ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Dr. Michael Apostolakos, the Chief Medical Officer at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has dedicated his career to providing personalized care to his patients. Despite the challenges facing the healthcare industry, he remains committed to ensuring that patients receive the care they need, when and how they want it.
“We really focus on the patient and want to give them the care that they need, where they want it, when they want it, and in how they want it. And so we really try to have that personal touch,” Dr. Apostolakos said.
Dr. Apostolakos, who went to school in Buffalo, came to the University of Rochester during his residency and has been there ever since. He believes that the future of the hospital continues to evolve, with care becoming more complex and requiring collaborative care teams.
“Our healthcare workers work well together, whether they be transporters, pharmacists, nurses, we’re all one team working together to take care of the patient. And so we’re seeing more and more complex illnesses in the hospital,” he said.
“These are individuals that come to work every day. Sometimes in the most challenging experiences, particularly when they’re taking care of patients that have significant illness and families, under duress. And it can be challenging. And our teams just work beautifully together,” said Dr. Kathy Parrinello, CEO of Strong Memorial Hospital and Highland Hospital. “These are individuals that care so much about not only their patients, but the community that they serve.”
Technology is also advancing rapidly, with artificial intelligence (AI) being an exciting field. However, Dr. Apostolakos emphasizes that AI will never replace healthcare providers, as personalized care is essential. Instead, AI will be a tool to help providers take the best care of patients.
The hospitals also use artificial intelligence to help manage data, such as ambient listening technology that records provider-patient visits and includes critical clinical aspects in the note.
“It does take, human intervention. You know, I think the favorite saying that we have here is I will never replace individuals, but people with good skills in using AI may replace people that don’t know how to use AI,” said Dr. Parrinello.
Chris Carpenter, a URMC nurse, discussed how AI systems can identify medical issues before they arise. “There are systems in Epic that use AI to try to find medical issues before they even occur,” Carpenter said.
Despite the advancements in technology, healthcare shortages remain a concern. Dr. Apostolakos acknowledges that healthcare is a challenging field that requires dedicated and highly skilled professionals.
“There continue to be shortages in healthcare. Healthcare is a very difficult field at this time. It takes dedicated, hard working people that we have here. It takes a highly skilled workforce. But we’re always looking for outstanding physicians in a number of areas, particularly in primary care. We’re looking for outstanding nurses, but we’re also looking for highly skilled technicians,” he said.
URMC is committed to training and educating its workforce, collaborating with them to help them build careers that can start as technicians and move up the ladder.
Nursing shortages have been a long-standing issue, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic when many nurses retired early or changed career paths. However, Dr. Apostolakos believes that the healthcare system is taking a harder look at addressing these shortages.
“We invest in our individuals that come to work here. So an individual may come to work here in an entry level job. Get to know the nurses, get to know other the imaging, technologist get to know other people and think, oh boy, I want to do that work,” said Dr. Parrinello. “So we have a program that allows individuals to advance their career by going to school. We cover tuition. We give them a time off so that they can get to work. We do require that they stay and work with us after we’ve made this investment, which frankly, hasn’t been a burden because many of the individuals that come here to work once they do, are able to take advantage of that advanced training and get those advanced degrees.”
As society becomes more complex, with extended families and diverse needs, social workers play a crucial role in working with families to ensure they have the resources they need to care for their loved ones.
“It’s part of the reason I’ve stayed here 38 years is because we have tremendous people that go above and beyond to care for our patients, care for our community. And it’s all about the patients,” Dr. Apostolakos said.
“One of the things that’s so important as we look at people that want to enter the health care field, is we look for individuals with great empathy for other individuals, and we look for people that are, want to develop expertise or have expertise that we can capitalize on. I think that’s so important,” said Dr. Parrinello. “It’s people that are really willing to devote time to investing in a new skill set, but also people that have that and want to have those human connections.”
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