← Advancing Health
Loading summary
Transcript22 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Advancing Health. What is virtual nursing and what does it offer patients and bedside care teams? Henry Ford Health is exploring those answers right now and already finding out that integrating cameras, mics and other technology into their system is driving nursing excellence.
- [00:23]
B
I'm Elisa Aresfaguachaga, AHA's group vice president for Clinical affairs and workforce, and I'm joined today by Wendy Kim, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Henry Ford Health's central market, to talk about how they're using virtual nursing to support patients and bedside teams. Wendy, first of all, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:40]
C
Thank you.
- [00:41]
B
Tell me a little bit about you and your role at Henry Ford.
- [00:44]
C
So my role here is I'm the Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer. I've been with the organization 12 years and in my role as the Chief Nursing officer for the last 10 years, been in healthcare for some time. I always hate to say how long.
- [00:59]
B
But I understand that I have one of my colleagues says she was born a nurse. Really interested to hear a little bit about the virtual nursing approach Henry Ford has taken. There's been a proliferation, particularly since the pandemic of different approaches. The workforce shortages have not gone away. They continue to challenge us. But every virtual nurse program I've seen and heard about has had a little bit of a different approach in answering a slightly different need. So can you tell me a little bit about how your program evolved and what you were trying to solve for?
- [01:31]
C
Yeah, I think it's all the above of what you just said. We are facing those same challenges with workforce shortage burnout. And so we've had to look at different models of care from even at the bedside team based nursing versus primary nursing. So it only made sense that we had to look at a way that would complement the bedside nurse. It in no way was going to replace the bedside nurse. But we needed to look at it from a retention standpoint, a recruitment standpoint. We needed to look at all those possibilities of how it might influence our abilities to retain our staff and provide support.
- [02:15]
B
And I know one of your first pilot sites was in fact a little bit of more rural location at Jackson. Can you tell me a little bit about some of the unique challenges of rolling out a technological solution in a rural hospital?
- [02:29]
C
Well, I don't think that, you know, the location really from my perspective, really makes a difference. You know, it was really about engaging our teams in this process, making sure that we had all the things associated with change management and engaging the teams early on and then making sure that, you know, our workflows aligned with the nursing expectations of what they thought, you know, the virtual nurse could do for them. So it didn't really matter about our location. We are a level two trauma center. So we have specialty services such as cardiac and structural heart programs, neurosurgery, orthopedics, et cetera. And we are, since 2018, we built a new patient tower. And so we offer all private rooms on our inpatient areas. So this is just a supplement, a compliment to our workforce. We have, you know, great detail and attention to safety and quality. We're a second designation of magnet. We just received that again this year. So this just made sense that this was going to continue to drive nursing support and nursing excellence and experience of our patients. So it just made sense that this was the next step. And we're early adopters here in Jackson. We're always looking for the innovation and the technology to support our teams. So we were all on board.
- [04:06]
B
So tell me a little bit about rolling out that technology, because one of the challenges is making sure you, obviously it sounds like you had that frontline team on board from the beginning and helping you to understand what's the right technology, how to roll it out, how to be effective. But how have you kept them engaged in the work and in helping to lead what works and what doesn't? Because what I think works for a frontline nurse is not going to be what they think works.
- [04:33]
C
Exactly. And initially, you know, I think probably there's other articles that state this too, is that just give us the nurses at the bedside. That's what we want. And that was really the initial reaction. But, you know, once we got them engaged and involved, we talked to them about what's their burdens. And a lot of it is that administrative burden, you know, the admission process, the discharge process, the rounding, the safety rounds. And so, you know, that's how we started. We started with them, we started with the bedside, tell us what you want. And we wanted to make sure that what we thought was the best strategy and approach aligned with their expectations. Additionally, we use them as the virtual nurse. So for those that wanted to participate in it, they were in that command center. They were the ones working through the kinks and the problems to, you know, identify, oh, this is working or this isn't working, I think we should do it this way. That's where the buy in came from. And we continued to meet with them on a weekly basis just to do check ins. And it was an iterative process. I mean, we kept changing and modifying, but it was based on their feedback And I think that that's what was the huge success.
- [06:00]
B
Oh, absolutely. It was their program. It wasn't yours anymore.
- [06:04]
C
Right.
- [06:05]
B
And I know in some of the work that you've been doing, not only are you using the, of the cameras and microphones and all the ways to interact virtually, but you're also incorporating AI and other technologies into that frontline delivery and supporting the team in doing that. Can you talk a little bit about how that works in your organization?
- [06:28]
C
We haven't maximized, optimized the technology yet. We just began housewide with 220 cameras September 1st. And so we've only really been in this for three months. Housewide. We launched with 220 cameras. Our acute care is about 325. We didn't go in our ICUs yet. So we haven't even begun to understand what the capabilities are with this technology. Yes, there's this ambient LIDAR technology and that's our next. So what that technology does, and I am no expert with technology, I depend on everybody else to help me with that. But it has a way of scanning the room. There's also technology with this about ambient listening. So, you know, what is the possibilities with narrating care and this technology taking that? It's kind of like the scribes that we, we use. Right. But this will be our scribe and then we can go into the record and validate it. So it's just reducing that administrative burden. It's also, you know, supporting our safety efforts. You know, the last three months we've reduced our patient falls with injury and with severe injury. In fact, the last three months we've not had severe injury at all. So once we introduce this LIDAR technology, I think even falls in general will be reduced. So very exciting. You know, even as it learns, the room for pressure injury reduction has that patient turned. There's also other opportunities with the technology around care coordination. If you as a family member can't be present at the bedside, how do we link you? Like you linked me today? Right. Connecting me into the room and having that conversation with you as the patient and the physician and the care team. So we have just begun and we haven't tapped in to all its potential.
- [08:35]
B
And I love that you're looking for every possible opportunity to do that. Being able to be present for a discharge, even when you're 1,000 miles away, has got to be such a comfort to family members and to others. And being able to bring that whole team and really help coordinate, coordinate the care, I think is wonderful. What's Something that surprised you in this rollout as you were thinking about, okay, well, here's what could go wrong. Here's what could go really great. Was there something that caught you completely by surprise?
- [09:04]
C
I don't think anything caught me by surprise. I think the excitement of recognizing its potential, its possibilities and I think that the nursing staff are now recognizing how this is giving more time to them to be at the bedside. So the uplift is what I guess is so surprising and really enjoyable to watch as these nurses continue to modify and change. You know, we have a patient callback system that we are using and it tells us how well we did with discharge instructions and medication reconciliation and patient education. We get that data, we receive that and we're modifying even how we interact with the patients at discharge, whether it's teach back, making sure that they understand their instructions. So it's just been so uplifting to see the results and to see how this is really supporting patient care and meeting the needs of both patient and staff. So nothing surprising. I think it's more so just seeing the engagement and the recruitment was easy. For these roles, we have kind of a hybrid model. We use some nurses that we transitioned from their prior roles into this role and then we still use bedside nurses as well, so they can rotate in and just get a change of pace. So all positive? I think initially, yeah, there was a little bit of apprehension, but it's just sailed.
- [10:53]
B
That's awesome. So not so much surprise as delight. It sounds like it's really been a delightful process for others who are embarking on their own virtual nursing solution to answer the challenge they're having. What advice would you give?
- [11:09]
C
Evaluate all the technology, all the possibilities and what systems that you currently have and how it's going to complement. Most have electronic health records of some sort and other platforms from a patient education or TV or television type technologies. So look at the interoperability. I think that that's a piece to it and the company's engagement with you. But then when it gets down to the teams and getting this implemented, it's just working directly with those that are going to be impacted. Nurses, providers, patients. You know, we did a lot of education across the healthcare team as well as the community. So you have to spend some time on making sure that you educated everyone.
- [12:01]
B
Absolutely. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for sharing your program with me and I can't wait to see where you've taken the technology even in three to six more months.
- [12:11]
C
Thank you.
- [12:13]
A
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.