The Smart Care Team Spotlight

A smart hospital is not measured by how much technology it buys!

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Dr. Stephanie Hoelscher, Professor and Director of Informatics in Intelligent Systems at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, makes the case that AI literacy now sits at the foundation of nursing practice. She identifies data quality, input, and output as the pitfalls nurses and leaders most often underestimate, and explains how a polished dashboard displaying a risk score can give a clinician a false sense of accuracy. She walks through what happened when her School of Nursing wrote its own AI policy and found the institution drafting one in tandem. And she pushes back hard on the habit of buying the technology first and bringing nurses in afterward to make it work.

Tune in to hear why upskilling now travels with two companions worth naming: deskilling and never-skilling!

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Nursing belongs in the room where AI gets designed!

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Amy McCarthy, Chief Nursing Officer at Hippocratic AI, returns two and a half years after her first appearance to talk about what the move from hospital leadership into industry actually taught her. She walks Molly through Nurse Copilot, the company’s inpatient product, which nurses across the country co-designed and which is now commercially available. She breaks down what agentic AI means in practice, from voice agents that handle admissions navigation and discharge preparation to a constellation of roughly 31 supporting models designed to keep those conversations safe. And she is direct about what happens when leaders skip the hard part: handing nurses a product and hoping for adoption leads to workarounds, unused technology, and an investment that was never worth making.

Tune in to hear why Amy tells every audience she speaks to that AI is not coming; it is already here!

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A question from a grieving parent that a research nurse couldn't answer became a smart patch the size of a quarter!

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, nurse researcher and assistant professor at Montana State University's Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing, traces how two clinical trial families redirected her entire line of inquiry. She walks through the development of Trialware, an encrypted, satellite-connected smart patch that hands local providers the de-identified information they need to make immediate care decisions while alerting the research team that their patient has walked through the door. She takes apart what outsiders misread about rural, frontier, and tribal access, from the gas, lodging, and cell coverage behind a single appointment to the aging populations that make lifespan-spanning facilities a design requirement rather than a nicety. Dr. Johnson also shares the Kind Room, a project that handed floor plans and crayons to 200 tribal and rural children and asked them what a space should feel like before it can help anyone heal.

Tune in to hear how a napkin sketch became a validated device, a children's book, and a case for putting clinical voice inside the built environment!

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The staffing model broke in front of her, so she left to rebuild it!

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Jessica Sylvester, founder and CEO of Humla, traces the path from directing emergency services at a Minneapolis trauma center to building a digital marketplace that connects health systems directly with W-2 nurses. She took that role a month before COVID arrived and spent the pandemic watching agencies, recruiters, and managed service providers stack cost and time between a posted shift and a nurse who could fill it. She gathered nursing leaders and staff nurses to untangle every requirement needed to walk into a hospital, licensure, ACLS, BLS, PALS, regulatory assessments, digitize it, and pair that work with product designers and engineers who could architect it, landing on a model that matches like a dating site and self-schedules like a Vrbo. She and Molly McCarthy also get into why external innovation struggles to earn buy-in from internal innovators, what nurses lose by not speaking the language of finance, and what access to Humla through Mayo’s digital platform, validated.

Tune in to hear how a four-to-six-week agency fill becomes a fifteen-minute match!

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What does it really take to become a smart hospital?

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Molly McCarthy welcomes two healthcare executives from the Alliance for Smart Healthcare Excellence, Lorren Pettit, Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Lieber, Executive Chairman, to talk about the Smart Hospital Maturity Model and how it can help healthcare organizations understand where they are on the path to smarter care. They explain why the model focuses on humans, environments, and processes, with technology serving as an enabler across all three rather than a standalone domain. They also share insights from data collected across more than 200 hospitals, including the gaps that can emerge when technology isn't fully integrated into clinical workflows and the relatively early stage of adoption for advanced analytics and AI. Finally, they discuss how healthcare leaders can turn their results into action by aligning gaps with strategic priorities and identifying quick wins that can build momentum.

Tune in to hear how healthcare organizations can move beyond simply adopting technology and start using it more effectively to improve care and empower their teams!

About Lorren Pettit: Lorren Pettit is Chief Executive Officer at the Alliance for Smart Healthcare Excellence. He leads the Alliance's market research, benchmarking studies, and maturation-model development. His healthcare leadership experience includes roles with Press Ganey, CHIME, and HIMSS.

About Steve Lieber: H. Stephen Lieber is Executive Chairman of the Alliance. Previously the CEO of HIMSS and the Chief Analytics Officer at CHIME, he brings internationally recognized leadership, experience in organizational growth, and a strong network of healthcare executives.

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The future of healthcare depends not just on better technology, but on nurses being brave enough to shape it.

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, host Molly McCarthy, MBA, RN-BC, a former US Microsoft CNO, delivers an NYU commencement address where she shares how her mother’s cancer journey inspired her to become a nurse and shaped her belief in the power of human-centered care. She calls on the next generation of nurses to approach AI and healthcare innovation with cautious optimism while taking an active role in designing, questioning, and shaping the technologies that are transforming their profession. Her message is ultimately about purpose, courage, advocacy, and recognizing that a nursing identity can be a powerful foundation for whatever path comes next.

Listen to Molly McCarthy’s inspiring call to nurses to find their purpose and shape the future of healthcare!

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From bedside care to system-wide change, this conversation traces how clinical experience can drive research and health equity impact.

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Dr. Bridgette Rice, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation at Villanova University, discusses her journey from neonatal intensive care nursing to becoming a nationally recognized researcher and leader focused on health equity and vulnerable populations. She explains that patient experiences, particularly those related to mental health and social determinants of health, inspired her to use research as an advocacy tool to drive meaningful change. Bridgette shares both optimism and caution about AI in healthcare, stressing that technology must be developed responsibly, inclusively, and with human oversight. She also offers advice to emerging nurses and researchers about following their passions, embracing unexpected opportunities, and using every experience as a stepping stone for future impact.

Tune in for insights on health inequities, community-driven research, and the opportunities and risks of AI in care!

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Connect with and follow Dr. Bridgette Rice on LinkedIn.

Follow Villanova University on LinkedIn and explore their website!

What happens when AI in healthcare stops assisting and starts practicing?

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, host Molly McCarthy partners with the Healthcare on Air podcast by Verizon, and along with its hosts Robin Goldsmith and Brian Urban, they welcome Geisinger’s Dr. Jonathan Slotkin, Chief Medical Officer of Strategy and Growth, Tim Fitzgerald, Chief Strategy Officer, and Susan Lucas Collins, Vice President of Geisinger Ventures, to discuss how Healthcare AI is transitioning from a supportive tool to a core component of care delivery, with innovations like ambient listening, virtual nursing, and AI-driven clinical decision-making becoming standard expectations. These technologies are not only improving efficiency but also reshaping workforce dynamics, recruitment, and long-term care models, especially in rural and home-based settings. The conversation highlights a major inflection point: AI systems are beginning to take on regulated clinical tasks, signaling a shift in how care is delivered and by whom. However, questions around regulation, ethics, reimbursement, and the role of human oversight will ultimately shape the pace and impact of this transformation.

Tune in to explore how AI is redefining care delivery, workforce expectations, and the very role of clinicians in a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape!

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Connect with and follow Dr. Jonathan Slotkin on LinkedIn.

Connect with and follow Brian Urban on LinkedIn.

Connect with and follow Susan Lucas Collins on LinkedIn.

Follow Geisinger Health System on LinkedIn and visit their website!

Connect with and follow Molly McCarthy on LinkedIn.

Check out more episodes of the Smart Care Team Spotlight podcast here!

Connect with and follow Robin Goldsmith on LinkedIn.

Connect with and follow Brian Urban on LinkedIn.

Check out more episodes of the Healthcare on Air podcast here!

What if the people best positioned to fix healthcare are the ones who’ve been closest to the problem all along?

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Mary Lou Ackerman, Vice President of Innovation and Digital Health with Saint Elizabeth Health Care, and Nico Gennaro Sciasci, Chief Executive Officer of SONSIEL, discuss how “The Power of Nurses” lies in their ability to influence change and redesign healthcare through frontline insight. They emphasize that nurses are not just caregivers, but innovators and system architects who understand the full patient experience. Through SONSIEL, a global movement is emerging to equip nurses with the tools, confidence, and community to turn problems into scalable solutions. The conversation highlights that the future of healthcare depends on empowering nurses to lead innovation and integrate human care with digital intelligence.

Tune in to hear how nurses are evolving from caregivers to system architects and leading a global movement to redesign healthcare from the inside out!

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Connect with and follow Mary Lou Ackerman on LinkedIn.

Follow Saint Elizabeth Health Care on LinkedIn and explore their website!

Connect with and follow Nico Gennaro Sciasci on LinkedIn.

Follow SONSIEL on LinkedIn and explore their website!

Mary Lou has co-authored two books, The Future of Aging and The Rebel Nurse Handbook: Inspirational Stories by Shift Disruptors.

What if the biggest breakthrough in healthcare innovation isn’t AI, but how we choose to use it?

In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, host Molly McCarthy partners with the Healthcare on Air podcast by Verizon, and along with its hosts Robin Goldsmith and Brian Urban, they welcome Geisinger’s Dr. Jonathan Slotkin, Chief Medical Officer of Strategy and Growth, and Tim Fitzgerald, Chief Startegy Officer, to discuss how Geisinger Health System is leveraging its legacy of innovation to shape the future of AI-enabled healthcare. Leaders emphasize that technology, especially AI, must solve real clinical and operational problems rather than add complexity, with early impact seen in provider workflows and revenue cycle management. A key theme is reframing innovation through a public health lens, such as viewing autonomous driving as a life-saving intervention rather than just a tech advancement. The discussion highlights the importance of trust, community alignment, and rural healthcare dynamics as enablers of scalable innovation. Ultimately, success depends on integrating people, process, and technology while building models that strengthen both care delivery and local economies. 

Tune in to hear how leaders at Geisinger Health System are redefining innovation by focusing on real problems, trust, and measurable impact at the bedside!

Resources:

Connect with and follow Dr. Jonathan Slotkin on LinkedIn.

Connect with and follow Brian Urban on LinkedIn.

Follow Geisinger Health System on LinkedIn and visit their website!

Connect with and follow Molly McCarthy on LinkedIn.

Check out more episodes of the Smart Care Team Spotlight podcast here!

Connect with and follow Robin Goldsmith on LinkedIn.

Connect with and follow Brian Urban on LinkedIn.

Check out more episodes of the Healthcare on Air podcast here!