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This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Carrie
Webster, vice president and chief analytics officer at
the Analytics Resource Center for Children's Hospital Colorado.
Carrie, it's a pleasure to have you on
the podcast today. Thank you.
Now I'm really looking forward to speaking with
you further about what you're doing at Children's
Hospital and really how health technology is changing.
But before we dive into my questions, can
you tell me a little bit more about
yourself and your background?
You bet.
As you know, I'm the vice president, chief
analytics officer at Children's Hospital Colorado,
but I'm a nurse by training. I've been
in health care over forty years,
from the bedside in the ICU and labor
and delivery and into the IT community and
finally in analytics.
And I've been serving at Children's Hospital
for almost seven years now.
Oh, that's amazing to hear. And I can
imagine that background in nursing really helps you
understand how to work through some of the
big challenges that I can imagine come up
on a regular basis on the technology side
and, you know, really is beneficial for your
current role.
I think so. I I like to think
I'm a great translator,
translating the needs of the clinicians and the
patients into,
analytics or techno technological
solutions that can support the best possible outcomes.
Well, it's amazing to hear. Now could you
tell me about the most successful projects in
the last year or two that you've had?
What did you do, and how did you
measure the results?
I love that question, and it's it's gonna
be really difficult to just come up with
one.
But I think,
as I think about what I do and
how we add value to the organization,
the thing that is most top of mind
to me is our work that we've done
with our patient flow team in predicting census.
And this project is
kinda has two arms. It's the ability to
predict the census in the hospital,
in near term. So four hours, eight hours,
twelve hours, up to seventy two hours out,
which really enables our frontline staff, our leaders,
our house supervisors to make sure that we
are adequately
staffed for the patients in the hospital at
the time. And we are doing that with
a a precision that enables us to be
within one or two patients, which is pretty
significant.
We're also using that same technology to predict
eighteen months out,
and we are within five five patients eighteen
months out. And what that enables our nursing
and physician leaders to do is really plan
for the future
in case we need traveling nurses or other
support or need to think about flexing space
to add more space during our busy season.
That really enables us to have a forward
thinking approach
so that we are doing this thoughtfully
and in a way that,
you know, isn't isn't panic or reactionary. We're
really planning for the future.
And, we've measured our results in two ways
for this. One is, you know, just the
accuracy of our prediction so that we are
really aligned with our staffing,
making sure that we have the the staff
that we needed to take care of the
patients.
But also,
in our contracting that we've been able to
go to market earlier
for,
contract labor because we have,
a fair idea of when we're gonna need
them. So we're able to,
go and and they're not sensing that that
we're in an urgency, so we have some
time and ability to negotiate those contracts.
Got it. That's great to hear. And certainly
exciting types of technology to be able to
incorporate into the hospital.
And, really, having that, you know, ability to
be a little bit more predictive, I can
imagine, is really helpful.
When you're applying technology like that, how do
you do that operationally?
Is it pretty seamless and easy to get
people the information they need and have the
technology integrated in the work flows, or does
it take some time and, you know, culture
change management as well to really rely on
something like this, to to,
think through census and and really help with
your strategy?
Right. That's a good question, and I think
technology is often the easiest part of any
project. And I think it's the it's the
relationships, the processes,
and the partnerships that really make, projects successful.
And understanding,
as a technologist, understanding what the problems are
trying that are trying to be solved, approaching
it from where they are, I think is
really beneficial.
And it it is it is a partnership.
It isn't about just, oh, hey. Here's a
project. Turn it on. No. No. It's understanding
how how do you work? How do you
conceptualize
this in what you do every day? What
makes the most sense? And you hit hit
the nail on the head.
We have three guiding principles, and it it's
automate,
integrate, and innovate.
And we like to think about doing things
seamlessly. So we're taking those tasks out of
people's hand that don't need to be manual.
So automating them, but integrating them, putting them
in the workflow so they don't have to
go and search for things. It's automatically there
when they need it so they don't even
have to think. And then, of course, innovate,
doing things creatively,
in a way that might not have been
thought of before.
I love that. Automate, integrate, innovate. I feel
like I need, you know, that mission statement,
above my desk here. I love that. Get
above my sticker.
Exactly.
So I I love that mantra. And, you
know, looking into the future, what do you
see as being some of your top priorities
over the next twelve months or so?
Sure. I I, you know, I can't have
a conversation about analytics and technology without saying
AI. Right?
So, I mean, we're looking more for more
predictive models. We're looking at large language models
to do some,
analysis both on our research and on our,
operational front. But we're also looking at governance.
And I think,
as,
health care,
I feel a a higher calling to be
good stewards of the data that we own
and to make sure that we're using it
to make the right decisions. So putting a
framework of governance on how we use the
technology and the data, I think it's incumbent
upon us, and we need to make sure
that we're front and center on that. So
all the things.
Yeah. That's that's a huge undertaking. And I
can imagine, especially looking at AI governance, it
seems like to be top of mind for
so many health systems right now. But where
do you tend to be
in thinking through that governance process?
What is kind of the top or or
forefront, you know, the the number one guiding
principle that you're taking as you're trying to
put some guardrails around
AI, which can expand very quickly?
Yeah. I think, you know, we're in health
care, so the first thing that comes to
mind is first do no harm.
So, you know, thinking about hallucinations,
thinking about,
bias, thinking about ethics. I think first do
no harms. We are here for our patients
and we are, here to make sure that
no matter what we do that they are
safe and well cared for. So that that
is top of mind in our governance process.
That makes a lot of sense.
Perfect. And, you know, before we wrap up
here, I'm wondering, how do you anticipate your
role in teams will change in the next
year or two here? What do you see
as being elevated in importance, and what do
you need more of? How will things change?
Yeah. That's a good question. And I think,
if you've ever talked to me at any
lengths, you'll know I'll stand on the soapbox
of the transition from my role from transactional
to transformational.
And I think it's no longer, hey. I'm
gonna put in a request for data or
analytics, and you're gonna give me a report
or a dashboard and more about those partnerships
that I talked about earlier with our project.
It really is
myself included and all of my team members
really need to understand
the business problems, the health care problems,
and the technology and the convergence of which.
So it's partnering. It's partnering. It's partnering.
Absolutely.
Partnering and definitely, like you mentioned, having those
business relationships. And when you talk about that,
making that transformation from a transactional,
leader, somebody who's dealing with a lot of
requests and and kicking off the list to
then becoming transformational, becoming more strategic,
and and really elevating in how you are
working with other leaders within the organization as
well as building,
growth and development for the future.
How do you
see yourself elevating in that space? What do
you need to do differently one to two
to three years now, to make sure you're
building those right relationships and thinking through and
building that foundation for additional
strategy as health care becomes more digital?
Yeah. I think it it becomes,
it's incumbent upon me to be a listener,
to understand,
the landscape in which we live,
our operational
and strategic imperatives,
and to really to really listen
and, you know, understand almost at the DNA
level what what problems we're trying to solve
and then, reach out,
and have,
that deep understanding can help me transform
into solutions that that really make a difference.
Fantastic. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for
joining us on the podcast today. This has
been such a fun and informative discussion, and
I look forward to connecting with you again
soon.
Thanks so much for your time.