"Turn It Back On": Why Clinicians Revolted for Curate: Scribe, with HCHB President Luke Rutledge

About This Episode

Homecare Homebase President Luke Rutledge joins Tom Maxwell on the show floor to share what he's hearing at HCHB's biggest Users Conference yet, why "AI that's meaningful" is the theme, and how Curate Scribe is already changing the way clinicians chart.

Transcript

Tom: All right. Welcome back to the Last Visit First podcast, live from the Homecare Homebase Users Conference in Orlando, Florida. With me now is the president of Homecare Homebase, Luke Rutledge. Welcome.

Luke: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Tom: Great conference, man. It's twenty years of doing this. It's been a blast. I've seen it evolve over and over. This thing is amazing. All these people here in the vendor hall, it's pretty amazing. So congratulations to you.

Luke: Yeah, thank you so much, man. It's been the biggest conference, I think, to date. We have about six hundred-ish people here, and it's been great energy. So there's a positive buzz.

Tom: It is, there really is a buzz in this room. It's an exciting buzz. It kind of reminds me of when you go to HIMSS and everybody's buzzing over a few subjects. What are you hearing most from people?

Luke: Man, I hate to be cliché, but it's AI, right? Everything is about AI. But I think it's more like AI that's meaningful, that's impacting clinicians' lives, that's automating back office. And that's really what our strategy has been around, both with partners that are connecting into us and new products that we're starting to launch.

Tom: Yeah, Hannah did a really good job on the opening ceremony. They did that slideshow of all the old and new folks, and it was pretty cool to see some of those old faces, people that have left and a lot of people that are still here.

Luke: Man, some young faces, right? I think you were up there.

Tom: I was a thirty-something-year-old dumb kid at that time. It was a long time ago. It was fun. And I saw you do the product roadmap. Anything you want to highlight for the listeners about what we're working on on the product side of Homecare Homebase?

Luke: Yeah, I think the biggest thing, right, was Curate: Scribe. It's now in the hands of clinicians. We have three customers that are live and fifteen that have already signed up. It's starting to really fly off the shelf. And what's been really fascinating is it's impacting clinicians' ability to fill out a seamless chart. They don't have to worry about pajama time anymore. They don't have to worry about, hey, did I get all the information correct? They can even go back to their car and say the things that they don't want to say in front of the patient, just blurb it all out, and then it fills it all out within the system, and you're compliant, you're safe. So that's what the buzz is right now, and we're excited about the future.

Tom: Can you imagine being a customer... April and I were just talking about Curate, and she's adopted it at VitalCaring. Can you imagine being a customer whose average start of care is three hours, and you don't have Curate, and somebody down the street's doing an hour start of care while you're doing a three-hour start of care? How are you gonna recruit those nurses, and how are you gonna keep them around?

Luke: Man, I totally agree. I think it's gonna be a necessity. The piece that became so powerful is, we're in the middle of product development, right? Things come up in beta tests and everything. So we had this customer that was piloting, and there was a hallucination that actually occurred. And with the hallucination, they were like, "Hey, you know what, let's be conservative and let's turn this thing off." So they turned it off. The clinicians revolted, and they were like, "You gotta turn this thing back on." So I thought that was great.

Tom: Yeah, some AI is gonna hallucinate, but it's a copilot, right? It's not going crazy. The nurse is still gonna review what was said and what was done. It's not like it's gonna just go fill out the forms and do all the documentation for them.

Luke: Absolutely. I think there will always be that confidence level that we put on, and then the clinician, at the end of the day, is gonna review it, and they'll know what's actually occurring, what's good and what's bad.

Tom: Changing subjects on you a little bit. You've got an amazing team, and you're making a lot of changes in the organization. I saw Cheri O'Neal got a promotion and moved to a different role. Tell us about what you're doing in the organization.

Luke: Man, I think the organization has really rallied around this new vision and refocused back on our customers. We've got a brand new CTO, Dhruv Dwivedi, who's doing amazing things. He comes from the healthcare industry, actually from HHAeXchange. We're excited to have him. Martha Stuart Williams, who used to be at Amedisys. And so I think the team, you've got Hannah and you've got David, the team is really coming together, and it's exciting just to see everybody rally at Homecare Homebase. So it feels good.

Tom: It feels like it. A couple of years ago it didn't feel as tight as it does now. It feels like everybody's supporting each other and working together. Customers are excited to meet all the new faces and work together with the team. So the buzz feels good. It really does.

Luke: That is great to hear.

Tom: All right, what are we doing tonight? I heard there's some big party tonight.

Luke: Oh my goodness. Man, so tonight we're having Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, and Young MC, right? It's gonna be this white glow party. I think customers are excited. They didn't want to come see me, they wanted to come see the artists.

Tom: That's right. It's gonna be wild. Homecare Homebase throws amazing parties, so if you're not here and you're listening to this, you gotta figure out how to get here, 'cause the parties are amazing. They've always been great. This one might top 'em all. I don't think I've ever been anywhere where there's three different artists coming out the same night.

Luke: Vanilla Ice is 59 years old, I think.

Tom: Yeah, I listened to Vanilla Ice when I was a kid. So all these guys are old, so it's not gonna last forever, but it's gonna be a blast. Last night was a great time too. Even though it rained and kicked us off the lawn, we had the bourbon and bubbles night. It was fun.

Luke: Yeah, you know, it's funny, people are working so hard for their communities, and it's nice to give back a little bit.

Tom: That's right. All right, so if people wanna come work for you, Luke, or reach out to you, or buy your software or find Curate, how do they get a hold of Luke and the Homecare Homebase team?

Luke: Man, you know, listen, I know people are like, "Well, Luke, you're the president." No, call us, text us, email us, whatever you guys wanna do. You can definitely find my information out there, and I'm happy to give it any time.

Tom: Okay. We'll share it in the show notes, and you can go to HCHB.com or HomecareHomebase.com. They're a sponsor of this podcast, so we'll have their information out there. Please reach out to Luke if you want to work for Homecare Homebase, or if you need to buy software or wanna look at the Curate product, or any other things that they're working on. It's pretty amazing what's going on over here in Orlando. So congratulations, and thank you for being here.

Luke: Hey, thanks for coming. Thank you.