Join Megan Antonelli and Steffany Whiting from iMethods as we explore what's driving real healthcare transformation beyond buzzwords. In this Digital Health Talks episode, we dive into healthcare transformation from pilots to system-wide impact. You'll hear insights on technology investments delivering results and how cybersecurity reshapes transformation timelines.
Key Topics We'll Cover:
Steffany Whiting, Executive Vice President of Marketing, iMethods
Megan Antonelli, Founder and CEO, HealthIMPACT Live
0:01 - Narrator: Welcome to Digital Health Talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access, and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae Sharp, and Shahid Shaw for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
0:30 - Megan Antonelli: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Digital Health Talks, the podcast for healthcare change makers focused on fixing healthcare. I am your host, Megan Antonelli, and today we are exploring real healthcare transformation with Stephanie Whiting, EVP of marketing at iMethods. Hi, Stephanie, how are you?
0:46 - Stephanie Whiting: Great today, Megan, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be on your podcast. This is the first I'm so excited.
0:52 - Megan Antonelli: Yes, it's so funny that you haven't actually been on, you know, and I know we have a big event coming up, the healthcare leaders are going to be coming to Philadelphia for the September 24th and 26th iMethods leadership summit. And I know you're partnered with Christiana Care, and it's gonna be at the Logan Philadelphia Hotel. So I am so excited for the event. I can't believe how great the agenda is, having attended last year's summit in New Orleans, you know, it's just been such a great program to be involved in. I know you guys at the team does so much work to make sure that, you know, it is really a gathering of healthcare systems. So it's so aligned with what we do here at Health Impact. So it's always very exciting for us to partner with you on it.
1:39 - Megan Antonelli: So, before we get into that and the theme and all of that, just tell everybody a little bit about you and what you do at iMethods and kind of your transformation journey.
1:51 - Stephanie Whiting: Well, it's been interesting. So I didn't start my career in healthcare at all, like many of us, right? We did something else first. And so I've been in healthcare for about 25ish years. I'm gonna not put a number bigger than that on it.
2:03 - Megan Antonelli: And how possibly would did you not start in healthcare? I was only, yeah, exactly.
2:08 - Stephanie Whiting: It's been a long ride, but it's been interesting. So I've been able to have the great, you know, good fortune of working in lots of different aspects of the business. I was with an MSO in the early days that did back office operations for academic medical centers, I've worked for large physician practices. I've worked for hospitals, I've worked for technology companies and radiology. And so, at iMethods as EVP of marketing, I am able to apply that sort of holistic view of healthcare to our consulting and solutions business and help the company grow in that way. There is no shortage of technology needs right now, things are moving at a, you know, breakneck pace and we're trying to help our clients keep up, but it's really been a fun ride.
2:50 - Stephanie Whiting: I have to say I have, you know, dabbled in the land of PACS and risk system design, and I've had product management experience and worked in population health and value-based care. So really just seeing everything sort of come together, I say it all the time, but healthcare is not boring, and it's not boring now more than ever. So, very excited to be part of the business because I think that we have just so much opportunity, and I choose to look at it that way, not so many challenges that we have lots, lots to do.
3:20 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, it is, there's no shortage of things to do for sure. And I think, you know, as you said, I mean, over the last 25 years, I feel like there's, you know, healthcare is kind of caught between two realities, right? We're either stuck and not changing fast enough, or changing so fast that it's impossible to keep pace. So, you know, when you have these convenings of folks, you know, I think with your theme this year around Declaration of Transformation, you know, there is this understanding that it's time for change, that there's change happening. There's not only the tools to make it happen, but the, you know, the will in the way, right? So tell us a little bit about that and how you guys came to that, you know, and what you think is kind of driving that urgency around transformation.
4:09 - Stephanie Whiting: Sure. Well, I'll talk a little bit about how we got to the name, because that's always fun. So every summit, you came last year, it was jazzing up healthcare. We always try to bring in a little element of the local vibe of the host city. And so Christiana Care hosting with us in Philadelphia, we felt like we needed to embrace the patriotic vibe of the Philly area. And the Declaration of Transformation just felt right. Christiana Care is doing some pretty big transformational work, and it's an opportunity for all of our innovative partners to come together and discuss what they're working on.
4:40 - Stephanie Whiting: So, yes, there's the urgency and the level of stuckness that folks find themselves sort of in between. On the one hand, I mean, we're gonna talk about AI this whole podcast. I mean, that's just the, it's infiltrating every aspect of everything we all do, including us in marketing, right? We're all working with so much AI. But there, what I'm finding and where we sit in the business is that health systems and certainly IT departments are moving, they're not slowing down, but they're moving with greater purpose and strategy sort of lens.
5:13 - Stephanie Whiting: So rather than chasing every bright shiny object, they're really focusing on what value does it bring? What is the total cost of ownership of something? What's the real total value that it's going to bring to my system, to my providers, to my stakeholders, to the bottom line. So there's a lot of outside factors. There's the technology, you know, stuff moving so quickly. There are always financial constraints. They were bad before COVID, they're worse after COVID. Now we have new regulatory issues that may be driving some operational changes, probably a lot of M&A activity we're gonna see in the coming years as a result.
5:49 - Stephanie Whiting: So really looking with the near term and the long term view all the time is what I'm seeing healthcare IT leaders, all healthcare leaders more broadly, really, focusing on so that they're not so stuck, they have an eye on the future with the need for innovation, they're not slowing down the innovation, they're just doing it in a more strategic way, so that they're impacting their organization and the patients they serve in ways that are most meaningful to them.
6:15 - Stephanie Whiting: Workforce issues are a big one, you know, do we have enough nurses? No. Do we have burned out nurses that are working? Yes. Doctors are overburdened. Like, so all these different elements of the business need to be accounted for, and technology can solve for a lot of it, but not all of it.
6:31 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, for sure. And you, I mean, you mentioned kind of that diverse health system leadership, and it's not just the IT leaders, but it's that sort of title or that responsibility has changed so much. And I think what struck me last year was that you had, it wasn't just CIOs, you know, there were the CNIOs, many CISOs, you know. And that conversation between those health system leaders was so important. And I think that, you know, when you look at kind of that value when you try to create this event and, you know, kind of bring those together, the common pain points for those folks sitting in that, you know, in those roles within the health system, you know, what are some of the most common that are coming through?
7:15 - Stephanie Whiting: All the things I just said, really. I mean, they sit in different seats in the organization, they have, you know, different responsibilities, but they are all facing financial pressure. They are all facing workforce challenges. They are all facing how to implement technologies they're gonna help them do their jobs better, and then balancing it like we were talking about at the top, but really capturing those unique perspectives, I found that last year, at the conference was the first time we had a Mixed C-suite panel versus just CIOs, and it was such an interesting dynamic between them because they really do work together and most healthy health systems do that.
7:54 - Stephanie Whiting: They all collaborate very closely and having those different vantage points and different perspectives represented on a single conversation really drives that home. In fact, at this summit, Christiana Care's CISO and CIO are gonna be in a fireside chat discussion where they're just gonna talk about how they work together and how their relationship has to be so sort of symbiotic in some respects to make sure that what the CISO needs, the CIO knows that they are able to, you know, collaborate because they're intertwined in a way that we've never seen before. And so I'm looking forward to that presentation for sure.
8:31 - Megan Antonelli: It's going to be 100%. I mean, and, you know, I think, I mean you mentioned sort of that shift from the shiny object syndrome to now really making more purposeful and meaningful, you know, investments. And, you know, I mean, certainly at the event, there's going to be a lot of discussion about it, but throughout the year, you know, at iMethods, you're seeing that what are some of the things that people are shifting their attention to, or maybe even more interesting, things that people are saying, you know, that was, that was a bit of an expensive distraction, right?
9:05 - Stephanie Whiting: Yeah, well, I hear a lot about more than ever because of financial constraints, you know, saving money is making money. So if you are doing some pretty purposeful rationalization, that's a major initiative that we're hearing a lot about. It's just that there's a lot of technology sitting on shelves that are costing health systems money that are not bringing value or not being used. They were a previous era's bright shiny object. And the new bright shiny objects are largely AI related. There are a plethora of thousands and thousands of AI applications, and everything does something magnificent.
9:40 - Stephanie Whiting: But with those cool innovations they might bring, they also carry a lot of risk with them. They bring their own security problems, they bring all these other things. So, what I've heard a lot from our partners is that really identifying a problem, rather than solving a problem and then or finding a product and then go finding the problem it solves, like, know what your problems are, really being intentional about focusing on solving the issue at hand and at scale if possible, so you're getting the most value from it, but have a well understood problem before you move into buying new things and, and then unloading the stuff you're not using, you know, take the time.
10:16 - Stephanie Whiting: That is a huge savings and we've had health system partners who, you know, dropped their tech stack from 60 something plus active applications down to the teens over the course of a year or two, just because it was either wasteful or duplicative.
10:30 - Megan Antonelli: And, and I mean that's honestly a lesson for everyone, right? We could all be a little bit more intelligent about how we manage our technology stack.
10:38 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it just, it makes me think about all the subscriptions that are likely lying in my various uses, right? It's become hard to manage, you know, I mean, you know, sort of like, I was always an inbox person. I can't even get to that anymore, and let alone all of the other, you know, various things that are, you know, kind of difficult to do. And when you're running an organization of the scale and size of a healthcare system with so many different departments and so many different divisions, you know. How much of an undertaking it is, but of course, how much savings there is when you do shift that focus.
11:14 - Stephanie Whiting: Well, the governance is the key, for sure, but then, you know, they can't slow down. They can't stop upgrading their implementations of their EHR. They can't stop optimizing it. We have a lot of folks that are going to be moving to a new PACS, a new ERP system because they've hit their 15 to 20 year life cycle and it's time to get something more modern. So these things are still moving forward, they're just moving forward with, you know, a deep sense of understanding of the problems they're solving and nobody's just taking the easiest path. They're taking a very thoughtful and, you know, and sometimes slightly longer time to make these decisions so that they don't have to do it again anytime soon.
11:53 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, no, absolutely. And of course, and you mentioned the CIO of Christiana Care participating, you have a number of other CISOs that are there, you know, security continues to be. You know, such a high priority. Well, in the past, maybe it was a little bit, you know, it was less so sort of an afterthought, but now, particularly, I think with, with these added AI initiatives and, you know, cloud and all of that, that there's a big focus on that. Where are you seeing some of that, you know, with your customers and the folks coming in?
12:27 - Stephanie Whiting: Yeah, well, it's interesting the, this is the first time we've had a CISO be our key point of contact at one of our summit hosts, and she's amazing. I don't know if you know Ana Santiago. She's amazing, and has been such a great partner through it. And really she's helped us frame our summit differently and we, as you mentioned, we have a lot of cybersecurity or security involvement in the agenda.
12:50 - Stephanie Whiting: So, what I'm finding is so interesting is conversations with the CISOs that we're bringing to the meeting. So what I hear consistently is that if you're reacting to something, it's too late. You've already lost, you know, you have to be outside of the box ahead of the problem, being proactive. I mean, AI has a role in that in terms of staying ahead of the bad actors who, oh, by the way, also have AI so there's that dynamic. But I'm also hearing a lot about the risks of physical security issues.
13:20 - Stephanie Whiting: So, we're all hung up on the technology, but that's not even really necessarily your worst threat area. That's where potentially people are trying to hack in. But the physical security of health systems, badges, monitoring open doors, things that are that open risk and once someone's inside your firewall, they can do a lot of damage. So the, you know, the physical aspect of the security challenges, and then, you know, at the end of the day, down is down. If the health system is offline for whatever reason, it's a cybersecurity, a ransomware, you know, something happens from within the health system or there's a natural disaster.
13:57 - Stephanie Whiting: There needs to be a plan for responding but trying to mitigate any, you know, problems where you can, but you can't solve for everything. I live in North Carolina, as you know, and, not far east of where Helene came through last year about this time and, you know, it was catastrophic to the health systems there and so you can plan for what you can plan for. You can have off-site, you know, backup data storage and all these different things, but at the end of the day, the CIOs carry a much heavier burden than they did in the past because their scope of their responsibilities has expanded.
14:32 - Megan Antonelli: Absolutely. I mean, that threat is, you know, it's just, it's everywhere, both from the disaster side to sort of that keep things up and running, but mentioned Ana [Santiago], she's a favorite of mine. One is a female CIO, you know, there are only, there are not that many. But she's also an incredible Philadelphia ambassador, right? Huge sports fan.
14:56 - Stephanie Whiting: I love it. Yeah, Eagles what a perfect time as the NFL is just approaching as well. So how fun to be in Philly with her at this time.
15:06 - Megan Antonelli: So, but also the Women's Leadership Summit that you guys have as part of that. I thought, I mean, I still remember sitting in that room with everyone and it was just. You know, sometimes you go to those and, you know, it's a little bit like forced or not the, you know, we're all talking about women, but these problems sort of resolve, you know, or reside in every department, it doesn't matter. But there was just, it was really great. And I think part of that was because one, the senior level of folks that you have there, but also the diversity of their responsibilities that made it just that, you know, it wasn't just a bunch, you know, all CIOs, female CIOs talking, there was a number of different CNIOs and CISOs there. So I know that has expanded and that you're doing more this year. Tell us about that and what you have plans.
16:00 - Stephanie Whiting: So this whole evolution of our women's thought leadership group sort of grew out of a panel discussion we had two years ago in Oklahoma City, and it was standing room only, The engagement from the men in the audience was so heartwarming and adorable. Like I just couldn't, you know, they just want to help. They just don't know what to do. So this last year we expanded it in New Orleans where you were, and it was a decent space, right? We had room for about 70 people. We had to turn people away. It was standing room only, which was great and terrible. I hated to cut people out. There's just literally like the fire marshal was gonna have an issue with us cramming any more people in the room.
16:36 - Stephanie Whiting: But to your point, it has evolved into this very meaningful, regular gathering of women leaders who have taken different paths. All of us have taken a different journey to get where we are in this business. And, you know, at the end of the day, only 3% of leadership in healthcare is women. You know, it's very small, 3 to 5%, I guess, being generous, but it's very low. And you know, how do we help each other? How do we engage with help from, you know, men in the organization who want to and honestly just don't know what to do, to be good partners to us and so it has evolved into this incredible network of like-minded people who are looking to not only learn from each other, but also mentor each other and be that person to say this is how I did it, this is my network, I'm happy to introduce you to people.
17:29 - Stephanie Whiting: So all those kinds of things. It's really evolved. So this year, because of our learning last year with the rooms being too small, we are dedicating an entire afternoon. So from 12 to 5 p.m. on the first day of the summit is exclusively this Women in IT forum, where we're bringing panelists who have been with our group from the beginning. We have new folks in the room, so we're expecting about 75 to 80 people in this session alone, just to spend the afternoon together talking about, you know, accessing networks, how to navigate a hospital system and leadership, how to talk to people, how to make an impact and how you can see yourself as uniquely impactful, we have a uniquely impactful role in the organization.
18:12 - Stephanie Whiting: We have a couple of male speakers, which I love. I think it's fantastic. So, we really have expanded it and it's just been such a welcome evolution to be a part of and, I give great credit to one of our directors of business development, Mary Beth Ashley, who's just kind of her baby. It's just sort of grown, but now it's a national program, and we meet at the summit and then we meet off cycle in the spring and bring all these folks together to share best practices.
18:39 - Stephanie Whiting: We're launching a mentor program this year, so we can elevate those in the group. They have a pay it forward model, so once they graduate from the program, we help enable them through best practices and literature and guidance to then launch their own version of it within their organization for the younger women leaders who aspire to grow in their role. So it's really just become quite a movement in a lot of ways. I'm excited about it.
19:07 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, it's great. I mean, it, and it's just so good to see because I think, I mean, obviously, we here focus a lot on female leadership and female founders, you know, and women in IT in general. And you know, I mean, HIMSS has been holding their women in the healthcare IT group for a long time and it's nice to just see it evolve. It's nice to see it expand, right? I mean, it's the inclusion and elevation of nursing in the sort of decision makers of healthcare and health IT, you know, has really changed that discussion to make it meaningful. But I do, you mentioned that there were men in the room and there were male speakers and the sort of that feeling of sort of having the allies there and the importance of that mentorship was also, you know, really meaningful, I thought at the event.
19:58 - Stephanie Whiting: And I'm glad you were able to attend it so you could see it firsthand because it's really kind of a labor of love for all of us. And it's fun to be able to contribute to people's career success and their professional growth.
20:09 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, well, you know, we always end on good things, and I could talk to you all day about we did talk a lot, we want to make the right time for the show, we always end with the good things. So we end on a positive note, the Women's Leadership Forum at the conference is definitely a good one. But give me one more thing in terms of when you think about the theme, right around the Declaration of Transformation and transforming healthcare. What are some of the, you know, what's one development in healthcare that has you super excited?
20:44 - Stephanie Whiting: That's a tough one. I really struggle with this one. I think the thing that I love most about the summit, and I'll just stop and I'll reboot after that. But what I love most about the summit is the networking, because these are all people who don't know each other, who come together from all over the country, who connect, they have the same problems, so they can benefit from each other. Someone's further along, you know, the trajectory of an issue than another, and they can talk to each other offline and without iMethods. So that's one of the more meaningful takeaways aside from the content, which is amazing.
21:15 - Stephanie Whiting: I think the networking is unparalleled and truly, and I go to a lot of conferences and I'm gonna say that, you know, just from the takeaways and the friendships that are made, it's great. From a technology standpoint, I mentioned early on that I had a background in Pop health and value-based care, and I'm a big believer in keeping people from getting sick in the first place, so they don't become expensive patients down the line. And one of the things, and this is what just post UGM that I'm excited about is the evolution of the Cosmos product and Epic platform.
21:44 - Stephanie Whiting: Just the ability to have that much data. So I think it's like 16 billion encounters or some enormous data set that they can anonymize across all of their clients and create clinical decision support ideas, and social determinant information and predictive analytics and really change the way healthcare is delivered and reaches people is, you know, that warms my heart. That is, that's not been available in a single platform before because everything's been so disparate and to have, you know, Epic, who, which owns a lot of the market, obviously they're a big, the big player in the space, but to have that kind of clinical and claims data that can really turn the tide on, everything from research to, you know, operation efficiency, I mean, that kind of stuff. It's just, it's very cool and I'm very excited to see where that goes.
22:34 - Megan Antonelli: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's really, it is kind of the realization or the culmination of what we kind of always said would be possible, right? And once you get all of that information together and you can make those decisions with the technology that's even always been there, but of course now the technology is so much more powerful, the tools are there. So, great thing. And I think, you know, as we close up just that, reiterating the importance of coming together and sharing and kind of, you know, building on transformation.
23:08 - Megan Antonelli: You know, so thank you so much for joining us. Tell folks how to get in touch, how to register for the Declaration of Transformation, September 24th and 26th in Philly.
23:21 - Stephanie Whiting: Sure. So, thank you for having me. So yes, the Declaration of Transformation is in Philadelphia. It actually starts on the 24th at noon, finishes about the same time on Friday, so it's chock full of activities, the site you can search declaration of Transformation online and it should pull up the event site and registration is, you know, available there. We do have discount codes for provider organizations. So if you want to provide somebody with my contact information as part of the follow up to this, they can reach out to me and I'd be happy to give them a discount code to waive their registration fee because we would love to just the more the merrier is how we look at this.
23:59 - Megan Antonelli: Yes, absolutely. And as that, feel free to reach out to me. I'm always on LinkedIn or through our website here. So, we can connect you with Stephanie and make sure you get registered, especially the hospital side of that. So awesome. Well thanks again, Stephanie, such a pleasure. You know, as I said, I could talk to you all day, and I think there's just such great work that you guys do at iMethods and the community that you're building there with your customers, you know, across the country is great. So thank you.
24:33 - Stephanie Whiting: Thanks again for having me, Megan. Great to see you.
24:35 - Megan Antonelli: Absolutely. And that's all we have today, folks. Thanks so much for joining us on Digital Health Talks. I'm Megan Antonelli, reminding you that fixing healthcare requires both bold vision and disciplined execution and gatherings like this to create peer networks where both can thrive. Until next time, keep transforming healthcare.
24:56 - Narrator: Thank you for joining us on Digital Health Talks, where we explore the intersection of healthcare and technology with leaders who are transforming patient care. This episode was brought to you by our valued program partners. Automation Anywhere, revolutionizing healthcare work flows through intelligent automation. Nara, advancing contactless vital signs monitoring. Elite groups delivering strategic healthcare IT solutions. Cello, securing healthcare identity management and access governance. Your engagement helps drive the future of healthcare innovation. Subscribe to digital Health Talks on your preferred podcast platform. Share these insights with your network and follow us on LinkedIn for exclusive content and updates. Ready to connect with healthcare technology leaders in person? Join us at the next health impact event. Visit Healthimpactforum.com for date and registration. Until next time, this is digital Health Talks, where change makers come together to fix healthcare.