Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Colleen Mallozzi, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Jefferson Health

Transcript

Colleen Mallozzi, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Jefferson Health · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  This is where health care leadership comes together.
• 0:04
  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
• 0:07
  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
• 0:11
  speakers to Chicago, April 13 through the sixteenth.
• 0:14
  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
• 0:17
  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
• 0:20
  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
• 0:23
  visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:25
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:27
  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
• 0:29
  in Chicago.
• 0:32
  Hi, everyone. You're listening to the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:36
  podcast.
• 0:37
  I'm Erica Carbajal. Thank you so much for
• 0:39
  tuning into this episode today. We're honored to
• 0:43
  have Colleen Malozzi, senior vice president and chief
• 0:46
  nursing informatics
• 0:47
  officer at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia joining us
• 0:51
  today. Colleen, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:54
  Thanks so much, Erica. Excited to be here
• 0:56
  with you. Yeah. Thank you so much for
• 0:58
  for taking the time.
• 1:00
  To get us started here, can you give
• 1:02
  us a brief overview of your background in
• 1:05
  health care and your role at Jefferson?
• 1:08
  Absolutely.
• 1:09
  So I've been at Jefferson for just over
• 1:12
  three years as the CNIO.
• 1:15
  Prior to that, I spent twelve years at
• 1:18
  Penn Medicine
• 1:19
  working.
• 1:20
  I I cut my teeth as a nurse
• 1:22
  at Penn in the beginning
• 1:24
  in electrophysiology
• 1:26
  and then transitioned into informatics,
• 1:29
  eventually working for the chief medical information officer
• 1:33
  for the health system. I spent a significant
• 1:35
  amount of time working on
• 1:37
  large scale initiatives during the COVID pandemic that
• 1:41
  really helped to
• 1:42
  escalate my interest
• 1:44
  in the intersection of of clinical care technology
• 1:48
  and,
• 1:50
  dealing with big, huge problems.
• 1:53
  So
• 1:54
  I I did make the transition over to
• 1:56
  Jefferson a bit after we stabilized post COVID,
• 1:59
  and I'm now overseeing
• 2:02
  a team that covers our 32 hospital academic
• 2:04
  health system.
• 2:06
  Jefferson does span across New Jersey and Pennsylvania
• 2:09
  and goes from Philadelphia up to the Poconos.
• 2:12
  It truly has a a deep commitment to
• 2:14
  innovation, which feels makes it the right spot
• 2:17
  for me because my role sits at the
• 2:18
  intersection of nursing technology,
• 2:21
  quality, and operations,
• 2:23
  but with this very specific focus on clinical
• 2:26
  bedside work and how technology impacts it.
• 2:30
  Yeah. No. Thanks for sharing that. Certainly, no
• 2:33
  shortage of of big huge problems, especially right
• 2:36
  now. And and at the intersection of tech
• 2:38
  and and clinical,
• 2:40
  I know that you had mentioned,
• 2:42
  earlier this year, not too long ago in
• 2:44
  a recent interview with Becker's, you talked a
• 2:46
  little bit about
• 2:47
  how you spent a lot of 2025
• 2:49
  digging into how nurses interact with the EHR
• 2:53
  and how small but meaningful changes, like things
• 2:56
  like reducing clicks and cleaning up documentation
• 2:59
  pathways
• 2:59
  can make a a real difference. So
• 3:02
  can you walk us through some of those
• 3:04
  Jefferson has made in this area and the
• 3:06
  difference that it's made so far?
• 3:09
  Absolutely.
• 3:10
  Whenever I'm talking about time with nursing, it
• 3:13
  it must be at the shoulder with them.
• 3:16
  So my team and I get out there,
• 3:17
  and we see what day to day actually
• 3:19
  looks like. Because as we move further away
• 3:21
  from the bedside, it's really important that we
• 3:23
  have the nurse's voice represented in the work
• 3:25
  that we're doing.
• 3:27
  So when we're out there, it's easier to
• 3:29
  see the small things that just add friction
• 3:33
  and noise to their day.
• 3:35
  It's
• 3:36
  technology. It can't it can't be a friction.
• 3:39
  It has to give time back. If it's
• 3:41
  not an innovation, then it really becomes noise
• 3:44
  in their day to day.
• 3:45
  And by going out and finding
• 3:48
  small tests of change and looking at small
• 3:51
  opportunities, it really does add up to a
• 3:53
  greater good for them. So we had launched
• 3:56
  a project. We called it very lovingly Project
• 3:58
  Starlight,
• 3:59
  and it grounded us in a purpose
• 4:02
  of looking for the small things, the the
• 4:05
  nonnegotiable
• 4:06
  challenges that they're finding
• 4:08
  that we need to fix.
• 4:10
  So we went out and we looked at
• 4:13
  what is the build in the EHR, but
• 4:14
  then what's the day to day interaction that
• 4:17
  they're having and focused on
• 4:19
  really narrowing
• 4:21
  the amount of time that they're spending.
• 4:24
  After about a year's worth of work and
• 4:26
  digging through flow sheets and pick lists and
• 4:28
  everything else, we're about we were able to
• 4:31
  take it down about fifteen minutes per nurse
• 4:33
  per shift. And we're just getting started. We
• 4:35
  have big huge initiatives coming up. They're gonna
• 4:38
  help us really,
• 4:39
  in my opinion,
• 4:40
  revolutionize the way that our nurses are practicing
• 4:44
  and documenting in the EHR.
• 4:46
  So
• 4:47
  I have a heavy focus on on giving
• 4:49
  time back to them. Our caregivers deserve to
• 4:51
  be caregivers
• 4:52
  and not,
• 4:54
  you know, technicians that are entering things into
• 4:58
  a computer. It needs to serve them. Information
• 5:00
  good information in, great information out.
• 5:03
  Yeah. Definitely. And and it certainly has been
• 5:06
  interesting just to hear, you know, over the
• 5:08
  past year or two even just how you
• 5:11
  know, there's been so much focus on administrative
• 5:14
  burden and documentation
• 5:15
  workflows on the physician side and now really
• 5:18
  seeing that extend over to the nursing side
• 5:20
  because there is still much still so much
• 5:23
  burden there, and it's just a lot of
• 5:25
  opportunity to to take that down.
• 5:28
  And I know that,
• 5:29
  yeah, I know that Jefferson has you mentioned
• 5:32
  giving caregivers time back and giving them time
• 5:35
  to be able to to do what they
• 5:37
  entered medicine to do, which is to deliver
• 5:39
  care.
• 5:40
  And, you know, to that point, I know
• 5:41
  that Jefferson has set a pretty bold goal
• 5:44
  of giving clinicians back, I think it was
• 5:46
  10,000,000
• 5:47
  by by 2028.
• 5:50
  And, obviously, a big part of that starts
• 5:52
  with reducing documentation burden. So
• 5:55
  as you look to 2026,
• 5:58
  how are you planning to build on that
• 5:59
  work? What what priorities are top of mind?
• 6:02
  What headwinds do you anticipate as you look
• 6:04
  to scale some of these efforts?
• 6:07
  You are absolutely right. I I do love
• 6:09
  the homework that you've done with ten million
• 6:11
  hours by 2028.
• 6:13
  Boils down in many different ways. But when
• 6:15
  it comes to nursing, we look at that
• 6:17
  as thirty minutes per nurse per shift.
• 6:19
  So an hour a day that we give
• 6:21
  back to nurses. And
• 6:23
  and I I wanna be very clear that's
• 6:26
  not to hand them more patients. It's to
• 6:28
  let them take a lunch. It's to allow
• 6:30
  them a breath. It's to help with their
• 6:32
  well-being
• 6:33
  and really create a more holistic experience of
• 6:37
  being a nurse.
• 6:38
  So
• 6:39
  ambient listening is a big, huge thing that
• 6:41
  is going to help us get there. We
• 6:44
  are set to launch on our first unit
• 6:46
  on January the week of January 26, and
• 6:51
  it's taking time, but purposeful
• 6:53
  design time with our staff. So
• 6:56
  we are extremely excited to get this technology
• 6:59
  out there, and what it does is really
• 7:00
  enable nurses to have a device that's listening,
• 7:04
  that's gonna help them file documentation into their
• 7:07
  flow sheet. So have an open, authentic conversation
• 7:10
  with the patients
• 7:11
  to allow them to
• 7:13
  look them in the eye, engage with the
• 7:15
  family,
• 7:16
  explain to them the medication that they're holding
• 7:18
  or the experience that they're going through, coordinate
• 7:21
  their care
• 7:22
  instead of having to do all of that,
• 7:23
  write it down on a piece of paper,
• 7:25
  and then go sit down and document it.
• 7:26
  It is it is time, and time is
• 7:28
  one of the most meaningful things in our
• 7:30
  lives. So we are very excited to give
• 7:32
  time back to our nurses.
• 7:35
  Yeah. No. That's that's great to hear.
• 7:37
  Are there any, I guess, barriers or challenges
• 7:41
  you're you're anticipating
• 7:42
  in rolling this out or even on the
• 7:45
  the angle of, you know, change management and
• 7:48
  culture change, anything you're anticipating
• 7:51
  and trying to plan ahead for on that
• 7:52
  front?
• 7:54
  Erica, all of the above.
• 7:56
  So this is
• 7:57
  actually a small technology change. The the company
• 8:01
  who is
• 8:02
  the company Eats, who have created this, have
• 8:04
  done the heavy lifting on figuring out the
• 8:07
  immense and incredible
• 8:09
  AI behind it. We just put the device
• 8:11
  down. It is all about change management and
• 8:13
  cult cultural shift. So what we're doing and
• 8:17
  why we're putting the time in, every single
• 8:20
  nurse will go through simulation
• 8:21
  of how to do this, how to do
• 8:23
  what, to nurse out loud.
• 8:25
  They're going to have to come to three
• 8:27
  or four one hour sessions to practice. Because
• 8:30
  right now, nurses do this in their head
• 8:32
  very, very often, especially the newer to practice
• 8:32
  nurses who are still getting their bearings, getting
• 8:32
  that maturity, and,
• 8:35
  practice
• 8:36
  nurses who are still getting their bearings, getting
• 8:39
  that maturity and confidence in how they assess
• 8:41
  their patients.
• 8:42
  They are less likely to do it out
• 8:43
  loud with their patients, and ambient requires nursing
• 8:47
  out loud.
• 8:48
  So we are taking that hands on time,
• 8:50
  that hands on approach to manage the change.
• 8:52
  We
• 8:54
  start by working with the manager, and, actually,
• 8:56
  we start by looking at the data. So
• 8:58
  we jumped into our epic data to figure
• 9:01
  out where we have great opportunity. We looked
• 9:03
  at our workforce data to figure out, do
• 9:06
  we have a stable unit who hasn't had
• 9:07
  a lot of turnover?
• 9:09
  Do we have a unit that has a
• 9:10
  mix of new to practice nurses as well
• 9:12
  as more mature nurses who have had some
• 9:14
  time under their belt? And then because we
• 9:16
  want both. We need both opinions in this,
• 9:19
  but we need strong leadership from a nurse
• 9:21
  manager perspective. So we've really honed in on
• 9:24
  the right people
• 9:26
  at the right time.
• 9:28
  And as we get on calls with them
• 9:30
  and as we get on the unit and
• 9:31
  start working with them, we're hearing good pushback
• 9:34
  of, oh, jeez. This feels like this is
• 9:35
  gonna take me more time. We're like, okay.
• 9:37
  Good. We need to hear that feedback. It's
• 9:39
  not. I promise. But the fact that you're
• 9:41
  thinking that means we need to be clearer
• 9:43
  about how, why, and when this is gonna
• 9:46
  have a positive impact on you. And if
• 9:48
  it doesn't,
• 9:50
  then we're not doing it.
• 9:52
  So I am unapologetically
• 9:54
  going to be saying no in the new
• 9:56
  year to things that don't serve us, don't
• 9:58
  serve our nurses, and don't serve our patients.
• 10:01
  Yeah. And that that's such a relevant and
• 10:03
  interesting point too just on the the fact
• 10:06
  that there's such a shift in terms of
• 10:08
  having to do it out loud and document
• 10:09
  out loud. I think that's an aspect that
• 10:11
  we don't hear a ton about, so I'm
• 10:12
  glad you glad you mentioned that. Mhmm. And
• 10:15
  I know you said, so planning to launch
• 10:18
  on a unit in January 2020 this coming
• 10:21
  year. So and thank you for walking through
• 10:24
  just helpful to hear about the actual
• 10:26
  kind of preparation that's going into this and
• 10:28
  the the sessions that are being held to
• 10:30
  practice. So is that something that's already been
• 10:33
  going on or that's something that's starting in
• 10:35
  the new year?
• 10:36
  It is January.
• 10:38
  We start the training of our staff to
• 10:41
  help train on these simulations. So we're right
• 10:43
  in the heat of it at this time,
• 10:46
  with a plan go live with the actual
• 10:48
  technology at January.
• 10:50
  So we are living.
• 10:52
  We are living on this unit,
• 10:54
  engaging with this staff, and I I can't
• 10:56
  thank my team enough because they truly have
• 10:58
  rolled up their sleeves. They are outrageously
• 11:00
  excited
• 11:01
  to bring this technology, but really, it's not
• 11:04
  about the technology. It's about the change in
• 11:06
  how we practice and engage with staff.
• 11:09
  We handed our group an EHR. The EHR
• 11:12
  revolutionized
• 11:13
  clinical care. Right? Lots and lots of positives,
• 11:16
  but there are some negative there are some
• 11:17
  negatives that came with it. Two and a
• 11:19
  half hours of documentation
• 11:21
  per shift is a long, long time to
• 11:24
  either be sitting or in front of a
• 11:25
  computer
• 11:26
  just entering information or trying to,
• 11:30
  get information out of the chart.
• 11:32
  So we wanna give that we wanna give
• 11:34
  that back.
• 11:35
  Yeah. Certainly.
• 11:37
  Well, Colleen, what do you see as some
• 11:38
  of, like, the best opportunities for organizational growth
• 11:41
  in the year ahead and how this work
• 11:43
  ties into growth
• 11:45
  across the system?
• 11:48
  I think from a a growth perspective,
• 11:52
  I mean, there's
• 11:53
  there's lots to be figured out. There's a
• 11:55
  lot of financial pressures, but we really need
• 11:58
  to acknowledge more of the workforce shortages
• 12:01
  that are challenging us. I think we've stabilized
• 12:04
  from a turnover perspective post COVID.
• 12:08
  But from a growth perspective, it has to
• 12:10
  be
• 12:10
  keeping and retaining
• 12:12
  people and being able to manage that we
• 12:14
  may have patient care tech shortages or EVS
• 12:18
  workers.
• 12:18
  And how do we keep keep a stable
• 12:20
  environment
• 12:21
  with those potential shortages coming in in all
• 12:24
  different areas?
• 12:25
  We have pressures in our supply chain that
• 12:28
  may make it hard to get the resources
• 12:29
  that we need.
• 12:31
  I I think AI sits at the center
• 12:33
  of all of that. It helps us to
• 12:34
  be able to plan and react and be
• 12:36
  more nimble
• 12:38
  from a business process perspective.
• 12:40
  It helps us to get the reimbursements that
• 12:43
  we need to be able to get a
• 12:44
  bottom line that's sustainable
• 12:46
  to keep our doors open.
• 12:48
  I think AI has huge potential to unburden
• 12:52
  the administrators
• 12:53
  who are overseeing large groups of
• 12:57
  clinicians. So we think about our nurse managers.
• 12:59
  Our nurse managers could have anywhere from, you
• 13:02
  know, 30 to a 100 direct reports,
• 13:05
  and they need to be present for those
• 13:07
  individuals that they oversee while also sitting in
• 13:09
  all of these meetings and doing payroll and
• 13:13
  making sure that the supplies are where they
• 13:15
  need to be. So I think we have
• 13:16
  a great opportunity for artificial intelligence to unburden
• 13:20
  people, to allow them to do the thing
• 13:22
  that they signed up to do.
• 13:24
  And, I I'm really excited to see it.
• 13:26
  We're seeing a lot on the revenue cycle
• 13:28
  side, gaining efficiencies very quickly from a billing
• 13:31
  and coding perspective
• 13:33
  as we work with our payers to make
• 13:35
  sure that we're appropriately being reimbursed.
• 13:37
  And then the coordination of patient care. We
• 13:39
  have to get people to the right resources
• 13:41
  in the right place at the right time
• 13:43
  for them or it's not useful for them,
• 13:46
  and they'll be right back in our emergency
• 13:48
  department suffering from the same issue. So technology
• 13:51
  can help us be smarter
• 13:53
  at the right point in time.
• 13:56
  Yeah. Certainly. So much more to come on
• 13:58
  that front. Colleen, thank you so much for
• 14:01
  joining us today. It's a pleasure.
• 14:03
  Thank you. Thank you so much for thinking
• 14:04
  of me and having me on. I I,
• 14:07
  I'm really happy to be able
• 14:09
  to be the voice of so much great
• 14:11
  work that's going on
• 14:13
  and talk about the risks and the wonderful
• 14:15
  potential ahead of us. Things are moving very,
• 14:18
  very fast,
• 14:19
  but we are
• 14:21
  running alongside of it, trying to do the
• 14:23
  best that we can for our people.
• 14:26
  Yeah. Love that. Well, it was so great
• 14:28
  to learn more about the work you're leading
• 14:30
  at Jefferson and certainly look forward to following
• 14:33
  up on the Ambient Nursing rollout as well
• 14:35
  later in 2026.
• 14:37
  Awesome. Alright. Well, thank you so much. Thanks,
• 14:40
  everyone, and thanks to our listeners.