go see a doctor, right? We’ve changed the, we changed how people think it’s about waiting rooms. And we need to think about how we have designed our hospitals and maybe how we have to redesign our hospitals. you know, I know for me going to get my haircut, I make an appointment.

[00:09:56]I show up, I stay outside, they come out and get me. [00:10:00] I go in and get my haircut with a mask on and. The whole thing. And I get out of there. I think I’m out of there in 15 minutes. So I’m only exposed to someone else for like 15 minutes. you know, it doesn’t reduce my risk down to zero, but I use that story to say there is probably an opportunity for us to sit down and rethink waiting rooms and technology will have a role in that for sure.

[00:10:25]let’s see healthcare industry. A forge new supply chains in the fight against COVID-19. There’s definitely a technology play there. next story. I see how mercy hospitals closure could hobble Chicago South side health care, roughly 300 fewer beds on Chicago, South side, where residents have long been disproportionately affected by chronic conditions.

[00:10:44] And now COVID-19, we’re going to continue to, this is one of the things we expected out of COVID that if you did not have a well-funded hospital, if you did not have a hospital that was potentially. well funded and op an operating at a high efficiency. [00:11:00] Those hospitals were going to be hobbled so much that they may not recover and we’re starting to see that.

[00:11:05] And so there are going to be gaps that are created in a certain areas, rural areas, some, as they say, disproportionately affected, areas. And, and that is going to be. you know, something that needs to be addressed, something that from a health it perspective, I read that and I say, okay, yeah, there’s going to be a bunch of these I’m with a larger health system.

[00:11:27] I’m thinking, you know, there’s going to be a bunch of expansion that we’re going to do either fulfill these gaps or through M and a, that is going to be coming down the pike. That’s how I read that story. Let’s see blue cross claims for turning to pre COVID-19 levels. That’s not surprising to me when we saw the claims data bounce back to about 85%.

[00:11:47] That was back in April, may we saw back at 85%. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s almost back up to a hundred percent. Here’s an interesting health it story. VA resumed rollout [00:12:00] of $16 billion Cerner EHR project. I don’t think there’s any project in the country that has more scrutiny. Then this project in terms of an EHR rollout, and it’s going, gonna have a, you know, again, it’s $16 billion in its implementation.

[00:12:15]so it has a lot of, interests. Let’s say it that way. There’s a lot of interests fighting around this and there are some that would like to see it fail so that it might go to a different EHR vendor. There are, You know, there’s ways to make political points by pointing out some of the deficiencies and things that are going on.

[00:12:33] So again, this is a, if I were the CIO for this project, this is a extremely challenging project. I would, you know, I would cross my T’s dot my I’s. I would make sure that we were doing, you know, piloted projects ensure, minimizing the risk. And make sure that that goes well. so that’s my first time I’m trying this.

[00:12:55] I think it’s, I, you know, I think it’s interesting. you guys can tell me bill it this week [00:13:00] in health it.com. Is it interesting? Is it not interesting? We will find out. Alright. So, we are taking a look at a bunch of stories this week that have come down the pike. Let’s start with, let’s start with the, Epic story.

[00:13:17] Right. So you want to hear about that? Epic faces, employee backlash. This is healthcare it news. And because we only report out on Tuesday, this was from last week and it said essentially the frustrated staffers at the Verona campus, alleged indifference from upper management to the health risks, and say, there have been efforts to quash dissent.

[00:13:36] Some say they’re looking to unionize and response. Okay. So, Epic CEO, Judy Faulkner wrote in July company-wide email. It’s hard, actually. It’s impossible to retain our culture. When we were working from our homes, she added creativity, innovation, and serendipity suffer, which can be fatal to a company like ours that is constantly needing to create new products and new features.

[00:13:58] But employees are [00:14:00] wary of returning to work in Wisconsin where the coronavirus spread is currently described as uncontrolled. According to a COVID-19 exit strategy with 6.1 positivity rate. and then it goes on to talk about the world health organization, a couple other things. and so letting people work from home during the pandemic is a one sided trade off.

[00:14:21] The company loses almost nothing. cultural culture, hardly counts and gains quite a bit. In the way that an employee Goodwill, morale and public health wrote another. so these are employee responses. So they’re saying, Hey look, you know, the company gained so much cause we are such happier employees and there’s, there’s no downside, cause we’re just as productive as we were another one.

[00:14:44]wrote the responses to COVID-19 has been a disaster management doesn’t care about the safety and wellbeing of the employees during the pandemic. And other ones said slow to roll out, working from home. When COVID-19 pandemic started, then rushing to get 9,000 people back on campus. Despite [00:15:00] high success for working from home wrote another, instead of fearing work from home, learn to manage when your employees aren’t on campus, they were your strongest assets, but are now leaving.

[00:15:13] Well, I doubt they’re leaving, but, a lot of times, again, this is at the peak, right? So when you read these things, it’s, the emotions are at their peak and management’s trying to posture and employees are trying to, trying to posture. so I guess I I’m morally outraged. And our, I had our response when anonymous, Epic employee said on CBS news.

[00:15:35] I don’t want us to be the epicenter of the next breakout. Again, these concerns are not unfounded. I mean, my baseball team, the st. Louis Cardinals, and, you know, we can fingers and say, Oh, they didn’t follow protocol. Whatever. We have no idea if they follow protocol or not, this virus is not a Democrat or Republican.

[00:15:52] This virus is not a Midwestern or big city. This virus is not rural or urban. It’s not this virus. [00:16:00] It doesn’t, it’s not national league or American league. It doesn’t root for the Cubs and not for the, this virus is a virus and it acts like a virus. And so it doesn’t matter if your intentions are good or bad, it will act virus.

[00:16:16] And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to read all these things. So anyway, we should probably go to the other story. And the other story is. Epic responded hopefully in the right way. So let’s take a look at this Epic systems makes return to imperson work voluntary. And this is what a lot of you are doing, right?

[00:16:37]Epic employs about 10,000 people, 4,200 have already returned to work. Sweet. So let me comment on that. That seems to be the approach that a lot of people are using. people that, that choose to return to work may choose to return to work. By the way epics facility is probably one of the safest facilities in the country to work in.

[00:16:55] I mean, Judy Faulkner went out of her way to make a, I mean, it’s a [00:17:00] interesting place, but I mean, it has HEPA filters, almost all individual offices space. It’s a wide open facility. You could practice social distancing, you could wear a mask. It’s probably one of the safest facilities out there. Right.

[00:17:14] But it’s still, how is it going to be perceived by your employees? Make them come back voluntarily, come back. I think this is a different conversation. If vaccines in place herd immunity is happened. I think this is a case study for us in healthcare to say, how are we going to bring our employees back?

[00:17:33] There will be a time where we sit back and go look we’re we we’ve now done the real analysis, not this, Hey, we’re doing a good job working from home, but we’ve actually done the analysis to say, have we lost anything? And if we haven’t lost anything, then by all means employees work from home.

[00:17:50] Everybody’s happy, but if we’ve lost some things, let’s have that discussion and say, you know, how, how do we bring people back? What do the hybrid models look like? This is going to be a [00:18:00] conversation I’m looking forward to having in the fall with, with CEO’s as I have them on, on the show. And, just to say, you know, how are we thinking about this?

[00:18:07] How are we bringing them back? you know, my, so what on this is, right now, the balls in the. in the employee’s court, I don’t think we should force them to do anything. I don’t think we have answers to an awful lot of things. we don’t have enough testing still in some cases. I know that the Cardinals, I, you know, again, I’m following that because I, a huge st.

[00:18:29] Louis Cardinals fan. And one of the things I’m seeing is that they’re literally taking tests every day to try to get back on the field. And I don’t think we can offer that level of, you know, are we going to do that level of testing? If there is a breakout, are we going to do contact tracing to ensure that the people who were at work, are monitored in the right way?

[00:18:49]and so this is going to be a conversation. If you’re planning on coming on the show this fall, and some of you have accepted the invitations and I’m looking forward to it, You know, this is, this is going to be one of those topics. I think people want to hear [00:19:00] about. Alright, next story. let’s go to patient ID.

[00:19:05] So, good news. The house voted to remove the federal ban on the unique patient identifier. It’s good news. because HIMS has been pushing this chime has been pushing this and they’re not the only ones there’s others. who have been pushing this, I seem to be the only one in the opposite camp, by the way.

[00:19:20]but generally speaking this story, says that, you know, they they’ve removed the block to funding anything around this. So there used to be a block in some bill, section five, 10 of labor, HHS bill prohibiting, federal funds for the promulgation or adoption of a unique patient identifier. Love those words.

[00:19:41] And so you had bipartisan support on this. It was supported, as I said, it’s supported by, HIMS supported by chimes, supported by others. you know, just real briefly, you know, why, why am I not a huge proponent of this? There’s a handful of reasons. One is we even solve this within our, within our four walls of our health system.

[00:20:00] [00:19:59] There’s still, you know, in many health systems are still at a two to something percent. Two to two plus percent, duplicate rates. Now some of the well-run hospitals have gotten that percentage way, way down. And the reason is because it’s a people problem, right? It’s, it’s not necessarily a technology problem.

[00:20:17] Although technology helps, we used initiate and there’s other technologies that are out there, that allow you to, put alerts up as people are checking in. we also had, a significant population of, people that were, what do you call them? Aliases, I guess that people weren’t giving us their real information.

[00:20:37] So you’re, you’re bound to have duplicates and other kinds of information like that. We also had a different EHR for our ambulatory in our acute that also led to a duplicate. And so when I say that, I say, Yeah, we haven’t solved the problem within, and we have the ability to do, all sorts of things.

[00:20:55]and, and it didn’t really solve it. So I’m not sure that a patient identifier, [00:21:00] on a national basis is going to give us the ability to pull everything in that’s number one, number two, we have, let’s just call it the ACLU concerns and the ACLU concerns are that, there could be a breach of patient privacy.

[00:21:15]that they are concerned about. the third, I would say security. And from a security standpoint, if I have the ability to go into a, let’s say a week cybersecurity posture health system and get in there and then link up to the other records and get a complete medical record from that, let’s just say vulnerable health system.

[00:21:34]you know, we have not proved our ability to, keep breaches from happening. And now we’ve given a. A sophisticated hacker, a way to piece together, the entire medical record from across the board. So, you know, that’s another reason I’m not a huge fan. And then five, actually my primary reason, all those things are really secondary to me.

[00:21:52] But the primary reason I’m not a fan is I believe that the patient identifier should be. I think the patient should be the center of the [00:22:00] identifier. So it should be a Patriots patient centric, data sharing model, not a hospital centric, data sharing model and not a health system centric page, a data sharing model.

[00:22:11] And so I’ve talked about this on the show before, so I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice it to say I’m more of a fan of, having my phone number. Be my a P unique patient identifier and the record comes to me and I’m the data steward and I can, find fiduciaries. I can find, data stewards.

[00:22:30] I can find others who are going to help me in my healthcare. this is a very, healthcare centric way of thinking about this problem and really pursuing. A solution to this problem. So those are my, that’s my 2 cents on this, you know, what’s the, what’s the, so what for you? the, so for you is this is probably going to be the direction that we go, unique patient identifier.

[00:22:50]just keep an eye on it. It’s going to move slow. All they did was lift the funding ban. It’s gonna, it’s gonna open up funding. It’s still gonna take them. [00:23:00] yeah, I don’t know. It’ll take probably a couple of years before we’re really doing anything in health. It that’s my 2 cents on it. I hope it moves faster and I hope it, it, it gets us to a longitudinal, accurate longitudinal patient record at the point of care.

[00:23:13]that’s their goal. I believe that their, their intentions are good and I believe that their, goal is noble and I hope we get there. I I’m an advocate for a different approach, so. Neither here nor there on that one. let’s see, what else did I say? I was going to talk about patient ID chaos in compliance.

[00:23:31] This is an interesting story. A quick pivot to new HHS COVID-19, reporting rules meant chaos for hospitals. generally I read this article. I wasn’t a huge fan of the article. And, the reason I wasn’t a huge fan is because the, hospital associations, whatnot, speak for health it, and they, they make us sound like the Keystone cops.

[00:23:53]the reality is, while this pivot, if you, if you don’t remember the, the CDC you’re living it. [00:24:00] So the CDC, we used to send our reports either to the state or to the CDC, directly. And now HHS is now the, the target. They added about a six, I think it’s about six, six to eight. Data fields out of a 31.

[00:24:14] I think it’s 90, some odd data elements that we have to collect. but you know, the data elements really fall into two categories. They fall into the basic blocking and tackling of healthcare. These are things that we had, reports and dashboards on for decades. Literally. I mean, we know how many beds we have.

[00:24:30] We know who’s in the beds. the challenge with some of this stuff is it’s in multiple systems, right? It’s not just, Hey, go to your EHR, run a report. And here we go. Some of it’s in TeleTracking. Some of it’s it’s just it’s. Spread out. It can be in your pharmacy system that might be in your EHR. It might not be in your EHR.

[00:24:46]so there’s a, there, there is some work here to get the extracts. Right. and so my so wide on this is, yeah, there is some work here, but they make it sound like it’s an impossible lift. The reality is the first [00:25:00] 25. Some odd data fields should be relatively easy lift because we lifted it. A decade ago, right?

[00:25:07] It’s the new data fields that probably need, need a little bit of time to get. Right. And so there’s two ways to report this either directly to HHS or to the state and what I’m advocating for you. If you’re doing this is take the time. Get it right. send it in, but also don’t stand behind these hospital.

[00:25:28] Associations are calling this out. Don’t stand behind. Oh, it’s too hard. It’s impossible. if that’s the case, then we really have significant analytics problems within our organizations. I understand we have to stand up some new things for some of these new. Data fields that we’re collecting, but all in all, this should be a core competency for every health system.

[00:25:48]the ability to pull, fields, even new fields that they’re asking us for to validate those fields, to get the extract right. And to create the feed that goes out. if I were a governor, I don’t know if I have [00:26:00] any governors listening to this or anybody in government. that should be the method for everyone to report.

[00:26:05] It shouldn’t be directly to the HHS. It should be to report through the state governments. And the reason I say that is because there, if I’m a governor, I want this information. I don’t want it to like go through HHS and then come back to me. I wanted at the state so that I can build the right responses.

[00:26:21]we’re responding locally to this, right. So I need as much data as I can. I get it. It doesn’t make sense for me to have it go to HHS. I understand it’s underfunded. A lot of public health is underfunded in most States. but there should be a repository. And if you are struggling to set that up by all means, give me a call.

[00:26:37] There’s a lot of ways you can set up that repository in a, open source platform that is not overly expensive. A lot of health systems have done it in the past, build your own kind of thing, a very inexpensive taking those data feeds and massage that data and get it right and then send it over to HHS.

[00:26:54]so that’s the, so what, so what if you’re a state. Get the data to yourself. If you’re a health system, [00:27:00] don’t stand behind. It’s too hard. Cause it’s not too hard. This is basic blocking and tackling in analytics. Get the extract, get it right. Take the time. If it, if it takes a week and you’re not reporting on time and those guys take your time, get it right.

[00:27:13] Because you don’t want to report incorrect information cause you’re just going to have to go back and correct it anyway. So, get it right, but then send it over. And again, is this, this, this is what we do. This is our business. It’s a, it information technology is moving information around and this is what they expect from us.

[00:27:33]let’s see. One more story. that’s chaos and compliance. What I say? Oh, hymns announces new dates. I don’t know if I want to talk about this one. This is an interesting hot potato, and I’ve seen some posts out on social media on this. You know, the question people are asking is, is there a better way to do this?

[00:27:52] Right? I’ve I remember the first time I went to him and I said to somebody, is this a big deal? And they said, no, that’s not a big deal. And then I went and there’s like a bajillion [00:28:00] people there. And I’m like, how could you say this? Isn’t a big deal. There’s so many people here. And their point, was that not a whole heck black gets done there?

[00:28:07] I don’t think that that analysis was true. I I’ve been able to use it well as hymns, pretty effectively to, to meet with vendors. They’re all in one place. I got a lot of, you know, as a CIO, one of the things that happens is you start to elevate above the technology, start to work with the business more, but you start to get away from the technology.

[00:28:25] And one of the things that enabled me to do, you know, as a CIO, I liked walking the floor. I could get a lot of demos very quickly so I could see what my EHR provider was doing. I could see what other EHR providers were doing, in a very low key way. I was able to see what was going on between VMware and Citrix.

[00:28:41] I was able to see what was going on, in identity and access management and look at the different solutions around that. I was able to sit in. I didn’t sit in on a lot of the presentations, to be honest with you, I would have liked to have done more. but for a CIO that was, there was a, there was value.

[00:28:56] Yeah. And all the vendor partners coming together and, and [00:29:00] having the chime event sort of connected with it. I don’t think this is going to go away. There’s a lot of bad, a bad taste in how hymns handled this. They’re holding onto the money. They do have. They have not given a refunds the way they should.

[00:29:13] They are essentially saying, Hey, we’re waiting to see how our insurance a claim comes through before we give any kind of money back. And, I’ve, I’ve heard from vendors that they’re not overly happy. I’ve heard from some, health systems. There’s some. different things that people signed up for that they didn’t get money back for.

[00:29:32]there’s there’s a lot of bad blood around this, but, I don’t, I don’t suspect, I think hymns is gonna take a black eye. I think the August date will not be overly well attended. for a couple of reasons. One is, you know, August, I don’t know. I don’t know where we’ll be in August. I don’t know what it’ll look like.

[00:29:50]I do know that bug’s budgets will still be constrained, so travel will still be constrained. So it’ll be. It’ll be tight from that perspective. I think there should be some bad blood. There should be some empty, empty booths [00:30:00] for that reason. but here’s my, so what if there’s value there’s value? So if I were a CIO and I’m, you know, I probably go to that August conference too.

[00:30:12]take a look, see if there’s value there still the networking opportunity with your peers. There’s still an opportunity to meet with strategic vendors because you can rest assured that your EHR vendor will be there. And some of the key players, whether they’re angry or not is going to be re regardless, they’re going to be going next year, just to see.

[00:30:33]what sort of transpires others are going to see this as an opportunity to step up and say, Hey, our conferences, the next conference, to be honest with you, I I’ve gone to a lot of these conferences. There’s none quite like this one. There’s none quite like hymns. I’ve gone to the health conference.

[00:30:47] It’s a different crowd. It’s a, you know, it’s the innovation crowd and it’s mostly, it’s mostly around, you know, venture capital. It’s mostly around private equity. It’s mostly around investments and that whole crowd and [00:31:00] it’s, it’s, it’s not the same now. I think you’ll, you’ll see those vendors start to show up there and that might be the protest vote.

[00:31:06] The protest vote might be the health conference, but again, it’s very different conference. so we’ll have to see, I don’t have a definitive, I’m not falling down either side of this. You know, I do remember the quote from hunt for red October, ramus, the commander of the Soviet sub at the end. the, Alec Baldwin character, Jack Ryan is essentially saying, Hey, you know, there’s going to be hell to pay.

[00:31:30] And in Russia for. For the ship going down and he looks at him and says, you know, a little revolution from time to time is a good thing. And, you know, healthcare revolution from time to time might be a good thing. Well, you know, that’s all for this week. Don’t forget to sign up for clip notes, send an email, hit the website.

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