Welcome, everyone to another Becker's Healthcare podcast.
I'm Ryan Moham with Becker's Healthcare. I'm thrilled to have with me today Dr.
David Duffy,
vice President of Women's and Children's Service line at O S F Healthcare,
Dr. Duffy, it's so nice to talk with you today. How are you?
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me this morning.
Yes. I'm very excited to talk to you. And to begin,
would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a bit about your background?
Sure. Well, I am a, uh, pediatrician by training. I, uh,
uh, graduated from Voy University and did residency, uh,
training in pediatrics at MSU E w Sparrow Hospital.
I've had a lot of diverse experience, uh, in the past, um,
from, uh, working, uh, across the continuum of care.
So I started in a private practice, um, and, uh, helped, uh,
develop a physician organization and a,
a physician hospital organization back in the mid nineties. And, uh,
um, had leadership positions in both of Lowe's and then full administrative
responsibility for the quality safety credentialing impaired contracting
for, uh, that particular organization. And then really,
um,
was invited to build the pediatric hospitalist program at Helen Debos Children's
Hospital in Grand Rapids. Uh, uh, part of, uh,
what is now Corwell had various leadership roles in the hospital and
in, uh, uh, the Spectrum Health Medical Group, um,
as a division chief, and had, uh, little stint as, uh, IT directors.
We went live on CPO O and, uh, was the chair and, uh,
medical director of quality,
safety and clinical innovation for the medical group. I was offered, uh, uh,
then an opportunity to serve as a CMO for a, uh, uh,
Metro Health Hospital in Grand Rapids, now part of, um, Michigan Medical West.
Um, and then ventured out west, uh, uh, for a few years as, uh,
a VP and, uh, medical director of a large multi-specialty group in, uh,
uh, Oregon. And, uh, to be closer to family and, and, uh,
grandchildren. We moved back to the Midwest, uh,
and looked for an organization that was really mission driven and had strong,
uh, collaborative culture and investing in durable, um,
kind of solutions to better serve communities,
families and patients in improving health. And so I ended up at OSF Health Care.
Um, it's really fit, uh, the bill, uh, it's been around for about 150 years and,
uh, has been a study in calm presence, uh, led by a group of sisters.
Uh, it is a organization that's made up of 15 hospitals, almost,
uh,
1800 clinicians and 24,000 mission partners serving parts
of, um, the North central Illinois, uh, region and in one, uh,
spot in Escanaba. And so for the past three and a half years,
in the past two years, I've actually, uh,
I've been with O S F in the last two years in a current position as a VPN in
of the women and children's service line.
Perfect. Perfect.
I'm so glad that she was able to find a company that she fit really well in.
And with all your years of experience and what you're doing now,
what issues are you spending most of your time on today, would you say?
Well, y you know, uh,
this winter we've really been dealing a lot with the pediatric surge.
So, um, Illinois, uh, like unlike, uh,
other states across the country have been dealing with respiratory season,
that's been brutal, um, uh, actually, and so the Children's Hospital, osf,
children's Hospital of Illinois, uh, has, um, put together a task force to,
to be able to address these issues. Uh, we're seeing a little lull right now,
and that, uh, at least we're, um, uh, breathing. But, um, even our, uh,
small hospital in Escanaba, uh, Michigan had, uh, uh,
the state okay, some, uh, uh,
emergency beds for pediatric patients to care for those kids, uh, there.
And so, um,
what that has done for us in the service line area
is to ensure that those, uh, outline hospitals and, uh,
clinics, eds, uh, across the,
the region feel comfortable with, uh,
caring for kids who are holding in their eds are perhaps caring for kids that
they would otherwise feel uncomfortable doing in respiratory things. So we've,
uh, really worked hard at, uh, just in time, uh,
education and skills refreshers necessary for, uh,
those kids to receive appropriate care until they're able to come to the
children's hospital. And so that's, that's been, uh, part of, uh,
what we've been doing on the children's side of the, the service line for,
for this year. You know, um, I think, uh,
obstetrics has just elevated to one of the hardest to recruit,
uh, specialties in the US when you start talking to a lot of recruitment firms.
Uh, Illinois is struggling with closures of, uh, some birthing areas and,
uh, and we're not immune to those types of changes, right?
So we're looking at how we best provide obstetric
services across, uh, the ministry and, uh,
to the larger geographic areas that we, we serve.
How do we provide that prenatal care? How do we best, uh,
utilize our birthing centers to make sure patients are,
are well cared for and are are safe, and how do we coordinate that in a,
in a particular way? So we're doing a little reinventing of ourselves from a,
an obstetric, uh, and mfm, uh, perspective as well. And so,
uh, a lot of work in, in that particular area. And then of course,
women's health is, is more than just the birthing, uh,
portion of it.
There's a whole vast array of other screenings in services that,
uh, you know, you need as, uh, a woman in, uh,
the various seasons of life. And so we're looking to, uh,
coordinate those a little better from a ministry wide perspective.
But the two big things today really have been looking at respiratory volumes
and, um, looking, uh, at how we, um, provide, uh,
obstetric services.
Ashley, thank you so much for that information.
And you kind of talked about a little bit in terms of growth and
what you wanna do, um, in your sector,
but how are you thinking about investments and growth in the next two
to three years or so, would you say?
Right. Well, I, I, I think really, uh,
as we start to look at areas of opportunity, our service line, you know,
we really partner with, um, osf, uh, children's Hospital,
Illinois, of course, and, uh,
the University of Illinois College of Osteo or College of Medicine in Peoria.
Uh, we also really partner with pediatric providers and others, uh,
to develop care guidelines to be used, uh,
to reduce variation in care and how we connect better and provide
services to folks in a rural area.
The interesting thing about our children's portion of the service line is that
we're relatively rural and patients have to travel a long ways.
So we're really working to address some of the inequities that are caused by the
large distances and the lack of access to some of the
subspecialty care for pediatrics, as well as some of that for, uh,
maternal feed of medicine.
And so how do we leverage technology to help us with those types of
connections?
How do we provide those services just in time and in real time for patients
to minimize the amount of travel that's necessary to,
to be supported for those patients? Um, you know, uh,
if we just think about, uh, some of the developmentally,
uh, uh, challenged or cognitively delayed, uh, uh,
folks or the complex, uh, patients who, um, uh,
have lots of, uh, medical need, uh, and, uh,
where they're located across, um,
these are areas that we have a struggle in getting
the provider resource to be able to give those services and that support
to families. And so how do we partner better with, with other systems, other,
uh, pediatricians? How do we create the, the,
the resources that we can wrap around those patients and, and, uh,
provide them great care?
And so we're looking at how we really put
that, um, or, or make that kind of, uh,
care available across the central, uh, north central Illinois,
uh, area and, uh, up into Escanaba. And so, uh,
one area of growth is to just expand our presence and make it much
easier for folks to access, um, our specialty services. Uh,
the other is to continue at our children's hospital to develop, um,
complex care abilities, uh, in different disciplines that, uh,
coordinate and, uh, help us, uh, maintain the, the,
the type of service that we can provide in,
in some of our high volume specialties.
Wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. And before I let you go, doctor,
the last thing I wanted to ask you about is what are you most excited about
right now?
And obviously you mentioned a lot of good things that are happening right now
that you're working with, uh,
but is there anything in particular that you're just really excited about right
now,
whether it's something you're working on or something in the healthcare field?
Yeah, I think it's really how we, how we provide that care, right?
So care models have to change a little bit, you know, and, and we've,
we've faced that real time.
We have several outreach clinics that we do in a variety of areas, but, uh,
the types of services that we can provide there are somewhat limited.
And so how do we expand that and how do we, how do we help with that?
Uh, how do we address needs? You know, I guess one of the ways to,
to answer that is that when I was back in private practice,
I always felt I was doing a great job and,
and could pat myself on the back when I walked outta the exam room saying that
we really addressed the needs of that patient and family at that particular
time. But, you know, uh, patients don't spend, uh, uh,
they don't live life in your office, uh, or in the hospital. And so, um,
how do we help with the needs as they arise in the environments where
kids and families are, um, and, uh, make those services,
uh, uh, available so that they feel partnered, cared for and safe? And,
uh, that means that we've gotta think a little differently about, uh,
some of the ways we've delivered care, um, and, um,
uh, with, uh,
the advances in technology and what we can do in different ways and how we could
monitor patients and how we could coordinate visits, um,
with a variety of folks and, uh, uh,
a virtual setting or be able to, uh, assist in providing,
uh, care, uh, at other facilities when there are questions, uh,
that maybe arise, uh, with, uh, consultation of, uh,
specialists or pediatric, uh, trained folks. Those are the types of things that,
um, you know, we, we need to continue to explore. So I, I, I really,
uh, am excited about that. Uh, we've done some home monitoring for, uh,
this RSV season. Uh, we're, um, looking at how we, uh,
expand that a bit more. Um, it's been, uh, successful and,
and well received. And, uh, I, I,
I am hopeful, um, that as we start to,
to make this more accessible, that we can, um, start to, uh,
reprove, um, things like immunization rates that have fallen off, uh,
during this covid time. You know, um, this year the CDC reported almost,
uh, twice, uh, the number of cases of measles, uh, in the,
in the, in the us. And so our, our,
our vaccine hesitancy has, uh, been, um, problem.
And I'm hopeful and excited that as we
address this differently with the thought towards new
ways to, uh, deliver care,
that we can be more innovative in how we've delivered things like vaccines
or some of the routine cares,
or address some of the social determinants of health in ways that become more
meaningful for patients and improve our outcomes.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for those final thoughts, Dr. Duffy.
That is all I have for you today. This has been an amazing discussion.
I wanna thank you again for coming on Beck's Health Care,
and I look forward to connecting, connecting with you again soon.
Thank you so much.