This is Laura Ddo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Kathy English,
executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Children's Hospital and
Medical Center. Kathy, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Thanks so much. I'm glad to be here.
Now I know we have a lot to talk about in terms of what's happening in
pediatrics and clinician burnout, but before we dive into our discussion,
can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
Sure, I'd be happy to. In terms of my background,
I've spent my career in pediatric healthcare.
I have master's degrees in nursing administration and business administration.
I actually came to Omaha's, the chief nursing officer over 30 years ago,
and I've served as the chief nursing officer and also the chief operating
officer and sometimes as both during my tenure here.
When I think about the opportunities I've had in both of those roles,
it just reinforces for me the versatility of a nursing career and how closely
patient care and hospital operations are linked.
My goal every day is to balance the clinical side of care and the operational
side of care to create the best environment for the patient and the
organization.
I'm lucky to also have the opportunity to carry that outside of the walls of
Children's Hospital by doing some international consulting work for joint
commission.
That sounds like, um, lots of great opportunities you have there.
So based on your background, your time at Children's and,
and then obviously your other experiences, um, I know that people have a lot of,
uh, options, especially in healthcare. Why did you choose pediatrics?
What led you down that line?
You know, as I thought back about why pediatrics,
I knew when I was really quite young that I wanted to be a nurse.
I read books about nurses. I was a hospital volunteer in high school,
and so I was destined for nursing as a career.
The mission of wanting to help to heal,
to connect was all really personal for me.
But during my junior and senior year in nursing school,
I worked in the operating room of a large adult hospital that was connected to a
children's hospital and the surgery for kids was done in the adult facility.
So they would trust me to go pick up a child, um,
and bring them over for surgical care.
And while I was at the children's hospital, I could feel the difference.
The staff was a team, the atmosphere was lighter,
the kids were so strong and resilient and that's when I knew pediatrics was
for me.
I spent the early years of my career in a children's hospital in Texas and when
it was time for me to gain experiences at a new organization,
I honestly looked at some adult hospitals in the area,
but I couldn't do it not even to stay close to home.
I moved from Texas to Nebraska for the next opportunity at a children's
hospital. Something that most people would think wouldn't happen.
People in Texas said to me, you are going where to do what.
But the pull of pediatrics was that strong and um, as I said,
I've spent my career in children's hospitals.
That's amazing.
And I can imagine it's still as rewarding today as it was all those years ago.
Absolutely. Every day there's something new to learn,
there's something to celebrate, there's a child to help.
It's new and and exciting every day.
Fantastic. Well,
what are some of the hurdles or challenges of pursuing a career in pediatrics?
How do you address and overcome those?
You know,
I think that it's the uniqueness of pediatrics that makes it
special, but it's also one of the biggest hurdles.
Nurses don't always feel prepared to care for, uh, children.
So one of the biggest challenges,
especially for new graduates is the lack of pediatric exposure that they get in
nursing school. It's not just in the classroom,
but it's also in the clinical areas.
Schools these days are under lots of pressure to fit everything in to their
educational plan,
and since pediatrics is a relatively small part of the patient population,
schools often have to cut that curriculum short.
So what we do here at Children's is to support excellent pediatric
training experiences by using some of our best and brightest staff as
instructors so that we're sure the students have a great experience here when
the instructor knows the hospital and the patients.
That makes a world of difference for the student.
We've also started a scholarship program for 20 junior nursing
students every year,
and we support them as they're going through school and into a career in
pediatrics.
So that gives us a pipeline of 20 new nurses who are ready to join our team
every year, which is amazing. And finally,
we have a year long nurse residency program for new grads to make sure that
they've got the support they need to start their career in pediatric healthcare
with us.
We've also just recently implemented an adult to pediatrics program
for those nurses who've spent their time in adult healthcare and wanna try and
make a smooth transition to peds.
That's amazing. And, and really just such an important aspect, as you said,
of training the next generation of nurses and clinical workers in pediatric
space. And great to hear that there's still a strong pipeline. Now,
I know that over the last few years it's been a challenge in healthcare and the
burnout stats are high for healthcare professionals.
When you talk to tenured nurses and team members,
what's keeping them at your organization?
Annes down right away,
they would say they stay because of our mission and because of the team.
You're right,
the last few years in healthcare have been hard and the huge
resignations from healthcare across the country have created incredible
stress for the team.
But it's also opened up the opportunity for us to be innovative and focused on
our team more now than ever.
We have discussions regularly about the importance of supporting and
prioritizing mental wellbeing and we've developed a variety of programs for
that. During rounds, we ask questions like,
what have you incorporated into your routine to cope? How do you de-stress?
How can we support you? And when we have those insights,
we develop systems that support the team and we've got many
programs from formal employee assistance programs to time to just
celebrate each other and have fun engaging team members
we've found starts with reconnecting them to their why.
Why did they go into healthcare when they tell us their story?
That rere recruits our staff every day and it helps them
to rekindle their passion about healthcare. And you know,
healthcare providers are naturally nurturers.
So when we can help one another and recognize our team for the good work
that they're doing, we're reconnecting with the why.
An example I could give you is, uh,
this last year we put into place a program where we have paid
days for our staff to volunteer and community agencies that are supporting
the needs of the children that we serve.
And not only is that helping that agency and helping those kids,
but it's helping our team to connect with each other and reconnect with
the mission. And you know what, it's working.
Our nursing retention rate, um,
today is almost 87% against a national average of
81. So getting people into healthcare is important,
but keeping them there is really the key.
That's a great point and definitely makes a big difference when you've got a
sense of community within the organization when people feel like they belong
there and really enjoy what they do. Now,
could you talk a little bit about what Children's Leadership is doing to support
its team members specifically?
I'd be happy to. I think that, um, key to our success,
success is the culture that we're creating.
I know that I stay at Children's because every day I have the opportunity to do
my personal and professional best,
and that's because we have a culture of transparency and support.
So the first thing I would say to anyone who's going into healthcare is to find
an organization that has the kind of culture where they're comfortable because
that's where they'll be able to grow and thrive.
So to support our team members, we're working hard to create that culture.
And that's all about listening and two-way conversations.
We use, um, mechanisms like nursing, shared governance, executive rounding,
frequent town hall meetings to connect with the team.
And when the healthcare teams talk about recognition and
we ask them what that means,
what they tell us is that thank yous and gifts are important,
but what they really want in terms of recognition is for their ideas and their
input to be heard and valued and acted on.
So we're supporting our team by, um,
implementing a philosophy that we call people first.
What we know is that if we care for our team members first,
that will impact all the other outcomes we're seeking in healthcare.
So we're sending a strong message from leadership that people are valued at
Children's.
We're looking at how we can make decisions that give our team options for the
long term, whether it's flexible staffing or contemporary benefits.
And what we've come to realize is that one size doesn't fit all.
So wherever we can offer a choice,
we do so because we know our team members are at different stages of life.
That, um, makes me think of a great example.
Lots of hospitals are, are working hard around social determinants of health.
What we know is that 80% of what impacts a patient's health
happens outside of the walls of a hospital.
So we're all working hard to address those social determinants of health.
And we stopped and realized that we also needed to
address social determinants of health for our own staff.
How could we ask them to talk to a patient about food insecurity or
financial stability if they were experiencing those things themselves?
And when we surveyed our staff,
we found pockets of staff that really needed support
with their own social determinants of health.
So we've put lots of programs in place to get people ready to buy a house,
um, to address their food needs, to address their financial stability.
And that's been an amazing success.
We don't often stop and think about our own team at home.
We're so busy focusing on the patients.
That's a really great point and I love that.
It's amazing to hear how you've been able to really care for everybody at
Children's and be supportive of them, whatever stages or needs that they have.
Now,
I know leadership is always evolving and looks different in 2023 than it has in
previous years.
How have the last few years shaped or or changed your leadership?
You know, I think that I'm listening more.
What I've learned over the past few years is,
um,
how collaborative and people oriented leadership really should
be. I spend a lot of time seeking to understand,
and I've learned over and over that if I identify the outcome and I
get out of the way that we have a smart team who will figure out what's best for
the patient, the organization, and for themselves as team members.
We learned during COVID that we needed to move more quickly and like many other
organizations,
we were really surprised at how quickly we could move when we needed to.
And now I'm working hard to hang on to that ability to be
agile and nimble.
And that means hanging on to empowering our team
and allowing them to have a voice in the direction of the organization.
That's amazing and I can imagine really makes a difference.
How can other leaders engage their team members? What advice do you have?
I think I would advise other leaders to be
authentic leadership for so long carried with it that aura
of being all knowing and all being.
And we need to acknowledge that healthcare is challenging for all of us right
now, whether we're leaders or team members. And that healthcare's a team sport.
We all have to share our vulnerabilities, our experiences,
and our coping mechanisms with each other.
I really learn so much when I ask how are you taking care of yourself?
And when I share my strategies with others,
so approaching leadership as people first engages the team and I would
reemphasize, um,
making sure that people feel heard because that also makes them feel valued.
That's a really great point and amazing to hear. Now,
what's the most rewarding part of pediatrics for you? Both,
I guess for you as well as the team members you talk to?
You know,
there's so many rewards to pediatric healthcare at
foundationally.
I think we have the satisfaction of knowing that we're helping children and
their families have a better future. And, um,
caring for kids not only helps us to
ensure the the future that those children will bring,
but it also allows us to be ourselves to our fullest potential.
You can be silly, you can be fun. Um,
you can be joyful because you can be fully yourself with kids.
I also believe that people who have a passion for caring for kids are
like-minded individuals who are all united around a common purpose.
And when you're working with a team that has the same focus, the same goals,
and the same values that you do, it's um, incredibly rewarding.
I think we all come to our jobs in a children's hospital with the
same framework and mindset that it's an incredible
privilege to be able to care for a sick child and to be entrusted to care for
the life of another. It's incredibly rewarding.
That's outstanding to hear. Now, before we wrap up our conversation,
I just have one more question. What are you most excited about right now?
Well, I'm excited on a couple of fronts.
Tangibly I'm excited that we're developing a mental health and wellness center
for children. It's a much needed resource, um,
here in Nebraska that will help us support the whole child.
And so that,
that I can really see coming out of the ground and making a tangible difference
at a cultural level.
Though what's exciting is that we're moving from surviving
through covid to thriving and anticipating the
future and instead of trying to get back to the way things were,
we are creating the next normal, um,
looking at new and innovative ways of moving forward.
Whether it's digital wayfinding,
we've created some apps that are gonna actually help us
care for chronically ill children.
We're diving deeper into telehealth and home monitoring.
So all those new and innovative ways of connecting with staff
and working with a team are are bringing a new energy
and a sense of discovery and emerging from,
um, the struggles of the last few years.
And I think that's the most exciting part.
That's awesome to hear. Kathy,
thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
This has been a really fun discussion and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon.
Thank you. I appreciate the conversation.