Creating conversations on how to make healthcare safer to patients as well as providers
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A Glimpse into the Work at HealthLeaders with Chris Cheney, Senior Clinical Care Editor at HealthLeaders Media was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.
Welcome to the Outcomes Rocket podcast, where we inspire collaborative thinking, improved outcomes and business success with today’s most successful and inspiring health care leaders and influencers. And now your host, Saul Marquez.
Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I have the privilege of hosting Chris Cheney. He’s been a professional journalist for more than 20 years. He currently holds Senior Clinical Care Editor position at Middleton, Massachusetts based HealthLeaders. Many of you may read this outstanding site, magazine and media hub for health news. And that’s where he provides some of his best work. Prior to joining the staff at HL Health Leaders, he worked in multiple roles at several newspapers in New England, including The Boston Herald, Cape Cod Times and Concord Monitor. Jeannie began his career in health care research administration at Children’s Hospital in Boston. He holds three university degrees, including a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Cheney is a native of the Red Sox side of Connecticut and lives in New Hampshire with his wife, Jennifer. So with that introduction, I just want to open up the microphone to Chris to fill in any of the blanks of the introduction and start the conversation. Welcome, Chris.
Chris Cheney:
It’s great to be here. Saw just a couple of words about HealthLeaders. It’s been a great opportunity for me. I’ve been with them for five years. It’s allowed me to combine my interest in medicine and medical research with my longtime love of journalism. We have a lot of different channels for our content. These are our website, www.healthleadersmedia.com, where you can find most, if not all of our content. I write daily stories for that website. I write at least three, four, five stories a year for the magazine. We also have live events that branch together, health care executives and physician leaders from across the country. And we generate editorial reports out of those events. I’ll be doing one of those this summer. We call these the exchanges. This will be an innovation exchange focused on I.T. population health innovations. So I feel like I’m living the dream.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome, brother. Well, you know what? You guys are definitely on to a lot of really great things and the different channels that you offer and the meetings that you offer, folks. If you have not had a chance to check out HealthLeaders and you’re listening to Outcomes Rocket, you’re missing out because they’re literally just brothers from from another angle, doing the same things that we’re doing. So healthleadersmedia.com. So, Chris, let’s dive in to health care journalism. I mean, look, the topics being covered on news radio, Linkedin, Twitter. Tell me about what you enjoy covering most. Then let’s hear your thoughts on it.
Chris Cheney:
I think the topic that’s really captured my imagination is safety. When I say safety, it’s really across the board. It’s patient safety. It’s safety for physicians, nurses and other clinical staff who face, quite frankly, just a shocking amount of danger in their workplace spots. Quite a… about three quarters of workplace violence occurs in health care settings, which I think is very…
Saul Marquez:
Wow.
Chris Cheney:
Shocking. Three fourths of assaults in particular, not fatal assaults occur at workplaces in the workplace setting.
Saul Marquez:
So Chris, just to interrupt you for a second there. So three fourths now is this. What’s the context? Is it is it patients enduring health care providers or is it like what’s the what’s the interface there?
Chris Cheney:
The vast majority of essences are patients and family members assaulting staff, staff members.
Saul Marquez:
Is that right.
Chris Cheney:
And I mean, there are cases of similar domestic violence that spills over into hospitals and other health care settings. But it’s it’s really the E.R. is a great example of that. People are injured. They’re at heightened emotional states. And the emergency physicians and nurses are really bearing the brunt of this violence. And it can be anything from spitting and shoving to punching and weapons being used on staff members. So I think it’s a little recognized problem in health care that needs a lot more attention.
Saul Marquez:
Wow. Well, I’m glad you’re bringing it up here today, Chris, because I mean, cash I mean, we we talked to a lot of health leaders. And, you know, this is the first time that’s coming up on our podcast. And I’m sure our listeners are feeling like I am thinking, wow. But at the same time, that makes sense given the context of the things that happen and how people end up in the emergency room. And like you said, the heightened emotional state. So fascinating. And you’re right. I mean, we we definitely have a lot of room to grow in the safety space making making health care safer for patients as well, as providers. So is there a recent piece that you wrote that maybe you want to talk to us about?
Chris Cheney:
Yeah, I wrote a story about a month ago that focused on how hospitals can and should respond to workplace violence in their facilities. And I think it covered about six or seven different points. Everything from encouraging the reporting of these incidents. It’s a lot like work I did on sexual assault when I was at the Cape Cod Times. If you’re not reporting these incidents, you’re not going to be addressing them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re an employer or a family member. If people don’t notice this kind of activity is happening, it’s not going to be addressed. So encouraging the reporting of workplace violence in health care settings is really the the bedrock and the base which everything should jump off of and health care facilities should know the laws in their jurisdiction. There are several states that have made workplace violence in health care settings a felony. So it’s a serious issue. I note in New York and Connecticut, for example, they’ve made the assaults of health care workers a felony.
Saul Marquez:
Wow. That you know what? That’s a good thing.
Chris Cheney:
Absolutely. It’s a good thing, because I think part of the issue this is just my opinion. But if I am driving in my car and I’m driving too fast, I know that I can be ticketed and that that I could pay a price for it. And I think that there’s been a tolerance of violence in the health care setting that, hey, this patient was having a bad drug reaction or this family member was just upset that they lost a loved one in the E.R.. So I think that having penalties and having either the staff member that has been assaulted has the ability to take legal action or knowing that the hospital will back them up and they file charges of their own. I think that can and will make a big difference.
Saul Marquez:
Well, you know what? This is a great opportunity, folks, to to consider this within your own health system. If you’re a vendor, to consider what you could do to help with the sharing of this information. But definitely an issue and I’m glad you’re bringing it up here, Chris.
Chris Cheney:
I think the other safety issue that I’m really concerned about is patient safety. It’s been 20 years since the Institute of Medicine report to air is human and yet medical errors, fatal made medical errors are still a huge problem in the United States are the latest estimates. I’ve heard this as many as 440,000 patient deaths are related to medical errors and any other industry that would not be tolerated. And that’s per year. That’s per year. Now, part of that, I think, is that we’re looking for these cases much more intently than we were 20 years ago. But still, that’s a huge number that puts it up there with cancer and heart disease among the leading causes of death in this country.
Saul Marquez:
That’s incredible. I remember just a couple months ago and I don’t remember why I was doing this, Chris, but I think I was just so curious about obesity and in general, kind of some of the diseases that are happening here in the U.S., chronic diseases and health, heart health stuff. And so I said, why do people die across the world? And I saw a lot of countries that are more developed, dying of eating things and, you know, caused by and by bad lifestyle. And then there’s other countries that are very war ridden and violence is one of them. But I didn’t see on that list medical errors, and I think it would be pretty high.
Chris Cheney:
Yeah, I think it’s scandalous, frankly. If we had airplanes falling out of the sky, there’d be a hue and cry. If we we had deaths in workplace like manufacturing like we did a hundred years ago, there was a hue and cry about it. But when it comes to medical errors, it is more recognized than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I think the full extent of it really still has a completely known. Number one, and the full extent of it certainly isn’t well known in the general public.
Saul Marquez:
That’s for sure. So it’s an issue. What are you seeing today, Chris, work? You know what? What are people doing? What have you? Because you talked to a lot of health leaders. You interview a lot of people. What’s working?
Chris Cheney:
Well, I’m really hardened that health leaders across the country and a variety of settings are really focused on becoming and making their organizations high reliability organizations, much in the way that we’ve seen in the aviation industry to try to root out causes of error, to put in redundancies where appropriate. And there’s a lot of different things being done in health care that are very effective. What is in the operating room. Having a pause and having anybody in the room from the lead physician to a medical assistant or a nurse fail to say, hold on a second. I don’t think that’s ray looks right or hold on a second. We’ve got an issue with this aspect of the patient’s vitals instead of previously and previous generations. The lead physician of the O.R. was the captain of the ship. And his or her, let’s face it mostly his orders were followed to the letter and people weren’t allowed to speak up. And when I think about things like that, I think, oh, my God, why? Why do we let that go on for so long as we did by. I think things like a pause in the O.R. I think infection control has become much more of a top of mind issue throughout health care. I just did a story about it, call it a poke program at Intermountain where they are for the past 10 years. While other hospitals has been pioneering, having as few pokes, as few interventions, as few procedures on neonatal and neonatal intensive care unit as possible. And when you think about it, you think, why? Why wasn’t that always the way? Why were we poking the heel of a day or day in the ICU just to check that they’re healthy? If all the other signs coming from that neonate. All the data that you’re collecting from that neonate indicate that that DNA is healthy. Why? Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you do. Do you prick that heel to gather some blood to check that the DNA is healthy when that little prick of the heel could cause sepsis and death?
Saul Marquez:
Oh, my god. Yes.
Chris Cheney:
So I think what it cause to infection control. There’s been a lot of work in that area across the board to try to eliminate or at least avoid outbreaks of superbugs, avoid staph infections, skin infections. I think there’s a lot of progress being made in that area. And we’ve gone from a point where 20, 30, 40 years ago, you’d say, oh, well, that infection. That’s something that just happens. And we have to accept that 20 to 25 percent or 30 percent of our hospitalized patients are going to acquire some sort of infection while they’re hospitalized. And I think there’s a real question and re-evaluation of that where people look like in our about saying, hold on a second. There’s a lot more that we can and should be doing to prevent these infections in the first place. So I think there’s a lot going on when it comes to creating higher liability in the workplace. That does make a big difference.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah. That’s a really great point. And gosh, this is a great niche. I think of Mark Harrison, the CEO there. I mean, I’m a big fan. He’s doing some really neat things. I know it’s not all him, but they’re driving some great work there at Intermountain.
Chris Cheney:
Yeah, they’re very innovative health system. One that I’ve written about several times. I know it’s sepsis, an area that they have been doing innovative work. Telehealth is an area where they’ve been doing some very interesting work. Again, thinking of the neonatal ICU. They have a telehealth service now with neonatologist, which helps keep a lot of the fragile neonates in their community hospitals rather than half of the transport them to a tertiary center in a place like Colorado that could make a huge difference. You don’t want a very unstable neonate taking a helicopter ride over a 4000 foot high mountain. It’s just not a good idea.
Saul Marquez:
Now, you’re so right about that. Let’s to lots to talk about here. Safety, violence in the health care setting, patient safety. Folks, you like outcomes rocket. You’re going to love the folks, Chris, and what his team does over at healthleadersmedia.com. So check them out and check out Chris’s work because I mean, it’s some of the best that they have to offer. So, Chris, you know, as far as helping navigate the site and what people should do, I hate your magazine is pretty, pretty successful. Pretty off the hook.
Chris Cheney:
Yeah. The magazine is a farmer print guy myself. I worked in newspapers for 18 years. It’s really heartening to see our magazine and is still doing very well. We’ve got tens of thousands of subscribers to that magazine. I see it whenever I go to a conference. I see a lot of people walking around with it. And I think the magazine is a great media for a lot of health care leaders. Just because there’s something about having that the print product in your hand or being able to stuff it in your briefcase when you’re travelling and just pull it out, start reading it. And it’s also a lot of long form journalism. The cover stories are at least three thousand words long. So it’s one of the few places in health care journalism where you can take. A real deep dive into topics like high reliability or the shift of value based payments, both things that I’ve written about for cover stories for HealthLeaders magazine. So very pleased to be working for an organization like HealthLeaders that’s been able to keep a media, a product, a channel like that magazine open, because I think it’s a it’s a place where you will see things that you won’t see anywhere else.
Saul Marquez:
I was telling Chris, folks, that I go to the gym and somebody anyone who if you’re listening the Outcomes Rocket. And you go to my gym in Chicago. Thanks for leaving your health leaders magazine on the table, because I always sit down in the locker room and I read it. It’s an outstanding magazine. So after today, I’m going to subscribe. So how often does the magazine come out?
Chris Cheney:
We have six issues every year. I used to be there every two months, so it used to be a monthly. But even though our magazine was successful, we have had to bad to what’s been happening to print, which print is decline. Let’s face it, journalism. We’ve lost a lot of newspapers, a lot of magazines. So we’ve changed up our format a little bit in recognition of that.
Saul Marquez:
For sure. Hey, listen, you know, getting something that’s tangible, I’m kind of old school and I feel like a lot of health care people. I do. It’s nice not just to have it, like you said, roll it up and have it on a coffee table and then work in there is outstanding. So now, you know, I wanted to take this opportunity to have you on the podcast, Chris, to educate the listeners on the wonderful work you’re doing, but also the work being done at HealthLeaders. I just want to give you a big banks and folks will will provide links to Chris’s linkedin, and as well as the health leaders website. What parting message would you leave to the listeners, Chris?
Saul Marquez:
Well, I think the parting message is as much as health care faces many challenges in this country, some of which we’ve discussed on this podcast. I think it’s a a real hardening time to be involved in health care, whether you’re a health care journalist, a physician, a nurse, a CEO, whatever your role is in US health care. It’s a real exciting time. I think that innovation is as hard as it has ever been in health care. I think the attention to safety and relooking many of the issues that we have discussed here today, it’s all very heartening and exciting to be a part of it.
Saul Marquez:
I couldn’t agree with you more. Chris and the shout out goes to you. And for making time for us and listeners, take action. Take a look at the materials that they have over their health leaders. And, of course, keep listening. The Outcomes Rocket. You’ll find all the show notes for today at outcomesrocket.health in the search bar type in Chris Cheney. That’s c h e n e y or type in healthleaders and you’ll see all that there. So, Chris, thanks again for spending time with us. Really appreciate it.
Chris Cheney:
Thank you. Have a great day.
Thanks for listening to the Outcomes Rocket podcast. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.outcomesrocket.pcom for the show notes, resources, inspiration and so much more.
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