Dr Alex Jahangir on Innovative Solutions to Combat Burnout, Improve Specialty Care

Alex Jahangir, MD, MMHC, senior vice president, associate chief medical officer, and orthopedic surgeon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, details the innovative solutions that help him to deliver specialty care. He also describes how innovative solutions help providers face challenges, like burnout, and how to approach emerging technologies.

Jahangir was a part of the panel, "Health System Innovation and Entrepreneurship," at the Institute for Value-Based Medicine^® (IVBM^®) in partnership with Tennessee Oncology on August 22.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

How can innovative solutions address the challenges faced by health care providers, like burnout?

I think technology and innovation in technology are critical to addressing the true risk that burnout poses to our profession. One in 3 health care providers will finish their career much sooner than they probably need to, probably at the peak of their career.

Technologies that can help reduce the friction that providers feel in their delivery of care, but also technology that helps augment their access to information and their ability to provide the care they need, is so critical given the mass amount of information fed to providers every single day.

Are there any particular innovations that help make specialty care delivery easier for you and your colleagues? If so, what?

I think what is really interesting, especially in the world of orthopedics, is wearable technology. Now, you have joint replacements that will tell the surgeon how much somebody has walked. Perhaps, if they made progress and now they're regressing, we can quickly recognize this and address the cause, whether it's an infection or lack of therapy.

We can now make patients have a quicker recovery, allow them to get back to life more quickly, and hopefully have a safe recovery that allows them to enjoy the world which they receive the procedure for.

What emerging technologies do you believe will play a crucial role in the future of health system innovation?

There's a great deal of technology that's coming out that can help. I think what is important is how we assess the fast pace of technological innovations at present.

While not necessarily one specific technology, I think developing honest ways to assess technology as it comes up is probably the best way for us to be successful in helping specialty care with technology and innovation.