At athenahealth,
we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier, a
healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier patients.
But the complexities of modern health care tech
make it hard for you and your care
teams to focus on what matters most.
Most? That's where athenahealth can help.
Our AI native all in one solutions reduce
administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most.
That means fewer clicks, more time for patients,
and stronger bottom
lines. Practicing medicine is complex, but running a
practice can be that much simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.
Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris
Sosa, your host, and I'm thrilled to be
joined today by doctor Miriam Parsa. She is
a pediatric rheumatologist and the chief pediatric medical
officer at Cottage Children's Medical Center in Santa
Barbara, California.
She joins us to discuss her organization's work
with Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
Miriam, thank you for joining us today. Thank
you for having me. It's a privilege to
talk about the work that we are doing
and will be doing.
Excellent. Miriam, for those in our audience who
are not familiar with you and your work,
could you just please introduce yourself and tell
us a bit about your background?
Yes. No problem. I'm a pediatric rheumatologist,
and I always introduce myself first as a
pediatric rheumatologist even though I have two jobs
at the moment.
I came here about eleven years ago,
and, I've been the sole practitioner
here covering,
three counties, but, actually, probably a little bit
more as we get referrals from these other
counties as well.
But I'm speaking to you today as the
chief pediatric medical officer,
and I assume this role
almost three years ago now.
And,
I really wasn't looking into a leadership position,
being the sole pediatric rheumatologist.
However,
it just
happened to be that my predecessor, doctor Steve
Barclay, retired a few years ago.
And, he really encouraged me,
to consider this administrative opportunity,
because I love the work that we're doing
here. It's quite inspirational. I, again, appreciate this
opportunity
to share the the great work that we're
doing in the partnership,
with CHI that's allowing us to talk today.
Miriam, what is there anything that you've learned
about yourself so far having jumped into this
administrative role?
Great question. I've learned so much
about the process,
about what goes on beyond
patient care,
the complexity
behind it.
I don't take for granted that I work
in its institution that is mission driven,
and that is a rare commodity
these days considering the pressures that we face
in health care, financial pressures.
I have learned
that this isn't easy.
That's a perfect segue, I think, into what
we talked about or mentioned at the top,
Miriam, and that is the work that you
your organization are doing with, Children's Hospital Los
Angeles. So let's get into that. Could you
let us know how that collaboration with the
organization evolved?
Yes. This happened actually predated me. Started the
conversation,
with administration
several years ago. So there are,
you know, several sole providers such as myself
that's providing care for many
families along the Central Coast.
We understand that that's a challenge, and so
we really were looking forward to develop developing
a partnership
that would allow us to make
the
care here locally a little bit more robust.
So number one, it probably would be,
especially to support in creating that depth.
I'd say the other part is that we
know we can't take care of all complex
diseases and problems here.
What's best for the families
is to provide local care
the best we can and when we can't
provide that local care to have a consistent
partner.
And that was another great reason. We wanna
keep our patients, but we understand we can't
keep all patients here,
because of our size.
Miriam, I'm also curious what changes with respect
to this collaboration
are exciting you most?
There's a lot. It's almost overwhelming, all the
potentials.
And I think I had mentioned
first creating depth
to my colleagues,
and that will be through potentially joint hires,
a little bit more streamlined,
coordinated care,
also opportunities
for additional training.
CHLA is a tremendous organization
with
hundreds of specialty,
specialists,
at this Courtenay care hospital.
So we'd like to take advantage
of that educational opportunity for nurses,
for physicians. We have a pediatric residency program
here, which will stay at the Cottage Campus.
However, maybe there is some interest in the
future
in additional educational opportunities.
We also are just very family centric here.
So we want to take care of our
patients here, And so having a reliable
partner
will allow us to bring them back when
it's time for them to come back.
Miriam, clearly, this
partnership is something you're very much looking forward
to, and, hopefully,
many people at your organization are being able
to take advantage of this.
As someone who's gone through this partnership
and locking it all down,
what advice would you give to other systems
that are pursuing
similar partnerships?
Yeah.
Several things come to mind. I would say
first, making sure both organizations'
missions align.
And on day one, that was very clear
with CHLA
that CHLA
and Cottage, we take care of every pediatric
patient that needs care locally.
The second really is,
making sure your administration is aligned with the
clinicians.
We have a great relationship,
the clinical leaders as well as the administrative
leaders.
They really were open and listened to us.
I think that's
really important. And
and lastly,
relationship building.
Relationship building comes up frequently when we are
having these joint calls.
They CHLA needs to know who we are
and the excellent work that we're doing here,
and so that starts with Zoom meetings. So
within PEAS, we've had every unit meet, and
that will continue.
So when there is something that comes up
with a PICU patient,
my PICU knows who to call on the
CHLA side.
So, really, that relationship building, I think, is
really gonna be
paramount and foundational
to the success of this relationship.
You mentioned the Zoom meetings, Miriam. So how
often are
are you on the grounds of CHLA and
and vice versa? How often does does that
exchange take place?
We were at CHLA through the interview process
of the coronary care.
We started with an RFI. We had a
consultant help assist with the process.
So so far, it's just been through the
site interviews,
but we have a
a lot of work to do as stated,
and so Zoom, that is so much easier
to start with. Right. Right. We're anticipating
some on-site visits. But, you know, with,
LA traffic, that's not the easiest thing to
do.
No. For sure. Thankfully, you know, digital
means allow you to
collaborate much more efficiently
than that. But I was curious because, you
know, you are in the the same state
and, yes, you're tens of hundreds of miles
apart, but, you know, I'm sure that
part of this collaboration means seeing each other's,
work, you know, firsthand.
Does that make sense?
That's right. Yeah.
Miriam, is there anything else about your
partnership that you want to tell the audience
about?
That the
state of pediatric care
is
a bit tenuous.
We're talking about workforce
shortages.
You know, as a pediatric rheumatologist, we had
about half of fellowship,
programs,
filled.
So, we have to be efficient
with limited resources.
And this program development, I think,
strategic
partnerships
are an efficient way to work with the
resources we do have.
That makes sense, Miriam. Thank you so much
today for joining us and adding your insights.
We know our audience cannot wait to hear
them. We can't wait to share them with
them. Miriam,
I'm very much looking forward to the next
time our paths cross.
Thank you, Chris, so much.
At Athena Health, we know your ambulatory practice
wants healthier,
a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier
patients.
But the complexities of modern health care tech
make it hard for you and your care
teams to focus on what matters most.
That's where athena Health can
help. Our AI native all in one solutions
reduce administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most. That means fewer
clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom
lines.
Practicing medicine is complex,
but running a practice can be that much
simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.