Achieving Peak Performance: A Journey To Technological Excellence with Michelle Tillis, VP of Information Systems and Technology and Nursing Informatics Officer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

[00:00:03] Hello, this is Christopher Cunning and I'm coming to you from San Diego, California. I have the pleasure and honor of serving as the guest host for Outcomes Rocket's podcast. And that podcast is being sponsored today by CLASS, Research and CHIME. Today I'm attending the 2024 CHIME Fall Forum. And in particular, I am highlighting three amazing individuals who recently received the Synergy Award that we received.

[00:00:33] that was awarded here at the conference. The Synergy Award recognizes healthcare organizations that have achieved the highest levels of excellence in both EHR user experience and digital health innovation. By combining the accomplishments of the CLASS Pinnacle Award winners and the CHIME Digital Health Most Wired Award designees at level nine or above, this award celebrates organizations that demonstrate unparalleled synergies between exceptional EHR implementation and cutting edge digital transfer

[00:01:03] and the CHIME. Recipients of the CHIME. Recipients of the award are at the forefront of healthcare technology, setting a new standard for both clinical efficiencies and patient care through seamless integration and innovative solutions. Today I'll be talking to three of the award winners as they share their thoughts and insights on digital transformation and the impact it has on the delivery of care. So join me as we have an opportunity to spend time with these amazing individuals and learn more about their journeys and the work that they're going to be.

[00:01:33] that they're doing to transform healthcare. Hello everyone. We're back and I have the pleasure of speaking with Michelle Tellis, Vice President and Information Systems and Technology and Nursing Informatics Officer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Michelle and her organization just recently received the

[00:01:55] Pinnacle Award here at the 2024 CHIME Fall 4. And I have the opportunity and pleasure to chat with her a little bit about Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, my hometown. Very proud of her and the organization and their journey in advancing healthcare through the use of technology.

[00:02:14] Happy to be here.

[00:02:15] Welcome.

[00:02:16] Thank you.

[00:02:16] You're very welcome. Thank you for being here. Before we jump into a few questions here is tell us a little bit about you, Michelle.

[00:02:23] How did you get into this industry? How did you move into technology? Were you a clinician before?

[00:02:29] Yeah.

[00:02:30] Yes. That's what I am.

[00:02:32] I was an emergency room nurse at another health system at the Glayla area. And about 12 years ago, there was an opportunity to be a part of the implementation for EPIT at our health system.

[00:02:45] Exactly.

[00:02:46] And I was at the point in my career where I was a little bit bored.

[00:02:48] Sure.

[00:02:48] But they merged with the department. So I took a jump and the rest is history. From there, I never looked back.

[00:02:54] Exactly.

[00:02:55] It's been a really great way to fulfill my passion of delivering high-quality patient care. So it's always going to leverage technology to make it easy for our clinical team members to do everything.

[00:03:05] And I like to always say that you guys have the superpower. You've been on both sides. You have been on the clinical side. Now on the technology side, you understand how the technology has a direct impact on the delivery of care.

[00:03:18] And with Secret Handshake with the clinicians as well, too. You can help them understand the value of it, too, and help bring them along in the adoption of technology.

[00:03:28] Thank you for stepping into our world as technologists and helping us transform the industry to support your colleagues as well.

[00:03:36] Talk to me a little bit about children. Children's doing a lot, by the way, folks. In Atlanta, they just opened up a state-of-the-art hospital there, which I want you to share a little bit about.

[00:03:47] And then take us on this journey around embracing technology and innovation as a core component of how you provide care for some of the most vulnerable folks in our population, our children.

[00:03:58] Yeah, the work that we're doing at Children's is so important. We do have just the most vulnerable population, and we are really proud of the care, our quality of care that we're able to deliver to the children.

[00:04:09] I was brought to the Pembrist about three years ago. So our CIO, Jeremy Meller, really saw that there was a need for some nursing leadership in the IT department.

[00:04:19] So he brought me on board to really help shape nursing at ProMatics and our approach.

[00:04:23] And my partner, Evan Ornstein, he's our CMIO. So between the two of us, I think we're really trying to engage the clinical team, really develop nursing informatics at our physician informatics program,

[00:04:34] which the outcome of that is really ensuring that our clinicians have the right tools.

[00:04:39] They're sure it's not another burden to them. Absolutely. Just another tool, just like we have our Succoscopes or we have our vital side.

[00:04:47] So that's where electronic health records is just another way to help them make informed decisions for the best care.

[00:04:51] To deliver it to the children.

[00:04:53] Yeah, I like to say all the time that this device is recording us are now clinical devices.

[00:04:58] We use them now to help provide and deliver care to our patients.

[00:05:02] And we have to start looking at them now as clinical devices and the information that they garner help you deliver the best quality care possible.

[00:05:11] Talk to me a little bit about the Pinnacle Award is all about driving positive experiences to clinicians.

[00:05:18] What do you think are some of the key factors that help your organization successfully adopt these technologies, use them to the point where an organization like CLASS and CHIME and others are now recognizing you for this effort?

[00:05:31] Yeah, I think that it's a combination of things.

[00:05:33] I think one, just a close engagement with our clinical teams in the frontline staff.

[00:05:38] So ensuring that we've created the forums where we can have the conversations and really understanding what their pain points are and what problems they're looking to solve.

[00:05:48] Exactly.

[00:05:49] But also combining that with the data that we have from the electronic health pressure that identifies where there's opportunities.

[00:05:55] Absolutely.

[00:05:56] And how we're utilizing the system.

[00:05:57] And in addition, you partner that also with just some of our clinical outcomes.

[00:06:01] So I think between the three of those, that's where the secret ingredient are.

[00:06:05] And I think we're really also lucky at Children's because we do have a really robust clinical learning team.

[00:06:11] Exactly.

[00:06:11] But it's always partnering at the hip with us.

[00:06:13] And we have a unique delivery model on training our clinical teams as well with our support on site team, which I think Children's is unique.

[00:06:22] A unique organization with every provider that's onboarded into the system.

[00:06:26] Right.

[00:06:27] It's a handshake and they are personally trained.

[00:06:30] Exactly.

[00:06:30] By our support on site team.

[00:06:32] Yeah, they're indoctrinated into the organization with the use of technology.

[00:06:37] Exactly.

[00:06:37] All right.

[00:06:38] That's wonderful.

[00:06:38] And I'm curious as well, too, is you get some class obviously has an initiative called the ARC Collaborative.

[00:06:45] And it has played a huge impact on helping organizations transform the way they leverage technology.

[00:06:50] Could you share a little bit about how ARC Collaborative may have supported your efforts there at Children's?

[00:06:56] Yes.

[00:06:56] So we joined the ARC Collaborative about three years ago, right after I joined Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

[00:07:02] I had recognized as a really important tool in the system I had come from before.

[00:07:06] I had really advocated for the partnership with Children.

[00:07:09] Wonderful.

[00:07:09] It's been a really important journey for us is we are actually measuring and able to benchmark against other organizations that satisfaction.

[00:07:17] It helps to really identify where there's other opportunities.

[00:07:20] As we began piloting other technologies, we've also used some of the other tools, survey tools that class ARC Collaborative offers us so that we can really understand the impact of the interventions when we're making.

[00:07:31] Any specific key insights you'd garner from that program that you can maybe give us an example of?

[00:07:39] I would say some of the key insights that we had.

[00:07:42] I would not necessarily say they were surprising.

[00:07:45] Validated.

[00:07:46] Validated.

[00:07:47] Some of the things that we already understood.

[00:07:49] We already had opportunities with our providers.

[00:07:52] Some specialties that we knew were struggling for the others.

[00:07:55] The satisfaction survey spoke very clearly.

[00:07:59] Absolutely.

[00:07:59] To, yes, we do have a problem.

[00:08:01] We need to focus on it.

[00:08:02] I'll re-address it.

[00:08:03] I think additionally, we were really surprised to see because we initially surveyed our providers only in 2019.

[00:08:10] And from 2019 to the re-survey in 2023, we saw a really great increase in their satisfaction and a drop in numbers of the burnout.

[00:08:21] It's a very important thing, obviously, is we're thinking about the wellness of our clinical team.

[00:08:25] Absolutely.

[00:08:26] I'm curious also, going down that path just a little bit further, as you guarded those insights from the support you'd gotten from the arts collaborative and the insights you got in the benchmarking leader, you were able to leverage.

[00:08:41] Give me kind of one example of something specifically your organization did based on that to change the trajectory of a specific apartment or a service you delivered or a patient satisfaction or burnout.

[00:08:54] Anything that might stand out for you?

[00:08:56] From the physician burnout perspective, we had dabbled a little bit with the Ambien Technology and Reddack's Nuance product.

[00:09:03] But we really did not understand how scalable it was and what was the true impact.

[00:09:09] So leveraging the survey data, we did a pre-survey with CLASS, and then we implemented the intervention to other specialty practices.

[00:09:19] And from that, we were able to really measure that there is truly an impact, although there may not be an increase in productivity for our providers.

[00:09:27] There was a true impact to the way that they were experiencing the environment that they were in with the technology.

[00:09:33] And they were feeling less burdened by it.

[00:09:36] But really was another piece of data that we were able to then bring to the executive team to really sell.

[00:09:41] What's next for children's?

[00:09:43] You just launched a state of the arts, Children's Hospital.

[00:09:47] What's next for children's in terms of continuing to innovate and find opportunities and ways to improve care for our?

[00:09:56] We're just at the beginning.

[00:09:57] We have so much technology that we were able to implement at the hospital, but really it's just it was foundational.

[00:10:04] Absolutely.

[00:10:04] The use cases that we implemented with day one were limited.

[00:10:08] Exactly.

[00:10:09] We really were trying to limit change for the clinical team to ensure there was safe transition of all the patients.

[00:10:14] But now that we're here, the sky's really the limit.

[00:10:16] It's bright.

[00:10:17] From virtual nursing, which we have not really dabbled in yet, to virtual provider scenarios with some of the in-room technology that we have.

[00:10:25] Absolutely.

[00:10:25] I'm really excited and obviously leveraging our tools of class to see where the impact of some of these interventions will be.

[00:10:31] That's great.

[00:10:32] And your organization has such a huge impact on our entire state, right?

[00:10:37] You are the premier healthcare organization for children's care in our region, in our state.

[00:10:43] And the fact that technology allows you to extend its reach beyond Metro-Band-Auth to the most remote parts of our community, I think is exciting.

[00:10:52] And we look forward to seeing more and more of the impact that children's makes on Georgia and on the region at large.

[00:11:00] I just had one final question.

[00:11:02] For all your fellow colleagues here who want you and your organization receive this award and are asking to themselves, are saying to themselves, we want to be on that stage next year.

[00:11:13] What is a good piece of advice or what is a piece of advice you would share with them on what they need to now do in order to achieve this recognition?

[00:11:21] I think you have to start by serving your clinical team.

[00:11:25] You have to really understand where to start.

[00:11:28] Absolutely.

[00:11:28] And I think taking small steps and small bites, you don't have to eat the apple all at once.

[00:11:33] That's where it's one bite at a time.

[00:11:34] Absolutely.

[00:11:34] But the first step is just really understanding where the opportunities are.

[00:11:38] So take the first step and do the survey.

[00:11:41] Wonderful.

[00:11:41] Thank you so much, Michelle Telles, VP and ISNT and Nursing Informatics Officer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

[00:11:50] It's been such a pleasure talking to you today.

[00:11:52] And I wish you and your organization many things to success.

[00:11:55] Thank you.

[00:11:55] You're welcome.