In an era of increasing pressure on emergency departments, the role of interoperability has never been more crucial.
Dr. Hamad Husainy is Chief Medical Officer at PointClickCare and a practicing emergency physician – in this conversation, he shares insights on how data-driven solutions are revolutionizing emergency care.
With 15 years of clinical experience, Husainy highlights the evolving challenges facing emergency departments, from staffing shortages to rising patient volumes and complex social determinants of health. “The overwhelming number of social visits... are really pertinent in today's landscape of emergency medicine," he notes.
PointClickCare's approach focuses on delivering actionable data in a ‘pushed format’, which is particularly crucial for rural health systems that may lag behind in technological adoption. This strategy ensures that vital patient information is readily available without requiring exhausted clinicians to search for it during demanding shifts.
Husainy compares the transformative impact of enhanced data visibility to the introduction of BiPAP machines and explains how it is fundamentally changing how care is delivered. Looking ahead, he envisions AI and machine learning further streamlining emergency care delivery, enabling more direct and efficient patient care pathways.
"As we get closer to that intersection between the most efficient care with the most quality care and the most cost-effective and the most outcome-produced care, it's going to require more data to the bedside," Husainy explains, emphasizing the continuing evolution of healthcare interoperability.
Tune in to the full discussion now to discover more!
Chris Hayden:
Hi everyone. My name is Chris Hayden. I'm a producer here at Fierce and I'm here today with Dr. Hamad Husainy, Chief Medical Officer at PointClickCare, to discuss the transformative potential of interoperability in healthcare. Dr. Husainy brings a unique perspective as an accomplished emergency medicine physician and a leader in the health tech innovation, focusing on how data-driven insights and the connected care ecosystems and revolutionize emergency care and improved patient outcomes. I'd like to thank you for joining us today, doctor.
Hamad Husainy:
It's great to be here. Thank you, Chris.
Chris Hayden:
Of course, of course. We'll just jump right into the questions here. We only have four questions, but let's get started. First I'd be curious to hear your perspective on the current challenges facing emergency departments, particularly regarding interoperability.
Hamad Husainy:
Yeah, I mean, the operations and the practice of emergency medicine has changed a lot over the years. I've been practicing for about 15 years, and the pressure that it's under today is immense. Staffing shortages, both in the physician and clinician as well as the nursing side and ancillary staff, rising patient volumes because of a lack of access.
And then also those ED visits that I think everybody thinks you go into becoming an ER doctor and you're taking care of heart attacks and gunshot wounds all day. But the overwhelming number of visits for social determinants of health and aspects of healthcare that you don't normally think of but are really pertinent in today's landscape of emergency medicine.
And so this very dynamic ever-changing landscape that exists prior to COVID, through COVID, and now post-COVID has really seen just the importance of interoperability sort of rise to the top. And that is how do we bring this very long and sort of a technical word to the bedside? How do we apply information real-time and improve the care that we're providing to our patients, whether it's those very sick with physical diagnosis, mental health diagnoses, or those social issues that come to the emergency department. And oftentimes we feel sort of ill-equipped to deal with. And so that's the landscape that we're dealing with today and how we can apply data real-time to make better, more informed, appropriate decisions is going to be crucial going forward.
Chris Hayden:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I'll be curious too, how does PointClickCare's approach to interoperability support emergency care teams?
Hamad Husainy:
Emergency care teams, they're very dynamic. If you've seen one, you've seen one, unfortunately. And that's largely because we have different populations and different sized institutions and different approaches to how we execute and operate emergency medicine.
And so where I live, there's a large number of rural health systems, and so I don't say this pejoratively, but a lot of times we're several decades behind in some of the way that we do things in some of these institutions due to resources and things of that nature. And so when we talk about how do we take data and apply it and try to bring everybody to a level playing field, it's really difficult. But being able to bring that data to the bedside in a simplistic, pushed format. And I think that's really important, that pushing format.
If I have to go look for information, especially hour 6, 7, 8, 9 of my shift when I'm getting worn down and I've got more patients than I can care for and I have less resources than I need, it's really difficult to be able to go look for that information and then apply it to the workflow so that a pushed amount of information and a small amount of information that doesn't solve all of my problems or doesn't answer all of my questions, but it's that sort of middle ground where it's actionable, it's digestible, it's usable, and it allows me to take the problem at hand and appropriately work that patient up and hopefully disposition that patient in a timely manner, providing the best care possible in that setting.
Chris Hayden:
Yeah, I love it. And you've touched on it briefly here, but what impact does enhanced data visibility have on operational efficiency? And then also, you also touched on this a little bit too, at the end of your shift workplace morale in EDs?
Hamad Husainy:
One of the things about being an emergency room physician is there's this uniform desire to be able to make a difference. There's this uniform desire to be able to take a situation that seems to have no answer and create a solution and come up with a viable solution for the medical problem, the social problem, the mental health problem at hand.
And so bringing data and having visibility into the background of a patient where you previously didn't literally is practice changing. Early in my career when I used this product, I like to compare this to the BiPAP machine. It was so transformational in how we cared for patients. And this is the same thing, right? In a very different way. This allows us to apply data that is received from other institutions, other EHRs, and be able to apply that real-time. I think when physicians like myself that graduated in the early 2000s started hearing about electronic health records, we really thought this is what interoperability was, what electronic health records were going to be.
However, now we have multiple vendors and multiple institutions with different levels and oftentimes multiple different EHRs. The reality is how can we take that data from those EHRs and create a microenvironment inside at the bedside to be able to take that data and use it. And so that's really where, as a clinician, my morale is highest when I'm making a difference and being able to take that data and make a difference with it is what I love most and is what drives me every day to be the Chief Medical Officer here at PointClickCare.
Chris Hayden:
So looking ahead, looking into the future here a little bit, how do you envision technology kind of transforming emergency care delivery?
Hamad Husainy:
Absolutely. I mean, AI and machine learning are at the forefront of what we're talking about. Really, if we think about it in the most simplistic form of folks that have grown up in the internet age, we used to have to go and do three or four different searches to really get the answer to the question that we were trying to solve. And more recently, we've been able to a little more specific. And as we look at AI and we think of things like Chat GPT that are very ubiquitous in our culture, and now very well understood is how can we ask the most direct questions and get the absolute most direct data that allows us to guide the most direct therapy and the most direct workup to create the most direct disposition?
Because as we get closer to that intersection between the most efficient care with the most quality care and the most cost-effective and the most outcome-produced care, it's going to require more data to the bedside and just a better understanding of what we need to do, when we need to do and how we need to do it. And we've been studying that for many years, unfortunately, trying to take this huge amount of information and store it our brains and in our iPad, in our iPhones and our computers. And now we're trying to use that data real-time and deliver it in a way that we can succinctly accomplish our goals.
Chris Hayden:
Well Dr. Husainy, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for answering these questions and talking about this topic. Interoperabilities, how long have we been talking about this, Dr. Husainy?
Hamad Husainy:
I think we'll be talking about it for a lot longer, but it's been since I started my career.
Chris Hayden:
I think so too. I think so too. But things like this just move us forward. So I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for talking with us today. And again, Dr. Hamad Husainy, chief medical officer at PointClickCare. Thank you so much.