Disrupting the Ecosystem – Creating our own Care Circles w/ Tressa Springmann

Amidst the booming tech landscape, who really owns your health data? Our guest Tressa Springmann, the dynamic Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer for LifeBridge Health posits what would happen if the healthcare ecosystem was reversed and we controlled our own health data. Join our quick dive into health information ownership and challenge the current infrastructure that holds patients back from controlling their own data. We break down the industry's resistance to patient-centric data models and discuss why a disruptive force might be the key to sparking change. Frustration with wearable technology is also on the agenda—these devices collect our health data but fail to integrate it seamlessly into our healthcare systems. Together, we explore the steps needed to revolutionize how patient data is utilized, aiming to transform healthcare for the better.

Tressa also shares how healthcare IT policy impacts the everyday operations of a major health system and unravels the intricacies of healthcare regulations. Tressa takes us behind the scenes of her role at LifeBridge and also at CHIME, offering valuable insights into how her work with CHIME has been instrumental in her career and in shaping industry standards. We also venture into the complexities of virtual health credentialing and how it exacerbates healthcare workforce shortages, bringing you firsthand knowledge from a leader at the forefront of this critical field. Don’t miss this thought-provoking conversation that could redefine your understanding of healthcare data.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:03

Well, we're back again here we are live at VIVE, vibing at VIVE 2024. For our on-the-road edition of one of, I think, a couple of the reverse mullet healthcare podcasts On the road yes.

Speaker 2 0:16

I'm Dave Pavlik.

Speaker 1 0:17

And I'm Ellen Brown. Two of our three co-hosts are here, and we are here with Tressa Springman and excited to talk to her about change. But first, Tressa, tell us about yourself.

Speaker 2 0:27

Great. How much time do we have? She knows it's part of the program.

Speaker 1 0:32

Well, we've been lucky to work with Tressa in our past lives too, so it's nice whenever with people we know. Since you asked about two minutes, two minutes.

Speaker 2 0:41

I'll be a lot quicker than that. I'm Tressa. There you go. No, I'm. Currently I serve as the Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer for LifeBridge Health, which is about $2 billion in revenue, integrated delivery network in the.

Speaker 1 0:56

Maryland area, yeah, which is a fun state.

Speaker 2 0:59

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:00

Participated in so Tressa and you are here for multiple reasons on behalf of LifeBridge, obviously, but also your involvement with the event and those that have put it on, and I think you were speaking, or can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2 1:14

Yeah, sure, I actually am the incoming board chair of CHIME, and CHIME is one of the two participating organizations here at Vive, along with HLTH, been in healthcare IT for a long time, ellen, as you've mentioned, I'm here. I've brought a number of my team members here. It's really important that we remain relevant by understanding actually what's going on in the industry, what's real, what's not real, what's trending and how to make sure we're bringing those best practice insights and innovations back to LifeBridge. And the same is true with my participation with CHI. It's an opportunity for me to give back to an organization that really paved the way and provided just a tremendous amount of education and professional development for me when I was an early CIO.

Speaker 1 2:10

What was your topic when you were on the stage?

Speaker 2 2:13

Well.

Speaker 1 2:14

I'll let you answer, and then I have to weigh in too.

Speaker 2 2:18

So you've heard of hiring to your weak side. Well, this was just totally leaning to my weak side, which is anything, legislation and policy. So it was. You know, these days there is a tsunami of healthcare, IT policy legislation, state level, federal level, and I'm not good at it and I don't like it.

Speaker 2 2:39

I mean, I actually love reading vendor contracts, but man, reading the Federal Register is just mind-numbing and then trying to understand it, interpret it, do something about it. So I've got to recognize that that is an important part of my role in the organization to make sure that we're compliant and that we understand what those requirements are going to be, how to resource them, how to appropriately budget for them and make sure that we're good participants in that space. But CHIME specifically has a policy committee that I've been very actively involved in, because they do a tremendous job, not only advocating for us in DC but also honestly, in the case of Tressa Springman, dumbing down these requirements and expectations so that there's something digestible that I can bring back and make actionable and keep us compliant at LifeBridge.

Speaker 1 3:36

That's great. Yeah, and Tressa and I talked briefly after her speaking engagement. I went and listened and the first thing she said is are we going to have to talk about policy? No, we will not be talking about policy.

Speaker 2 3:49

That's not really the party in the front either.

Speaker 1 3:52

So I mean you can't in 10 minutes you can't talk about policy necessarily, although you could answer when I ask you the question I asked you. You could decide that that's your answer. Okay we could talk about it, but I'm going to say that you're bringing that better policy. Yes, but there was. I will say, when you talk about policy, she was talking about just your virtual clinic.

Speaker 1 4:13

Yeah, life, and I don't want to go down this road. Unless we do. You know, I hope we can get to do a full episode in the future. But what really struck me was we think about virtual health. This just kind of grounds the policy and we'll move on, is hearing you say that a Maryland virtual health provider has to be licensed in every state. It, like that, blew my mind.

Speaker 2 4:35

Well, they have to be licensed wherever the patient that needs care is.

Speaker 1 4:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:39

So in Maryland if we've got a patient that I don't know, they have something uber weird and they would really benefit by a specialist. Most people in the American public don't understand that if this specialist is in New Mexico and isn't credentialed in Maryland, we're not able to bill for it. We're not able to actually leverage that. Each state has their own credentialing process, takes a number of months and of course there's a lot of money that gets paid down. So you know, we talk about workforce shortage. I mean, that's just ridiculous right.

Speaker 1 5:15

How do you know where they are? Well, that was. I heard there's a. You didn't say this, but I heard that there's a like kind of a no, don't ask, don't tell when you're talking to patients. You did not say this.

Speaker 1 5:27

I might have done that once on a virtual visit, okay, so let's get to the big question here, which is the platform of the podcast, which is what are your thoughts? What do you and you're not necessarily passionate about it, but what do you think could affect real change in healthcare? All caps, the like, the big, you know kind of the big conversation that we don't necessarily make time to have or don't have time to have.

Speaker 2 5:51

Look, I understand why the automation of health care occurred in the United States. From the health systems out, right, it was much easier to incent them or penalize them, get them to adopt technology, etc. I look forward to a time when that whole ecosystem is disrupted and it's from each of us in. I know, right, where we have our data, we decide with whom we want to share it. It's very easy. If you're part of my care circle, can I get an applause for this? Oh yeah, so like. But unfortunately right from the inside out. And now looking at, how do you bring it back from the outside in? I don't know it's going to it's, you know well, I think there are some pretty big barriers to it. Probably the single most barrier which impedes us a lot in health care is the flow of money. Right, I know reimbursement and you know that's.

Speaker 1 6:56

That's a big platform of ours.

Speaker 2 6:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:58

And how we again, though it's like we're forcing things on people, you know but the reality is that we have to change the economics so we can move from sick care to health care. We just do. And, like I always say, you know, my utopian moment would be. I always say, if, by the time my kids are full grown adults, I'm I'm probably, you know, like older adults, that it's actually it pays to be healthy.

Health Information Ownership and Redesign

Speaker 2 7:24

Yeah, Right, yeah, I mean that would be they have a vested interest and an excitement and a commitment and we're seeing a lot more of that. They're supported with that, and the technology's caught up, the generations are catching up. The advocacy for one's health and wellness is starting to grow. Finally. I know there's like yeah, how are we going to make sure the infrastructure allows them to lean in and own what's theirs anyway, which is all the information about them?

Speaker 1 7:53

I just hope. I hope that enough health systems understand that and they're willing to redesign, Cause that's what scares me is that we're going to. We're going to require a disruptor to come in and, just like, implode the system you know, and then, like wearables these guys make so much fun of me and my wearables and like the amount of data I have about myself that I can't even give a provider. It blows my mind, yeah, so anyways okay.

Speaker 2 8:17

Well, this is it, it's like I said Apparently, we have a shared passion there, alan, I know.

Speaker 1 8:22

I'm actually like super excited not like talk to you more about this, because we all have time for more conversation.

Speaker 2 8:28

Anyway, we appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.