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Guest: Lance Alston, Director of IT, Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home
Host: Vik Patel

On this episode, Vik welcomes Lance Alston, Director of IT at Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home, for a candid conversation on leading with resilience, trust, and innovation in a resource-constrained healthcare environment.

Lance shares how he’s successfully navigating the “do more with less” challenge, emphasizing the importance of trust — both within his team and with external partners. While vendor partnerships can be highly beneficial, Lance acknowledges they often require a culture shift. At Nathan Littauer, he’s worked to foster the right mindset and build trust with carefully chosen partners to reduce organizational risk, especially around key personnel dependencies.

The conversation also touches on leadership and well-being. Lance and Vik explore the importance of work-life balance in healthcare IT, a field often plagued by burnout. Lance emphasizes leading by example and ensuring team members feel supported in taking time off. This culture shift is backed by the full C-suite, including the CEO, who recognize that employee morale and well-being are essential for long-term success.

From there, the discussion transitions into more technical territory, including the organization’s current and future AI strategy. Lance highlights how having an enthusiastic and forward-thinking CMIO has been instrumental in exploring AI solutions that support clinical decision-making. Together, they’re laying the foundation for a future where AI becomes a practical, integrated tool — not just a buzzword.

Vik also introduces Tido CortexAI, an AI-ready data lake that transforms EHR, clinical, and operational data into clean, normalized, and interoperable insights. Whether it’s for predictive modeling, automation, or real-time trends, CortexAI provides the data foundation healthcare organizations need to make meaningful use of AI.

Finally, Lance offers insights into the importance of open communication across departments — even when the answer isn’t immediately clear. “It’s okay to say, ‘I’m not sure yet, but I’m working on a solution,’” he says. Fostering transparency, accessibility, and continuous communication is key. Because no matter how advanced the technology, without the right strategy and human connection, it won’t deliver its full value.

Closing thoughts from Lance: At the end of the day, IT is still IT — even in the age of AI. What truly makes a difference is effective communication, strong relationships, and trust. Especially when you're tasked with doing more with less, those human elements are essential.

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Vik sits down with the one and only Dr. Michelle Flemmings — ER doc, health tech leader, and all-around powerhouse. 💥

In this episode, she gets real about:

 ⚡ What it’s really like working with AI in the ER

 🤯 How CIOs and CMIOs can calm the chaos around AI adoption

 🚫 AI Hype vs. reality 

 💪 Her mission to elevate women in healthcare leadership

It’s smart, it’s real, and it’s surprisingly fun.

 Give it a listen — you’ll learn and laugh a little.

#HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #WomenInLeadership #CIO #CMIO #DigitalHealth #PodcastVibes

Full transcript

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James Wellman, VP and CIO of Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home, and Vik Patel, COO of Tido, as they explore advancing data integration, operational efficiency, and patient care. Learn what happens when a healthcare IT partnership transcends traditional vendor relationships to become a true team extension, and discover how trust-based partnerships drive success in healthcare IT. Don't miss this engaging solution showcase.

This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the smartest robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

[: 00:00:00

Are you and your team attending VIVE or HIMSS and looking for next level efficiency? Book a meeting today and qualify for six months of our MIDR solution. Check the show notes in the description to access this limited offer 

with our managed integration solution, not just waiting there for someone to assign it.

We actually know what's upcoming based on what we have already seen all the way from assessment and what new systems are being implemented. 

Welcome to This Week Health. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of This Week Health, where we are dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time. 

Now, onto our interview

Vik Patel and James Wellman. [: 00:01:00

Vik Patel COO of Teedo Inc. Teedo is a comprehensive healthcare IT solution provider specializing in modernizing healthcare environments. Securing interface infrastructures and enabling real time data connectivity. We're here today to tell some amazing stories about the work you two have done. Welcome to the show.

Thanks Sarah. Great to be here. 

Absolutely. I'm going to start with the obvious. And can you both share how your initial meeting at HIMSS sparked the idea for collaboration and what made you decide to explore the Teedo product suite together? 

Well, you know, I can kind of start us out there. Vik reached out to me prior to HIMSS.

We connected through LinkedIn. And we started talking found we had some common things from our past

because he was explaining to [: 00:02:00

I was telling him what we needed. But we met in person at HIMSS with his team and kind of started forging a relationship there. So, it's about relationships. So that was a really important component for 

Yeah, and that was exciting meeting in person and I say that because you know, I have been following James on LinkedIn for a while and 

We've been talking through the messaging and and I was like, hey, let's meet finally last year.

And so that was nice like I said, we both went to University of Kentucky We both lived in Lexington, Kentucky for a long time and which by the way I mean this year in Vegas March Madness should be a lot more fun You know, Kentucky's doing really well for all the basketball fans out there. 

Well, last time I checked, y'all were ranked 8th nationally, so I guess it's okay to say go Wildcats. 

We have hope and hope, too. Love it. 

nership began is rare today. [: 00:03:00

I

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 Vik Patel, COO at Tido Inc. joins Sarah for the news. Vik shares his journey from hospital IT to founding Tido Inc., discussing the nuanced challenges of integrating AI and the role of strong governance frameworks in avoiding unintended biases. Together, we tackle questions of strategic prioritization, from the intricacies of data migration and legacy archiving to the pressing need for reliable, responsive tech solutions in high-stakes clinical environments. Through the lens of real-world applications, the episode raises important considerations about balancing innovation with practicality in healthcare IT.

Key Points:

• 04:09 The Importance of AI Governance in Healthcare
• 07:27 Challenges and Solutions in Healthcare IT
• 20:00 Practical AI Applications and Integration
• 30:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

News articles:

• Dr. Patrick McGill Urges Health Systems to Establish AI Governance Early
• 'AI is like tuition': CommonSpirit CIO's approach to AI hype
• ChatGPT overprescribed emergency treatment: UCSF study

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In this episode of This Week In Health Tech, Vik Patel welcomes Mark Farrow, a CIO veteran with experience of leading IT teams at large academic health systems and also community health system. This episode is very in-depth real world discussions about data challenges, AI governance and interoperability in healthcare.
Mark starts out sharing his background and how he got started working in a hospital. Vik and Mark talk about data challenge in health systems, starting with challenge of making sense of the big data. Mark makes a comment that health systems are "data rich and knowledge poor", which really describes the big data current situation in most health systems. 
Vik and Mark then share that not everyone maybe aware that faxing is still very much active in health system communication. That shows that we still have much to do for interoperability. There are still many point to point interfaces and in this case using Faxing. 
Vik asks the question to Mark if EHRs have a role to play in how the data is being collected but the usage of data and sharing is still a challenge. 
Mark and Vik then discuss strategy of AI, and how quality of life should drive the decision making. Mark thinks AI should really help unlock the power of data that is in the EHRs and all the clinical applications. Mark also provides real-world examples of how AI can help unlock data for clinical and operational decision making and help improve patient outcomes. 
Both then dive into the risks related to adopting AI solutions and how to overcome some of these challenges using governance and appropriate resources like data scientists on the team. 

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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech, Vik Patel, COO, Tido Inc. welcomes James Wellman, VP-CIO at Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home. They discuss topic of achieving  operational excellence using the right combination of data, integration, AI, and resources.  
 
Healthcare organizations can drive operational efficiency through strategic use of data and AI tools by:

1. Establishing a strong data governance framework with clear ownership, standardized processes, and engaging subject matter experts across the organization.
2. Transitioning to a robust, cloud-based data architecture that ensures data portability, interoperability, and security.
3. Carefully evaluating and adopting AI/RPA solutions, starting with automating repetitive processes and augmenting staffing needs, while remaining cautious about potential biases and limitations of AI models.
4. Aligning technology strategy with overall organizational goals, using data-driven decision making for investments and service offerings.
5. Prioritizing education and communication across the organization to get buy-in and ensure effective adoption of new data and technology initiatives.

Full Transcript:
 
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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech episode, Vik welcomes Kevin Smith, AVP, Digital Health, Baptist Health.
We focus on impact of AI in healthcare marketing.
We start out talking about future AI phones and Google, Search Generative Experience SGE.
Kevin provides some background of Baptist Health digital properties and how sites were amalgamated from every hospital having their own sites to centrally managed digital websites and apps.
Vik and Kevin then dig into the HHS's highlighting concern last year for using Google Analytics for analytics since the information collected could be in violation of HIPAA.
We discuss the impact of removing Google Analytics and how not having any tracking technologies is a huge gap and provides no insights into how the users are using the websites. Kevin also provides some options that they are looking into to replace Google Analytics.
Then Kevin and Vik dig into how AI can be used in digital marketing starting with using AI in generating content, images, videos. Kevin also brings up AI policies and if there is a need to disclose use of AI and how do you do that. Maybe using content generation with AI won't work because it may not match the organization or the locality branding.
Many times it is easy to see when content is AI generated because AI uses certain terms more than usual and does not seem natural.
Vik and Kevin then discuss AI chatbots and is this something that could be used on a healthcare site? They discuss the pitfalls of AI chatbot and how the responses are not always trustable. Also what about sharing information with AI solutions and integration from EHR or other sources into the AI solutions.
Kevin then lastly shares a tip for listeners that he has incorporated with his team. They have instituted some brainstorming time once a month that allows the team to use the time away from meetings to think of best use cases for AI, collaborate on these ideas. Hopefully a reset time for the team to come up with enhancements for existing and potentially new solutions.


Guest Kevin Smith Contact Info:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbradleysmith/

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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech podcast, we welcome Barry Wallace, digital communications specialist at East Tennessee Children's Hospital.
We start out by discussing a marketing / digital communications team structure and then content generation. Vik and Barry discuss if ChatGPT AI tools help with content generation. AI could give a starting point but at this point that is what it is, get ideas but not necessarily use AI for generating and publishing content without review. There is also legitimate concern because generative AI creates is not always accurate and it is called hallucination. Also AI may not represent the voice of that specific health system or marketing department.
Barry and Vik then chat about social media and focus on Facebook, X formerly Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. They chat about the best strategy for content on each of these platforms. Facebook still seems to be the #1 platform for their community reach.
Vik then brings up Digital Transformation in healthcare  and how ETCH health system is handling this.

 
Guest Barry Wallace Contact Info:
Linkedin: @barrywadewallace
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @barry_w_wallace 
Threads/Instagram: @barrywallace

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In this episodes of This Week in Health Tech, Vik and John discuss digital health strategy for healthcare organizations. 
They dive into different categories for digital health: virtual care, accessing health information, interoperability, innovation. 
For virtual care, organizations need to now consider remote patient monitoring on top of telehealth visits. This requires appropriate infrastructure updates to support  these remote monitoring apps. Vik and John discuss challenges associated with virtual care today. 
John and Vik then discuss interoperability updates required to support digital health and allowing different applications to easily access appropriate health information. We are way beyond the typical patient portal and there are many specialty apps which support patients with different conditions. They discuss FHIR APIs and the moving away from traditional way of integration where data was constantly pushed instead of being pulled seamlessly on demand. 
Vik and John then discuss innovative apps and AI-ML applications and how to manage-integrate all these new apps. They also discuss privacy-security updates required for digital health preparedness. 

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In this episode of This week in Health Tech, Vik and John discuss HIMSS23 conference and insights gained at the conference.
The main highlight at the conference was Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
Vik and John discuss few AI implementations in Healthcare including Epic, Microsoft, Google, Nuance, and more.


Website: http://www.thisweekinhealthtech.com
Twitter: @TWIHT1
Tido Inc.: https://www.tidoinc.com/
Twitter: @TIDOINC
Linkedin: Vik Patel

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