(upbeat music) - Recently, my colleague on our sister series, "Lessons and Leadership," Mary Gamba, joined me to talk to Sunil Dadlani, who is chief cybersecurity officer over at Atlantic Health, also chief information transformation officer.

All right, what's the conversation about?

Cybersecurity, protecting your medical records, what are electronic medical records, and how incredibly challenging it is for patients to navigate a healthcare system technologically driven, and also for healthcare systems to do what they need to do for their patients and still make a profit.

Complex stuff, important stuff.

Check it out - Sunil, good to see you.

- Thank you for having me.

- You got it.

Hey, let's get right to this.

Artificial intelligence and healthcare, you say?

- You know, healthcare and artificial intelligence are so really integrated, and not...

In fact, you know, everything is now integrated, not only healthcare, but every industry vertical.

What we see right now is a global dominance race in terms of technology and AI, and that has really reshaped how the global economies are going to behave, and how geopolitics is going to reshape, and that is in fact changing every industry vertical, and healthcare being at the epicenter of this change, and I can tell you that, that nobody's competing for the second position and the competition is fierce, while the artificial intelligence, the potential is so huge and indisputable, but again, it comes with its own inherent risk, but the potential is so hard to ignore, so that is why everybody's embarking on this journey of redefining, reshaping, and reimagining the healthcare.

- Jump back in, Mary.

- You talk about risk, Sunil, and I, along with so many, probably the entire universe, we are so worried and concerned about our personal data, and what could be more personal than our healthcare data?

Talk a little bit, what is happening in terms of cybersecurity, technology, and making sure that our medical records are safe so our information is kept private, as it should be?

- That's a very, you know, loaded question, and that's always on the top of the mind.

For Atlantic Health System, you know, we are a mission-driven and purpose-driven organization.

When I say mission-driven, it starts with patient outcome and patient safety, and these are not two different objectives or goals.

This is the one goal.

You know, you cannot have a best patient outcome if you don't have a patient safety; you cannot have a best patient safety if you do not have a best patient outcome, so they are so integrally connected.

Second part is, you know, talking about cybersecurity and data privacy, you know, that remains always at the heart of what we do.

It's not only about protecting our patient information, but it is also about our trust with the community and the patients we serve, and we take this seriously, and having seen this since last, year over year, healthcare is one of the topmost industry that is being targeted by the cyber actors across the world, and there is a good reason for that, because right now, in the grey market, the patient record is almost, you know, maybe a hundredfold more expensive or more valuable than your credit card information, but not very many people pay attention to that.

And without getting into too many details about it and exposing our cybersecurity posture, but again, we are doing everything humanly possible in leveraging people, process, technology, to basically build our cyber posture that is secure by design, secure by default, and secure by demand.

- But Sunil, everything you said, we appreciate and understand you're doing everything you can to protect, to safeguard, but look, everyone knows, and by the way, we don't know how often it's happening, because there are some organizations that just pay the ransom to get back that information, but there's also been a whole range of public cases where there have been cyber attacks and people have accessed patient records and have accessed sensitive information, so while there's no guarantee, I don't care how good the system is, there's no guarantee that you can protect it.

Do we agree so far, or is there a system I don't know about?

- Steve, you are spot on, absolutely.

You know, let me start by saying, first of all, the power of balance and the odds are always in the favor of bad players, cyber actors, - Okay.

- because they have to be right only once and we have to be right billions of times.

- Well said.

- So it's not the question of if, and it's the question of when, and I really want to double down on what you just said.

I think there are two kind of organizations that are existing, one where they are aware of the breach has already happened, and all the information is already available on the dark web; second, those who are not aware, but the (indistinct) has already breached and their information is already on the dark web, so I don't think that there is any organization or any individual whose information is not really breached and it's not available on the dark web.

- Wow, listen, and that's doing everything you can - Yes.

- to try to protect.

Mary, jump back in, please.

- Digital transformation is right in your title, Sunil, and I wonder, where do you view technology going?

It's so frustrating.

Yesterday evening, I had a physical therapy appointment, and they said, "Oh, did you bring your x-ray of your neck?"

and I'm like, "No, don't you have access to it?"

and they're like, (Steve laughs) (clear throat) excuse me, and they said, "Oh, no, you did that over there.

We don't have access."

So then I'm trying to get into my portal.

And so when can, should, how, everyday human beings like myself, or patients, when can we expect that there will be better communication?

I know most hospital systems nowadays are using this thing called Epic for your medical records, but when can we expect, or is it realistic to expect that pharmacies, physical therapy, physicians may be able to access one central database where all of our data's being held?

Loaded question, I know.

- And Mary, Mary, I'm gonna complicate your question.

- Yeah.

- We have several healthcare partners, underwriters, sponsors of our program, you compete with each other, so if Mary or I, or anyone else, has a procedure at one system that's competing with another, to Mary's question, why the heck can't you just get it on a common source of information, a database?

Please.

- So again, that's a great question, and again, I will start with this, that- - By the way, we have no answers, we just have questions, (all laugh) so go ahead.

- I will try to answer to the best of my capability (chuckles) and knowledge.

So first and foremost, the goal for every health system, and starting from Atlantic Health system, is to be a connected, integrated health system.

Now, that doesn't mean that integrated only within our system.

You know, as a health system, you communicate with federal agencies, state agencies, governing and compliance bodies.

There are so many other third-parties - Health insurance companies, as well, - Health insurance companies.

- you're communicating.

- So, you know, having one central database, while it could be Nirvana, and it's a preferred state, but it's too difficult to achieve, and, you know, specifically by design.

Healthcare system is so complex and it has multiple stakeholders, so to speak.

You have payers, you have pharmacy, you have patients, you have provider systems, and many of the times, you know, the motives or the incentives are, you know, seldom they converge because of different reasons.

They have different systems, they have different formats, and sometimes it's just impossible to build one system, because that will truly require not billions, but trillions of dollars to have one unified health system in the country.

It's not that easy.

And we are blamed with the... You know, it is no secret that healthcare systems operate on a very, very low margin, and our first job is to provide the highest quality of care, - Well, respectfully, isn't- Respectfully, isn't your first job in every great healthcare system, like yours and others, to do what is best for the patient?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- And if, if sharing that information is, in fact, best for the patient, then what's the real motive?

- No, the goal is right, but again, there are so many dependencies.

Financial can be one part, technical can be a second part, operation can be third part, and then partner ecosystem that brings all the stakeholder together is another curve ball, so I'm not at all disputing that yes, patient is at the center of our universe, that's how we are organized, and we want to achieve this goal, but again, the dependency and the complexity is so much in the healthcare, then it's easier said than done, but what we at least are trying on our side is that at least areas where we have direct control, you know, we have 500-plus ambulatory sites, we have a lot of affiliations, we have a lot of our own state-of-the-art hospital systems, so at least we are trying to connect and have that integrated, single view, single system, single patient view record, at least in our environment, so that much I can say, that at least that way, we are fully integrated.

- Sunil, let me just say this, you do not have an easy job.

(Sunil chuckles) Do not!

But Sunil, thank you so much for joining us and trying to break through a complex set of issues that are not just technical and not just related to cybersecurity, but our healthcare and the complicated nature of it.

Sunil, thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you so much, Steve, and I just wanted to add one quick, another comment, - Please.

- because we are non-linear thinkers, we always don't think that, you know, if there is a problem, there is a logic, why don't you do it?

(Steve laughs) Non-linear thinking is all about exploring different options, and one way, when you and Mary brought up the issue of a single record, maybe sometimes it is not a bad idea from one lens, because if you create too much on one single system, you create a single point of failure, so if one system, which is in the entire ecosystem gets failed, then you are compromising the whole system or the industry, so that's again, another point of view to ponder.

- More to think about.

Sunil, thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, thank you for watching.

We will see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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