The Smart Care Team Spotlight Podcast

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! Resources: Connect with and follow Dr. Elizabeth Johnson on LinkedIn. Follow Montana State University-Bozeman on LinkedIn and explore their website! Learn more about the Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design on LinkedIn and visit their website! Discover the Alliance for Smart Healthcare Excellence on LinkedIn and check out their website!

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 the Mayo Clinic Platform partnership validated. Tune in to hear how a four-to-six-week agency fill becomes a fifteen-minute match! Resources: Connect with and follow Jessica Sylvester on LinkedIn. Follow Humla Health on LinkedIn and explore their website!

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. Resources: Connect with and follow Lorren Pettit on LinkedIn. Connect with and follow Steve Lieber on LinkedIn. Follow the Alliance for Smart Healthcare Excellence on LinkedIn and explore their website!

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! Resources: Connect with and follow Molly McCarthy on LinkedIn. Listen to the Smart Care Team Spotlight podcast here!

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! Resources: 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! Resources: 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! Resources: 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!

What if the secret to becoming a trusted advisor in healthcare isn’t expertise, but how well you listen, serve, and show up? In this episode, Mike Higgins, Executive in Residence at the Health Management Academy and an advisor to several other healthcare companies, connects his leadership style to early lessons in empathy and service from his family’s funeral business, which carried into his career at The Advisory Board Company and beyond. He explains that true strategic partnerships in healthcare are built on deep listening, transparency, and a shared commitment to solving complex problems, not just delivering solutions. He highlights AI as a transformative force but emphasizes that the industry is still in a learning and experimentation phase, guided by frameworks like hearts, minds, wallets, and watches. Across it all, Higgins reinforces that trust, gratitude, preparation, and making every interaction valuable are the foundations of lasting relationships. Tune in to hear how Mike Higgins defines true partnership in healthcare, and why service, trust, and preparation matter more than ever in an AI-driven world! Resources: Connect with and follow Mike Higgins on LinkedIn. Follow the Health Management Academy on LinkedIn and explore their website!

Global impact starts with local trust and sustainable partnerships. In this episode of the Smart Care Team Spotlight, Ruth Frey, Executive Director for Global Collaborations at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, discusses building sustainable global pediatric care through community-driven innovation and long-term partnerships. She reflects on her 45-year career at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and how early mentorship from C. Everett Koop shaped her leadership philosophy and commitment to excellence. She shares how a mission trip to the Dominican Republic transformed her perspective and led her to move beyond short-term medical missions toward lasting system change. She also describes creating a health promoter model and developing a fully sustainable clinic that continues to serve as a regional hub for pediatric care and public health training. Tune in to hear how people-centered innovation can transform global healthcare delivery and create an impact that lasts for generations. Resources: Connect with and follow Ruth Frey on LinkedIn. Follow the Boston Children's Hospital on LinkedIn and explore their website! Follow the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on LinkedIn and visit their website!