- This is the Becker's
Healthcare Podcast, created by the team of Becker's Healthcare, a multimedia company devoted to the people who power us healthcare. Four new 15 minute episodes
are released daily containing industry news analysis
and thought leadership. From powerful healthcare
decision makers Support our show by leaving it a five star rating
and review on Apple Podcast or other platforms you use. It's a chance to tell us
what you like about the show and act on your feedback. Thanks for listening.
Now here's the episode. - This is Laura Dedo with the
Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Sophia Celine, chief Medical
Information Officer at Northwell Health Physician Partners, Dr. Celine, it's a pleasure to
have you on the podcast today. Thank you, Laura. It's
honestly a pleasure to be here. I've just been such a
big fan of the podcast and the Beckers organization,
so I'm really thrilled and honestly, uh, uh, very
enthusiastic to be here. Fantastic. Well, I I'm looking
forward to our discussion because I know there's so many things happening
within Northwell right now, and especially looking at the
physician organization, um, some really exciting things in, in spaces where you're mixing
technology with clinical care. But before we dive into
my questions further, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background? Yes, I'd love to thank you. Um, so as you said, my
name's uh, Sophia Saline. I'm a practicing ophthalmologist, and I have a sub specialty in uveitis. Um, and I kind of
officially found the field of clinical informatics
back in fellowship, although, um, I, you know,
I think there's a, a frame of mind that you have when
you're, you know, in informatics and processed, uh, that
I, I really started to discover in even my
training in residency. Um, so after asking a ton
of questions about the EMR and the processes around
it, I was, uh, invited to join the clinical
informatics department where I was doing my fellowship at, uh, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Um, and along with my, uh, mentor and leader, I, um, I
really just, you know, continued my journey. I just never said no and took on projects. I got my board certification
in clinical informatics and continued to learn
about different areas of how health systems operate,
you know, from legal and, uh, finance to quality
and process improvement and regulations, um, you
know, how operations works and the data they need. Um, and then back around
to EMR optimization, uh, and digital transformation. So under some great tutelage and, uh, mentorship, um, I
was able then to get connected with Northwell Health, um, and joined there in 2021, as you said, as the CMIO for their medical group. Um, and I've just met incredibly
talented team, uh, looking to create the best experiences
in medicine there as well. So, um, you know, inspired by that, I took on a whole new campaign,
um, at Northwell around, um, experience, uh, especially
for our peer team members, um, around, you know, burnout data strategy and elevating the patient
experience through elevation of the care team experience. Well, that's amazing to hear, and, and certainly really impressive to think through your career and everything. You know, you have the opportunity to do all experiences you've had, and I can imagine really
help in your position today as CMIO. Now, could you talk
through what opportunities and headwinds that you
have your eye on right now? Yeah, um, I think it's a good question. Um, and, you know, my major
goals right now are focused on, I guess, two key areas. Um, you may have, you may know, and I know Becker's reported
that Northwell announced, uh, we are going to Epic, EMR, um, and, you know, many other
large application partnerships. All of that is tons of
fuel really for, um, the digital transformation cookout, if you will, that we're planning. Um, and with Northwell side, we really have a, a big crowd to host. Um, so my major focus is thinking
about how to leverage all that firepower and
translate it into tangible and not overwhelming
value, if that makes sense. I, you know, I get the
opportunity again to work with so many teams at Northwell, uh, to discover the potential
in, in not only, um, the Northwell Nation, uh, but
within the applications and, and converting that into,
you know, real user stories and experiences that matter. So my major narrative, they're around working on the foundation
of a, a great epic build, um, for, for a successful
epic user experience. Um, and then my next real
big area of focus is, um, pretty plain and boring,
um, around data management and governance of that data. Um, but I, I truly believe
that this will set us up for success in so many
areas, uh, especially around operational efficiency
and, um, epic implementation and other large application
implementation success, patient experience, success
provider experience, you know, improvements and, um, really leveraging next level
digital tools, including, you know, even leveraging AI on good data. So, um, pretty boring,
uh, data management, but I, I think it's, um, a
fascinating opportunity to build great foundations, uh,
with all these new applications that are coming into Northwell. We're very, we're very excited. That's amazing to hear, and
certainly a huge undertaking, um, you know, with converting and integrating into all the
same platform on Epic as well. And like you said, being able to have some of the different applications and, and possibilities open up,
um, as technology evolves. It just seems really cool and interesting to have the
data finally in order to, um, you know, provide better care and really connect with
patients at a deeper level. Yeah, it, it's going to, it's
going to be a huge value add to get that, that data to a
place where we want it to be, um, both, um, from a
qualitative standpoint, but also physically
where we want it to live. So we're excited about
it. Absolutely. For sure. Well, I'm wondering too, you know, when you look into the future here, how are you thinking about growth and adding value to Northwell overall? I think, um, you know,
laying the groundwork, as you mentioned of some of
the different, um, technology aspects of what you're doing
is really cool and interesting, and how do you see that evolving? Yeah, I, I, I am not
to be, uh, uh, cheeky, but I honestly Northwell, my organization thinks about growth enough for the both of us. . I love that my
organization is, uh, one of the faster growing organizations, and I just look at, you know, what had, what the organization has accomplished and just the past, you
know, 15 years, 20 years, and what is in their
outlook for the future. Um, and so where I feel like
I come in is around the, uh, culture first and experience
first, um, stance that, you know, Northwell has. And my main value add, I
think, is as we grow, you know, at the pace that we're growing,
um, I, I, my value here is to add, uh, the culture back
in, maintain that culture and improve that experience every day. So, you know, it's, it's
a big place already with around 900 ambulatory facilities pushing around 5,000 employee docs, around 12,000 credentialed physicians. We've got, you know, so
many, uh, you know, millions of outpatient encounters. Uh, I think it's around
five, five to 6 million, um, annually. And, um, we're able to really,
uh, take care of patients, uh, from the point that
they're a glimmer in their pat parents' eyes, um, to the grades. Um, our employee turnover has been among the lowest in the
industry, um, historically. So we have the opportunity
to also support our employees through the seasons of
their life at Northwell, um, from fresh grad to senior team members. And I think in order to make
gains on experience, um, my goal is to make sure
that we know, um, each and every soul in the nation, if you will, the Northwell Nation. Um, so, you know, we take
care of our providers, we take care of our patients, those are the humans we take care of, and if we have the right
data in the right places, um, we can execute a really prolific and successful lifecycle, uh,
whether that's a care journey or a career at Northwell. Um, I think those are where
the opportunities, um, are for me in adding value to
the organization, you know, and that spans across
multiple, you know, and, and collaborate across
multiple, uh, departments, um, operations, uh, clinical departments. And, um, and, you know, our,
uh, clinical leadership is, it's totally on board and, and we're very excited about the promise of, of what that holds. That's amazing to hear. And certainly love that
idea of being able to care for patients, um, from
start, you know, birth or as you mentioned, that being
glimmer in your parents' eye into, you know, know
the end of their life. And then same philosophy
being, uh, as part of how you think about your team
members, um, at Northwell in, in growing with them and having them be part of that growth story at
the health system, um, just seems like such a, a
neat place to be, um, and, and certainly amazing to
contribute to healthcare, um, within the community. I'm wondering, you know,
from your perspective, um, obviously jumping in and, and, um, with the epic kind of conversion and all of those kinds of
things is a huge undertaking. Uh, but what do you see as being a risk or investment that's still
worth making this year? I know for a lot of organizations,
it can be a challenge to prioritize with limited
resources, so Right. Where do you see as, um,
being the, the biggest places where, um, you can still be successful or still need to make those investments? Yeah, I think that, I mean, you know, as, as I mentioned Northwell, you know, my organization have made a
ton of investments in, um, large applications, as
you mentioned, epic. Um, and so that that
investment there is, is really, you know, paramount to, to use wisely to make sure we execute that wisely. Um, and so I think that the area that we are particularly
focused on in the, in the risky area, I think
is, again, back to, you know, databases, architecture, and making sure that, you know,
as many health systems are, are pretty large at this point. Um, we can be paralyzed, you
know, by the, the data de um, you know, patients create data. We create data, it's everywhere
in every application. Um, and so I think that the,
the risk that's worth it is how do we get one look at a person? How do we get to, uh, be
able to see across all of these data creation sources, um, and really know what
that person needs, uh, from our health system and what services we can offer to support them in their care journey. Um, so I think that the risk
is, um, if we don't do that, we continue to fracture, um,
just in these new applications that we're, we're getting, uh, we continue to fracture the picture that
we're we have of our patients. And, um, I think that's,
that's the area of investment that I think as a health system and, and I think any health system,
um, is looking to overcome. Um, and the better that
we have an idea of what that one person looks like,
the better we can leverage, you know, digital tools that
are more next level than, uh, simply EMR, um, and execute
on on the possibility and the potential those have. I love that. I think
it makes a lot of sense and certainly, um, needing
to have that kind of, uh, structure in place for the
data, um, you know, makes a lot of sense and it'll be really helpful. Well, based on some of those moves that you're making at
Northwell, where do you see some of the best opportunities
for continued growth and development in the future? Where do you see things being different a few years from now? Yeah, I think that as we
all start to, um, you know, better understand, um,
you know, our patients and, uh, start to understand
what pieces of data matter to surface up and when, um,
we are going to then start to be able to tailor and personalize care. Um, and I mean that almost
in every sense of the word. You know, when we think
about precision medicine and we think about, you know,
um, uh, treating the patient, um, not as, you know, the
same patient as the next one, but everyone has individual
tailored, uh, care journeys. Uh, we think about even
our care team members as, as our consumers, um, and personalizing the journeys for, um, everyone involved in, in
the healthcare industry. Um, we are going to be able
to, um, meet our consumer consumers expectations,
um, and their needs. And, and I think that those
words, I mean, we used to say this a lot, uh, how
do we delight the patient? How do we delight the consumer? We've all been looking for
this, um, sort of pot at the end of the rainbow, this, uh, this
gold golden pot at the end of the rainbow to, to achieve that. And I, I don't think that
we're ever gonna stop trying to improve that experience and trying to get to a
place where our customers, our consumers, our patients,
our care team members, uh, feel fulfilled. Um, and as medicine gets more complicated, there's more specialists, uh, there's more treatment options,
there's more classification of diseases, it's gonna be
that much more important to then be able to understand
what those new terms, what that new technology means, and how to leverage that
to create the experiences that we're trying to create
without completely, uh, overwhelming, you know, um, the system. Um, so I, I am excited. Uh, I think the future
is very, very bright, um, completely optimistic that as healthcare, as the healthcare industry,
uh, we're gonna partner with, you know, outside industries,
if you will, industries that are not typically seen as, um, as healthcare industries. We're gonna learn together. Um, and it will all be
in the name of, you know, amazing experience and, you
know, better outcomes, um, and, you know, better quality lives for ourselves and for our patients. So, um, it, you know, it's a giant story. We've all been swimming in
this river for a long time. Um, and I, you know, we build upon each other's
lessons learned and experiences, and we continue to just make strides and improvements in getting
to that, um, that place where our patients and ourselves,
we feel whole with our, with our plan and our goals. I'm excited about that. That's
amazing here. I love it. Dr. Sle, thank you so much
for joining us on the Becker's Healthcare podcast today. This has been really a fun
and interesting conversation, and I look forward to
connecting with you again soon. Thank you so much,
Laura. I've had a blast. I really appreciate it. And
thanks for all you . - It's so important for leaders
at the top of organizations to keep learning, stay
sharp, grow their networks, help our audience better do
this in a more simplified, personalized, and meaningful way. Becker's Healthcare has launched my BHC, it's your trusted Becker's
healthcare experience and more with content,
connections, events, and learning opportunities. Join the community free of charge@www.my dot
becker's hospital review.com, and we'll see you there.