Episode Transcript
Alan Helgeson (announcer):
“Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. In this series, we explore the challenges facing health care systems across the country from improving access to equitable care, building a sustainable workforce, and discovering innovative ways to deliver high-quality, low-cost services in rural and underserved populations. Each episode examines how Sanford Health and other health systems are advancing care for the unique communities they serve.
In this episode, host Courtney Collen with Sanford Health News talks with Dr. Eve Cunningham, chief of virtual care and digital health at Providence, as well as founder and CEO of MedPearl.
Dr. Cunningham is a speaker at the 2024 Summit on the Future of Rural Health Care.
Courtney Collen (host):
Thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Eve Cunningham (guest):
Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Courtney Collen:
You are participating in a panel called “Expectation to Experience: Rethinking Health Care to Serve Today’s Consumer.” What is something that you’d like the audience to take away?
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
I think that the important thing to take away is obviously there’s a lot of innovation happening now. There’s a lot of engagement from clinicians. We’re starting to get really excited about the possibilities and the changes that we see coming.
And so, from my perspective I think there’s a way forward for us to start to reimagine how we deliver health care, and technology is going to be such a critical aspect of that. As clinicians having competency and skills in technology and understanding technology and integrating that into our work is going to be really important going into the future and impactful in our ability to deliver care in a more meaningful way to our patients.
Courtney Collen:
Yeah. Wonderful insight. Thank you for that. Do you have a surprising, hottest take from the day so far that you’d like to share or something that you are going to take home?
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
Well, the panelists have all been super impressive. I’m really impressed with the lineup. Your CEO Bill Gassen, he is a really phenomenal speaker, very inspiring. And some of the things when he was speaking, I was like, “Wow, he sounds like a clinician.” I know he doesn’t have a clinical background, but he really understands how to speak health care and speak to the clinicians in the room. So that really resonated with me.
And then Dr. Bruce Scott, the president of the AMA, I wanted to applaud him when he started talking about the pain of prior authorization, that we’re feeling the strain, and the stress that we feel with the overwhelming amount of prior authorization that we as clinicians have to deal with. It’s becoming more and more intense every year, and that we really need to address that issue. I just thought that was such an important thing, and I think it’s an area of opportunity from an innovation perspective.
Courtney Collen:
And speaking of innovation, is there an innovation or action that you feel will really move the needle in the coming years, at least the next one to two years?
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Dr. Eve Cunningham:
Yeah, I mean, I think probably one of the biggest things that’s on the horizon right now is the ambient technologies that we’re starting to bring in. So we use DAX at Providence. I know Abridge is another one that’s really popular with the clinicians, but all of those ambient scribe technologies really are going to unburden our clinicians.
And then I think the next frontier is around clinical decision support. As clinicians, we want to do the best we can for our patients, but the amount of information, knowledge, and both patient data for which we’re responsible at the point of care – it’s just too much for us to consume. So being able to filtrate out that information at the point of care so that we can make quick, meaningful and impactful decisions with our patients is going to be really critical going into the future.
Courtney Collen:
When it comes to rural health care, serving rural patients in rural America, what are some of the challenges or opportunities that you see?
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
I think one of the biggest challenges with rural health care is the fact that it’s very hard to recruit clinicians into rural health care settings. And there are many parts of this country that are underserved as a result of that. I mean, it’s estimated that 65% of non-metro areas do not have a psychiatrist living in the community.
So in order to address that, one of the best ways to be able to do that is through virtual and digital care encounters. And so it’s such a critical factor in these communities to be able to reach patients, even if we can’t do it in-person, to reach patients or to bring specialty expertise and beam it into a critical access hospital so they can keep a stroke patient in their community, for example, and not have to transfer. So those things are going to be critical.
And we experience that at Providence. We have a lot of critical access and rural community facilities, clinics, and hospitals and rural clinics. So we’re scaling out programs to reach those communities in new and innovative ways.
Courtney Collen:
Thank you. How do you think we need to strengthen trust in health care during a time of rapid disruption?
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
I mean, that’s a great question. I think that the trust has been broken to some extent in the past just because, especially with the EMR and the computer coming into the room. And the clinicians looking at a keyboard rather than being able to look in their patient’s eyes.
So I think these supportive technologies, I call it a supportive technology stack, that can sort of hug the clinician and surround the clinician so that they can actually reengage in what they love the most, which is relationship building and sacred encounters with their patients, I think that’s really where it starts for me as far as how we can start to rebuild that trust.
Courtney Collen:
Let’s talk about AI in health care for a moment and how you feel about it and its impact so far on the health care industry.
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
At Providence, I co-lead the clinical AI work group. We have a governance structure that was just set up and we have several use cases that we’re evaluating. I think there’s a lot of interest and engagement. We’ve deployed ambient technology. We have a digital assistant clinical intelligence hub for clinicians called MedPearl that leverages some AI. We have an in-basket management solution called Prevaria that helps with processing messages that uses AI. So we’re already starting to use it in a meaningful way.
I think that obviously you need to be careful. You need to be thoughtful about how you start to bring these things in. You have to take a lot of things into consideration, but we really, we believe that it is going to be the way forward into the future, and it’s going to change the way we practice and deliver care in a positive way. I truly believe that and give us more time to do the things that we love the most with our patients.
Courtney Collen:
It sure is here to stay, right? Now, Dr. Cunningham, as group vice president and chief of virtual care and digital health at Providence and the founder of MedPearl, I’d love to know – and an OB/GYN by trade – what do you love most about what you do?
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
You know, I think for me I would say my personal brand and my personal interest has been, I came up as a physician leader. I’m an OB/GYN physician, but then I came up the ranks as a physician leader, and I lead physician groups and I was the chief medical officer of a medical group for several years at Providence, before I moved into doing what I do today which is more around technology and innovation.
And the reason why I made that shift in that change is because I knew that my peers and colleagues were really struggling and they were having such a difficult time, and I didn’t feel like I had the ability to improve their experience with care delivery in a meaningful way without being on the technology side to be an advocate for them.
So for me, what I love most is bringing joy back to my peers and supporting my peers and having them come to me and say, I’m so glad we brought this program in, or the solution in, or, I love using MedPearl, or, I love using the ambient scribe. It unburdens me. It gives me more time in my day. It brings me joy. Because we need to restore joy in the practice of medicine so we can do what we do best with our patients and deliver the best care.
Courtney Collen:
Thank you for all that you do and for being here in Sioux Falls. Hopefully we’re making a lasting impression on you here at the Summit on the Future of Rural Health Care.
Dr. Eve Cunningham:
It’s really awesome. Yeah.
Courtney Collen:
Good. Well, thank you for being here for your time for this podcast and for all that you do. Thank you.
Alan Helgeson:
You’ve been listening to “Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. Hear more episodes in this series or other Sanford Health Series on Apple, Spotify, and news.sanfordhealth.org.
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Corporate Services & Administration, Leadership in Health Care, News, Rural Health, Virtual Care