The Collective Voice of Health IT, A WEDI Podcast

From WEDI's recent Spring Conference, a conversation on the importance of data, partnership, and health equity buy-in and bake-in with prominent health equity leadership from UnitedHealth Group and Mayo Clinic. U. Michael Currie, Chief Health Equity Officer, UnitedHealth Group Adam Milam, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Office of Health Equity and Inclusion, Mayo Clinic Ajay Jayakumar, Director, Strate...

Responding to the commonwealth's public health and workforce needs, George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) launched the first and only College of Public Health in Virginia.  Michael chats with Dr. Melissa Perry, Dean of the College, on her early motivations and inspirations, the school's importance in teaching, learning, innovation and community involvement and its importance to the state's future...

This is an excerpt from a discussion from WEDI's Health Equity Forum earlier this year on how payers are leveraging data to address health disparities, prevent disease and promote health and digital literacy. His guests are Dan Rivas, Senior Manager at Blue Shield California and Kurt Johnson, Vice President Operations with UnitedHealth Group.

We chat with Elevance Health Chief Technology Officer Geeta Wilson about how her company is embracing artificial intelligence to improve and enhance the patient experience. 

To commemorate our 100th episode, WEDI welcomes our founder, former HHS Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan. 30 years ago, Dr. Sullivan founded WEDI in an effort to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency of health care data exchange. After 3 decades, we ask Dr. Sullivan if the industry is on the right path, his thoughts on improving health equity in the country and how can organizations like WE...

Michael spends some time with Kristy Dickinson, founder of Chronically Simple, a healthcare app that hopes to end the fragmented healthcare experience and allows patients and caregivers to proactively manage their health data.  Find out about Chronically Simple on the app store or visit https://www.chronicallysimple.com/

This week we hear from Angie Bass, Chief Strategy Officer with Velatura Public Benefit Corporation, an industry leader in providing HIT and HIE consulting, development, implementation and operation services across the nation. Angie offers insight on Health Data Utilities (HDUs), the differences between HDUs and HIEs, and why it's the next step towards interoperability and better public health. 

A WEDI Spotlight from December 2022 featured a panel of health care cybersecurity SMEs discussing how to strengthen cybersecurity in the industry. The panelists: Denise Anderson, President and CEO, H-ISAC, Chris Lodico, Sr Director, Information Safety, HCSC, Dr. Stephen Leffler, President and COO, and Dr. Douglas Gentile, Sr VP Information Technology, both with the University of Vermont Medical He...

WEDI's continues to discuss the real world experiences regarding telehealth this week. We welcome Jill Dominic, Public Policy Director with Elevance Health and the co-chair for WEDI's Telehealth Workgroup. Joining Jill is Samantha Holvey, WEDI's Director of Workgroups & Communication and Robert Tennant, WEDI's Vice President of Federal Affairs. 

Millions of patients nationwide embraced the benefits of virtual health over the past 4 years. Telehealth is poised top play a large role in the coming years. In conjunction with WEDI's Telehealth Workgroup, we welcome WEDI leadership to share their unique experiences with telehealth. This week, Ed Hafner, WEDI's board chair and Nancy Spector, WEDI's most recent former board chair visit the podcas...

In a season of "Raining Regulations" our attention turns to data exchange initiatives from the state level that sometimes occur in spite of or in absence of federal initiatives.  Matthew speaks with David Haugen, Administrative Simplification Program Director with Minnesota's Department of Health ( https://www.health.state.mn.us/facilities/ehealth/auc/index.html ) and Denny Brennan, Executive Dire...

Matthew welcomes back Arrive Health CEO Kyle Kiser to the podcast to discuss the latest at Arrive Health, an industry leader in delivering real-time cost and coverage data to decision-making workflows. Kyle discusses how working with multiple stakeholders help drive quality, make the best, cost efficient decision and increase patient satisfaction and engagement. 

Michael sits down and chats with Tim Noonan, Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity at HHS' Office for Civil Rights (OCR).  What are some common trends and deficiencies that OCR confronts in their investigations? Why the increase in cyber attacks on business associates and what resources and guidance (spoiler alert: there are plenty) does OCR have available to aid i...

Michael sits in for Matthew and welcomes Dave Bennett, CEO of pCare, a leading provider of patient engagement solutions for health systems across the country. The two discuss the changing tone and climate of patient experiences and how Dave and pCare has leveraged technology and innovation to develop a truly remarkable hospital room of the future. 

Matthew welcomes HL7 CEO Dr. Charles Jaffe and Deputy Standards Chief Implementation Officer Diego Kaminker. With FHIR seemingly on the lips of every health IT professional, Matthew asks the two about FHIR's history, its multiple accelerators and how the standard is looking to be the key to unlocking data exchange for healthcare throughout the world. 

Michael speaks with Ron Emerson, Global Healthcare Lead at Zoom. Recognized as a thought leader in Telehealth, Ron has more than 20 years' experience in the healthcare industry having worked on a number of Telemedicine programs in nearly 50 countries.  The two discuss Zoom being in the healthcare arena and the future of telehealth. 

This week, Michael welcomes Julie Rezek, CEO of Advata. Advata provides advanced data analytics software to improve decision-making and optimize administrative efficiencies in healthcare. The company's revenue cycle management solutions are powered by predictive analytics, actionable artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotic process automation.  What is the present and future of data...

Data breaches from healthcare vendors, which are considered “business associates" under HHS’ Office of Civil Rights breach portal have grown over the past 5 years, including 116 reported business associate breaches since November 2022 which have affected over 17 million patients. Michael chats with Phil Englert, Director of Medical Device Security for the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Ce...

Matthew speaks with Ed Hafner, Chair of WEDI's Board of Directors and AVP Payer Strategy-Medical Network with Change Healthcare, and Robert Tennant, Vice President, Federal Affairs with WEDI.  The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) Standards Subcommittee hearing took place Jan.18 & 19, examining the new and updated transaction standards and operating rules. Robert testified...

Matthew chats with Matt McBride, Co-Founder and CEO of Mend (Mend.com) a patient engagement and telehealth platform designed to help healthcare organizations scale their practice and care for more patients.  Matt discusses the change in telehealth usage over the past several years and how healthcare must continue to evolve and incorporate emerging technologies to offer patient a more seamless, eff...

From WEDI's National Conference this past October in Washington DC, Civitas Networks for Health's CEO Lisa Bari hosts an engaging panel on the power of Health Information Exchanges with Nichole Sweeney, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer for CRISP and Elizabeth Killingsworth. General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer for Manifest Medex.    Learn more about HIEs and Civitas Networks for Heal...

Matthew talks about the importance of data with Epic's Phil Lindemann, VP of Business Intelligence and Dave Little, MD, Clinical Informaticist.  Epic manages electronic health records for more than 250 million patients and is now expanding clinical trials by kicking off a Life Sciences program to help speed up the development of new therapies. Providers across the world use Epic to conduct more th...

Michael chats with Durwin Day, Health Information Manager with Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). Durwin also is a long standing member of WEDI's Board of Directors and is the co-chair of its Attachments Subworkgroup.  Durwin offers his initial thoughts on the PA and Attachments proposed rules, the role of FHIR and a glimpse into the potential discussions that will take place during his Attac...

This episode is part of Telehealth Awareness Week, #TelehealthisHealth Michael has a fascinating conversation with Cloud DX CEO Robert Kaul. Cloud DX is working on developing healthcare within the relatively new and mysterious metaverse, which consists of virtual and augmented reality experiences that we haven't even begun to scrap the surface of. Additionally, the two discuss the role of remote p...

WEDI is a proud partner for Telehealth Awareness Week #TelehealthisHealth To commemorate Telehealth Awareness Week, Matthew sits down with Robin Farmanfarmaian, a professional speaker and healthcare entrepreneur working with cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence Software, Device and Pharma companies poised to impact 100M patients. Within these companies, she focuses on strategy, business developmen...