Latest / Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast / Kathy English, Executive VP, COO & CNO at Children's Hospital & Medical Center - Omaha

Transcript

Kathy English, Executive VP, COO & CNO at Children's Hospital & Medical Center - Omaha · Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast

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