TDP 200: Sutter Health’s CMIO Dr. Veena Jones: Scaling Ambient AI for Real-World ROI, Involving Patients to Design AI Inbox Responses that Actually Work, and Moving Beyond Pajama Time to True Fulfillment

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On this episode of The Digital Patient, Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO of SeamlessMD, and colleague, Alan Sardana, chat with Dr. Veena Jones, CMIO at Sutter Health, about "Scaling Ambient AI for Real-World ROI, Involving Patients to Design AI Inbox Responses that Actually Work, Moving Beyond Pajama Time to True Fulfillment, and more..." Click the play button to listen or read the show notes below.
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Audio:

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Guest(s):

• Dr. Veena Jones, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Sutter Health
• Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO at SeamlessMD

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‍Episode 200 - Show Notes:

[00:00:07] Episode preview

[00:05:45] Dr. Jones shares how a lifelong love of teaching and children led her from wanting to be a preschool teacher to becoming a pediatrician.

[00:07:00] She recalls being the first fellow in both Pediatric Hospital Medicine and Clinical Informatics at Stanford, pioneering two new programs simultaneously.

[00:08:45] Dr. Jones explains that while informatics still centers on people and process over technology, its applications have evolved from EHR implementation to AI-driven workflows.

[00:11:47] Early work on alarm fatigue and parallels it to current efforts in reducing cognitive burden through AI, emphasizing the importance of earning clinician trust.

[00:14:59] Leading Sutter Health’s rollout of ambient AI scribe technology and the wellbeing benefits clinicians experienced beyond time savings.

[00:17:24] How Sutter values clinician experience as a key ROI, balancing financial and wellbeing goals across its AI portfolio.

[00:22:52] How Sutter implemented Epic’s generative AI tool for patient message drafts, engaging over 4,000 clinicians and achieving 20% inbox time reduction.

[00:25:49] Highlights collaboration with Sutter’s Patient and Family Advisory Council to refine AI message tone and clarity, ensuring messages sound human and empathetic.

[00:29:00] How Sutter strategically selects informaticists and early adopters as champions for AI tools, fostering broader clinician engagement.

[00:32:05] Strategies to re-engage clinicians who initially declined AI tools, as rapid enhancements continue to improve usability.

[00:32:49] Predicting a continued shift toward “keyboardless medicine,” envisioning a near future where many current pain points disappear entirely.

[00:34:46] Examines the complexity of “pajama time” as a burnout metric, emphasizing that clinician wellbeing is more than after-hours efficiency.

[00:37:27] Talks about Sutter’s partnership with Abridge and UpToDate to bring real-time, evidence-based decision support to the point of care.

[00:39:45] Reflects on balancing AI-driven decision support with clinician autonomy, stressing personalization to prevent new forms of alert fatigue.

[00:41:28] Emphasizing her informatics philosophy: make tools widely available so clinicians can choose what best supports their work.

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Fast 5 Lightning Round:

1. What is your favorite book or book you’ve gifted the most?
   Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth.
2. Would you rather have Super strength, super speed, or the ability to read people’s minds?
   Mind reading
3. What is something in healthcare you believe that others might find insane?
   The “July phenomenon,” when new trainees start in July.
4. What is the last movie or TV show you saw?
   “The Studio” on Apple TV

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