Transcript
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00:08
Venky Ananth:
Hello, and welcome to the next edition of Pacesetters. My name is Venky Ananth- Executive Vice President and global head of healthcare for Infosys. In our own lives, we have always experienced leveraging or using lab services for our blood work, or it could be a scary biopsy or whatever your physician ordered as a part of your diagnosis process with your disease detection. And during this process, you know, we go to our labs, submit our blood work, and anxiously await results. And if you think about it, and if you take a step back, who sets standards for these labs, right? Who ensures that results that come out of these labs where we submit our precious blood and anxiously waiting for the results is actually high quality results, right?
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01:05
Venky Ananth:
And there are a whole lot of other things that we do- an ECG, EEG, etc., a whole set of devices out there. Who ensures that standards are set, accreditations are given to these devices or the pathology labs etc. out there? So, this is really where a firm called CAP, which is College of American Pathologists shine. And to know more about CAP and where they play this unique role in the healthcare ecosystem… so in this edition of Pacesetters, I have Akshay Patel, the Chief Information Officer of CAP. I have known Akshay for about more than five years now. He's a great friend, a big client of ours. And, I'm very excited to have him in this edition of Pacesetters. Welcome to Pacesetters, Akshay.
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01:54
Akshay Patel:
Well, thank you, Venky. Again, my introduction. Akshay Patel, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at CAP. Thank you for taking the time. I'm looking forward to our conversation, and talk about what we are doing at CAP to enable our pathologists and laboratories to continue to improve the patient safety and things we do at CAP. So, thank you for taking the time.
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02:18
Venky Ananth:
Let's start with CAP itself- a deeper introduction. Like I said, it plays a very unique role in the healthcare continuum, Akshay. So, help us understand the history of CAP and how things have evolved over the years. And what do you do from a primary role perspective in terms of offering pathology services?
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02:43
Akshay Patel:
Yeah, Venky, you know, we've been like over 75 years old. We started the company, like in 1946, I believe. And, our main goal is to,like you said in your introduction, like, you know, the main goal is to make sure how do we improve the patient safety. And our practice and the pathology, make sure we bring all the excellence, to improve the patient safety. Our main goal is to help laboratories to achieve the highest standard..what they are working on. We are also making sure…well, we have two flagship products: Our accreditation program which kind of provides all the tools and processes and services to improve the quality, reducing the risk of a proficiency testing program, and kind of ensure all the testing has been done consistently across all the disciplines. And between those two programs, we really make sure that laboratories have all the tools and processes and our services to enable what they are doing and at the end help the patient safety.
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03:57
Akshay Patel:
And we are, like I say, 75 years old. We started a long time before. We are also… people don't know we have more than 112 countries worldwide. So we are not international but we are kind of, more than 100 countries. There are many countries that we want to expand our reach, to make sure we continue to provide our quality service to those countries and making sure that those standards are also elevated.
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04:28
Venky Ananth:
Right. So more than 75 years old, more than 100 plus countries in terms of presence. Amazing.
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04:37
Akshay Patel:
Yeah, and, of course, U.S and Canada is our primary demographics. But, we've been in Asia, we've been in South America. We’ve been… yeah, over a hundred countries.
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04:50
Venky Ananth:
So Akshay, you lead the charge for technology at CAP, you know, spaces like proficiency testing services, really core to your business… How do you see technology contributing to advancing what CAP does, right, from a core service offering perspective? And how do you see new technologies like AI and machine learning to actually take this to the next level? How do you, how do you see this unravel as we move forward into the future with some exciting new technology developments?
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05:28
Akshay Patel:
Sure, Venky. You know, our mission is to make sure the excellence of practice of pathology that we apply in all the laboratories and improve what they are doing. Our role as a technology area and as a CIO, our focus is to how we can enable our members who are the pathologists and our customers who are the laboratories to achieve the best standard. Now they have tools and services available to do what they are doing and at the end, improve the patient safety. And I'm going to say that multiple times because that's what we do. Our end goal is to make sure that patient safety is on the forefront. That's what we are all about.
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06:13
Akshay Patel:
In terms of your question.. artificial intelligence and machine learning… yeah, it's been,at least last couple of years, as you know, it's been a lot going on in the healthcare industry. We actually recently had a AI committee that our board of governors approved just for that reason-to make sure that we are also in forefront. You know, things we should be doing for our members and customers that we are doing, right? So, I think there are plenty of opportunities that AI and ML can bring to the healthcare: Improving overall efficiency, accuracy of the results, you know, doing the analysis workflow, you know, all the workflow they go through in the hospital and there's a tremendous amount of efficiency can be gained.
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07:02
Akshay Patel:
And at the end, all the data analysis, there's so much data out there, right? You know, and the decision making, if you look at it, analyzing the data, using the data in the best way to figure it out. What is that’s wrong with the patient and and how we can use AI to complement? I think it's more complementing what pathologist- our member-does, right? At the end of the day, can we apply AI for a good cause, to make sure we have all the tools and services in front of us to do what we are doing and at the end even improve patient safety more. So we are looking at a number of things in AI and, and machine learning. We have, as you can imagine…we have discussed quite a few use cases that we think our member and customer would benefit from. I mean, there are all kinds of use cases available for our operations, you know, for our help desk or contact center and gaining some efficiency with that. But our main focus is what we can do for our members and customers. And there are several use cases we are looking at that will really enhance our reach and really help them to do what they are doing and improve patient safety.
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08:18
Venky Ananth:
Right. Now, Akshay, you spoke about lab results. You spoke about analysis of that data. You spoke about patient safety, which you said you are gonna repeat multiple times given that's the essence of what you care about from a business perspective. Now, how do you see, you know, tech like cloud computing and, you know, data analytics which are, in my mind, critical prerequisite to even get into before you dive into the world of AI and machine learning, right? How are you preparing CAP for, you know, advancing, you know, cloud computing and data-led AI, right? What's your perspective on that? Could you share some of those with us?
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09:07
Akshay Patel:
Yeah, sure. I think if you look at all the hospitals, and they are doing a number of things to make sure that they are leveraging the cloud computing and data analytics and AI, and we are no different. At CAP we are very particular about our investment in technology. And you being our partner, you know that- you know how particular we are to make sure we are not falling behind. The investment we are making in our technology is super-important for what we do. And and we are continuing to do that. You know, cloud computing, going back to your question…you know, if you look at the landscape, you know, all the digitization happening, you know, from glass slide to digital slide, you know, and the amount of computing, cloud computing you need to store those images, share that with other people, collaborate to make sure you are talking with each other. It’s not only educational, but kind of looking at this from multiple angles.
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10:09
Akshay Patel:
So, the cloud computing is getting super important. We are also investing into our cloud footprint. All our applications are eventually going to be on the cloud. Half of them are already there that your team is supporting. But, but I think it's going to even accelerate more to really enable members and customer to do things in the ecosystem. As you can imagine, you know, the LIS- the laboratory information system that most of the hospitals, all the hospitals use….we are also integrating with them, seamlessly getting the data out of their LIS system to our system and really kind of simplifying the workflow for the hospital. AI, data analytics and data hub and data lake…we are looking into can we create a data lake? We have tremendous amount of data, you know, because of what we do-accreditation and proficiency testing. And having the data lake, applying some of the….well, if you don't have good data, AI is not going to work. You got to have good data for AI to be effective. So we are looking into data lake, making sure how we can leverage the data we have for a good cause.
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11:25
Akshay Patel:
Some of the things we are looking, you know, some of the use cases we are looking into is really doing the peer comparison that we do. You know as part of proficiency testing, we kind of compare how you are doing versus your peers in labs. And I think the AI and having the data lake and some of those things are super important. So, we are looking into a number of use cases to expand, and how we can leverage AI at CAP.
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11:57
Venky Ananth:
Wonderful. I'm going to change tack now, Akshay. You had a phenomenal career. 20 plus years at CAP alone. What is your..you know, share with us your journey, how it's been so far. And more importantly, you know, like I said, you are the lead in charge for the technology for the future for CAP. So, what is your vision as a CIO for CAP into the future? You did give us a semblance of it in terms of how you are leveraging some of these technologies that we spoke about around cloud and AI, interoperability with hospitals, etcetera. But what is your broader vision for CAP?
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12:40
Akshay Patel:
Well, thank you. You know, there… let me talk about working at the CAP. You will see that a lot of people have been here for a long time. And in terms of my story, I think it's a cause that you work for, right? You know, and it's a good cause- which is everything we do improve patient safety. I mean..that's a good cause to work for. And I think that gets me going for a long time. And I know that get other people going for a long time. And I think many times, people don’t know what we do. We've been, in your introduction, you know…we are in forefront helping out our laboratories and members to improve patient safety and other things. But I think the cause is the one that I'm after. I mean, I'm also fortunate to be at CAP leading the information technology function. We have been very particular about our investment in technology and making sure we are in the forefront.
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13:44
Akshay Patel:
In terms of my vision, I think it's simple. I want to make sure how… what role technology can play… to do what we are doing today- even accelerate that more. You know, we are all about how we can bring more accuracy, how we can simplify our workflow, how we can seamlessly integrate with other hospitals and our laboratories and other state agencies, and how we can integrate the data and other things. So my vision is to make sure all those things will really accelerate what we do as CAP, provide the tools and services to make sure it's easy to do business with our customers. But we are also providing other things to accelerate the science. It's complex, Venky, you know, if you look at the laboratory science, it has evolved over the last 20 years. There are a lot of things happening, different kinds of testing and and technology is going to play a key role in terms of how do we look at the data, how do we transmit the data, how we simplify some, how we apply AI.
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14:53
Akshay Patel:
So my vision is to really prepare CAP, to make sure that we have tools and services to do what we are doing and expand our reach. We are in more than 100 countries. We are going to grow more in other areas and hopefully, some of the technologies that we are implementing will help with that. You know, our expand, our reach into some areas that we may not think it's easy to get there. So, those are some of the things I'm looking forward to.
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15:28
Venky Ananth:
Awesome. One last question I have, Akshay, is around learning and continuous education. And this is really central to the ethos of CAP. The very first letter in CAP is College of American Pathologists. Can you share with us how you actually spread the word around learning and continuous education, educating, you know, customers, and it's very integral to your business and is core to your business. Anything that you would like to share?
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15:59
Akshay Patel:
Sure, you know, I think… let me take a stab at it. I know our education vice president can better answer that. But we have education department, Venky, here and that's the… we are very particular about the College of American Pathologists. We have education department. We provide all kinds of education to our members and customers. But you know, if you look at our portfolio of education, it includes all kinds of, you know, not only laboratory science-what we do-but also informatics. We are now adding more education for AI and other things, how it can help you, how it can complement what you are doing. So, our education is a kind of one of the flagship products that people look forward to. So when you.. when you do the accreditation and proficiency testing with CAP, education comes with it, you know, and every year I know I've been part of many discussions with the informatics community. They are very particular about what new education courses we should add, how we are making sure that our members are educated, our customers are educated with what's happening in the ecosystem. So, yeah, that's super important- having the education and make sure that appropriate education classes are available for the people.
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17:26
Venky Ananth:
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Akshay. You know, it's fascinating if you think about it…You really spoke about the history of CAP. 75 years. A hundred and ten plus countries present, how you are trying to drive proficiency testing through and advancing it. You know, essentially the process itself, the testing itself and how you're driving it through technology. You spoke about AI and machine learning. You spoke about your vision for CAP. You spoke about how you are trying to leverage cloud and data to actually connect into the hospital systems, the lab systems, exchange information, ensure patient safety is continuously reviewed. And, you also spoke about your own background. You know, 20 plus years at CAP and how you're kind of grown through the ranks, and now starting to look at the future and your vision for CAP into the future. And of course, at the end you spoke about how education is integral to your own firm and how you are kind of advancing it even from a technology perspective to make sure that everybody's consistently learning and on the edge in terms of knowing what's the latest and greatest so that you can actually maximize what you offer to your customers. So, thank you so much for sharing that. Truly appreciate it. And, enjoyed the conversation.
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18:48
Akshay Patel:
Our role as a technologist is to enable our members and customer to do what they're doing. You know, I think a company like yours to help us in that journey….innovation, continue to innovate and make sure that how the innovation can help with what we are doing. So that's an important part of my vision also- to work with a company like yours and and others to continue to innovate and apply that new things happening to make things even better.
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19:20
Venky Ananth:
Thank you. Thank you for that. And we have had a phenomenal partnership with CAP. And, so thanks for the opportunity and look forward to continue to drive that innovation engine for CAP powered by Infosys. So, thank you so much.
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19:36
Akshay Patel:
Thank you very much.
