My Heroes

When is enough enough?

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We are all asking when is it enough? Parents of young children are struggling with how to talk to their children, how to keep them safe. The mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde are the latest horrific examples of gun violence and hate in this country.

I have been struggling to find the right words. There are none. Yes, thoughts and prayers for all the victims, their families, and communities are needed. May they find the strength to carry on in the very difficult days ahead. But what’s needed in this country is action and policy change, not just more thoughts and prayers.

I read two pieces that have helped me to express what I’m feeling.

Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health, is a progressive voice amongst healthcare executives. He doesn’t shy away from taking a stand on difficult issues and very clearly names gun violence as a public health issue. Under his leadership, Northwell established The Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Health Systems and Hospitals, a grassroots initiative that gives healthcare professionals the space to have open dialogue about the impact of gun violence, share best practices and collectively take action. This piece in Becker’s Hospital Review describes his call to action – “Michael Dowling: ‘Every single US hospital leader should be screaming about what an abomination this is’”.

Arika Lycan posted on LinkedIn a piece that frames not just the murder of innocent elementary school children but all the ways that our rights are under attack – “Who is going to do something about this?!” I am, You are, We are.” Arika is a consistent voice for social justice. I am grateful to be collaborating with them and the entire CHIME Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to continue to educate and raise awareness with our health IT colleagues.

We can’t let Buffalo and Uvalde move out of the news cycle and be forgotten. We need to speak up, show up, donate our time and money, and vote for candidates at all levels of government who support our values. The 2022 mid-term elections are consequential. Know what candidates stand for and vote your values. And consider volunteering some of your time to do phone / text banks for critical House and Senate races in other states.

I admit that I don’t have anything truly new to say today. I have written numerous posts after similar events rocked us to the core, and I have said it all before. So, I’m sharing my “Hate has no place” post again. If you don’t want to read it again or even for the first time – here’s my bottom-line message:

We must speak up for love and justice every chance we can. We must challenge those who hate and divide us as a people. And we must vote for the kind of leaders that we are willing to trust the future of our children and grandchildren to. Please join me.

Hate has no place (written August, 2019)

The most recent horrific mass shootings are not due to video games, the Internet, nor mental illness. There are more guns in the United States than people. Let that sink in.

Hate speech, racism, and white supremacy exist and are tolerated by some of our elected leaders who are supposed to keep us all safe. Let that sink in.

This is not who we want to be as a country. It is time for responsible, moral leaders to act. Continue reading →

Celebrating, collaborating with, and learning from HTM – part 2

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This week is Health Technology Management (HTM) Week celebrating and honoring all those who work in the HTM/Clinical Engineering/Biomedical department at provider organizations across the country. Regardless of the department name, you know who they are. If you are a nurse, you know the HTM staff by name. HTM professionals make a difference every day ensuring safe patient care.

Over the past 9 years as an AAMI board member, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for this critical part of our health ecosystem and all the players involved. From HTM leaders to clinicians to educators to device manufacturers and government representatives. AAMI is an organization that brings all of them to the table. As described on their website, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation® (AAMI), a nonprofit organization founded in 1967, is a diverse community of more than 10,000 professionals united by one important mission—the development, management, and use of safe and effective health technology. AAMI is the primary source of consensus standards, both national and international, for the medical device industry, as well as practical information, support, and guidance for healthcare technology and sterilization professionals.

The timing of my first This Week Health Townhall interview published last week was perfect. I spoke with Pamela Arora, AAMI’s new President and CEO. I have gotten to know Pamela as a CIO colleague and fellow AAMI board member the past 6 years. She will bring new perspectives and experiences to AAMI. Not the least will be a recognition that HTM and IT teams need to work more closely together at the micro level in provider organizations and at the macro level with professional health IT organizations. Closer collaboration will have a positive impact for the patients and communities we collectively serve. Continue reading →

Know someone interested in a nursing career?

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As National Nurses Week comes to an end, let’s continue to recognize the work nurses do in so many different settings each and every day. The theme for International Nurses Day 2022 is “Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health”. And let’s encourage young people who are interested in a nursing career to learn more about the many paths they could take. I’m hoping my readers who are already established in their own careers will share this post with the young people they know who may be considering a nursing career.

I’ve worked in healthcare IT for 40 years now. During that time, I have been fortunate to work with amazing nurses in both leadership and staff roles. There are so many different paths a nurse can take in their career. Here are the stories of a few nurses I know well.

My favorite nurse and the one I am most proud of is my oldest daughter, Katie Killinger. She decided to go into nursing after she graduated from college with a degree in Hospitality Administration / Management. When she first mentioned that she was thinking of nursing, I was very supportive and told her she’d have many potential paths as her career progressed. She went to Regis College in the Boston area in a combined undergrad/grad program. After two years she earned her Bachelor of Nursing degree and sat for the nursing boards. After the third year she had her master’s degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner. Her early nursing experience included staff nurse positions on the cardiac surgery step-down unit and then the cardiac surgery ICU at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). One of her first nurse practitioner (NP) positions was supporting two division chiefs as the NP and Coordinator of the Atrial Fibrillation Program at Mass General Hospital. For the past 10 years she has been the Chief NP of the Orthopedic/Spine Surgery Service at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Who knows what her future holds – I know from our many conversations that maintaining a balance between clinical and administrative time is something she considers for the long-term.

My second favorite nurse is my sister, Mary Sheehan. She and her husband, Tim, both attended a two-year associate degree nursing program and then went on to get their bachelors and advanced degrees. Continue reading →

Ukraine, what can you do?

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Posting pictures of sunflowers and the colors of the Ukrainian flag are all signs of support. And yes, the free world and the autocrats need to see that support. But there is more you and I can do. Here are two resources to check out:

Call to Action: How the Health Community can Help Efforts in Ukraine is on March 3, 11AM ET sponsored by HLTH – you can register here. Description of the webinar:

As healthcare professionals, we can help via coordinated effort with Ukrainian Ministry of Health and state enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine. By now, Ukraine used all of its available medical supplies; deliveries to the country situated in the middle of Europe are severely disrupted.

We are hosting the webinar on Thursday, March 3rd during which our panelists will be able to provide clear instructions of what supplies are needed and how to ship them to Ukraine, as well as answer any of your questions. You will hear from:

Moderator:
– Anna Levchuk –  Member Of The Supervisory Board, Member Of The Supervisory Board,
State Enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine
Speakers:
– Arsen Zhumadilov – CEO of Medical Procurement of Ukraine
– Graham Stewart – Head of Supply Chain Delivery at Department of Health and Social Care, UK
– Kateryna Babkina – an award-winning Ukrainian poet and a refugee who drove from shelled Kyiv to Poland with one-year-old in tow

Please join the webinar to learn how you can help. Share this information with your colleagues in patient access, social responsibility, and sales departments.

From the Global Citizen, “22 Meaningful Ways You Can Help Ukraine” by Khanyi Mlaba and Tess Lowery on February 24th.

The article opens with this statement, “While many of us might feel helpless when confronted with geopolitical machinations of this scale, we’ve rounded up some ways you can help the people of Ukraine right now.” It includes ways to donate, take action, and stay informed.

Babies being born in subways that have become shelters. NICU babies being cared for in a hospital shelter. Innocent people including young children being killed and wounded. These are difficult images to watch. But it is happening. The strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people is inspiring. As global citizens, the fight for democracy and freedom is one we all must support.

 

Towards a more civil society

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Healthcare is a people business. I’ve worked with many hospital CEOs and executives in my career. Leaders lead in everything they say and do. Hospital CEOs lead their organization and are considered leaders in their community. Some are considered national leaders as well. Leaders are “always on”.

There may be little behind the scenes moments when you get a glimpse of their personality. But there are many more public moments when you see how they lead and inspire. And for some, there are those moments where they publicly weigh in on societal issues others want to ignore. I saw one of those examples last week.

Michael Dowling is President & CEO of Northwell Health, the largest healthcare provider in New York caring for over 2 million people annually. He is one of the most respected and influential healthcare leaders in our industry. He is not afraid to tell it like it is and take a public stand on issues such as gun violence and immigration. His recent article, “A Call for Civility and Decency”, published in Becker’s Hospital Review on December 30, 2021, is no exception. He describes how the “internet has become a toxic stew of political hostility”. He talks about how the discord is a challenge to our democracy and quotes Abraham Lincoln who said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”.

He outlines in detail his thoughts on basic steps we can all take to start the healing our country needs:

  • Respect others point of view
  • Choose your words carefully
  • Show empathy
  • Respect diversity
  • Be willing to compromise

In closing he says, “As we turn the calendar to 2022, let’s use it as an opportunity to tone down the rhetoric, reopen dialogue with each other and mend wounds caused by the worst pandemic of our lifetime and years of racial, ethnic and political divide that have worn away at the fabric of our society. It all starts with civility and decency. If we all embrace that behavior, we’ll enjoy a much happier new year.”

Last week I wrote about the importance of taking care of yourself during these challenging times paying attention to both your physical and mental health. This week as we begin a new year, let’s heed the advice of Michael Dowling and commit to work towards greater civility with one another.

COVID-19 – listen to the experts

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Dr. Anthony Fauci may be a household name for your family. But what about Andy Slavitt?  He is a policy expert who served in the Obama administration first to save health.gov and then as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. During the pandemic he provided reliable, relatable information and education with his daily tweets at @ASlavitt and award-winning “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt” podcast.  He quickly became a household name with my family and a trusted resource. Many trusted him and looked to him for insight.

He served as President Biden’s Senior Advisor on COVID-19 for the first 120 days of the new administration. He is now back from the White House and in his chair on the renamed podcast – “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt: Our Shot”.  As the podcast description says, “Just as he took us through the pandemic, this 10-week series called Our Shot is about leading us out. It’s an insider’s guide for getting closure on what happened, how we emerge, and what must come next.”

Busy as my schedule is, I am trying to keep up with this new series. So far, I have heard his interviews with CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. And I am halfway through Andy’s just released book written primarily prior to his recent stint in the Biden Administration. His book, “Preventable – The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S Coronavirus Response”, is a must read. Not just to understand what happened but how do we prevent it from happening again.

While COVID-19 may seem to be behind us, it is not when you consider the variants and the percent of the population not yet fully vaccinated. Continue reading →

Role models who inspire

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Who inspires you? Is it an historical figure, a well-known contemporary figure, or someone you know personally? If you are like me, it is probably a number of people. I pose this question to you during Women’s History Month and must ask myself that same question.

Being on zoom calls from my home office every day, people are quick to notice and comment on the Ruth Bader Ginsburg portrait on the wall. She was truly an inspiring role model and her legacy lives on. The portrait is by a local artist, Taryn Nunez. I bought it at the 2020 Women’s Fund of Rhode Island (WFRI) annual fundraiser and silent auction (all virtual of course). WFRI invests in women and girls through research, advocacy, grant making, and strategic partnerships designed to achieve gender equity through systemic change. I support WFRI both financially and with volunteer time. I love that my RBG art is a conversation starter for both men and women who I “zoom” with. And I often hear stories of their daughters who consider RBG their hero.

I also have a picture on my desk that only I see. It is my mother a few years before she died from cancer. I am now the same age that she was when she died – a rather sobering fact. We grew up in very different times. She did not live long enough to see my life as a wife and mother beyond the first few years nor how my career has evolved. She was widowed in her early 40s and raised the four of us on her own. She inspired me at a young age to be strong, independent, and giving. Volunteer work was something we all did. We did not have much, but we could always help others who had less.

I must admit that growing up I didn’t have female heroes, but I read a lot of biographies of famous women. Continue reading →

What is a “Digital Dog”?

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My colleague, David Muntz, coined the term “digital dog” this week when he described to our StarBridge Advisors team how my two little dogs are so well informed as they walk with me every day while I listen to podcasts. I loved the term and the image!

There is so much great content to listen to. I sometimes feel like my little dogs with their short legs trying to keep up with me as I try to keep up with my two favorite podcasts – This Week in Health IT and In the Bubble. Yes, I subscribe to many more, but these are the top two that I keep up with best I can.

This Week in Health IT is three different weekly shows (each approximately 45 minutes long) – Newsday (Monday), Solution Showcase (Wednesday), and Influencers (Friday). And starting this year Bill Russell decided his audience could benefit from another option so he launched a daily news show on a separate channel – Today in Health IT (shorter at 8-10 minutes each).

I agreed to be one of the rotating co-hosts on Newsday this year. My second episode with Bill was this week – Newsday – Drive-Thru Vaccine Distribution, Reaching the Marginalized, and CIO Priorities. The first topic we covered was the UC Health Mass Vaccination Playbook – a comprehensive resource that is worth downloading. Even if you are already doing similar mass vaccine sites, I am sure there is something to learn from their playbook to refine and improve your own operation. Best practice sharing is what we do in healthcare! Check out the podcast to hear all the stories we discussed.

So that’s my plug for the best podcast series to keep up with what’s happening in health IT.

Turning to my other top podcast, In the Bubble. This is how I stay educated on COVID-19 and all things related. Continue reading →

8 health experts to follow

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In past years, I’ve used the end of the year mark as a way to highlight my most read blogs of the year and encourage you to check them out if you missed them. But who cares about my most read blogs? Instead, I want to amplify the voices of health experts who have educated us throughout this pandemic and who will continue to for many months to come. If you aren’t already following them on social media or listening to their podcasts, I encourage you to do so. They are often interviewed on the major news programs.

Trusting the science, knowing the facts, and maintaining objectivity are critical for all of us to do our part and get safely to the other side of this pandemic.

Here are the experts I recommend you follow in alphabetical order:

Esther Choo, MD, MPH, Co-Founder, Equity Quotient, is an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. She has been speaking from the front lines of the pandemic since the beginning. She did a podcast series called Doctors’s Log – A Covid-19 Journal in the early months of the pandemic. Twitter: @choo_ek

Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize winning science journalist and author of several books including “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance” and “Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health”. In 2007, she did a TED talk “Lessons from the 1918 Flu”.  Twitter: @Laurie_Garrett

Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, is an internationally respected expert on pandemic response and preparedness. He recently left his position as faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and became dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.  His recent interview on In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt, “The Next Three Stages of COVID-19”, is worth checking out. And as I just learned, he also has his own podcast series, “COVID: What Comes Next”. He is a frequent contributor on all the major news outlets. Twitter: @ashishkjha

Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, has been nominated as the next U.S. Surgeon General, a role he also served in during the Obama Administration.  He is the co-chair of the Biden COVID Task Force. His recent interview on in the Bubble with Andy Slavitt, “Inside the Biden COVID Task Force”, is worth checking out. Twitter: @vivek_murthy

Michael Osterholm, MS, MPH, PhD, is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota and is a world-renowned epidemiologist who has spent his career investigating outbreaks. He is a member of the Biden COVID Task Force. Continue reading →

V-Day – With the vaccine comes hope

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The UK administered the first fully tested and approved COVID-19 vaccine this week. The U.S. could be administering the vaccine as early as next week. There is hope!

Projections are that by summer 2021, most everyone in the U.S. who wants a vaccine will be able to get it. There is hope!

The Biden Administration’s health team has been announced. There will be a new reliance on clinicians, scientists, and public health experts. There is hope!

And yet, the challenges are many. To name just a few: overall supply vs demand, distribution logistics and storage, logistics of administering the vaccine, establishing guidelines for prioritized groups to receive it, ensuring both doses are administered at the right time interval, and of course public trust in the vaccine.

As I have read and listened the past week, I have learned how the free market impacts the availability of key components for the manufacturers, that each state can decide on their group priorities after the CDC publishes the guidelines, and that only about 60% of the population say they are willing to take the vaccine.

On a more encouraging note, I have heard how provider organizations have been developing their vaccine administration plan for months and how a leading pharmacy chain is planning to scale administration across their 10,000 locations and has an app ready to go for tracking patients, scheduling appointments, and sending reminders for the second dose.

I encourage you to check out these resources to understand the issues involved:

In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt podcast – Toolkit: Where and When Can I Get the Vaccine? He talks about the science with Dr. David Agus and the logistics with CVS Health’s Tom Moriarty. Together they answer questions from listeners.

Interview with Dr. Atul Gawande in the New Yorker by David Remnick – Atul Gawande on Coronavirus Vaccines and Prospects for Ending the Pandemic. It covers a lot of ground and Dr. Gawande is as insightful here as he is in his regular New Yorker pieces and many books. Continue reading →