Future of Global Informatics_Episode 11_Nicole Thomas: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
TJ Southern:
Hey, y’all! Welcome to the Outcomes Rocket Network – The Future of Global Informatics Podcast, where we discuss global informatics through conversations with industry leaders and innovators so that you can understand what it is, what it does, and how it shapes the healthcare of our future. I am your host, TJ Southern.
TJ Southern:
Hey, y’all! Hey, y’all! Good day, good day! Welcome to another episode of The Future of Global Informatics, it’s your girl, TJ Southern, and today we have Nicole Thomas. Okay, I will get you all prepared. So, like I always say, get your pen and your piece of paper, because I am sure this one is going to drop some gems for y’all today. So we have Nicole Thomas, when I tell y’all, that her rap sheet, I’m gonna just let her tell, give y’all some her background herself. So, Nicole, tell the people about yourself, tell them who you are.
Nicole Thomas:
Absolutely, so, first and foremost, I definitely want to tell you, thank you, TJ, for having me on. I always like sharing, you know, my story really and truly sharing the journey of becoming, because a lot of people look at the Nicole Thomas right now and they think that I just woke up like this. I’m like, listen, I’m not Beyoncé, I did not wake up like this. It’s truly been a journey and it’s been a journey of becoming, a journey of blessings, lessons, and so many other things. So just a little bit about me, I’ve been a nurse now going on 18 years. My career started pretty, pretty standard, right? I graduated from nursing school. I was 21 when I graduated, graduated from nursing school, went straight to work at, what, one of our charity-type system hospitals here in the state of Louisiana, and worked on a general … search floor, but because it was a charity-type, teaching facility, state-run facility, anything you wanted to learn, TJ, you could learn it, anywhere, right? And so with that, we really, truly service the underserved population, right? I worked on the floor for about, I would say, maybe two years. I’ve got a small daughter, and the 12 hours were just not … for me. I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed something different, and so I went off into home health because it was more flexible. But little did I know the story of becoming was starting, right? Now that I look back on it, I’m like, okay, I get it now, I was becoming. But anyhow, I went into home health, did home health for, I would say about five solid years, 4 to 5 solid years. It really, truly allowed me that flexibility that I needed as a new mom. More importantly, really and truly allowed me to start to see the disconnect that was happening between inpatient and what was happening when these patients get back into their environment, right? We can control what happens in the hospital, because I’m going to tell you, when you go eat, when you get your medicine, you know when you go to therapy, all of these different things, but when you get home, it’s a totally different ballgame. And so in that, 2011, the state of Louisiana made a decision that we needed to prioritize our Medicaid system to a managed care system for two top reasons. Number one, we couldn’t afford it anymore, right? The state won’t have any money because there was no management of it … for whatever they want, you know, just things going out the wazoo, they couldn’t afford it. Number two, our healthcare outcomes were probably ranked at that time, out of the 50 states, we were probably like number 49. We ain’t made that much progress, but we were very, very, very low, right? I think it was Mississippi then us. So we made that decision, the state made that decision, and I was, at that time, I served as the associate director for medical and clinical operations, and I helped that government administration to make that transition, right? TJ, I had never been in leadership in that capacity in my life like I had done, you know, life partners, I had taught a little bit of supervisory at the home health and clinical resource manager, you know, things like that, but never anything on that level, right? And so long story short, what I started overall, I was responsible for every single … for the department that I was over, I was responsible for saving them $3.2 million dollars every single year. This is what I learned, TJ, that healthcare is a business. Healthcare is a business, we have to call it what it is, and nothing is wrong with that because somebody has to pay the bills. Somebody has to pay for all of these different things, your providers, the lights, the water, the two-by-two, somebody’s got to pay for it, right? But in that saving them, I started to identify various elements within vulnerable populations where we were lacking programming. So I said, okay, cool, bet, y’all need $3.2 million dollars, we need this program over here in the hood that’s going to help us to be able to access to the healthcare that we need, specifically at that time, it was special. It was very, very bad for vulnerable populations that were on Medicaid to get access to special. I was like, okay, cool, bet, y’all want what y’all want. I want what I want for the community, let’s play ball. And so what I started to do was build these community programs that would address the need, direct need, of the consumer, right, the Medicaid patient, but at the same time, it was decreasing ER utilization, it was decreasing inpatient stays, so they were saving money, so everybody was winning, right? So I did that and that’s where I really and truly started to understand the journey of who I was becoming because I was always that kid and that chick that I was community-based, right? When my mom would go to church to do different things at the church, I wanted to be right there with them, while they were taking blood pressures and passing food. I always wanted to be what happens …, I wanted to be where the people were, right? And so it just made sense because, here it is, that I’m this top executive at this, for this company, and I’m going in like, so you got to go to the …? I’ll pull up. I have no problem with pulling up, right? Those are my people, right? And so that journey led me into meeting a lot of different people really and truly understanding the need, and me understanding that the impact that I could build because of the pipeline and the relationships that I had built without, I’m having to deal with all of the back-end red tape and in 2015, Impact Nurse Consulting was born, and originally started, TJ, as a legal nurse consultant. Now, let me tell you, I wanted to … legal nurse consultant because I don’t read that much, but I just needed something to start. I’m keeping it real with you, okay? But it ended up formulating into a full-fledged healthcare consulting firm. Once I … understood what my purpose was, right? What is the impact that I want to leave? And so that’s my journey in a nutshell of becoming a nurse and then people ask me a lot of times why did you become a nurse? Why did you want to become a nurse? And I keep it honest with them, you know, my story of becoming a nurse was not the cookie cutter, oh, because I want to help people. Absolutely, because I love it, but if I’m being very honest with you, I needed a way out the hood. I needed something that will give me stability that I would always have a job in. … revenue in, right? I could create sustainability and longevity. And so that was the thing, but at the same time, TJ, understanding that I wanted something that would allow me to go back to where I come from. You see what I’m saying? So that was why I became a nurse and my journey, you know, sometimes I look at it and I’m not going to call you 38 years old. The things that I have accomplished in my journey of being a nurse, the things that I have accomplished with touching lives, the things that I have accomplished globally, right? So the things that we were able to do, 2020, middle of a pandemic, Impact Nurse Consulting secured its first global contract. Coming from a little black girl from the hood, right? But I say all that to simply say I always lead with authenticity and I always leave with community at the source of it, but more importantly, I always, always going to say, what impact can we make? If it’s not going to impact the bottom line at the end of the day, I’m cool with it, and the bottom line, it’s not always just money.
TJ Southern:
Let me tell you this, let me tell you this. I told y’all to get your pen and your paper ready at the top. I mean, she did drop so many nuggets now. I’m trying to go back like a kid in a candy store and pick half of them up … because I am going to have her back. Okay, so let’s just clear that air right there. So you right now have Impact Nursing. Now, I’m going to rewind this or send a train back just a little bit because I want to make sure that people understand. Yes, we are a podcast that talks about global informatics, but the butter that’s folded in that bread, y’all, is entrepreneurship. And that is the reason why I plugged Nicole to put on this podcast because I don’t want you guys to think that nursing, nursing informatics, healthcare is just this one siloed box. It has so many tentacles. We can do so many things and go so many places, and Nicole shows us that. So that’s why I brought her on so that we can get all of her wisdom, all of her knowledge, especially for my new nurses that are looking to come into this field, and you know that you don’t want to be on the floor. You already know that the floor life, you’re not about that life. That was me, I already knew that, I knew I wasn’t about that life, right? So I’m trying to help you and educate you and give you different ways and avenues, and to help your thought process change. Don’t leave nursing just because all you see is working on the floor, three twelves. It’s beyond that, it’s beyond that, and I’m trying to introduce you all to things beyond that. Okay, So Impact Nursing. We gon’ go back there.
Nicole Thomas:
Yes.
TJ Southern:
What are you guys doing with Impact Nursing? Can you talk about it right now, what you guys are doing with Impact Nursing?
Nicole Thomas:
So Impact Nurse Consulting, it is threefold. So, well really twofold. We work on one end with government entities and also healthcare organizations to implement innovative healthcare solutions that are going to ultimately improve patient healthcare outcomes, right? For them, if you’re thinking from the mindset of government institutes and healthcare organizations, you start thinking, CMS, you start thinking quality, you start thinking all these different things that impacts their bottom line, right? Which a portion of their bottom line is their money. On the other side of that, it’s the patient healthcare outcomes, right? So what are the things that are quality that’s going on here? Sometimes it could be a simple issue of you all need some professional leadership development in here. Nobody is on the same page, which is why …, which is why ultimately the patient is suffering, which is why because the patient healthcare outcomes went bad, every patient in here got a UTI, which is why I see a CMS came back for their money back, right? So that’s the one part of it. The other part of that is we work with different businesses and corporations to help them, to implement, we develop, implement and then maintain employee wellness programs. I am a firm believer and we all know that a productive employee, a healthy employee is going to be a productive, right? If they are not well mentally, physically, emotionally, they are not going to be able to be productive for you as the business owner. And so I think that it’s important for businesses to start taking more of an ownership of the wellness overall of their employees and start investing more in that because that’s an investment that if I, look, if I’m good mentally, mind, body, soul, everything, I’m showing up and I’m ready, right? I’m not feeling well because my hypertension is through the roof, because I’m so stressed, because I have all these things going on, I’m going to start calling ill, and when I do show up, I’m going to give you half work, you know, things of that nature. So that’s what we do on the, you know, at our businesses and our corporations. So, Impact Nurse Consulting, it’s multifaceted, it’s really and truly geared specifically to what the client needs, but one thing that’s always at the center and that makes us stand apart from any other healthcare consulting firm, is that every single thing that we do, TJ, is going to always have a community component to it. When we go into these organizations and we do our initial assessment to assess the problem, I have to go talk to the population you serve. I have to go to the community and find out directly from them, why are you not taking your lasix? What’s, why did you miss this appointment? Because a lot of times they will tell you what their problem is. I’m not taking my lasix, and I didn’t come to this appointment because I don’t feel like sitting on the phone all the time. This lets me know, the organization, you need some type of technology built in here. So it’s those type of things that we do, but that’s what makes us stand apart. I always, because I’m a community health, population’s health nurse, so I’m going to always bring that element into every single thing that it is that I do. Because if we think about healthcare, and COVID-19 showed us this, everything for healthcare is going to start at the community level because we live in a community.
TJ Southern:
Yes, yes, and let me tell you this. And you see, since, well, I would actually say a little bit before COVID, you start hearing SDOH, social determinants of health, right? We know that this is a huge initiative that’s getting ready to come down with Healthy People 2030, I mean, just huge, huge CMS initiative. And so what is that, social determinants of health? It’s taking everything back to what you say at the community, right? It’s starting at that base, understanding where their barriers are that, are at that level so that we can in turn change their outcomes. And I love how your organization is doing that. You know, as you stated, if the system, if the healthcare system has a problem, right, the first thing that you do is you say, okay, well, let’s go back to the patients to really see what their problem is, and then, and there we’ll be able to tell you what needs to be done so that you can change those outcomes. I love that fluid, you know, I love that fluidity between the two, and you’re a connector. You are a connector between the community and the organization, and I love that. My question for you is because I know that you sit in that entrepreneurial seat, right? I’m actually going to ask you two questions. So the first question is and I’ll save my other question for later, but the first question is when you are going in and you’re assessing for your people in the community and then you’re going back to give this information back to the healthcare organization, or you have to assess the healthcare organization, do you find it more times than less that you have to end up implementing some type of technology to assist?
Nicole Thomas:
Almost every time, I would say probably 80 to 85% of the time there’s some type of technology, something, that’s the problem. That’s the barrier, right? Let’s just take, for example, African Americans between, so during COVID, we saw a huge spike of African Americans, particularly males between the ages of 30 and I think it was 43, with increased incidence of chronic kidney disease, and a lot of them ended up in stage renal disease going into dialysis and saw a huge spike in that during COVID. And so in doing that assessment and finding out what happened, why, how did we get here and not even recognize it? It came back to technology, and let me tell you how. More specifically, what we started to see was these particular males had hypertension, right? They knew they had hypertension, but what do we know about most males? They are workers. I got to go to work, I don’t have time to leave my job and go to this doctor’s appointment and miss half a day, because most of them are working factory-type jobs, they’re working in plants, they’re doing that type of work where they don’t really get paid time off, so time is money. And so what ended up happening is they weren’t getting blood pressure medicines filled, you know, the heart leads to kidneys, wouldn’t go through all that stuff there, but it all came back to, if these particular organizations had some type of technology component embedded in, whether that be, I could just simply go on my phone and make my appointment versus me having to sit on the phone 20 minutes from my 30-minute lunch break because I work in a plant that I’m not even supposed to have my phone in, right, now I going to even get, I’m not going to even worry about getting an appointment. I’m just going to keep on going to work until my body said no, no more, right? … technology it’s just as simple. And so when you think about that, a lot of it with the generation and the populations that we’re servicing, everybody wants it right now. I want a microwave, and if I can’t get a microwave right now, pop it in and pop it out, it’s too much of my time. And so what can we do, especially for this generation right now, we are starting to see a lot of healthcare disparities to continue to grow because you would think as things continue to evolve, science gets better, that we will see it going down, but no. And it’s because, let’s be honest, if I call my doctor’s office and you don’t answer on that first ring, I’m not calling back, I don’t have time. So, a lot of, yeah, I would definitely say 80 to 85% of the time is some type of technology something that we have to implement.
TJ Southern:
Wow, so, nurse informaticists, here you go, right, here you go. When I tell you guys all the time that we are the connectors between healthcare organizations, technology, and the end users, right? This is a prime example of how our team could have used a nurse informaticist. We go in there and we build out whole entire systems for outcomes, patient outcomes such as this. So as I tell you all the time, there are jobs, there are positions out here available for us. I know that nursing informaticist is still a discipline that is yet to be uncovered, right? We hear that all the time. That nursing informatics, what is it? What does it do, right? We are problem solvers. Just what she said, we are the ones that implement that technology. So that’s why I had to ask you what was really that technology piece? Man, man, man. The other thing is about your entrepreneurship. Are there other opportunities for nurses in entrepreneurship?
Nicole Thomas:
The opportunities are endless, they are endless.
TJ Southern:
Thank you. Amen.
Nicole Thomas:
Here’s one thing that I want to say about those opportunities. It needs to be an opportunity that aligns with your greater mission as a person.
TJ Southern:
Oh, love that.
Nicole Thomas:
It could be an opportunity that is good for Dr. Nicole, but, or for money. Because remember, I started this off talking about the journey of becoming. When I go back and I look at who I was in elementary school, when the teacher was calling home, saying miss Helen, I love Nicole, she’s a great student, but could you ask her to stop teaching my class? I’m a teacher, she’s not, right? I always wanted to be in the mix of the community block party that was going on. When I look back on all of those things, I’ve always been community embedded and have always been a connector. I’m always connecting people, connect the dots, connecting this X, Y, and Z. So this, it’s me, it’s my zone of genius, right?
TJ Southern:
Yeah, so your passion pays you.
Nicole Thomas:
While the opportunities are endless, I just always make sure that nurses know. Go do what really and truly fuels you and not what looks good on TJ, or not what looks good on back at home. You know, right now, there’s a lot in the wellness space, the … hydration space. I have some amazing friends that have amazing businesses in that realm, but that’s not for everybody and that’s okay. It’s so much more, and especially, one of the things you just said previously about the implementation of informatics and being an uncovered discipline, I’m going to say who gon’ show us that is, that we need to get on the ball with. Amazon. You see that deal that they made last week?
TJ Southern:
Oh, my God, yeah.
Nicole Thomas:
Those are saying, healthcare, if you won’t do it, I’m going to show you how to do it.
TJ Southern:
Yes, Amazon, call me. Amazon call me.
Nicole Thomas:
Amazon, call, okay? We’re ready, we’re ready, okay? But just think about, and I’m not taking anything away from anybody, right, because I know it has to be a lot to go into that deal, even to building that business by one medical. But overall, the premise from what I get from the platform is they’re connecting you to this, kind of like an on-demand, I want a doctor, I go to my phone, I got somebody on demand. … than that, but my point is, when we’re talking about nursing and nursing informatics, now, that’s us. This is our space, and I bet you, I bet you, at, if we really wanted to get down, how many of those people that built that are actually nurses or in healthcare?
TJ Southern:
Oh, yes, oh, yes, and I tell, I say this all the time, like, you know, that’s one of the things that I’ve spoken to with my previous guests. It’s like we, I say this on this cast all the time, organizations, you need to not build a healthcare, EMR, healthcare technologies, none of it without us. None of it without a registered nurse or a clinician, a certified registered clinician.
Nicole Thomas:
Yeah.
TJ Southern:
So, yes, so what are you most excited about in the future as it relates to what you’re doing, as it relates to healthcare, as it relates to entrepreneurship? What excites you the most about what’s on horizon?
Nicole Thomas:
So five years from now, my plan is to take Impact Nurse Consulting from a service-based business to a product-based business by prioritizing our services and getting off into tech. I feel like we can scale more that way. We’ll be able to reach more people and we’ll be able to impact more, especially when we talk about our vulnerable populations. I’m going global and securing global work allowed us to open our eyes to see the challenges that exist not only within the United States, but the issues are the same throughout. And so five years from now, that’s what I’m looking forward to. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I’m not even worried about how we’re going to do it because I want to find the who is going to help us do it. That’s the thing about entrepreneurship, you’ve got to get out of how am I going to get it done? It doesn’t matter. Go find somebody that does that …
TJ Southern:
Amen.
Nicole Thomas:
You’re the visionary, you create the vision, let them run with it.
TJ Southern:
Amen.
Nicole Thomas:
So I’m excited about that. I’m super excited about that. I’m excited for Nurse Power Network, that’s a platform that I also have that really and truly helps nurses to be able to find, operate, and then dominate in their nurse power as a nurse, and power for us means purpose. Finding opportunities, getting real power, helping them with real empowerment, right, not the mean girl empowerment, and then connecting them to actual resources. So I’m excited about the continued development and evolution of that brand and platform and just impacting, right, and building that pipeline. I say all the time, Impact Nurse Consulting and why I founded it, it’s not for me, right? I look forward to the day when I’m able to sit back and have a CEO that is just doing amazing things with Impact Nurse Consulting and continuing to impact on a global scale and in that tech space because that’s definitely where we want to be in the next.
TJ Southern:
Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. Well, let me tell you, Nicole, I love you. I love you. I love what you’re doing. Tell the people where they can find you at, all your social media handles, LinkedIn. Tell them where they can find you.
Nicole Thomas:
Yes, so personally, you can find me across all social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, all that @NicoleThomasINC. Impact Nurse Consulting, you can find us across all social media platforms @ImpactNurseConsulting, I try to keep it very consistent. And for my nurses out there that need community, real community, you can find us @TheNursePowerNetwork across all platforms. That’s Facebook, Instagram, our website, so everything is consistent throughout. So be sure to connect with us. We send out our monthly newsletters for all of those different platforms on a weekly basis. That’s our commitment to the communities that we serve, and yeah, connect with us if you’re a healthcare organization, if you have a business, and you could utilize the services of Impact Nurse Consulting and you’re ready for real impact and effective strategies that are going to move the needle, contact us. We have an amazing team of professionals here that are ready to do the work.
TJ Southern:
Congratulations, by the way, on your sixth anniversary of the Nurse Power Brunch in Essence Fest, by the way, congratulations. That was a huge, huge, huge accomplishment. And I am so excited and elated for you all. I will make sure that Southern Girl Skincare is there celebrating with you guys next year because next year is year seven for you all. So any parting words of wisdom that you have for our listeners? Any parting words of wisdom?
Nicole Thomas:
The biggest thing that I can, if I could leave, you know, wisdom with everyone, it would be to know that the journey is meant to be traveled, and the journey is meant to be traveled authentically to yourself. The journey is not going to be an easy journey, but it’s going to be a worthwhile journey. An … journey, what I’ve learned that has changed the entire game for me is I’m no longer worried how am I going to get through the journey. Now, I look for who is going to help me get through the journey, right? And building those relationships, relationships have got me into a place that none of my credentials could have gotten me.
TJ Southern:
Amen.
Nicole Thomas:
That’s what I would definitely say.
TJ Southern:
Amen, Amen, well, Nicole, thank you so much for joining us today.
TJ Southern:
Hey, y’all! Thanks for joining us today for another episode of the Outcomes Rocket Network – The Future of Global Informatics Podcast. If your organization is looking for informatics talent, go to www.Beryllus.net. That is www. B E R Y L L U S .net, and we can assist you in finding some of the best nursing informatics talent this continent has to offer. We’ll talk to you later! Have a great day! See ya!
Sonix has many features that you’d love including world-class support, share transcripts, collaboration tools, automated subtitles, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
