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Medical tech company Becton Dickinson makes devices and instruments that are used by health care professionals and medical researchers. Among its products are reagents used in testing for COVID-19.

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX) Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

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Becton Dickinson

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AI speeds up test results and tasks and improves productivity too.

Becton Dickinson CEO: AI is Transforming Healthcare

Tech

tom you say that artificial intelligence is having a huge impact on improving health care. How is ai shaping the future of health care? We're seeing it transform laboratory testing as an example things that used to take three days to get a result of patients. Re utilizing AI to get them to patients in one day faster diagnosis faster treatment. We're utilizing it for example to improve detection of cervical cancer. Think about reading a pap smear. We now have imaging software and ai find the cancer cells much more sensitive than the human eye could find cancer cells that's improving outcomes. So those are just some examples of how we're using AI today and we're just getting started. We're in the very early phase. What would you say is the fast track when you talk about ai most people think technology of um automated machines or robots getting access to the data and helping um for clinicians take things off of their plate so that we can feed up the the action that they have to take to improve patient outcome. Not just sorting through data all the time. There's a tremendous amount of data available to physicians today. Think about if you're in an I. C. U. The average nurse has to deal with over 500 alarms per patient bed. It's a tremendous amount of information. Um We want to use ai to comb through that data and help t. Up to physicians and nurses. The important things that they have to take action on for patients rather than spending their time looking at screens. I understand that you are shifting into some new care settings. Moving beyond the hospital to surgery centers to retail setting settings even into patients homes. In what ways does Ai help you make this transition? We recently launched the first um smartphone based rapid test for Covid and it uses an Ai algorithm to actually interpret and read the test result. And we're taking that same technology now and we're going to allow people to test themselves for fluid home in the future or strep throat in the future. And that's all utilizing imaging algorithms to get a hospital quality result. But by yourself in your home we're just scratching the surface when it comes to enabling home home care. So what do you see in the future? Thanks to Ai we see for example. Um rather than spending time in an I. C. U. There's a whole shift of care of I. C. U. S. At home. Imagine remote patient monitoring infusion pumps being monitored from a central command. Much cheaper in the home than in the hospital. Um And where people would rather be at the end of the day where they can spend more time with their loved ones. All of that remote monitoring and evaluation of vital signs, blood being able to be self collected in your home rather than in a healthcare setting. All of that will be part of the future. And we're investing in all of those areas that I just mentioned to help enable that you know during the pandemic, we heard a lot about burnout and you say that aI can even help health care professionals do their job better and faster and reduce burnout. Talk to us about that burnout among clinicians is an extremely critical issue for society overall. Um and you've seen significant resignations, particularly among nurses, um so you've got less tenure, less experience more work than ever, hardest working people in the hospital nurses. And so the use of AI and technologies to help automate tasks to alleviate that burden, to help sort through huge amounts of data to tee up actions rather than having to sort through and synthesize it has a tremendous impact on reducing burden on clinicians and allowing them to operate at the upper end of their license. Right. Not not on the more mundane tasks that we can take off their plate. Tom you've already made a very significant investment in AI and yet you sound very positive enthusiastic about all of all of the good things that it brings to health care. What are your plans going forward? Do you see Doing more investments, adding more to your capabilities? We have 2000 software engineers and data scientists today, we partner with many organizations like Microsoft and Amazon as well happen to their aI capabilities that they have. And so we have multiple programs across the company focusing on that, I'd say a big theme of programs across our company are helping to improve productivity and remove burden from healthcare workers. And we see that as a tremendous opportunity as we look ahead and we're just getting started in that space, but we're gonna be a leader there.

Tom Polen sees people getting everything from flu shots to cancer therapy from home.  

Becton Dickinson CEO: Healthcare delivery is headed to our homes and away from hospitals 

Leadership

Becton Dickinson CEO on the changing healthcare system 

tom So good to see you to talk about Beckton Dickinson and the growth story at your company. You know, your medical products and medical devices were in great demand and fighting Covid like the two billion syringes that you produced in record time that were used to vaccinate all those Covid vaccines all around the world. Uh It's not surprising that your company's revenue surged in the past year. Your profits more than doubled and you even moved up a couple of notches on Fortune's latest ranking of the Fortune 500. But Covid's been leveling off. So how can you continue this pace of growth going forward? Certainly, COVID had a big impact on the company's. We provide all those products to help patients around the world but we're far more than than COVID testing and uh and and vaccinations. So each year we make 45 billion devices That's five million devices are used every day to care for patients in more than 200 countries around the world. And so we have a Um a deep portfolio. Many people refer to us as backbone of healthcare because of the ubiquitous nature of our products. More than 90% of people going into a hospital will be touched by a B. D. Product. And we have an extremely exciting pipeline that's gonna help revolutionize the future of healthcare. So talk about the future of health care and your pipeline. Where is most of the growth going to come from. We see three specific areas that we're investing the vast majority of our R. And D. Dollars into as well as our m And a activity. The first is smart connected care and the use of ai robotics informatics to transform healthcare for the better. The second area that we're focused on is enabling care to shift to new care settings. So traditional hospital care, moving into the home or into your retail um pharmacy or into an ambulatory surgery center. And then the third area that we're investing in is improving outcomes for patients with chronic disease very often and historically treating chronic diseases meant taking pills. There's innovation that's happening now where medical devices can be used to meaningfully improve outcomes in chronic disease. And we want to be leading the way there. You've said that A. B. D. Is known as the backbone of healthcare but actually you've been moving beyond hospitals into retail settings and you just announced a deal that you're buying a company that specializes in automation solutions for pharmacies. Tell us a little bit about it and how it fits into the broader vision that you've been telling us about. I think we all saw during Covid that retail pharmacies were playing an increasingly important role in delivering care. Many of us went and got our vaccines. For example in those settings, pharmacists busier than ever labor shortages in pharmacies. We see a tremendous opportunity for robotics informatics ai to automate things like preparing your amber vial full of pills that can all be automated so that a pharmacist can spend their time with the patient consulting them giving vaccines, doing wellness checks. So tell us about what are some of the other areas that you want to get into that go beyond the traditional businesses that B. D. Is known for as we think about care moving into the home, that's a great example. Um We recently acquired a company that allows you to do covid test with your cell phone in our pipeline. We have tests that allow you to test yourself for flu and covid at home or test yourself and your kids for strep throat. We have technologies in our pipeline that will allow you to collect blood by yourself at home and then you know, imagine pressing an app on your phone that an Uber type driver would come pick up your blood and bring it to the lab simplifying care in a dramatic way. And so we think that over the next 10 years that shift of more smart connected care, more care delivered in the home setting and ways to improve chronic diseases in ways that haven't been done in the past are gonna be tremendous opportunities to revolutionize healthcare and we're gonna be at the forefront of it. But you know, you're in a unique position because you're both on the tech side of the business and on the clinical side of the business. So by uh converging uh these expertise, both expertise is that you're doing, What types of innovations do you think that people can expect to see that will improve their everyday lives? I think being able to test yourself at home is a tremendous opportunity. It started with covid. People started realizing I don't wanna wait days to get a test result. I want to get it in minutes. That's that's transforming people's lives in a real basis. Being able to empower themselves to treat conditions um like cancer therapy. Being able to administer that in your home, that's where it's heading. Rather than having to go um work through traffic and sit for hours in a hospital. That's all going to be moving towards people's homes in a much more powered empowered way. And that's something that it takes technologies from companies like B. D. To make happen. And we're really excited about doing that. Well I know that you've been partnering with tech companies like amazon Google and Microsoft. What types of innovations have already come out from those working relationships? A number specifically driven by ai. And so a great example of that is in the microbiology laboratory traditionally it's taken two or three days to find out if you have an infection We partnered and developed artificial intelligence that actually allows test results to get to a patient within 24 hours. So cut days off of of of time. That's uh all being done by computers and robots now. And that's a real impact for patient care. Tom when you became Ceo in 2020 it was right at the beginning of the whole Covid crisis and the urgency of Covid, it seems defined your leadership beyond whatever you had had planned before this all happened. Tell us how Covid shaped the way you had to leave B. D. Right from day one. Certainly the Covid crisis was not in my 30 60 90 day plan from the start. But um if anything the communications, the engagement with the organization that I had planned it went into hyper speed and so I went from maybe once a month communications to everyday videos, emails on, here's how we're keeping our employees safe, here's how we're going to ramp up production to help meet the need. I remember very early on within the first month. Um it was maybe 10 or 11:00 at night. My phone rang and it was a T. C. Area code. I thought it was a telemarketer. So I didn't pick up rang again and pick up the White House. Can you be here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning for a press conference in the rose garden around how BD can help address the pandemic. I never thought I'd get that type of call. But you know that's a little bit of a sneak peek into my 30 days. The spotlight was on you that the White House was calling you. What was that like inspired us? The nation needed B. D. To come through the White House end up doing any perks for you to achieve those goals? They certainly helped us from a supply chain perspective when we had products we had for example are rapid tests were on air force jets being flown into the country so that's a little bit of help. Yeah. You know, one thing that people say about your leadership in those early days is that your priority was to pivot to a faster pace of innovation to come up with covid solutions. You pushed for what you call speed to clinic versus speed to manufacturing. So it sounds like your whole leadership message was a call to action. Absolutely. I mean there were people dying on a daily basis, they needed to get diagnosed. We needed to get people vaccinated and so we needed to do things radically different And to do that we needed to get people empowered. We need to take risks off of their plate. We need to put all the resources of a 75,000 person company behind this purpose. When you have high clarity in your purpose, you can achieve amazing things. And I think we've seen that throughout society and we certainly saw it in the organization well you mentioned a moment ago that uh B. D. Has been around for 100 and 25 years and has a long history of innovation during crisis and I think many people may not know this, but the polio crisis Beckton Dickinson was the company that came up with the special syringes to administer the polio vaccine. So that's just, you know, 11 example. But um, what is different about your leadership message today about agility and the innovation mindset that is different from the leadership message back in those days, Back in those days we were just a couple of million dollar company, right? We're nearing a $20 billion dollar company today. So much larger scale and often in larger companies, agility becomes an increasing problem. And so for us, um, we've been very focused on servant leadership in the organization which is getting our leaders out on the front lines and understanding where is their kinks in the hose that are slowing things up and empowering people requires leaders to be in on the front line with them and that's a really important part of our culture. I think that's something that we've been accelerating since I've taken over as Ceo and we can certainly see the impact in our business. One thing that many Ceo tell me that the hardest thing with Covid was there wasn't a pay playbook for dealing with this big problem. Looking at the past two years that you've gone through with all of this, what's in the most important leadership lesson that you've learned through this experience. I think setting a clear set of priorities right from the start. And so we never took our eye off of that true north of our overall strategy and how we can help reinvent and transform healthcare in the future. So it's that focus, um is something that I'd say I learned through that challenge of of Covid is more important than ever before.