Leading the delivery of ground-breaking technology and optimization of NDSC solutions
Tom Conti, VP of Product and Technology
Tom has been leading the product and technology teams at NDSC since the company was established in 2012. Tom’s role ensures that the development team delivers ground-breaking technologies and that customers successfully optimize NDSC’s solutions. Prior to joining NDSC, Tom held a variety of leadership roles that included Product Lead for the Epic RIS and management of the imaging integration R&D team. Through Tom’s leadership, NDSC’s satisfied customer base continues to prosper.
“I love being able to talk to an existing customer, having them ask if our platform is able to help them improve a clinical scenario and being able to say ‘yes’.”
Tell us more about your role at NDSC and the aspect of your role you enjoy the most.
I get to have an active role in improving our current products and strategizing on what new products NDSC should build. I really enjoy being able to combine our EMR integrations capabilities, structured or unstructured clinical data, and patient care improvement opportunities to build a new product.
What would you say has been your team’s greatest accomplishment at NDSC?
The CareSelect™ Platform that the teams have created is the greatest accomplishment. Having a single platform that is able to seamlessly integrate into over eight major EMR systems while delivering multiple clinical content sets through each integration (Imaging, Lab, Choosing Wisely, Level of Care, etc). NDSC’s platform handles the complexity so our customers can successfully deploy CDS at their organizations.
How does your team’s work, on a day-to-day level, impact NDSC health systems using CareSelect solutions?
Product and Technology teams at NDSC are all about continuing to improve the delivery of the clinical content into the provider workflow. I love being able to talk to an existing customer, having them ask if our platform is able to help them improve a clinical scenario and being able to say “yes.” I was recently talking to an academic medical center where they asked if CareSelect could help them evaluate whether imaging is needed for Pulmonary Embolism using Wells pre-test probability scores. It was great to say “yes” and know that we have helped organizations do this as well.
“I love being able to talk to an existing customer, having them ask if our platform is able to help them improve a clinical scenario and being able to say ‘yes’.”
In your view, how does the technology behind the CareSelect Platform help to create impact within health systems?
The technology platform creates a standard methodology to extract clinical data and use that data to run complex clinical algorithms. Health systems look to NDSC to implement this system to help them achieve their clinical outcome goals. It is inspiring to hear from our customers when our analytics show both avoidance of unnecessary tests and improvement in ordering appropriateness for clinical conditions.
Tell us about how the technology behind the CareSelect Platform has helped create impact on the patient.
There are a lot of advantages for the patient, one being avoiding unnecessary testing. This helps prevent patients from having to take off work for that MRI and prevents angst worrying about the results of the test and the copay / out of pocket cost for the patient. NDSC customers show the average of inappropriate high-cost imaging orders at around 10% which, when projected across growing number of transactions NDSC processes, translates to over half-a-million unnecessary exams that can be avoided through our advisories and millions of dollars in unnecessary care. Furthermore, exams of questionable utility are always subject to review by insurance companies. This review process can result in denials of payment, costing the patient and their caregivers valuable time to appeal the request.
“NDSC customers show the average of inappropriate high-cost imaging orders at around 10% which, when projected across growing number of transactions NDSC processes, translates to over half-a-million unnecessary exams that can be avoided through our advisories and millions of dollars in unnecessary care.”
Looking forward, how do you see CDS technology evolving?
As the content sets included in CareSelect expand, the sophistication of the algorithm will grow. NDSC is exploring ways to get structured clinical information out of unstructured data. Additionally, leveraging advanced technologies like Machine Learning algorithms to train the content engine for improved accuracy on recommendations. I am attending HIMSS in March and am always interested to see how the industry is looking to leverage these technologies.
Outside of your professional life, what do you do for fun?
Outside of work, my three kids (William [6], Claire [4] and Charlotte [1 1/2]) keep me more than busy. I grew up playing hockey through college and still find time to both play ice hockey and coach my son’s mini-mite hockey team. Once the Wisconsin winter has thawed, I get out on the Madison lakes and water ski when I can.
