This year’s AMDIS Physician Computer Connection conference is one of the first in-person conferences to take place since everything shut down for the Pandemic. Aside from the sheer pleasure of being able to meet people in person the conference was crammed full of great learning opportunities.
I caught up with my NYCU side-kick Craig Joseph to do a quick update on some of the topics raised including Cybersecurity, Digital Health investments, data sharing, and data liquidity, mental health challenges, and of course Telehealth/Telemedicine
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden 00:00
Hi, this is Dr. Nick. I’m the incrementalist here with Craig Joseph, and we’re here at the AMDIS conference. We’re here live real in person, no green screen. No Photoshop is going on.
Craig Joseph 00:10
Is this really happening?
Nick van Terheyden 00:11
I think so. Look, there’s my hand, although I could do that with some kind of Photoshop. Wow.
Craig Joseph 00:16
So it’s not a dream.
Nick van Terheyden 00:17
It’s not a dream. Thankfully, we’re very grateful to be here. We thought we’d just cover off a little bit of the topics. Let’s start with cyber security. That’s sort of hot topic right now. We had Christian damoff. Talking about how to mitigate. What did you hear?
Craig Joseph 00:33
Well, I heard number one that I need to be best friends with our seaso, the chief information security officer, I also heard something that was surprising. Some of the folks at hospitals that are responsible for dealing with emergencies, such as the power goes out or there’s a flood, they are not working with the cyber folks with the IT folks and to try to make sure that those two were together lockstep was something that was an eye opener for me,
Nick van Terheyden 01:01
as well. So Smart Moves, work with your em, folks. But the other thing I heard in that presentation was, guess what, if you’re not fed up with all of the security protocols, you’re going to be because it’s just going to get worse as the hackers and the attack surfaces just increase.
Craig Joseph 01:20
The tools are out there for people to do bad things and doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to do that. And so it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
Nick van Terheyden 01:30
Right. And we talked about digital health investment, there’s a big wash of money coming over from Scott Weingarten. He talked about lots of investment, but maybe it’s not all plain sailing, right?
Craig Joseph 01:44
Well, you know, first of all, hospitals and startups sometimes don’t go together, their cultures are very different. And in things that really seem like they’re, they’re magical during the pandemic. Now, as the pandemic is easing down may not be so magical. And so some of those swans and
Nick van Terheyden 02:02
Black Swans right there, right, some
Craig Joseph 02:04
of those white swans might be black swans. And some of the darlings of Silicon Valley might, might turn out not to be so valuable when we get back to our normal lives, or operate whatever our normal lives are.
Nick van Terheyden 02:18
Right? So lots of money coming into digital health. That’s all been good. But the reality is going to hate and we’re going to have to really work hard to assess what’s actually useful, and then put that into practice. What about Mickey Tripathi,
Craig Joseph 02:32
he showed up right? So the the OMC director was here virtually, yes. Still not allowed to travel apparently, but said some good things. Really what I heard most stood out to me was the demand really, for apps to be to be able to work with any electronic health record or any source of data. So really being app agnostic. And so that’s how you’re going to get the discrete information out that you’re going to need to do crazy cool things that all of these small startups that are working with hospitals are trying to do.
Nick van Terheyden 03:04
I’m not gonna say call out to Mickey Tripathi. He did a really good job virtually. I was very impressed. I thought he was really engaged. We actually had a good q&a session. It was a dynamic experience. And he talked, although he didn’t use the term knowledge liquidity as making the information available as widely as possible, which for me, you know, that’s a big deal.
Craig Joseph 03:26
Yeah, well, knowledge liquidity as well, is something that is going to be happening more and more, you know, much like people have always had the dream, hey, why can’t our electronic health records work just like ATMs can, you know, I can go anywhere with my card. Obviously, much more complicated than that. But that’s the goal. That’s where we’re going. And so no matter how the information gets in, be able to get it out and transfer it to a different place, is the dream. And that’s what OMC is trying to make. Make it work via regulation and, and a gentle nudge.
Nick van Terheyden 03:58
Right. And we’ve had some TEDx talks. So it was nice to actually see that in person. Lots of innovation coming and people sort of demonstrating huge increase in telehealth. I think there’s lots of data to come out of that. What’s going to wash out anything else stood out to you
Craig Joseph 04:14
know, I think it’s the telehealth was the, the I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen and there were some information that it might be leveling off. And, you know, telehealth is not the fix for everything, of course, and not all. doctor’s appointments can be done virtually. But for the ones that can, it seems to be getting easier and easier with more tools for both the patient and the physician.
Nick van Terheyden 04:37
Right. And I think one thing I heard was mental health and the mental health crisis, potentially going to be helped with good solutions that sort of account for inability to access that technology. From a telehealth perspective, I think incredibly important. We’re seeing it as a crisis. I saw headlines today that said, one in institution is calling the suicide in young adults. A major crisis was
Craig Joseph 05:06
children’s Colorado. And it’s a, I think they said the majority of patients that were coming to their emergency room or for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. And so obviously, making it easier to get to those professionals who can help via whatever technology is out there is going to be essential on your need to continue doing it.
Nick van Terheyden 05:24
Right. Well, it’s been fantastic. It’s just a true privilege to be here, both IRL and at a conference and interacting with people. This isn’t the first time we’ve met but it feels like it
Craig Joseph 05:39
does, you know, vaccines work and, and I’m very happy to be out in the world again.
Nick van Terheyden 05:45
This is Dr Nick. I’m here with Craig Joseph at the AMDIS conference
