Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Ryan Mohammed, writer and moderator of Becker's
Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
today,
Maura Nazario,
vice president and chief nursing officer at Home
Based Services and Hospital at Home and Hospice
at AdventHealth.
Maura, welcome to the podcast. We're very excited
to have you join us today. To get
us started, would you mind please introducing yourself
and telling us a bit about your background?
Yes. Hi, Maura. Thank you so much for
having us. Super excited to be here today.
So, yes, I'm Maura Nazario, vice president and,
chief nursing officer here at AdventHealth for the
Hospital at Home and Home Health and Hospice
programs.
I am a nurse by background, of course,
and I am newer to AdventHealth. I've been
here approximately seven months,
and I, prior to that, was a nurse
administrator on the nurse executive team for the
Mayo Clinic, where I oversaw their hospital command
center, nursing practice transformation,
and some virtual care and home hospital programs.
So, I'm really excited to be here today,
and, of course, love talking about health care
innovation.
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And I was doing a
a little bit of research on you and
the organization earlier today,
kinda in preparation and saw that hospital at
home program has obviously been a really amazing,
thing for the patients and the organization alike.
Is that one of your top priorities for
the rest of the year? And if you
know if that's not, what other, areas of
focus do you have for 2025?
Yeah. So I would say absolutely.
Hospital at home here at AdventHealth is is
forefront,
at our minds. We're we're certainly looking to
always expand on how we deliver whole person
care, which is,
in essence our,
you know, our mission here at AdventHealth to
deliver whole person care through the healing ministry
of Christ.
And really the next year, I'll be looking
to continue to drive innovation
within care models that really align to our
patient center outcomes and operational efficiencies.
And so when I say that, I think,
think right patient, right place, at the right
time model.
And more specifically,
with hospital at home, I really plan to
leverage our technology and data
and enhance our interdisciplinary
collaboration
and provide that holistic care model, really in
theory putting that patient back in the driver's
seat, having them drive their care plan, and
really give them some sense of autonomy back.
And also, you know, part of that goal
is really reducing the variability in treatments,
and still focusing on those patients' individualized needs
and increasing the quality outcomes. There's a significant
amount of studies that are out there right
now that say patients do heal better in
the comfort of their own home surrounded by
their loved ones and areas that are familiar
to them.
And so really that is is something that
we're thinking about.
Certainly another focus within hospital at home and
any virtual care models that we have here
at AdventHealth
will be really optimizing our logistics and supply
chains to achieve those operational
efficiencies,
and using the right type of technology for
the right program,
but ultimately
developing
a data driven process,
to capture improvement opportunities.
And first and foremost, building that trust and
communication with between our acute care teams
as well as our patients.
Yeah. Absolutely. That totally makes sense, and thank
you so much for sharing that information.
It it definitely makes sense that patients heal
better when they're in the comfort of their
own home.
I know some areas, you know, getting to
a hospital is troublesome for a patient.
Is there any programs or initiatives that were
the most needle moving for you or the
organization,
in last year, 2024?
Yeah. I think, you know, when I joined
the organization in 2024,
so, again, newer here, but,
really took that responsibility
of implementing the hospital at home program, pulling
from my previous experience
over the greater of the last four years
within Mayo Clinic, but also learning from others
in the industry,
was really to immerse myself into the organizational
culture here at AdventHealth
and integrate that new model of care into
our existing operations.
I think something that is really important that
is not a one size fits all model.
So what works for one organization
may not necessarily
work seamlessly within another.
AdventHealth is a very large organization. We have
a hundred thousand employees, just that in itself.
We have about 55 hospitals,
across approximately
nine states. So we have a really large
footprint. And so I had to thoughtfully think
through what makes the most sense,
really keeping that safety and quality at the
forefront of everything we do with the needs
of our patients first here.
But so we started a little bit small
and and we're slowly growing from there. But
that's really so that we can understand what
our patients, specifically at AdventHealth, are looking for.
And then certainly from there, we will grow.
So that's the most needle moving, I would
say,
is really you have to build that structure
and really truly infrastructure
to ensure that when you're developing these models
that you understand
the demographics,
the landscape,
and being the large vast of states and
and,
regions that we cover,
that also in turn may look even a
little bit further different within each region. So
that's another thing that we're still currently doing
is evaluating what makes sense within each region
of the company.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you so much for
sharing that. And and, Maura, the last question
I have for you is how are you
thinking about growth,
and or member experience for this year?
Yeah. I mean, everything we do here at
AdventHealth is really thinking about that member and
consumer experience for our patients,
but really the consumer overall.
And growth has to,
grow along with what our patients and consumers
need,
but also what we,
are doing in the organization.
So for at Hospital at Home, we're really
looking at those economies of scale within the
program,
again, ensuring those operational
efficiencies and never compromising on the quality of
care that we provide at AdventHealth, which is
exceptional.
So we'll be continuously
evaluating
the programs as we slowly scale,
and for the consumer experience,
ensuring that that personalized care is aligning with
our AdventHealth mission and values, and that we're
creating seamless transitions for the patient
with engagement and then education.
And by continuously
seeking and then evaluating
feedback from our consumers, both internally and externally,
it will allow us to mold those care
models to what matters most for our consumers,
again, which may differ a little bit within
each region.
And then when we think about our home
health and hospice programs, I think that we
are ensuring that we are placed across the
entirety of our AdventHealth footprint
and have a presence in every market where
we currently exist
and then furthermore
plan to exist in the future. So it's
all about growing with our consumers and growing
within the organization
and continuing that profound care that we are
really proud of at this organization.
I think that, that is one of the
beauties of AdventHealth
is that, you know, our mission really aligns
with,
meeting the needs of our communities and meeting
those needs of our consumers.
And, you know, over time, we've learned a
lot throughout the pandemic and others about the
benefits of telemedicine.
So we're incorporating those types of models within
our primary care models,
also within the actual traditional brick and mortar
as thinking about building our hospitals of the
future and integrating all of those technologies
and really
focusing on that consumer feedback
and making sure as as a consumer, it
feels seamless. So those are some of the
things that we're thinking about in the future.
Perfect. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing
that information, and thank you so much for
those final thoughts. It's definitely been, an informative
discussion. So I wanna thank you so much
for coming on Pecker's Healthcare, especially for the
first time.
I look forward to connecting with you again
soon. Yes. Thank you so much again, and
and appreciate you taking the time to learn
more. Of course.