Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Building Better Healthcare AI Through Nursing Co-Design with Terry McDonnell
Transcript
- 0:02- There's a small circle of people who truly
- 0:04- understand what it takes to lead a health
- 0:05- system right now. The decisions are enormous.
- 0:08- The variables are constantly shifting, and the stakes
- 0:11- of getting a call wrong don't stay contained.
- 0:14- That's not a complaint. It's a structural reality.
- 0:17- And it's why the most effective c suite
- 0:19- leaders are deliberate about where they go to
- 0:21- pressure test their thinking.
- 0:22- Becker's fourteenth annual CEO and CFO roundtable
- 0:26- brings together more than 1,500
- 0:28- executive level attendees
- 0:30- and nearly 400 speakers for four days built
- 0:32- around growth, financial sustainability,
- 0:35- workforce strategy, and the leadership questions that don't
- 0:38- have easy answers.
- 0:39- Join us November second through the fifth in
- 0:41- Chicago.
- 0:42- For the agenda and event details,
- 0:45- visit beckershospitalreview.com
- 0:47- and click on the events tab in the
- 0:49- upper right.
- 0:50- Welcome to Becker's Healthcare Clinical Leadership podcast. I'm
- 0:54- Mariah Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to
- 0:57- be speaking with Terry McDonnell,
- 0:59- senior vice president and chief nurse executive at
- 1:01- Duke University Health System and vice dean for
- 1:04- clinical affairs at Duke University School of Nursing.
- 1:07- Thank you so much for joining me today,
- 1:09- doctor McDonnell. It's so exciting to have you
- 1:11- on the podcast again, and I am excited
- 1:14- to get diving into how nurses need a
- 1:17- seat at the table to help develop AI.
- 1:19- But before we dive into all of my
- 1:21- questions, I'd love to turn it over to
- 1:23- you to introduce yourself and tell us a
- 1:24- little bit about your background.
- 1:26- Sure. Mariah, it's lovely to be here with
- 1:28- you today.
- 1:30- You you you very nicely,
- 1:32- put my titles out there. I get the
- 1:34- pleasure of
- 1:35- serving about 10,000,
- 1:37- nurses and patient care services staff here at
- 1:40- the health system.
- 1:43- And, by way of background and trade, I
- 1:45- am a GI oncology nurse practitioner and I
- 1:48- still see patients.
- 1:50- It is the why and it regrounds me
- 1:52- in in, you know, all of the the
- 1:54- craziness of the day. Everything we do is
- 1:57- still in service to taking care of a
- 1:59- patient.
- 2:00- So it is truly a pleasure to be
- 2:02- here with you.
- 2:03- Yes. And we're excited to have you as
- 2:05- always.
- 2:06- Now today, we're gonna be chatting about the
- 2:08- importance of having nurses at the AI development
- 2:11- table and having them involved in this. So
- 2:14- I would love to understand
- 2:15- your process of what you're doing at Duke.
- 2:17- What does nursing representation
- 2:19- actually look like in your AI development process?
- 2:23- Well, you know, we have been very deliberate
- 2:26- as we've been adopting these tools both with
- 2:29- nursing
- 2:30- and clinicians.
- 2:32- And we have
- 2:35- nurses we actually for we have a governance
- 2:38- framework
- 2:40- whereby we've got frontline nurses, nursing leaders,
- 2:44- side by side with our technology leaders,
- 2:48- with our industry partners,
- 2:50- all examining
- 2:51- together how we evaluate
- 2:54- these tools,
- 2:55- how we develop them, and how we implement
- 2:58- them in the care setting.
- 3:00- You know, we've got some very exciting projects
- 3:03- right now going on in our inpatient
- 3:06- units and three of our inpatient units at
- 3:08- University Hospital here in Durham.
- 3:10- We call them our innovation units and we're
- 3:13- actually testing out different technologies,
- 3:16- different whiteboard systems, we've got
- 3:20- integrated
- 3:21- computer vision technology. We're working with an industry
- 3:24- partner on that, building AI algorithms
- 3:27- around falls,
- 3:29- and and,
- 3:30- pressure injury prevention.
- 3:33- And we've got staff nurses at the bedside
- 3:36- who are giving us feedback. We are getting
- 3:40- their,
- 3:41- satisfaction with all of these tools. We're getting
- 3:43- feedback
- 3:44- from patients. We're actually publishing on a lot
- 3:47- of this. We've got informaticists
- 3:49- embedded in this, and we've got process engineers
- 3:52- as well as leaders all together
- 3:55- working around how we're going to lead
- 3:58- in the implementation
- 4:00- and development of these tools as we transform
- 4:02- care.
- 4:03- Amazing.
- 4:05- How do you select which nurses are gonna
- 4:07- be involved in a co design, and do
- 4:09- they tend to be the same people?
- 4:11- We intentionally try not to make it the
- 4:13- same people. We want diversity of opinions and
- 4:17- thought in this process.
- 4:18- You know, if you only build the coalition
- 4:20- of the willing,
- 4:22- and don't include people that are skeptics or
- 4:25- have questions or might even have fear around
- 4:28- implementation of these technologies,
- 4:31- then you're losing opportunities
- 4:33- to integrate all of that rich feedback into
- 4:36- how you design and roll out these things.
- 4:38- Change management is a huge issue for us.
- 4:41- You know, we need the people who are
- 4:43- closest to the work informing what these tools
- 4:45- look like and how we leverage them. And
- 4:48- we all know, and in fact, in Becker's
- 4:51- today and the CEO report, I saw,
- 4:53- that there's an article around clinicians opting out
- 4:56- when they're not involved
- 4:58- in evaluating these tools. Well, you know, the
- 5:01- same thing happens at the front line with
- 5:03- nurses.
- 5:03- People will vote with their feet, and we
- 5:06- actually need to transform health care delivery, and
- 5:09- we need these tools.
- 5:11- But we need these tools
- 5:14- designed in a way that helps us make
- 5:17- the work easier and that most importantly improves
- 5:20- our outcomes.
- 5:22- Absolutely.
- 5:24- What do you do when a frontline nurse
- 5:26- pushes back on a tool that leadership in
- 5:28- IT is committed to?
- 5:31- We take their feedback.
- 5:33- You know, this is a dialogue. It's and
- 5:36- we try very intentionally
- 5:37- not to
- 5:39- exclude the opportunity
- 5:41- for feedback to help us improve.
- 5:45- And in fact recently with the innovation units,
- 5:48- we had an opportunity where we realized that
- 5:51- some of the staff were reluctant
- 5:54- to talk to patients
- 5:55- about
- 5:57- opting in
- 5:58- for some of these
- 6:00- technologies like the computer vision.
- 6:03- And when we did some listening sessions, when
- 6:05- we got feedback, when we really dug in
- 6:08- to engage with the staff to find out
- 6:10- what the concerns were,
- 6:12- it was
- 6:13- one simple switch that we could turn off
- 6:17- that they could then see
- 6:19- that
- 6:20- they were controlling how,
- 6:22- we were calling the system live.
- 6:25- Simple
- 6:27- simple
- 6:28- thing that we could do
- 6:29- in response to their feedback.
- 6:32- And if we had not engaged with them
- 6:34- and understood
- 6:35- why they were hesitant to to use the
- 6:38- technology,
- 6:39- then we would have run the risk of
- 6:41- the entire project
- 6:43- going offline.
- 6:44- And I think it's really important for us
- 6:47- to ensure that as we're trying to move
- 6:50- care in in a different way by leveraging
- 6:53- technology,
- 6:54- that we ensure that we're continually going back
- 6:57- to those humans that need to be in
- 6:59- the loop and getting their feedback and helping
- 7:01- improve things.
- 7:03- We don't live binary lives. I don't think
- 7:05- it's a yes or a no situation.
- 7:08- It's a we would like to and how
- 7:11- can you help us inform the best way
- 7:13- of moving forward.
- 7:15- In that same kind of vein, how do
- 7:18- you handle it when nurses'
- 7:19- input during the co design process conflicts with
- 7:22- what the data or the vendor's evidence base
- 7:24- says?
- 7:26- Well, I mean, we've
- 7:28- we've had the opportunity for nurses to,
- 7:32- really inform industry partners
- 7:35- that some of their assumptions might be incorrect
- 7:37- because, you know, every day, I get pinged
- 7:41- by vendors
- 7:42- who tell me they've got a solution to
- 7:45- to my problems.
- 7:47- But very often, they don't truly understand
- 7:50- what problems we're trying to solve.
- 7:53- And the people who are closest to the
- 7:54- work
- 7:55- are the best people to help inform those
- 7:58- solutions.
- 7:59- So very often we'll have
- 8:03- a a tool or a technology
- 8:06- where assumptions have been made,
- 8:08- but then nurses
- 8:09- and clinicians
- 8:11- will give real and meaningful feedback
- 8:14- and will help the industry partner understand where
- 8:18- they may have solved for the wrong problem
- 8:21- or where they have they may have neglected
- 8:23- a process
- 8:24- or a concern that we can then provide
- 8:27- them the feedback to to make their tool
- 8:29- ultimately better.
- 8:31- Amazing.
- 8:32- Now looking at this all a lot more
- 8:34- broadly, what do you think it will take
- 8:36- for nursing co design to become a standard
- 8:38- practice practice across the industry rather than something
- 8:40- that leading institutions like Duke do well?
- 8:44- Well,
- 8:46- I think there's a cost associated
- 8:48- with not
- 8:50- having nurses
- 8:52- codeveloping
- 8:52- these things.
- 8:55- Because again, as we've talked about already and
- 8:58- as we've seen play out,
- 9:00- if you don't have the people that are
- 9:03- going to be using these tools and technologies
- 9:05- helping inform what they look like and what
- 9:07- the implementation looks like,
- 9:09- then you run the risk of people
- 9:11- voting voting with their feet and opting out.
- 9:15- And there's an expense tied to that.
- 9:17- These things are
- 9:20- are expensive.
- 9:21- The time that it takes to integrate, roll
- 9:25- out, do the change management
- 9:27- is all
- 9:29- cost associated
- 9:31- with time,
- 9:32- with finance.
- 9:34- And,
- 9:35- you know, if if we
- 9:37- don't
- 9:38- ensure
- 9:39- that the people who are going to be
- 9:41- using these tools are hoping are helping co
- 9:44- develop,
- 9:45- then it it's going to cost us more
- 9:47- in the long term.
- 9:49- And the headwinds right now around around the
- 9:51- nation are such that we need to be
- 9:53- cost efficient.
- 9:55- And the most cost efficient way to transform
- 9:58- care
- 9:59- is to really have our physicians, our nurses,
- 10:02- our techs,
- 10:03- all involved in co developing these technologies.
- 10:07- Excellent.
- 10:08- Well, thank you so much for being here
- 10:10- today and sharing your thought leadership. It's been
- 10:12- a pleasure. It's always a pleasure talking to
- 10:15- you.