Welcome to Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris Sosa,
your host, and I'm thrilled today to be
joined by Ryan Cameron. He is the chief
information and innovation officer at Children's Nebraska in
Omaha.
Ryan, thanks for joining us today.
Oh my goodness. Thanks so much for having
me.
I am so excited about 2026
and the future of of pediatric health care.
It's gonna be an incredible year. Lots to
talk about. That is so excellent. We can't
wait to have you talk about anything and
everything that your heart desires on that front
line.
Before we get running into, that part of
the podcast,
let's just take this moment to introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your organization.
Yeah. I'd be happy to. So,
I have the privilege of of serving Children's
Nebraska in a pretty unique role.
We have,
not only the CIO roles, chief information officer
as you recognize it, but we also have
added innovation to that. So we've started,
within the last, you know, five, six years
to to call it the c I I
o role.
And so what that includes is enterprise IT,
clinical engineering,
you know, the data center, help desk, the
things that you recognize from, you know, health
care and IT support,
but also the
formality
of an innovation program,
which in our case means a dedicated innovation
center. So we have a a space in
place called the Mammal Innovation Center. It's 10,000
square feet. It's just over a year old
and, there's all sorts of programming and great
things that come of that, to connect with
our community, to connect with our clinicians and
our providers,
and everybody in the ops side to make
sure we're continuously
innovating as an organization.
Children's Nebraska is the only private freestanding,
children's hospital in the state.
We've got about two thirty beds today,
but tomorrow
we're adding another 40.
So on the seventh, I'm not sure when
this will air, but on January 7, we
will open the doors to our brand new
behavioral health and wellness center.
So we're very, very excited to offer that
to the community
and a big deal project for us and
for our region.
And, Children's Nebraska proper,
also has about 50 specialties
and primary care as well.
Wow. You guys are
incredibly busy and growing, and and that that's
a great sign. Sure are. Yeah. Organization,
but, yeah, the community. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead,
please. I didn't mean to cut you off.
No.
It's
it's dizzying.
You know, I've been with the organization,
just over four years.
And,
you know, I'm relatively new to health care.
I like to say I have a bachelor's
degree in health care, but, I certainly have
have cut my teeth on the the technology
and the innovation side of the house. So
I'm continuously
learning and,
just to be a part of an organization
that's very growth oriented and focused,
really getting out there and meeting our patients
where they're at and and pushing kind of
pediatric health care as a whole,
it's just been super exciting. It it is
not what I expected
when,
I first started working in health care, and
and I'm very pleased to say that. I'm
pleased to say that
I have found pediatrics to be just a
passionate, wonderful place to work in health,
where a lot of people are really pushing
hard to make sure that we provide the
very best care for kids.
Ryan, you've already mentioned some of the things
that Children of Nebraska has on its right.
Let's take a look back just momentarily here.
So what would you say is the most
important initiative initiative rather that you led last
year? I mean, specifically, what it take to
launch it, and what were the results,
to date?
Yeah.
There's a couple of them, but if I
if I only can pick one, I know
I I'm limited here on time. The the
one and only I would talk about
is, we started
an initiative that we call Hey Medicaid
and,
what Hey Medicaid does, it's a agentic AI
application
and platform
that patients can use to navigate the process
of,
doing certification and recertification,
for Medicaid coverage.
And, it's the first of its kind that
at least we're aware of
and we're really really
enthusiastic and excited to bring this out. Medicaid's
really critical and important to pediatric providers and
pediatric hospitals.
It does represent kind of a large portion
of our population, and they do need that,
as either primary or coinsurance.
And so helping really ease the complexity of
that process
is important for us. When we can shift
the conversation
about access
and make it about care,
that really is impactful for parents and for
families and, of course, for the kids that
we support.
Yeah. Certainly.
Anything
you can do to say to a patient's
like, okay.
Here are all these changes that are being
made, but this is how we're going to
make it easier for you.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's it's funny. We we
benefit
from this incredible technology on the consumer side
of of life.
We've got smart devices and, you know, I
I have this really tactile memory,
and it's it's interesting because one of my
favorite things is reminiscing about going to a
record store
and, you know, using your fingers and thumbing
through it. In my generation, it was CDs,
but there are still records and tapes out
there too. I guess I'm kinda dating myself
a bit there, but I miss it. But
the magic of today is whatever I wanna
listen to, I I don't have to save
my money to go get an album and
hope that the whole album is awesome and
not just the one song or the two
songs that I was hoping to hear.
I just speak into the air. I mean,
how how magical is that that I just
vocalize, hey, I would like to listen to
this and it happens.
And so with with hey, Medicaid, that's really
our starting vision point is
how could you have your phone in front
of you and just use your voice.
It's got, you know, 17 different languages that
translates into real time, helps you through the
entire process end to end.
And we think it's gonna be really great
for, you know, young families today who are
accustomed to this consumer magic that's, you know,
health care really hasn't delivered quite yet, but
it's happening, And it's it's exciting to be
on the forefront of that. That that makes
total sense. And and, hopefully, it won't be
long at all before your patients are thinking,
you know what? Children's Nebraska has our, you
know, needs in mind, and and this is
how they're fulfilling them. So that's why Absolutely.
Alright. So now let's look ahead, into at
least several exciting things that you and children's
Rask have coming up.
Specifically,
not gonna limit your number, Ryan. So let's
ask what are the big priorities
and the headwinds that you're focused on for
2026?
Wow. That's a great question.
You know,
we want to do our best, not only
as as an organization serving our region
and our state, but to be highly collaborative
with other children's hospitals
and to really build an innovation ecosystem where,
you know, all children can really benefit.
And,
two key things that come front to mind
is this notion of digital therapeutics
and where that whole
space of of service is headed.
It was very limited even, you know, four
years ago. There really was a strata of
things, you know, like simple wearables or smart
stethoscopes,
maybe some remote patient monitoring tech that was
emerging.
But now we're seeing just incredible
innovations and development,
for us specifically
in the behavioral health and wellness center.
We were fortunate enough to receive
a significant grant from the James M. Cox
Foundation
that is funding a lot of the work
that we're doing with virtual reality
and looking at that as an essential element
in kind of our care and treatment plans.
So if you think about,
trying to manage anxiety,
really understanding,
you know, interplay,
with social interactions,
You know, virtual reality can be an incredible
and helpful tool for that. And, you know,
we've got compelling science and research that's backing
the effectiveness of that, so we're definitely doubling
down.
What's really great about that is because the
platform is digital
and we live in kind of this, you
know, iTunes
esque environment where you can share resources very
easily with other hospitals,
we're not building content exclusively for ourselves.
We are a 100% collaborating with other, pediatric
institutions across the Children's Hospital Association
and really being thoughtful and mindful about what
can we build that is gonna be impactful,
for children all across the country,
with digital therapeutics in behavioral health.
May I write that that's just fascinating to
me, especially the virtual reality part of it.
I mean, I don't remember I'm I'm sure
you told me about this, but I think
others have mentioned this to me as well,
how
useful virtual reality can be to
a custom get children accustomed to that environment
because hospitals.
Right? And now to hear that it's alright.
Yeah. Let's adapt this to therapy as well.
Has the acceleration of that technology in terms
of how it's being used with therapy, has
that surprised you at all? I mean Oh,
yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's astounding.
You know, earlier, I was talking about this
notion of of being magical.
And I I think that's a fair description
of where we're at.
What I what I would share is we
are living in a future,
and and I mean an immediate future, not,
you know, a five year horizon, I mean,
within, you know, months
where everybody is a developer
and you can utilize,
you know, prompt based AI technology
not just to give you text based answers
from searching a web page, but to generate
rich media content.
So,
when you work with highly skilled and qualified
clinicians
who understand the right therapies,
understand how to help children who are in
crisis, help them develop new skills,
We can make as many simulations as we
would like to make
and, you know, I'll even open the door
to a possibility that I think is is
also coming very quickly and that all of
that can be customized to the individual patient.
So, you know, I I think about when
you take compliance training and it's kind of
the canned content and,
everybody is just kind of sitting there hitting
the buttons and, you know, laughing at the
the bad acting and the things with that.
All all of that's going away
where
you can interact with a VR device
and have really important
content that does more than compliance, but actually
gets into competency, actually gets into skill development,
and the things that really help young people
navigate,
a really difficult environment right now for for
behavioral health and wellness. So, it's interesting that
things like social media and phone time negatively
impact children,
but we can also kind of fight fire
with fire and say let's lean into using
things like rapid development with AI, virtual reality
to help children navigate,
a really difficult kind of environment out there
now. And so it's it's a weird dynamic,
but
it's it's dizzying how fast things are going.
You can develop apps and simulations almost instantly
today.
Well, weird, but certainly very encouraging that there
are health systems such as yours that are
saying, you know what?
Doesn't have to be used in this way
all the time. Right? Here's how it Right.
That that's a great way to look at
it. Yeah. I I we're certainly hopeful.
You know, we we wanna be mindful and
careful. You know, we we have lots of
safeguards.
You know, there there's a lot of press
out there about people who, quote unquote vibe
code their way to success.
That can be very risky, can be very
dangerous.
So,
balanced with my enthusiasm
for rapid development and really leaning into digital
therapeutics. Of course, you know, my advice and
guidance would be to, as you think about
investing in those technologies or endeavoring into that
direction,
have some great safeguards,
be very mindful about security and and how
you kind of develop those things, but it
it is a very plausible reality.
It it's crazy that the cost of entry
to be innovative right now is next to
zero.
And to invite
all of your providers and your ops people
and and all these great skilled people that
work in a hospital to be a part
of that development process is a total game
changer.
Excellent.
Thank you for laying all that out, Ryan.
I mean, I'm sure our audience is gonna
love all that.
It's very easy to understand the way you
put it. Let's veer into this.
I don't wanna say it's a bummer of
a question because it doesn't have to go
into that territory. But I do wanna ask,
like, what do you think is the hardest
thing you're going to do this year? And
that could be way too exciting project you
have, but, you know, take it away.
Yeah.
You know, I we all health care providers
have a difficult battle ahead.
And and that battle,
it it isn't a different one. It's just
the scale and the scope and the complexity
continues to be difficult.
We are never going to be able to
recruit our way out of, you know, staffing
crisis.
There's never gonna be enough specialists. There's never
gonna be enough nurses.
Health care is in really high demand.
In Nebraska in particular,
we are very focused on extending our service
footprint into rural areas so that the quality
of care that you have access to
in the state and in our neighboring states
doesn't waver.
You know, the
the kiddos that we serve that are in
our metro areas,
should get high quality and so should everybody
that lives in ag and farming communities as
well. They should be equal.
And so that's tough. A lot of rural
providers are are closing. We're seeing a lot
of pediatric wards get shut down. You know,
the the the saying that is a little
bit trite, but 100%,
you know, spot on and important for us
is no margin, no mission.
And we have to do everything we can
to be very mindful and good stewards of
the dollars we have available to provide high
quality care,
across a complex landscape with very few providers,
and hopefully land a perfect 10 at the
end.
So,
it's a high knowledge, high complexity place to
work, but I think technology can be a
good catalyst,
to help you get there
provided
your
with your people and your very people first
and and focused.
Children's Nebraska
has a program. It's our people first promise,
and we we invest
in the folks that work in our organization.
And sometimes that investment means
let's find a way to upscale. Let's find
a way to understand, you know, automation and
AI a little better.
Let's find a way to understand what, you
know, the day to day work life is
for you and just really dig in and
roll up our sleeves so that we can
support the folks that are providing care. And
so I'm hopeful about where we're going,
but I am under no illusion that the
landscape of providing care is is very tough.
No doubt. And you meant you mentioned this
a little bit. You talked about how
some
pediatric departments are closing across the country, and
that's certainly very difficult. There are many other
health systems, though, like yours that are expanding
in whatever they possibly can to still reach
those patients. Right?
So on that note, what do you see
as Children's Nebraska's
best opportunities for growth in the next year
or so?
It won't surprise you to hear me say
think outside the box.
You know, another way of saying that is,
you know, I would say that most people,
their horizon is way too low.
You have to be leaning into
what is work gonna look like, what is
life gonna look like, what are, you know,
social economics gonna look like?
Not only at the end of 2026,
but, you know, in the next three to
five years. And it it'll be profoundly different
for everybody just because this this whole technology
machine is moving
at a profound rate.
So, you know, what we're doing to be
resilient and proactive
is thinking about, you know,
not just building more hospitals.
Hospitals are really expensive.
You know, in the metro, it made sense
for us to to set up a a
dedicated behavioral health and wellness center. We had
tremendous
support and philanthropy
from Constance,
and the pediatric mental health, institute there. So,
like,
we're very fortunate that we have those opportunities.
But the larger battle
is how do we meet patients in their
home?
How do we get, you know, access to
care that's virtual? How do we lean into
telehealth, telemedicine?
Those are the things that ultimately are gonna
help that pressure valve and really help us
adapt.
Consider for a moment,
in Nebraska, in many cases,
a patient and family may have to travel
three hours or more one way to get
from some of our rural communities
into a a city or a town that
actually has a Children's Nebraska clinic or facility,
that's ready to help them.
So at every opportunity where we can provide
high quality care,
in the home using telehealth or telemedicine,
that's really gonna help us out a lot.
From the provider perspective,
it's a little quicker.
They can see more patients.
We wanna be mindful that they have really
good focused time with them and they're not,
you know, spending all their time in the
EHR,
doing multiple clicks and they're actually working on
care. So it really is about leaning into
technology,
shifting our focus in our conversation from access
and automating those things
into a conversation that is a 100% care
focused.
Ryan, thank you so much for joining us
today and letting us know how to lose
Nebraska
is working through this whole technology machine as
you progress.
What you're doing with AI, everything. I mean,
we can't wait to share this with our
audience, and, you know, we'll see you at
our upcoming conference. And, honestly, I just look
forward to next time our pass goes. Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me, and, really
looking forward to to being at the event.
I've started to kinda look at the lineup
and a lot of the folks that will
be speaking on different panels and the keynotes.
It is going to be an incredible year.
So I I hope to see lots of
friends and colleagues at the event. And, Chris,
hopefully, you and I can connect this time.
Yeah. I couldn't put it that better by
myself. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you.