Lissy Hu, M.D., M.B.A., was just lately named CEO of Ascend Studying, which officers academic content material, software program, simulation, and analytics, serving lots of of hundreds of nursing and medical college students, health professionals, first responders, and allied well being professionals. She just lately spoke with Healthcare Innovation about her new function and the way medical schooling and coaching are evolving to maintain with the tempo of change within the trade.
Hu joined Ascend after the corporate she based, CarePort, was offered to WellSky for $1.3 billion in in 2021. After spending three years post-acquisition at WellSky, she now leads Ascend following the retirement of former CEO Greg Sebasky.
Healthcare Innovation: May you speak just a little in regards to the early stops in your profession and the way they ready you for this new CEO function at Ascend?
Hu: I am a doctor by background, and I began an organization, CarePort, after I was in medical faculty targeted on how we assist sufferers who’re popping out of the hospital get all of the aftercare that they want. Beforehand this had been a really handbook course of, so I got here up with a software program system that mainly allowed you to seek for the care that you just want. Over time, it grew and we made a few acquisitions alongside the way in which, and by the point that I left this 12 months it was in 2,500 hospitals and 130,000 post-acute care suppliers, so mainly it had reached nationwide scale.
HCI: After which CarePort was bought by WellSky, right?
Hu: Sure, Wellsky is an enterprise healthcare IT firm that serves throughout the care continuum — from acute to post-acute to home-based care, so it made a whole lot of sense for CarePort to grow to be a part of WellSky as a result of we had been connecting completely different components of the care continuum.
HCI: What you in coming over to Ascend? What did you discover intriguing about alternatives in medical schooling?
Hu: Two issues. One is, from a mission perspective, having been a founder/CEO, it was actually vital to me that I discover one thing that impressed me, that was an issue that I actually needed to resolve. Ascend is a healthcare schooling expertise firm that trains lots of the key members by way of our care groups, Its options allow the coaching of 60% of the nursing colleges within the U.S. It trains allied well being, which is simply rising in significance as we attempt to determine how you can look after increased acuity affected person populations.
Additionally, I believe that how we outline healthcare has continued to broaden. Beforehand, healthcare was what occurred in your physician’s workplace, and over time, that has grown to what occurs in nursing houses, dwelling well being businesses, the social determinants of well being. We additionally practice an enormous quantity of health and wellness skilled wellness professionals — private trainers and healthcare coaches. So Ascend is a vital resolution within the healthcare trade, as a result of so a lot of our care groups are being skilled by way of the software program that Ascend gives.
HCI: Are there some vital modifications going down in the way in which that coaching is delivered? Is AI impacting that like it’s the whole lot else?
Hu: Sure, completely. For learners, it is not simply the content material itself, but in addition how the content material is delivered. And there’s a nurse educator scarcity, so we take into consideration how we are able to make them extra environment friendly. One very crisp instance of that’s we roll out a product referred to as Claire AI, which is an AI expertise that enables nurse educators to construct customized assessments for his or her college students. Each class is just a little bit completely different; each cohort is just a little bit completely different. You should utilize AI to give you customized assessments which might be tailor-made to your scholar inhabitants. It permits nurse educators to be sure that they’re testing and assessing college students on the areas which might be actually vital for that exact class slightly than only a generic evaluation that you just deploy. Previous to AI, that is one thing that might have been very troublesome to do. You possibly can’t ask your educator to create a brand new evaluation for each single class that they are instructing each single 12 months. It is a technique to leverage AI to make the academic expertise way more customized to the scholars and the wants of that exact classroom.
That is vital as a result of, as I used to be saying, one in 10 nurse school positions is vacant, so even from an effectivity standpoint, it’s actually vital that your nurse educators can spend extra time working with college students and fewer time constructing checks.
Additionally, having the ability to personalize that studying is turning into vital as you concentrate on how you can just remember to’re creating your workforce in a means that provides all of them the knowledge that they want in a world the place there is a larger physique of knowledge that they’ve to soak up.
HCI: What are another issues which might be turning into extra vital in how folks be taught in in healthcare?
Hu: Case-based studying is turning into actually vital, due to the rising complexity of sufferers and number of care settings. Not each scholar can get out to a nursing dwelling or a house well being setting, so having the ability to have a few of these circumstances is vital. It will get again to your authentic query of why I joined Ascend, which is as a result of I believe there is a great affect which you could have as you concentrate on persevering with to personalize the educational expertise, each to the learner in addition to to the educator and the group that they are working in. And particularly given how dynamic healthcare is, and what number of modifications are occurring, having the ability to put together folks to enter the workforce is basically vital.
Even after you enter the workforce, studying by no means stops. You could have, medical nurse degree one and two and three and completely different specialties, proper? Can they work within the oncology unit or labor and supply? Or for this medical assistant, what’s their onboarding course of within the clinic versus the hospital? We now have made two latest acquisitions that concentrate on how we proceed to develop that workforce, whilst they’re coming into into the hospital or different work settings. At WellSky, as I spoke to suppliers, onboarding, creating and retaining the workforce was at all times a prime problem.
HCI: Inside a well being system, who’s the client that Ascend sells to? Is it somebody who’s the pinnacle of a nursing program or is there an academic workplace for a well being system that decides what sort of coaching they are going to do throughout the entire well being system?
Hu: Nice query. So it undoubtedly is one thing that chief nursing officers are interested by. Nurse retention and recruitment are prime of thoughts. To your level, there are devoted educators, and even an HR perspective on it. I believe within the conversations with CNOs and chief human useful resource officers and educators, everybody acknowledges that retention, onboarding and improvement are challenges, they usually’re searching for options.
HCI: What are some stuff you’re trying ahead to engaged on within the subsequent 12 months?
Hu: A few of the conversations we’re having proper now are round how we are able to higher allow our suppliers by way of expertise, however I do not suppose there’s sufficient dialog round how we leverage expertise to develop the suppliers themselves, There’s enabling expertise, proper? As a substitute of them having to doc the whole lot, they’ll have an AI scribe. However that doesn’t basically assist you determine how you can allow these suppliers to apply on the prime of their license and apply in a means that is tuned to the supply mannequin or affected person inhabitants.
Proper now, lots of people simply take into consideration onboarding as watching a bunch of various movies after which, growth, you are finished. Then all of the coaching after that’s finished advert hoc. I believe we wish to be extra intentional about what kind of expertise we’re constructing to assist our workforce advance and apply in a means that is tuned to those environments that they are in, and that’s truly an effective way to additionally drive higher affected person outcomes. It’s the expertise that is enabling the human capital side of it, as a result of on the finish of the day, well being techniques are made up of suppliers who present care, so how will we make these suppliers higher?
