MGMA Insights: Julia Rosen on Advancing Healthcare IT for Medical Groups
Download MP3Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior editor at MGMA and host of the MGMA Podcast Network. Today, we're talking tech transformation in the future of health care IT. And we have a very special guest today in studio with us, MGMA's new senior vice president of IT, Julia Rosen. Julia, welcome to the show.
Julia Rosen:Thank you, Daniel. I'm I'm very excited. It's my first podcast ever.
Daniel Williams:So Gosh. In reading about you, something threw me for a loop. It was a curveball. We don't always study the things that we wind up doing. When I was researching you with your title, I thought I was gonna see years of coding and Silicon Valley and all these things.
Daniel Williams:You had, like, a garage with, you know, a computer you're taking apart and putting together. However, you have a BA in English
Julia Rosen:I do.
Daniel Williams:From Williams College. No relation to me. But but tell me about that. How did you make this transition from English major to this person who's an innovator and leader in health care IT?
Julia Rosen:Yeah. You know, it's interesting. When I was in school, I thought I wanted to work in the nonprofit world. I studied English, and a lot of the English classes I took were on women's literature, so I had an interest in women's advocacy. And so I had an internship for a nonprofit in New York the summer before my senior year of college.
Julia Rosen:And I thought this would spark my deep interest in nonprofits and women's advocacy. And then it turned out I really didn't like a lot of the stuff they did on you know, on more of the sort of non profit y side, but I had a really interest. They had a line of advocacy that was all about women in business. And so I got really involved in that line of advocacy and had a great interest in business. It turned, that sort of was the turning point for me in terms of turning from sort of the more liberal arts part of my education and background to more of the business part.
Julia Rosen:And so then at the end of my senior year, I just applied for a lot of different jobs in business. I randomly picked Epic, which is the healthcare software to start my career. Just hire a lot of smart people right out of college. And so started my career in EPIC, and that really kind of set the path for the rest of my career in health care IT and technology. Although it's interesting now I'm at MGMA, and I'm back in the nonprofit world.
Daniel Williams:Right. Right.
Julia Rosen:So I've come full circle. But MGMA really, you know, moves at the pace of business, is at the forefront of technology. So, it's really exciting to be here.
Daniel Williams:Yeah. So before we leave liberal arts and English behind, you may not know this, but we have an MGMA book club. We actually have a couple.
Julia Rosen:Okay.
Daniel Williams:I moderate one of those. And we actually have MGMA members, some of our listeners. They may be members of that MGMA book club. We have one of our board members on there. So it's we have some really great discussions.
Daniel Williams:So do you have a favorite writer, favorite book? What what would you like to tell us about anything book related, English related there?
Julia Rosen:So funny. When in my spare time, I tend not to read business and tech books. I kind of wanna get as far away from that as I can just just decompress. So I read a lot of fantasy and a lot of science fiction. A favorite book that I've read recently is Project Hail Mary.
Julia Rosen:So it's a science fiction book, really, really great book. And all I can say about it, and I want to no spoiler alerts, but it just has the best ending. Could be I think I went back and reread that ending three or four times. So if you like science fiction and you like books with great endings, read Project Hail Mary.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Project Hail Mary, if my memory serves correct, I believe it's by the same author of The Martian. Correct. It's made into a very popular movie starring Matt Damon.
Julia Rosen:Yes. And apparently, they're gonna make a movie of project Hail Mary, which I'm a little tenuous about because I love the book so much. I'm a little scared of what the movie's gonna do, but we'll see.
Daniel Williams:Oh, goodness. Okay. Well, good. I'm glad we got to talk about that. I was even gonna try to say the author's name.
Daniel Williams:I think it the last name may be Ware, but I'm not even sure about that. I could be wrong, but it is by the author of The Martian.
Julia Rosen:It is. Yeah. I can't think of it off the top of my head. Yeah. But it's Googleable.
Daniel Williams:That is it. That is it. Okay. So we're gonna talk about where you've been previously, and then we're gonna get to MGMA. So in looking at your CV here, you were CIO at Para HealthCare, CTO at Centura Health.
Daniel Williams:Even and this really caught my attention. You even helped launch Colorado's COVID mass vaccination tech. I'm just gonna start there. Tell us what was that like?
Julia Rosen:Yeah. You know, that was just a great example of partnerships between health systems, between the city and, you know, and another nonprofit called COVID Check Colorado. So we, Centura was nominated or bid on the running of those mass vaccination sites with COVID Check Colorado. And it was really interesting because, you know, no one had ever done this before. So, COVID check brought some of the technology, Sentura brought some of the processes and obviously the clinical portion of it.
Julia Rosen:And then, so I helped organize that. But one of the things I also helped organize was a call center for people who wanted to register for mass vaccination at these sites. And it was so interesting because, you know, we had to answer tech questions, but then people would also call with healthcare questions or with questions about resources in the city. So from a call center, a technology, a call routing perspective, we had to plan for all these scenarios for people calling the call center for reasons that weren't necessarily directly related to the registration technology. So, I had to partner very closely with this nonprofit, with officials all over Colorado, and it was just a great example of how quickly you can stand up something when the need is really there and when those partnerships work really well.
Daniel Williams:That was a remarkable effort. And congratulations on that. So let's talk about that. You talked about being at Epic. I mentioned your roles at Para HealthCare, Centura Health.
Daniel Williams:So you've had a wide variety there. What are some of the lessons that you've learned that you're bringing over to MGMA and those MGMA members who are our listeners to the podcast?
Julia Rosen:I think one of the biggest lessons is when you talk about technology and how you use technology, you really have to adapt it to the maturity of the organization that you're at, right? So a big healthcare system like Centura, they have a lot of legacy technology and they're really looking to push towards innovation and the patient experience. A smaller organization, Peri Healthcare is a post acute company, and it's a newer organization, smaller organization. So a lot of it is really just standing up the basics around do people have the devices that they need to operate well in the field? And then, you know, I've spent a lot of time in consulting.
Julia Rosen:And, you know, when you're consulting, you're going to have people all over the map. So I think what's so critical is looking at what is the business problem you're trying to solve organization, within your specific context, and let's try to solve that with the resources we have, right? So I think that's so critical, especially for, you know, smaller practices out there that might be wondering what to do with technology. You don't have to read a million articles on the internet around AI. Know, look at a specific business problem that you're trying to solve in your office.
Julia Rosen:Maybe you want patients to have an easier time registering, right? You want to be able to be a little bit more efficient so you can squeeze a couple patients in that day and you're looking to just, you know, automate some tasks. So identify a real business problem that you're trying to solve with technology and that's relevant to you and then work to solve that problem versus looking at, you know, all the major tech trends out there and trying to fit that to your practice or your business?
Daniel Williams:Okay. I'm going to ask you, I don't know if it's a loaded question, but it's an important one that I ask a lot of people who are on the tech side of healthcare. But we were already heading toward where we are now. But with the pandemic, we were isolated. We really started communicating through Zoom meetings and other platforms like that.
Daniel Williams:We also got to a place where it's very easy to shop online. You know, we do as consumers, as patients, whatever it might be, we've seen this ease of use. Whether it's an Amazon or whether it's when I order my Starbucks tea ahead of time and it knows my order and I just plug it in again. There's this ease of use. How healthcare compete against that?
Daniel Williams:And that was the loaded part of the question because that's the expectation that consumers or patients have now. We want it now. And we don't want to wait around. And we're used to this from these other retailers. Why can't health care do this?
Daniel Williams:And when they do, we go, voila, see, you did do it and you brought it to me. Where are we in that field now?
Julia Rosen:I think a couple things. We should be able to get there, right? The technology is there. I think there's always going to be challenges with competing priorities around investments in technology. Do you invest in technology to improve care delivery, or do you invest in the patient experience online?
Julia Rosen:So I think part of it is just competing priorities. The technology is there. So I think health care systems and organizations just have to decide the relative priority of something like creating an amazing online patient experience versus some of the other options for health care funds, especially now when there are a lot of, you know, cuts in some areas. So I think that's number one is just choosing to prioritize it. And it may not always be the right answer, right?
Julia Rosen:But the technology is out there, the technology is there. And then I think part of it is just some education for patients and consumers of care. You know, I do think that obviously the privacy and the complexity of health care records always will put a little bit more of a challenge on creating a seamless consumer experience. So I think people also have to understand that that's part of the expectation to secure privacy. You won't always have as much, I'll call it, interoperability as you would on the retail side.
Julia Rosen:So I think it's a combination of both. It's prioritizing the dollars. It's setting expectations around why things do have to be a certain way for patients from a privacy perspective. So it's a little of both, but the technology is there. I think it's just a matter of choosing to invest and also educating patients on where there may be some limitations.
Daniel Williams:Okay. I'll ask you one more question in that field, then we'll get into your vision for MGMA. But in the MGMA Book Club, we just finished a book called Every Conversation Counts. And it was actually written by Riaz Mejji. He was a keynote speaker for us at our recent leaders conference.
Daniel Williams:And, like, number one was don't let technology get in the way of really you and I, even though I have a computer to the side of me, but we're communicating with each other. We're making eye contact. It's all these things we do as human beings. Technology allows us to connect and communicate, but sometimes we hear this a lot from patient surveys and from some of the companies that we partner with. But patients don't want to have that doctor or that clinician come in and then have their head down looking at the iPad the whole time.
Daniel Williams:They want to really have that empathy and that you really understand me as a patient and you're getting to know me as a patient. How do we utilize all these incredible tools you were talking about that we have, but still really have that human connection? Is that anything you ever philosophically ponder there?
Julia Rosen:Yeah. I mean, that actually is an area where technology advancements have really helped. You know, conversational AI has really come a long way. So, you know, in terms of just the ability for a doctor to record the entire visit, have just a normal conversation, and then have the AI produce a structured note, orders, like that is there. Yeah.
Julia Rosen:So that is actually a really exciting development that can actually move us away from having screens in
Daniel Williams:front
Julia Rosen:of our all the right. Again, that technology is expensive. Not every practice can afford the technology like So again, I think there are also other things that are available to help you know, potentially save time around documentation or practices that can't make the jump to conversational AI, even, you know, programs like Dragon Medical One, where you can just speech to text help save There's basic automation or intelligence that's built into a lot of EMRs that can help save time on documentation so people can focus more on the patient. So I think there's sort of small steps that you can take to save time so you can focus on that conversation with technology. And then obviously there's the giant leap to, you know, true conversational AI where you don't have to do anything and the AI does everything for you.
Julia Rosen:Then again, customize the tools that you want to use to enhance that to your practice's budget, ability to implement, you know, ability or or, you know, desire to innovate.
Daniel Williams:Right. Right. Let's switch to your role at MGMA, senior VP of IT. Yep. How long have you you've been there?
Daniel Williams:Three weeks? A month? What are we
Julia Rosen:About a month. Yeah. Almost exactly a month,
Daniel Williams:by the That's fantastic. Yeah. So what's your vision? What's what do you feel comfortable talking about right now? A month into your role there.
Daniel Williams:But what is what's like an overarching goal you want to really achieve from that perspective for MGMA and its members?
Julia Rosen:Yeah. I I mean, I think the one most relevant to MGMA and its members is to create a better just like what we were talking about with health care, create a better user experience for interfacing with our products and tools. It's not a secret, right? I don't Our website's not the most easy to It's not a secret. Yeah, our renewal portal, our certification portal, there are definitely lots of usability challenges and integration challenges with those things.
Julia Rosen:So that's my number one priority is over the coming months, years to create a seamless user experience for our members so they can take the best advantage of our products and services. And, you know, so you have all the information at your fingertips that's relevant to you, whether it's, you know, I attended a conference and it automatically populates and I automatically get the credit for it. It's something that doesn't always work now. Correct. As well as, again, just having easier access to resources and finding out what MGMA has to offer.
Julia Rosen:So just usability and creating that true seamless consumer experience is our number one priority. And I hope that within the next, you know, within the coming months and years, we'll have some great announcements for our member community around how we can serve them better.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Let's pull back from that then. You've been at Centura, you were at Para, now you're at MGMA, but you've communicated with lots of health care leaders on that technology side. What are the big pain points in health care right now? What are some of the pain points for those medical practices, many who are MGMA members?
Julia Rosen:You know, a lot of it really comes not, I've never run a medical practice, but a lot of what I hear from clinicians in the field is still around the burden of documentation. You know, again, like there's lots of great fancy tools out there, but when it comes down to it, a huge complaint of people in all aspects of the medical practice is I spend too much time on documentation and I'm documenting at night when I want to be with my family. So I think that's still a huge burden, you know, in nursing, in, you know, physicians. And again, I think that is a space where technology can really help.
Daniel Williams:Thanks for that. So next question then. Let's talk about building sustainable tech infrastructure.
Julia Rosen:I
Daniel Williams:know nothing about tech from that architectural side of it. But when we're talking about building that infrastructure, and I'll use an example. Couple of years ago, right at the holidays, Southwest just went down, Southwest Airlines. Mhmm. And we learned more.
Daniel Williams:My daughter was flying back to college, so we had to immediately find another flight from another airline. But what we we found out, you may know more details than I do, but the way I understood it, they built a system. Mhmm. And then they just over a really long period of time, they just kept building onto it and building onto it and building onto it. And it was just a house of cards at a certain point that fell that way.
Daniel Williams:How do you build an infrastructure that works, that doesn't collapse under its own weight? What advice would you give there?
Julia Rosen:That is a very difficult question. And I laugh. I think the reason it's a very difficult question is because most healthcare practices are not going to be starting from scratch.
Daniel Williams:Right.
Julia Rosen:Right? And that is a huge challenge because even if you want to migrate to a new modern system, you're still going to have, whether it's on paper or in a legacy system, you're still going to have a ton of data that you have to migrate over. Right. So I think when you're talking about infrastructure, at least from, it sounds like more on the software side of things, I think one key is how do you control and get your data to a manageable size and to manageable patterns so that you can migrate it to a new system cleanly and or don't have this huge sort of bloat of, you know, so much data that it, you know, slows down your systems or makes it hard to access things. So thinking about things like what's your retention period of data?
Julia Rosen:You know, are you going beyond the minimum ten years required by, you know, by government regulations? You know, thinking about things like being very careful when you're migrating systems, being very surgical about what data you really need from a clinician perspective to access in the new system versus what can be in cold storage or an archival system you just take from time to time. So I think that's gonna be the big challenge in healthcare, is it's so rare that you can just start cleanly with a new modern system. You have to do this legacy data migration that's required. So I'm thinking really closely about how you can minimize the impacts of that migration to not overburden your system, as well as to make it easier for your clinicians to find the relevant information you need easily.
Daniel Williams:Another aspect of that is the security of the data that you have. Change Healthcare, that breach occurred last year. Was huge. It got into, I believe, I wanna look at my stats here, a hundred million individuals, you know, were impacted by that data breach. How do we protect ourselves about against the the cybersecurity threats from a medical practice perspective?
Julia Rosen:Yeah, I think the biggest thing to think about is it's not if it's going to happen, it's when. It's a very common saying in cybersecurity. So really thinking about and taking actions around, you know, in the case of ransomware, do we have immutable backups that are stored in an off-site location? And do we know how to restore from those? That piece is often overlooked, right?
Julia Rosen:Have we done things around practicing for a cyber attack, tabletop exercises for if there were an incident of a breach, how do we recover, how do we communicate. So I think that's really the biggest piece. Obviously there's lots that you can do in the vulnerability management area, but the reality is cybercriminals will always be a step ahead of the technology that we have, particularly, you know, when you're in a smaller organization. So I would say, you know, get a formal cybersecurity program in place. There are lots of vendors, even smaller vendors who will help you do that for a reasonable amount of money.
Julia Rosen:So, you know, and then really look at your backup strategy, your incident response strategy to make sure that when it does happen, you're really prepared and it's very, again, surgical around what you do and how you'll respond.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Switching gears now, you had mentioned it to me earlier, but you're on the board of the Colorado Chapter of HIMSS. Talk about that role, that relationship, what y'all are achieving in that field and that side that you're working on.
Julia Rosen:Yeah, I love being on the board of HIMSS. It's such a great way to connect with other health care professionals in the community. So shameless plug, we have a lot of events coming up. We have a spring conference coming up. That's a great opportunity to learn about trends in health care and connect.
Julia Rosen:But what I really, you know, I'm hoping to focus on for this coming year with the board is how do we engage and get more folks interested in the healthcare IT profession? So, I think traditionally HIMSS, a lot of the focus has been around engaging executives, which is great. We're still going to do that. But we've had talks internally within HIMSS of how do we make healthcare IT really an exciting career opportunity for people coming right out of college, early career folks, maybe transitioning from other IT disciplines into healthcare IT. I think that's going to be a really exciting part of the upcoming year.
Julia Rosen:And I love being in healthcare IT. You know, you get to be techie while also feel like you're, you know, contributing to society and to your community. And it's a great career path, I'm hoping we can get more people engaged and involved.
Daniel Williams:All right. Before we sign off, a couple of other personal notes. Work life balance. So what what do you like to do? You're in this Denver area.
Daniel Williams:You got a family. You've got some furry friends as well, I believe. So talk about what life is like when you can just step away from the work and get to enjoy other aspects of life.
Julia Rosen:Yeah. Well, my husband and I love everything Colorado has to offer. So we love skiing. We love hiking. We love to just even get out for long walks on the weekends when the weather is beautiful in Jeffco Park.
Julia Rosen:So that's stuff we love to do. And we do have a newborn, so maybe been doing a little bit less of that lately.
Daniel Williams:Oh, my gosh.
Julia Rosen:So yeah, we have a three month old. So we're we're trying to figure out what all those activities will look like.
Daniel Williams:Yes.
Julia Rosen:With a little kiddo. But we have gotten out gone out for some really nice nice walks so far. So, we're we're sort of the typical Colorado family Yeah. And have two dogs that also love love hiking and being outside. And a cat, not so much with the outside for him, but but he's part of the family as So
Daniel Williams:Well, congrats on the three month old. That was not in any of the bio information I was given. So wow.
Julia Rosen:On my resume typically, but maybe I should.
Daniel Williams:One last question. And so our COO Akash announced this at our staff meeting. You have met Big Bird. Is this
Julia Rosen:I have. Yes. This was a fun this was a fun fact, that Akash made me provide. So I, yeah. So when I was little, my grand I'm from New York City originally.
Julia Rosen:Okay. And the building apartment building my grandmother lived in, Carol Spinney, who for a very, very long time, thirty, forty years, played Big Bird.
Daniel Williams:Okay.
Julia Rosen:He was the original Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, lived in the building.
Daniel Williams:Wow.
Julia Rosen:So, yeah, so ran into him in the elevator a couple times, and he talked to me in his Big Bird voice. So that was a that was a pretty exciting moment in my childhood.
Daniel Williams:That is a great memory. Was this person in the Big Bird outfit? No. No.
Julia Rosen:It was not in the Big Bird outfit, but I think I was old enough that I kind of understood that Big Bird was a Muppet
Daniel Williams:and Right.
Julia Rosen:This was the just the voice. So it wasn't traumatic or anything.
Daniel Williams:What a cool story. Well, great. Well, thank you for sharing that. And, Julia, thank you for joining us.
Julia Rosen:Thank you.
Daniel Williams:I know. This has been so great getting to know you here. Welcome to MGMA.
Julia Rosen:Thank you. Very excited to be here. And, yeah, if any of our members, you know, have questions, would love to meet all of you and and talk talk tech with you.
Daniel Williams:That is incredible. Alright. Well, Julia Rosen, thank you. And everybody, thank you for being MGMA podcast listeners. We will put direct links to Big Bird and the mystery around that and everything else.
Julia Rosen:Look it up on Wikipedia. I'm telling you.
Daniel Williams:Yeah. We'll share that with y'all. So until then, thank you all for being MGMA podcast listeners.
Julia Rosen:Thank you.
