Extending Care Through Full-Stack RPM, AI-Driven Accurate & Appropriate Specialty Referrals and Empowering Global Teams to Accelerate Healthcare Tech

On this episode of "The Digital Patient" podcast, hosts Alan Sardana & Dr. Joshua Liu speak with Dr. Eve Cunningham, Chief of Virtual Care & Digital Health at Providence, about "Extending Care Through Full-Stack RPM, AI-Driven Accurate & Appropriate Specialty Referrals, Empowering Global Teams to Accelerate Healthcare Tech, and more..." Click the play button to listen or read the show notes below

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[00:01:10] Dr. Cunningham’s journey into medicine and how reading Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book, “Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom”, inspired her to work in women’s health;

[00:02:46] How Dr. Cunningham’s journey from OBGYN to clinical leadership to technology was consistent with a focus on care transformation;

[00:03:04] How Dr. Cunningham took initiate to lead a large multi-specialty medical group, chairing executive committees, and leading patient experience initiatives before becoming the chief medical officer of a 350 provider group;

[00:07:28] The three key priorities driving Dr. Cunningham's digital health roadmap today at Providence: addressing workforce shortage and burnout, hospital capacity and throughput, and patient retention;

[00:13:43] Insights into the remote patient monitoring program at Providence, emphasizing a comprehensive care team approach that extends their team by monitoring and surfacing care for patients outside the four walls of the hospital;

[00:14:54] The challenge of managing and responding to a high volume of patient information and inbox messages in healthcare, and how extended care teams can support this process;

[00:21:21] MedPearl – how it started and how it improves patient referrals using AI-driven specialist knowledge for primary and urgent care at the point of care;

[00:24:56] How Dr. Cunningham is thinking about the challenges in referral optimization in healthcare, with a focus on ensuring patients see the right specialist with the correct urgency and improving the workup process;

[00:32:42] Discussing the success of other AI programs at Providence, including Prov Aria, an LLM for organizing and categorizing patient messages, and its integration into Providence’s system for improved patient communication;

[00:34:18] Dr. Cunningham's involvement with the Providence Global Center in India and collaboration on international healthcare technology projects;

[00:37:10] Dr. Cunningham’s perspectives on eliminating inefficiencies in healthcare through technology, focusing on referral optimization and provider support;

[00:38:23] The need for EMR systems to improve the intake process and reduce provider burnout by minimizing repetitive tasks, like filling out identical paper forms for different physicians;

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