Michelle Stansbury, Associate Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of IT Applications at Houston Methodist

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This is Laura Deerdo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Michelle Stansbury, Associate Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of IT Applications at Houston Methodist. Michelle, I suppose you're going to have your other podcast today. Thank you. I always appreciate the opportunity to speak with you Laura. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and I'm excited for our conversation because I know Houston Methodist is always on the forefront of innovation and so many different trends within the healthcare space. And so I'm excited to dig deep and catch up on some of the things you're doing with a smart hospital as well as just enterprise wide. So I know we'll talk about a lot, but before we dive in, especially for those who are newer to our podcast, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself as well as Houston Methodist? Sure. Well, as you said, right, the Associate Chief Innovation Officer and IT executive over the applications. I've been at Houston Methodist for over 30 years. So yes, some people will go ahead and you start when you're a teenager and I said, of course, of course I did. But you know, it's been an interesting time. I've been very, very fortunate to work with Roberta Swartz on creating our Innovation Center eight years ago and to be able to see all that we've accomplished in that timeframe has just been amazing. I think it's due to a lot with true leadership and overall people and their willingness to be engaged, you know, across operations and IT. And it's the only way that we've been able to accomplish that much, but it's been a great journey. I will tell you. That's amazing to hear. You know, I think only exciting things to come. So that'll be very, very fantastic. And you know, could you talk a little bit about some of the most powerful forces that you see. Digital Health and IT right now. Houston Methodist. What do you see currently and how do you anticipate that all evolve over the next year or so? Yeah, well, as you know, last year we opened up our smart hospital, which was a fantastic opening. A lot of, you know, accolades, a lot of people wanting to see what we did with that. The interesting part about it, sometimes we're still having to tell people all of that technology that went into that institution was not the first time that we used it. We had eight other hospitals that all of that technology was being used in. So it was just a culmination of things coming together and a few things that as you're building a hospital from the ground up, you have certain controls that you don't and some of the older buildings that you have. Most importantly, I will tell you the environmental controls overall that the patients have just love to be able to control light control the temperature and things like that. That was probably the one thing that was really prevalent in that hospital. But as we sort of continued on down that path with those 10 or 12 bets that we had, we just continued to keep expanding overall. And we were saying, you know, what are the things was in our virtual operations command center. We had started overall with kind of five areas, you know, with our virtual ICU, the nursing overall. But we've been able to, as Roberta would put it now that we had the highway in place, we've been able to expand it even further. So overall, if you think about nursing and rounding and monitoring and the hospitalists are now using it within the organization. So it has been very prevalent for us to now see we're going to continue to expand it across overall providers who still want to use and do virtual visits with overall the patients who are in house, not just overall for virtual services as you're doing a clinic. But the overall services that you could continue and then potentially trying to expand it outside of our organizations as well. So anyway, but I will say probably the biggest thing that we've been focused on in 2026 is you know, we had that roadmap with our 12 bets for the smart hospital, the future. We once we completed that it was we asked ourselves what are we going to focus on because that really helped us grounded overall with what our roadmap was with innovation. So we created a 10 new bet for the intelligent healthcare system of the future. And we really had it with you know utilizing intelligence because look AI is becoming so prominent. You actually have the smart room with what we have been trying to accomplish. And so what were those other things that we could really keep us focus and grounded in what we were trying to accomplish for our organization. So I'm going to those a little bit later, but a lot of it had to do with overall AI smart chart right overall with what we're doing to AI for agents to overall. This is one that has been fascinating to me for us to be able to start to work on is the next gen marketing. So stop and think about how you are attracting your patients. And I will tell you it is most everybody it's like a big billboards or you know advertisements that you mail or it is you know sports teams that you want to you know that are helping to promicate overall right. The Houston Methodist and what we offer well that's not how people are paying attention these days right. Everything is about what are you seeing overall that's digitized what's the digital things that you're seeing so it's how are we re thinking about how we're marketing with new digital tools. So that's another interesting one. But that biggest piece and I think I spoke about this last time when I was at Becker's was that I think every organization is really working on how they can become more financially responsible. Right, what are those efficiencies that you can gain from the digital tools. And eight years ago when we kind of started this process. There wasn't as much functionality embedded with the kind of core tools I'm going to talk about core tools it's like the epics the cerners right with the Oracle. Or even your ERP systems so. They've come a long way so a lot of those bolt on products we are now transitioning back over to the core products which then is overall saving the institution because we're not having to pay for third party products. And we just implemented a new ERP system so that was a two year project went live January first of this year. And so now that we've kind of got down and really working with the system it's now about how do we really optimize and use it fully functioning including with AI on top of it. So lots of things that are happening overall in the organization and keeping us very busy. Absolutely, well, that's incredible. I mean, it's just the breath and depths of the change and transformation that you're able to enact with the technology with AI both on the clinical side as well as on the organizational and administrative side of things for the enterprise. It's just really cool to have that type of momentum going across the board. And then truly being able to optimize what you're doing in a variety of different fronts. And so from your perspective when you're looking at all of these different projects or initiatives and things that go into it, how do you make sure that you know you're tracking the progress tracking what resources go into it and then figuring out what's going to be best to continue pursuing or what you need to make adjustments to. Well, that's the beauty of our model that we have right with everyone sort of having these dual roles and right with Roberta Swartz being the CEO of our largest hospital that we have right 1100 1200 beds overall and then of course our community hospitals and being our chief innovation officer and me being a 90. She knows exactly where the problems are at. She's trying to solve right overall and as Roberta will tell everybody everyone has lots of problems to solve. So it's not like we have a lack of them. So we look for those solutions or look for the things where it is that's going to help us then we focus to do a pilot if the pilot works, then we scale it as quickly as possible. Simply like we did overall with virtual health right now we have over 2700 cameras across over our campuses within the patient rooms. We expanded overall with utilizing AI within our O.R.s to be able to see where we could increase efficiencies. But what comes with that is the change management and then the adherence to make sure that we're utilizing it appropriately to get the ROI because if you're not if you're not using it, you're not going to get the ROI and guess what all you did was just add cost to the organization. So that's part of what we're doing with the things that we have rolled out or doing well within our main hospital. We're going around and ensuring that the rest of our hospitals what can we do to help if we don't see the same sort of experience that they're getting is it because that we didn't roll it out well or is there other things that we can do to optimize it. But I would say you know that's probably the biggest piece for us is that we're still just overall of looking how can we ensure that the things that we are using we're continuing to get value. value from. If not, okay, do we need to go back and rethink it? Or do we need to stop it? And that's one of the things that I think a lot of organizations, I will tell you way back when, before everybody got involved in digital tools, you know, you would implement something, you would bring it live and then it just goes into sport mode. Nobody's really watching it. Are you really getting the value from it or whatever? That is a big focus. Even the core things that we do today overall within our main transactional systems, which is Epic and Workday. Are we getting the value from those systems overall and what if we're not, what more could we be doing? So I think that's a big piece. And then, you know, the other thing is, I just, I want to, I haven't talked much about this, but it's interesting because I just did a presentation overall with our Senior Vice President, Tisha Montgomery, who's over our access schedule, you know, with access scheduling within overall Keystone Methodist as the system. And her role was created on purpose. She used to be in access just overall within our physician organization. But we saw that there was a real need that we needed somebody at the top that's looking out overall across because you could call for an imaging appointment at one of our hospitals and it would didn't quite work out. So you wanted to see if you could get into one of our other locations. The message you would get is, oh, let me give you that number and you can call and find out if they could take you there. So again, not very well managed, but she has been able to do some phenomenal results overall now that she has taken it and she is scheduling across the system. So she took all those scheduling people that were in all those different areas, brought them in, be able to create the efficiencies. She now, I mean, they're overall scheduling 21,000 appointments a day across our organization, not just from overall the outpatient side of the house, but also to, if you think about the diagnostic procedures and everything else that needs to happen. So just phenomenal. But most recently, which I'm so excited about because we're working overall in this is she had overall AI that was embedded into those calls to kind of help get them to the right place. Now she started to work have agents answering those calls and now having those calls where there's no human involved. And so where it is might have taken, you know, five to 10 minutes within three minutes, the agent is being able to schedule those appointments for those patients. Like I said, with no human intervention whatsoever. So it's amazing to see that side of the house. So it is just spurred on overall our involvement to go, okay, what else can we do now with a gentica I. And so we are looking across the organization. We actually have, we were making this assumption, do we buy everything? Do we build everything? So we've decided it's probably a combination of both. So we now have a build team. We're looking at overall the use cases across the organization from even in clinical from overall within the business area. So I think there's lots of opportunity and supply chain within HR finance, even an IT. Think about your service desk on the IT. We just see tremendous opportunity. And so we're really trying to prioritize what the use cases we're going to start to build on our own. But that's been absolutely fascinating to me. I'm just going to be honest. And you know, I can't wait to see what that's going to play out there. Absolutely. Wow. I know that kind of the build versus buy versus partner discussion is one that's very prevalent across the board. And so as you're looking at, you know, one of the things we're going to try to build an internal team to do, one of the things that we can work with others to do. I know that's a big consideration. And then looking into, you know, just the payment mechanisms and the financial resource they have to take across the board would be interested in kind of your perspective and take on what AI transforms there too. Well, I will tell you that's been a very interesting part overall with this because I don't know that every organization who's building agents quite knows how the payment structure should be. And it varies widely. I think some of them have over, you know, they didn't quite get it right. So you're like, wow, that's way too expensive. And then the other ones who kind of started at it, you know, and it was like seem very reasonable have now come to the conclusion, oh, that's not right. We should be charging more. So I think that's where it is that we have really tried to do our due diligence, you know, and what's going to work for us. This whole tokenization, right? Everyone's like, oh, how many tokens you having to pay for that? And, you know, I do think it is kind of wild and crazy at this moment. I think somewhere it's going to land somewhere in the middle of between, oh, they're not, they're so undercharging to overcharging and really trying to come back that something reasonable because I think that's what, you know, you're reading these stories all over the place where Uber and some of the other ones, right? They went through their whole 2026 budget in four months because of the, you know, charging, they just opened it up. Well, we've been allowing certain individuals in our organization to utilize Microsoft co-pilot, right, to sort of to see how they could use it kind of create around agents and whatever, but it's in sort of this pilot mode. But we are trying to figure out, you don't just want to open it up to everyone, right? Because then you have to really figure out what's the cost. And I will say, we have made the decision. We will not be building agents unless it truly has a return for us. If we built one and within, you know, a certain amount of time frame, we see that it's doing nothing, but just adding costs to the organization, then we'll shut it off. So, you know, it is making people be very thoughtful in their use cases that they're developing. Have you documented the process? Do you know the data points? Do you know the touch points overall said that we can determine, is this a buy use case? Or is this a build use case? So, it is just like I said, I think there's so much opportunity that's out there with ever-all, with an agente-cay eye, but it's having to make sure that it makes sense without just opening the floodgates and letting everybody go and crazy with it. Absolutely, for sure. You can have some sort of like control or ability to really monitor those financial situations. You don't want to get in that situation where, you know, your whole budget is blown through so quickly and you have to pull back. Healthcare doesn't have that kind of a possibility. No, no. Well, that gets back to the early one. I told you that we're working on becoming more financially responsible, you know, in the things that we have to do, right, overall. And, you know, I said this before, there's three main focus areas that we put our patients. We want to make sure that the journey our patients take is frictionless as possible and the way that they want it, which is sometimes very different for each individual, right? Our clinicians, you know, how are we getting them back to doing what they do best instead of being to, you know, the electronic health record. I mean, we've done very well with AI with our physicians. And I'm so happy to say, because our nurses have just waited for so long. We're now doing a pilot overall with nursing documentation using ambient intelligence, right? So it is with ambient listening, I should say. So how it is that we can make their jobs easier as well, because they have just been as burden with documentation as physicians. And so they're very excited. We're seeing some really good stuff out of it so far. So I'm anxious to be able to get that to a point where we can, you know, overall expand it across our organization. But the last area is just becoming, you know, where are those operational efficiencies that we can gain by using the digital tools that are out there? And I think there's a lot of them. I think what you hear from a lot of organizations that kind of started off in the clinical areas, which is good. We need to. I will tell you we're now, we're in a pilot phase right now with overall some decision kind of really diagnostic precision overall AI that is helping our radiologists and sub cardiologists and stuff as well. But I think there's so much opportunity on the business site way more than what we have been paying attention to so far. That's fascinating to hear. And I think, you know, truly when you look into the future, where do you see some of those problems that you're trying to solve with AI and technology, those next things? And I know we talk through a lot of the different ways you're using it right now, and in things you're trying to tackle within the system. Where kind of you see that next problem coming from or is it the same problem just with different solutions that you're looking for? I don't know if it's the same problem I think overall. Again, if you begin to look across the areas, I mean, access is always going to be a priority right for every organization. How can you continue just to keep evolving and make that easier? And how can you use AI right overall so that you can use your workforce responsibly? And I think that's the other key piece. You know, every organization wants to use the top talent where it's necessary. And if you can get agents doing the same work, I think it's overall, then you can take those individuals right and put them in over, you know, top skill levels overall, the what we needed that an agent can't take care of. So I think the other is we'll just continue overall to expand our virtual offerings. I will put that right. How much more can we continue to do? And I know that our executive in that area, she's building out, you know, a three to five year plan right now on overall what more can we be doing. I think we need to look at what could, you know, remote monitoring be able to do. How can we keep you out of the hospital if you don't necessarily need to come to the hospital right. So I think how can we take all those learnings that we've done from an inpatient perspective and now try to take it outside of the hospital. I think overall as well as what I said within sort of the business operations area, it is now that we have this new platform, right? How can we begin to extend overall now thinking how AI and it may not be an agent. It may just be traditional AI, right? That we can utilize within that program that helps us become more efficient. But I will tell you, I think where you're truly going to see this is where and I am already there, right? And kind of thinking, I think there's these single point agents that people are thinking about, oh, I want to put an agent on this. I want to put an agent on this. How can you begin to start thinking where you're utilizing multimodal agents agents working with agents across your organization to overall increase efficiency, overall increase overall capacity, whatever it may be. I think that's where we're truly going to see the full breadth of what agent AI can do for us. I think there's a lot of experimentation right now that needs to happen for everyone to get comfortable with it, including us, right? To make sure that the agents are functioning appropriately, but then how can you start getting agents to work with other agents? I think that's where you're going to see the true power. And I'm hoping I'm still going to be around long enough to see it. So absolutely. I love that. I think I mean given how quickly things are moving, you know, it could be sooner than we think it seems like. No, I completely agree. But it's like I said, I have never seen anything. And I know you've been around a long time as well, Laura, but have vast and quick AI is changing these days. I mean, you might think you know it one week, just give it a week. And it's like something that's completely changed with it. And I think that's the reason why you know, you're starting to see so many people now who are like, whoa, wait a minute, maybe we need to put more, you know, security parameters or other parameters around it to make sure, you know, that it just, you know, it doesn't, especially in the clinical space. And I completely agree. And we have taken the stance that we still have a human involved. I don't care what it is. Overall, if it's a decision making that, you know, that's what our providers went to school for, we want them overall involved whenever you're looking at it. But it is at one point. And I was, I think it was at Becker's. I think it was Becker's where I was at. I know that, and I'm not sure if you were the moderator, but somebody in the audience asked, did we ever see a day where an provider will be replaced by AI? I was like, no, but the provider was sitting there with me. And he was like, yes, absolutely. I was like, oh my goodness. I mean, and maybe you can see for, I've got a call. I've got, you know, a test call or something, whatever. But it's interesting today. And this is what most of our providers would be in faced with is that patients are diagnosing themselves using chat GPT. These are my symptoms whatever. And then coming in and going, hey, this is what chat GPT says I have. And how you should treat me. So, you know, that's the reality. I think that every probably healthcare organization is dealing with now is that patients are self-dignnessing themselves by these tools, whether it's right or wrong. You know, where I've said that I feel uncomfortable is what do you do with the patient that is self-diagnosed themselves from these tools? And it was wrong. And now by the time that they come in, they're worse than what they were if they did just originally come into to see our clinicians. Absolutely. That's a huge, I can imagine issue that, you know, both the clinical as well as everybody in the healthcare system will need to understand and help, you know, figure out what how they're going to navigate that and the technology that's used, you know, from the patients overall. So it's fascinating. It's just changing the whole realm of how patients right or thinking about their own healthcare, right? I mean, and oh, maybe I don't need to go in the doctor's office. I can just put it in here and it's going to help diagnose me and tell me what I need to do. So it is. And the interesting part is I know that I've heard from, you know, some of our doctors that have said, yes, they come into as an inpatient, they'll do the same thing and they're like, show me what you put in there. So I'll know exactly it is overall. So I can help to determine, right? What's the next best step for us? But absolutely. Wow. That's amazing. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such a fun discussion. I've learned a lot and, you know, really appreciate you taking the time to connect with us. And I'm looking forward to seeing you in person as well at our health IT and revenue cycle conference coming up in September. I know you'll be speaking and, you know, it'll be truly, truly a lot of fun. So looking forward to continuing the discussion there. All right. Great. Laura. Thank you so much. [BLANK_AUDIO]