Episode 48: Interactive Patient Systems and the Digital Hospital of the Future with pCare CEO Dave Bennett

Combining the best of technology and humanity to create better patient outcomes.

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In this episode you’ll discover:

  • How interactive patient care will impact the future of healthcare 

  • How vendors can be successful in the digital health space 

  • What technologists and innovators should keep in mind 

Keep scrolling for a transcript of this episode.

Key Takeaways

  • The pandemic accelerated the growth of the digitalization of healthcare. Healthcare providers need to look into leveraging technology that will reduce the burden of work for nurses and staff so that they could focus on what is important. 

  • Missing information is a huge reason for stress both for patients and providers. Anything you could do to fill the gaps in information ensures a better overall experience for the patient and improves the outcome, possibly helping them recover more quickly. 

  • It’s impossible to be good at everything, but there is always one thing that you’re great at. As a vendor, apply this mindset by focusing on one specialization that will make you preferable to a feature or functionality that might already be established. 

  • People who are great at developing technology and creating solutions should never lose sight of the human element. Another thing to keep in mind is that new technology only works if it is ingrained in the culture and that there’s adoption of how it’s going to work in the organization. Lastly, keep it simple. 

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“And what I soon realized is that all this technology and all of this that we have in place, without the engagement of nurses and doctors and them buying into the technology, understanding it being baked into the culture of the organization, it will fail.

”
— pCare CEO Dave Bennett
 

Read the transcript

Rebecca Gwilt (00:16):

Welcome back to Decoding Healthcare Innovation. I'm your co-host, Rebecca Gwilt, co-founder and partner at Nixon Gwilt Law, where we help digital health companies navigate law and policy to build great businesses. Today I'm delighted to share the pod with Dave Bennett, CEO of pCare, and we're going to talk about interactive patient systems and what the heck those are, and the digital hospital of the future. Dave has a ton of experience in healthcare innovation, patient engagement, strategy, tech, operations. I'm super pumped to tap into some of that today. Welcome to the pod, Dave.

Dave Bennett (00:50):

Great. Thanks for having me. I look forward to our discussion here today.

Rebecca Gwilt (00:54):

Me too. So let's jump right in. Tell me, Dave, what is the digital hospital of the future?

Dave Bennett (01:00):

Well, I think the digital hospital of future has been evolving over the past several years. It's kind of accelerated, I tell you since we've come out of the pandemic with Covid. So it really revolves around leveraging digital technologies. Obviously we as societies become much more mobile and much more digital in the way that we communicate and the way that we do business and really live our lives. So what's happened with the digital hospital of the future, a lot of those things that we've taken for granted in some sense or another, whether or not it's digital banking or other things, have slowly migrated their ways over to healthcare. Healthcare's a little bit slower than traditional industries in the sense that the way that it's adopted it, but that's just because we're very conservative in healthcare. If you think about it, the number of years and the amount of work that it takes to trial out drugs and clinical trials and things, hospitals and doctors and folks in healthcare generally are very cautious in their approach, focus on do no harm and really ensure that what we're bringing to bear at the task is really going to be to the benefit of the patient or the organization at the end of the day.

(02:10):

So that evolultion's kind of accelerated with us surviving through Covid and moving forward in the future with these mass adoption of digital technologies.

Rebecca Gwilt (02:23):

So it sounds like this is a sort of consumer driven trend given that we are, as consumers getting more sophisticated using digital tools and we're realizing that they can add efficiencies to our lives, et cetera. That's sort of putting pressure on a more slow moving industry, traditionally healthcare. Why do you think that is? You think it's the pandemic or do you think that is a fair characterization?

Dave Bennett (02:45):

I think it's a combination of things. I do think your point around consumerism is really important. Obviously now that people are paying more for their healthcare in the form of deductibles, picking flexible plans, health savings accounts, we become much more focused as consumers on healthcare, trying to get under the hood, understanding my healthcare, what's covered, what it's going to cost me. So when you actually become a major participant in that, particularly in the cost, we want to become much more informed and much more engaged. And we also look for, hey, who's going to provide the better services? How's it going to be more convenient for me? So I do think consumerism is a critical element. I do think that some of it during the pandemic was because of the way that we interacted with physicians and others changed and necessitated the need of things like virtual care, the ability to get on and do an online video connection and telemedicine appointment because of the safety concerns around going to a doctor's office and being in there.

(03:49):

That helped accelerate it. Also, digital technology, like waiting rooms, people didn't show up in waiting rooms. In some cases they drove to their doctor's office or even at their appoint or even to the hospital, if they had an appointment, an outpatient clinic waited into their car till they received a text message, Hey, come on up, we're ready to see you now. So a lot of that technology was adopted for operational safety and even better patient satisfaction improvements around the process and workflow. So as a result, that stuff has since then accelerated the adoption and we see more and more utilization of it throughout large, particularly healthcare providers and healthcare systems.

Rebecca Gwilt (04:35):

So it seems to me, when I think about the digital hospital, the future, it seems to me that sort of defining this is tricky because there is the hospital that is digitalized. You're still in the brick and mortar hospital, but you now have digital tools that make the care better, more efficient, et cetera. And then you have a virtual hospital. A couple of years ago I heard Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., CEO of Mayo Clinic, talk about his vision for Mayo Clinic as a digital destination. And what I saw in the sort of drawings was almost like a hospital in the metaverse. Right. So it sounds like the nature of hospitals is changing a ton. When you think about the digital hospital of the future, which one of those visions do you see? Or maybe some hybrid or both?

Dave Bennett (05:22):

Yeah, I think it's probably both. The reality is it's fantasy today (that doesn't mean it won't change in the future) to believe that people physically not having to be at hospitals is going to go away. What's happening there is certainly technologies are coming into place, minimally invasive surgeries and things like that that can be done on an outpatient basis or short term stays. But there's still going to be the need for people to come in, whether or not somebody's been in a horrible accident or whether or not they require some sort of extended care for condition that they're going to have to have extensive surgery there in a hospital, they're going to have to recover there, or an infection that requires 'em to be hospitalized and treated through IV antibiotics—that'll never go away. But what slowly happened there is, while there will always be a virtual, as you've seen the adoption of our virtual hospital, some care that can be administered at home through remote device monitoring, through video consults, there are going to be the abilities through technology that allows you to do more hands off and less direct care.

(06:33):

But there's going to continue to be the need to be in the hospital. And what's happened in the hospital is that some of these technologies are being adopted around, some of them around workflow and worker productivity while patients are in the hospital. So I'll give you some examples of that that may highlight some of this. So if you think about today, one of the largest issues that hospitals are facing today around costs are labor issues. I mean, there's the cost of labor, the cost of nursing. We all across the country have seen inflation and labor costs. The issue particularly in healthcare is look, there's fewer nurses. We saw a large number of nurses after covid retiring and getting out of healthcare. We've got an aging population that continues to age and continues to use healthcare at an increasing rate, which requires more healthcare workers, more doctors, more nurses, more folks like that.

(07:35):

And that's not going to go away. As the population continues to grow in age, that's going to continue, that's right to increases. So one of the things that we think about when it comes to digital technologies is something that I spent some time in the army, in the military, and one of the things that we look for in the military are what we call force multipliers. Those are technology, other things that can multiply the number of people. So if I have five, what can I give somebody that equates to 10 people. So what's happening with this digital technology is that we actually are looking for the ability for us to create force multipliers that reduce the burden of work for nurses and clinical staff that allow them to focus on what's really important, and that's taking care of patients medical clinical needs, but reduce the need for them to focus on things that are not clinical.

(08:31):

So an example might be traditionally somebody might reach out to a nurse and say, Hey, my room is messy. I've got a couple questions on this that may not be related directly to my care. Or Hey, when is the doctor going to come and see me today? Traditionally people would ask nurses and staff and then all of a sudden the nurse has got to go around and say, well, I got to come and answer that. Well, let me get housekeeping up here, or let me get into the electronic medical record and see where what your next appointment or what you got scheduled for the day is right. While that seems trivial to some extent, if you multiply that times potentially a dozen people times multiple times throughout a day, all of a sudden you think about that and how much time that consumes of a nurse that could be dedicated to actual patient clinical care.

(09:23):

And so what's happening is we are slowly adopting and hospitals are adopting technologies that allow the patient one to look at their schedule right in their room through their TV set or on other devices, oh wow, this is what I've got scheduled and I don't have to ask the nurse because I do see physical therapies going to be in my room today. Or Hey, my room is a mess. How can I reach out to somebody? And other than asking the nurse, Hey, this connects me to housekeeping, they're going to send somebody up right away. So there's ways to basically leverage technology from a communication standpoint that better informs a patient what's scheduled, communicates them with the right department so that again, a nurse can focus as they say at the top of their license on the clinical care, that we can help facilitate other interactions between the patient and the organization or the institution that really also improve the overall experience, but also help when it comes to work productivity for nursing and other clinical folks, if that makes sense.

Rebecca Gwilt (10:26):

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And you said it right at the end, but I was going to add that hospitals do care about the patient feedback they're getting because they're mandated to care about it.

Dave Bennett (10:36):

Tremendously,

Rebecca Gwilt (10:38):

For those of you listening, you can't tell but I'm wearing US Navy shirt, so hopefully Dave will forgive me, go Army as well. Hopefully my dad didn't hear that. My dad recently had bypass surgery and I was in the hospital with him and we had nothing but questions. And in between nurses coming in, we had no information, we didn't know what was coming next. And this was a really good hospital. And the experience of a very worried, anxious family member of someone who is in an inpatient in a hospital is enormously improved by sort of high touch. And that does take, you know, don't necessarily need a nurse's expertise to get you that information, but that's who ends up helping. So that makes a ton of sense to me. So let's talk a little bit about pCare. You facilitate interactive patient systems. And I think that's sort of what we've been talking about a little bit. But tell me the role that these patient, well, you've described it a little bit, but maybe we can describe it in more detail. Sure. And tell me what role pCare's interactive patient systems play in this concept of the digital hospital of the future.

Dave Bennett (11:58):

So we play in a little sliver of our own. Traditionally, we basically provide something that you mentioned, this interactive patient care. And what it's designed to do, the name is kind of misleading, but we basically provide a point of contact in the patient's room with the patient and the family members or guests that can come into the room. If you think about it, and we frankly do this through the television, the television is something that's consistent in every hospital room. People know how to use TVs, they interact with them all the time. What we basically do is leverage that communication point or that touchpoint to deliver a bunch of information, whether or not it's what your schedule is for the day, who a whiteboard that might list who your nurse doctor is, who your care providing team is for the day. It can also be patient education.

Rebecca Gwilt (12:55):

You mean no more XO markers?

Dave Bennett (13:00):

That's exactly it ,on the traditional whiteboard. And if you think about it, we can eliminate that and actually could consume information that's in the electronic medical record prepared in such a format that then could be presented to the patient so that that's about their schedule. Like I said, it could be technology that's a picture of your nurse and their first name and last name or your doctor. Or it can also announce when somebody walks into the patient's room, it can pop up a picture and tell you who that person is, the attending physician, the nurse, things like that. So if you think about care, we basically sit in the patient's room, allow them to do everything that they would do with regular tv, watch tv, they could do some other things, watch some premium movies, but we become a convenient inpatient engagement communication point.

(13:54):

So one thing that's interesting, again, and I can relate to what you said about having a family member in the hospital firsthand in many regards, but say for instance, I didn't really understand why they were in there, what a CABG procedure was, right? Or what I might have to do once they get home. And it might be I'm with my spouse and I want to know everything about how she's being treated and what I need to do when I take her home. Exactly. We can actually deliver video patient education content that can be watched by the patient, but it could also be shared and watched by the family members or extended folks like that. Another example, one that's really got a tremendous amount of attraction is the ability to put a video camera that's part of the room environment and you go, oh my god, video cameras in there.

(14:45):

How's that work? Well, let me give you some examples. So nowadays people have adopted and accept there are video cameras everywhere. If I could do a telemedicine visit at home, could I also do the ability to be a patient and be able to communicate via video to a patient in a room? So for example, we have the ability to leverage the TV set and a video camera in a patient room through a platform that we call video connect. This allows a number of different things, including virtual rounding. So a nurse might not be able to physically come down that moment, but they could connect with the patient in the room at that time. Same thing for your doctor. Your doctor might be out at another facility, but you might be concerned, you might want to be able to get ahold of them, they can now video connect with you so that they can then communicate with you through the TV and video.

(15:40):

One of the biggest areas where we see tremendous impact has been the area around discharge processes. And I will tell you, if you think about this, one of the things is traditionally when we go home as patients, we, and it's if we've been in for something more complex, it's usually a team of our family members, extended caregivers, others that might all be involved with the post-discharge care. So now we have the ability at the time of discharge to set up a video conference and I can invite my mother-in-law, my father, my kids, whomever, can all be wired in simultaneously with the doctors and the nurses walking through what you are going to need to do as part of the discharge process in order to ensure an optimal recovery. They can all become members of your care team and they can all be instructed, ask questions, and be part of that process, which will improve the overall outcome.

(16:38):

And again, when you have multiple people listening, you know, feel you're really kind of creating that team. Where we find that really incredibly useful is in pediatric patients, particularly those that are long-term flyers that are in and out of the hospital quite a bit. Mom and dad can't always be there at the same time because dad might have to be at work or mom might have to be at work, but they might want to be part of the consult when the doctor's rounding on the patient. So with this technology and that can go well beyond pediatric patients, we can actually make that happen so that when the doctor is rounding on the patient, we can set up a secure video conference so you can join virtually, ask questions, listen to what the doctor has to say, all elevating the level of patient satisfaction and information, as you pointed out, as there's a huge factor about missing information. It's those gaps and not knowing things that are most frightening to patients at the end of the day. So anything you can do to fill that, whether or not it's video education that you can deliver by the bedside, whether or not it's real interaction with the nurse and the doctor discharge or other things, all of those help fill that void, which ensures a better overall experience and actually improves the outcome. The likelihood that somebody's going to recover more quickly and better off why once they've been sent home is improved dramatically.

Rebecca Gwilt (18:05):

Yeah, I have a service feature suggestion for you. It is some integration with a meditation thing. My firm provides the Calm app to all of our people, and I pulled up this meditation before my dad went into surgery because they sent in the chaplain without our permission and totally wigged him out, right? He's like, why am I talking to a chaplain right now? So we did a meditation pre-surgery altogether as a family and it really helped.

Dave Bennett (18:37):

That might be a great use case for us because honestly, because we do things like some people, like you said, may want chaplain services now they can connect via that. Some translation services is another one, you know, don't think about this, but with all the languages that people speak and honestly non-verbal communication is very important. People, their mannerisms, the way they react, have a translator be able to visualize that, can often translate things that absolutely think like, Hey, I know she says she's okay, and that's the way it's translating, but the mannerisms of our customs are far different that there's another issue you need to be aware. So there are a lot of interesting as we adopt that technology, just like you said, meditation is probably a great use case. I hadn't even thought of it, but trust me, there's no downside with harnessing these platforms to take advantage of those sort of things.

Rebecca Gwilt (19:35):

Well, I'm glad I could be of service, Dave.

Dave Bennett (19:37):

You bet.

Rebecca Gwilt (19:39):

It sounds like we're hitting on certainly helping hospitals deal with their bottom line problem, which is very, very expensive folks. Personnel costs. So many hospitals are using traveling nurses these days because of this shortage, which is costing them even more money. And we've heard that hospitals are, they're facing some tough financial issues. So being able to go to them and say, Hey, we're going to save you on labor costs is great. Potentially with your discharge piece, being able to say, Hey, this might help you reduce readmissions, which may help you avoid penalties. Impacting staff burnout is as important as eliminating more staff than you need. So it sounds like you're hitting on a bunch of points and value. I am interested in your thoughts on what this may mean for other tech companies selling into hospitals. I have heard that CIOs and CFOs are playing a much more prominent role these days given the cost, the budget issues hospitals are having. I'm interested in are you seeing that and you're a seasoned pro, so what insights do you have that might be helpful for companies selling into the space?

Dave Bennett (21:02):

Great set of questions and I think I've got some interesting answers for you. But let me tell you what we have seen. You're really right. I've, I've been selling into hospitals for 40 plus years now, so I've seen a tremendous change in hospital systems. I've also had the advantage of working in a large academic medical center. So I've seen both sides of being a vendor that supports 'em as well as working in a very interesting environment. The amount of pressure that are on hospitals is just unprecedented. So I mean, I'm fortunate in the sense that I get to talk to lots of hospitals, lots of people in the C-suite all across the country. And I will tell you the one thing that I continue to hear, and it's also very apparent when you look at their quarterly reports, particularly those that publish their quarterly results and all of that, the financial burden that they're on is huge.

(21:58):

Obviously the cost of energy that has gone up, the cost of food, the cost of labor nurses and other healthcare, all that is acceler has increased tremendously. Whereas reimbursements for these organizations have not increased as well. And as you are probably well aware, and your guests, margins are relatively thin for hospitals. The one thing that gets me is, and even this happens in my own family, I was with my father-in-law the other day and he was talking about how hospitals are crooks, they're making so much money. And I'm like, let me explain how much a hospital makes that, what their costs are going up. Because that's the way it is. The they're being impacted just like you and I, the price of gas is not any cheaper for them than it is for us. And they've got ambulance service, transportation, all that. So what's happened is hospitals have had to become much more strategic and thoughtful when it comes to purchases, particularly large enterprise purchases.

(23:00):

The days of people just willy-nilly picking something and a service line manager or somebody in a department that has really changed dramatically and even much more so over the past year or year and a half or two years during Covid and coming out, the process and the evaluation by which people are looking at technology and solutions is much more thoughtful, much more deep. People want to ensure, and it's a larger team of people. It's not only the CIO. The CIO plays a huge role in that. We've seen a huge emergence of the Chief Technology Officer. We've seen the creation of these Chief Digital Information Officers within these organizations. All of this is relatively new over the past five years. So Chief Nursing Officer played a role, Chief Operating, and it is not unusual at all to see the Chief Financial Officer at the table nowadays.

(24:00):

So what's happening is I see a larger set of constituents and people driving the discussion that are also part of the evaluation process end of the day. Thus the time that these deals take, the amount of time, resources, and the time to close have increased exponentially, particularly if it's an enterprise solution that's going to be used across an enterprise. That's just been the very nature of things. And again, the CIOs and others are also looking at, do we have systems in place today that currently provide that? Are we using them? And if we're not, why aren't we using them? And if we're going to look at a third party, what is the value prop and the rationale for doing that? I mean, there's a much more complicated process in many regards. And lastly, because of the CIO and the organization's investment in electronic medical records is so, so large, that often becomes the elephant in the room.

(25:01):

If the EMR, I've heard time and time again, if the electronic medical record vendor has this, we're going to use it. Right? Again, we've been able to thrive many companies because there are still are point solutions that can integrate with EMR that are really best in class and could still provide value that the EMR vendor cannot. You can't be good at everything. It's kind of like life you're taught. Hey, what happens is, even as a leader, I tell people I'm pretty good. I might be good at a lot of things, but I'm never superior at any one thing. If I'm looking at everything, if I focus all my resources on 10% of the things that I'm great in, we're going to be great in those areas all the time. And if I bring resources that are great in those other areas that I'm not so great as a team, we're going to be really good. So that, that's often one of the cases we hear with EMR. So often we find ourselves many vendors in a situation where we're trying to play against some features or functionality and why we're a better solution and we're a better solution because that's all we focus on is this one narrow area. And that's all the resources we put to work. But those discussions are very, very lengthly, much more so than ever before over the past couple years.

Rebecca Gwilt (26:21):

Yeah. So, well I was going to ask you for one piece of advice, but the last three minutes has been an absolute masterclass. If you had to choose, if had to choose just one piece of advice you'd give to healthcare innovators,

Dave Bennett (26:32):

I'll tell you. So yeah, I'm people always, I'm a good storyteller, so I'll make this really short and tell you I am a technologist by nature. But I will tell you over the past year I've been humbled by technology and this, and I'll share a personal side of this. My wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in September of this year. And as an individual who spent most of her life working in hospitals and technology and all of that, what happens often is we often lose sight of the fact that we we're great at developing, technologists are great at creating solutions, but what happens is we often lose sight of the human side of the solution. There is not a technology solution for everything. And even if there is, you still have to look at the human element. And what I mean by that is, let me give you a brief example.

(27:28):

So you can create the best communication platform at the end of the day and patients can reach out and communicate with their doctors and nurses and others. But if there isn't a nurse or a doctor on the other end to answer that question that I have or what I've communicated, then that platform and the technology that I've developed is totally meaningless. It means nothing to the patient, their experience, their anxiety, all of that. And one of the things that I have learned, being a patient advocate, I was a chief executive officer of pCare, but in September of 2022, I became the chief patient advocate officer for my wife and knew that I had to stand in there, I needed to go through this journey with her, I needed to help her get through all of this. And what I soon realized is that all this technology and all of this that we have in place, without the engagement of nurses and doctors and them buying into the technology, understanding it being baked into the culture of the organization, it will fail.

(28:30):

And I could say this, having gone to the five, six top medical organizations, when my wife was diagnosed with cancer, as a healthcare professional, I said, we're going to go the best places in the country. And trust me, without naming 'em, we went to the best places. We ended up finding the best surgeons, the best care team for her. I learned a lot. But the one thing I learned is a lot about technology. I learned a lot that technology is great. It only works if you ingrain the technology and the culture and there's adoption of how it's going to work at an organization. Without that, it will be doomed to fail. The other thing is one of the bits and pieces of information that I would tell everybody, keep it simple, stupid. You probably heard of that acronym in the Navy. It's all in the armed services.

(29:18):

If the solution is too complex or the way you're going to deploy the innovation is too complex, has too many moving parts, it will fail. Start simple, think about the simple thing. Yeah, think about the simple things that I can solve without complex solutions that will have the biggest impact on a patient life, their family members and others, and you will succeed. And I could tell you that's the case. I've learned that more so than ever before going through this journey. And I will tell you, this is a great day. I'm with you. I just came back from meeting with my wife's oncologist and was just told that she is disease free as no evidence of disease, NED today.

Rebecca Gwilt (30:00):

Oh, congratulations. Oh, that's wonderful.

Dave Bennett (30:03):

Which is a phenomenal thing to have gone through. But I will tell you what, at the end of the day, I've learned so much more about technology. It's brought me back to why we exist, why I exist, and that's the focus on taking care of patients and trying to make a difference in the individual's lives. So I would say the two last things, keep it simple. Ingrain the technology into the culture of the organization. If you're not engaging, you're not thinking about that and you're thinking solely about the solution, you will not succeed. Those are the two most important things I could tell any organization thinking about innovation, digitization, how I'm going to move the needle in my organization at the end of the day.

Rebecca Gwilt (30:43):

Well Dave, I am so glad to hear that your wife is disease free. It's wonderful and thank you. Thank you so much for your time and talent today. If folks want to hear more of these kinds of insights or they're interested in exploring a business relationship with pCare, what's the best way to get in touch?

Dave Bennett (31:03):

The best thing would probably be to go to our website. It's www.pcare.com. It'll give you an overview of the company and certainly ways to reach out to us. We'd, and we'd love to hear it back regardless if it's feedback with this or you're looking for patient engagement or interactive patient care solution, feel free to reach out and I'm more than happy to share what I've learned with anybody as well.

Rebecca Gwilt (31:26):

Alright, well, we'll include the website and the show notes. Thank you so much for listening to Decoding Healthcare Innovation. I'm Rebecca Gwilt, and I hope you enjoyed today's discussion with Dave Bennett of pCare about the Digital Hospital of the Future. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Decoding Healthcare Innovation and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. And as always, you can check out the links and resources in the show notes, find out more about our work with Healthcare innovators at NixonGwiltLaw.com. See you next time.

Digital Health, Patient Care, care at homeNixon Gwilt LawDave Bennett, pCare, hospital of the future, hospital at home