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Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody! Saul Marquez here with the Outcomes Rocket. I want to welcome you back to the podcast straight from ViVe here in the sunny Nashville, Tennessee. I am so excited to have this amazing guest with me today. Her name is Dominique Wells. She’s the chief operating officer of Conduit Health Partners. In her role, she’s responsible for operational leadership, innovation, and the technology roadmap for Conduit Health Partners. Dominique has a lead role in developing and implementing organizational strategy. She’s skilled at uncovering ways to deliver better care at lower cost, which is something that we’re all after. So, Dominique, I’m so excited to have you here with us. Thanks for joining.
Dominique Wells:
Thank you so much for having me.
Saul Marquez:
We’ve been having a lot of conversations around, how do we make care more affordable, what can we do to change care models, scalability, all those things are important. So I’m excited to have you here to talk about the work you guys are up to. Before we dive into that work, I’d love to learn more about you and what makes you inspired to work in healthcare.
Dominique Wells:
Yeah, so thank you for asking that question. It’s really one of the things that has been my driver and motivator throughout my entire career. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a nurse and never really wavered from that, and knew that when I wanted to go and start my career journey, that it was going to be important for me to get my foot in the door and really work in a health system to understand how hospitals operate. And so my journey really started because there weren’t a lot of jobs available at the time, and I went door to door knocking on the hospital HRs and said, Just give me anything. I’ll take any position just to be able to learn. And I started my healthcare journey as a housekeeper, which has really been informative in my journey as to the type of leader that I wanted to be and the leader that I am today.
Saul Marquez:
Wow, that’s awesome. You know what? That shows grit and determination and the willingness to roll up the sleeves. I love that, Dominique, that’s awesome. If you had to summarize the unique way that Conduit Health Partners adds value to the healthcare ecosystem, what would you say that is?
Dominique Wells:
Gosh, I would say, first and foremost, we operate as an outsourced model, particularly in the staffing shortages that we’re seeing right now. It’s a great opportunity for us to engage with health systems, with payers, with employers, with a variety of individuals to really begin to close some of those care gaps and provide that level of care. Our company provides four main solution offerings, and so they vary from transfer center solutions. So patients who need to leave one acute care setting and head to another, we manage the intake up to transport and everything in between. So really lifting the burden from the bedside caregivers and serving as an extension of the health system. We also do nurse triage like we’ve talked about, which has, you know, our volume tripled or quadrupled overnight when the pandemic hit, and so really being able to offer that real-time feedback as things are changing so rapidly, to be able to give solid advice or solid recommendations in real time. We also do some virtual care and particularly in the hospital-at-home space and in remote patient monitoring, so really looking at a support model overall for the closing the care gaps that health systems are really looking for.
Saul Marquez:
That’s great, thanks for sharing that. How does nurse triage benefit patients and healthcare providers and what are some of the challenges associated with implementing it?
Dominique Wells:
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Particularly through the pandemic, nurse triage became a really important thing and has continued past the pandemic as just a place for people to have 24/7 access to care and clinical questions. And so from an implementation, our strategy is really straightforward, implement pretty quickly. But to be able to think about holistically the patient’s care journey and how we deliver that by having that 24/7 access to care. And we’ve got so many stories about patients who have called in in the middle of the night or we partner with homeless shelters and provide care for homeless as well. And so just being able to give them peace of mind has been really impactful.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, and having the nurse be available where, like right now we have so much technology, right? And so having that nurse layer to help with the technology that tells us, hey, there’s a problem here, being able to deploy a nurse, it makes things scalable and it makes things more possible. So you started as a housekeeper in healthcare. What can you tell us about that experience and how has it influenced your career?
Dominique Wells:
Yeah, it’s been extremely influential and I think really that journey as a housekeeper and then really all of the roles that I’ve played up until the time that I became a chief operating officer really have helped me to learn how I’ve walked in their shoes. I could relate to the work that they were doing and understood the importance and the value of all of that. And I think that has been really informative for me in my journey of leadership and development in how I have lead our team to be successful. So really understanding everything that they do and being willing to do anything that I’m asking them to do as well.
Saul Marquez:
When you’ve been there, done that, it’s easier to empathize.
Dominique Wells:
Absolutely.
Saul Marquez:
It’s critical because not everybody has been there and done that. And so it’s important for everybody listening to this to really take a lesson out of what Dominique has done. She has literally put on the shoes and done that. But if you haven’t, that doesn’t mean you can’t empathize. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be able to understand where they’re coming from. What advice would you give to them, the people that haven’t been a cleaner?
Dominique Wells:
I would say, ask the questions and, you know, really just sit at the table with them. Be willing and able to hear them and hear their perspective. I think that just goes a long way in creating and in identifying opportunities to strengthen your business, to strengthen how you deliver care. And I think ultimately, you know, some of my favorite stories were from the housekeepers, and they spent more time with our patients than our nurses and our physicians did, you know? And so those are the kind of impactful stories that I think really drive home for me for sure.
Saul Marquez:
Thank you for that. That’s very actionable. What can you tell us about how workplaces benefit when they pay attention to the mental health of their employees? And why is this such a critical focus for you?
Dominique Wells:
Yeah, besides the obvious that it’s the right thing to do, I think as we’ve transitioned over the last three years and the impact of the pandemic, paying attention to that is important. And so, you know, being able to talk about it, being able to have those conversations, being astute to individuals who might be undergoing something that they’re not vocally sharing with us. And so paying attention as an employer, it benefits the associate first and foremost, but it benefits us as well, because if they’re not showing up or if they’re not showing up wholly, that’s impactful all the way across the board. And so really making sure, I think the culture that we’ve built within Conduit Health Partners is one of, we care about people first. And that culture that we’ve built and developed has been extremely valuable in helping to create that pathway and the opportunities to really support mental health in the workplace.
Saul Marquez:
That’s great. Thank you, Dominique. I agree, it’s a vital component for, not only because it’s the right thing, but it also does help productivity. Well, Dominique, the mental health space and the opportunities to address employee productivity are huge, so thank you for your thoughts there. As health systems look to bridge those employment gaps and also level up their employees, what call to action would you give them?
Dominique Wells:
I would say look for every opportunity to, I think what has excited me about being here at ViVe this week is that everyone is partnering in ways to just deliver better healthcare, and I think the call to action is really, we got to speed to execution. Our mentality is do it fast, fail fast, and don’t be afraid to do that, because the only way that we’re going to have impactful changes is by being willing to take a risk and go after it. So I think that’s the call to action I would ask others to serve.
Saul Marquez:
I love it, Dominique. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate the work that you do, and thanks for the message. We really appreciate it.
Dominique Wells:
Thank you so much.
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