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- This is Chris Doster with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled to rejoined by Jerry ak, chief Information
and Innovation Officer for Children's Nebraska.
Jerry, thank you so much for joining us today.
- My pleasure to be here.
- Excellent. Could you please introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your background?
- Sure. So Jerry ak as was mentioned,
I'm the Chief Information
and Innovation Officer here at Children's Nebraska.
I've been, uh, with Children's for about five years now.
My responsibilities, uh, span information technology,
information security,
clinical engineering, strategic planning.
And then about 18 months ago,
we developed a new group called Digital
Health and Innovation.
I've been in healthcare for the majority of my career,
32 years.
Uh, always worked in, uh, academic medical centers,
including children's Nebraska, mostly in adult,
uh, healthcare.
Although in my last position at BJC
Healthcare, I supported St.
Louis Children's Hospital
and really got an appreciation for pediatric healthcare,
which really interested me in this position here
at Children's Nebraska.
- Certainly you have a, a long and a story career.
Jerry, thank you again for joining us.
So what would you say is the evolution
of the innovation gap in pediatrics
and what are children's Nebraska's strategies to closing it?
- Uh, that's really, really a great question.
So first of all, uh, you know, as I mentioned,
I have strategic planning.
So we have five pillars of our strategic plan,
and one of those pillars is to improve the health
and wellbeing of every child through
innovation and discovery.
So we call that out very prominently in our strategic plan.
We do have a child health research institute in partnership
with our academic partner, uh, university
of Nebraska Medical Center.
So discovery, uh, research
and innovation are very core in our strategic plan.
I also mentioned that we have five core values, uh,
in our organization, innovation, collaboration,
accountability, respect, and excellence.
So we call innovation out as well in our core values.
And one of the reasons we, we find it so important,
probably the primary reason we find it so important is
that it is a national statistic that
of all the dollars spent on healthcare innovation, uh,
technology, less than 2% of that is dedicated
to pediatrics.
And when you think about, uh, the population
of the United States, uh, over 20% of
that population is under 18 years old.
So it's a little bit of an alarming statistic
that less than 2%
of innovation dollars are spent on pediatrics.
We feel it's important to bridge that gap
because we want to intervene in these children's lives
to set them up for great health into adulthood.
So intervene early
and as often as we need to with innovation to set them up
for health, uh, in the future.
- Jerry, given the mission of not only your health system,
but yourself and your team, what are some
of the recent innovations that you
and your team are proud of and what's on the horizon?
- Yeah, that's, that's really a great question.
So, I, some of the things we're very, very proud of, uh,
that have transpired of the past couple years are we have a,
a project that's named Project Austin in our organization,
and it was really the idea of two nurses in our organization
that saw a need in the community of, uh, with children
that have a lot of medical complexity.
So, uh, they had this idea to partner with
EMS per personnel in the community to make sure
that those personnel had the most current medical records
of, of those medically complex kids
to intervene appropriately
and, uh, potentially to save lives
and to advance those patients' outcomes.
And, uh, in 2015, I can share a statistic, we, uh,
uh, served about 15 patients in that program,
and we're up to about 2000 patients in that program now.
And really what that does is allow those EMS personnel
to get to those records.
And recently we have developed an application
for those EMS personnel.
So imagine them having a, you know, digitized paper
that they were revert referring to
in the past when they encountered one
of these kids that needed help.
We've now, uh, digitized it that in an application
that gives them access to real time, uh,
feed from our medical record here at,
at children's Nebraska.
So that's really an advanced innovation
that we're very proud of.
And as a matter of fact, uh, our organization was recognized
by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, uh,
for excellence in nursing for that program.
Uh, recently, uh, in October, they were recognized by the,
the Magnet Conference.
So really, really great work there.
Uh, the other thing that I'll call out is that
our organization was just recognized by Modern Healthcare
for our use of 3D print technology
and advancing, uh, patient outcomes, uh, which is,
uh, uh, recognized as a top innovator organization, again,
by modern healthcare.
We've been able to intervene with 3D printing technology,
uh, to allow our surgeons to practice surgeries
before they have to occur.
It reduces the amount of time for the surgery
and allows the, the, the surgeons to get an idea of
what they're facing, uh, prior to having to,
to start the surgery.
So really great advancement there.
I I will call out another thing that we're very proud of.
Uh, a generous donor in our community is helping
to finance an innovation center here at Children's Nebraska.
We, uh, through, uh, COVID
and the development of a hybrid work environment,
we've been able to identify about 8,000 square feet
in our organization.
So we originally envisioned having to build a bricks
and mortar innovation center.
We've been able to save the organization a lot of money
by buying backspace, uh,
through our hybrid work arrangement program.
And we're in the process of building out
that innovation center now.
It will open in early 2024.
And some of the things we're gonna highlight, uh, in
that innovation center is it'll, it'll showcase our use
of 3D uh, imaging technologies.
We'll have a patient room of the future
where we're partnering with some of our critical vendors on
advancing the patient patient experience
and advancing patient outcomes as well.
We're we're getting into a bit
of application development in our environment.
So if we see a gap in services that some of our vendors, uh,
don't supply an an application, we're doing a little bit
of application development.
We're also going to have a real-time
decision support analysis center.
So we'll be able to, uh, if you've ever heard
of a virtual ICU environment, we're gonna take that
one step beyond a virtual ICU to what we're calling,
uh, patient care of the future.
We're we'll be able to take information from, uh,
biomedical devices at the bedside, analyze that data
and intervene more quickly
to improve positive patient outcomes.
So a few of the things that we're,
we're gonna be highlighting in our innovation
centers, we advance that.
- Jerry, congratulations
to your team on all those innovations.
No doubt they've helped a whole lot of people
since they were, uh, implemented.
Uh, when you look around
and you have other people in your healthcare sphere,
let's say, and they're trying to devote more resources
to this, what sort of advice would you have for them
for using certain innovations that
childrens Nebraska has put at the forefront?
- That's really, really a great question.
So, so a two-part answer to that.
So first, it's very important to build a culture
of innovation in your organization.
So for us, this is really a grassroots effort
and tapping into the wisdom
and creative wisdom of all
of our team members across the organization.
When we developed, uh, this, uh, digital health
and innovation strategy, we very quickly realized we,
we wouldn't be able to do it effectively by hiring,
for example, a team of 20 people
who were just devoted to doing this.
Because what we know here at Children's Nebraska is the best
ideas come from the caregivers at the bedside
are folks working out in the field.
And so what we decided as a leadership team is we wanted
to give all of our team members across the organization an
opportunity to participate in
what we're calling the culture of innovation.
And we've taken a two-pronged approach,
uh, approach to that.
So first of all, we've developed affinity groups
for innovation, and we've started with four affinity groups.
So we have one around virtual reality, the second's
around our 3D printing technology.
The third is around artificial intelligence,
and the fourth is around digital wearables.
And so we have a physician lead
and an executive lead for each of those groups,
but they're open for anyone in the organization
to participate in.
And we have the, um, assurance of all
of our leaders across the organization
that they're gonna allot time for their folks to,
that are interested in that, uh, uh,
have an interest in those programs to participate in them.
And we're very excited
because, uh, we have up to about 80 folks
participating in any one of those, uh,
those affinity groups.
So those meet monthly.
So a lot of great participation across the organization
and a lot of advancement across the organization.
The other thing that we've done is we've introduced
what we're calling the innovation cup,
which is a competition in the organization,
and everyone across the organization is allowed
to participate in it.
And what it's about is submitting your creative ideas
around, uh, two specific areas of
that we're focusing on.
The first is around, uh, patient engagement.
Uh, so how our patients are feeling about their experience
with us, uh, advancing positive patient outcomes
and their overall perception of us as an organization.
And then the second is our team member engagement.
So our employee experience
and our team member engagement is
of utmost importance to us.
We wanna retain our employees,
we have really great employees
and wanna make sure they have a great experience
with the organization as well.
So that's our other focus area.
So our innovation cup, our, our,
across the organization folks are allowed
to participate in that.
And we just launched that this fall. Very successful.
We got close to a hundred ideas
across those two areas of focus.
And right now we're in the process of, uh, judging those.
We have a judging panel
of multidisciplinary leaders across the organization with
who will pick the top ideas in each of those categories.
And then our, we have, we're very lucky, uh, very blessed
to have a strong foundation in our organization
who has raised money
to help us advance those ideas to fruition.
So if, for example,
someone had a great idea about developing an application to,
to help our employees
with their experience in the organization, make that better
for them, that would get funded
and we would do the development around that
and then roll it out to the rest of the organization.
So, so to your point in your question,
we find it's gonna be very important
that the organization advances a culture of innovation
and that folks feel empowered to be creative, to think
beyond the status quo
and not do everything the way they used to
before to think innovatively
and advance, uh, the organization.
I'll say the second thing I think
that is really critical in giving advice is
what we found is unfortunately,
the traditional healthcare vendors,
the big healthcare vendors, um, are not
as progressive as they could be.
So, you know, healthcare
for a long time has lagged on the innovation front.
And I would say, say there's still some truth to that today,
when we reach out to our vendor, traditional vendor partners
and say, Hey, we're we're trying to advance innovation.
Would you help be a partner with us on that front?
They're, they're quick to come to the table,
but they're not quick to execute.
They're not as agile as, as I think they could be.
Uh, and others in our organization think they could be.
What we've found success at is, uh, partnering with,
uh, more, what do we call startup companies,
a little bit more agile,
have a really quick development cycle.
We've found success there.
So, so I think it's very important to really vet vendors,
look at folks that can be agile,
that have a solid development cycle
and can advance the ideas you have more quickly, uh, so
that you can actually, uh, you know, see the outcomes that,
that you're trying to achieve.
- Certainly, Jerry, I hope,
and we hope that the culture
that you've created at Children's Nebraska yields any number
of ideas and that vendors are able to match that
with their agility.
Uh, lastly, I will ask you, uh,
what issue in pediatrics do you believe deserves
to be discussed more often?
- You know, so I, I think I will go back to, uh,
that statistic of, you know, less than 2%
of innovation dollars in healthcare are spent in pediatrics.
I think all of us in the pediatric community need
to be very focused around that.
And we're starting to see some movement in that.
You know, there's a consortium, uh, that's based in, uh,
at LA Children's called Kids X,
which has been very successful about
bringing pediatric hospitals together with, uh,
innovative vendors to advance innovation in pediatrics.
You know, there's another program, I, I can't remember
where it's, it's exactly where it's based out of,
but it's called VINs Kids,
and it also partners, uh, pediatric hospitals with
more innovative thinking, uh, vendor partners to,
to advance, uh, innovation in pediatric healthcare.
And, and I think we need to continue to hone that focus to
where we start to see the tide turn, uh,
to those equitable dollars coming into pediatrics
for research and innovation.
Because as I mentioned
before, you know, when you think about intervening
early in the healthcare of children,
that just sets them up for many, many years, more years of,
of good health into adulthood.
And, uh, that's when we should be intervening quickly
and often when we see needs in the community, what,
whether it be, uh,
because kids aren't getting the appropriate healthcare
because of social determinants of health
or what other the, the circumstances are making sure
that we're intervening early in the healthcare of these kids
and young adults to make sure that they're set up for, uh,
great health into adulthood.
And I think we all need to maintain
that focus in the pediatric community, uh, in,
in advanced innovation to help us do that.
- Jerry, thank you so much for being so generous
with your time and your insights today.
We definitely cannot wait to share them with our audience,
and we hope to connect with you soon.
- Awesome. It was a pleasure to be with you today.
I love talking about this topic and,
and really appreciate the opportunity.
- It's so important for leaders at the top of organizations
to keep learning, stay sharp, grow their networks,
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