Latest / Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast / Dr. David Duffey, VP of the Women's and Children's Service Line at OSF HealthCare

Transcript

Dr. David Duffey, VP of the Women's and Children's Service Line at OSF HealthCare · Becker’s Healthcare -- Pediatric Leadership Podcast

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  Welcome, everyone to another Becker's Healthcare podcast.
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  I'm Ryan Moham with Becker's Healthcare. I'm thrilled to have with me today Dr.
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  David Duffy,
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  vice President of Women's and Children's Service line at O S F Healthcare,
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  Dr. Duffy, it's so nice to talk with you today. How are you?
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  I'm doing great. Thanks for having me this morning.
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  Yes. I'm very excited to talk to you. And to begin,
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  would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a bit about your background?
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  Sure. Well, I am a, uh, pediatrician by training. I, uh,
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  uh, graduated from Voy University and did residency, uh,
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  training in pediatrics at MSU E w Sparrow Hospital.
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  I've had a lot of diverse experience, uh, in the past, um,
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  from, uh, working, uh, across the continuum of care.
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  So I started in a private practice, um, and, uh, helped, uh,
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  develop a physician organization and a,
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  a physician hospital organization back in the mid nineties. And, uh,
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  um, had leadership positions in both of Lowe's and then full administrative
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  responsibility for the quality safety credentialing impaired contracting
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  for, uh, that particular organization. And then really,
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  um,
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  was invited to build the pediatric hospitalist program at Helen Debos Children's
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  Hospital in Grand Rapids. Uh, uh, part of, uh,
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  what is now Corwell had various leadership roles in the hospital and
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  in, uh, uh, the Spectrum Health Medical Group, um,
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  as a division chief, and had, uh, little stint as, uh, IT directors.
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  We went live on CPO O and, uh, was the chair and, uh,
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  medical director of quality,
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  safety and clinical innovation for the medical group. I was offered, uh, uh,
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  then an opportunity to serve as a CMO for a, uh, uh,
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  Metro Health Hospital in Grand Rapids, now part of, um, Michigan Medical West.
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  Um, and then ventured out west, uh, uh, for a few years as, uh,
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  a VP and, uh, medical director of a large multi-specialty group in, uh,
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  uh, Oregon. And, uh, to be closer to family and, and, uh,
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  grandchildren. We moved back to the Midwest, uh,
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  and looked for an organization that was really mission driven and had strong,
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  uh, collaborative culture and investing in durable, um,
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  kind of solutions to better serve communities,
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  families and patients in improving health. And so I ended up at OSF Health Care.
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  Um, it's really fit, uh, the bill, uh, it's been around for about 150 years and,
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  uh, has been a study in calm presence, uh, led by a group of sisters.
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  Uh, it is a organization that's made up of 15 hospitals, almost,
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  uh,
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  1800 clinicians and 24,000 mission partners serving parts
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  of, um, the North central Illinois, uh, region and in one, uh,
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  spot in Escanaba. And so for the past three and a half years,
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  in the past two years, I've actually, uh,
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  I've been with O S F in the last two years in a current position as a VPN in
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  of the women and children's service line.
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  Perfect. Perfect.
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  I'm so glad that she was able to find a company that she fit really well in.
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  And with all your years of experience and what you're doing now,
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  what issues are you spending most of your time on today, would you say?
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  Well, y you know, uh,
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  this winter we've really been dealing a lot with the pediatric surge.
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  So, um, Illinois, uh, like unlike, uh,
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  other states across the country have been dealing with respiratory season,
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  that's been brutal, um, uh, actually, and so the Children's Hospital, osf,
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  children's Hospital of Illinois, uh, has, um, put together a task force to,
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  to be able to address these issues. Uh, we're seeing a little lull right now,
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  and that, uh, at least we're, um, uh, breathing. But, um, even our, uh,
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  small hospital in Escanaba, uh, Michigan had, uh, uh,
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  the state okay, some, uh, uh,
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  emergency beds for pediatric patients to care for those kids, uh, there.
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  And so, um,
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  what that has done for us in the service line area
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  is to ensure that those, uh, outline hospitals and, uh,
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  clinics, eds, uh, across the,
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  the region feel comfortable with, uh,
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  caring for kids who are holding in their eds are perhaps caring for kids that
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  they would otherwise feel uncomfortable doing in respiratory things. So we've,
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  uh, really worked hard at, uh, just in time, uh,
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  education and skills refreshers necessary for, uh,
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  those kids to receive appropriate care until they're able to come to the
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  children's hospital. And so that's, that's been, uh, part of, uh,
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  what we've been doing on the children's side of the, the service line for,
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  for this year. You know, um, I think, uh,
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  obstetrics has just elevated to one of the hardest to recruit,
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  uh, specialties in the US when you start talking to a lot of recruitment firms.
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  Uh, Illinois is struggling with closures of, uh, some birthing areas and,
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  uh, and we're not immune to those types of changes, right?
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  So we're looking at how we best provide obstetric
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  services across, uh, the ministry and, uh,
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  to the larger geographic areas that we, we serve.
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  How do we provide that prenatal care? How do we best, uh,
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  utilize our birthing centers to make sure patients are,
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  are well cared for and are are safe, and how do we coordinate that in a,
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  in a particular way? So we're doing a little reinventing of ourselves from a,
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  an obstetric, uh, and mfm, uh, perspective as well. And so,
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  uh, a lot of work in, in that particular area. And then of course,
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  women's health is, is more than just the birthing, uh,
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  portion of it.
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  There's a whole vast array of other screenings in services that,
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  uh, you know, you need as, uh, a woman in, uh,
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  the various seasons of life. And so we're looking to, uh,
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  coordinate those a little better from a ministry wide perspective.
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  But the two big things today really have been looking at respiratory volumes
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  and, um, looking, uh, at how we, um, provide, uh,
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  obstetric services.
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  Ashley, thank you so much for that information.
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  And you kind of talked about a little bit in terms of growth and
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  what you wanna do, um, in your sector,
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  but how are you thinking about investments and growth in the next two
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  to three years or so, would you say?
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  Right. Well, I, I, I think really, uh,
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  as we start to look at areas of opportunity, our service line, you know,
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  we really partner with, um, osf, uh, children's Hospital,
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  Illinois, of course, and, uh,
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  the University of Illinois College of Osteo or College of Medicine in Peoria.
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  Uh, we also really partner with pediatric providers and others, uh,
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  to develop care guidelines to be used, uh,
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  to reduce variation in care and how we connect better and provide
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  services to folks in a rural area.
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  The interesting thing about our children's portion of the service line is that
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  we're relatively rural and patients have to travel a long ways.
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  So we're really working to address some of the inequities that are caused by the
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  large distances and the lack of access to some of the
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  subspecialty care for pediatrics, as well as some of that for, uh,
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  maternal feed of medicine.
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  And so how do we leverage technology to help us with those types of
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  connections?
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  How do we provide those services just in time and in real time for patients
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  to minimize the amount of travel that's necessary to,
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  to be supported for those patients? Um, you know, uh,
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  if we just think about, uh, some of the developmentally,
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  uh, uh, challenged or cognitively delayed, uh, uh,
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  folks or the complex, uh, patients who, um, uh,
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  have lots of, uh, medical need, uh, and, uh,
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  where they're located across, um,
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  these are areas that we have a struggle in getting
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  the provider resource to be able to give those services and that support
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  to families. And so how do we partner better with, with other systems, other,
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  uh, pediatricians? How do we create the, the,
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  the resources that we can wrap around those patients and, and, uh,
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  provide them great care?
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  And so we're looking at how we really put
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  that, um, or, or make that kind of, uh,
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  care available across the central, uh, north central Illinois,
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  uh, area and, uh, up into Escanaba. And so, uh,
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  one area of growth is to just expand our presence and make it much
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  easier for folks to access, um, our specialty services. Uh,
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  the other is to continue at our children's hospital to develop, um,
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  complex care abilities, uh, in different disciplines that, uh,
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  coordinate and, uh, help us, uh, maintain the, the,
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  the type of service that we can provide in,
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  in some of our high volume specialties.
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  Wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. And before I let you go, doctor,
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  the last thing I wanted to ask you about is what are you most excited about
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  right now?
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  And obviously you mentioned a lot of good things that are happening right now
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  that you're working with, uh,
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  but is there anything in particular that you're just really excited about right
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  now,
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  whether it's something you're working on or something in the healthcare field?
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  Yeah, I think it's really how we, how we provide that care, right?
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  So care models have to change a little bit, you know, and, and we've,
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  we've faced that real time.
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  We have several outreach clinics that we do in a variety of areas, but, uh,
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  the types of services that we can provide there are somewhat limited.
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  And so how do we expand that and how do we, how do we help with that?
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  Uh, how do we address needs? You know, I guess one of the ways to,
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  to answer that is that when I was back in private practice,
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  I always felt I was doing a great job and,
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  and could pat myself on the back when I walked outta the exam room saying that
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  we really addressed the needs of that patient and family at that particular
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  time. But, you know, uh, patients don't spend, uh, uh,
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  they don't live life in your office, uh, or in the hospital. And so, um,
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  how do we help with the needs as they arise in the environments where
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  kids and families are, um, and, uh, make those services,
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  uh, uh, available so that they feel partnered, cared for and safe? And,
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  uh, that means that we've gotta think a little differently about, uh,
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  some of the ways we've delivered care, um, and, um,
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  uh, with, uh,
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  the advances in technology and what we can do in different ways and how we could
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  monitor patients and how we could coordinate visits, um,
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  with a variety of folks and, uh, uh,
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  a virtual setting or be able to, uh, assist in providing,
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  uh, care, uh, at other facilities when there are questions, uh,
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  that maybe arise, uh, with, uh, consultation of, uh,
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  specialists or pediatric, uh, trained folks. Those are the types of things that,
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  um, you know, we, we need to continue to explore. So I, I, I really,
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  uh, am excited about that. Uh, we've done some home monitoring for, uh,
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  this RSV season. Uh, we're, um, looking at how we, uh,
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  expand that a bit more. Um, it's been, uh, successful and,
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  and well received. And, uh, I, I,
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  I am hopeful, um, that as we start to,
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  to make this more accessible, that we can, um, start to, uh,
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  reprove, um, things like immunization rates that have fallen off, uh,
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  during this covid time. You know, um, this year the CDC reported almost,
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  uh, twice, uh, the number of cases of measles, uh, in the,
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  in the, in the us. And so our, our,
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  our vaccine hesitancy has, uh, been, um, problem.
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  And I'm hopeful and excited that as we
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  address this differently with the thought towards new
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  ways to, uh, deliver care,
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  that we can be more innovative in how we've delivered things like vaccines
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  or some of the routine cares,
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  or address some of the social determinants of health in ways that become more
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  meaningful for patients and improve our outcomes.
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  Absolutely. Thank you so much for those final thoughts, Dr. Duffy.
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  That is all I have for you today. This has been an amazing discussion.
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  I wanna thank you again for coming on Beck's Health Care,
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  and I look forward to connecting, connecting with you again soon.
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  Thank you so much.