Hello, everyone. This is Scott King with the
Becker's Healthcare podcast. Thrilled today to be joined
by Carrie Webster, vice president and chief analytics
officer over at Children's Hospital
Colorado. Carrie, how are you doing today?
Doing well, Scott. How are you? I'm great.
You know, weather's not too bad in Chicago.
We missed the northern lights as we're talking
about before, but, you know, maybe next time
it comes around, we'll we'll try to make
it.
A lot
of great topics here to to get to
in health care. A lot going on, as
always. But before we kinda dive into the
questions, just wondering if you could please tell
us a little bit about your your background.
Sure.
As you know, I'm a nurse by training,
and my professional journey bridges
anything from health care innovation, technology leadership. But,
truly, I have a passion for empowering
organizations
to thrive in a digital era, helping our
patients. I think that's why we're here.
So I think the intersection between health care
and technology
helped me shape my perspective on the potential
and
responsibility that we have in Petersen hospitals.
Thanks so much for that background info. And
the first thing I I wanted to ask
you, Carrie, is what opportunities and headwinds in
health care do you kinda have your eye
on right now?
Well, I imagine that you're never gonna have
a conversation in the next couple of years
without hearing the word AI.
I'm I'm going to say that I do
think AI represents one of the most exciting
opportunities in our industry,
and that's anywhere from predictive analytics,
personalizing
care,
any, you know, large language models, soup to
nuts. I I like to joke and say
I've been using AI since spell check back
in the day.
But regardless, I do think that AI has
the potential,
to transform how we deliver value, which in
turn means we're caring for our patients better.
I do think these opportunities, we have to
be very careful. We can't,
use technology in search of a problem. We
have to really think about what our problems
are and how technology can can shape and
change those. And I think that means that
the challenges we're facing is we have to
make sure that
organizations
as a whole
and individuals
are educated about how AI works,
understanding
where where it might be limited,
and then help cultivate those critical thinking around
the output.
As an analytics leader, I think very critically
about the quality of data
that's feeding our, AI systems, and I think
that's critical.
And without our rigorous standards and governance,
we might be,
introducing some flood logic into our ecosystem.
So I think these are some of the
things that I think about,
from education and collaboration and make sure that
we're doing
hypervigilance
on, what we're producing with these tools.
Absolutely.
Carrie, you mentioned value. I just curious if
you're
finding ways to add growth and value to
your org,
maybe without AI, or or are you still
using AI AI to do those things to
help with with growth and value?
I think a little bit of both.
As I alluded to before, I think growth
comes from
responsible adoption of technologies. They just can't throw
AI problems and expect it to everything to
be solved.
But I think if you foster a culture
where critical thinking about any technology,
it helps us, across the board. And when
you think about adding value, I think about
outcomes. I think about are we changing the
lives of our patients. So one example where
we're not using AI is we've impacted
our CLABSI rate
with the analytics support. So a partnership between
clinical leaders and our analytics team has found
a way to deliver real time insights at
the fingertips of our clinicians that have helped
drive our CLABSI rates down.
You mentioned culture. What's a good way to
make sure you're
implementing the right culture right now with everything
going on and all the advances in health
care?
Oh, that's a great question. I think
thinking about
the why
helps keep the culture in this area of
rapid change. In fact, I've spoken to my
team about it. I I know people are
fatigued by
the changes that are coming up in every
day,
and
keeping
in touch with why you're here is paramount.
And so
I think I'm very deliberate about my culture.
I make sure that
we have, keep our why front and center.
We understand that we're here for the kids,
and we talk about,
practicing ruthless self care. We talk about diversity.
We talk about
work life balance. And so I think those
things are important.
Yeah. I think those are all great things
to focus on for that culture.
Carrie, I also wanna ask you, what do
you think is one risk or investment right
now,
worth making for your system?
I don't know if this is a risk
or not, but I think and it's not
gonna be a very sexy answer. I think
we need to start investing
in the education,
of the citizen data consumer, especially in this
digital age.
And that means,
helping them understand
what outputs are coming out, questioning everything,
under helping them do prompt engineering as we
talk about agentic AI and increment you know,
investigating the data.
So I think that is it's worthwhile. It
might not cost a lot of money, but
it is time and people are busy. So
I think maybe a little risk because you're
taking people away from their jobs, but I
think it's worth the investment.
No. I I think that's a good answer.
With everything going on and how quickly things
are moving, just to make sure people understand
what they can do and and results.
Carrie, where do you see the best opportunities
for growth in the future?
I think growth in the future relies on
us fostering
a we talked about culture, a culture of
thoughtful engagement with technology. As I said before,
clearly understanding what problems we have and how
we can leverage that technology to our best
advantage.
I think,
our organization
will be able to adapt rapidly and deliver
these services
if we think about these things problem first,
not technology first. And the
the growth of technology
is is always there. It is gonna keep
growing and growing and growing. I think we
really need to be problem centered and then
adapting
that technology
to those problems versus the other way around.
Hey, Carrie. The last thing I wanted to
ask you, I I think, obviously, right now
with with systems and and the industry
in general and health care, leadership is so
important. And there there's so much changing. There's
so much at stake. Can you talk a
little bit about your leadership journey and and
how you evolved as a leader?
Yes. Thank you. I, I'm not gonna tell
you how long I've been in health care,
but a very long time.
And,
I've learned from the best of the best.
And and I think
from anywhere from being a charge nurse in
a night shift ICU
to being a a clinical educator leader to
a technology leader, I think authenticity is key.
And,
just letting people know what is,
what's happening, why it's happening, what their roles
are. I also believe in having fun. You
have to love what you do, and you
have to,
take that love of what you do and
combine that with your passion to make amazing
outcomes.
Well, Carrie, thanks so much for joining us
on the podcast. It was a great conversation.
I appreciate all your your expertise, and your
insight, and I look forward to working with
you again soon. Thanks, Scott. Great to talk
to you.