Q&A with Suhas Uliyar, SVP, Product Management, Oracle

RamaOnHealthcare September 28, 2024

We are on a mission to redefine healthcare technology.

Today, RamaOnHealthcare talks with Suhas Uliyar, SVP, Product Management, Oracle.

Suhas Uliyar, SVP, Product Management, Oracle

RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): How is Oracle working to impact healthcare?

Suhas Uliyar (SU): Oracle is working to solve some of healthcare’s most pressing challenges with innovative technology. Imagine a world where you have access to your complete health record, from the time you are born, including every interaction, test result, medication, genetic profile, and family history. What if we could take that data and securely and anonymously compare it to other individuals and provide intelligent, tailored insights about the treatments and measures that would work for you, and, in turn, predict and prevent potential illness from manifesting?

That’s exactly where Oracle wants to take the future of healthcare. Oracle’s work to bring this all together is proving to be transformative and has positioned the company as a comprehensive provider of solutions across the entire healthcare ecosystem inclusive of providers, patients, payers, pharmaceutical companies, and collaborative partners. Built on a safe, secure cloud with tight control over data security and governance, Oracle is bringing clinical, patient, enterprise applications, and data together with embedded AI to help reduce administrative costs, increase efficiency, and improve quality and access to care.

We are on a mission to redefine healthcare technology. Our work is evolving beyond traditional EHR systems to develop a next-generation healthcare platform built for clinicians as a natural extension of their time intensive and complex workflow. This platform will be designed to integrate seamlessly with our comprehensive suite of applications, potentially improving user experience and trust in digital healthcare solutions. Through continuous innovation and strategic partnerships, Oracle is dedicated to creating a healthcare environment where technology and care converge to support a healthier world.

ROH: What is one of Oracle Health’s latest innovations?

SU: AI is playing a huge role in every aspect of healthcare. From diagnostic support and treatment plans to claim reimbursement, AI will eventually touch everything. In the short-term, we see potential efficiency gains in automation and accelerating manual processes. For example, today, care managers spend a lot of time preparing for patient follow ups – reading charts and figuring out where a patient is in their treatment journey.

With significant investments in AI, Oracle is leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to deliver cutting edge solutions, including one of our latest innovations, Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant. This multimodal AI-powered tool is designed for the clinician to reduce the scribe time in their daily equation, help automate the drafting of documentation, suggest next steps including orders, prescriptions, and follow-up appointments. The Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant has quickly become a tool where providers report a 20-40% reduction in note generation time, significantly improving work-life balance.

Physicians report being able to spend more quality time with their families, attend their children’s events, and even take lunch breaks during shifts without the burden of catching up on administrative tasks.

ROH: Are there other AI innovations that Oracle is leading?

SU: From finance to supply chain to HR to patient care, Oracle is working to include generative AI into many business workflows. But one of our most important is our healthcare business. Beyond the Clinical Digital Assistant, we’ve integrated AI algorithms directly into the Oracle EHR to help providers address clinical risks. With tools like the Sepsis Advisor and predictors for falls, cardiovascular incidents, and opioid use disorders, we continue to work on advancements that provide clinical decision-making support to improve patient outcomes.

Additionally, Oracle is providing more automation in the front and back offices of health systems, including automated registration and scheduling processes, utilizing AI to auto-fill patient information from photo IDs and insurance cards. We enable creating comprehensive, longitudinal patient records by aggregating, cleansing, and normalizing data using Oracle Health Data Intelligence. This is helping drive real-time enterprise insights and decision support integrated directly into workflows and supports quality managers in quickly identifying and closing care gaps across populations. Clinicians receive notifications and suggestions through intuitive nudges, optimizing service lines, and enhancing patient outcomes. Oracle also offers AI to help analyze nursing assessment documentation and other EHR data to generate validated care demand scores, reflecting the true needs of patients at every care level.

ROH: How is Oracle Health’s AI strategy and offerings differentiated from other competitors in the market?

SU: Oracle is redefining healthcare by building technology that utilizes large language models (LLM) across various applications, from facilitating the generation of detailed clinical notes to the analyzation of complex medical images. Our healthcare AI framework is not merely an add-on or afterthought. It is intricately being woven into our EHR system. This integration helps ensure that all functionalities—from voice interactions to AI-driven decision support—are native elements of Oracle’s EHR.

With Oracle’s entire technology stack—cloud infrastructure, AI services, and applications – we are helping eliminate customers’ dependencies on multiple third-party technology providers, which often introduce integration complexities, roadmap delays, support challenges, and additional costs.

ROH: Recent cyberattacks and breaches have prompted an urgent reassessment of cybersecurity practices. In the era of AI-driven innovations, what are the solutions health systems need today to safeguard patient privacy and ensure data security?

SU: In light of the alarming increase in cybersecurity incidents within the healthcare sector, it’s evident that a multi-faceted strategy is essential to ensure the safety of patient data. The healthcare industry must prioritize robust cybersecurity practices to protect sensitive patient data from threats like hacking and ransomware, which have surged dramatically. Collaborative efforts among healthcare providers, technology vendors, and government bodies are crucial to fortify critical infrastructures and enforce stringent data privacy standards.

Advanced solutions such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Oracle’s Autonomous Database offer vital defenses. OCI automatically applies fixes to address a constantly changing cyber-terror landscape. This enables healthcare organizations to rely on Oracle’s real-time threat detection and monitoring, autonomous systems, and team of experts to help keep their networks safe. With our Autonomous Shield initiative, we’ve already helped more than 1,000 customers migrate to OCI, so they can take advantage of the same tight control over data security and governance deployed by leading financial services companies, telecommunications businesses, and defense and intelligence organizations around the world.

ROH: What recommendations do you give to help those in healthcare navigate change and transformation?

SU: In healthcare, we see constant change, innovation, and challenges. These are some guiding principles that help guide me:

1. Foster Curiosity: Embrace continuous learning, questioning, and opinion-forming with the help of a trusted network of experts. Repeat this process to remain a lifelong student.
2. Respect Complexity: Deeply understand and obsess over healthcare’s intricacies. Challenge the status quo by questioning variations, such as why U.S. healthcare spending is disproportionately high relative to its population.
3. Build a Supportive Network: More than in other industries, surround yourself with a curated network of experts and mentors who can provide guidance and insights.
4. Emphasize Service: Treat healthcare as a calling, recognizing its fundamentally human aspect. Approach all interactions with a human-first mindset.
5. Practice Humility: Remember that healthcare is termed the “practice of medicine” for a reason, indicating much is unknown. Ideas can come from anywhere, necessitating an open, humble approach devoid of arrogance.

Whether you work in health technology, in the health system’s front or back office, or are on the frontlines, your ultimate goal is to care for the patient, and we want to help you do that.

About Suhas Uliyar

Suhas Uliyar is a visionary leader and technology strategist with over 25 years of experience in the mobile and AI industries. Recognized as one of the Top 100 Wireless Technology Experts by Wireless World in 2014, Suhas has been at the forefront of innovation in Machine Learning and Generative AI. In 2015, he was instrumental in launching one of the industry’s first AI-powered Enterprise Digital Assistants, transforming how businesses leverage conversational AI. Currently serving as Senior Vice President at Oracle, Suhas spearheads the modernization of Oracle Health Clinical Systems, leading initiatives in AI for Healthcare, Enterprise Automation, and managing a diverse portfolio that includes Electronic Health/Medical Records (EHR/EMR), Conversational AI platforms, and Intelligent Process Automation.

Suhas is a sought-after keynote speaker at industry and Oracle events and has held leadership positions at top global companies including SAP, Motorola Solutions, Spring Wireless, Dexterra (Antenna Software), and Micromuse (IBM). His career is defined by a deep commitment to shaping the future of digital experiences and advancing AI Cloud Services, with a special emphasis on generative AI innovations.