This is where health care leadership comes together.
Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
speakers to Chicago April.
This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
visit beckershospitalreview.com
and click on the events tab in the
upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
in Chicago.
Welcome to Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris Sosa,
your host, and I'm thrilled to be joined
today by doctor Nathaniel Beers. He's the CEO
of Blytheale Children's Hospital in New York. Nathaniel,
thank you for joining us today. My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Nathaniel, you just took over officially
as CEO of Ideal Children's about four weeks
ago.
But for those in our audience who may
not be too familiar with you and and
your journey as a health care leader, can
you please introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about your background?
Sure. So by training, I'm a general and
developmental behavioral pediatrician,
and have been,
providing pediatric care for close to thirty years
now.
And I have really focused my pediatric
career
on the interface between health and education services
for kids with disabilities. And so unlike many
pediatricians, I haven't had sort of a straight
trajectory of, you know, just working in clinics.
I actually,
did my fellowship up at Boston Children's,
in child advocacy after doing my residency at
Children's National.
When I came back to DC,
I,
was able to,
join the faculty at Children's National,
and I saw patients there for the last
twenty four years.
But I left Children's,
from a work perspective,
and,
went and worked for the DC government for
a number of years, including,
as the Deputy Director for Policy and Programs
for the Community Health Administration for the DC
Department of Health.
And then from there went on, to work
for DC Public Schools,
where I was hired to overhaul their early
childhood
evaluation process
and think about how could we identify more
kids,
with special education needs since we were under
identifying children.
And then was promoted to be the head
of special education for DC public schools and
ran special education for DC public schools, helped
DC get out of three class action lawsuits,
and then,
decided it was time to go back to
healthcare.
And so I,
took another year being the chief operating officer
at DC public schools,
which is again, another strange twist,
where I learned about construction and all kinds
of things that help me now in this
type of job, to be more informed in
the conversations.
And then went back to healthcare and worked
for the,
health services,
or HSC
health care system,
which is, again, similar to Blythe Dale in
that it's focused on kids with disabilities in
DC.
And in 2019,
HSC health care system and Children's National merged.
And so I was back in the Children's
National family where I spent the last,
six years,
serving,
as the executive vice president of community and
population health,
and working together with the team there prior
to joining the team here at Blythedale.
As I said, it's anything but a straight
line that got you from Very circuitous.
Over the last thirty years or so.
What led you to Blythe Dale in particular?
Yeah. I mean, I think the unique thing
about Blythe Delta is the only,
children's hospital in the country and probably in
the world where, there is also a co
located special education school district,
on the same campus. And so for my
interest in working with kids with disabilities
and kids who've been discharged from the, you
know, neonatal or pediatric intensive care units,
and being able to partner together with the
school system,
to think about how are we supporting kids
when they go home,
is really a unique opportunity that doesn't exist
anywhere else in the world. And so, I
really couldn't pass up the opportunity to think
about this as an opportunity. I'm thrilled that
I'm here to lead the team.
They are glad you mentioned
what makes Blaiddell unique.
I'm curious what else excites you about taking
over this job.
Yeah. I mean, I think it is again
a a really unique opportunity in health care
right now. That is a hospital that,
is,
doing well financially,
and is really positioned to think about how
can it be,
at the forefront of the field. And so
because of, where it is financially, we're able
to think about what is,
where's the innovation to happen?
How do we make sure that we can
impact the lives of more patients and families?
And think about what the future of health
care is gonna look like and how can
we be prepared,
to be a leader in that space.
Gotcha. Well, that dovetails nicely into my next
question, which simply is,
what do you consider Blythe Dale Children's best
strengths, and how can it best go about
using them? Yeah. I mean, like many children's
hospitals, I will say its people are its
best strength. Right? We have lucky to have
an, a workforce that is
truly committed to the mission that we have
around serving,
patients and families of children with medical complexity.
And so, that passion that people bring to
work every day
makes it a lot easier,
to do the work, and, and to work
together.
In addition,
Blytheville has been fortunate to have been led
by a leader, for the last twenty six
years who really was an incredible advocate for
children,
and an incredible advocate for those children who
had medical complexity. And so he's been able
to pass a local legislation to make sure
that children with disabilities are being better supported
and that there's appropriate,
financial resourcing for the services that they need.
But also,
has led a team that is, really leaders,
in the space of making sure
that we are sort of stepping forward,
and not just continuing to do things the
same way we've done them for the last
twenty years. And so the culture of innovation,
the culture of a willingness to embrace change,
all of those,
I'm stepping into,
as opposed to having to build those pieces
out, so that the organization can can be
ready for the changes that are gonna come
to all health care organizations, particularly with legislative
and Medicaid changes that are coming, in the
coming years.
Nathaniel, to say that there's
a plethora of changes coming would
be maybe the biggest understatement ever. So without
no need to
elaborate on
the avalanche or changes. I mean, I think
it they're they're fairly well documented in the
health care community.
But I am curious,
given that change and the innovation and the
mindset that you mentioned that Blytheville has,
what exactly do you think you and your
team will be focused on over the next
eighteen months, two years, whatever timeline you think,
best fits from for for you at this
moment?
Yeah. I mean, I think, again, like many
children's hospitals, but even
even more so here, right,
about eighty percent of our patients are Medicaid
patients because of the long term care needs
that they have. Right? So even families who
may not qualify on their own income are
patients qualified just given the long length of
stays that they have and incredible medical expenses
that they have.
So we are highly dependent on medical, on
Medicaid as an adequate payer. And so, certainly,
as we think about sort of our payer
mix and thinking about those components, continuing to
make sure that we are
partnering with our state and local,
legislators
and making sure that we're thinking about how
we are
navigating the changes of Medicaid is going to
be a big piece of this.
But I also think that it is an
opportunity for us to make sure that we're
thinking about where is healthcare going as well.
Right? And as we think about pediatric healthcare,
we've seen a lot of progress in the
adult healthcare market around micro hospitals
or hospital at home programs,
about making sure that people can be in
the community they're in and thinking about those
components,
about how we improve the quality of life
of patients
as they're navigating through the systems.
I think we have an opportunity here at
Blythedale that we have an incredible knowledge base
about how to take care of kids and
make sure they can go home. Over eighty
five percent of our kids actually go home,
not to another facility. And so, for those
kids with medical complexity, that's not always the
case. And so how do we take that
knowledge and think about where we fit into
a care that's being provided at home, in
the community? How do we think about, the
possibility of smaller satellite spaces?
All of those pieces are things that over
the next five to ten years, we can
expect to start to happen more regularly in
pediatrics
as we get there.
And then the last piece is really about
being a good partner for our referring providers.
Right? So our referring hospitals
are gonna get a ton more pressure
to make sure that they're discharging kids sooner.
And to be able to safely do that,
they have to have an organization like ours
that can take kids who are getting discharged
from the neonatal or pediatric intensive care units
and are ready to be supported
in a lower level of acuity, but are
not ready to go home. And so all
of those are pieces that we will have
to think about. How do we raise the
bar on what we can take and how
we can be a good partner in that
space? And how do we also think about
how we're building those supports in the community
so the patients can continue to go home
safely.
Got it. I mean, those are all worthwhile
goals, and they're gonna take a lot more
than just eighteen months. I'm sure.
But, you know, that that's you work out
a little bit at a time, of course.
Lastly, Nathaniel, I my question is,
what aspect of children's health care deserves a
sprite a brighter spotlight in your mind?
Yeah. I mean, I think that it is
the care that we provide at Blytheville and
other hospitals like ours around the country. Right?
They are the piece that people forget about
as a really critical linchpin,
to the success for kids with medical complexity.
Right? The reality is if you're a patient
who spends,
you know, three months in the neonatal intensive
care unit and is going home with, you
know, tubing and alarms and maybe a gastrointestinal
tube and maybe a tracheostomy
and maybe other equipment needs,
going straight from the neonatal intensive care unit
to home sets you up for failure. And
really it is about sort of making sure
that we can continue to stabilize kids,
think about how they can be ready to
go home,
how patients and families can have the time
to learn what they need to learn to
be able to safely monitor their children at
home.
Our home healthcare system in The United States
is so broken,
and has so many gaps in services
that for many families who are going home
with a child, they can experience around 25%
of the,
prescribed
home care hours is being uncovered.
And so that means someone in that household
has to be ready to care for that
child if there's not a nurse coming into
that space. And so our job is to
really prepare the family for all of those
realities
and make sure that they can be ready
to go home, and that that child can
experience life. And so,
in a way that like allows them to
really be a child,
and so the family to sort of embrace
them in that space.
And everyone knows where to go to the
emergency room, where to go if you need
sort of that high, you know, intense,
you know, cancer treatment or surgery, you know,
you're going to, you know, the big children's
hospitals around the country.
But the hospitals like Blytheville Children's are really
about making sure you can go home afterwards.
And so need to be part of how
people are thinking about how they think about
their care.
Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your
time, your insights, everything that's going on at
Lydaysdale. We love to hear it, and we
can't wait to share it with our audience.
And we I hope our paths cross sooner
rather than later. Me too. Thanks for having
me.