Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. My name is Will Riley from r one. With me today is Chris Harrison. Chris is the CEO of Quorum Health. Welcome to the podcast, Chris. Thank you, Will. Thanks for having me. You bet. You bet. Looking forward to talking to you. Yes. Let's get started. Can you tell us a bit about your role? Tell us a bit about Quorum Health. Definitely. Yeah. So I'm the chief executive officer of Quorum Health. We are a twelve hospital corporation based in in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is just outside Nashville. We we have twelve hospitals in nine states. So we are a primarily rural operator that spans those nine states. So we we go from Arkansas and Kentucky on the the eastern side of the country all the way to to California and Oregon on the the western side of the country. So our portfolio is is about half small critical access hospitals. So we have six critical access hospitals and then six, you know, just acute care hospitals. And then obviously, we run the clinic operations for our employed physicians, as well as outpatient, services in some of our markets as well, in addition to the acute care hospitals. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic. Can you tell me about some of the key priorities for Quorum going into twenty twenty six? Definitely. I think it's probably not much different than than most health systems, but it's growth. You know, we want to continue to grow. You know, Coram's been on a little bit of a a journey in terms of a kind of restructuring and and, you know, optimizing the portfolio of our hospitals. So we've gotten down to the current portfolio of twelve hospitals that we think gives us a good chance to continue to move forward. And so we like to grow both organic and inorganically, so organic in our markets, and continue to look at ways to grow with physician practices, with physicians, with outpatient facilities, partnerships and affiliations in those markets, as well as inorganically, as we look at acquisitions. Obviously, the M and A landscape in acute health care is very active right now, as a lot of people and a lot of independent hospitals and systems try to figure out how to navigate, you know, One Big Beautiful Bill and all of the regulatory dynamics, rising costs. You know, they're sort of starting to look at, okay, who do we potentially affiliate and partner with to get scale and a lot of things that those independent hospitals don't get. So looking at those opportunities and then obviously, you know, just navigating the reimbursement federal policy landscape. With the one big beautiful bill, the Medicaid cuts, obviously, a lot of those things don't happen until, you know, twenty twenty nine ish is when the big cuts happen. And so you've got the Rural Health Transformation Fund coming, the fifty billion dollars that's going to be coming out starting next year. So a big strategy will be how do we take those funds. Obviously, as a rural operator, we feel like we're we're right in the line to to receive those funds. So it'll be a big strategy to determine how we use that to to invest in innovation, invest in technology, invest in AI, invest in growth. So that then by the time twenty eight, twenty nine rolls around, hopefully, you've you've grown and and you can mitigate some of the cuts that'll come later down. Right sized. Yeah. You're ready. Ready. That's right. Let's let's talk about that then. And I'd like to start by talking about innovation and technology. It feels like, health care providers have been a space, an industry segment that has been traditionally pretty conservative when it comes to the adoption of technology. Right. But it it does feel like that's changing with the advent of artificial intelligence and the availability of new solutions. It feels like there's some energy and some belief, and it it feels like a different paradigm all of a sudden for health care and technology. Do you do you agree with that? I do. I agree. I think, you know, the health care industry and then, you know, the regulatory side of that, obviously, with BHI and, you know, HIPAA and a lot of compliance and regulatory pieces around data, I think, a lot of the conservatism and a lot of the concerns that you mentioned in the last several years of, oh, how are we going to navigate? That our data and our patients' data is going to be out there, and all this artificial intelligence and all these robots and all these things are going to be using it, how do we protect that and put guardrails around that? And now, to to your point, I think a lot of that has become, you know, a little la not lax. I mean, people have put more controls in it and more governance around it to get comfortable. And and I think people are seeing that there's a lot of benefit to the artificial intelligence. So, you know, a lot of benefit to putting in and making your physicians and your employees and all your staff more efficient. You know, we aren't necessarily looking at replacing jobs, right? We're just looking at how do you make the employees you have more efficient, and how do you make your clinicians do what they were trained and went to school to do, which is care for patients and provide a better patient experience. And so a lot of our AI and artificial intelligence and technology innovation is centered around that, is, you know, how do we put the clinicians back at the bedside to give the patients a better experience. Yeah. And then, you know, that'll lead to better outcomes, better clinical outcomes, and obviously, you know, give back the physicians and nurses and clinicians a little more time and a little more work life balance. Obviously, they're coming out of a, you know, with the pandemic and burnout and and everything that came out of that, you know, twenty twenty through twenty twenty three ish time frame, you're you're sort of like, how do we, you know, put some time back in their lives? And I think of these tools and innovations are a good way to do that. It feels like that's the clincher for it. Right? That it actually that it really works. Yes. And that when people get it, they want more of it. That's right. And so it creates a it creates an institutional sort of demand and energy around it. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and physicians are obviously you go through lots of school and med school, you know, you've got ChatGPT. You've got other tools out there that, you know, I think a lot of us as consumers and patients would, you know, you just go Google. I say Google like it was twenty years ago, right? But you know, you would go, Google, what does this mean? And look up your own care, right? And now I think you have physicians and other patients using ChatGPT and some of this other artificial intelligence to help navigate health care and navigate what the physician's telling them. So your patients are getting more educated, too, when they go to their physician and doctor. And then you've got the physicians who, for a long time, where I went to med school, I know I can provide the best care. I know how to do this. But now you give them the technology and the tools to be more efficient, but also to be more educated and put more information in their hands, and you can now partner and align them with other like minded physicians and larger systems that, you know, five, ten years ago you couldn't do. So now you can take a cardiologist in a rural hospital. So if I take, you know, like a cardiologist in Utah, for example, where we're affiliated with a large academic health system in Salt Lake City, and now with the technology and the innovation, they're almost in the same network and kind of in the same, I I don't call it a think tank, but can kind of think through things with other like minded physicians and these other large systems. And so I think there's a lot of different ways you can use the technology to connect the physicians and clinicians. Empowering seems to be a good word to sum up a lot of what you're saying there. That's right. I want to ask you about partnerships as it as it relates to innovation. So I'm glad you brought that up because, like, there's there's a couple of different archetypes in health care when it comes to innovation. Right? You've got big established players, established providers, established technology players, established payers. They've got all sorts of advantages as incumbents, right? They've got data, they've got infrastructure, they've got network, and so on. And then you've got disruptors, right, coming in and you could call them insurgents, right? Whether maybe a sort of AI native outlook, but they're coming in to disrupt. And I'm curious about how your Utah example is really interesting, because like, how are you seeing partnerships change or evolve? Yeah. No. It's a great question. I think, you know, a lot of the the technology companies and the differentiators for me, personally, is looking for that true partner. Right? I think a lot of the relationships of the past were a true kind of vendor client relationship, and you had a contract that was, okay. Here's your five year contract, and you've got this amount of fees, and then we'll do a CPI increase. And then, you know, it it was sort of a a standard blocking and tackling almost, you know, MSA agreement. And now where we look to to to partner is truly finding, okay, who do we feel like the company that's gonna partner with us the best, that our our strategies are aligned, that what we're the outcomes we're trying to achieve are aligned. And in many ways, how you align with financially and incentives, you know, whether that's through data sharing, whether that's through, you know, equity investment in some of these startup companies and different ways that you can now align, you know, with with your partners that differentiates them from some of the other players that maybe are are not necessarily wanting to be that partner of yours and are still trying to do the old school, almost vendor client relationship. You know? And I I think for for most health care systems and us alike, our our data is very valuable. It's one of the most valuable assets we have. And so how do you you know, as you think through these agreements, how do you align with that data and make sure that you're monetizing it in a way that's you know, makes sense for the health system in a way that, you know, you're not kinda selling your data off, then suddenly, you know, all the third parties are then taking in and doing what they want, and then they're monetizing it. So how do you you partner with the right innovators and technology companies that you can leverage that data and and, you know, have a a financial outcome from that data as well as the technology that you're investing in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. What what are some of the the use cases or the use cases seems too small now. What are some of the big process areas in your operations that you think this new technology is gonna have the most transformative impact? Yeah. I think it's, you know, on the clinical side where we're seeing the most adoption today and where we've kinda made that investment is in the, you know, the AI, Scribe, you know, and the physician, you know, capturing the physician notes and capturing the patient visit in those clinic settings. We're mostly seeing it in the outpatient setting. We haven't fully gone yet all in on sort of the emergency room or the, you know, acute setting on that. We're mostly using it in the outpatient visits with our patients, where those, you know, physicians are capturing those notes, and then it's you know, the AI is is listening to the conversation and then turning that into to the coding. You know, the next stage is is in revenue cycle. With our our revenue cycle partner, there's a lot of, you know, autonomous coding and a lot of AI being put in around rev cycle to help, you know, get cleaner bills and get bills out faster and get it to the payers, hopefully reduce denials and and, you know, have better outcomes from a revenue cycle standpoint. You know? And then outside of that, I think any kind of manual, you know, process driven job is a a job that you can look at, okay, how can you put AI in to make that job more efficient and make that employee more productive? So other you know, in accounting, finance, and reporting, and then AP, obviously, the accounts payable process has AI, where now you can scan an invoice in, and the AI learns, oh, this is who that vendor is, and it knows exactly, okay, where does that get coded and how does it so it can do a lot of that manual coding and a lot of that manual processing of the past where an AP person would have to look at every invoice and you could kinda get it through the system faster. So I think those are the areas where we've already had some adoption. And I see you know, and challenge our organization to look at, you know, in your individual hospital or even in our our corporate office or across the whole organization, where are their manual processes being done, and is there a technology we can put in to do that manual process? And again, as I said earlier, it's not a let's put AI in that manual process to eliminate the job. It's now let's make that person more productive and make their job easier, and then we should have a better result as a company because now they can spend their time on more productive processes. And I should imagine, as an operator of hospitals in more rural locations, make retaining that workforce has been a challenge Yes. Most likely Yes. Over the last years. So it's not like you've got a surfeit of Right. Human resource. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the in the rural markets, you're you're often the only game in town in a lot of markets, so you're the only hospital, the only provider. But you're also the largest employer, and you're a kind of economic lifeline for those communities because you're providing that largest employer, but also doing business with a lot of other businesses in town. And so, like you said, having the talent and retaining them and keeping those employees is important to the community as much as it is to us and to the hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What about let's end perhaps with some thoughts on the patient. How do you see we've been talking about innovations that are going to improve clinical effectiveness and physician well-being, performance and smoothing payer relationships hopefully in the future. What about the patient and where do they sit in this innovation landscape? Sure. Great question. I think, you know, as patients and consumers, we all, use technology and AI today on different facets of our life, whether it's through financial relationships, through ordering things off of Amazon or whatever it is, we're all getting kind of exposure to how quickly and efficiently you can do things. And so I think in health care and hospitals, it's the same thing. So how do we provide our patients a more efficient and better experience? So when it comes to scheduling their visit or their surgery or whatever it is, obviously, if they come into the emergency room, how can we get to them quicker, you know, and triage them and see them before they leave and, you know, left without being seen is obviously not something you want a high percentage of. So you want to be able to triage and see those patients. So how can you use the technology and innovation to get those patients registered and then get them into the, you know, to see the clinician faster and get triaged so you can make sure that they get to the right care. You know, and then I think the whole registration process, like I said, scheduling, and then obviously the payment process and how patients pay their bill. They want similar experiences they do when they pay all their bills, whether that's through their online banking, bill pay, text, or however it is. So I see a lot of innovation helping with them on the patient portion of their bill and navigating and managing that. And then obviously, I think, as we mentioned, the physicians and the describing, I think having a physician who can spend more time and truly spend, you know, whether that's five, ten more minutes, because now they're we've taken off a lot of the administrative kind of documentation and work off of that physician. Can they spend a few more minutes with each patient, and then the patient feels more heard and feels like, know, my physician has listened to me, and now they have a better sense of what's going on. And so they have a better kind of connection to that. So, So I think it all comes back to that patient experience. We're super focused on having the highest patient experience we can in our hospitals and making sure that they feel like they got what they came for, and they got heard. And whether that's in the hospital or the physician practice, that they had a good outcome and, you know, would come back and be a repeat patient for our hospitals. Got it. Chris, it's a really great overview. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to share before we finish? No. I think, you know, the last thing I'll say is, know, on technology and innovation, you know, we're also looking at true robots. You know, people think about AI as as the robot. You know, they're they're sitting at a computer, and there's a robot literally typing on the keyboard doing all this work. But, you know, we actually have partnered with a company in several of our markets and hospitals where we're putting in robots that are just like another employee in the hospital so they have a badge, and they can scan into the elevators and scan into all the rooms. And we're using that robot to do a lot of the pharmacy deliveries and a lot of the supply deliveries. And some of those, as I mentioned, mundane tasks and administrative tasks that a nurse might have had to do in the past, where it's like they've got to go to the supply closet or go down and get the prescriptions from the pharmacy. And now we can employ, I'll say, these robots that can do that work, and they just make runs all day back and forth from the departments down to central supply or to the pharmacy. And then that frees up the clinicians again to stay on the floor and see the patients. Yeah. And it's pretty cool to see it because they can interact and they can see that there's somebody else on the elevator and can communicate or say hi and all that. So I think it's probably a little scary for some, but in others, it's probably like, wow, this is really cool. That robot's talking to me. But that's just another way that this innovation and technology is being put in, that you don't really think about. Right. You know, that this somebody having to not walk down the hall twenty more times a day now is is is a a game changer for that patient experience. Totally. It's a great way to end. Thank you very much indeed for your time.
