Dr.

Yaa Kumah-Crystal is a pediatric endocrinologist at Vanderbilt University Hospital

who wants to improve the way doctors and clinicians store and access patient
information. She is currently working on a program called “VEVA” (Vanderbilt EHR
Voice Assistant), which is a Siri-esque personal assistant that allows doctors to perform a
variety of tasks with their voice. They can store and access patient information, write
prescriptions, and check lab results without having to sit down at a computer. Dr.
Kumah-Crystal hopes that this system will increase the efficiency and lower the stress of
doctors’ day-to-day routines.

What led you to Pursue Pediatric Endocrinology?

My husband was diagnosed with pediatric diabetes when he was about 17 years old. We
grew up together, and watching him go through some of the struggles that go on with
taking care of a chronic disease like that and having to inject himself several times a day
got me very interested in the concept, and from that point on, I knew I wanted to learn
more about medicine and pursue pediatric endocrinology.

Why do we need the VEVA system?

The way our medical records are designed, they’re really good at storing information.
You can have lab results in there, prescriptions, and all these notes. Unfortunately they
don’t do a very good job of bringing the information together to help you understand the
story. So we were wondering if there was a better way to have the EHR really serve a
purpose beyond storing information.

What are some examples of how this system could be used?

There are different interaction modalities. Certainly, when you’re with a patient, to share
information together if you want to look at their growth chart together or view their
medication list together. Second, if you’re in a work room by yourself, ordering
prescriptions and placing different things into the cart to order medications and things
like that. A lot of what we do is communicating with doctors and other people to get
things taken care of because there are lots of different people that work on a patient care
team. So saying “hey, could you send a message to the Rheumatologist: I just saw the
patient it looks like their arthritis is clearing up. Do you have any additional
recommendations?” That took me maybe 7 seconds to say, but it probably would have
taken me 2 to 3 minutes to actually type it in and find the right person to send it to.

Where do you see the VEVA system in 5-10 years?

What I would love to see is that VEVA or something similar to it is just a mainstream
part of the way we’re able to interact with health records and the way patients are able to
interact with their health records. To just be able to access the information we need and
have intelligent, curated summaries come back. I don’t know what the final form will be,
whether it’s VEVA herself or something that gets implemented into another voice
assistant that the patients can use. I think the modality for being able to talk and ask
questions and make queries is something that providers are going to be able to expect to
do in the next 5 years for sure.