This is Chris Sosa with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Ryan ta,
ed d Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Children's Hospital and
Medical Center in Omaha. Ryan, thank you for joining us today.
Oh, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Ryan,
could you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?
Yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, um, I'm brand new to healthcare and,
uh, my background is, is a little jumbled,
but I've always been around technology and, and really have a,
a passion for creating positive social change, uh,
applying technology to a variety of different things. Years ago, I,
I had this dream and aspiration that I was gonna direct music videos for a
living. Um, and that journey didn't quite pan out, and I ended up, uh,
going into to education and using a lot of computers along the way.
Eventually you get to a point where, uh,
people ask you to kind of lead that endeavor,
and I've been lucky and fortunate enough to be given the,
the vote of confidence to,
to be kind of an IT manager and leader for many years. Uh, before I,
I joined the healthcare organization here at Children's Hospital and Medical
Center. I worked for an artificial intelligence startup, uh, called IV ai,
and then previous to that I was with Creighton University, go j's, um,
and worked in their IT leadership there.
What do you think was the catalyst to go from someone who wanted to do music
videos to transition into healthcare.
? Wow, that's an awesome question. Um, you know,
I've always been fascinated with, with what technology can do, and, you know,
it, it's one of these incredible tools that can be a source of empowerment,
but it can also be a, a source of, of heartache and, and complexity too, if,
if it's not applied well. So wh when I look at it, I, I,
I look at it as something that really, truly can be magical. And whether you're,
you're directing a, a music video and using that to, to tell a story or,
or evoke a certain emotion,
or whether you're using that technology to help a patient or a patient family,
um, have a better care experience or a better day, fundamentally, they're,
they're more or less the,
the same kind of applications of technology in those universes. Um,
I love Omaha, Nebraska. I, I love this community. It's, it's been a,
a wonderful place to,
to live and to grow and to have the opportunity to kind of
contribute to that, uh, through children's hospital is something I,
I really couldn't pass up. So I, I've been really fortunate, uh,
even though I've got kind of that unusual background, uh,
to be given a vote of confidence to work in my role.
Well,
I have to understand and think that having an attitude of such positivity
toward technology, which can be a bit confusing,
certainly is very helpful. What are top priorities in your role at this time?
Wow. Hey, you know, it's funny you ask that because, uh,
sometimes people feel like everything is a priority, right? It's,
it's always priority one, .
So for us at Children's Hospital and Medical Center, it's,
it's really about growth over the next couple of years.
So I would say maybe two things come to mind. First,
a lot of our priorities are, are always focused on maintaining the,
the highest quality of care. And, uh,
we always want to do that as we continue to, to work hard and make our,
all of our services as accessible as possible for everyone.
And we provide services not just in Omaha, uh,
but throughout Nebraska and for our neighboring states as well.
So reaching out to those rural communities, uh,
really leaning on telehealth,
digital health and those technologies is super important. We're always,
always asking ourselves, how can we be 1% better tomorrow than we are today?
So, you know, what you would call iterative innovation, uh,
is something we're always focused on and,
and I feel like we're really great at this as an organization.
The second thing that comes to mind is an area of, of growth for us,
and I think it's an area of growth for many pediatric hospitals,
and that's what I would call kind of the, the moonshot effort. You know, the,
the really advanced innovation things are disruptive innovation,
and those efforts are really needed in pediatric healthcare.
Um, the statistics that pop out that really kinda shock people is, you know,
around 20% right now, between 20 and 22%,
depending on the statistic you look at, uh,
of the patient population in the US today falls under the realm of pediatrics,
yet, uh,
2% or less of investment dollars that are going into healthcare
startups are focused on pediatrics.
So that creates an incredible gap on, you know, the,
the innovations that we really need to help all of our patients, you know,
from the, the simple checkups and physicals all the way to, you know,
high acuity and, and medically complex things.
And so what we're doing is we're bootstrapping all of that on our own,
and we're doing that really through partnership and working with a lot
of, um, the folks in our community. And I'll tell you the,
the community in Nebraska, in our region, it's unparalleled to other regions.
Uh, we're very, very fortunate that, you know,
we have a very active and engaged community.
So working with our partners in unique ways, above and beyond the,
the traditional vendor or, or donor approaches is a game changer.
So this includes priorities such as building a new behavioral health center.
Um, we have a new innovation program in place, and, uh,
we even have a, a business incubator.
So we have our own LLC where we're actually developing a lot of our ideas into
businesses so that we can share those with other pediatric organizations.
How often do you offer yourself up as a model for a way to make
technology and innovation more accessible in pediatrics?
Every opportunity we get, um, you know,
that that gap is consistent, you know, it,
it doesn't matter which state you go to, you,
you'll see a lot of children's hospitals like ours, um, you know,
really focusing on innovation and those sorts of things. And so we,
we talk every week. Uh, we have some really great consortiums that are forming,
uh, through the, the Children's Hospital Association, and,
and we share our best practices as much as possible. Um, you know, our mission,
just like the missions of other children, hospitals out there, is to prove,
improve the life of every child. And so,
regardless if that happens in Nebraska or if that happens, you know,
in Texas or California or, or wherever, uh,
we wanna make sure that we're actively communicating with all of our partners
and everybody in our network to kind of go forward. It,
it is interesting that on occasion we do have, uh,
a technology company or, or a business that will call us up and say, Hey,
we, we saw this news article about you doing X, Y, or Z.
How did you go about that? Um, and so that,
that's the greatest compliment that we can get because we often look to,
you know, the business community for inspiration in terms of what we do next.
Why do you think the benefits of technology and innovation have not reached
pediatrics the way they have other areas?
There's a lot of reasons for that. Um, you,
you really can look at populations and generative populations
too. So a lot of effort right now and rightfully so,
is being focused on, uh, taking care of the baby boomers.
And so as, as, as they transition with their healthcare and, you know,
smaller generations follow behind them, whether that's, you know,
gen Xers like myself, which is a very small generation in terms of population,
uh, moving all of our way through millennials, gen Y, gen Z, and even, um,
gen Alpha, now they're smaller. And so when a,
a company looks at, they have to develop a medical device, uh, get, you know,
FDA approval, all of those things that go along with that,
it's very expensive endeavor, very difficult endeavor. Uh,
they simply have to prioritize and,
and they look at the dollars and cents a associated with launching a,
a new software, a new product, uh,
something that we need in our con continuum of care. And, um,
it just doesn't add up for them.
So a lot of the times we have to lean on developing it ourselves, uh,
making things into not-for-profit models, open source, uh,
really creative ways so that we, we can still get those things developed,
get them approved, that they're safe to use. Um, but you know,
it just kind of comes down to the bottom line, unfortunately.
Along those lines,
what sort of resistance have you found to embracing innovation and how do you
break through that?
You know, it's, it's all about change and everybody, uh, everybody loves change,
right? cha change just can be really scary.
It can be really tough. Um, and, you know,
it's about generating trust, confidence,
and really understanding why people are,
are fearful or apprehensive to make a change. Um, you know,
moonshot efforts are risky, so it requires investment,
it requires vision, and you kind of have to be willing to fail. Um,
but a good innovation program, if you do this right, you're,
you're able to kind of have a safe,
controlled environment to work on those things,
and you can fail fast and learn from those failures. The,
the best advice I would, I would give somebody, and it sounds kind of wacky,
but if, if you have even a small innovation and it doesn't work out,
celebrate it, um, actually have a, a, a failure party, you know, have cakes,
you know, bring, bring in pizza, whatever it takes to,
to reflect upon that and say,
we are doing the right things by trying something new, uh,
becau because we know what the baggage is, right? We,
we know what's gonna happen if we continue to do things that we've always done
them this way. And, um, you know, you won't get a,
a profoundly different result unless you're willing to kind of put in that sweat
ac sweat equity and take that risk. So celebrate your failures, um,
help people feel confident and comfortable when they're trying new things,
be a good listener. Um, all of those things that are out there,
you just have to be implicit about change management to get it done.
The concept of a failure party certainly seems foreign, uh, to a lot of people,
I would imagine. Yeah, .
They're a lot of fun. I encourage you to try it.
Okay. Alrighty. Uh, as far as, uh, your role right now,
certainly it's changing constantly.
What do you see changing over the next 18 months for you and your team?
Oh my goodness. You know, we're, we're constantly re-skilling. Um, I,
I would say that if you asked a doctor, a nurse, uh,
an IT professional, anybody in our,
in our service and support staff across our entire organization,
re-skilling is, is what we're always doing. We're, we're learning how to,
to use disruptive technology. We're learning how to do our jobs better. Um,
and with my role specifically, you know, it, it's really changed and evolved.
Uh, the expectations for, for IT service and support are very different. Um,
so I'm always working on the operational blow roadblocks that you're familiar
with. Um, getting time, getting capacity, making sure that, you know,
email and network is working really well every day. Um, finding ways to,
to do self-service tools to empower our, our users.
But what I'm really starting to see is our,
our roles are changing in that we have to become really good
partners, uh,
hospital to business relationships with high tech companies are becoming more
and more important. So when you have a project team,
you find that, you know it,
it's not just your internal staff working on that project,
you find that you're working with, uh, some,
some different companies or startups or another hospital, and it's really
multidisciplinary, uh, very diverse teams.
And so I would say that my role along with everybody else's I
is, you know, trying to figure out how to be a good partner, a good consultant,
a good project manager on top of other, you know,
the regular technical skills that we need to get things done.
E everything that we're doing related to that,
that re-skilling is really around meeting the individual
needs, uh, for our patients and our patient families. Uh,
that is a top priority for us. So we need to evolve and,
and master what I would call consumer technologies.
So the things that are already out there that are associated with AI and
chatbots and text messaging and web-based services, they're seamless.
They're easy to use, they're very familiar to people.
And as a healthcare organization, our,
our challenge is to rides to that same standard of accessibility and usability.
And so we're partnering with companies that are experts in this.
And, um, you know, we, we have a whole series,
a whole program of projects called our Digital Front Door Initiative,
and it's really designed around truly understanding our patients and what their
needs are so that we can meet them where they're at.
I'm so glad.
You mentioned some of these technologies that are evolving constantly,
whether it's AI or drones.
What sort of things are you excited about right now and what makes you a little
bit nervous?
Uh, yeah, so excited. Good news.
I would say that that virtual reality, um,
in my assessment is gonna be one of the most impactful technologies in
healthcare, certainly in in pediatrics over the next year, maybe two.
The reason behind that is virtual reality has really grown in maturity.
And, uh, a couple of years ago wasn't ready, but, but now it's ready.
We've got research that's, you know,
indicating really positive outcomes for pediatric patients. Uh,
one example I'll give you is imagine how scary it is, uh,
for a kid to go to a hospital and then, you know, go and get a, a, a CT scan.
Um, that's scary for me as an adult.
So there are VR simulations out there now where you can actually do a rehearsal
and, and help your child, you know,
be more familiar with what that environment's gonna look like before they go to
the hospital. Um, there's great evidence that shows, you know,
we don't have to sedate kids when, when, uh,
they get that opportunity to kind of become familiar with that environment using
vr. So VR is ready to be applied in clinical environments. Uh,
we are doing a lot of work as a, as a hospital and organization in that space,
and the simulations are getting better every day. And mo most importantly,
the content for pediatrics becomes, you know,
more available every day on things that scare me a little bit,
you know, with, as much as I love artificial intelligence and,
and that is a hundred percent, you know, my field of, of research and interest,
it scares me a little bit just due to the fact that I,
I personally feel like we have a weak regulatory system around it. And, um,
you know, the, the EU has,
has made some valiant attempts to kind of put some guidelines around it,
even some policies and laws about data ownership and,
and individuals having rights to their own data. Um, I,
I would say that here in the United States,
we still have some work to do there and, uh, whether it's, you know,
your average person kind of speaking up about, wow, that's, that's really,
you know, a magical technology, I'm so glad about its capabilities. I agree.
I think it, it opens the door to, unfortunately,
people who would use it for unethical or, or immoral practices. And so,
um, you know, a, as a, a believer and an advocate for the power of ai,
uh, I'm, I'm very careful to,
to work with as many people as I can to encourage them that if you've got those
concerns about that technology, you know, work, work with, um,
your legal experts, go and talk to your representatives, uh,
make this an issue so that, you know,
we can really get expertise around it and develop a,
a regulatory environment for ourselves that allows for AI to grow at a great
pace so that we can lead in, in that area of technology advancement,
but also we can do it in a very safe way.
Ryan, it's been just an absolute pleasure of speaking with you.
And thank you for spreading your enthusiasm for the magic of technology,
even though there might be a pitfall down the road,
it seems like there's a lot of promise as well.
Don't, don't be afraid of those failure parties fail fast. It's,
it's great to to be with you, and thanks for having me.
Thank you again, Ryan.
Take care.