HIMSSCast: Women in health IT talk about today's challenges and the future of the industry

Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to HIMSSCast. My name is Andrea Fox and I'm senior editor of Healthcare IT News, a HIMSS publication. Today we will speak with women who are on the front lines of tech developer regulatory compliance for electronic health records and other provider IT systems about careers in health IT and for their insights on where the industry is going. They are here today to speak as individuals and members of the HIMSS HM EHR Association. Joining us are Lee Burchell, Chair of the EHRA and vice Chair of its Information Blocking Compliance Work Group. She is also Vice President of Policy and Public affairs at Altera Digital Health. Hello, Lee.

Speaker B: Hey there.

Speaker A: Thank you for, uh, joining us today.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Next is Stephanie Jamison, Vice Chair of the ehra. She is also Senior Director of Regulatory and Government affairs at Greenway Health. Hi, Stephanie.

Speaker C: Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Thanks for being here. We also have Ida Mantashi, Chair of the EHRA Operations Committee and member of the EHRA Executive Committee. She is also Associate Vice President for Software Regulatory Compliance at Modernizing Medicine.

Speaker D: Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to, uh, the conversation.

Speaker A: Thanks, ida. And finally, Dr. Shari Medina, member of the Ehra executive committee and Medical Director at Harris Computer, maker of medhost.

Speaker E: Hi, thanks for having us today.

Speaker A: Thanks, Shari. And thank you all for joining us today for this special upbeat Hymns Cast podcast focused on women in Health it. Before we start our conversation, please just say your name or your colleague's name as you state your thoughts throughout the conversation. With that said, let's get started. Why have you found Health IT to be a rewarding career? And what aspects of the work do you enjoy most?

Speaker B: Um, this is Leigh. I'll go ahead and get started. Uh, I've been in Health IT for most of my career, uh, so I don't have a lot of comparative experience.

Speaker A: Experience.

Speaker B: Um, but I do find it really rewarding because, um, the work that we do affects patients. You know, ultimately it's not, you know, we're not in there in the clinical exam room having the conversations with patients. But I know that what we do helps. I know that what we do makes a difference in, you know, the quality of that diagnostic experience, that treatment experience. And these days, right, with more information exchange, also the ability of patients to feel more ownership and feel more control in situations that can be scary or that can require, um, a lot of energy on their part and the information that we can help provide, um, makes that easier for them. Um, that is something that personally, I get, uh, a lot of satisfaction from I feel like we're making a difference in an indirect way but we are making a difference.

Speaker A: That's great. Who wants to take that as well?

Speaker C: I'll jump in. This is Stephanie. You know, I think I've been in health it since I was trying to think back. I think it was 2006, uh, so it was shortly after the uh, onc, the office of the National Coordinator uh was officially established. But pre high tech days, pre meaningful use. So that a window in time where we weren't really sure what direction health it was going to take as far as leadership and ownership. Was this going to be state based? That's my background. Worked with um, National Governors association where you know, and then the, the high tech days came and it's just I, I feel like I've really seen this industry grow and change a lot. While some things, you know, like commitment to transparency, um, and interoperability still remaining at the forefront. Um, just trying, a collective group of people trying to figure out how to get there and what would be, you know, what standards would be best and what processes would be best. And you know it can be very high level but it can be very in the weeds too. So I think it's been rewarding because it's always changed. Um, while the same, you know, principles and the same goals that everyone collectively in this industry has, has remained the same. Um, but yeah, I think, I think it has definitely been a bright spot in my career.

Speaker D: I'll go next. Um, I think health it sits in the interaction of technology policy and healthcare and health care delivery. Um, I personally enjoy translating complex regulation into the real world situation, um, that supports providers and improved outcome and care. And at the core my work is about building trust, ensuring systems are safe, reliable and meaningful. And to me that's very rewarding.

Speaker E: So I guess I'm left. Um, certainly one of um, my most rewarding aspects of my career has been the opportunity to bring in two very different um, groups of people, so technology people and clinical people and translating them for each other to find mutual understanding. Because oftentimes especially in the early days of health it, the doctors were saying one thing and the engineers were hearing another thing and the thing that came out was not necessarily um, mutually satisfactory to both sides and being actually able to bridge that gap between them I have found to be extremely rewarding. Um, especially when you see the results of that collaboration um, suit the needs of the workflows of the healthcare users who are on the front lines actually taking care of the patients. And it really, I found After I left my clinical practice, the ability to ultimately, although to Lee's point, indirectly, um, touch the care of hundreds of thousands of patients to be very gratifying as opposed to the thousands of patients I might have been able to impact as a frontline provider.

Speaker C: Love that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that too. It's like you're all the backbone of the drive forward. Um, love all these threads. Uh, what are some of your personal experiences as a woman in a male dominated field which some say is also unbalanced because it sits between a female dominated healthcare workforce and a male dominated high tech? Who wants to unpack that one?

Speaker B: I mean this is Lee. I think that's an interesting question. In my little part of, of health, it, it's actually not male dominated. So um, you know I, I work in the policy environment. Right. So the um, regulatory and, and advocacy side of, of um, what Stephanie rightfully mentioned is, is a big part of um, of our industry policy, uh, essentially drives pretty much most of what we do. Um, but it's actually not uh, male dominated. Um, and, and you know you look at the ehr, um, we have eight members, seven of whom are women. So uh, we give a shout out uh, to Steve Holt who's um, our sole male representative currently. Um, but we're actually pretty um, women uh, heavy in at least my little slice of what we do.

Speaker A: Okay. Shari, do you have any thoughts on that?

Speaker E: Yeah. So I would say that coming into the healthcare technology field from the practice of medicine, which um, without dating myself at the time was not nearly as um, especially in um, emergency medicine, which is my specialty, um, was also male dominated. Although that has certainly changed over the years and it's been fascinating to watch that evolution. Um, I would say that it has certainly changed. Um, whereas before women tend to predominate in the legal, HR compliance and regulatory to leave point areas, you are definitely seeing far more women take leadership roles in engineering, in sales and other more traditionally um, male dominated fields. And it's been great to see because I think women bring um, things to the table that have greatly uh, improved our ability to do what we do in the industry in those areas.

Speaker A: All right, Stephanie or Ida. Ah, do you have uh, input?

Speaker C: Yeah. This is Stephanie. It's so funny that you said that um, healthcare is predominantly uh, or not predominantly, but there's a great number of women in the healthcare field in stereotypical or traditional. And then tech has been historically a more male dominated field. And I was trying to think watching these two merge in this industry. It has largely been A balance, um, I think, um, to just to someone's point earlier, I think Sherry, you know, the policy roles, you know, I think it's, it's a great industry for women to succeed because I think women have a lot of, you know, a lot of experience in managing um, a household health care information and have a lot of um, you know, desire to see that information become transparent and move and be interoperable. And I think that this is ah, definitely a really interesting intersection between the two traditionally gender dominated fields and how it has merged over the years and really shifted for me.

Speaker D: I have an engineering and technical background. Um, I started my career in a very, very male dominated IT as an engineer. So at the beginning of my career I had to establish a trust in technical space for sure. Uh, but as everybody said, things change, especially in the health. It. I feel a lot more confidence, uh, over the time I have learned that, you know, confidence comes from um, preparation and consistency. It definitely shows that, you know, you've done your homework and you are subject matter expert on the area that you are. Um, also, you know, the other thing that I realize is that um, the relationship matters. Right? Having ah, supporting colleagues and leaders who value collaboration makes a big difference and how you grow and how do you contribute in your area. That's a very important part.

Speaker A: That was terrific. Thank you all. I appreciate all of that. Okay, so last month a report based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data found that female headcounts in software developer roles have increased as a result of greater outreach through mentorship and other recruitment efforts. Have you witnessed a noticeable increase of women entering the field and have you had an opportunity to mentor any of them?

Speaker E: So this is Sherry.

Speaker C: I'll take that one.

Speaker E: Um, I've had several opportunities to mentor women in my career in health technology and it's been one of the more gratifying aspects of my professional life. Um, there have been so many women who transition from the bedside, direct patient care, um, to the corporate world. And it can definitely feel like a Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court experience, um, when you do that and helping them navigate that transition has been really rewarding and many of them have gone on to great careers in the industry. Um, certainly mastering the corporate mindset isn't easy for women who've spent years working in a hospital or clinic setting. And it's been a pleasure to share my hard earned lessons with them.

Speaker B: Yeah, this is Lee. I'll just take uh, a little bit of a different look at that, which I think is interesting given the last Question we were talking about, which is the changes in the industry over the last two decades, is that I've actually mentored two young men. And that wouldn't necessarily have happened a couple years ago, right? Like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, there weren't enough women in executive positions. There weren't women who were perceived as leaders in the same way. And I think it's awesome that, you know, for me, mentoring works best when it's just kind of natural and people click together and, and people just identify. You know, I have something to learn from you, I have something to teach you. Um, and I just appreciate how many women are in these positions where they can be the mentor now. I think that's fantastic.

Speaker C: That's.

Speaker B: That to me is one of the greatest signs of progress.

Speaker A: That's very cool. What are women new to the field, most eager to understand and overcome?

Speaker D: I'll get this one. Um, Zaida. Ah, two things. I think navigating complexity and building a confidence are the two areas that women in the new field, um, need to develop. Um, health. It spans in so many different areas. Um, that's why teaching, uh, the women or anybody new to this field to trust their voice is very, very important. With that, I'm curious to hear, um, Stephanie's.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's really a differential between new folks that we have join our company or join the EHR association and what they are most eager to learn. I'll just start with young entry level folks entering our company for the first time and they want to understand what it is we do. And maybe they have a software engineering background and trying to take something that is highly logical and consistent and apply that to the healthcare industry, which is fragmented, confusing, and having to translate that, which I think all of us on this call are in that position every day that we are trying to say we need this to somehow happen here and it's because of this healthcare regulation. And a lot of these things just sometimes don't make a lot of sense because we have to say, um, you know, this is, this is the political climate and this is where we need to, um, you know, jump in the swim lane and go toward now or, you know, this is, this is a direction shift that we're experiencing. So I think having, having the, the technology pieces being interpreted from a very different lens is definitely a unique skill set and one that I think women in particular are uniquely positioned to help lead, given that we have, I think women are historically good at communication and breaking down and making things um, understandable and helping to tie those things together.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: Making sense of the chaos, right? Yeah.

Speaker E: And if I can just throw in is that I think that, you know, women, women have a fairly well developed sense of object permanence. And so we have the history behind how we got where we are today. And so someone coming in fresh off the straight may be like this makes no sense at all. Like, well, sit down, let me tell you a story about how we got to where we are. And that can be incredibly helpful fall, um, as opposed to um, maybe some other approaches which may be, you know, like here, read this. This is what you need to know. So um, I think that we help bring that to the table.

Speaker A: What career path advice would you give to students considering entering into health it?

Speaker E: Any and all work in a healthcare environment first, even if it's just a volunteer. Just, I mean being a patient is a great experience to help with that aspect of it. But try and get some um, experience with boots on the ground if you will. Um, within the environment, um, it's invaluable.

Speaker A: I love that. Shari, who else?

Speaker B: Yeah, this is Lee. I like that. Um, my background wasn't in a clinical environment but was in a payer environment. Um, and I pull on that pretty regularly. Um, so I think that that's great advice. You know, the other thing I would say is, um, you know, like, like a lot of industries, health, it has opportunities for people with all different interests and skill sets. So you might be interested clinically, you might be interested in AI, you might be interested in health policy, which was my uh, background. Right. So, um, there's a path in really, no matter kind of what your interests are. And um, you can bring an important perspective in to the work. It's not just for tech people, I guess is the point that I'm making. Um, I, uh, do not know how to code. Uh, personally I've certainly learned a lot about AI because we're all learning a lot about AI and trying to maximize that in our jobs. But um, my real passion is health policy. And how do we improve what Stephanie mentioned as being kind of a messy, ah, not perfect healthcare system in this country, in the United States. And this is one way to do it. Um, but no matter what your interest, there is an opportunity for you in health It.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is Stephanie. I was just thinking if we're talking to students who want to come directly from school to the industry, take a healthcare class, I would have given anything if I, if I had known, uh, some of, uh, just you know, basically 20 years ago, which is just wild to think. Um, you know, I remember thinking when I entered into the health IT space, there's a lot I don't understand. I don't understand how health insurance works. I don't understand what the difference is between these large programs, much less how to um, work for a company that would try to, you know, work within those parameters. And so I think, you know, from a student level getting involved in a healthcare class to understand or a healthcare major, uh, along with, you know, economics and then intern. I am such a proponent of interns. M. You know, I think I know the world is changing as um, far as AI is changing everything. But I know that internships I think for students are the most valuable thing, um, to put their foot in the door of any industry, including this one.

Speaker D: Um, this is, um, as I mentioned, I have a technical background. Um, I think that my recommendation for the students would be just to start somewhere, ah, say, curious and continued learning on that area, develop depth in one area and then learn how everything connects with each other is a key. Um, this is a very dynamic, evolving field and we see that it's changing all the time. So continuous learning plays a big, uh, big role here.

Speaker A: All right, a lot of great advice there from all of you. Um, let's switch gears a little bit and look closer at the industry from each of your perspectives. How has the industry changed since you entered health it? Who wants to take that one?

Speaker E: I have thoughts. So this is Sherry again. Um, so, ah, the first thing that popped into my head was that the users have gotten so much more sophisticated. I am not making this story up. When I first started at, I was the uh, liaison at my hospital for implementing an electronic health record. And one of our attendings, super smart person, did not know what a right click was on a mouse. I mean, and that uh, that's also saying how long ago that was. But so that was the level of training that needed to be done for years. Now users are much more sophisticated and with that, while it's great from a training perspective, they pick things up much quicker because they're all used to using computers and everything. And everybody knows how to do multi factor authentication and everybody knows how to um, do various um, things. They also are much more demanding and what they expect from the tools that they're using. Um, so that is the first thing that comes to my mind. Obviously this, you know, the whole ecosystem has gotten much more complex than early days. Um, which is both, um, a boon and a curse. Um, so those are My thoughts. Who wants to go next?

Speaker A: Go next.

Speaker D: Um, I think health IT has been evolved from digitalization. Um, early in my career we were promoting using of the EHR and I keep telling provider move from papers to digital. Um then we had a challenge of interoperability. Uh we shift a lot of focus to interoperability that um, change perspective in many ways and I think we made a lot of improvements in that area but it's area that still needs to grow. And now we see with AI and advanced decision making tools that we are having we are moving from even interoperability more to the intelligence. Uh, so today um, the focus is more on the outcome usability, data driven care. Um, and that's how I've seen my. From when I start with the health IT until today. We're going from digitalization to interoperability through intelligence.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, this is Lee looking at it from a policy and regulatory perspective. It's an entirely, entirely different industry. I joined the industry before um ONC was even officially established. And um, as others have alluded to, people didn't know how to use their mouse or didn't know what an EHR was. Um, but now thanks to certainly uh, President Bush and President Obama who really both moved uh the conversation forward, everyone's digitized. Right. Or mostly. And um, that introduces different complexities from a regulatory perspective. I mean there are now more than a dozen federal agencies that pay attention to health information. So it can come from a fraud perspective, it can come from an interoperability technical perspective, it can come from m, a drug management perspective. All these different agencies are now paying attention to health it which makes our jobs much more complicated in terms of tracking all of that and compliance and ensuring our companies are doing the right thing. And then in the last couple of years we've also seen this trend where the states are really actively legislating and regulating health uh it and its use as well. So I mean a completely, completely different environment certainly than when I started my career. I will say it's actually one of the things I like most about my job is the fact that it is never the same. I mean it's not the same month to month, it's not the same practically day to day. And so we are all always learning and adjusting and you know that's fun from an intellectual perspective. Right. It's never, never boring. Uh, which is what I certainly look for in my career.

Speaker C: This is Stephanie, I think the transition or not the transition, the inclusion of state regulations into uh, our or alongside our federal responsibilities and to our, with our federal regulator is kind of putting me back to my roots because I started in a state based association with the state chief information officers and it was this little niche issue and my, my boss, I remember at the time saying, I don't know anything about health care. You're new, this can be yours. And the rest is history. So um, you know, at that time the National Governors association had stood up what they were calling the State alliance for E Health, um, which was managed uh, or led by, if I'm remembering correctly, Governor Jim Douglas, Republican from Vermont and Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen from Tennessee. Um, and then uh, High Tech past, uh, the um, you know, obviously the stimulus. And I remember that's, that's when I started uh, at the National Governors Association. And I say all that to say, you know, at that time the State alliance for E Health was bringing together all of the stakeholders to discuss basically what this new transition, what this rapid adoption of EHR is not nearly what it would become, um, but this, this change. What was this going to mean for Medicaid reimbursement? What was this going to mean for who was going to own this in states? And I remember uh, the first alliance meeting after High Tech passed, Governor uh, Bredesen said well our little play went to Broadway. Uh, and I wrote that down and I still have that piece, uh, of paper. Um, and I thought, yeah, that's, that's the truth because it had gone way beyond what the states could handle. And the feds basically said we've got it from here. Uh, and we're going to set up the certification system. And uh, the industry was uh, those were the glory days, I guess. Dust settles a little bit. And it's okay. We're all, all of our paper charts which were you know, roundly criticized in that 1999 report to Errors Human. All these paper charts now they're electronic now. What, what are we going to do? What's our ROI on this? Uh, and thus enters the interoperability discussion. And now a few years ago states started saying, hey, there's EHRs out there and they have all this information and maybe we should get in on regulating what, what stays in our state and what doesn't. And so this has been new. I mean we haven't as an industry, I mean as a, in even in my own company, you know, everybody's kind of got it now, but you know, a couple years of um, hey, do we really have to do this? Because it was such a foreign concept that we have to get out of our LNC bubble and develop against one state where we might have two doctors or whatever. Um, so this, this has been a change. I mean, from a policy perspective. I kind of like it because I'm like, oh, I, I know state legislative session information. It's my time to, to shine. Um, but yeah, it has been a change for our industry for sure. Um, and so it's, I think, um, caused us all to think about things in a more complex way and try to fit into what the feds or ONC has defined for us as our rules of the road for the last decade.

Speaker B: This is Lee, if I can jump one. Stephanie said something that I think is so such good advice for young people who are considering a career in health. It, it could be a career in anything, really. But she mentioned someone said, hey, you know, you're kind of new. Take this, right? This new thing. Jump on that. That is your opportunity. That happened to me, um, uh, in college. I majored in, um, constitutional history. I thought I was going to be a lawyer. And, um, someone saw that in my company when President Obama was on the campaign trail. And it was very, very clear that we needed a government relations function in our company. And someone knew that about my background and came to me and said, can you build a government relations function for our company? And I said, yes. Right. Like, take those opportunities, these weird things that people throw at you. Someone sees that you're smart and you can learn quickly and you can pivot and gives you an opportunity. Maybe it feels scary or really unfamiliar, but take it because that is where the fun, exciting career opportunities come from. Um, so that. I loved that when Stephanie said that, I was like, oh, yes, yes, yes, that's exactly. That's right.

Speaker A: I love that. Um, my career, um, has had, uh, in health journalism has sort of had similar, um, opportunities that have come up just sort of out of blue that pulled me into this whole area. So love all of that. And some of the things Stephanie said, um, lead us into the next question is what is the biggest regulatory challenge from your point of view,

Speaker B: Stephanie? You want to take that first?

Speaker C: I, I do think the, the challenge is, is in two, two ways. One, we know that ONC is

Speaker A: changing

Speaker C: and pivoting, and, you know, the things that we've been doing for the last decade may not continue for another decade. At the same time, we're, we're grappling with, um, state requirements and state, uh, pieces of legislation, you know, that get introduced in regulations, get drafted very quickly with very quick effective dates. We're all used to, hey, next year there's going to be an ONC rule and two years after that you'll be in compliance with it instead of now it's a matter of months, um, and we might hear something obscure that um, all of a sudden really affects us and not, not even just health it, not even just from a record or an EHR perspective, but from a business perspective. Data, uh, ownership, um, all the things. So I think those, those two uncertainties, one, we don't know what is going to come from every state due to all of the, you know, 50 different political, um, climates. Uh, and two, not. I mean we, we can certainly read the tea leaves, but we know our industry is going to change again. Um, and it should, you know, we, we. Everything isn't linear. Um, but I think those are from a policy perspective, two things that definitely keep us, uh, all of us on this phone call, talking multiple times a day, uh, to try to grapple with.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that. Great, great point. The other thing that I think a lot about these days, particularly with the advent of AI, um, but other areas as well, is that uh, regulators, lawmakers are really struggling to keep up with technology and that is having a lot of ripples. So, you know, the Trump administration, the current Trump administration has taken a really strong deregulatory, uh, stance. Um, but there are areas that industry believes need regulation, AI, um, privacy, cybersecurity. Those are things that you just kind of can't leave out in the wild. Um, and I think generally federal and state, um, policymakers are really struggling. They just can't keep up. The technologies or the threats or whatever the biggest factor is, are evolving so quickly. Um, and that's always a challenge for policymakers. Policymakers have to strike the right balance to say, okay, we're going to put something out that's helpful but not so rigid that in three months or two years it's out of date and completely irrelevant. Right. We're seeing that a little bit with the HIPAA law now, where, you know, hipaa is almost 40 years old. Um, and you know, it does not cover the, you know, a huge, huge chunk of what we do, a huge chunk of what we challenge. We're challenged with um, and certainly technologies and people don't know what to do with that. That I think is a really, really big challenge that I don't see necessarily going away. I mean, it seems like the pace of, um, technology modernization is only accelerating. It's not going to slow down. And so I think people are going to kind of have to figure out how do they do this? Do they give more discretion to the regulators, um, giving them more room, uh, to do what they need to do? That's not really a trend we're seeing. We're seeing, uh, the opposite. Um, but, you know, we'll see. It's definitely, uh, something that is a struggle for a lot of people right now.

Speaker A: Okay, let's dive into some predictions for the next few years. As our last kind of conversation. We'll make this a little bit of a lightning round in the interest of time. Um, so let's start with, are patients going to be able to access and understand their medical records quickly? Will providers be able to easily share diagnostic images?

Speaker B: Oh, Sherry, you should take this one first.

Speaker E: So those are two very different questions. Well, actually, it's three very different questions. Um, so the access is the easy part. Right. In terms of interoperability, um, but to understand is going to take more than technology. Right. So for patients to be able to understand their medical information, um, it's definitely shifting the paradigm between in the doctor patient relationship and, uh, in many ways, some good, some with some downsides. Overall, I think patients having access to their information, I think we all agree that that's the goal and that we all support that and think that that's the way that things should go. But very few things are black and white in health care. And there are certain circumstances under which it's better for some types of information to be delivered within a conversation between a trusted healthcare provider and a patient. And sometimes getting the information immediately isn't always in the best interest of the patient. Um, so obviously in that subset of cases, um, there needs to be some nuance and discretion as to the sharing of images. There are definitely some technical hurdles, um, that, um, but there are also some socioeconomic tech hurdles as well. I think we've all been in the experience of being referred to a specialist with our little CD of diagnostic images. And the specialist is like, you know what? I'm just going to do them because I trust my MRI machine or I trust my radiologist or whatever. No technical. I don't think having them delivered electronically is going to change that type of behavior. And so that's something that's also going to be, um, a hurdle to check to jump over. Um, but there are still some technical challenges to the image sharing portion of your question.

Speaker B: Yeah, and this is Lee. I mean, another factor on the imaging particular is, um, imbalanced reimbursement models. Right. So the vast majority of people are still paid in A fee for service model. Right. We're still leading around the edges on value based care and trying to incite, um, people to focus more on the total cost of episodic care. But the reality is that if someone says, oh, I'm just going to redo that test, they get paid for it the vast majority of the time. And so that's another kind of disincentive, I think, um, that needs to be addressed by cms, by Medicaid agencies, by commercial payers.

Speaker A: Okay. How is AI ultimately changing healthcare?

Speaker D: This is Aida. I'm going to take this. Um, I think AI is moving healthcare from being always reactive to being proactive and very data driven. Um, it definitely improves efficiency and decision making for sure. Um, but we also have to, as Lee mentioned earlier, I have to think about trustworthy part of it at the beginning. Not everybody would trust AI just out of the box. Um, and we have to be very transparent with whatever AI delivers. So success really depends on the responsible implementation in our part.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think another thing, um, Sherry might have thoughts from a clinical perspective, but I think from a patient perspective, one conversation that isn't necessarily getting as much attention as I think it needs to are the privacy implications of AI use in your health care experience as a patient. So there's a lot of encouragement by the AI companies, by some people in the industry. Oh, load your whole record into AI. Um, that's not covered by hipaa. Right. So a lot of people don't know that. They don't know that when they are using a consumer app to help manage their diabetes or to aggregate their medical record. All, uh, legitimate and understandable motivations. But a lot of people don't understand that that privacy protection that people are so used to under HIPAA does not apply in the vast majority of those instances. So you have, um, you know, large language models, model saying, oh, we'll follow hipaa, ah, voluntarily, which is awesome. And they're hearing that concern from the industry. But if they don't, there's no risk to them. Right. And the same thing with some of these apps. And so that's something that I know there are some people on Capitol Hill who are concerned about that and considering legislation. Um, and certainly some of the states have, have started really trying to make sure that there's a lot of messaging and a lot of transparency to patients to say, amazing tool. Use it. But use it informed. Use it and understand what it means to you and what might happen to your data and where it might be sold or who else might see it, um, just so that you know and make a truly informed decision.

Speaker A: Very well said. Um, will healthcare organizations fear security breaches less than they do now?

Speaker E: I certainly hope not. Um, so there are only so many technical safeguards that you can put in place. And it seems like every day the bad actors are finding new and more sophisticated ways of breaching those defenses, including the use of AI to come up with new and creative ways to steal data. Um, but one of the most prevent. The biggest preventable cause of cybersecurity risk is human behavior. And I would argue that the concern over security needs to be higher throughout the healthcare world organization, not just at the IT leadership or the executive leadership, but down to the front lines so that we can help minimize the risk of, you know, inadvertently, when you're distracted, clicking on a link that suddenly turns over all of your credentials to, um, you know, in a phishing attempt. Uh, you know, we're all wading through myriad hoops of MFA and password complexity, but the hackers keep hacking. And so vigilance is everybody's responsibility and it needs to be highest when it concerns the personal health data of millions of people, patients. I hope we never quit being worried about it.

Speaker A: Um, how will quantum computing change health IT overall?

Speaker D: This is Ida. I think there's a near term focus and then the long term focus on that area. Uh, the near term focus, from what, you know, everything I read and uh, see is the security and encryption readiness. That's the first step on that area. But I think long term we wanted to achieve data analysis and research, uh, with Quantum. Um, so it's, you know, I think it represents both opportunity and responsibility at the same time.

Speaker A: I want to thank you all. Lee, Stephanie, Ida and Sherry, uh, we appreciate you all sharing your experiences and insights today on himscast. You've all been incredible guests and I feel like I've learned so much just in the course of this conversation.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: Thank you for having us. I'll speak for the group. We were really looking forward to it and, um, this was great. It was really enjoyable.

Speaker A: Perfect. And thanks to our audience for listening this episode of hymnscast. We encourage you to rate and review us and if you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Podcast, Spotify or Amazon Music. Have a great day.