In this episode

Franciscan Health is known for both their mission-driven care as a faith-based health system and their extensive reach across Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Supporting the more than 18,000 staff and clinicians who deliver a high standard of care at Franciscan is also a core part of the organization’s mission. In this episode, Chief Innovation and Digital Technology Officer Jon Copley, MHA covers the strategies that have helped Franciscan Health combat staffing challenges and improve workforce happiness and productivity:

• • Want to improve care? Choose technology that reduces  administrative burden on staff and clinicians.
  • IT and clinician partnership can transform inefficient workflows.
  • As Franciscan makes use of new technology to support the workforce, they’re staying true to their values.

“Every day, we have more and more clinicians opting out of the healthcare system….we have to focus on technology finally supporting them in how they deliver care.”

– Jon Copley

Key takeaways

To provide a high standard of care across many different care settings and locations, Franciscan Health emphasizes innovative technology that supports their more than 18,000 staff and clinicians. Copley discussed the principles that are helping them do so, from infrastructure to the newest technologies available.  Here’s what he covered:

Want to improve care? Choose technology that reduces administrative burden on staff and clinicians.

“I learned early on, when I was the CEO of a hospital and we deployed Cerner — I really thought that was going to better the lives of our physicians and nursing staff, and it didn’t,” said Copley. “The disruption was incredible, and I didn’t anticipate that. It put more and more administrative responsibility on the clinician.”

In his work at Franciscan Health, Copley applies this lesson by being mindful of implementing technology that will reduce, not add to, the clinician burden. He emphasized that this focus on clinician happiness and efficiency is an important way that Franciscan Health supports its mission of patient-centric care.

Copley said one of his first priorities at Franciscan Health was to transition the organization’s Epic instance to the Microsoft Azure cloud. This move laid the groundwork for future innovation by improving scalability, reliability, and access to modern digital tools. But most importantly, it was designed to enable technology that would support staff and clinicians. “We recognize that patient-centric care is a key attribute for Franciscan, but we also recognize that the finite resource in healthcare today is the clinician,” he said. “The advice I’d give the CIOs and CTOs out there is you have to modernize your infrastructure. That investment sets you up for all of these digital experiences that are out there available and proven.”

He covered technology that Franciscan is using to reduce physician and nursing burden, including ambient listening and virtual nursing. “[This technology] can have major wins for the patient and for the amount of labor required to maintain the patient at the bedside,” he said. “That’s one of those technologies [we’re using] to really try to enhance and improve the lives of our nursing staff.”

IT and clinician partnership can transform inefficient workflows.

Copley presented a realistic picture of the critical role of the workforce, and he emphasized that IT can’t try to transform workflows in a vacuum. The patient is the number one priority,” said Copley. “But when we look at the healthcare market today, a lot of health systems are struggling financially…and a lot of that is to be attributed to the amount of purchased labor. [With] the shortage of clinicians and physicians, you might have to drop service lines.”

He described how Franciscan’s IT team focused on removing friction in Epic workflows and aligning virtual and physical processes to avoid duplication and inefficiency. He spoke about the challenge of digital and in-person workflows that create problems when they aren’t designed to work together. “For example, if a patient is on MyChart, e-Check-In is a common feature…but you can still have that workflow where you do e-Check-In, you show up at the clinic, and they still have you check in through a kiosk or they hand you a piece of paper….it’s creating friction and burden on the clinician and the patient.”

To solve these types of inefficiencies, Copley said that the IT team leans on clinical informatics leaders, who “work directly with their fellow practitioners, they understand what their real needs are, they understand the system and what it can do.”

Comparing the teamwork to his time in the U.S. Marine Corps, Copley said, “In the Marine Corps, everyone’s a rifleman. We’re all in the battle together with our clinicians side by side because we know that we rely on them to give us the opportunity and technology to support them.”

As Franciscan makes use of new technology to support the workforce, they’re staying true to their values.

Copley said one of Franciscan Health’s distinguishing characteristics is its mission-driven, faith-based approach. Maintaining that identity in both physical and digital spaces is an important focus as Franciscan deploys more technology like ambient listening, AI, and digital self-service.

“When you walk into a Franciscan hospital or healthcare center, you know it because you see the cross. You see the sisters walking around. That gives you a sense of confidence in where you’re being treated and who you’re being treated by,” he said. “That can be lost in a digital experience. So now, as AI starts to roll out, we have the capability to infuse that Franciscan ethos. It’s more than just branding with a backdrop of the cross. It’s how we speak, the words we use, and the faith-based approach we take. And we can emulate that in a digital setting so that the digital experience matches the physical experience.”

“That’s the next step at Franciscan,” Copley continued. “As AI and all these digital capabilities roll out, we have to maintain what makes the health system unique and embed it in every one of these workflows….so patients know whether it’s digital or physical or both, the entire experience will be consistent.”