Catholic Health's SVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer wants new technology to solve a problem, not add to those already facing clinicians and patients.
Sometimes the little things have the biggest significance to CIOs mapping out a health system's innovation and technology strategy.
To Michael Mainiero, new ideas like AI and digital health have the potential to transform healthcare for both clinicians at patients. And as the SVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer of New York's Catholic Health celebrates the opening of the new Good Samaritan University Hospital Pavilion, he's keeping a close eye on how these new technologies are fitting in.
Michael Mainiero, SVP and Chief Digital and Information officer at Catholic Health. Photo courtesy Catholic Health.
"When you make a change in a hospital environment, people's lives are at stake," he points out. "It makes the art of change much more deliberate."
Mainiero has track record of tackling the dual roles of digital health strategy and technology implementation. Prior to joining Catholic Health in May 2022, he spent 20 years at NYU Langone Medical Center, serving at different times as Senior Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation, Senior Director of Software and Product Development, and Director of Web and Digital Media.
Catholic Health is investing heavily in AI to, as Mainiero puts it, "reduce the mundane and simplify the complex." That means taking the burden of administrative tasks and data entry out of clinicians' hands and giving them more time in front of (literally) the patient. It also means giving the patient fingertip (or, in the near future, voice-enabled) access to a wide range of services, from nurse calls to care plan information to ordering nutritious meals from the hospital cafeteria.
"From a consumer perspective, this is pretty straightforward. I can get this on Uber Eats in two seconds. Put that in a hospital setting, you've got complexities."
Designing the Patient Room of the Future
Every new tool or capability means a change to the existing workflow, and in healthcare that can create unintended consequences. That's why both clinicians and patients need to realize that their AI-enabled conveniences in the consumer world, from banking to travel to shopping, don't translate so easily to the hospital environment.
"It's not just flipping switches and turning things on," Mainiero says. "Just putting new tech into a healthcare setting has its challenges."
Among the many highlights of the new Good Samaritan University Hospital Pavilion are 36 patient rooms equipped with the latest in "video conferencing capabilities and smart-room technology." That includes AI-enabled cameras that can track who's in the room and keep an eye on the patient.
"We're making it easier so that the care team doesn't have to be everywhere at once," Mainiero says. "What are we doing that's not necessary?"
Mainiero says the rooms are connected to a digital health hub that integrates with the health system's Epic EHR platform, creating a foundation on which the health system can layer clinical and patient-facing tools. With meal-ordering, for example, a patient can order from a menu that's been integrated with the patient's care plan, taking into account any dietary or nutritional concerns that a doctor may have included.
And while that may be far down on the list of enhanecements, that little improvement means a lot to both the patient and the doctor.
"This puts the patient at the center of the care experience," he says.
Cost Vs. Value
This digital health foundation is costly, so healthcare executives have to balance the value to clinical care with the price tag. Mainiero says health systems like Catholic Health might be trying to recreate "the Amazon experience" inside the hospital, but that doesn't mean every new tool or capability can be put on the menu.
"How are we attributing the technology to solve the actual problems in the healthcare setting versus the perceived problems?" he asks. "Some of the technology we decide to use may not be as sexy as some of the other stuff, but it is taking hands away from keyboards."
Likewise, he says, new technology that adds more tasks "is just stuffing," and will be ignored by doctors and nurses and seen as adding to the problem instead of solving it.
"If the clinical teams aren't interested, it's not happening," he says.
That's why CIOs need to balance the mundane –making sure the technology works – with the strategic.
"We have to understand the value for everything," he says. "Is it feasible? Is it viable? How do we sustain this long term? Because ultimately we become clearinghouses of software and technology and people, and that's expensive."
With AI, he adds, the idea of determining value now is hampered by the fact that the technology is evolving so quickly.
"Anyone who says they have a five-year plan is lying," he says. "Because you're going to change it in six months."
As AI becomes more commonplace in healthcare, Mainiero says he's excited about the prospects of reducing complexity in healthcare. That includes pivoting from a reactive to a predictive model of care, and analyzing data to understand patient lifestyles and focus on health, wellness and prevention.
Eric Wicklund is the senior editor for technology at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Catholic Health’s newly opened Good Samaritan University Hospital Pavilion includes 36 patient rooms equipped with the latest in “video conferencing capabilities and smart-room technology.”
Mainiero says it’s crucial that new technology like AI work for clinicians as well as their patients, and solve problems rather than adding to the complexity of care.
As AI becomes more prevalent in clinical care, Mainiero says the healthcare industry will be able to put more emphasis on prevention and maintaining health and wellness.