As part of the “CIO Series”, Credit Suisse hosted Nader Mherabi, Chief Digital and Information Officer at NYU Langone Health for a virtual meeting with a small group of investors.
NYU Langone Health, an academic medical center includes the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and several inpatient facilities. NYU Langone Health operates over 350 locations in the New York area, and ranks No.9 in the U.S News & World Report “Best Hospitals” 2020-2021 Honor Roll.
Mr. Mherabi, noted that NYU Langone spends between 8-10% on capital spend, with a big chunk of that going towards building/renovating facilities and building ambulatory centers. Over the last decade, NYU Langone spent a lot on digital and technological investments, overhauling infrastructure applications and creating digital capabilities.
Mr. Mherabi stated that they are now entering the “maturity curve”. Over the last year, much of their capital expenditure plan was put on hold due to COVID-19, but revamped again in 2021, with plans to continue to accelerate in 2022.
NYU Langone has their own home grown virtual care tool (built in late 2016) that is still used today on their website and on mobile for appointments. The health system did not want to outsource their telehealth capabilities as they wanted to ensure the quality of their doctors and the end-to-end experience for the patients.
However, NYU Langone did recently switch to Twilio by Epic for video capabilities and has been very happy with the results. Concerning utilization of virtual healthcare at NYU Langone, Mr. Mherabi stated that at the height of COVID, the health system did 9,000 virtual visits a day (vs. 300-400 pre-COVID), which has now stabilized to around 3,000-3,5000 and is plateauing.
Mr. Mherabi said that NYU Langone is currently running a pilot for Nuance DAX for ambient note-taking and that the acquisition of Nuance by Microsoft does not change the dynamics of the partnership—rather, the health system views it as a positive, as Microsoft will continue to invest in R&D to improve the product.
As for the Optum/CHNG combination, Mr. Mherabi noted that NYU Langone currently has a very good relationship with Optum. Optum is currently partnering with the health system to manage analytics for managed care patients, which is NYU Langone’s responsibility.
When asked whether or not NYU Langone was worried about the transaction between UHG and Optum due to potential privacy concerns, Mr. Mherabi said that the current contracts between the two parties protect NYU Langone from any potential sharing data, and that while the transaction is being watched, they are currently not worried about the implications. Overall, Mr. Mherabi’s current opinion on the deal is “neutrally cautious.”
To ask questions, provide feedback or news, email Jailendra Singh at jailendra.singh@credit-suisse.com or call 212-325-8121.