Mount Sinai Health System

Dr. Benjamin Kummer is the Director of Clinical Informatics in Neurology and a practicing vascular neurologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai since 2018. He has experience building, implementing, and enhancing healthcare IT systems in neurological and non-neurological domains across challenging academic environments. He is triple board-certified in neurology, vascular neurology, and clinical informatics.

What are your roles and responsibilities as director of clinical informatics for neurology and vascular neurology at Mount Sinai Health System?

My main focus is on clinical informatics and the neurology department. I treat stroke patients and devote the remainder of my time to conducting research and mentoring medical students and residents. The team and I review all the data generated by our telehealth systems and discuss ways to improve our informatics tools and EHR system on a regular basis. These discussions are primarily focused on improving EHR processes and revenue cycle management. At our institution, I am also involved in providing both synchronous and asynchronous health care.

Have you observed any changes in the telehealth sector since the pandemic?

Virtual care has been gaining traction in the healthcare sector as a result of the pandemic. The concept of synchronous video telehealth was still at an early stage when I first began working at Sinai in 2018. There were many people who were apprehensive about such technological advancements in the field of medicine. Prior to the pandemic, only a few people were interested in learning more about it. Even before the pandemic, our institute began experimenting with telehealth by conducting pilot video visits primarily with commercially insured individuals.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Sinai Hospital launched a video visit platform that enabled it to continue its seamless workflow and patient registration and consultations. Our health care centre provides not only synchronous care, but also asynchronous care for patients interested in managing their conditions remotely. As part of our team’s discussions, we have explored asynchronous telehealth, remote patient monitoring, videosharing platforms, and electronic consultations. Following these discussions, I have been tasked with developing strategies for remote patient monitoring at our hospital.

What will be the impact of new technologies on the future of medicine?

It is observed that many private sector players are implementing innovations and creating new territory within the Medtech field than the public health care system. In spite of the fact that the public sector is slowly catching up in the research area, those developments have not yet been fully integrated into clinical practice.

There is a significant communication gap between health information exchange systems and medical technology systems when it comes to interoperability. As patients receive treatment from multiple systems, it is necessary for EHR vendors to exchange information in a systematic fashion in order to ensure efficiency and accuracy in consultation and diagnosis.

The US recently passed a Telehealth Extension and Evaluation Act, which extends Medicare reimbursement for several telehealth services for two years after the COVID-19 public health emergency has ended. Many changes are taking place, such as the transition from inpatient care to home care for patients with lower acuity. Main purpose of this is to keep less severe patients out of the hospital so that those who require intensive care may be admitted. Innovations in medical technology can assist in remote measurements of vital signs and provide virtual care in such circumstances. A primary goal of the project is to enhance access to health care for everyone, even without requiring them to leave their homes.

“Much work is necessary to educate people on various care options and payment sources.”

Majority of private sector health providers promote innovations in this area, in which patients receive medical attention directly from the provider. It is anticipated that Amazon will enter the primary care market in the near future.

Traditional methods of providing primary health care have given way to more technologically advanced practices. The health care industry has become an area of interest for many financial equity firms. There will certainly be competition between private companies in acquiring the rural patient population.

The influx of companies such as Amazon into the healthcare field concerns healthcare specialists greatly regarding its impact on doctors. By overusing technology, such large tech companies remove the human touch necessary in healthcare.

A second area of concern is the reliance on cheaper technologies as a result of a lack of healthcare provision. One of the recent projects our team is working on involves accelerating the diagnosis of a certain type of stroke. This is basically taking things to a level that is usually only seen in academic institutions. Our research team is developing an algorithm to accelerate diagnosis more effectively than advanced image modalities. By conducting this research, we aim to make such advanced services more accessible to individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds. This project was made possible by the contributions of our Imaging Institutes’ data scientists, researchers, and analysts who provided us with image data to help us build this model.

Remote monitoring has become more prevalent, with passive detection via wristwatches and other electronic devices. Sinai is also engaged in a project which utilizes computer vision for the analysis of videos of neurological examinations in order to detect movement disorders.

What advice would you give your peers and colleagues regarding the use of virtual technology to optimize healthcare processes?

Technology has been criticized for encouraging laziness and for not delivering answers in the traditional way. There is a perception among many traditional specialists that these advancements and innovations will result in doctors being replaced by machines. These misconceptions contribute to the high resistance to change.

Virtual care novelties are most beneficial to clinical practitioners because they are constantly in contact with their patients. These practitioners can assist in understanding how technology can be utilized in order to accelerate real-time patient consultations.

Since the pandemic, younger medical field experts have taken an interest in telehealth more than their predecessors. It would be worthwhile for those who are interested in this area to quantify the impact and analyze the data in order to gain insight into how health informatics has contributed to an improvement in both quality and efficiency. This will assist in educating the medical community regarding the benefits of clinical informatics and virtual care.

It is imperative that the current generation of medical practitioners and students focus on reducing the digital divide. When it comes to the use of medical technology, there is always an element of unfairness. The needy and the economically disadvantaged sections of society are not able to access MedTech services easily. There is a need to find ways of ensuring that high-quality care and the benefits associated with it are available to economically disadvantaged members of society.