Solving Healthcare's Identity Crisis with Clay Ritchey, the CEO of Verato

[00:00:02] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket here at HIMSS 2024.

[00:00:07] I have the privilege of having Clay Ritchie on the podcast.

[00:00:10] Clay, welcome. Thanks, Saul.

[00:00:12] So Clay is the CEO of Verato.

[00:00:15] He's got 20 years of experience driving innovation and results in health care.

[00:00:20] Clay, so grateful that you're here with us.

[00:00:22] And to kick things off, I'd love to just level set with the audience.

[00:00:25] Let them know what is Verato?

[00:00:28] Who do you guys serve and more about you?

[00:00:30] Great. Verato, everything we do at Verato is we are the identity experts in health care.

[00:00:35] We enable better care everywhere by solving the problem

[00:00:37] that drives everything else, knowing who is who.

[00:00:40] And believe it or not, as many of us have probably experienced in health care,

[00:00:44] we do a lousy job of knowing who is who.

[00:00:46] And Verato's mission is to make sure that every time, whether you're a patient,

[00:00:50] a member, a provider, at the point of care,

[00:00:54] the point of interaction with the health care system, that we know who you are.

[00:00:57] We can anticipate your needs.

[00:00:58] They can really better serve you as a person.

[00:01:01] And also, we understand the community that you come from.

[00:01:04] We understand the family or the household you come from.

[00:01:06] So we can give better information and better insights into those folks

[00:01:09] who are taking care of us to make sure that they can do it in the best way possible.

[00:01:13] I've been leading Verato for the last three years, and it's just been a pleasure

[00:01:17] to work with our clients.

[00:01:19] Our clients come across all walks of life, whether it be providers, payers,

[00:01:23] state, local governments, other health care tech platforms and life sciences.

[00:01:28] So just really enabling the flow of information in a trusted way,

[00:01:32] knowing who is who across the care continuum.

[00:01:34] I really appreciate that, Clay.

[00:01:36] And it seems simple, but in health care, it's quite difficult.

[00:01:41] You know, and this identity theme is something that's really important

[00:01:45] for a lot of reasons.

[00:01:45] Can you highlight maybe the top two or three reasons, things that often go wrong

[00:01:50] when you don't get identity right?

[00:01:51] First of all, as we don't get identity right,

[00:01:54] all kinds of bad things happen for our experience.

[00:01:57] Things like we end up having multiple tests or labs or procedures ordered

[00:02:02] because we're only seeing a fractional view of you

[00:02:05] because you were charted, this patient was charted in two different views.

[00:02:09] Things like we're trying to figure out how to proactively meet your needs

[00:02:12] to make sure that somebody who's at risk for a chronic condition doesn't turn chronic.

[00:02:17] But if we don't understand who you are and we don't know

[00:02:20] all the engagement we have around you,

[00:02:22] so we don't have one complete horizontal view of who you are,

[00:02:25] we oftentimes our algorithms don't get it right.

[00:02:27] We are AI algorithms aren't going to be trained properly

[00:02:30] if they don't have all the information about people all in one place

[00:02:34] so they can truly understand what the risk factors are

[00:02:37] and how to close those gaps in cares and identify the gaps in care

[00:02:40] in order to close them.

[00:02:41] So those are the things that can go right if you can go wrong,

[00:02:44] if you get identity wrong.

[00:02:45] And the converse, of course, if we get it right.

[00:02:47] Thank you so much, Clay.

[00:02:48] It really helps to understand that the nuances and why it's so important.

[00:02:53] You're here at HIMSS.

[00:02:54] Tell us why you decided to come this year and one key insight

[00:02:58] that's risen to the top for you.

[00:02:59] HIMSS is always a pleasure to come to because it's a great chance

[00:03:02] to actually meet not only other health care tech vendors like Verado

[00:03:06] that are innovating and driving digital transformation in health care,

[00:03:10] but also with those folks across the care continuum

[00:03:14] that are dedicating their careers and their organizations

[00:03:16] to help really deliver better care, better outcomes for health care and our patients.

[00:03:20] And I think that as I came into HIMSS,

[00:03:24] I was really curious to see how much AI would be on everybody's minds.

[00:03:28] And of course, I'm not disappointed.

[00:03:30] AI tends to be the topic here.

[00:03:32] And what I keep hearing from organizations

[00:03:35] are starting to think about AI is, of course,

[00:03:36] they're worried about things like the right governance

[00:03:38] and making sure they do it the right way,

[00:03:40] making sure they're not going to have outcomes from AI that they can't trust.

[00:03:44] But I'm also hearing people talking about that you can't have good AI

[00:03:47] if you don't have a good data set that you trust and you can train it on.

[00:03:52] And how important identity is, identity and management problem

[00:03:55] is to also AI because garbage in, we garbage out.

[00:03:59] And if you don't understand who is who and aren't using good data

[00:04:02] that's associated with the right person,

[00:04:05] then when you're trying to train these models on how to deliver better care,

[00:04:08] you're going to have a lot of challenges.

[00:04:09] So I was really heartened to hear the market understand that.

[00:04:12] And I think it's got a large tailwinds for the data management industry

[00:04:16] if we help solve those problems.

[00:04:18] Clay, that's really great and insightful for everybody listening.

[00:04:22] Let's just close with a call to action around that topic that you just brought up.

[00:04:26] It's identity and how AI will change the game in health care.

[00:04:31] The call to action for me is that we're living in a world now

[00:04:34] where over the last 10 years we have done the unthinkable.

[00:04:38] We've moved a whole industry from paper to digital.

[00:04:42] And we did it at record breaking pace.

[00:04:44] While we've done that, we've got all these challenges with now

[00:04:46] how to realize the full potential of that digital transformation.

[00:04:50] And the reality is that we haven't really found that potential

[00:04:53] because we have all these disparate data sources

[00:04:56] across any organization at an enterprise level.

[00:04:59] And I really think that the call to action is that before we can really get

[00:05:02] the full potential out of our digital investments,

[00:05:04] we have to first get identity right.

[00:05:06] By getting identity right first, then we can transform those experiences.

[00:05:09] We can use the analytics platforms that we're investing in

[00:05:12] to be able to give us the right insights to deliver better care at lower costs.

[00:05:15] And we can just really start driving the imagination that we have.

[00:05:19] And we decided as an industry, we wanted to take this challenge.

[00:05:22] And I think that as we start thinking about things like moving to the cloud

[00:05:25] and things like embracing AI, we have a new mandate now

[00:05:29] to think about identity data management and to getting it right

[00:05:31] because the stakes are getting higher and higher

[00:05:34] as we embrace the next level of transformation.

[00:05:36] Well, we really appreciate your expertise on this topic, Clay, today.

[00:05:40] And if people want to learn more, how can they get in touch with you

[00:05:43] and how can they get in touch with your company?

[00:05:45] Certainly I welcome anybody who wants to talk to me to call me at 919-995-3656.

[00:05:51] I really mean that.

[00:05:52] Love that.

[00:05:53] Folks, there you have it.

[00:05:53] We're going to leave that in the show notes. Use the number.

[00:05:56] Yeah, use the number.

[00:05:56] Like we're only as good as the engagement we have with the marketplace.

[00:05:59] And I welcome that.

[00:06:00] Of course, our website at router.com is a great entry point

[00:06:03] into understanding what we do and how to get in touch with us.

[00:06:06] We got a lot of content there on there for thought leadership

[00:06:08] as you're starting to think about cloud migrations or clinical

[00:06:11] interoperability or digital patient engagement.

[00:06:14] You want a playbook for how to do that?

[00:06:16] You know, you're going to find great resources like that at our website.

[00:06:19] Sounds like a wealth of information.

[00:06:21] We're thankful for you and appreciate you jumping on to the podcast with us.

[00:06:25] You're welcome, Sol. Great meeting you.

[00:06:27] Nice to meet you.

[00:06:28] And everybody, make sure you check the show notes

[00:06:29] for today's amazing links that Clay shared with us.

[00:06:32] See you all next time.