Building Trust in Healthcare Data Through Transparency with Kevin Field, President of Clearsense

[00:00:00] . Hey everybody, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket here at HMS 2024. I have the privilege

[00:00:08] of having Kevin Fields, president of ClearSense with us on the podcast Kevin, welcome.

[00:00:14] Hey thanks for having me Saul, I really appreciate it. It's a pleasure. Listen, it was a lot

[00:00:18] of fun being with you and the team yesterday. Absolutely. Got to learn a lot about the business

[00:00:23] and really it was the reason this interview was inspired. That's right. So thank you for

[00:00:27] doing this today. Really appreciate it. Yeah, we really appreciate the time and opportunity

[00:00:31] to share a little bit of our story with you. Absolutely. To kick it off for the audience,

[00:00:36] give us a little bit more on ClearSense and a little bit more on you. Absolutely. Well,

[00:00:41] my name is Kevin Field on the president ClearSense. I've been working with ClearSense since

[00:00:44] almost our inception in 2017. Prior to this, I spent almost a decade working at Epic as

[00:00:51] an implementation executive. I was there for all the fun of digitization and healthcare

[00:00:55] when we really go into all the transformations of bringing live all of these hospital systems

[00:01:00] on their enterprise Epic platforms and doing those deployments and supporting meaningful

[00:01:04] use. I spent my last three years there actually doing the deployment over in Denmark and

[00:01:08] bringing live the groups over there to the five regions and getting that to a point of

[00:01:14] stabilization. And at that point, I decided I was going to shift my attention to what

[00:01:19] I thought was going to be next in healthcare. And for me, that's really been about the

[00:01:23] data. And really what ClearSense has focused on is being a healthcare-specific data platform

[00:01:29] to really help these organizations who made all of these investments in healthcare technologies,

[00:01:34] able to get value from all that data. So that ranges from everything from all these

[00:01:38] historical data systems to their active enterprise applications and everything in between.

[00:01:43] And we work with them to try to really make sure that data can be an asset they can

[00:01:46] leverage for today and for Toronto. That's fascinating, Kevin. Thank you for the history.

[00:01:52] You were there at the beginning. You saw it all happening and you saw this gap. Does

[00:01:57] that gap still exist today? As everybody's been expanding, I think we've

[00:02:00] been really fortunate that technology has been adopted in these healthcare provider systems

[00:02:05] and they really are trying to be innovative. And really what are the value proposition

[00:02:10] really where we are focusing even at the inception of the company was how can we make that data

[00:02:15] from all these desperate systems be organized in a way that is really obtainable and usable

[00:02:20] and then ultimately be able to feed that into whatever solutions that they need to solve

[00:02:25] their issues. So when we were starting this and working with groups, the inception really

[00:02:30] came around helping them to take some of their enterprise applications that they had maybe

[00:02:34] no longer needed to have for production purposes and really needed to maintain the data and

[00:02:39] help them to archive that. So being able to take and realize and recognize the value

[00:02:44] of that data will still be able to be able to preserve the information for later use was

[00:02:49] really our focus. And ultimately when we were working with these large healthcare organizations

[00:02:54] as part of their business case, when they adopted an epic or a cernor whatever those enterprise

[00:02:59] solutions were was ultimately to help reduce the redundancy and reduce the costs of maintenance

[00:03:03] for all those different systems that they had in place. However, without a platform like

[00:03:08] ours coming in, they were never ever recognize that values. We helped groups get that data

[00:03:12] offloaded, gave them a really good cost reduction, really good ROI while also helping to pay

[00:03:17] the pathway for the future of data maturity with them. And that's really how we progress

[00:03:21] with groups today on making sure that data is usable available and something that can actually

[00:03:26] then be incorporated with their active data to really solve the problems that they have.

[00:03:30] So today, when we look around at a conference like this, there's a lot of cool technology,

[00:03:35] there's a lot of AI, a lot of analytics and points. And ultimately all those are going

[00:03:40] to be dependent on having good trusted quality data. And that's really where we fit in.

[00:03:44] I love that. And you mentioned something data maturity and here we're at hymns.

[00:03:48] That's right. And there's a lot of discussions in frame, the maturity model around infrastructure

[00:03:53] and data adoption, but talk to us about data maturity. Are there any models you guys are looking

[00:03:58] at? Give us frameworks that you use to judge. So there are models out there that actually

[00:04:03] measure data maturity and how organized organizations are for using their data that did really become

[00:04:08] data-driven. We actually take it in two different capacities. So one, we think that every organization

[00:04:15] is at a different point and they have a different requirement when it comes to data. So we

[00:04:20] hit this from both a technology side with our platform and helping them get organized

[00:04:24] and provide transparency and quality around the data that they use. But we also did a

[00:04:29] permanent operational site as well. So we have data governance is really an art and it has

[00:04:34] to be a cultural change from these verbs. So we really help organizations build a governance

[00:04:40] culture that they can all adapt to. If you happen to be the expert around provider credential

[00:04:45] information, then you should be the one helping us define what that means for the organization

[00:04:49] and what data components are important to it. What data sources are important to it. And if I have

[00:04:53] a question about that, I should come to you. So we really filled out this initiative overall where

[00:04:58] we make champions, we make data stewards, and we really let the organization as a whole start

[00:05:03] to speak the same language around data and understand how valuable the asset it is and how to work

[00:05:08] together using data. So that advisory work really can lead in then to the successful adoption of

[00:05:13] using data with our platform and other tools that's overall to make sure that data doesn't be

[00:05:18] coming after thought but something that really is an asset they can take advantage of.

[00:05:22] Love that. Thank you so much for that. A lot of people come to hints for different reasons.

[00:05:27] Why did you come? And what's one insight that's risen to the top for you in the last few days?

[00:05:32] We come here of course to connect with people and hear great ideas. It's inspiring, right?

[00:05:36] You come here and you see people they're doing all sorts of really neat innovative things and leveraging

[00:05:41] technologies from outside healthcare, bringing them in and using them ways that I'm very happy to see

[00:05:46] because it's going to ultimately improve the way that we all work together in our communities

[00:05:49] and serve the people that are around us. The thing that's really stood out for me is that at the end

[00:05:55] of the day, all of these discontinuatory, all this AI, all these really cool forward thinking things

[00:06:00] are really going to be reliant on trust. And I think that trust is ultimately what we need to

[00:06:05] be striving for in healthcare when we're using data to make decisions here. It's not, we can't just

[00:06:10] say trust me it works right? You can't have any sort of black box. We kind of it's a little kitschy

[00:06:14] but we say we have a clear box approach, right? So we focus on making sure that people can see how

[00:06:20] decisions were made where the data is coming from, how business rules and logic were actually applied

[00:06:26] to it and ultimately we ought to get to a point where the quality is there. And if the quality is

[00:06:29] there then the trust can be there. So when I walk around here, I see a lot of technologies and

[00:06:35] companies that really can be beneficial to work with and collaborate with that help build trust

[00:06:39] into their tool sets so they can go solve really cool problems. So being behind the scenes in

[00:06:43] kind of the empowerment is something that I think is really inspiring for many. I love that. Thank

[00:06:48] you for sharing that. And really I want to better understand the other side, right? So there's

[00:06:53] organizations leveraging your platform to better store and move data. That's right. But what are

[00:07:00] common problems that you see in organizations that haven't yet taken advantage of what you guys

[00:07:05] offer? That's a really good question. So I think oftentimes what ends up happening is that people

[00:07:10] don't have access to their data that they, in the way that they think they should. So if you

[00:07:14] are looking to do some sort of analytics use case or you're trying to be able to get data to

[00:07:19] researchers or you're trying to really do a little bit more investigation of how you could use

[00:07:23] data to solve problems. What typically happens today for organizations that say put in a request

[00:07:29] they might get a data extract that data extract comes out. It goes into the hands of somebody

[00:07:33] that's going to have to manipulate and curate it to get it prepared gets handed off to the next person

[00:07:38] then are starting to work and build the analytics out. And by the time they're actually consuming it,

[00:07:42] the data might be old. It might be really not important anymore from them. And also when they go

[00:07:47] back the next time they try to drive that same information, they'll remember exactly how they

[00:07:51] went through those processes. So there ends up really being this this con the line if you will

[00:07:55] of data requests, data curation, data quality and a thing of the day that doesn't build a lot of

[00:08:00] trust. So I think what we're starting to see now is organizations realizing that you can't manage

[00:08:06] a hospital on quarterly reports or quarterly information yet to be able to get those things

[00:08:11] consistently put together much more quickly quickly enough that it can actually be operationalized

[00:08:16] and it actually drives some change. So I think we're seeing this shift now from organizations saying

[00:08:21] that we really want to be data driven to saying okay, we say that what does that mean? How do we start

[00:08:26] to do data management at scale? And how can we really build a culture on data or organization?

[00:08:31] Love that people are watching and listening to us today and maybe they're wondering how can I get

[00:08:36] started? Where's a good place to start? This is too big to tackle. What advice would you give them

[00:08:42] on that? So the great thing is whenever you're tackling data and you're actually working on building

[00:08:47] this culture and applying the technology, you can start wherever you are today. Right? This doesn't

[00:08:51] have to be a massive overhaul of an enterprise and all get everything moving at once. You can really

[00:08:57] start both by single solutions that really drive a lot of value or single regions that are most

[00:09:03] important and at the priority. So we see a lot of organizations actually start with the low hanging

[00:09:09] fruit being able to rationalize their applications and archive data. And ultimately that archival helps

[00:09:16] them with those cost reductions quickly. They can see the value, they can understand it and we can

[00:09:20] really start shipping away there and start to build the confidence as we continue to move forward.

[00:09:25] If we're actually doing something more like data management and doing with active data,

[00:09:29] we can start with a single componentry. Maybe you're really focused on how do we make our provider

[00:09:34] data more accurate or trustworthy? We can go there and start to work with that and the source systems

[00:09:38] around provider information so that we can really try to build the confidence and trust there. So

[00:09:43] it is a journey when you start to work on building data governance as a culture and adopting

[00:09:48] these types of things, it really is something that grows with you. So these are not just a start

[00:09:53] and stop. It really becomes part of like how groups operate day-to-day and it's truly a shift in

[00:09:59] the way that they can manage their culture and actually use data for good. Some really practical

[00:10:04] advice, Kevin. Thank you so much for that. Another theme and this is the last one we'll touch on.

[00:10:09] When you talk about data and you're talking about healthcare, you're obviously thinking about

[00:10:13] security, safety. Talk to us about how the platform gives that to the users. Yeah, so anytime

[00:10:21] you're dealing with data in healthcare especially, security has to be at the forefront. We

[00:10:25] tackle that in a couple of different ways. One, just by the work that we do, so we're actually

[00:10:29] helping to retire some of these legacy applications and shut those off. We preserve the data, of course,

[00:10:36] but we allow them to actually turn off the licensing and the support they have for this historical

[00:10:39] application as early as strong as your weakest link when it comes to security. So if those systems

[00:10:45] and are connected to your servers and to your network, those become vulnerability points. So we

[00:10:49] really try to help reduce that footprint on their end by pulling all that data together into our

[00:10:54] secure environment and be able to shut this systems off. And we, of course, within our platform,

[00:11:00] we are high trust certified, it's not too tight to you. We always are saying current when it comes

[00:11:05] to the security footprint. And we can also deploy within that clients public cloud environments as well

[00:11:11] as working together with that. So if you're in AWS, we can work together with you in AWS or we have

[00:11:17] a own private part as well. So security is always there at the top and it's something that we take

[00:11:21] very seriously. Well, that's fantastic and reassuring to hear, Kevin. So look, I want to thank you

[00:11:28] today. If you're going to leave our listeners and viewers with a call to action, what would you

[00:11:34] leave them with? And what's the best place they can get in touch with you? I would say call to

[00:11:38] action if you're thinking about how do we become data driven start now. You can start small. You

[00:11:43] don't have to worry about it being overly daunting or anything else. The small steps that you take

[00:11:47] there are actually going to help you get further and further along. And ultimately, as you start to

[00:11:51] really think about data as something that can transform your organizations, don't underestimate it.

[00:11:56] It's absolutely something that is going to be extremely valuable. It's allowing people to cut costs,

[00:12:01] drive efficiencies, have better insights into their organization. And ultimately, I think it's

[00:12:06] going to be what helps healthcare launch ahead overall. And if you want to get in contact with me,

[00:12:10] you can reach out at Kevin at ClearSense.com. Amazing, Kevin. Thank you so much.

[00:12:16] listeners, viewers want to thank you guys for tuning into this podcast today in the show notes.

[00:12:21] You'll find the ways to get in touch with Kevin. They're full of resources for you to continue

[00:12:27] learning. So we'll leave links for you to check out the ClearSense website. Thank you guys for

[00:12:32] tuning in. Take action on what you heard today and Kevin, thanks for being with us. Thanks again.

[00:12:36] I really appreciate it.