Northeast Georgia Health System Improves Health Outcomes and Drives Mobility Innovation with Mist AI

0:07 Hello everyone.

0:08 My name is Sujai Hajela and I'm the senior vice president

0:11 and general manager at Juniper Networks.

0:14 And joining me today is a special guest Chris Paravate,

0:18 Chief Information Officer at Northeast Georgia Health System.

0:22 Chris, welcome and thank you for joining us today.

0:27 Thank you, Sujai.

0:28 Glad I can join.

0:30 Really excited to talk today.

0:32 Awesome.

0:33 So Chris,

0:34 tell us a bit about Northeast Georgia Health System and your role there.

0:38 Sure.

0:39 So, Northeast Georgia Health System, just as the title says,

0:43 is the health system for the Northeast quadrant of the state of Georgia.

0:48 We have four hospitals and over 120 care locations,

0:53 which represents roughly $1.6 billion in gross revenue.

0:59 And for IT, I'm responsible for everything IT,

1:03 that includes, 304 staff and 16,000 users.

1:13 Wow. That is impressive.

1:16 And Chris, of course we thank you and your team and the system to do what it does,

1:21 especially more amplified in the unfortunate pandemic.

1:26 We all are navigating, but today,

1:28 but I'm sure like other healthcare providers

1:32 COVID presented a number of challenges for you and your team.

1:37 Could you, if you don't mind speak a bit about

1:39 how you and your team met these challenges

1:42 and how your network helped you approach these challenges?

1:47 Yeah. So first of all, we were in a very good posture for COVID.

1:51 While a lot of IT organizations,

1:55 went remote RIT system actually got more onsite.

1:59 We completed over 134 projects,

2:02 everything from setting up a pandemic, virtual triaged tents,

2:07 in each of our facilities, standing up additional units,

2:12 we actually moved a state sponsored,

2:15 mobile COVID unit, inpatient unit, all of that, right?

2:20 And on our Juniper network,

2:21 all of it on top of our Mist wireless, we expanded our users.

2:27 The devices, our users are leveraging as well as medical devices.

2:33 And we had the scale and the capability, to respond not only to our facility,

2:39 but to other facilities in our community.

2:41 So some of our non for profit indigent care sites,

2:45 we were able to stand up with our electronic medical record,

2:49 leveraging our Juniper network to facilitate that care.

2:55 So really proud of the response that we've had to COVID

3:00 and I'm happy to see the numbers coming down.

3:04 Well, we all are,

3:05 and we all are eagerly awaiting to see when a whole country and frankly,

3:10 the globe is able to not only get the vaccines distributor,

3:14 but of course enough later.

3:17 Chris, you know, we've been speaking about this quite a bit,

3:21 as we deal with what I call the new norm,

3:25 I also, I'm aware of just the strong viewpoint on technology and how it can aid

3:34 the Northeast Georgia Health System that you're involved in.

3:38 May I request you to share how you are bringing transformation

3:41 in driving these outcomes and IT?

3:44 If you don't mind, I'd also like you to speak a bit about your mobility strategy.

3:50 Yeah, so, Sujai.

3:54 IT has the ability.

3:56 A single employee and IT

3:58 can touch more patients than a physician can touch in a lifetime.

4:02 The technology that we're implementing not only saves lives,

4:06 it also provides safety for our employees and all of our clinicians,

4:12 and so vitally important.

4:14 One of the things that we work on right now is our mobility strategy.

4:19 And at the fundamental it's communication,

4:21 how to our providers and our clinicians

4:24 communicate effectively about what's going on our patients timely.

4:28 So on top of our Mist network,

4:31 we are implementing a mobility device that is both

4:37 bring your own as well as a physical device.

4:39 We're converging that with an alerting system,

4:43 a phone directory and application delivery,

4:46 mobile device management solution,

4:49 and what that will enable

4:50 if I you could picture that for a moment,

4:54 is that a physician would be walking in from the parking lot,

4:57 we would recognize and geo-locate that provider is now in the building.

5:02 We would send that individual message,

5:04 they would log in using their credentials,

5:08 which would be a badge

5:11 when they do that phone would automatically be provisioned into the network.

5:16 Given wireless priority, download applications,

5:20 add them in the phone directory,

5:22 tie them to their patients and alert them about what's going on.

5:25 It also enables the nursing staff and the clinical staff to see that

5:30 that provider is now in the building and is responsible for these patients.

5:35 And they can simply say, yes, let me have the physician for

5:40 patient Smith, and it'll automatically connect that physician.

5:45 When that physician leaves the building,

5:48 we also deprivation that device clinically

5:52 and then work for the next assignment.

5:54 So it's incredibly innovative and it's converging several technologies,

6:01 but at the base of that technology is our Mist solution.

6:06 As you think about that communication, it has to be built on a stable platform.

6:13 That's dynamic that can work through the challenges of an aging

6:17 hospital system that has built it on buildings and configure different components.

6:23 We find that the Mist solution

6:25 is leveraging a lot of the same things we're doing in the clinical domain,

6:29 leveraging AI,

6:31 simplifying the technology stack

6:34 so that we can deliver that solution and do it in a very cohesive way.

6:39 Yes.

6:40 That is definitely inspirational.

6:42 So if I want to do better phrase for my own understanding.

6:46 First of all, you are solving a big problem about the persona of the device, right?

6:52 None of us want two devices in our hands all the time, one for some stuff in second,

6:59 which is work-related by bringing the confluence of these two personalized

7:03 into one based on where you are.

7:06 That is definitely exciting.

7:09 And I would request you to also speak to our CIO Juniper Sharon Mandell about that.

7:16 You know, what I really liked

7:19 as you were shedding and morbidity strategy

7:21 and gave us an example of how you are really simplifying

7:25 the lives of the staff at your hospital,

7:29 you also mentioned making it simple.

7:32 You know, you mentioned leveraging AI to enable your mobility strategy.

7:39 And as you know, Chris,

7:40 when you and I started talking it was exciting

7:44 to see that common vision of client to cloud.

7:48 What did I even like more was when we spoke about AI,

7:52 you were very clear about it is an enabler.

7:55 It is an enabler in simplifying the operations of the network.

8:00 Could you please share how we at Juniper can support you further

8:05 in transforming the enterprise as you bring

8:09 this vision to Northeast Georgia Health System?

8:13 Sure, Sujai.

8:14 You can tell I'm super excited about this

8:17 and it speaks to where technology is changing in healthcare.

8:22 As I shared, we have 300 people in the IT division.

8:26 They're terrific people.

8:27 I have amazing staff,

8:29 but more and more technology is embedded in the business operations.

8:35 And the technical solutions changes our care delivery.

8:39 You know, a year ago we didn't do visual or video visits.

8:43 Today, we do them all day long.

8:45 It's on people's schedules, they connect.

8:47 It's one click.

8:48 It's simple.

8:49 It's a good experience for our patients and our clinicians.

8:53 It's the same thing in our technology.

8:56 Many, many years ago, Sujai, when you and I worked on technology,

9:02 we had to know programming languages.

9:04 We needed to know technical protocols,

9:07 things didn't plug in and play and work, right?

9:11 But it took an army of people to support that with an incredible amount of

9:17 intelligence and skills and technology

9:20 as you flatten and make that experience easier through AI,

9:24 through that cloud delivery.

9:25 Instead of having an army of very advanced network engineers

9:31 and partners that I need in order to run that operations,

9:34 I'm able to run it with a team.

9:37 That is then able to focus on more advanced things.

9:40 And I couldn't do that mobility, solution as an example,

9:45 if I had all my engineers focused on just configuring networks

9:49 and wireless solutions and controllers and so that using that AI,

9:55 using that cloud hosted solution

9:57 allows me to allocate those resources in more productive ways

10:03 and simply be more responsive to the business.

10:07 Thank you, Chris.

10:08 It's about the responsiveness to the business.

10:10 So, Chris, I hear you were recently named by

10:13 College of Healthcare Information Management Executives "CHIME"

10:17 as one of the nation's most wired hospitals.

10:21 Well, our wired slash Wi-Fi,

10:23 but I understand that the hospital

10:26 and the only hospital in Georgia to receive level nine certification,

10:32 that is just amazing recognition for the transformation

10:36 you're bringing to the Northeast Georgia Health System.

10:40 Could you speak to what this means to you?

10:43 Yeah.

10:44 So the, the CHIME recognition of most wired, it's not anything like what you described.

10:51 It is a measure of the adoption of technology into our healthcare practice.

10:57 And so what I would tell you is it's an award for the health system

11:02 in its adoption of technology.

11:04 It means nothing to stand up hardware and data centers.

11:09 It means nothing to provide technical solutions,

11:12 unless they're fully adopted into the operations.

11:16 In order to do that, you have to provide solutions that are simple and easy to adopt,

11:22 make the organization more nimble,

11:25 take away the things that are a hassle in our everyday lives,

11:29 so that people can focus on the most important work.

11:31 And so that the HIMSS Stage 7 survey is a representation of that.

11:37 We've got more work to do.

11:39 I want to be 10.

11:40 I want to be 11.

11:41 I want to be 12.

11:42 But most importantly, as you get back to the core of everything that we do,

11:50 the ability to take care of patients and be responsive

11:54 and to provide an extraordinary experience in whatever phase of life individuals are,

12:00 is the core of what our mission is.

12:02 And we cannot do that without technology,

12:07 Chris, it's really an inspiring conversation and level nine certification is no mean feat.

12:15 You know that, and I know that.

12:16 So definitely,

12:19 we would love to partner with you as you extend those certifications to higher levels.

12:24 It's always exciting when I speak with you and the mobility strategy was quite exciting.

12:32 I also feel that the insights you shared today

12:36 definitely would be of help to your peers in the industry.

12:41 As all of us are trying to understand how we can leverage technology to drive outcomes.

12:49 Thank you, Chris.

12:50 We appreciate you joining us today and sharing your insights.

12:54 Thank you, Sujai.

12:55 Good to talk to you again.