Mohan Giridharadas serves as Founder & Chief Executive Officer at LeanTaaS.
Mohan will serve at the summit "The Rise of True Efficiency: An Executive Summit on the Transformation of Hospital Operations" at Becker's Hospital Review 12th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place in Chicago from April 25-28, 2022.
To learn more about the conference and Mohan's session, click here.
Q: What are your top priorities for 2022?
Mohan Giridharadas: My top priority is always helping healthcare organizations do more with less, especially as patient demand increases, staffing challenges intensify, and reimbursement pressures heighten. The best way to do more with less is through AI-based solutions. Matching a fixed supply of assets with variable demand is a complex challenge that requires advanced pattern matching algorithms and real-time insights to prescribe recommendations. Using these AI solutions results in better utilization of expensive assets, increased patient access, and reduced administrative burden so that clinicians can work at the top of their license.
Q: How do you plan to pivot strategies this year to better serve patients?
MG: One of the biggest challenges this year will be accommodating an increased volume of patients as they return to care. Hospitals will have to work through backlogs of cases that were postponed during pandemic surges or encourage more patients to return who may still be hesitant or have gotten out of the mindset of getting routine procedures or checkups. Rather than looking for physical solutions to increase patient access, like building more facilities or crowding more patients into waiting rooms, hospitals should look to technology to solve this challenge. AI-based solutions can optimize scheduling so that more patients can be seen throughout the day with less wait times or maximize surgical schedules so that more procedures can take place using existing assets and staff.
Q: What technologies and innovations are you most excited about in healthcare right now?
MG: I’m excited about the opportunities for patient access and operational efficiency that AI/ML can unlock. The volumes of data that a hospital produces and the complexity of interpreting that data are too vast for someone to do it in their head. It’s time to fully embrace AI/ML, harnessing its massive computing and algorithmic power to absorb extensive amounts of operational data, like time stamps of when imaging machines are idle or when treatments start and stop. AI/ML solutions can intake this data and then make intelligent operational recommendations like how a room should be booked, equipment should be scheduled, or a staff member should be allocated to improve patient flow, patient experience, and staff satisfaction.
Q: What advice do you have for emerging healthcare leaders today?
MG: Healthcare is a highly regulated and traditionally risk-averse industry, but more than ever leaders need to embrace risk. The risk of stagnation is greater than the risk of some experiments failing. Healthcare needs to look to other industries, like the financial sector, and view digital innovation through the lens of the scientific method. Craft experiments, test assumptions and then learn and build lessons into future decisions. Systems that are unwilling to think like this will quickly fall further and further behind.