Advancing Health Podcast

00:00:00:06 - 00:00:22:06
Tom Hederal
Welcome to Advancing Health. Cyber attacks from criminal and nation-state hackers directed against health care continues to grow, leading to care delivery disruption and risks to patient safety. In this podcast, two AHA experts discuss today's healthcare cyber threats and what the field should know to defend against cyber attacks.

00:00:22:08 - 00:00:52:22
John Riggi
Welcome to Advancing Health. I'm John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association. Since 2020, there have been an enormous amount of cyber attacks against US healthcare. In the period from 2020 to 2025, there are over 3400 breaches reported to HHS Office of Civil Rights, impacting the health care records of 730 million Americans.

00:00:52:22 - 00:01:28:27
John Riggi
I know what you're thinking folks, there's only 330 million Americans. That's right. Statistically speaking, everyone in this country has had their healthcare records stolen or compromised in full or part, at least two times. We believe that at least one third of these reported attacks are actually ransomware attacks, which resulted in the encryption of data and networks, causing significant disruption and delay to health care delivery, posing a direct risk to patient care and safety. But also posing a direct threat to the entire community

00:01:28:27 - 00:01:53:08
John Riggi
that depends on the availability of their nearest hospital in the event of a life threatening emergency. Folks, let's be clear: these type of attacks are not data theft crimes. They are threat to life crimes. And we need to be ready. Joining me today, very pleased to have my colleague Scott Gee, deputy national advisor for Cyber and Risk at the American Hospital Association.

00:01:53:12 - 00:02:10:00
John Riggi
Scott, I spoke a lot about the trends from 2020 to 2025 in general, but there are really some specific patterns from that data about third parties and where the data is actually being stolen from. Can you talk to us a little bit about that, and what are you seeing for 2026?

00:02:10:07 - 00:02:41:10
Scott Gee
Sure, John. So over the 2020 to 2025 period, about 12% of the phi that was stolen was stolen from hospitals or health care systems. The rest was stolen from third party providers or non hospital health care providers. That trend is continuing today. So far in 2026, we're at 11%, roughly, actually about 10.7% of the reported phi has been stolen from hospitals and health care providers.

00:02:41:12 - 00:03:09:16
Scott Gee
The rest has been stolen from third parties. So 376 incidents reported and about 49.9 million people impacted this year alone. So that's on top of the numbers from 2020 through 2025, John. This is going to be a record setting year because we have a couple of major breaches that have been reported in the news, but haven't quite made the OCR statistics yet.

00:03:09:16 - 00:03:11:19
Scott Gee
And that's where this data comes from.

00:03:11:21 - 00:03:33:26
John Riggi
Yeah. Appreciate that, Scott. You know, when you and I chat and we present, as we do quite often and we say in 2026 there's only 50 million Americans who have had their healthcare records stolen. It's just really preposterous that we've become used to these massive data breaches targeting so many Americans. Scott, you and I have been doing this for a long time.

00:03:33:27 - 00:03:56:15
John Riggi
I will say perhaps even longer than we'd like to admit. Decades. We've witnessed the increase sophistication of cyber attacks and cyber threats. Each year in the field really needs to be aware of these key cyber threats so they can better prepare for an attack when their organization occurs. So let's talk about what we see as the three current and very real cyber threats to hospitals.

00:03:56:15 - 00:04:30:25
John Riggi
And really I always start the list with geopolitical tensions. The vast, vast majority of cyber attacks that we face in healthcare originate from foreign nations, specifically our adversarial nations Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. And they're either providing safe harbor for the bad guys, criminal organizations to attack us, to steal our data, to encrypt our networks, to extort us for stolen data, and/or working with nation states to plant potentially destructive malware on a critical infrastructure.

00:04:30:28 - 00:04:47:25
John Riggi
Scott, can you talk to us about really the number two - perhaps number one threat as well - as you talked about third parties? Talk to us a little bit about the cyber risk that originates from insecure third parties, or just our exposure and dependency on third parties.

00:04:47:27 - 00:05:11:13
Scott Gee
John, the thing about third party providers is they are absolutely critical to hospital operations. They're fantastic. They can do things at scale that a hospital couldn't afford to do for themselves necessarily, and they do it very well. The problem is, when we get dependent on those third party providers and they get attacked, it becomes a huge impact to health care delivery, right?

00:05:11:14 - 00:05:38:10
Scott Gee
We don't have to look any further than Change Healthcare or the attack on Stryker, which, by the way, ties into your number one, which was geopolitical tensions. That was Stryker was attacked by a proxy of the Iranian government. And those outages, those third party attacks had effects across the entire healthcare sector. So, you know, it's not just defending your own hospital, defending your own network.

00:05:38:10 - 00:06:00:12
Scott Gee
It's counting on those third parties to be able to defend their networks. And they are facing some incredibly sophisticated attacks. As you often say, the bad guys know where the critical points in our healthcare system are. They know where those weak links are and when they attack them they have significant impact across the sector.

00:06:00:14 - 00:06:35:06
John Riggi
Totally agreed Scott, and thanks for that perspective. You're absolutely right. These aren't happenstance type attacks when Change Healthcare is attacked. And unfortunately, the very significant number of attacks in the news right now as of this recording against mission critical third party providers, the bad guys have mapped our network and they understand our critical third party dependencies. You know, over the years in healthcare, we have moved to third party providers, cloud based providers for very good reasons, certainly improves business sufficiency.

00:06:35:06 - 00:07:04:10
John Riggi
The economics often are better, but it also improves the efficiency of patient care and patient outcomes. So we did this, established this dependency on third parties for very good and noble reasons and really, really not recognizing the potential risk we were creating. And again, the bad guys have mapped our sector. They know who we depend on for key services, supply chain and key technologies.

00:07:04:10 - 00:07:22:18
John Riggi
And speaking about key technologies, let's talk a little bit about what everybody is talking: about artificial intelligence. Scott, can you talk to us a little bit about the threats that we're seeing, the increased risk by the use of artificial intelligence in our networks?

00:07:22:20 - 00:07:49:14
Scott Gee
John, the biggest risk with friendly use of AI, if you will, hospitals and health care systems using AI for their purposes is understanding the data security piece, right? Where is that data actually being stored? Who actually has access to it? Are you contributing to a large language model that is accessible around the world, because you clearly don't want to add sensitive data to something like that.

00:07:49:15 - 00:08:18:10
Scott Gee
The other problem with AI is that the bad guys are using it incredibly well. A couple of months ago, Microsoft published an article about a particular Russian ransomware group, Medusa, using AI, and it was allowing them to develop exploits for published vulnerabilities within 24 hours of that vulnerability being published. That process used to take weeks. They're doing it in a day now.

00:08:18:10 - 00:08:48:13
Scott Gee
So the exponential increase in bad guy capability and what the adversary can do thanks to AI is a significant problem. AI is also being used to really enhance network and internet scanning, so they can scan systems, find those vulnerabilities, and exploit them at machine speed now. That is an adversarial evolution that is going to have some profound effects.

00:08:48:14 - 00:09:15:15
Scott Gee
We saw the article from the heads of cyber agencies across the Five Eyes, the friendly intelligence communities, saying that within months, AI had the potential to overwhelm cyber defenses. That's exactly what we're looking at here. AI is also doing wonders for phishing email crafting, for instance. Used to be easy to spot a phishing email because the person that wrote the email didn't necessarily speak English as a primary language.

00:09:15:22 - 00:09:39:04
Scott Gee
AI doesn't have that problem. It can craft some very effective phishing emails and other social engineering attacks, and they're working very well. So we have challenges on the good guys side of implementing AI safely, and then challenges from the adversarial side of defending against a weapon that is really expanded their capabilities.

00:09:39:12 - 00:10:02:00
John Riggi
Totally agreed, Scott, and it's pretty clear from your remarks and things that we talk about all the time. We are not at the beginning, but in the midst of a cyber arms race. Bad guys are using it to discover vulnerabilities and develop exploits in 24 hours. Believe me, I've never heard of a hospital, for good reason, being able to identify a vulnerability and patch within 24 hours.

00:10:02:01 - 00:10:27:15
John Riggi
Unless it's super, super critical because they have to test the patch. They have to make sure it doesn't cause a malfunction in a patient connected medical device. With all that, though, we really understand the need, despite all the threats in the risk to move to AI, improve patient outcomes, improve the economics of providing health care under this enormously intense financial pressure that hospitals are facing.

00:10:27:15 - 00:11:04:27
John Riggi
And of course, we do know the good guys us, the network defenders, are using AI to help detect and defend against these attacks. Really quickly here, Scott, one of the other emerging threats that we have seen and we talk about every day now, are threats to operational technology. The Iranians in particular, have a long history of demonstrating their intent and capability to attack operational technology that affects water treatment plants, as we just saw a couple of weeks ago, and really exploiting these, what we call vulnerable programable logic controllers.

00:11:05:00 - 00:11:31:26
John Riggi
Programable logic controllers are a piece of hardware that's generally internet connected that governs a mechanical function, like opening a water valve or controlling the water flow or level of chemicals in a water treatment or your HVAC system. So not only are these in present and critical infrastructure, they are present in our hospitals. And Scott, we just as of today, have warned the healthcare field about a particular threat.

00:11:31:27 - 00:11:39:02
John Riggi
Can you talk to us a little bit about PLCs in healthcare and what the threat in mitigation might be?

00:11:39:04 - 00:12:04:09
Scott Gee
The alert is very specific to one particular product, but it's important to understand that those PLCs, as you mentioned, are everywhere in healthcare. Not only are they in water treatment facilities and power facilities and things like that, they're running elevators, they're running HVAC systems, they're running pneumatic tube systems. They're everywhere in a hospital network that has devices that are connected technology.

00:12:04:15 - 00:12:38:24
Scott Gee
The way to defend those, first and foremost is having a cohesive, comprehensive inventory of what you actually have in your network. Sometimes we have run across disconnects between the facilities folks who are hanging technology on the network, and the IT folks who don't realize that that technology is on their network. And there needs to be a joining at the hip of those two teams and get cybersecurity involved to understand the threats that those devices may pose.

00:12:38:25 - 00:13:02:12
Scott Gee
It's not that they shouldn't be there. They're serving incredibly valuable purposes. They're entirely legitimate technology, but they have to be defended. And the best way to defend them, first and foremost, is not connecting them to the outside internet, if possible. If you can put them on a segregated Vlan or something along those lines, keep them away from the outside world.

00:13:02:12 - 00:13:30:13
Scott Gee
That's the first step in defending PLCs. There's really not much of a reason they need to be exposed to the internet in most cases, so that should be an easy, easy fix. But the first step is identified what they are in the network. Once you've identified them, isolated them, then you can talk about patching and maintaining those just like all of the other connected devices on the network.

00:13:30:13 - 00:13:40:03
Scott Gee
So it's a multi-stage problem, but it has to start with identifying those, those devices and where they are and what they're doing.

00:13:40:04 - 00:14:07:25
John Riggi
Yeah. Totally agreed. And you know, all the facility managers you and I speak to, they say but John, Scott, it's so much easier for us to view and control operational technology from our remote iPads and our phones. And it's not just convenience. It really does help quite a bit on the building management systems. But when we're talking fire and safety systems as well, really life critical systems. But they have to understand that the bad guys can see it often, just as they can see it.

00:14:07:25 - 00:14:31:24
John Riggi
And it has provided a pathway by the Iranians targeting hospitals. They have a history of this, so they have to understand it. I think, as we always say, for whatever the issue is, good governance starts with good governance. Setting those policies that operational technology visibility at least should be merged with cybersecurity folks. They should have good inventory visibility and network monitoring.

00:14:31:24 - 00:14:52:25
John Riggi
So we covered quite a bit here. I think in a relatively short time. We just want to thank our listeners really for tuning in today and again, continuing to do what they do every day to defend networks, care for their patients and serve their community. Scott, thanks again for joining me. Thanks for your assistance here to help defend the field.

00:14:52:26 - 00:15:03:09
John Riggi
This has been John Riggi, your national advisor for Cybersecurity and Risk with Scott Gee, deputy national advisor for Cybersecurity and Risk. Thanks, everybody. Stay safe.

00:15:03:12 - 00:15:12:04
Tom Haederle
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:17:04
Tom Haederle
Welcome to Advancing Health. Over the past several years, the commitment to Age Friendly health care principles has been increasingly embedded across America's health care system. Now, its success is being recognized on the national level with a new award.

00:00:17:06 - 00:00:32:28
Kristin Preihs
Welcome, everyone, and welcome to the AHA Advancing Health podcast. I am Kristin Preihs, vice president with the American Hospital Association, and I am thrilled to be joined today by Rani Snyder, president of the John E. Hartford Foundation. Rani, it is always wonderful to be with you.

00:00:33:00 - 00:00:34:27
Rani E. Snyder
I'm so happy to be here.

00:00:35:00 - 00:01:01:21
Kristin Preihs
Fantastic. For nearly a decade, AHA and John E. Hartford have worked together through advancing Age Friendly care to help hospitals and health care systems put the 4Ms, what matters, medication, mentation and mobility into practice. And what is exciting about this moment is how far this work has come. We're no longer just talking about organizations being their Age Friendly journeys across the country, and hospitals and health care systems.

00:01:01:21 - 00:01:23:03
Kristin Preihs
We're seeing now, for the first time, are really embedding those principles so much more deeply into delivering care, to measuring measurable results and, most importantly, improving the experience of older adults and their families. And that evolution is why we're so excited to together launch the Age Friendly Health Care Impact Award. This is more than another recognition program.

00:01:23:05 - 00:01:41:27
Kristin Preihs
It's an opportunity to shine a national spotlight on organizations that are setting a new standard for what excellent care looks like across older adults. And Rani, before we talk about the award itself, which we're so excited to get into, I want to start a little bit about you and the foundation. For someone who may be newer to this work,

00:01:41:28 - 00:01:48:26
Kristin Preihs
can you tell us a little bit about Age Friendly care and how you have seen Age Friendly health systems and the movement evolve?

00:01:48:28 - 00:02:12:10
Rani E. Snyder
Thanks, Kristen. I could not be happier to be here talking about this today. Age Friendly care really comes from an initiative that we started called Age Friendly Health Systems, which is a national movement to improve both the quality and the safety of care for older people. We're really pleased to have the American Hospital Association as one of our lead partners in this whole movement.

00:02:12:12 - 00:02:33:11
Rani E. Snyder
In addition to the Institute for Health Care Improvement, I'll note that Age Friendly care is grounded in the 4 M's framework and you referenced those 4Ms already. They are what matters, medications, mentation and mobility. And I'll say a little bit more about those. But first I want to note that the four M's represent the biggest drivers of health outcomes for older patients.

00:02:33:13 - 00:03:00:03
Rani E. Snyder
They provide a streamlined evidence based way for health care teams to reduce harm, and also to align care with what matters most to older people and their family caregivers together. What matters I'll note, is certainly the most meaningful starting point. Understanding each older person's goals and preferences and making sure that the care plan itself reflects those are key.

00:03:00:06 - 00:03:29:24
Rani E. Snyder
All 4Ms are interrelated. They're designed to be a set, not a one, one by one. And that's a really important point. So I'm going to give a brief example. My colleague's 86 year old father badly needed a hip replacement. He was nervous to have the surgery and didn't want to do it. And it wasn't until the what matters conversations started happening with his care team and his family about getting back out to his garage, that he agreed to the procedure.

00:03:29:27 - 00:04:02:15
Rani E. Snyder
So the care team then realized that his medications were actually a big risk. He was on two of them that were no longer needed, and the hospital team ensured that his mentation, his cognitive status, was monitored, especially to prevent delirium, which is something that can happen, especially in hospitals, but in other settings as well. And the result was a successful surgery that restored his mobility so that he could do what mattered to him most, which was really getting out into his garage and being able to putter around.

00:04:02:17 - 00:04:34:08
Rani E. Snyder
And that's what we want, ideally for all patients everywhere, is it's that ability to get to what they care most about. And the really exciting thing is that it's starting to happen. Since the movement was launched in 2017, it has grown to now more than 6000 different sites of care. Those include hospitals, ambulatory practices, nursing homes and convenient care clinics, all of which are recognized for delivering Age Friendly, 4Ms-based care.

00:04:34:10 - 00:04:58:16
Rani E. Snyder
And we are particularly excited because the movement, as we call it, is now entering a new phase. So it's moving beyond just adoption of those 4Ms towards what we're referring to as reliable delivery across entire systems and demonstrating measurable improvements in outcomes, safety, and the overall experiences for older people and their care teams.

00:04:58:18 - 00:05:40:00
Kristin Preihs
I love that, Rani, particularly the emphasis on what matters, because when you strip down this work to its core, it's always about seeing a whole person care and an older adult to your exact example, and maybe managing several chronic conditions, taking multiple medications, and interacting with many different parts of the health care system. And when every member of the care team understands especially what matters to that person, and seeing that it has such a significant impact on health outcomes and is consistently considering medication and mentation availability alongside it, suddenly care becomes more coordinated, safer and personal, which is what everyone is looking for and to some degree expects when they roll into a hospital or

00:05:40:00 - 00:06:04:22
Kristin Preihs
health care system with a particular opportunity to improve their own health. We've seen tremendous growth in organizations adopting Age Friendly care. So the next question really logically becomes, how do we identify those organizations achieving extraordinary impact? How do we learn from them and use their successes to bring even more organizations along? Which really brings us to this new and very exciting award.

00:06:04:23 - 00:06:18:25
Kristin Preihs
I would love to hear from you. Why is this the right moment to create an Age Friendly Health Care Impact Award? What motivated and why do you feel like now is the time to recognize this work across the field?

00:06:18:27 - 00:06:44:12
Rani E. Snyder
It's a great question. Our vision at the John E. Hartford Foundation is for every older adult, in every setting, anywhere they go, to receive Age Friendly care. So we want evidence based practices that are, as we said, reliably delivered to see reductions in harm. And we want older people and their families and their health care teams to feel the satisfaction and the joy that comes when health care is focused on what really matters, the goals of the older patient.

00:06:44:12 - 00:07:15:00
Rani E. Snyder
So, as you've alluded to, as the movement has spread now, is the perfect time to create a national, prestigious award from one of the country's premier health care organizations, and that's the American Hospital Association. Why? Well, because we've seen widespread not just adoption, but also enthusiasm for adopting the 4Ms's framework. That's been spurred in part by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which implemented an Age Friendly hospital measure this year.

00:07:15:02 - 00:07:47:20
Rani E. Snyder
And we've also seen really important outcomes being published in the literature. A recent study found that older people receiving 4Ms care had a 33% lower rate of the 30 day readmission compared with usual care, and another site reported a 34% reduction in falls and a 53% increase in de-prescribing of those potentially inappropriate medications. That same initiative also saw re-hospitalizations decrease and the 30 day ED utilization fall.

00:07:47:23 - 00:08:10:13
Rani E. Snyder
So we want to shine a light on the enthusiasm and those outcomes that we're seeing, so that other hospitals and other health systems can't help but to want to join in. We'd be very happy to see all the FOMO. We want friendly but fierce competition to be the best at Age Friendly care. And there's certainly moral incentive for this given our growing aging population.

00:08:10:15 - 00:08:21:01
Rani E. Snyder
But there's economic incentive too. And here's a sort of a metaphor for you. When a film receives an Oscar. Everybody wants to see it. So the same can happen in health care.

00:08:21:03 - 00:08:43:11
Kristin Preihs
I love that, and I completely agree that the FOMO is real. One of the things we see again and again and again at AHA or in Hollywood is that recognition can be an incredibly powerful tool for transformation, for thought leadership, and for thinking of different ways to to do things. And when an organization is doing something exceptionally well, we don't just want to applaud it.

00:08:43:12 - 00:09:07:15
Kristin Preihs
We want to understand it. We want to know how they did it. Who made the work successful? How did leadership support it? What barriers did they overcome? And perhaps most importantly, what can other hospitals and health care systems in this case take from that experience to adapt for their own unique community? And that's where I think this award is, enormously important for the time that we're in.

00:09:07:17 - 00:09:32:14
Kristin Preihs
The organizations that we recognize can become somewhat of, I think, our learning laboratories for the field, because health care leaders are hungry for practical examples. So as we think about an older adult who comes into a hospital after a fall, for example, maybe there are medication concerns or mobility has declined. And as you've said, we know that when teens consistently apply the 4M's, those pieces are handled as separate problems.

00:09:32:15 - 00:09:57:28
Kristin Preihs
They become a very well coordinated approach around what matters to the individual. And that's what this partnership, this award is really trying to recognize. So when running, folks are considering applying for this new award for the first time. Can you talk a little bit about what you expect the committee will look at? What will distinguish organizations that are truly leading this work and what you hope folks can learn from them?

00:09:58:00 - 00:10:22:19
Rani E. Snyder
Gladly. First of all, I want to say that the AHA has such expertise in creating rigorous awards that examine the critical dimensions that are needed, really, to drive true outcomes in quality and safety. So we are grateful to you and your team, and your team has worked hand-in-hand with us to determine the what are now five criteria, that fall into different domains.

00:10:22:19 - 00:10:51:14
Rani E. Snyder
And so the specifics of what we're looking for will include evaluating elements like, first of all, leadership engagement and organizational alignment. That includes being embedded in strategy and governance. It's seeing leaders champion the work. It's having accountability for Age Friendly care built into organizational operations. Second, of course, patient safety and clinical quality. Those are major pieces of this work.

00:10:51:19 - 00:11:16:00
Rani E. Snyder
And so it will be a significant domain. Are we seeing reliable delivery of 4Ms care and measurable improvements in health outcomes as well. Third, community and patient partnerships is another area that we're going to look at. Age Friendly care has got to extend beyond the walls of just a hospital or office. Patients, families and caregivers have got to be engaged.

00:11:16:02 - 00:11:46:24
Rani E. Snyder
Fourth, we talk a lot about technology in all of our work, and we are seeing innovation and technology playing a key role in supporting the sustainability and the scaling of Age Friendly care. So that's another domain. Last but not least, thinking about spread and sustainability itself is going to be a marker of a successful applicant. Patients are going to benefit most when Age Friendly principles become part of the organization's DNA, and not just isolated projects.

00:11:46:25 - 00:11:48:13
Rani E. Snyder
So that's an important piece.

00:11:48:16 - 00:11:55:18
Kristin Preihs
Rani, from your point of view, what does readiness look like and why would you encourage an eligible organization to apply right now?

00:11:55:20 - 00:12:25:06
Rani E. Snyder
So perfection is not required, but if organizations can demonstrate the following points, they should consider applying. So first of all, implementation of the 4MS across multiple settings. They really need to have achieved the highest level of recognition in the Age Friendly health systems movement. There are two levels of recognition. They need strong leadership engagement. It is useful to be able to show measurable improvements in care and outcomes.

00:12:25:06 - 00:12:55:11
Rani E. Snyder
And we're seeing this more and more all across the country. It will be helpful to demonstrate effective partnerships across the care continuum. And sustainable processes that have been maintained over time as well. But honestly, I highly encourage every Age Friendly health system out there to go through the application process. And the reason is the award criteria are structured in a way that can be very helpful in moving your Age Friendly journey forward.

00:12:55:14 - 00:13:21:23
Rani E. Snyder
So there are a whole host of benefits that go with winning, and there are some that go beyond winning, so it's definitely worth a shot. First of all, applying for the Age Friendly Health Care Impact Award itself offers an opportunity for organizational reflection. And that matters. Applying can lead to a greater leadership engagement for your Age Friendly work, because you got to really step into it and examine it.

00:13:21:26 - 00:13:45:12
Rani E. Snyder
And then you'll be able to very publicly recognize the team accomplishments internally. And then, of course, if you win, you will have tremendous visibility as a national leader. The accolades will be very public and well promoted as well. Pioneering this movement sets a powerful new standard for organizational excellence, and that's part of what we're so excited for.

00:13:45:15 - 00:14:07:25
Kristin Preihs
And I want to underscore, two things that you said. First, that organizations sometimes underestimate the value of the application process itself. I've had the privilege of sitting on a few AHA award committees, and I have seen time over time that when individual hospitals and health care systems apply, it's it's almost not about the application, but it's about the process.

00:14:07:25 - 00:14:29:06
Kristin Preihs
And that they're recognizing their team members incredible work. They're preparing and making space for celebrating that, something it doesn't always happen. And that can make a significant difference to really stopping and reflecting on the impact that an organization has had and how far they've come. And the second piece I want to underscore is don't talk yourself out of applying because everything isn't perfect.

00:14:29:08 - 00:14:54:08
Kristin Preihs
This award is about progress, about measurable results and sustained commitment. And so if your organization has done that work, tell that story. Lean into it. Celebrate. Because behind every data point, every piece of progress is an adult, a caregiver or family whose experience of health care was better because your teams chose to approach care differently. And those stories right now deserve to be told.

00:14:54:10 - 00:15:06:18
Kristin Preihs
So, Rani, before we close, I have two final questions for you. First, for the hospital health care system that's listening today who again might be considering applying. Is there one piece of advice you would give to them?

00:15:06:20 - 00:15:29:06
Rani E. Snyder
Well, you referenced stories, and I want to say not only tell your story, but tell your story with confidence. Focus on the impact you've achieved for your older patients, their families and caregivers, your full care teams and their communities. Share both your results and the lessons that you've learned. Because you're going to see benefits from sharing your work no matter what,

00:15:29:12 - 00:15:31:28
Rani E. Snyder
even if you aren't selected as a winner.

00:15:32:01 - 00:15:44:15
Kristin Preihs
I love that, so well said. One final question for you, and let's look a little farther into the future. When we come back several years from now and look at what this award has accomplished - what do you hope we'll see?

00:15:44:18 - 00:16:08:02
Rani E. Snyder
I'm going to have three points to respond to that. First of all, we want this award to celebrate the leaders in the Age Friendly field. This is about telling stories, but it's about so much more than telling stories of how best care for older people really looks. It is also illustrating how much this initiative really means to real people in real communities and health systems.

00:16:08:04 - 00:16:40:00
Rani E. Snyder
Second, I firmly believe that this award is going to continue to accelerate adoption of Age Friendly care nationwide by creating visibility, by inspiring innovation, and by helping organizations to learn from one another as well. And then finally, the award is going to be an important component of our larger strategy to use every lever available to make sure that care for all of us, every one of us as we age, is safe and patient centered and Age Friendly to the core.

00:16:40:03 - 00:17:04:24
Kristin Preihs
And that is a wonderful place to end, and I share that hope. This award will become so much more than something organizations aspire to win. Rani, thank you for your leadership, for the John E. Hartford's extraordinary partnership with AHA and for continuing to push this movement forward. And to everyone listening, we cannot wait to see the stories and impact represented in this first round of applicants.

00:17:04:26 - 00:17:07:24
Kristin Preihs
Thank you so much for joining us.

00:17:07:26 - 00:17:16:07
Tom Haederle
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and write us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:00:10 - 00:00:14:21
Tom Haederle
Welcome to Advancing Health. Improving maternal health takes more than one type of provider. Learn how multidisciplinary teams are breaking down silos to support healthier pregnancies and better outcomes.

00:00:14:24 - 00:00:32:19
Julia Resnick
Welcome to Advancing Health. I'm Julia Resnick, senior director of health outcomes and care transformation at the American Hospital Association. I'm here with Kardie Tobb from Cone Health. She's a cardiologist and works in obstetrics. And we're going to talk about team based care so that women can have better pregnancy outcomes. Kardie, thank you so much for being here.

00:00:32:21 - 00:00:37:26
Kardie Tobb, DO
Thank you for having me. It's such an honor. I am looking forward to this conversation.

00:00:37:27 - 00:00:42:18
Julia Resnick
Same. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and your role at your hospital?

00:00:42:19 - 00:01:07:13
Kardie Tobb, DO
Sure. Of course. So I am a trained cardiologist. Preventive cardiologist. I focus in on women with cardiovascular disease in pregnancy. So a term that we call cardio obstetrics. And I am in Greensboro, North Carolina. I work with a health system here, and we have been able to be fortunate for me to lead our initiative to develop our cardio obstetrics program.

00:01:07:13 - 00:01:22:17
Kardie Tobb, DO
And it's exciting to be able to work across dimensions of health specialties with the OBs, the maternal fetal medicine specialist, anesthesiologist and our nurses, and take care of patients to make sure they're having better outcomes.

00:01:22:18 - 00:01:37:22
Julia Resnick
So cardio obstetrics, I think by nature is kind of a interdisciplinary model of care. So can you talk about how you're thinking about that, that level of team based care? And really what prompted you to redesign how pregnancy care works at your hospital?

00:01:37:24 - 00:02:14:05
Kardie Tobb, DO
So let me tell you, it is really everything stemmed from looking at what our national data is showing. Maternal mortality, we're in a crisis and in different pockets of where we are in the country. We have to be thinking along the lines of team based care. So when I started fellowship, initially, I thought I was going to be a interventional cardiologist, and I was feeling pretty good about that until I started to look at my mentor, who was in women's health and started to look at the burden of women with heart disease and pregnancy and thought that I was going to pivot.

00:02:14:05 - 00:02:45:26
Kardie Tobb, DO
And I'm so glad I did, because now I have a fulfilling career where I'm not only caring for these women, but I have colleagues that we think about it together. So at Cone Health, with our interdisciplinary cardiac obstetrics team, what we have is a team of people: OB, MFM, anesthesiologist, pharmacist, social worker, nurses that we really discuss what the outcome or what that delivery plan and what the care plan is doing in pregnancy of a woman who has high risk cardiovascular diseases.

00:02:45:26 - 00:03:09:06
Kardie Tobb, DO
By that I mean like women who've had a heart attack, who've had heart failure, who've had strokes, who actually have high chronic hypertension that's really not controlled during that time, diabetes. And you name it. And we really do a good job to talking to each other. I'm really intentional to say talking to each other because all health systems have cardiologists.

00:03:09:08 - 00:03:28:26
Kardie Tobb, DO
Most health systems, I should say, because some of our hospitals may or may not have OBs, have an anesthesiologist, but most of them work in silo. And that's why I'm so proud that wit our cardio-obstetrics program, we're able to have this interdisciplinary conversation that we can make sure our patients are well cared for.

00:03:28:28 - 00:03:38:15
Julia Resnick
That's fantastic. And especially, you know, knowing that cardiology issues are one of the major causes of maternal morbidity and mortality. Like it makes so much sense to start there.

00:03:38:16 - 00:03:58:21
Kardie Tobb, DO
It is, it is. For many years we've had the traditional care where we think reproductive care years and pregnancy years is for the OB. But what we're seeing now, the trend with women having babies in older years, some of them have developed heart disease, some of them have inheritable heart disease, some of them have congenital heart disease. It's a problem.

00:03:58:21 - 00:04:05:16
Kardie Tobb, DO
So cardiologists, we need to understand that this is our problem too, to help solve.

00:04:05:18 - 00:04:23:22
Julia Resnick
Right. And I think, like we've been hearing that so many women are sicker when they become pregnant, which just means that their pregnancies are higher risk for themselves, higher risk for their babies. So like, how can we think more holistically about like, preconception care to put women on a pathway to healthier pregnancies?

00:04:23:28 - 00:04:54:10
Kardie Tobb, DO
This is one of my advocacy, Julia, to be honest with you, because a lot of time we now think about the pregnancy care and we don't think about the mother before the pregnancy care. And we don't educate women enough for them to understand that they need to declare their intentions of wanting to give birth, because once that's known, and we don't also talk enough with the primary providers to help women declare their intentions of being pregnant.

00:04:54:10 - 00:05:13:09
Kardie Tobb, DO
Because once the intentions is known, the rest of it is easy, because then you start asking questions about family history, about the woman's own history. So imagine a 42 year old woman who desires to get pregnant, but was diagnosed with high blood pressure ten years ago and may or may not be treated. And she wants to have a baby.

00:05:13:10 - 00:05:31:18
Kardie Tobb, DO
She needs to know that we need to look at those blood pressures, needs to know that her blood pressure needs to be optimized as opposed to - she gets pregnant, she's very happy because she's planned her life, she planned her career and now she's starting her family. And then by her 12 weeks of pregnancy, her blood pressure is 160 over 90.

00:05:31:19 - 00:05:54:14
Kardie Tobb, DO
That is devastating because there is a risk that she could lose the baby. And there's also that problem that not only losing a baby, her complications that are associated with it, not just during that time of the loss or the potential loss or during that time, years later. So we need to - it should really become a part of how we care for reproductive women.

00:05:54:15 - 00:05:59:14
Kardie Tobb, DO
Asking them about declaring intentions because there are some women who don't want babies and its okay.

00:05:59:18 - 00:06:12:25
Julia Resnick
Absolutely. And I feel like we're going to become evangelists for this. Like, how can we how can we better educate women about their health before they get pregnant to set them up for a lifetime of health, whether or not they decide to have a baby.

00:06:12:25 - 00:06:39:19
Kardie Tobb, DO
And I will be there, there with you. Trust me, because the advocacy and I think that I have dedicated my career to just this one thing. Making sure that women understand their heart health, their overall wellness. And then when it comes to trying to have a baby, we need to, as a country, not just as where I practice Greensboro or not just as Chicago or Philadelphia or Alabama.

00:06:39:19 - 00:07:04:06
Kardie Tobb, DO
We need to, as a country, start thinking about the wellness of women health, period. There's been a huge transformation in the education of women across the country, but there are still a lot of work to do. Because when we see women, sometimes we think breast cancer number one killer. But that is not true. Heart disease number one killer. Reproductive years, heart disease number one killer leading causes.

00:07:04:10 - 00:07:11:20
Julia Resnick
Yeah. And when we think about young women, they usually think that they can't have heart disease because they're too young and they're too healthy. But that's not true.

00:07:11:20 - 00:07:34:01
Kardie Tobb, DO
That is not true. Young people in general feel that we're indispensable,  we're not. There are lots of ways that young people can have heart disease. Genetically, high cholesterol, thinking about heart disease or inherited genetically. So I think it should start from the younger years, because people are thinking that heart disease is not something for the young, especially in women.

00:07:34:01 - 00:07:46:26
Kardie Tobb, DO
We look at it in post-menopausal stages. That is not true. We start from a younger age, knowing the blood pressure, thinking about if you want to have a baby with that desire for your work and things like that.

00:07:46:27 - 00:08:02:28
Julia Resnick
I do want to go back to the pregnancy conversation. So from the patient's perspective, when they're part of this interdisciplinary model of care, who are they seeing as part of those, their care team? And how do the how does the flow work for them, and how does it differ from traditional pregnancy care?

00:08:03:02 - 00:08:27:18
Kardie Tobb, DO
So the OB is the driver of the care team. The OB is the one that's going to identify when cardiology coming, OB's going to identify when a behavior specialist coming. So it's almost OBs are captain of the ship. But being in that model where we're not siloed anymore and we're making sure that the patients know when they need to be referred, the patients are screened.

00:08:27:18 - 00:08:51:22
Kardie Tobb, DO
And I think the big part of that care model is not necessarily always seeing the patient, but always having a conversation during those roundtable, because we can't have a multidisciplinary clinic in all states or all places, because when you think about the payers and all, how that works, but we can have a roundtable where we can discuss every patient, every problem and come up with a joint solution.

00:08:51:23 - 00:08:55:18
Julia Resnick
And can you talk more about those roundtables and who's involved and how that guides care?

00:08:55:19 - 00:09:20:12
Kardie Tobb, DO
So what happens - we have patients based on our history, what they have. And a lot of times the identification comes from our OB team. And sometimes if they see a cardiologist first like myself, and we have a group of a list of those patients, and then who's on those roundtable discussions are the cardiologists. Sometimes our advanced heart failure team members, because we have women whose EFs are low and need (?) heart failure.

00:09:20:13 - 00:09:49:25
Kardie Tobb, DO
Our pharmacist, our obstetrician gynecologist, our maternal fetal medicine team member, our nurse and leadership's from the discharge areas to the labor wards. Our social workers, our pharmacist, and we pull people in as we need. And what we do, we look at the individual, we look at their chronic disease processes. We look at what is needed, what is needed in terms of clinical care and social needs, not as we think about it as providers, doctors.

00:09:49:25 - 00:10:07:14
Kardie Tobb, DO
And we say, oh, this is what we know. We'll look at it from my holistic standpoint. What they need to have a safe delivery in terms of treatment prenatally and what they need to have a postpartum stay and be very comfortable at home and making sure they're not leaving their baby to come back for a readmission.

00:10:07:14 - 00:10:22:21
Julia Resnick
That's incredible. And I just want to close with your words of advice. So if our listeners were to take one action to think about how they could improve pregnancy outcomes for women in their communities, what would be your one piece of advice for them?

00:10:22:24 - 00:10:43:28
Kardie Tobb, DO
So start from an enterprise level and talk to healthcare executives and say, from the care of a pregnant woman or a reproductive age woman is not based on the OB or the nurse. It starts from the CEO, who really pushes the initiative of making sure that we look at data on maternal health, not just from the race, ethnicity, language.

00:10:44:00 - 00:11:09:18
Kardie Tobb, DO
Make sure we understand the gaps and really build bridges to help close those gaps. And then I'll talk to the clinicians. It's not about us as physicians or providers, it's about the patient. So we need to align and have conversations with our other subspecialties to make sure that we're aligning on better outcomes and not work in silo. And then I would talk to the patients and say that, have a conversation with your provider.

00:11:09:18 - 00:11:32:07
Kardie Tobb, DO
If you're a reproductive age woman who wants to be have an intention of having a baby, who wants to be pregnant, understand your health because a healthy woman would carry a healthy baby. And once you can do that, push until you find a person is going to help you. And then optimize your health if you have chronic disease before you get pregnant, it makes for a much more healthier pregnancy.

00:11:32:14 - 00:11:44:06
Julia Resnick
Those are wise words for leaders, providers, and patients. So Kardie, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. I am so inspired by the work you do, and look forward to seeing how it continues to develop and grow.

00:11:44:13 - 00:11:47:21
Kardie Tobb, DO
Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.

00:11:47:24 - 00:11:56:15
Tom Haederle
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:19:06
Tom Haederle
Welcome to Advancing Health. Medical complications at birth can sometimes prevent new parents from holding their babies and beginning the bonding process right away. Today, we hear about how one major health system encourages other ways newborns and new parents can start to connect from birth.

00:00:19:08 - 00:00:46:00
Julie Kim
Welcome to Advancing Health. I'm Julie Kim, director for the Division of Health Outcomes and Care Transformation here at the American Hospital Association. Picture this: your baby is just hours old, hooked up to monitors in an NICU, and you're standing at the bedside not knowing what you're allowed to do. That's where today's conversation about health literacy begins. Joining me are Gabriela Jimenez Thompson, program lead for NYC Health and Hospitals Bellevue,

00:00:46:01 - 00:00:54:03
Julie Kim
Our Story Begins program. And, Liliana Escobar Bellevue had an NICU nurse. Gabriela, Liliana, thanks so much for being here.

00:00:54:07 - 00:00:56:25
Liliana Escobar
Thank you for having us.

00:00:56:26 - 00:01:05:26
Julie Kim
Of course. Let's dive right in. Gabriela, could you start by telling us more about Our Story Begins program? What inspired it and what it looks like in practice?

00:01:05:28 - 00:01:25:26
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
Yes. Of course. So Our tory begins. Started out of a dream to create equity. So we are a part of the recharge and remodel at Children of Bellevue. Reach out and read where we promote early development and early literacy as a standard part of wild child care. We noticed that the NICU babies didn't have this chance to have access to resources.

00:01:25:27 - 00:01:52:03
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
So our story begins was born. We wanted to make sure that caregivers knew that their voice was just as important at every point of their child's life, and then a very important part of their child's care. So through nurse education, babies are receiving books at admission every month that they're also receiving care within the NICU and also once at discharge to make sure that they have all the resources they need to make sure that their language and cognitive development is fully operational.

00:01:52:07 - 00:02:02:27
Julie Kim
That's great. And Liliana, from a clinical perspective, what does that critical window of bonding look like in the NICU, and why is that so important to support families during that time?

00:02:03:03 - 00:02:27:26
Liliana Escobar
This is the one that is very important for every newborn, not just for patients. You know, that first touch, that first voice they listened to. It just gets very difficult when the patient comes in the night because you're taking the patient away from the mom. Sometimes they're not able to hold them right away. So how we encourage this in the night is, you know, we offer skin to skin as soon as possible when the patient is stable.

00:02:28:01 - 00:02:44:06
Liliana Escobar
If they're not able to do skin to skin, we offer touch like soft touch for the babies. And now we have the problem I started begins, which is also one thing that parents can do to create that bonding during this critical period.

00:02:44:08 - 00:02:57:09
Julie Kim
That's great. And I see families often feel helpless when they can't hold their baby. So with this program, could you talk a little bit more about the role that it creates to their child's care?

00:02:57:12 - 00:03:23:16
Liliana Escobar
Yes. I think this program allows the parents to be more of a caregiver instead of just an observer. They come to the NICU and they see the nurses, the doctors doing all this medical procedures on your patient and you know, they feel helpless and having a story begin. It gives them a purpose. It makes them part of the plan of care, having something to do and knowing that they can do something for the baby that's going to help them in the long run.

00:03:23:19 - 00:03:36:22
Julie Kim
Back to you, Gabriela. I remember you mentioning the living room language right when talking with the families. So could you tell us a little bit more about what does that mean in practice, and why does it matter in a clinical setting like the NICU?

00:03:36:25 - 00:03:59:26
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
Absolutely. I think I also will build on the point of this is a very vulnerable time for these parents. They're coming in with new sounds, new like a completely new environment that they've never been exposed to before. They're extremely concerned about their child's well-being, being able to ground them in these everyday routines that they will hopefully do once the baby's discharge of talking, reading and singing to their baby is such a pivotal part.

00:03:59:28 - 00:04:25:27
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
We also know that babies look for these characters, and that's why we want to bring it back to living room language, because the word that they heard every single day and their mother's womb is something that they're looking for in this environment as well. Living room language is intended to take away the medical jargon, remembering that we are all human beings and sometimes need that human to human interaction to really understand what is going on.

00:04:25:28 - 00:04:45:28
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
Our story begins give our parents an opportunity to recognize that every single day that you talk to your child, it gives them a point of comfort. There's a lot of medical jargon that will be going on around them, but this gives them an opportunity to remember that their voice does have power. And also if they have questions, they should ask them and also understand what is going on with their child.

00:04:45:28 - 00:04:54:19
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
I know that a lot of moms will ask about their child's weight, how they're growing, how they're changing, and sometimes it's great to just hear it in everyday language.

00:05:12:01 - 00:05:31:12
Liliana Escobar
You know, in the Nike is the baby is not just our patient. Like the parent is also our patient. So we also have to attend to them, making them feel confident that they can participate in the care of their patient, helping them recognize that, you know they're essential for the baby's care. If we all usually tell them nobody knows your baby more than you.

00:05:31:13 - 00:05:53:21
Liliana Escobar
Right. And we try to create that confidence in them, you know, giving them education, making it, helping them participate in what they can, even if it's just changing a diaper, taking a temperature, knowing your baby stress, learning how to calm him. You know, you might not be able to do any medical, but there's things that your baby needs are very important also.

00:05:53:22 - 00:06:14:09
Liliana Escobar
And, you know, helping them succeed in their care. And then you and, you know, confidence. It takes time to build especially, you know, you get a 25 week or 600 grammar. The parents are scared and it's just having to build that confidence over time, planning everything that we're doing. Why is your baby getting this medication, answering any questions they have?

00:06:14:12 - 00:06:31:19
Liliana Escobar
Helping encourage and participation on rounds every day so they can ask questions just to the nurses, the medical team, every provider and creating that trust with the family. So you know, they feel empowered that they can ask questions and participate every time, every day.

00:06:31:21 - 00:06:55:24
Julie Kim
Super important. I believe that it's one thing to design a program like this, and it's also another to see it actually reach families at scale. So let's talk numbers and impact that this program has had. So to my understanding that our story begins program has reached 72% of all NICU admissions. Gabriella, what does that kind of reach mean for families at Bellevue and what's driven that uptake?

00:06:55:26 - 00:07:23:25
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
It definitely takes a village to raise a child. You see it every day. And then you from nurses to parents to social workers to like everybody is really considering the importance of these children, making sure that they have all of the protective factors to ensure their success and hopeful discharge. The 72% was people wanting to see these babies have this wonderful interaction with their parents.

00:07:23:25 - 00:07:59:13
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
It took educating the nurses on the impact of early literacy and child development, specifically neonatal, and it also took a lot of reinforcement and reminders. We've been able to share upwards of 735 books, so it does take a lot of attention to detail, but when you see the atmosphere that it helped create, it's offered a positive moment for nurses to be able to give this book to this family and not necessarily just talk about the medical complexities of their child, but they also just get to relate on a human to human level.

00:07:59:13 - 00:08:28:18
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
I think the biggest driver of this work has been relational health, especially early relational health of thinking about what do these babies need in order to really thrive? Lifelong. So I think that connection, intention and very calculated research to make sure that this initiative is the most impactful, not just developmentally speaking, but also up to date on all of the latest information that could be available to families.

00:08:28:20 - 00:08:44:21
Julie Kim
That's great. Thank you for sharing that. And a question for you. And perhaps to the both of you, is there a patient or family story that has stayed with you since the launch of this program, one that may illustrate why this work truly matters?

00:08:44:23 - 00:09:15:22
Liliana Escobar
I think the whole program itself has created a change in our unit. How parents and then you. From what I remember, one of our patients who had a very premature baby, very small. At first he was very scared to touch him. You know, we encouraged for her to read as a first thing, to bond. Little by little, she started putting her hands in the giraffe and the isolate, touching the baby until we were able to have her hold the baby for the first time, even when the patient was intubated, on a ventilator.

00:09:15:22 - 00:09:30:20
Liliana Escobar
And even then she, like, let me read the book where we holding the baby? And, you know, that made me feel like so important. Like reading the book really connects the mom, the parents, other family to the baby.

00:09:30:22 - 00:09:51:00
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
Of course, there was an again, most babies have very complex conditions and sometimes they'll be there for upwards of four months. And there was a family who ended up having a baby who was admitted for six months into the unit. The first book that she got, she did not want to hear anything outside of the fact if her child was going to be okay.

00:09:51:01 - 00:10:14:01
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
So she was very reserved, didn't really want to think anything else out of this moment. It was extremely stressful, so she just couldn't see forward. By month two and three, she started to actually gravitate towards the books and started to read to her child. And then over time, she actually told me that one of her favorite books, the popular song, was something that she did every single day.

00:10:14:01 - 00:10:30:27
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
And at the day of discharge, she actually cried to me and she said, this reminded me that I am a mom and I need to show up every day. And no matter how hard it was, this gave me the grounding to know this is just a moment of my child's life, and I will be able to give him all of this loving care afterwards.

00:10:30:27 - 00:11:00:07
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
As to. And it's my responsibility as a parent to focus on this moment. And she was grateful for the nurses who constantly encouraged her. And for each moment that she was in this stressful headspace, she would allow herself to pull the book out to give herself a break to remember. Although this is stressful, I can remember that I'm bonding with my child, and that's the most important part of this program, is hearing that from families and knowing that in this stressful time, this gave them a chance to just focus on that connection that they're longing for.

00:11:00:07 - 00:11:01:07
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
Ultimately.

00:11:01:13 - 00:11:22:12
Julie Kim
I know our listeners can't see us right now, but I'm smiling ear to ear to that heartwarming story. Thank you both for sharing that. And I believe there is a chain of events here, right? Or connection that is to be made. And that's the human to human connection being intentional, being consistent. And it's all surrounded with with love.

00:11:22:13 - 00:11:37:03
Julie Kim
It sounds like. And this kind of impact says a lot about where this program is also headed for the future. So before we close I want to out a little bit. So what outcomes right are you hoping to measure as the program grows.

00:11:37:06 - 00:12:05:24
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
So we're measuring several things. One, of course we want to ensure that every baby gets their books when they're emitted into the NICU alongside their nurse education. But on a larger scope, we're hoping to bring back volunteer readers to make sure that there's this interaction that can happen to everybody, regardless of their parents ability to visit them. And in addition, there's limited gaps of research, actually, to talk about the importance of just vocal infant directed stimulation within the NICU.

00:12:05:24 - 00:12:31:09
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
And we know that it's very important. Babies get desensitized to hearing all the beep, beep and all the voices talking around them. But we do know that when our voice and our name is called for, we're able to tune into that. So we want to really focus on making sure that the visibility and the importance of these child directed interactions are a standard part of, well, child care and make you care hopefully going forward.

00:12:31:10 - 00:12:46:25
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
And that's what we're hopeful for, is making sure that resources are available to families, regardless of their native speaking language, and if they need literacy resources that they can be available. If you want to show that storytelling is a powerful tool to help encourage healthy development.

00:12:47:02 - 00:12:59:10
Julie Kim
Great. And the last question here I have for you is if you could leave health care leaders, right, with one message about the importance of health literacy, what would it be? And Lilliana, let's start with you.

00:12:59:13 - 00:13:34:15
Liliana Escobar
Sure, Julie. I think it's just understanding that literacy is not just about speaking simple words. It's making sure that every patient understands their plan of care right now, today, tomorrow. And they feel informed, respected and empower that they can make decision about what their care is. You know, it's not just let me give you a pamphlet that speaks simple language, is making sure that their understanding and everyone is, no matter your background, your education level or your language, and just making sure that this is not just one person job, it's a whole health system.

00:13:34:20 - 00:13:42:19
Liliana Escobar
Just making sure that every person gets that opportunity to feel that empowerment in decision making, in their care.

00:13:42:21 - 00:13:45:02
Julie Kim
Great. Thanks, Liliana. Gabriella.

00:13:45:04 - 00:14:01:02
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
There's a lot of power and connection and remembering that we are all just human. And sometimes it takes a moment and a present time. I know we always have a long to do list, but spending that extra moment with a family does go a long way. I think one of the most important things to is we want to be proactive, not reactive.

00:14:01:03 - 00:14:21:16
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
So making resources available to help maybe create a safety net for these families. And if you are able to do so, whether that be giving them information that can help them be prepared for tomorrow, or maybe even something that can help them get through today, it's a very important thing than having to think about the possibility that they're going to be in a situation that they're unable to respond to.

00:14:21:18 - 00:14:39:18
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
One resource that actually one of my moms told me she's like, please make sure you highlight and share his pathways. Org after discharge, we make sure that families have resources so that they can keep track of their child's development. And if they're noticing something that isn't necessarily up to the typical milestone, they can notify their doctors because they are their strongest advocate.

00:14:39:19 - 00:14:51:01
Gabriela Jimenez Thompson
I think allowing ourselves to remember that our families patients are their own advocates, so we should listen to any concerns that they have and give them the resources proactively to make sure they have all the care they need.

00:14:51:03 - 00:15:11:14
Julie Kim
Very important. Well, Gabriela Liliana, thank you both for your time today. We look forward to the continued success of this program. And to our listeners, we hope that this conversation sparked a question worth asking. What does health literacy look like at your organization? And we'll leave you with that. Thank you so much for tuning in today.

00:15:11:16 - 00:15:20:08
Tom Haederle
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:17:10
Tom Haederle
Welcome to Advancing Health. Health care is both a science and an art. In this podcast, we hear the powerful story of a hospital and a caregiver who wisely recognized that patients and families also play a role in shaping successful care.

00:00:17:13 - 00:00:42:07
Kristin Priehs
Hi everyone. I'm Kristin Priehs, vice president of American Hospital Association and Health Research and Educational Trust, and I am so excited for today's conversation. Today, we're diving into a topic that is foundational to quality in health care, but one that is also evolving quickly: the role of patients and families in shaping care. We often talk about patient engagement and many organizations that are doing incredible work across the field.

00:00:42:07 - 00:01:05:02
Kristin Priehs
But through our work for the Quest for Quality, we're seeing some opportunities to change and advance the field. My partner here today has spent a lot of time with me on the road at site visits across the country, identifying and evaluating Quest for Quality site visits. And it's become clear that there is a significant opportunity to engage patients differently in the conversation and begin partnering with them in the way that care is designed, delivered and improved.

00:01:05:02 - 00:01:33:18
Kristin Priehs
So I'm joined today by someone who brings both a depth of expertise and a powerful personal perspective to this conversation. Caroline DeLongchamps, program director of Patient and Family Centered care at the Medical University of South Carolina Health System. Caroline has spent over a decade leading patient and family care efforts at the system level, and she's also been part of our Quest for Quality work, helping evaluate what leading organizations are doing in practice.

00:01:33:19 - 00:01:45:28
Kristin Priehs
So, Caroline, we're so glad you're here. I'm personally so glad you're here. I've known you personally for quite some time, and I've heard a bit about your journey. Can you share a little bit about the passion that you have for this work and how you got started?

00:01:46:01 - 00:02:08:19
Caroline DeLongchamps
Thank you, and thanks for having me, Kristen. It's a joy to be here. So what brought me to the work is a personal story. My son was 11 months old. I have three boys. My son Sam was 11 months old when he was struck by a car in our family driveway. I was in the front yard with my three and a half year old son, waiting for my eight year old son to get off of the school bus.

00:02:08:21 - 00:02:29:27
Caroline DeLongchamps
Every afternoon was a little bit like a party. All the kids get off the school bus and the parents come and get them, and this day was no different. I went to get the mail out of the mailbox, and when I looked up, I realized that Sam had escaped from his little plastic minivan where he had been playing, and my girlfriend had gone to leave, but she pulled in the driveway to do so.

00:02:30:00 - 00:02:49:20
Caroline DeLongchamps
And so when I looked up, his head was under the front right tire of an SUV. My first instinct was to try and pull him out from under the tires. Unsuccessful. My second instinct was to try and lift the vehicle off of him, which, looking back, doesn't make any sense. But eventually, you know, she got out to see where she was and got back in the car and backed up.

00:02:49:20 - 00:03:09:26
Caroline DeLongchamps
And I only share that to say this wasn't a brief moment in time. It was several moments in time, and we drove to the nearest emergency department where they really couldn't do anything for him except administer oxygen and call for a rig that brought us downtown to the peninsula and to the Medical University of South Carolina. There he was triaged and intubated.

00:03:09:26 - 00:03:35:14
Caroline DeLongchamps
They were ready and waiting for us. He was triaged and intubated. And then I looked around that room and saw tears from several of the folks caring for him, and knew we were in big trouble. Stan presented with skull orbital facial fractures and by frontal contusions and intracranial hemorrhage. He was transferred upstairs to the pediatric ICU. We were separated, and that separation allowed enough time for kind of like, the PTSD to sink in.

00:03:35:14 - 00:03:53:14
Caroline DeLongchamps
And so I could see and hear that you were talking if you were standing in front of me. But I couldn't actually make out the words. And I was scared because I know I was about to get really important information about his life that I quite literally would not be able to understand. And that is exactly what happened. Came out of the back door and she brought my husband and I in, and she left me sitting three feet at the foot of bed ten.

00:03:53:15 - 00:04:11:03
Caroline DeLongchamps
And I did not like his what I saw lying in bed ten. It didn't resemble Sam, but the bedside nurse picked up on what was going on, and she came three feet to the foot of the bed, and she took my hand, and she tucked it up underneath her arm and gave me a fist pump. No words, just a fist bump.

00:04:11:03 - 00:04:32:19
Caroline DeLongchamps
But to me, it felt like that fist pump was saying, I got you. If you even think about going down, I got you. And then she walked to the head of the bed and she said, I need you to talk to him right now. He needs to hear your voice, not mine. I'm only a stranger. And I think that triggered something in my brain that let me know I had a job to do.

00:04:32:20 - 00:04:49:07
Caroline DeLongchamps
And then she said, this blue tube is a ventilator, and it's allowing his major organs to rest while we do the hard work for him. And this little tube coming out of the top of his head is called a ventricular, and we're pulling the blood off of his brain as fast as we can to help alleviate what will certainly be significant brain damage.

00:04:49:09 - 00:05:12:14
Caroline DeLongchamps
And all the while, this nurse, Lisa, was taking care of a critically ill, dying patient while literally and figuratively holding me up with the other one. And I just share that brief story to say that Lisa was the most powerful human being I'd ever met up to that point in my life. This act of taking my hand and tucking it up underneath her arm changed the way my husband and I viewed our role at the bedside

00:05:12:18 - 00:05:33:08
Caroline DeLongchamps
throughout the duration of his care. I knew I had a job to do. This pump engaged my brain in a different way that engaging us and including us in what was going on with him, I really believed, wasn't just a nice thing to do. It really helped change the outcome. I like to think that we had a part of what was ended up being a successful outcome.

00:05:33:08 - 00:05:43:28
Caroline DeLongchamps
He was expected to herniate. We were told he probably would not survive, but he did survive. And I like to think that it was because of the partnership that was created in the moment that he was admitted.

00:05:44:01 - 00:06:12:24
Kristin Priehs
First, thank you for sharing that story. Hearing you go through it is incredibly powerful and personal and that it's led you to the champion that you are for so many others. It's just an incredible asset. So I just wanted to say thank you first and foremost again. I know, after being out in the field with you for now, several years, I've seen some of that passion come through as we're talking to hospitals of all different sizes and types across the country for the AHA Quest for Quality Award.

00:06:12:24 - 00:06:29:24
Kristin Priehs
And I want to pull up one of the last points that you made about it felt like a true partnership, because I think having the patient engaged with hospitals and health care systems at all different disciplines as a partner is incredibly powerful from the example that you shared. So can you talk a little bit now that you're in this field as what that looks like?

00:06:29:26 - 00:06:56:09
Caroline DeLongchamps
I love these site visits. It's been such a gift for me to be a part of this prize committee. The site visits continually remind me that excellence is it doesn't show up in a in a single program or a metric or a presentation. It's revealed in the consistency that we see between what an organization says it values and what we see and what folks actually experience.

00:06:56:09 - 00:07:22:19
Caroline DeLongchamps
And I mean both their employees and their patients and families experience. And so from a patient and family centered care perspective, the question isn't whether or not patients and families are present, or even patients and family advisors are present, but whether they're partners, and that distinction is what I think separates the good organizations from the truly exceptional organizations, because we're getting more mature about this.

00:07:22:20 - 00:07:47:08
Caroline DeLongchamps
A lot of people can say, we have a PFAC, but what are you doing with your Patient and Family Advisory Council? So what's really fun about that is while the committee evaluates strategy and operations and outcomes and process improvement, I feel like my role is to assess whether that the quality is being achieved with patients and families, rather than just for patients and families.

00:07:47:12 - 00:08:15:03
Kristin Priehs
That's perfect. And having seen so many hospitals that are on their own Quest for Quality really listen to you and your own perspective on these site visits, I think has been groundbreaking. You have been such an advocate for how this field is evolving and going beyond patient and family engagement, and PFAC specifically into a much deeper partnership. I'd love to hear from you, because we talk so much about quality roles all the way from the board to the bedside, where you're seeing leadership engagement, specifically in patient engagement.

00:08:15:03 - 00:08:24:15
Kristin Priehs
And how do hospitals do that sustainably as they have new leaders that come on board or as leaders are really developing what their patient engagement strategy looks like and patient partnership.

00:08:24:18 - 00:08:45:03
Caroline DeLongchamps
You can put anything on paper, but it's different when you see it in action. And what I look and listen for is are they talking about it? Are they talking about patient and family centered care? And again, not just patient engagement. The terminology "patient engagement" is funny to me because it sounds to me like it means the patient is supposed to do something.

00:08:45:04 - 00:09:14:21
Caroline DeLongchamps
The patient is supposed to engage in their care? And it's not the patient's responsibility. It's our responsibility as a provider, as a health care system, to lean in, not to sit on the trash can in the room and say, what's your favorite color? What did you do this summer? But to meaningfully and intentionally lean in and ask questions. I'm constantly distinguishing in my organization at least, the difference between patient and family centered care and patient and family advisory councils, and those get used interchangeably a lot.

00:09:14:22 - 00:09:36:15
Caroline DeLongchamps
Patient and family center care is the culture of creating these mutually beneficial partnerships, not just what's good for patients and families. It has to work for providers and others as well. So we can we can partner in the in the delivery of care. So how do we do bedside shift report and physician rounds and how are our leaders holding us accountable for those things that make us a patient and family centered care organization?

00:09:36:15 - 00:10:02:13
Caroline DeLongchamps
And then how do we partner with patients and families in the planning and evaluation of care? And that's where your patient and family advisory councils come in. And again, anybody can have a patient and family advisory council. But how are you utilizing your PFAC, or Patient and Family Advisory Council? And it can be a grassroots effort. It was a grassroots effort in our organization for quite some time, but at some point it has to be it has to come from leadership.

00:10:02:13 - 00:10:20:25
Caroline DeLongchamps
They have to talk about it. They have to utilize it. They have to cascade it to their leaders and make sure that folks are utilizing that. Because to create effective councils, it can't just be bringing the patient perspective in. And that's where I think my voice is helpful or my ear is helpful on some of these site visits

00:10:20:25 - 00:10:47:20
Caroline DeLongchamps
is that - sure you have a council. How are you orienting them to the organization? So they're bringing their patient perspective, but it's really your job as an organization to add layers to that perspective, to help teach them who you are as a health care system so that they can become effective advisors. So you're really adding on to that perspective so that they can inform you about what's next.

00:10:47:26 - 00:11:07:02
Kristin Priehs
I love that, and as we think about leadership specifically, there's a lot that leaders are handling right now. And at the core of it should and always is patient care. And I know one of the things that is a very deep conversation and an evolving one is around the role of technology in patient care. Patients have more information at their fingertips than they ever have.

00:11:07:08 - 00:11:29:15
Kristin Priehs
We're now seeing how predictive analytics and AI and EHR coordination, virtual care is all evolving quickly. So can you tell us from the patient centered care perspective, with the patient being a true partner with hospitals and health care systems, how is technology evolving to ensure that they are true partners at the table and decisions that affect their care?

00:11:29:18 - 00:11:52:24
Caroline DeLongchamps
It takes me back to an example that came out of Covid, which I'm not equating Covid to AI, but what happened during Covid is we had a leader in our organization say, wow, things are changing rapidly right now and we are going to make mistakes. I am certain of that. But in order to course correct very quickly, the monthly PFAC meetings are not enough.

00:11:52:24 - 00:12:14:20
Caroline DeLongchamps
I want to make sure I'm engaging with patients and families on a regular basis. So he set up weekly calls with our members of our Patient and Family Advisory Council just to make sure he knew what was happening on the front line. And he heard from a parent who said, I brought my child in for a Covid test in preparation for a heart cath, and we were separated.

00:12:14:22 - 00:12:35:03
Caroline DeLongchamps
And I understand the reason for the separation. I have heard that in PFAC meetings,  you guys have educated me about - we're trying to reduce the risk of transmission of this very scary virus. But I live with my daughter, and if I'm willing to assume that risk, I can help reduce the risk to one of your very precious, precious nurses who we really need to come back to work tomorrow.

00:12:35:06 - 00:13:07:19
Caroline DeLongchamps
That was a really important example because we changed a policy immediately following that. So I think when it comes to AI, it's important to remember that patients and families are not the end users of AI. They are the stakeholders. So if you're establishing AI committees or you're working on things about what this is going to look like for your organization, embed your patient and family advisors on those teams at the beginning before the decisions are being made, so that they're a part of that, so that they're partnering with you and that you're building trust.

00:13:07:19 - 00:13:22:02
Caroline DeLongchamps
And that's what AI is supposed to do. It's supposed to reduce burden. If AI is creating time for providers so that they can have face to face conversations, build trust and create connections, then we're on the right track. But if it's not doing that, then we're missing the mark.

00:13:22:06 - 00:13:41:15
Kristin Priehs
Well, we're certainly not missing the mark when it comes to you being on the Quest for Quality committee. So thank you for that. This is, as always, been one of the most energizing and thoughtful conversations that I've had. I thank you again for sharing your history and your story and where you see patient engagement and partnership going, because I think the field will always have a lot to learn from you.

00:13:41:20 - 00:14:05:04
Kristin Priehs
One of my biggest takeaways is that the work is not about checking boxes. It's so much more about having the right structures in place, the right leadership, and really ensuring we're creating cultures where patients, families and caregivers are truly partners in designing care. And health care continues to evolve, especially with new technology and innovation. The opportunity is really in being intentional about bringing those voices into the process from the start.

00:14:05:04 - 00:14:23:20
Kristin Priehs
And for those listening, I really encourage you all to really think about how patients are being engaged in your own organization and move beyond engagement to true partnerships in meaningful way that continue to improve care. So, Caroline, thank you so much for your leadership and for sharing your perspective with us today. And thank you to all of you for listening.

00:14:23:20 - 00:14:25:24
Kristin Priehs
We will see you next time.

00:14:25:26 - 00:14:34:19
Tom Haederle
Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.