This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Katherine Corbin,
chief Business Innovation Officer at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
Katherine, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Likewise. Thank you so much for having me, Laura.
Now I'm excited to jump into our conversation because I know there's so much
happening in healthcare,
and especially for children's healthcare is such a fascinating time right now.
But before we dive into our discussion,
can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Yeah, I'd love to.
I'll give you the headlines first and then provide a little bit more detail
because folks often look at my resume and ask,
how exactly did you end up in this role? So at a high level,
uh,
I started my career in architecture and healthcare architecture specifically.
So I spent some time designing hospitals and healthcare facilities that led to
a period of time where I was a healthcare administrator for a hospital system
there in Chicago that then led into being a strategy
and operations consultant for hospitals and healthcare systems,
but back in the architecture industry.
And then that led to being a design and innovation consultant while
at ideo, which is a global design and consultancy firm.
And that is where I met St. Jude. They were one of my largest clients,
and we forged a five year working relationship that ultimately led to me
joining the organization in November of 2022 as their first chief
business innovation officer. Um,
so there's a thread to my background that is a mix of healthcare,
a mix of design,
and a mix of operations and thinking about how do you take a strategy
and put it into action. Um, and that is how I ended up at St.
Jude today.
Wow. That is what a, an amazing career journey. And you know,
I can imagine every step of the way picking up new skills and, um, you know,
new tools I suppose that will really help you deliver on this kind of mix
between healthcare design and operations and making sure that you're getting
everything and executing on the strategy that's set out for you. And,
and so from your perspective, you know, title Chief Business Innovation Officer,
what does that really bring to the organization? How is that, uh,
different from any of the other roles that are happening in the C-suite and and
what are you really accountable for?
Yeah, absolutely. Well,
so to the point of the strategy and operations piece of my background,
and certainly having spent many years in healthcare in some capacity,
um,
at the heart of my role is working with other members of the senior leadership
team and other department leaders across the organization to bring our
really ambitious, uh, strategic plan to life.
And the twist on it is that I will be using my background in
design and using design skills systems thinking, um,
human-centered design as the way that I uniquely or,
or strive to approach problem solving in a somewhat different fashion. Um,
so with the strategic plan,
we've got 11 major goals within it.
They range from research initiatives since that is at the heart of what we do
at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Um, we also have clinical initiatives,
and then we have a large category that encompasses goals related to
people and place. And that last bucket,
I would say is where the role of chief business innovation officer has a lot
of opportunity because I see great promise there in how we
can advance, um,
the human experience of our employees and the human experience of our patients
and families through creative problem solving, through human-centered design,
and thinking about how do we solve the business problems that we've identified
or the ways that we want to make progress as an organization using
some of the skills, um,
and tools from my design background to drive that change forward. I.
Love that. And it seems like, you know, such an important role to really,
as you were saying,
meet the needs of an evolving healthcare space and really healthcare
transformation. Now, when you think about St. Jude's Children's in particular,
what is your growth strategy for the next year or two?
How are you really overcoming some of the challenges in the industry as well as
taking advantage of the innovation and opportunities out there?
Sure. I'll think, I'll,
I'll address this from kind of a micro level and a macro level.
So when I say micro,
these are the things that are kind of near to my role or near to, um,
my particular responsibilities.
And one of the things that I am looking to literally grow in the next couple of
years is my team. I'm currently a team of one,
and part of my role involves building out, um,
the office of Strategic Innovation and Design so that we can work,
uh,
more broadly across the organization rather than just have everything come
through me or come to me. So I'm really excited to begin recruitment for that,
um, and build out a,
a set of people with a unique set of skills and capabilities inside
of healthcare organization at the macro level,
things that I'm thinking about when it comes to growth for St. Jude.
And some of the challenges and opportunities we have in front of us,
I would say are somewhat similar to what you read a lot about in the news.
So of course,
how do we attract and retain a workforce in today's
economy? Uh,
there's a huge generational shift underway that I would say we feel rather
acutely in the world of healthcare.
What I mean by that is that we have a nursing shortage across
the US and we have a huge generation of nurses,
many of whom are in the baby boomer generation who are reaching retirement age.
And we simply just don't have enough people coming up behind them to fill those
spaces in one for one. But the demands are there,
perhaps even more acute than they were in the past because we're treating
children with ever more complex diseases.
And our research ambitions haven't slowed down either. So attracting,
retaining employees is certainly a growth challenge,
but also an opportunity for us.
It's one of the things that I'm working on right now, in fact,
with our SVP of HR,
is to design a long-term strategy for St.
Jude when it comes to hybrid and remote work opportunities. Um,
I'm sure you can appreciate ,
that's tricky when so much of the work that we do truly does
happen on campus,
either at the bedside with the patient or at the bench in our research labs.
Um, so that's just one example of, uh,
some of the growth strategies and challenges that we have as an
institution ahead of us.
One other one that I look to with a lot of excitement is as I've
joined the organization,
several folks have reached out saying that they've got their own personal
interest or curiosity about innovation or how they can apply certain
elements of design thinking to their everyday jobs.
How can they approach problem solving a bit more creatively than perhaps they
even think they have the capacity to do?
And so I see that as an opportunity to be a coach to them or a
facilitator in bringing groups together in creating small grassroots type
communities within our broader environment, um,
to help foster that,
that enthusiasm for design and applying designs to healthcare.
That's a really amazing point, and I can imagine, as you said, you know,
having that title out there,
having innovation as part of what you're doing at the top level of St.
Jude certainly can be interesting to folks.
And so when you do have people come to you and say, I wanna be part of this,
I wanna figure out how I can do more of this within my role in my particular
department, how do you coach them through that?
What do you do to get into the headspace or just really the space in
general where that innovation is possible, especially for someone you know,
who may not have that type of mindset in the past and we're really more of just
following directions or, or, um, in a space where they were really more tightly,
um, managed to the day-to-day and historical processes of healthcare?
Oh my gosh, Laura, you hit on one of the fundamental, uh,
tensions I feel, um, very regularly, and it's a good tension,
but the tension is that I am in an institution with a lot of
brilliant people,
many of whom are scientists or people who have been trained to
look for answers using empirical data. Um,
and design particularly, uh, innovation,
really likes to have ambiguity as a tool and a thing that you use
for good rather than a thing you try and shut down prematurely.
So to answer your question,
when folks reach out asking about innovation and how can they bring it into
their everyday work at St. Jude,
I try to lead first with curiosity,
which is something that I will eventually coach people on,
but I try and show up to that conversation sincerely curious what's on their
mind, why do they want to do this? Why are they interested in innovation?
What problem is it that they think they're trying to solve?
And we begin with a bunch of questions,
and then depending on some of their answers there,
I'll provide any number of ideas. Sometimes we're just brainstorming together.
Other times I'll provide a bit more direct coaching things like,
why don't you try experimenting with this, this, and this? Um,
or perhaps here's how you might structure your next team or departmental meeting
if what you're trying to do is, um, increase engagement,
et cetera.
So I treat a lot of those queries from my colleagues,
as many design opportunities for myself and thinking about, all right,
let's get curious,
understand what problems they think they have and go from there before
immediately jumping into execution or solution mode.
Absolutely. That's a really great point,
and thank you so much for walking us through that. Now, you know,
I can imagine that a lot of, uh,
health systems and organizations are facing the same thing when they're trying
to unlock the potential and the brilliance that they have on their team. So I,
I think that's super, super helpful. Now I'm wondering from your perspective,
if you could tell us a little bit about the most exciting and impactful
initiative or project that you're working on right now.
Sure. Uh, well, I mentioned one of them already, which is around, um,
co-designing with our head of HR and gosh,
at least 30 other members of our staff, um,
co-designing our future remote work policy. Um,
and currently we are engaged in an eight week pilot right now
that's pretty robust.
It has about 200 or so employees participating in that in a
variety of ways. And I think this is exciting for two big reasons.
One is we are, um,
making progress on co-designing this future workplace strategy
and workplace policy. So there's some very practical, um,
outcomes from this.
But I also think it's a great opportunity for us as an organization
to build the muscle of piloting and prototyping,
to learn and iterate before we make final decisions.
That's a core part of the design and innovation process,
and it's a muscle and a skillset that I personally want to build up more of
inside of St. Jude. We've got such strength and,
and credibility, frankly, in the world of scientific research.
And scientific research is based on rigorous experimentation to learn.
And I,
I'm thrilled to be bringing some of that same rigor and applying it,
uh, in a different way, um, in the business side, shall we say, of St. Jude.
So that's one thing. Um, another thing that, uh,
I'm really thrilled about personally is St.
Jude recently opened a new space on campus
that's called the Family Commons, which is 45,000 square feet.
So an entire floor of one of our old inpatient buildings,
and it's 45,000 square feet of space that is dedicated to our patients and
families exclusively. No medical treatment happens here.
There's no clinical activity, and in fact,
very few staff other than those who are there to directly support the Family
commons environment are allowed on this floor.
It's a respite for our patients and families.
And the early reviews of it have been tremendous.
I was a member of the design team for that several years ago, um,
when I was with ideo. And now what's so amazing is, uh,
I get to see it in youth and we are in the early days of developing a
research study to formally study to what extent the family
commons environment may positively impact the patient care experience at
St. Jude. So that is really exciting to me.
I'm eager to get going on it and see what we learned through that process. Um,
and then two other quick things I'll mention, uh,
I've touched on a bit about our strategic plan.
It's the most ambitious growth plan we've had in the institution's 60 year
history. It's roughly, it's 13 billion investment in St.
Jude wherein we're adding 2300 jobs to the
organization. That's part of the reason why it's so important for us, um,
to think strategically about remote and hybrid work.
And there's a lot of campus construction going on.
And so as someone who's just ambitious in her own career,
this is a environment and a place where I feel like my
ambition is, um, equally matched by the organization's ambition.
And that feels like a great fit. And the last thing I would say is,
um, mentoring other women in the workplace is something that I have always cared
passionately about,
and indeed I've benefited from mentorship myself
tremendously. And St.
Jude is committed to mentoring women in leadership,
particularly faculty and senior leadership,
in giving them the opportunity to grow their careers as they wish.
And so that's a place where I'm already starting to get involved and
finding it to be tremendously rewarding.
Absolutely. I love that Catherine, and wow, what a huge, uh,
huge responsibility that is to be,
obviously bringing in so many new people into the workforce,
2300 jobs is a lot. Um, you know, from your perspective,
what does an organization need in order to be able to do that effectively? I,
I can imagine having a strong culture for those who are, um,
already within the organization and, you know, really, um,
I've been there for a while, but, you know,
how do things change when you have such an influx of of staff like that? And,
um, really what can you do to bring people on board as quickly as possible to
understand, you know, where, uh, what you need from them at St.
Jude's for today and, and where you're headed?
Yeah, , uh, not a small task. Um,
and you're absolutely right to hone in on, you know,
hiring 2300 people in an organization that is approximately
6,507, maybe 7,000 people today. Um,
that represents really, really large growth for us. And,
uh, of course that can bring all kinds of changes to your culture,
the employee environment.
And we've already touched on just the generational shifts that are happening in
the workforce across America as it is. Um,
so inherent in all of that is a lot of change,
and it makes me think of one of the values that we have at St. Jude, uh,
potentially my favorite value,
which is embrace the challenge to create a new tomorrow.
I think that being sincerely curious and open to trying things that are
new and different is challenging in and of itself,
but I also believe that's how we create that new tomorrow that we say is so
important for us and for our patients, uh,
and all the others who benefit from the research that happens here.
So when I think about what's important for us,
what we need to do to be successful in the future,
I personally have a strong commitment to fundamentally pushing people to be
sincerely curious and open to trying. Because when we are that way,
then we can embrace those challenges and create a new tomorrow just at St.
Ju value prompts us to do.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I,
I think it's so important and so helpful to, as you've mentioned,
think through what's gonna be, um, you know, making that tomorrow,
um, that you're trying to create. And I love that too,
the embrace the challenge to create a new tomorrow. I think, uh, you know,
I wanna take that back to Becker's as well because, you know,
there's so much transformational change happening across the board and so many
different industries and, um, you know, what a great mantra to have.
Before we wrap up our con conversation,
I was wondering if you could talk through the mentorship side of things. You've,
um, you know,
mentioned that mentoring women in the workplace is a passion of yours and
emerging leaders as well. So what do you see as being, um,
the most important thing that healthcare executives can do right now to make
sure that their organizations are successful in the future,
especially as healthcare changes? Um, and really, you know, the,
the world at large evolves?
Uh, well, so that, I would say,
I think an organization's future success is directly correlated with how
effectively it enables the people that make up that organization.
So you can have, you know,
incredible access to tools and technology and other resources,
but if you aren't curious about why your people do what they do,
why they choose you as an organization over some other organization,
why one team seems to be outperforming everyone else,
then I think at best,
you as a leader or you as a member of a leadership team can make a mediocre
choice that's based on an assumption and at work at worst. Rather,
you might miss a big opportunity to lead the market or lead your industry and
your company in a totally new way.
So perhaps that's a long way of saying you have to push yourself and commit to
having an open, inquisitive mindset.
And I think that that can be particularly difficult in healthcare,
and I don't think this is unique to St. Jude necessarily,
but in healthcare where frankly, you know,
taking risks sometimes means people's lives are at stake.
And so you wanna be really intentional about what risks you're taking and
why you're taking them. Things are rather serious and elevated.
The consequences can be quite high.
And so sometimes it can feel like there's not room or time to be
curious or it can be irresponsible to let your mind wander a bit when you
are pretty confident, you know,
a way move forward that has proven itself to work in the past.
But that's where I think any organization and healthcare in particular can fall
into a bit of a trap of going with the known rather than being
open to what could be.
I love it. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
I feel like that is such great insight and especially, um,
thinking through healthcare and what it takes to change and what it takes to
transform and, and really become what, uh, patients and communities need next.
Uh,
I really appreciate your time today and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon.
Likewise. It's been a pleasure and wish you all the best, Laura.