Transcription Media File Name: 030216-Radio-BahaZeidan.mp4 Media File ID: 2466386 Media Duration: 8:41 Order Number: Date Ordered: 2016-04-18 Transcription by Speechpad www.speechpad.com Support questions: support@speechpad.com Sales questions: sales@speechpad.com
Justin: Thank you, everybody, for joining and welcome to This Just In special edition on HIMSS Radio. We're broadcasting live from the HIMSS16 Annual Conference here in Las Vegas, at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. I'm very excited for another great day. We had three and a half hours yesterday and it went perfect. And I appreciate all the support by the teams here and the great thousands of listeners out there. We're going to bring you another action-packed day just starting here for the next three and a half hours. But if you're in the vicinity, feel free to stop by again. HIMSS16 here in the Las Vegas at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. And my very first guest here is a good friend. Been on the show at least once in the past, but your company a couple of times. Just love what you guys are doing. So Baha Zeidan, CEO of Azalea Health. Welcome, Baha. Baha: Thank you, Justin, very much. I'm honored to be here on your radio show. Justin: You're a great entrepreneur, and Atlanta is lucky to have you. I'm lucky to call you a friend in the industry. Baha: I am as well, and I'm lucky to be a part of Atlanta entrepreneurship community and ecosystem. It's been fun ride. Justin: Yeah, well you come from a great area and we have a great opportunity there. And we had actually the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Georgia Department of Economic Development on yesterday as guests. Baha: They're doing a wonderful job. That's a great team. And actually Georgia being a capital of the health IT industry has worked out really well for our healthcare community in general but the entrepreneurial spirit in Atlanta and it's been great. Great ride. Justin: Yeah, actually ironically my next guest, Denise Hines, also hails from Georgia. This is my next guest. Baha: And what great accomplishments she has done. Great, great person.
Justin: I know. Baha: You have a wonderful line up. I'm truly honored to be in all of this. Justin: No, I'm glad you could join us. So I've been talking to all my guests, and certainly the theme that we're following for this HIMSS16 is getting everybody's perspective on the trends that they're seeing from their vantage point and from their company. So what are the top healthcare and health IT trends or opportunities are you seeing out in the marketplace today? Baha: Well thank you, Justin, again. Some of the opportunities that we're seeing actually has been talked about at the Venture Forum earlier, around late Sunday I believe. It's rural health matters. Rural health is actually one-third of the U.S. economy or one-fifth of the U.S. population is on rural. And they have special needs, and they have actually set of challenges that's different than the metropolitan and the large health systems. And they need help. So this is one of the trends. Another trend is revenue cycle performance and revenue cycle management, specifically in the rural market. They have a unique set of needs and challenges, but there's great opportunities in that side as well. And last trend that I see that is really unique for that market specifically is telehealth. And extending the provider services in the rural market is a key. Justin: Yeah, I know. Actually, one thing that really impressed me--we've known each other for a long time, served on boards together--but we become closer friends last year when I went through your portfolio, just where you offer the EHR. The whole entire compliment, clinical financial administrative. But then you also fully integrated telehealth, and now you've got some other cool announcements. I won't steal the thunder but I love how you put it all into one single block of code for practices. And that's the simplicity that they need to thrive. Baha: Definitely. Specifically in rural providers. They have a lot of challenges, and they don't want to deal with multiple vendors. They want one vendor that has a platform, that has the depth of helping them through revenue cycle performance, helping them with extending their services through telehealth, and helping them with their clinical documentation. And you have to be excellent at all of those areas to help that provider.
Justin: So I assume that's how you guys...i mean, you talk about the trends and I certainly agree. Certainly you're focused on rural health. It's near and dear to my heart. Actually, Karen DeSalvo was on the show yesterday and we went through components of that market because they're heavily focused obviously to help, really extending to the communities. Baha: Definitely. And they're doing innovations that actually a lot of urban settings, they look at it and look to see how to adopt those innovations that's happening at the rural market. Justin: So what are you doing to address that market individually or even corporately? Baha: Sure. Since we focus on the rural physician and the rural providers and rural health systems, we always figure ways to how we can improve their revenue cycle performance. There's a lot of challenges in the new payment models and changes in payment models are very difficult for provider to focus on while they're still practicing their day to day patient engagement. So it's very important for us to help navigate the physicians through those payment models. That's one. Justin: Fantastic. Baha: The second thing, as a platform we see ourselves continuously adding tools to help providers with their population management. For example, we're launching our CCM tool. This is something new for us and we see that as not a point solution. It's part of the patient medical record, it's part of the physician workflow. And the last thing that we've been the first to adopt is telehealth. We've integrated telehealth, not just as a point solution. In the contrary, it's part of the physician workflow. Telehealth is integrated with a scheduler, it's integrated with a payment model, and it's also integrated with the clinical site. And the patient portal on the patient mobile site. Justine: No, I couldn't agree more. And the way that you do integrate that into a single platform makes it much easier for your customers and practices and
health systems to support, and it's entire care continuum that they have to have integrated. And adding on CCM is very, very strong. So congratulations on that. Baha: Thank you so much, Justin. Justin: So what do you consider a best practice? When you work with a practice or a hospital, what do you advise them, and what directions do you take them around best practices to navigate the future? Baha: Sure. So one of the things that physicians need to be exploring and providers need to be exploring right now is how to extend their care. And one of the ways to extend their care is telehealth. They need to look into how can we build a telehealth strategy? And they can't be behind the curve in that. A time will pass and telehealth companies can grab that business away from them. And they need to be able to provide care face to face and through telehealth, but provide the same experience. So they do need to have a strategy and talk to their vendor to figure out how can we extend our services and be able to monetize that? Justin: Very true. Baha: Because it's not just a way to give up free time. It's on the contrary. It's saving the country money because it's cheaper, but at the same time, it's a revenue source for that provider. Justin: And it increases access. And I think it's all our goal to healthcare, So no, there's a point where it's not only being called telehealth, it's just called healthcare. It's all part of the entire continuum. Baha: Absolutely. Healthcare continuum, part of it is face to face when it's needed, but also using it remotely when it's needed as well. Justin: Exactly. No, it increases and continues the access.
Baha: And having a strategy that will tie in revenue cycle and revenue cycle performance to that because a physician can get paid for that. Justin: No, that's actually a very good point. And also, I think just the thought leadership piece that you and I worked on together just around revenue cycle performance. Looking at other options to increase revenue base for your practice, for your hospital, we need that to stay in time. Baha: Definitely it is. Justin: All right. In closing, I've been asking this over the last couple of guests and we kind of came up with this at the end of the show yesterday but I love this question. Baha: All right, tell me. Justin: You're ready? Baha: Yes. Justin: What is a prediction that you would have for healthcare or provider? What's the prediction that you would have for 2016 or 2017? Baha: We're going to see more and more mobile device adoption. We've been talking a lot about it, we've seen actually a lot of software has been done in that space, but only 2% adoption is not good. So I think we want to see more than 10% and 20%. Because everybody we see uses Facebook, for example on their phone. So let's engage them with their health records and with their provider and make it a mainstream rather than just a thought and a cool app. Justin: Very cool. Great answer, my friend. Great to have you. Baha: Thank you so much, Justin.
Justin: And I hope you guys have a great rest of the conference. Baha: I appreciated it very much. Thank you, Justin. Justin: Thank you, my friend.