Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy: 3 Questions with Adam Myers, Chief of Population Health for Cleveland Clinic

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Adam Myers, MD, FACHE, CHCQM, CPHRM, serves as Chief of Population Health for Cleveland Clinic. 

On May 2nd, Dr. Myers will serve on the panel "The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Population Health, Healthcare Access and Quality" at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 2-4, 2019 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Dr. Myers' session, click here.

Question: What strategic initiative will demand most of your time and energy in 2019?

Adam Myers: The Cleveland Clinic is midway through mapping a groundbreaking strategic approach for what we want to become over the next five years. Together with Herb Wiedemann, MD, our Chief of Staff, I have the opportunity to lead a redesign of our overall care model. It is as exciting as it is daunting. Part of that redesign is supported by a new operating unit called Cleveland Clinic Community Care. This unit provides the ambulatory, inpatient, some of the post-acute, and virtual primary care for all of our patients. Part of my role includes developing this team, the tools, and the methods for care. The other part of the care model comes in ensuring that we work seamlessly with specialty colleagues. It is wonderfully rewarding work.

Q: What do innovators/entrepreneurs from outside healthcare need to better understand about hospital and health system leaders?

AM: Healthcare is very complex. The needs of our customers can change in an instant and may not always match their expressed desires. We are obligated to provide lifesaving service regardless of compensation. More than 11000 pages of regulation for healthcare are added each year. Health system leaders juggle these and many other variables every day.

All too often innovators and entrepreneurs come to us with solutions looking for a problem or use case to apply them to. What we want/need are partners willing to understand and create solutions to the challenges we face rather than sell their existing ones.

A good example of this is the EMR. Most were not designed to support clinical workflow, clinical decision making, or clearly capture the patient’s story. All too often, clinicians are expected to change their work flow in order to work with the EMR. Additionally, the clinical story and therapeutic thought process gets lost in a series of discreet data points. This is backward.

Q: Can you share some praise with us about people you work with? What does greatness look like to you when it comes to your team?

AM: I started at the clinic nine months ago. Each and every day, I meet amazing caregivers determined to deliver better outcomes, better experiences, to more people, all more efficiently. It is humbling to work with and lead some of the brightest, passionate, and capable people I have ever met. The flow of new ideas that comes from our team is both wonderful and challenging. Greatness is exhibited when we sit down and prioritize the opportunities/ideas we have to those that best match our efforts to the areas with greatest demand and greatest opportunity for improvement.

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