A Leader in Digital Health
As NYG’s Digital Health Strategy enters its final year, NYG Vice President Strategy, Digital Health and Chief Digital Officer Duska Kennedy and NYG Chief Medical Information Officer and Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee Dr. Phil Shin reflect on what’s been accomplished and what lies ahead.
How has the Digital Health Strategy changed things for patients and providers?
Duska Kennedy (DK): We broadened virtual care so more patients can consult with their physicians from wherever they are and we introduced solutions like remote patient monitoring, so a patient can log into an app from home to have their symptoms checked by the care team, saving them a trip to a clinic. We also connected our main health information system directly to long-term care, so that we can better support LTC residents at home and when they are in the hospital.
Dr. Phil Shin (PS): We were the first hospital in Canada to move our electronic health record (EHR) to the cloud, which has made it more reliable and more secure against cyberattacks. For a patient to have all their health care information located in one system that can be accessed by all providers, regardless of whether the patient is visiting a clinic or is hospitalized, is important from a patient safety standpoint.
What role is artificial intelligence (AI) playing in the Digital Health Strategy?
PS: One example is documentation, which makes up a huge part of physicians’ workload, leads to frustration and burnout and takes them away from patient care. We’ve started a project that has AI generate a summary of the patient’s stay in the hospital from their chart. We are also seeing transformational work in radiology, where radiologists have AI assistance in detecting potentially cancerous lesions. While these advancements are exciting, we are equally focused on implementing them responsibly. Every AI initiative is guided by rigorous privacy and security standards to protect patient information.
What are you most proud of related to digital health at NYG?
DK: We want to be out in front when it comes to offering innovations and new tools to our patients and teams. So when we see new things coming out, we put up our hands. We are being proactive, focusing on how to create a better care experience for our patients and how to ensure providers have the information and tools they need, when they need them.
PS: We take pride in having built strong relationships with our clinical teams. When we achieve something, it really is an accomplishment for the entire organization, not just the Digital Health team.
Digital health is critical to NYG’s soon-to-be introduced 10-year Vision and Strategic Plan. What advances are on the horizon?
DK: We really need to lean in on making patient care as personalized, convenient and accessible as possible, including providing more services around the clock, virtually and in our patients’ homes. Another big push is how we deliver more care, more equitably including being responsive to different cultural needs. Digital health can really help us improve care in all of these ways.
PS: There’s been a lot of internal excellence in our digital work and now some of our focus going forward will be how to scale our projects to spread them across hospitals in Ontario and beyond.
This story is featured in the 2024 – 2025 Year in Review.