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Episode #

52

Acting Before Patients Deteriorate

Every monitor in a hospital is good at its job.

A bedside monitor understands physiologic signals. An infusion pump knows medication delivery. The EHR tracks documentation. Each system generates valuable data, but each sees only one part of the patient's story. As Matt Grubis observes, "maybe it's actually not information yet."


Meanwhile, nurses are doing what they've always done: connecting those pieces in their heads while moving from room to room, responding to alarms, administering medications, and constantly deciding who needs them first.


For the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer, success is measured after the alert fires. Did it reach the right clinician? Did it fit into their workflow? Was it trusted? Did someone take ownership, and did the right action follow? Those are the questions that separate technology that helps clinicians from technology that becomes one more interruption in an already demanding shift.


In this episode of Beyond the Blueprint, host Gregg Malkary is joined by:


  • Jason Atkins, Vice President & Chief Clinical Informatics Officer, Emory Healthcare

  • Matt Grubis, Chief Engineer, Monitoring Solutions, GE HealthCare

  • Ryan Fox, Digital & IoMT Strategy Lead, GE HealthCare


Together, they explore how the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is helping health systems connect isolated streams of clinical data into a fuller picture of the patient. Matt illustrates the idea with a simple analogy: a thermostat that knows not just the room temperature, but also the position of the sun. The conversation covers enterprise clinical surveillance, where AI fits when it disagrees with a clinician's bedside judgment, and why "human in the loop" isn't going away anytime soon. It also explores what real vendor partnership looks like when there's actual skin in the game for clinical adoption instead of another tool handed off for the hospital to implement.


Because everyone shares the same goal: helping care teams recognize what matters, coordinate their response, and act before a patient's condition deteriorates.

EPISODE GUESTS

Jason Atkins

Emory Healthcare

Vice President & Chief Clinical Informatics Officer

Jason Atkins is an executive healthcare leader and clinical informaticist who serves as Vice President and Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at Emory Healthcare. With over two decades of experience bridging bedside care and health technology, he works in a dyad partnership to lead clinical informatics strategy, reduce clinician administrative burden, advance clinical AI integration, and oversee EMR governance across the academic health system. Prior to his current role, Atkins spent nearly a decade as Emory’s Chief Nursing Information and Nursing Quality Officer—spearheading major initiatives including an enterprise-wide Cerner-to-Epic transition—and previously served as Chief Health Informatics Officer for the VA New England Healthcare System across 8 medical centers and 40 outpatient clinics. Grounded in his early clinical career as a critical care and interventional radiology nurse, Atkins combines a frontline clinician’s perspective with strategic IT leadership to ensure digital health innovations deliver practical, measurable, and humane improvements in patient care.

Ryan Fox

GE HealthCare

Digital & IoMT Strategy Lead

Ryan Fox is a healthcare technology strategist and executive who serves as Strategic Director of PCS Digital Innovation & Care Alliances at GE HealthCare. Specializing in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), digital transformation, and enterprise virtual care, he partners with health system leadership to navigate macroeconomic headwinds by shifting value from traditional "box-based" patient monitoring to AI-driven, continuous data platforms. Backed by extensive commercial and executive leadership experience across digital health companies—including AMC Health, CarePort Health, and Quest Diagnostics—Fox leverages his expertise in IoMT architecture, interoperability, and workflow automation to help health systems scale sustainable, value-based care delivery models.

​Matt Grubis

GE HealthCare

Chief Engineer, Monitoring Solutions

Matthew Grubis is a veteran executive technology and business leader with nearly three decades of experience at GE Healthcare, where he serves as Executive Chief Engineer for Patient Care Solutions. Recognized as a technical authority in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), real-time patient monitoring, and high-availability edge/cloud architectures, he leads the overarching system design and innovation strategy for life-critical healthcare ecosystems. Throughout his career—which began in electrical engineering at Rockwell Automation—he has spearheaded global system engineering teams, represented GE Healthcare on international standards committees, advised regulatory bodies, and mentored engineering talent to deliver scalable, mission-critical technologies that improve clinical workflows and save lives.
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