The intersection of healthcare and technology paves the way for revolutionary patient care, shaping the future with precision and personalization. Today, the spotlights are on how getting data ready for AI applications is changing the game in healthcare.
I'm thrilled to welcome Christopher J Kouzios, the Principal Owner of Kooz Technologies, an expert in leveraging technology for healthcare innovation, to the show.
We discuss how essential clean, organized data is to the success of AI in healthcare—right down to the personal impact it can have on patient care.
Christopher sheds light on the challenges and solutions in data management, the implementation of AI across various healthcare services, and the nuances of enhancing patient care through technology without compromising the human element in medicine.
Don't miss out—tune in to hear how data is driving the future of patient care and the steps we can take to ensure its governance and quality.
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
Links from this episode:
The intersection of healthcare and technology paves the way for revolutionary patient care, shaping the future with precision and personalization. Today, the spotlights are on how getting data ready for AI applications is changing the game in healthcare.
I'm thrilled to welcome Christopher J Kouzios, the Principal Owner of Kooz Technologies, an expert in leveraging technology for healthcare innovation, to the show.
We discuss how essential clean, organized data is to the success of AI in healthcare—right down to the personal impact it can have on patient care.
Christopher sheds light on the challenges and solutions in data management, the implementation of AI across various healthcare services, and the nuances of enhancing patient care through technology without compromising the human element in medicine.
Don't miss out—tune in to hear how data is driving the future of patient care and the steps we can take to ensure its governance and quality.
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
Links from this episode:
Christopher J Kouzios [00:00:00]:
When I think about AI, you know, what would I use it for? I think of it as an enabler. How do I get the tool to help me get my job done better? How do I have it make it faster for me to get what I need, not to replace me, but to enhance what it is I can do for the company? And I think if people think about it that way, that's a pretty good way to introduce AI into your company.
Steve Swan [00:00:22]:
Welcome to Biotech Bytes, where we speak with it leaders in the life sciences about their thoughts and feelings on technology that's affecting our industry today. I'm your host, Steve Swan, and today I have the distinction and honor of being joined by Chris Kouzios, former CIO of HealthDyne. Chris, welcome.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:00:38]:
Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me.
Steve Swan [00:00:40]:
A lot of folks I've had on lately, as we're talking about thoughts and feelings on newer technologies and how they're affecting our industry and industries are going, jumping right into AI, right? Because that's the new one, that's the big one. That's the 800 pound gorilla everybody's talking about. So I'll leave with that. What are your thoughts and feelings around that? How are we doing? Where are we heading, all that stuff? What are your $0.02 there?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:02]:
Well, I'll give you my two cent. My opinion on AI, it's mixed, right? I think that, first of all, I think that AI, from a maturity perspective, that we're probably out of the infancy stage. We're probably grammar school younger, we're still.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:17]:
Teaching it what, right? Not why and clearly not how.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:22]:
So it's a good tool and it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:26]:
Exists to help people. That's my opinion.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:29]:
So when I think about AI, what would I use it for?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:33]:
I think of it as an enabler. How do I get the tool to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:37]:
Help me get my job done better? How do I have it make it faster for me to get what I.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:44]:
Need, not to replace me, but to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:01:46]:
Enhance what it is I can do for the company. And I think if people think about it that way, that's a pretty good way to introduce AI into your company.
Steve Swan [00:01:57]:
And so at healthtime, when you were there, were you embarking in AI? Was it something that folks were talking about or was it not quite coming into play there?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:02:08]:
It was a know first question is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:02:12]:
Always, what do we do with AI?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:02:14]:
Everybody's doing something with AI. So what should we do? So we took the approach to start with on the voice side, the customer service side, and had just deployed an AI enabled interactive voice response unit. So when people called in, instead of getting press one to get annoyed, press two to get really annoyed, press three to continue to get annoyed, and four to never get a hold of somebody. We had put this in place, and it was very conversational, and we named her Rosa. And if you call in today, you get Rosa and you have a conversation and know, where's my prescription? And she says, well, let me find your prescription. So it was a good way, I think, to get people to take something.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:02:56]:
That was not a strength, turn it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:02:58]:
Into a strength, and ease it into the business. Further discussions down the line were, what do we do next? How do we enable other parts of the business or continue to use AI to maybe even offset some of the headcounts someplace across the organizations? But first place was IVR.
Steve Swan [00:03:19]:
Yeah, I hear a lot of folks doing that, even internally. Right. And that's, I guess, kind of where the Microsoft copilot, right, is existing. It's your copilot, right? It's helping you to do your thing, whatever your thing is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:37]:
Now, hey, listen, by the way, it helps. So I'm not going to lie. There have been more than one time where I'm like, why won't my formula work in Excel?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:47]:
And there's always a formula that doesn't.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:48]:
Work in Excel, right?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:49]:
Sure. No matter how good you are.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:51]:
So having the ability to pull that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:03:53]:
Up and use it, oh, it's just game changing. Sure.
Steve Swan [00:03:58]:
I haven't had the luxury of doing that yet, but I'm sure I'll get there.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:03]:
Only if you're lucky. Right?
Steve Swan [00:04:05]:
Now, how about data? Tell me about that, right? Because a lot of folks are talking about their data with AI, and they're talking about how that's the gas that feeds the engine. Did you have things going on there with data? Did you have a need, an issue, or did you kind of nail that down, the data that fed into it?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:25]:
That's a great place to go. So AI, if you think about AI.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:30]:
It'S a tool, and everything really is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:34]:
A tool that you're using inside your environment, except data.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:37]:
Sure, data is the holy grail, especially in healthcare, but you don't own it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:44]:
I mean, that's one of the things that people forget is you don't own your data in healthcare. Your members, your customers, your patients really own that data.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:53]:
So you're caretakers of the data, which.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:56]:
Means you have to make sure that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:04:57]:
It'S secure, that it's safe, and that it's clean. And so that's where you get into a lot of conversations around how do.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:07]:
We make sure that when we start to use some new technologies, like AI or even older technologies, reporting and so.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:14]:
Forth, that the data itself is clean and not dirty?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:19]:
And what I mean is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:23]:
Has it passed QA?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:25]:
Do you have good data governance in place? Do we have data sprawl? So we are going to get bits and pieces of data. Has it been formatted in such a way that our reporting, our analytics, our AI, our tools can consume it and produce good results?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:44]:
Because the other side of healthcare, because it's patient data, and because you're using it to make decisions, bad data can lead to very bad things.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:05:55]:
It can lead to prescribing the wrong medications or operating on the wrong leg, it could mean death to the wrong patient. So data is extremely important, I think, and it's been a hot topic for a long time, but it heats up now that we've got AI in the mix.
Steve Swan [00:06:12]:
Oh, sure, your data is helping you to tune your algorithms, helping you to tune your AI and what your results are, and then you talk about hallucination, right? Or where it's coming up with data, or answers that are kind of in the middle of where they think it should be. So you have all those factors that come into play and then your data feeding into that, right? So with all that being said, if an organization, and this is a place that I haven't gone with many guests and I haven't really thought about it until you started really talking, if an organization is pushing more towards managed service providers, right, how do you keep a lid on all that? I mean, like you said, the viability of your organization depends on the outcome of these things and the outcome of AI, right? Leading to that. But the inputs are the data and the cleanliness and the governance and the security of the data. But you got all these external folks with their hands and things, and you've got all these external ports, if you will, right, open to your systems and to your data. How do you keep a lid on all that?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:16]:
That's a great question, and I'm going to throw one more curveball at you, too.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:20]:
Keep in mind that when you're talking about patient data, in many cases, that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:26]:
Patient data can't leave our shores, right? So you can't have people in other countries touching it. You can't have in some cases. I've seen contracts where even us territories are not even allowed to touch the data, right?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:40]:
So now you're narrowing down the scope.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:43]:
Of who can touch that data even more. So talk about complicated. You've got data and people managing this data and how do we keep it clean and how do we keep it governed? And oh, by the way, only these people can touch it or only those.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:54]:
People can touch it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:07:55]:
So it's a difficult conversation. How do you keep it clean and governed?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:01]:
My opinion has always been that you have to have your data should be managed in house, and anything that you would consider intellectual property belongs in house.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:13]:
My opinion, people are not all going to agree with it. I'm sure you'll get probably tons of hate mail about this. But if it's IP, it stays in house.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:22]:
And in healthcare, the data is IP.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:25]:
So that's my opinion.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:28]:
Now, if you're stuck with going with a managed service provider, then you really.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:33]:
Have to have some folks left inside of your company who are managing the governance process. And you have to have tools in.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:43]:
Place where you can see who's touching what.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:45]:
You have to have security in place so that you can give access to and logging of each one of these aspects of data.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:08:53]:
So basically what I'm saying is by outsourcing to managed service providers, and there's.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:00]:
Probably tons of managed service providers who.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:02]:
Have expertise beyond, you know, what it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:05]:
Is that you could afford in house.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:07]:
You do have to micromanage them in healthcare.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:10]:
You know, if we were making blue.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:12]:
Jeans, we could get away with whatever, but being that it's your patient, data, governance, security, logging, all those sorts of.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:09:20]:
Things become extremely important.
Steve Swan [00:09:22]:
We've had these conversations and I talk to folks about this data and I talk to them about their AI and I talked to them about, I had one guy who told me about, he was doing some work with a consultant internally, and they were doing some work and pulled up something that had some formulas from another company that he knew of, and that's not good. Yeah, it happens. But they got in touch and I think they rectified the issue and so on and so forth now. So moving forward, moving past AI, right, what other kinds of mean around AI, right? And you kind of touched on this for a second, the hype and the perception from the business side, right, from the leaders, did you find that to be, I mean, you touched on it really early on, right, that people are coming to you and kind of saying, hey, AI is supposed to be great for us. Did you find that that was a push from leaders and from the business that, hey, why aren't we doing AI and why isn't it making us more money? Or did that not really come from the folks at your organization?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:10:31]:
So I think at my organization, it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:10:33]:
Was more, hey, what can we do with this?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:10:36]:
Okay, we keep hearing about this from our customers. Our customers are doing it, our competitors are doing it. What are we going to do about it? So there was a little bit of a wait and see approach, but also we don't want to be left behind approach.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:10:48]:
Now, the more I see in the market, the more I watch the market, the more I'll see, especially senior executives.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:10:58]:
Who really sincerely believe that AI can take over 80% of a department's workload.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:05]:
And I disagree. It's a tool. And so if you have a great tool, it has to be taught by great people, smart people, right?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:20]:
So if you have people who understand the business, clinicians, pharmacy people, nurses, doctors.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:27]:
Et cetera, they're the ones who have to teach these tools how to understand what it is that they're looking at.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:35]:
And so it's really hard, I think.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:37]:
To grow with AI right out of the gate.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:40]:
And so what people are using it for today, and what you hear a little bit more about is what can we do? And they think it's revolutionary, but you're just rounding the edges a little bit here and there. Can we automate some of the basic tasks, get some things, maybe some manual.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:11:55]:
Work out of the way, that sort of thing?
Steve Swan [00:11:58]:
Yeah, we are at the beginning, and that's the primary use case I've seen is automation. Some folks are doing it for. Maybe we're helping with a sales marketing program where it's going to go from this to this, or maybe helping to crunch a lot of numbers for the commercial or marketing folks or the clinical folks. But again, we're talking about automation and crunching through a lot of numbers that you and I can't do. Right.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:24]:
Right.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:26]:
Listen, anything that could make your job.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:28]:
Easier and allow you to do something quicker without having to go dig, have at it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:34]:
Sure. That's a technology that you want. One of the downsides, unfortunately, when it comes to technology like this is people.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:41]:
Start to think, well, if I can get this and I can get rid of, if I can reduce staff based.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:48]:
On this technology, the people who have to implement that all of a sudden.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:12:53]:
Don'T remember how to do it anymore. Right. Because they're thinking, wait, if we put.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:00]:
This in and the goal is to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:01]:
Get rid of my job, why would.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:03]:
I want to help? And that could be the people who are managing the system, people teaching the system, who are in the business, the people consuming the data. So there's a little bit of a balance that has to be struck there.
Steve Swan [00:13:15]:
I think sure. Yeah, no, I see that now. What other technologies or processes even have you seen in our industry that you think are making a difference or could make a difference in the future above and beyond, or maybe even tangential to AI?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:32]:
Right.
Steve Swan [00:13:32]:
If they feed into it, I don't know. What are your thoughts there?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:34]:
I'll give you what I think people.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:37]:
Are going to take a look at today. And then what I think we are taking a look at maybe tomorrow.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:42]:
Okay.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:43]:
Because it's two different answers, really.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:45]:
So there's going to be this continued.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:13:47]:
Proliferation of any kind of a service that connects multiple companies, people, members together. So microservices, APIs, the same buzzwords that everybody hears about today, but it makes people's lives easier. It makes companies able to interface more.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:04]:
Quickly, so it makes everything simpler.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:09]:
The people developing them probably are right now also going to send you hate mail because it is not as easy as it sounds. It really does take quite a bit of work to make that magic happen, but I think you'll continue to see a lot more of that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:20]:
That's kind of the on the ground things happening today. Yarwi, you've already hit on data self service, of course, down the line, and.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:29]:
I think you'll see some of this even in the coming year.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:33]:
We have to figure out the right formula around keeping people healthy and out of medical facilities in their own homes.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:43]:
And that is not to say that hospitals are bad.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:46]:
Hospitals are great, but not for everything. They're intended to have really serious issues.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:53]:
Addressed with a person, not everything.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:56]:
So if you can get a person.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:14:59]:
The right tools, the right technology, the right habits to be able to live their daily lives and stay home, or at least out of these facilities, then you're going to be a winner. And I think you're starting to see.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:11]:
That quite a bit. Covid brought that to the light. Telehealth was really not widely adopted before.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:18]:
COVID Now, I can't imagine life where.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:21]:
We don't have telehealth. Now, there's some pieces of telehealth that had to go away.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:29]:
We won't talk about which ones, but Google some of those and you'll know which ones. But really, telehealth is huge, right? So telehealth allows you to call into a doctor and talk to your doctor. And if you have something basic, cold, an ache, pain or whatever, you don't have to go and sit for hours in a doctor's office to get you in, to get you out. And then with drugs being shipped to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:50]:
Your house, maybe you can even get that done.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:52]:
Heck, your local walgreens will probably deliver it to you.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:15:55]:
And if not, I'm sure Uber drugstore will something. And if Uber decides to do uber drugstore, I think you and I should.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:03]:
Get some royalties on that one.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:04]:
Yeah, right.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:06]:
The other thing is, if you look.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:08]:
Down the line a little bit, keeping.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:10]:
People home means we have to figure out how to use Iot healthcare, wearable.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:16]:
Devices and get that data back to your provider.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:22]:
Not everything. My provider happens to be pretty tech savvy. And still, I don't open the floodgates.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:30]:
And I track everything.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:31]:
As a matter of fact.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:32]:
See that?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:34]:
That's a health device.
Steve Swan [00:16:35]:
Oh, it's one of those. Yeah, I've seen those.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:38]:
Yeah.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:39]:
It's a smart ring, so it's tracking all kinds of. I wish I could get it to do blood pressure, but it's doing pretty much everything else.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:46]:
Really? That's cool.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:47]:
Yeah, it is pretty cool.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:49]:
Right?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:49]:
So smart scale, smart tracker. So people with diabetes now have smart devices.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:16:55]:
There's all kinds of smart equipment, but now you've got this massive data, and.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:00]:
You need to get it to providers.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:02]:
But without overwhelming a doctor or a.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:05]:
Doctor'S office, without a ton of information. So that's one of the things that we need to solve for this, I believe this year, next year, is how do we take all this technology and.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:16]:
Enable people to stay home in their.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:18]:
Homes or wherever it is, but not in a major healthcare facility.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:22]:
And part of it is the tools, but I believe that a lot of those tools exist.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:26]:
It's how do we bring the data together in such a way that the.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:29]:
Doctors can consume it quickly, make decisions.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:32]:
And understand, oh, Chris Koozies is having a problem right now. I should get know, I should get.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:38]:
To him and give him a call.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:39]:
Tomorrow, because I don't really like this trend I'm seeing.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:41]:
That's huge.
Steve Swan [00:17:42]:
Right, we're back to AI.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:44]:
We are back to AI.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:45]:
It circles back.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:46]:
We just came back all the way back around.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:50]:
Right, so technologies like that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:17:52]:
Right, so telehealth, IoT and VR. I'm sure at some point, the virtual doctor visit, and if you really want to go off the deep end just a little bit, and it's actually probably closer to home than you think. It's the nanotechnology, right? So they talk about nanomedicine is these xenobots, I believe that they're called, which sounds very star treky and weird, but it's actually in development. Right.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:23]:
So little itty bitty bots, I guess.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:27]:
Inside your body trying to figure out what's going on and how to make you better, healthier, stronger, faster, whatever it happens to be.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:34]:
I think that we need to make.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:36]:
Progress on the technologies like that that.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:38]:
Are way in the future, but also not forget about the things that we can do today, like microservices and API.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:47]:
To continue to move ourselves down the field, because the technologies we play with today are going to fund the ones that we need in the.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:18:55]:
Sure, sure.
Steve Swan [00:18:56]:
I just heard, maybe I read it. I can't even. Elon musk just did a brain. Yeah, yeah, that's who it was.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:05]:
Okay.
Steve Swan [00:19:05]:
I forgot what company it was of his. Crazy, right?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:07]:
Yeah.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:09]:
Isn't that amazing? So now you have a human being with implant in their. From the. Almost from the minute they put it in, they're like, wow. We see all this activity we didn't even know was happening.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:21]:
Right. If all that thing does is help.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:25]:
People understand what's happening, you're a win.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:28]:
If you can actually then interface it with a computer, which is their eventual goal.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:33]:
Game changing.
Steve Swan [00:19:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. Any other things, any other trends in technology that you think you see coming into our industry and what we do.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:42]:
The other thing, and it's been happening.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:44]:
But it's really quietly happening, is bioprinting.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:50]:
So there's this three dimensional bioprinting that has been occurring. And so you think, well, that sounds weird, right? Like, what are you bioprinting?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:58]:
A heart?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:19:58]:
Sometimes it's much simpler than that. And I would have never known about this had my mom actually not had.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:04]:
To have something 3d bioprinted.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:07]:
And it is a way for them to take something that your body will.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:13]:
Not reject, like how they have to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:15]:
Match an organ, for example. But let's say, for example, that you.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:19]:
Got a part of your artery that is inoperable, but maybe you can't quite stint it.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:26]:
But maybe if you could just print.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:27]:
The right size piece, that you could.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:32]:
Then sew that into place and connect.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:35]:
It in all the right spots, and then boom, you have your problem fixed.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:40]:
So, 3d bioprinting, it's been occurring for a long time. I know. I think my mom's surgery was probably four or five years ago, and it was a funky thing that she had to send away to Australia. The doctors had to work with them from the Cleveland clinic to get it done, but now it's starting to become.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:20:56]:
A bit more mainstream. Still slow to adopt, but it's one.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:01]:
Of those things where it's life saving.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:04]:
Type procedure, and here people are thinking.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:08]:
I'm going to print my GI Joe guy or whatever on my home printer. You're not going to be able to 3d print your finger if you cut it off or something. But doctors have a way now to.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:19]:
That's pretty cool.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:20]:
Print something that they need.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:21]:
That's pretty cool. So that's pretty cool technology. Wow. That's cool stuff.
Steve Swan [00:21:26]:
I like that. And I hadn't heard about anything about that. Like you said, you've heard about inanimate objects, right? Whether it's your pen or whatever. Right. But it's organs or pieces of arteries and things. That's pretty cool.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:42]:
Yeah.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:43]:
All kinds of cool stuff that's happening out there. You don't even hear about it. It's like twelve page news.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:48]:
Yeah. Right.
Steve Swan [00:21:50]:
Until it happens to, I don't know, Michael Jordan or something. Right, right.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:56]:
Exactly.
Steve Swan [00:21:57]:
Then it's on the front page.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:21:58]:
It's on the front page.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:00]:
Yeah.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:00]:
Michael Jordan gets new 3d printed lung implant or something.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:05]:
Right, right.
Steve Swan [00:22:06]:
Exactly. So now one of the questions I like to ask folks know their differentiator, right? So let's say I'm Steve Swan and I'm out interviewing with your group, your company with you. Why do I want to be there? Why would I want to work with you? What does Chris do differently that other leaders don't? Or why do folks say it was awesome besides being a Cubs fan?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:35]:
I don't know that that's going to win a lot of hearts and know, I guess I would normally say, boy, I'd have you ask my team to answer the question for me. I'd love to hear what they have to say. So this is the team at the moment.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:56]:
Why?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:22:57]:
If I think about, and maybe this isn't a huge differentiator, but this is kind of what makes me, me now, I really try to embed myself in.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:04]:
The business and understand how the business does what it does and that way I can be smarter about the technology.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:11]:
That we decide to employ. It helps me make better decisions if I understand what the business is trying to accomplish, how it works, how our industry works, and understand the technology and how it works, so then I can be an interface between the two. I can also then teach my team.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:29]:
This is, hey, this is why we.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:30]:
Need to do this. This is how this works. Here's how the industry works. Here's how this department works. Let's bring people in to explain to you. And so instead of just being nerds behind the keyboard, I always would say.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:43]:
We are all healthcare professionals.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:45]:
We just happen to deliver our health care through technology. And that really resonated with people, they were like, yeah, that makes a great point.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:23:54]:
So when you release code, is that something you want your mom using to order her meds? And so people really, I think, said, okay, you care about what it is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:06]:
That we're doing and making sure that we understand. But the flip side of that coin, too, is being an advocate for the.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:12]:
People that work for me, making sure that I understand who they are at.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:16]:
A personal level, who they are, what their challenges are, what it is that they need, advocating for them and really getting them entrenched in the business as.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:24]:
Well so that they have their chance.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:29]:
To show everybody what it is they know, but also to learn and to grow. And I think when you take those two pieces and you mold them together, you get me.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:24:38]:
Right.
Steve Swan [00:24:39]:
Well, I think over the times that you and I have spoken, I can say that part number one, right, I don't know how you are with the business, right. I haven't been there. But part number two, advocating for your team, standing in front of your team, really making sure that the ones that shine, it's known that kind of thing. I hear that coming through loud and clear when I talk to you, as you talk about your team.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:02]:
So very proud.
Steve Swan [00:25:04]:
Yeah, I can certainly vouch for that one. Now, have you put any special, I don't know, initiatives in place or any different programs in place for your folks that work for you in the past?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:19]:
Always something. So, first of all, I never believed.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:21]:
In the big bang. I think that doing big bang initiatives is just too hard. But I think doing a lot of.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:28]:
Little things over time really helps. And so one of the things that we had done was say, hey, let's.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:34]:
Have a career path. And all we're going to do is.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:38]:
We'Re going to come up with one.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:25:39]:
Sheet of paper and it's just going to be simple. What is it that you think you might want to do in a year or someday? What is it that you lack or need help with to get to that point? And then how can I help you? Very simple. Not 27 pages of different assessments and so forth. Just a little bit of time for them to go think. And then let's talk about it once.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:05]:
A quarter or maybe at least twice a year.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:09]:
And I think that helped people a lot, both think about where they were going in the future, but it nudged people back and forth. Steve, I would see people who swore.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:22]:
That they wanted to be in leadership.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:23]:
Say, you know, as I got to thinking about it, I really like the technology. I think I'd rather be hands on, and I saw people who said, I.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:33]:
Had a mentee who said, I will not get into leadership again. That is crazy talk. Here's my experiences, and she's doing a phenomenal job right now as a leader at the company that she's working for.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:46]:
So a little bit of time and.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:48]:
Reflection, and it doesn't sound like. Again, it's not earth shattering. This is like the basic one on one leadership, as far as I'm concerned.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:26:55]:
But little things like that, I think, really help. But weekly one on ones, town halls every month with the team during COVID.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:07]:
We actually did town halls once a.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:09]:
Week, and one of them was formal.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:11]:
Once a month, we do a formal.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:13]:
Hour and a half of bring the.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:15]:
Business in to talk about some things.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:17]:
Bring us in to talk about some things, et cetera. And then there was a half an hour of us just talking. No joke. One of the conversations we had was around where to find toilet paper. I'm sure you probably remember when that was a thing. I do. But there was a whole 30 minutes conversation, early pandemic about which stores in the area had tp. And you think, that's so weird.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:41]:
How does that help people's careers? But it humanizes people, right?
Steve Swan [00:27:46]:
It certainly does.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:27:47]:
It makes people people instead of numbers. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so.
Steve Swan [00:27:56]:
Before we wrap up, is there anything else you think we should touch on as far as our industry, where we're heading, what's going on? Or do you think we kind of, kind of hit the high level stuff?
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:07]:
I think there's been some very interesting.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:10]:
Developments in the last couple of years. So, first of all, I am not.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:14]:
A big fan of the single payer system and the countries who have it. God bless. It works for you.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:20]:
That's fantastic. I don't think it's the right call for us. That's my opinion.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:24]:
Again, hate mail.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:25]:
However, I do think that there's always some things that we could do better and do things maybe make changes. Again, small changes, I think, but some of them have turned into pretty big changes.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:38]:
And I've seen a lot of private.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:40]:
Companies or public companies, but not the.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:43]:
Government pushing to make change because it's.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:47]:
The right thing to do, because what they see is terrible. And that way, the government stays out of your backyard. And so instead of just being status.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:55]:
Quo, we are challenging the status quo.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:28:59]:
And I think that that's what we continue to need to do as an industry.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:03]:
All of healthcare challenge the status quo.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:07]:
Be that how we deliver service, where we deliver service, what it is we use to deliver the tools and technology.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:14]:
Push back, make it better.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:17]:
And I think, Steve, that's really my message, is, you know, I have some.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:22]:
Personal stories about healthcare that go.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:27]:
And the same story goes from very bad to incredibly good.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:32]:
And what's the difference is tools, technology and talent were the three differentiators between death and life. And I think from a healthcare perspective, that's what it comes down to.
Steve Swan [00:29:44]:
Absolutely.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:45]:
Well, awesome.
Steve Swan [00:29:47]:
I thank you for being with us. I always have one final question before we go. If you've watched any of my other podcasts.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:29:53]:
Okay. Okay.
Steve Swan [00:29:55]:
And totally off the topic. Didn't plan on this one. I didn't tell you about this one.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:00]:
That's okay.
Steve Swan [00:30:01]:
Favorite live band or performing act that you. Music act that you've ever seen.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:07]:
Oh, this is terrible because this is going to be the worst.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:12]:
So I'm going to be honest. I've only seen two really live.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:19]:
Now, if you're talking about professional. My actual favorite, though, frankly, was watching.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:26]:
My daughter sing opera. There you go. Perfect.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:30]:
She went to college and she was absolutely amazing. And I know when she first talked about wanting to sing, we were like, you want what? Too much time in front of the tv. But she was amazing. And so my favorite is, I don't really go to many. I've literally been to two, I think, concerts ever that weren't hers, but she's my favorite.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:30:54]:
That's good.
Steve Swan [00:30:55]:
That's awesome. That's great. I don't hear that often, actually. Never actually.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:31:00]:
So that's good. Well, cool.
Steve Swan [00:31:02]:
Well, thank you very much for your time.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:31:04]:
Thanks for having me.
Steve Swan [00:31:05]:
If you need Chris or I, anybody that's watching this, you can find us on LinkedIn and check out. Our URLs will be posted here. Thanks, Chris.
Christopher J Kouzios [00:31:14]:
Thank you, Steve.