Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast

It's a Founder's Day edition of the podcast! Founder’s Day 2021 marks a turning point with news of the Nemours’ Countdown to Liftoff: Celebrating our Future, which includes a new strategy, created with the help of over 4,500 Nemours associates and a new unifying brand.  

Carol Vassar, producer

Thirty-seven-year-old Kyle Kibler has seen Nemours from two distinct perspectives: patient and associate. Kyle is the switchboard supervisor at the AI Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington. He talks about "a-plus" care he received at the hospital between the ages of 3 and 21 - a time period that included 22 surgeries to treat cerebral palsy. 

Do you know how many people does it take to process payroll on-time and accurately for every Nemours associate? The answer is surprisingly low: just six, with significant help from an Enterprise resource planning platform, known as an ERP.

Payroll is a department with a ton of fiduciary responsibility to  Nemours as an enterprise, and to every single one of Nemours’ 8,000-plus associates.

It's a department headed by Shirley Williamson, a seasoned payroll professional with two Master's degrees, who moved from Georgia to Florida leaving behind a strong network of family and friends, and knowing virtually to officially become Nemour's Payroll director at a very interesting time: March 23, 2020.

Carol Vassar, producer

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a renewed societal effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by washing our hands, wearing masks, and disinfecting everything in sight.

Healthcare workers have been employing these methods - and many more - from as far back as the mid-19th century to ensure patient safety. Entire hospital departments - sterile processing and housekeeping to name just two - are built for cleaning, decontaminating, processing, sterilizing, assembling, testing, packaging and managing medical instruments and equipment.  It’s a role we all play to some extent or another as Nemours associates, even if it’s as simple as washing your hands.

Yet there is always more to be done, continuous improvement to be had, even in cleaning and maintaining medical equipment.  And that’s where this story really begins -with a project centering on finding, cataloging and providing for use by Nemours associates the manufacturers Instructions for Use - the IFUs - for every piece of equipment used in the Delaware Valley. The project began in 2018 - the idea of one person - in anticipation of survey visits from the healthcare quality and safety  group known as the Joint Commission. 

Carol Vassar, producer

Nemours associate Heather Quinn's personal COVID-19 story serves as a stark reminder that even as millions of people are vaccinated against the coronavirus each day here in the U.S. that it is still deadly. 

Her story begins in March 2020, when the pandemic commandeered both her professional and personal life.

Carol Vassar, producer

When it comes to ongoing professional development for Nemours associates, the place to turn is to the enterprise-wide online learning management system known as Nemours University.

As a learning solutions specialist, Veronica Wisely understands - and works to meet - the thirst for knowledge of her fellow associates - especially during the pandemic.  

Carol Vassar, host/producer

The shutdown of hospital services due to the pandemic in 2020 placed an extraordinary burden on departments for which remote work was nearly impossible.

Audiology is one such department. It's a discipline where "up-close-and-personal" is vital to a patient's progress and success. 

Pediatric audiologist Tammy Riegner recalls how the audiology team at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children coped with last spring's service shutdown, and on the concept that the COVID-19 pandemic has united people worldwide in a shared human experience.

Carol Vassar, producer

The Nemours Center for Health Delivery Innovation (CHDI) has long been the place within the enterprise responsible for developing, deploying and integrating digital health care tools designed to improve the patient experience and deliver better health outcomes.

Which is exactly why this team was called upon at the pandemic’s start in March 2020: to quickly, efficiently and safely grow and innovate digital technologies at an unprecedented pace so as to meet patient and business imperatives. 

Carol Vassar, producer

As a core function within primary care, care coordinators need to be organized and resourceful. And they MUST be excellent communicators. Turns out, these are the very skills possessed by Katrina Wilson, a care coordinator at the Nemours Primary Care practice in Milford, Delaware.

They are the same skills that Katrina used in force as life in the pandemic of 2020 closed in around her and her family at this time last year.

Carol Vassar, producer

Amber Combs, Nemours Fundraising Database Manager, shares the story of her family's COVID-19 experience in the earliest days of the pandemic. 

Carol Vassar, producer