Optimizing Performance in the ‘Last Mile of Healthcare Delivery’ – with Par Bolina MD, Chief Innovation Officer at IKS

In this episode of Creating a New Healthcare, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth interviews Dr. Par Bolina, Chief Innovation Officer at IKS.  Par is a physician & expert in Healthcare Informatics, Electronic Medical Records & Exam Room Ambulatory Workflow.  This episode focuses on one of the most critical and under-examined parts of healthcare delivery - the so-called “last mile” - the patient/provider encounter - where the rubber meets the road, and where healthcare value is directly created.  To be quite honest - this podcast episode is lengthy; but you won’t want to miss what’s revealed.   Dr. Bolina points out that our lack of investigation into and superficial understanding of the provider/patient encounter is what is leading to avoidable care gaps, suboptimal outcomes, inefficiencies, high costs, provider burnout, and less than optimal patient experience. Similar to a Jacque Cousteau, Bolina takes us on a deep dive into this largely unexplored domain, and opens our eyes to the ‘ecosystem of the encounter’ - what might be considered ‘the final frontier’ of healthcare delivery.  What Bolina reveals to us is that the provider/patient encounter is filled with real-time data that we could measure and use, to dramatically improve upon healthcare outcomes.  Dr. Bolina discusses ‘Scribbles’ - a ‘scribe on steroids’ redesign that he’s developed at IKS.  Scribbles is an asynchronous, virtual, off-site physician-scribe/coach who listens to the audio recorded encounters during off-hours, and provides the provider with daily, real-time feedback and recommendations to improve clinical care, documentation & coding.