From Chat GPT to self-driving Teslas, in some ways it feels like we're living in the future we were promised in movies and television. Similar technologies are having a huge and growing effect across the healthcare industry.
In this episode Kat Collard, ChristianaCare Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, and Susan Birkhoff, Ph.D., Program Director for Technology Research and Education at ChristianaCare, open up the world of robots in patient care. They shed light on how mechanical marvels are enhancing efficiency and improving patient outcomes.
Hear about ChristianaCare’s own cobot, Moxi, which is designed to handle the tedious, and yet surprisingly complex, task of collecting and transporting supplies. Learn about the dramatic benefits of that work and the challenges of integrating robots into an ever-dynamic hospital environment.
If you are curious about the future of healthcare and how robots are part of that, this conversation promises to be a fascinating and informative listen.
Katherine Collard is chief nursing informatics officer at ChristianaCare, responsible for the strategy and implementation of IT systems that directly impact nurses. In addition to leading the system's work with Moxi, she has also led teams in improving documentation for nurses particularly around pressure injury identification on admission. This process led to a significant improvement in identification on admission avoiding significant penalties.
Susan Birkhoff, PhD, is a nurse and a scientist leading and supporting interprofessional research education, systemwide technology evaluation, and grantmanship. She conducts research studies that investigates the implementation of technology-based solutions to improve complex health problems.
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Working in health care is certainly rewarding, but it can also be challenging mentally and emotionally. That's what makes caring for the caregiver such an important part of how health care organizations support their staff.
In this episode we’re joined by Katie Godfrey, a psychologist and director of ChristianaCare’s Center for Worklife Wellbeing. We dive into the mental stressors health care professionals face and explore a program called Psychological First Aid (PFA), a powerful tool in cultivating empathy and compassion between colleagues.
Discover how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the conversation around the emotional well-being of health care workers, how public perception around that well-being is evolving and how organizations in health care and other industries are responding.
Katie Godfrey, PhD, is director of the Center for WorkLife Wellbeing at ChristianaCare. She leads a team of psychologists and researchers, who develop, deliver, and study programs and initiatives to promote and sustain the wellbeing of health care professionals. She previously managed Care for the Caregiver, which is one of the country’s best utilized healthcare professional peer support programs with over 500 individual and group encounters per year.
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Becoming a parent is both life-changing and challenging. One of the first challenges some new parents face is the need for their baby to receive life-saving care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A small number of hospitals across the United States, including ChristianaCare, offer “couplet care” – having mother and baby cared for in the same NICU room – as a way to make a stressful situation a bit less stressful.
Dr. David Paul, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at ChristianaCare, and Tamie Hotchkiss, assistant nurse manager in the NICU, join us for this episode to explain how this revolutionary approach to care works and how it benefits both parents and babies.
We walk through the journey families have before and after couplet care, discuss how moms and babies qualify this specialized care, along with what care looks like when couplet care is not an option.
Learn where the concept of couplet care comes from and why it is such a rarity in American health care.
Dr. David Paul is one of the nation's leading neonatologists who's been recognized for his excellence in teaching, research and care. He was appointed Chair of Department of Pediatrics in June 2014. He has been a practicing neonatologist in the community since 1994 serving at ChristianaCare's Christiana Hospital and Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children as well as several other hospitals. A champion for the prevention of infant mortality, Dr. Paul has led the Delaware initiatives to decrease infant mortality and premature birth for over a decade.
Links
- Pregnancy and Childbirth at ChristianaCare
- JAMA: Association of a Zero-Separation Neonatal Care Model With Stress in Mothers of Preterm Infants
- A new day for mothers and babies in Delaware (Delaware News Journal)
- Mother-Newborn Couplet Care from theory to practice to ensure zero separation for all newborns
- Increasingly, NICUs Integrate Families into Care with Single-Family Rooms
Medical professionals enter health care to create health. But here's a surprising fact - medical care only accounts for about 20% of a person's overall health outcomes
The other 80% are the result of many factors, most significantly Social Determinants/Drivers of Health. In this week's episode, we discover what SDOH are and what can be done to address them.
Join us for an enlightening conversation with ChristianaCare's chief bio-psycho-social officer, Erin Booker, and community health worker program coordinator, Chloe Baird. They explain what it takes for an organization to go from being a health system to a system that truly impacts health.
From in-person, one-on-one interactions to major, collaborative initiatives to emerging technologies, learn how knocking down social barriers to health allows for whole-person care and creates a critical layer of care in the community that improves care for the individual.
Erin Booker is ChristianaCare's chief bio-psycho-social officer. Booker is responsible for developing strategic community partnerships, creating and implementing a portfolio of innovative programs and evidence-based initiatives to advance the health of the community, and overseeing ChristianaCare community benefit activities. She joined ChristianaCare in 2015 and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, with a focus on trauma and recovery.
Links
- ChristianaCare Office of Community Health
- Unite Delaware
- Unite Us
- What Are Social Determinants of Health?
- Why Is Addressing SDOH Important?
- Delaware Bureau of Health Equity
Parenthood can be one of life’s most rewarding, challenging and varied experiences. As children grow up, parents usually play less of a role in their lives. But that is not necessarily the case for parents of children with special health care needs. Many of them face the daunting responsibility of perpetual parenthood. In this week’s episode, Dr. Charmaine Wright, medical director of ChristianaCare’s Center for Special Health Care Needs, takes us into their experience.
She explains what happens at “the cliff” and shares what parents and other caregivers do to prepare for the day when they are gone. Dr. Wright tells us not only why perpetual parenthood has become so much more common in the past three decades but also why it is lasting families are facing it for even longer periods of time.
Learn what ChristianaCare’s Center for Special Health Care Needs does on a daily basis and how Dr. Wright’s team there is collaborating with some of the nation’s other top health systems to provide even greater support to families navigating this complex terrain.
Join us for this enlightening conversation and gain a new perspective on perpetual parenthood.
Dr. Charmaine Wright is the medical director of ChristianaCare’s Center for Special Health Care Needs, which is the only center in the region dedicated to providing primary care for adults ages 18 and older with complex medical and social conditions that originated in childhood. Dr. Wright oversees a team of medical experts who focus on guiding these patients and their families through the transition from pediatrics to adult medicine. Dr. Wright is also the Medical Director of the Mary Campbell Center and serves on the Easter Seals of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore Board of Directors.
Links
- ChristianaCare Center for Special Health Care Needs, phone: 302-320-6300
- "Guiding patients with special needs into adulthood" (DelawareOnline.com)
- Got Transition - National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health
- University of Delaware Center for Disability Studies
Hearing the term "sports medicine" likely conjures up images of professional football players limping off the field, amateur boxers sitting in ice baths or tennis players holding their elbow. But you could also picture a dancer dealing with painful swelling in her ankle tendons.
Today's episode leaps into the world of treating dancers and figure skaters with Dr. Elizabeth Barchi, a sports medicine specialist at ChristianaCare. Join us as we discuss the unique medical needs of performance athletes, from the challenges of having an enhanced range of motion to the fatigue-related injuries they frequently encounter. Hear stories of recovery and understanding, as well as discuss how a growing awareness of dancers' and figure skaters' needs is reshaping the landscape of sports medicine. We'll uncover how cross-training, developing proper form, and increasing cardiovascular endurance can help mitigate these risks.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in sports medicine, dance, figure skating or simply the awe-inspiring capabilities of the human body.
Dr. Elizabeth Barchi is a sports medicine and dance medicine specialist at ChristianaCare. She has brought into her treatment process lessons learned from the physical trials of seven years as a professional ballet dancer. Sought out by dancers across the country, Dr. Barchi has cared for dancers from the major companies and schools of NYC including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Julliard School, Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Dance Theater of Harlem, American Ballet Theater School, School of American Ballet, Joffrey Ballet School, and the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, as well as several Broadway shows, films, and television series.
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Imagine receiving top-notch hospital care right in the comfort of your own home. In this episode we're joined by Dr. Sarah Schenck, medical director of Virtualist Medicine at ChristianaCare, to discuss the game-changing concept of hospital care at home. Through a three-part system - a command center, cutting-edge technology, and in-person care - this innovative approach is providing safe, effective and accessible acute-level health care to people of various ages and diagnoses.
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Schenck, in which we delve into patient eligibility requirements, compare the safety, effectiveness and experience of hospital care at home to traditional inpatient stays and much more.
Dr. Sarah Schenck is the medical director of Virtualist Medicine for ChristianaCare’s Center for Virtual Health. Dr. Schenck is an expert in delivering whole- person, patient- centered care within a team-based setting. Under Dr. Schenck’s leadership, ChristianaCare was the first health system in Delaware to earn certification as a multi-site Patient Centered Medical Home from the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
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Health care is about more than broken bones and blood pressure readings.
Starting June 29, join hosts Michael Chesney and Megan McGuriman every other Thursday for engaging conversations about fascinating treatments, innovative programs, groundbreaking research and cutting-edge technology.
Learn how medical experts are creating health today and delivering the care of tomorrow.
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