healthcare technology Archives - Business RadioX ®

Enhancing Hospital Processes for Safer and More Effective Care, with Brandy Wilkins, Defining Point Coaching and Consulting

December 12, 2023 by John Ray

Brandy Wilkins, Defining Point Coaching and Consulting, LLC

North Fulton Business Radio

Enhancing Hospital Processes for Safer and More Effective Care, with Brandy Wilkins, Defining Point Coaching and Consulting

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Enhancing Hospital Processes for Safer and More Effective Care, with Brandy Wilkins, Defining Point Coaching and Consulting North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 730)

In this episode of North Fulton Business Radio, host John Ray was joined by healthcare quality consultant Brandy Wilkins, Owner and Chief Consultant of Defining Point Coaching and Consulting. Brandy discusses her work in helping healthcare organizations improve patient safety and clinical outcomes. The discussion gives insights into her process and team, how she consults with hospitals and healthcare institutions, and tangible examples such as medication administration. Brandy explained the role of technology in healthcare but highlighted that it’s not a standalone solution. She also emphasized the importance of proactively addressing issues, not only for patient safety but also for a hospital’s bottom line.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Brandy Wilkins, Defining Point Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Brandy Wilkins is a healthcare quality executive with a clinical background in physical therapy.

With almost a decade of healthcare quality experience and even longer as a clinician, Brandy has consulted with over seventy healthcare organizations and hundreds of specialty programs to identify and improve challenges with patient safety, patient experience, and clinical processes.

Brandy is on a mission to improve the U.S. healthcare system by assisting and empowering healthcare organizations to improve care for the communities they serve.

LinkedIn | Company LinkedIn | Company Facebook | Company YouTube

01:15 Introduction to Guest: Brandy Wilkins

01:31 Brandy’s Role in Healthcare Quality

02:30 Transition from Physical Therapist to Consultant

03:46 Challenges in Healthcare and Patient Safety

05:46 Real-Life Example: Medication Administration

07:09 Role of Technology in Healthcare

08:32 The State of Technology Implementation in Hospitals

09:34 The Role of Technology and Human Judgment in Healthcare

13:40 The Impact of Process Improvement on Hospital Reputation and Bottom Line

15:20 Working with Hospitals to Improve Processes

22:43 Success Story: Reducing Fall Rates in Hospitals

23:47 Contact Information and Closing Remarks

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and many others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions, with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management, and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

LEADER DIALOGUE: Follow-up Discussion with The HCI Group – Deep Dive

October 5, 2018 by Mike

Gwinnett Studio

LEADER DIALOGUE: Follow-up Discussion with The HCI Group - Deep Dive

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John McDaniel, Jennifer Strahan, Ben Sawyer

On this follow-up deep dive episode of “Leader Dialogue”, Ben and Jennifer continue the innovation requirements discussion with John McDaniel, HCI Group’s SVP of Innovation and Technology, clarifying what it takes for organizations to get out ahead of emerging market trends, and to win.

Listen in to learn:

The leadership approach necessary to foster innovation.
How to overcome innovation cost concerns, including how to effectively partner with emerging technology companies.
The hallmarks of effective innovation, including the human centered design approaches.

John McDaniel/Senior VP of Innovation and Technology with The HCI Group

With more than 35 years of experience as a healthcare CIO, consulting services executive, and as an executive with large healthcare solution companies, John McDaniel currently manages the CXO Innovation and Technology Solutions division at The HCI Group.

Prior to joining HCI, John worked as a National Practice Leader – US Healthcare for a large data storage and software organization. He was responsible for cultivating C-level executive relationships, understanding emerging requirements, and collaborating with development teams to ensure solutions that met market-driven operational, scalability and cost efficiency requirements.

As a CIO, John worked with St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center, McLaren Health Care Corporation, and The Emory Clinic, where he also served as Director of Medical Informatics for the Emory Healthcare System. He is a keynote speaker at National and Regional healthcare conferences and frequently presents at large, international healthcare events.

About SOAR Vision Group

The SOAR Vision Group mission is to: Align People with Purpose to Achieve Exceptional Results. SOAR provides best practice strategy execution, business process optimization services, and a structured organizational development approach for organizations to effectively implement the Baldrige Performance Excellence framework. For more information, contact SOAR Vision Group at (888) 294-3303 or visit soarvisiongroup.com.

About the Baldrige Foundation

The mission of the Baldrige Foundation is to ensure the long-term financial growth and viability of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, and to support organizational performance excellence in the United States and throughout the world. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is presented annually by the United States President to organizations that demonstrate quality and performance excellence. For more information, contact the Baldrige Foundation at (202) 559-9195 or visit baldrigefoundation.org.

LEADER DIALOGUE: The Role of Innovation in the Age of Consumerism with John McDaniel of The HCI Group

October 1, 2018 by Mike

Gwinnett Studio

LEADER DIALOGUE: The Role of Innovation in the Age of Consumerism with John McDaniel of The HCI Group

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HCI Group’s SVP of Innovation and Technology John McDaniel discusses the transformation advisory function that the HCI Group provides to healthcare systems regarding emerging technologies. Ben and Jennifer explore with John the innovation and performance excellence requirements for organizations to effectively compete in the Age of Consumerism as web-based technologies proliferate, including advances in biometric monitoring, telemedicine, and robotic surgery. The discussion also includes the impact of global medical tourism.

Successful organizations will have to innovate at a level previously unknown, as large commercial players also begin to compete. Insights from previous disruptive technology and innovation megatrends are discussed, such as the universal adoption of mobile devices and the digital marketplace. Similar to the impact on fixed retail establishments from these emerging technology trends, this discussion provides a backdrop of the upcoming tidal wave of change in healthcare, and what will be required to survive and thrive.

Listen in to learn…

Why a renaissance zone, or innovation hub, is essential for innovation to take hold.
Why operational efficiency and effectiveness are critical for creating capacity and cash to support innovation.
What success looks like.

John McDaniel/Senior VP of Innovation and Technology with The HCI Group

About SOAR Vision Group

About the Baldrige Foundation

Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections

July 25, 2016 by angishields

Health Connect South

Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections

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ebola — Jay Shaffer isn’t afraid of Ebola

Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections

Jay and I sat down with Sam Perkins, CEO of Pūrgenix™, a company that has developed a technology that enables healthcare organizations to contain, and in fact, reduce rates of occurrence of hospital-acquired infections. It is well known that pathogens such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile are challenging to treat and equally challenging to eradicate from a care environment once they have taken hold. The Pūrgenix™ platform addresses a component that is often overlooked in dealing with these dangerous organisms—the air.

Sam shared how they saw a need for a new solution to eliminating illness-causing organisms from the hospital environment, ultimately developing a system that is custom-designed and installed to be installed into the building’s air handling units. The Pūrgenix™ system employs powerful UV lights that use energy to kill air-borne organisms as they pass into the air handler from the return and again on the way back to the environment on the downstream side.

He shared some use-case examples where client hospitals were able to successfully reduce occurrences of infections for their patients, as well as experiencing a measurable reduction in absenteeism among their employees due to illness.

Sam also explained that deposits, including bioburden that is created by bacteria, as thin as a micron (a piece of paper is ~6 microns thick) can significantly reduce the cooling efficiency of a building’s air handling unit. By preventing a build-up of bacteria within the unit on the cooling coils, the deposit of bioburden is eliminated, leading to marked increases in energy cost to condition the environment of the building.

Pūrgenix™ creates PūrHospitals™, an environment in which patients and employees experience a purer

environment where they can heal and work. Hospitals deploying the system can advertise their status as PūrHospitals™, letting patients in the community know their environment is safer with less risk of hospital-acquired infection. As Mark Haney, President at WellStar Paulding Hospital, said about the Pūrgenix™ solution at the launch of their new hospital: “…we still have to do the basics, but we have the building working for us now.”

Special Guest:

Sam Perkins, CEO, Pūrgenix™

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth – Top Docs Radio

July 21, 2016 by angishields

Top Docs Radio

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth - Top Docs Radio

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Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth

Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack, interviews the company’s CEO and Medical Director, Dr. C. Anne Patterson, discussing maternal-fetal medicine as a specialty, and how they are now able to capitalize on telemedicine technology to deliver high-risk maternity care to a wider patient population.

Maternal fetal medicine is rare sub-specialty of obstetrics which delivers high risk obstetric care. These

specialists manage complex complications of pregnancy such as: multiple gestations, chronic medical

conditions during pregnancy, gestational diabetes and fetal abnormalities. The CDC and March of Dimes both estimate that in 2015 in the US, approximately 1:10 babies in the US are born prematurely.

GA ranks 50/50 for maternal death and 42/50 for infant mortality. Getting access to maternal fetal medicine services is often difficult as there are only about 1200 MFM physicians in the US and most are not located in rural areas.

Clearly, there is a need for many physicians of different specialties in rural areas and maternal-fetal medicine is one of them. OB practices and hospitals in these areas can engage with Womens Telehealth to be able to help these patients avoid having to spend long travel times in cars to be seen by these needed specialists. This allows them to stay closer to home and receive care in their local community.

But this solution has value for urban practices as well. There are very few maternal-fetal specialists nationwide—only ~20 or so in Georgia. By deploying the Womens Telehealth solution, these city-based groups and hospitals can also provide access to this specialty care for their patients, preventing potential loss of the patient to other facilities/groups in the community that do have maternal-fetal specialists on campus.

Special Guest:

Dr. C. Anne Patterson, CEO/Medical Director, Womens Telehealth

ChronicCareIQ

July 5, 2016 by angishields

Health Connect South

ChronicCareIQ

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ChronicCareIQ

This week Jay and I sat down with Matt Ethington, CEO of ChronicCareIQ to learn how this technology company is providing physicians and hospitals with tools that empower them to better manage patients with chronic illnesses. The Affordable Care Act has put in place measures around patient outcomes that can affect how much the provider is reimbursed for care they deliver. Managing patients with chronic illnesses is time-consuming and requires much patient education and follow up to facilitate compliance with the recommended care plan. The ChronicCareIQ platform not only provides the practice or hospital with an efficient tool for engaging patients, it also provides documentation of required patient contacts, along with current health status data such as glucose measurements, blood pressure, weight, and others.

Matt shared how he is a patient dealing with a chronic illness, Type I Diabetes. His experiences along the way helped him see how care delivery can be somewhat disconnected at times and inspired him to think about ways to bridge gaps in communication and give providers a better way to know what is happening with their patient between visits.

ChronicCareIQ enables healthcare providers to keep tabs on fragile and chronic patients through their smart phones. Recognizing the impact on patient outcomes when effective chronic disease management measures are in place, Medicare has begun to reimburse for patient engagement performed through the platform, allowing providers to simultaneously automatically meet compliance requirements, and measurably reduce call volumes. Identified as a “Best Practice” by leading consulting groups and with patient engagement rates that exceed 80% on an average weekly basis, practices, hospitals, or health systems can identify decompensating patients in real time, manage risk to prevent unnecessary hospitalization or ED visits, and advance material steps with payment reforms.

Special Guest:

Matt Ethington, CEO, ChronicCareIQ

Adopting Innovation – Top Docs Radio

June 7, 2016 by angishields

Top Docs Radio

Adopting Innovation - Top Docs Radio

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Adopting Innovation

I sat down with Jim Bross, a long-time healthcare executive who has held leadership roles over hospitals, brings experience/expertise in regulatory compliance, and finance. He is bringing that knowledge to RevenueSphere, a consultancy focused on helping healthcare organizations navigate successful adoption of technology to solve their most pressing challenges with the most appropriate technology.

Check back soon for more info!

Zyrobotics

May 30, 2016 by angishields

Health Connect South

Zyrobotics

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Zyrobotics

We host Dr. Johnetta Maccalla, CEO of Zyrobotics, an assistive technology company that was conceived in the summer of 2012 and officially incorporated in 2013 as a Georgia Tech Venturelab spin-off company. Their mission is to create accessible technologies that engage and empower children with disabilities and enhance their quality of life.

The technology company develops personalized technologies that are adaptive to each individual’s capabilities. Zyrobotics first product offerings include accessible interfaces and smart toys, socially assistive robots, and a suite of educational apps that are specially designed to enable educational and accessible play. The company’s mission facilitates freedom through technology for children of all abilities.

Johnetta shared how she saw an opportunity to leverage her long background in research and development and robotics for several large, well-known enterprises to help children with disabilities. Zyrobotics is now engaging with professionals in rehabilitation facilities to make them aware of this technology that has shown to help engage these children in their rehab exercises, as well as increasing compliance with the prescribed plan.

We talked about the fact that the technology company is actively seeking funding to support their marketing and production scalability. The company is also interested in partnering with rehabilitation centers and physicians who would be prescribing such services so they and their patients can benefit from access to this tool.

Special Guest:

Dr. Johnettta Maccalla, CEO, Zyrobotics

Pre-pregnancy and Prenatal Genetic Testing – Top Docs Radio

May 20, 2016 by angishields

Top Docs Radio

Pre-pregnancy and Prenatal Genetic Testing - Top Docs Radio

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Pre-pregnancy and Prenatal Genetic Testing

We continue our twice-monthly series with Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack. She caught up with Certified Genetic Counselor, Rachel Klein, of GenPath Diagnostics. The topic of discussion was focused on pre-pregnancy and prenatal genetic testing, when it makes sense, the difference between screening and diagnostic tests, how to deal with results, and more.

Women are routinely offered a variety of genetic tests during the first three months of pregnancy in the US. Every woman wants to believe their baby is normal and uncomplicated. However, the CDC reports that 1:33 babies born in the US will have a birth defect. Genetic tests, both screening and diagnostic, show the likelihood that a developing baby has a genetic condition that may cause problems with growth, development and bodily functions.

Information from genetic testing plus the mother’s age, the couple’s ethnic background and a family history of a genetic disorder can help calculate the odds that the fetus might have a defect such as Cystic Fibrosis, Tay-Sach’s Disease, Sickle Cell Anemia, Down’s Syndrome or neural tube defects. Joining us for this segment of Top Docs is Rachel Klein, a Certified Genetic Counselor from one of the nation’s leading prenatal genetic testing labs, GenPath.

Special Guest:

Rachel Klein, Genetic Counseling Program Manager, GenPath Diagnostics