This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Healthcare and Life Sciences Blog articles.
Resources:
- AHA Course Artificial Intelligence and the Path to Health Care Innovation | AHA News
- ANA Bot (Wellbeing) Coronavirus | Well-Being Initiative | Mental Health | ANA (nursingworld.org)
- NurseHack4Health Blog from Marc Inspiring nursing innovation for COVID-19 and beyond - Microsoft in Business Blogs
- WW blog Year of the Nurse: First responders build resilience with technology and data - Microsoft News Centre Europe
- YOTNM WW video https://youtu.be/Wnd-84FMG7o
Claire Bonaci
The World Health Organization designated 2020 as the year of the nurse and midwife to raise awareness of nurses and midwives, significant and varied roles in healthcare. On this episode, Molly McCarthy and Kathleen McGrow reflect on the big accomplishments for 2020, the year of the nurse midwife, and how we can continue our support for nurses and midwives in 2021. Hi Kahtleen and Hi, Molly, and thank you for coming on the podcast to discuss the year of the nurse and midwife.
Molly McCarthy
Thanks, Claire. It's great to be here today.
Kathleen McGrow
Hi, Claire, good to see you.
Claire Bonaci
So 2020 was the the year of the nurse and midwife by the World Health Organization. As we enter 2020. Molly, do you have a feel that this year achieved what intended to at the beginning of the year?
Molly McCarthy
Yeah, that's a great question. And I can certainly say that going coming into 2020 is not exactly how we imagined the year of the nurse midwife would be it was designated in 2019, to really raise awareness of nurses and midwives, varied roles in health care, and increase investment in education and training and leadership throughout the world. And I think it was evident very early on in the year that, you know, nurses are an integral part of our health system, from the bed side all the way to the boardroom, in terms of patient care, and interacting with the care team and family. So I would say 110%, yes, we've definitely seen an elevation and in the role of nurses, through media, through storytelling, here at Microsoft, just our support, which we'll talk about. And due to the pandemic, it really shone a light on the profession.
Claire Bonaci
100% I definitely think that, you know, no one really thought going into 2020, that there was going to be a worldwide pandemic. And then nurses really got we're going to be the frontline workers and the ones kind of dealing with all of it. So Kathleen, you were integral to many of the year of the nurse and midwife events and accomplishments, what were some of the biggest accomplishments this year for the nurse and midwife? And how did Microsoft take part in that?
Kathleen McGrow
So you're correct, Claire, I think under Molly's purview, we really worked hard and diligently to bring the year of the nurse to Microsoft, so that our counterparts and our peers at Microsoft really knew what it was about. And you know, we educated our peers, internal to Microsoft, but then we really worked with the nurses in our community, and that we work with all the time. So I think some of our big biggest accomplishments were really around working to build relationships within our nursing community, promoting our nursing colleagues innovations, elevating the voice of nurses within health information technology, which I think due to COVID, there actually has been a significant amount of visibility to nurses that were maybe there wasn't previously. So that might be one light at the end of the COVID tunnel. And then I think that we really look to support a culture of innovation within our health system. So nurses, I believe, as a nurse, were we've always been innovative, but maybe we just didn't know how to get the innovation out into the eye of the patient and what we're doing the patient care. And I think that with COVID-19, there's a lot of innovations that nurses did even on the fly, that, you know, we can talk about, and really recognize and I think that really helped with year of the nurse and promoting those nurses. So as a collective group, highly innovative group. And really, we should be recognizing them. I think all the time. I think the year the nurse was kind of ironic this year, right? It really was something that we were doing to promote the profession. And wow, we really got a lot of promotion out of COVID.
Claire Bonaci
And, Molly, do you have anything to add to that?
Molly McCarthy
Yeah, so I think both, you know, as Kathleen mentioned, internally, just educating our team's within the healthcare organization across Microsoft was part of our mission. And truly, as Kathleen said, and then working directly with our customers. The other piece that we really took on this year, was thinking about who can we partner with in the marketplace, to, you know, elevate the role of nurses, rather than, you know, take it on ourselves, but who's out there. And so, three different projects that I want to take a minute to mention. The first is what we did in partnership with the American Hospital Association that actually started well over a year ago, but essentially looking to provide frontline clinicians, including nurses, doctors, as well as healthcare administrators with a foundation in what a artificial intelligence is in healthcare and what that means as a nurse as a clinician. So the program is a free virtual course that provides one continuing ed contact hour and it's available for the next couple of years. So I highly suggest you know, if you're listening to take a look at it, The second piece is a project, we work with the American Nurses Association. So here in the US, there are about 4 million nurses. And obviously, with COVID-19, the stress of the pandemic, and the pressure on our nurses is just been, you know, excruciating to see and to watch the images of, you know, the masks on the face and the skin damage, as well as just dealing with the family. And the patients day after day really took a toll. So we work to create a health bot, actually, with ANA as part of their well being initiative, and it resides on their well being initiative website. It's a 10 question, stress self assessment checker, for any nurse can go on and go through a series of questions like a decision tree, and then at the end, we'll provide them with different resources. We've had many, I think, well over 3000 nurses in the past couple months take it, we hope to share more statistics around it. And then the last thing that I would love to take a few minutes, because it's truly been a highlight of my career. And and thank you to Kathleen for being involved is our nurse hack for health. We entered into 2019 thinking, how can we continue to bring nurses into the fold in the design, the development and deployment of technology, and really, truly understand how we can marry them with developers, IT to create solutions that make sense in terms of the clinical workflow, but then make sense for better patient outcomes. So we launched the nurse hack for health in partnership with Johnson and Johnson and Sonseil. We had our first hack in May, we just completed our second hack. And for more information on that, because we have some great resources, we'll put something in we'll put a link in at the end of the podcast. But that was really, truly a phenomenal process of getting not just nurses in the United States. But throughout the world. This past hack, we had eight different countries represented.
Claire Bonaci
Well, thank you, Molly, for describing all of that. I know you both worked incredibly hard on the nurse hack for health and all of the other initiatives. And they're actually podcasts for all of those initiatives as well. So I will link those below. Molly, Kathleen, I know you're both very passionate about this. What are some 2021 goals to support nurses, even as you're the nurse and midwife comes to an end. Kathleen, do you wanna start?
Kathleen McGrow
Sure. So obviously, we really don't feel it's coming to an end. Right, it will continue for us because we do feel that we would like to continue to educate our internal teams as well as nurses. You know, based on the sources that Molly even talked about how we can can we continue to grow those different offerings. We also want to raise our voices, to be able to be influencers and get the word out about nurses, Molly and I are nurses in a large health IT Corporation. So it's our responsibility to educate folks, both internally and then and educate and influence both internally and externally, I feel and then how can we really work to accelerate digital transformation and innovation? And how do we leverage the innovation that the nurses in the field, you know, that they're coming up with? How do we help them promote those innovations?
Claire Bonaci
Molly, do you have anything to add?
Molly McCarthy
Yeah, no, I think Kathleen did a great job of summarizing it, you know, to her point, we we don't want to end. We've supported nurses for for several years here at Microsoft through partnerships, with HIMSS, and other organizations with our nursing informatics roundtables every year etc. So our goal is to continue to raise the bar here at Microsoft internally in terms terms of making it inclusive, as we look to design and develop solutions that make sense and impact clinical workflow, for example, teams right now that we're using. And then I think, too, as we move forward, you know, our goal is to continue with our podcasts, as well as our social media outreach, blogs, etc. I know that Kathleen and myself are avid writers. So that's part of what we do. The other piece that I want to mention is we're lucky enough that our teams expanded this year when we actually just hired a new chief nursing officer, a new chief patient experience officer who happens to be a nurse practitioner, and we look forward to bringing on another clinician at the beginning of January to really help us expand in our health plan space. So you know, 2021, we're ready for you and we're excited to continue the work we've started in 2020.
Claire Bonaci
There really is so much momentum with Year of the nurse and midwife, and I'm very excited o see it continue into 2021. And my last question for you both is how can listeners get involved in supporting nurses and midwives moving forward
Molly McCarthy
Well, I think, you know, I did mention the well being initiative that's really to support nurses resilience. So that's one effort through the American Nurses foundation. I encourage you, if you're listening to please go out and take a look at that, in terms of how you can help that organization as we support our nurses. In addition, I want to welcome everyone listening and not listening, quite frankly, to the next nurse hack for health that's taking place may 14 to 16th. Again, we'll do that virtual. And then Kathleen, I know you always have some parting words of wisdom, so I'm going to turn it over to you.
Kathleen McGrow
Yep, it's the shock trauma nurse me my advice. And what I ask of everyone how we can support our nurses and nurse midwives is to wear a mask, social distance and wash your hands.
Claire Bonaci
Great. Thank you so much, Kathleen. Thank you so much, Molly, for being on the podcast and explaining a little bit more of all of the work that has gone on in the year the nurse and midwife here at Microsoft.
Molly McCarthy
Great. Thanks so much for your support. Claire.
Claire Bonaci
Thank you all for watching. Please feel free to leave us questions or comments below and check back soon for more content from the HLS industry team.