Bill Russell is the CIO of St. Joseph Health, an Irvine, Calif.-based integrated healthcare delivery system that encompasses 14 acute care hospitals, home health agencies, hospice care, outpatient services, skilled nursing facilities, community clinics and physician organizations. A 20-year veteran of the rapidly evolving information technology sector, he is a graduate of Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., and has completed executive education courses and healthcare IT leadership training at the Harvard School of Public Health in Cambridge, Mass.
Q. What’s the one promise of mHealth that will drive the most adoption over the coming year?
A. The thing we are most excited about is extending the relationship between the provider and the consumer who at times is a patient. We can envision a dialogue to be opened up across digital channels that will enhance this trusted relationship. The provider will receive more detailed information from the consumer delivered from the various sensors that are employed and the consumer will receive information and guidance across many interactions rather than an annual visit. This will move us beyond the walls of the system.
Q. What mHealth technology will become ubiquitous in the next 5 years? Why?
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A. Sensors will be everywhere – on your wrist, on your phone, in your medication, in your medication, in food perhaps. This is already happening, but it will accelerate generating a mountain of new data to sift through.
Q. What’s the most cutting-edge application you’re seeing now? What other innovations might we see in the near future?
A. Most of what we are seeing now would not be considered cutting-edge. We are seeing existing technologies being applied in new ways. When you think about Uber, there is really nothing new there except the application of the various technologies that were already readily available in each phone. In the same way we are seeing creative application of existing technology. We have several home health pilots for our complex and chronic care patients which are showing fantastic results in preventing readmissions and allowing patients to live more mobile and healthier lives.
Q. What mHealth tool or trend will likely die out or fail?
A. We will look back at some of the fitness trackers and laugh in five years, but they are the pioneers today. My parents each got a fitness tracker for Christmas and they are extremely excited. These technologies are introducing them to a world where we monitor ourselves daily and interact socially about our health and wellness, which is exciting and shows real promise. Positive social pressure to live a healthy lifestyle from those closest to us will do more for healthcare in the U.S. than any new hospital robot.
Q. What mHealth tool or trend has surprised you the most, either with its success or its failure?
A. I don’t know if it’s success or failure as much as it is absence. Medication adherence is a significant problem and responsible for a material amount of readmissions and poor outcomes in healthcare. I would love to see most if not all prescribed medications come with some means to communicate digitally back to the care provider if the patient is not taking their meds. Clearly there is a fair amount of privacy questions to be answered and regulatory hurdles to clear, but given the scope of the problem this would be a meaningful challenge to tackle.
Q. What’s your biggest fear about mHealth? Why?
A. From a CIO’s perspective the greatest fear has to be protecting the privacy of our patients. We have to create secure channels that move the data from the consumer devices to the caregiver to ensure that it is not tampered with. Also, we have to ensure that the devices themselves are secure so that they can’t be tampered with and ensure the validity of the data. Many of the technologies exist to make this happen but I think they will be applied unevenly across vendors. As healthcare providers we are going to have to build out trusted ecosystems across the communities that we serve.
Q. Who’s going to push mHealth “to the next level” – consumers, providers or some other party?
A. Yes. Consumers are going to generate data that they want their providers to have, review and provide feedback. Providers are going to want tools that allow them to function in this digital age and perhaps get back some of the time they lost in the first couple of years of meaningful use and improve their existing relationships with clients. The billions of dollars being invested in Silicon Valley is also going to push our traditionally slow-moving industry to change. Which is going to push the hardest, it’s hard to say, but the combination leads one to believe that it is inevitable.
Q. What are you working on now?
A. We are shoring up our digital channels where our patients and providers will interact as well as our big data tools. The data from these sensors will need to be delivered back to the providers in a way that doesn’t bog them down but provides them the information they need to deliver the best experience for the patient. Most physicians don’t want to view a data point for each time a person steps on a scale, they just want to see meaningful changes. Big Data platforms will handle the sensor data in a way that traditional data sources would crumble or expand to cost massive amounts of money. Our digital channels will be where we facilitate the interaction between the network of care and the community we serve surrounded by a rich set of consumer generated and clinical data to build healthier communities. This plus tons of pilots. Hard to say where this is going to take off first, but we are developing the required skills tor bring these innovations to the communities we serve.
Date: February 6, 2015