Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Marc Perkins-Carrillo, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Moffitt Cancer Center

Transcript

Marc Perkins-Carrillo, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Moffitt Cancer Center · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Mark Perkins Carillo,
• 0:06
  chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Moffitt Cancer Center.
• 0:09
  Mark, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
• 0:12
  - Oh, thank you for having me, Laura.
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  - Now I know we've got a lot to talk about,
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  and certainly excited to hear more about
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  what you're doing at Moffitt Cancer Center.
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  I know there's some really exciting things happening
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  with innovation within the cancer care space,
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  and so looking forward to that.
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  But before we dive into the broader discussion,
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  can you tell us a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Sure. So I've been with Moffitt for about five years now.
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  I started my career at a very young age,
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  and I started out at the lowest level of a,
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  a certified nursing assistant.
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  And I've worked my way all the way up.
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  And so I have now been a nurse almost 30 years.
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  Uh, my career has spanned anything from nursing home
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  or SNF critical care, emergency room, outpatient
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  med surg, just about everything.
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  I didn't deliver too many babies,
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  but, um, I did in the emergency room deliver one or two.
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  But my work history has been across the United States,
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  which I think really gives me a greater insight than someone
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  who stayed in one location all the time.
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  'cause I've been experiencing a lot of different things.
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  - Oh, wow. That's fascinating.
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  What a great, um, breadth of experience and career.
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  I, I think, you know, like you mentioned, being able
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  to have those different experiences
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  and certainly bring them into new roles
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  and facilities, um, can make a big difference.
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  I'm wondering, you know, after having worked in
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  so many places across the us, do you have a kind
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  of sweet spot for any of them?
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  Or was there a location
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  or a particular role within the nursing spectrum that,
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  you know, you really is close to your heart?
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  - Well, I mean, of course I have
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  to say I love being at Moffitt,
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  but no, there, I would say that, you know, I,
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  I've worked in Hawaii, I've worked in California,
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  I've worked in some really wonderful places.
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  Um, I don't know that any one of 'em stand out of, oh,
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  I have to go back, but always open to, you know,
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  where life leads us, right?
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  We should be, at least. Anyway.
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  - I love that. That's such a great way to put it.
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  And, and certainly, um, the opportunity to, you know, grow
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  and develop within your career, um,
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  can come in many different ways in, in shapes and sizes.
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  And so being open I think is
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  such a great way to approach it.
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  Now, can you tell me about your most successful project
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  from the last year or two?
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  What did you do and how did you measure the results?
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  - Wow, the last year has been a whirlwind of change for us.
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  So, uh, we were very lucky to open a brand new hospital.
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  Uh, not very many organizations get to say they open a,
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  a complete brand new from the ground up hospital.
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  Uh, but we just did, and it's a, it's a smart hospital.
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  It's surgery based only.
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  Uh, we spent about two years mapping out our current
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  workflows from the clinical informatics side, especially.
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  We really worked on those workflows. What do we do now?
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  What are we gonna change
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  and what, why do we need to even change?
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  Is there something that we could do
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  better in our new location?
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  I think that this implementation of all these digital
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  attributes are really gonna be time saving for nursing
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  and for the other clinical staff, of course,
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  but we implemented our digital door signs
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  that now alert you immediately to whether
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  or not a patient is on isolation.
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  You know, with cancer care, that's really important
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  because a lot of times it's not about protecting the staff,
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  it's actually protecting the, the patient.
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  So we can do that instantly with orders.
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  And back in the day, I, I'm sure most of of our
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  listeners will remember this, is we used to take a piece
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  of paper and stick it on the door,
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  and so you had to wait on someone to get that sticker
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  and get all of those things together and put it on the door.
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  So there was opportunities for people
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  to go in without actually knowing that they shouldn't.
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  Uh, now we're protecting our staff
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  and our visitors a lot faster.
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  The other thing that we did in is these rooms is we put
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  in a digital whiteboard.
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  Um, I'm sure most everyone remembers walking in
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  and writing your name on the board as the nurse
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  and putting your telephone number,
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  and then updating all that information over and over
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  and over every single day.
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  And we now have digital whiteboards
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  that actually update from our charting from our orders,
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  and it's all integrated with our, uh,
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  electronic health record.
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  And so it's just so much easier
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  to get some of these things to do.
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  And when you ask about how do we measure our results,
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  you know, it's hard to measure, you know, what kind
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  of success did you have?
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  But the best success I think that we could have measured was
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  on day three, our clinical leadership came to us
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  and said, wow, things are going really good.
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  Maybe we should consider closing the command center.
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  Now, I'll tell you, I was adamantly opposed to CLO closing
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  that command center, at least for one week,
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  but we did close it after only a single week.
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  And I've been through many implementations,
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  and those command centers don't close in a week.
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  So I think we did something right there.
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  - That's an amazing story
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  and certainly, you know, so impressive
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  to have from the clinical leadership team such faith
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  after a week that, you know, they can really, um,
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  make a difference in, in, like you said,
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  close the command center
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  and get into a space where people really feel comfortable
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  and confident, um, you know, going into the rooms and,
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  and, you know, that makes it seems like
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  it made such a big difference.
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  - I, I think so. I think it was, I think it was huge.
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  - That's amazing to hear. Well, um, you know, it,
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  it really cool, especially to think about, um,
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  how you're making a difference for the clinical team,
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  because I know so many organizations are dealing with,
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  you know, uh, nurses and, and doctors
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  and, um, clinical staff who are, um, understaffed
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  or, you know, um, challenges
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  with burnout and those kinds of things.
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  And so being able to take away some of that, um, you know,
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  the, I guess, um, repetitive tasks
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  I can imagine was really helpful.
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  - Absolutely. - Now, looking ahead, what are some
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  of your top priorities for the next 12 months or so?
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  - So Laura, you really kind
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  of touched on something you said.
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  You, you talked about the burnout and,
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  and the fact that people are leaving healthcare,
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  and I think that that is one of our big concerns is
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  of course, burnout, but with burnout
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  and people leaving, you've gotta replace 'em.
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  And so you have so many new graduate RNs that are coming in.
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  And so my big two priorities is patient throughput
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  and ensuring that the largest, these large numbers
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  of new graduate nurses feel
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  supported in their nursing units.
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  So I'm really partnering with our chief nursing officer,
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  Kelly Gonzalo, and we're designing
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  and implementing, um, some of our smart, uh,
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  we're implementing a smart operations center,
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  and what does that really look like?
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  It's really hard to explain,
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  but sometimes the way I like to say is it's kind
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  of this central hub to understand
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  how the patient flow is going to work.
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  And so they'll focus on appropriate
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  and timely discharges, freeing up those bed spaces
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  for new admissions.
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  They're also gonna house our virtual nursing program,
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  which will act as eyes in the sky
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  for monitoring declining patient status
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  and serve as a mentor for those new, uh, graduate
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  or less experienced nurses on the units.
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  So those are our really big two focuses for right now,
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  from a nursing standpoint, we have many, many,
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  many projects here at Moffitt, but these two are really near
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  and dear to my heart because
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  so many patients need cancer care and they can't get in
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  because we can only serve so many people,
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  and we're really trying to figure out
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  how do we serve more patients who really need
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  that lifesaving care.
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  - Absolutely. I think that's such an important point,
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  and definitely being able to provide that kind of care
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  and the close support to, um, patients is vital.
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  Um, you know, and, and I just really appreciate you talking
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  about how, um, the nurses
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  and especially supporting some of the, um, newer nurses or,
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  or those who are early on in their career, um,
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  can make a huge difference.
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  I know entering the workforce in the last couple years, um,
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  is, has been a unique experience, um,
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  amid covid and then after.
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  So, um, from your perspective, is there anything, um,
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  additional or, or unique that you've done to attract nurses
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  or really strengthen the workforce as, um, these nurses, um,
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  really enter into the space
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  and want to become a bigger part of Moffitt going forward?
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  - So that, uh, would be a better question
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  for our CNOI do know that they are partnering
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  with universities to help attract the, the smartest
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  and the best, uh, candidates to us first.
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  And, but I am not really privy to all of the efforts
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  that they're doing on recruiting.
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  I will just say from an informatic standpoint,
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  recruiting is always hard.
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  We have really high standards.
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  To be an informaticist at Moffit
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  and getting those really talented people in
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  is really important.
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  One of the things that we have,
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  and I believe we're probably one, if not only
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  the only one in the nation is we have a
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  trainee program for informaticists.
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  So we bring in nurses who have a desire
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  to be an informaticist,
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  and over the two years we train them to be informaticists.
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  Um, we have some strict guidelines on how to get in
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  and everything, but it's, um, it's an amazing program.
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  We were just published on that,
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  and so I think that's a huge way
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  of attracting new people is is having these
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  kind of internships.
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  - Absolutely. That's great to hear.
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  And I, I know technology, um, in, in that informatics role,
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  it seems like has really gained a lot
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  of traction in the last couple of years.
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  And now with AI
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  and artificial intelligence, um, really becoming more
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  and more part of the healthcare system,
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  it's just really cool to have that opportunity, um,
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  especially at a place like Moffitt.
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  Now, how do you anticipate your role
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  and teams will change in the next year or two?
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  - Wow. I mean, just like the rest of healthcare,
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  my role is constantly changing.
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  I continue to step further
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  and further away from the daily operations
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  and to focus on really long-term strategy of
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  where the organization and
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  where technologies are driving us, um,
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  that will help really make patients care much better.
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  I think that as a top-notch cancer center,
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  we have an obligation to maintain that.
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  And as the world changes
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  and the technologies change, we have to evolve with that.
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  Our care will always be high quality,
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  but how do we deliver it differently?
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  And I think that's where we're really, um, struggling
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  to figure out how to keep up.
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  Because every day, I mean, I can, I can't tell you every,
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  every day when I read a Becker's article,
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  how many times the word the, you know,
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  the letter's AI is, is in it.
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  So we're continuing to grow, we're expanding our size.
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  Um, and that seems odd for a lot
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  of organizations is why are you increasing?
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  But you, you hit it.
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  Technology is not just outta the box
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  and it just doesn't fit into your workflow.
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  And so you need someone that can help convey
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  what the organization needs
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  and then manipulate either the software
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  or manipulate the workflow to make things work together.
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  Um, also we're growing in size. Moffitt is expanded.
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  Like I just said. We just opened a new hospital.
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  We have two, what we call Max
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  or Moffitt ambulatory centers that are, um,
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  that will be opening over the next two years.
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  And so we're just growing, our footprint's growing.
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  So those people need support out there.
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  And clinical informatics is that support that they need.
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  - That's amazing to hear.
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  Mark, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fun and interesting discussion
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
• 12:18
  - I can't wait. Thank you so much for having me again. Bye.