We are excited to welcome one of Pittsburgh's top leaders in healthcare -- Dr. Karen Feinstein, President and CEO - Jewish Healthcare Foundation and its three operating arms, the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), Health Careers Futures (HCF) and the Women’s Health Activist Movement Global (WHAMglobal). Under Karen's leadership, the combined organizations perform a unique mix of grantmaking, research, teaching, coaching and project management in order to serve as a regional catalyst for progressive healthcare. JHF and PRHI have become a leading voice in patient safety, healthcare quality, and related workforce issues. When Karen founded PRHI, it was among the nation’s first regional multi-stakeholder quality coalitions devoted simultaneously to advancing efficiency, best practices and safety by applying industrial engineering principles.
Transcription:
So good afternoon, everyone. This is Audrey Rousseau and I have different lighting today and there will be no dogs in the background. So if I look a little spooky, I'm sorry, I don't mean to scare you. But I am very, very thrilled with today's guest, a dear friend and colleague and leader in our community that I will more formally introduce in one moment, always want to give a shout out to Huntington bank in the work that they do in partnering with us deeply appreciate them and the work they've done over the last 13 months and plus over the last many years in terms of their civic engagement, also 40 by 80. That's the organization that's wholly owned by the tech Council. And that is our 501 c three charitable arm and we focus on all things that are related to building tomorrow. So building tomorrow's entrepreneurship, as well as K through 12 engagement. And soon you're going to hear more about our apprenticeship program. So we have muted your microphones. And for me, I can tell you, if we have noise, it will not be dogs, it will might be something else, but it's not dogs. And we have an opportunity to chat. And chat is only directed at our guest, the esteemed Dr. I'm going to call you Dr. Karen Feinstein, because I think you you deserve that. And people need to recognize the the kind of legend and the work that you've done for our region. And I am very thrilled to introduce Dr. Karen Feinstein, who has become a good friend of the tech community, but has always been an innovator has always been outspoken, and has always been passionate about seeking greatness and greatness as it's tied to the work that she does at the Jewish health care foundation. So hi, Karen, how are you? Thank you so much for joining us today. I can't thank you enough. And I have so many nice things to say about you. But I'll I will save that as we get into the conversation because you have been a leader in driving change and in addressing issues around safety and patient care, and innovation. And there's not anything in the space of healthcare that you haven't touched during the work that you've done over the course of I don't know how many years but I want to jump in and say first of all, how are you? How are you holding up through all that's been going on? Because I feel like you've been extraordinarily busy in your work. And then second, just set the table and tell people about sort of the the creation of the foundation?
Um, well, I'm doing very well, I guess Thank you. I expected this rush of ecstasy when I got vaccinated and started connecting with people again, and I'm waiting for the rush of ecstasy. And now I can't tell whether we've really gone through the pandemic, we're ready for a new surge whenever I'm very lucky, the foundation has been very busy. And you know, when you're a Health Foundation during a pandemic, there's not a lot of time to sit around and reflect and feel sorry for yourself. I also have one big advantage. I have 15 immediate family members and walking distance. That's my kids and their kids and my sister, so I'm not lonely. The Foundation, the foundation started came from the sale of Manas here, they call us conversion foundations. And we haven't converted religiously. But we were the conversion of a health entity that delivered health care, Montefiore hospital into a grant making foundation. But when we started, I, they offered me the job for a year and I kept saying no, because I had this very narrow vision of the foundation. And finally, a wonderful person named show him call me said, What do you want to do? I said, I want to run a think tank is that great. You'll have a think tank with an endowment. So you know, the happiest thing in my life. We have a think tank was an endowment, a wonderful board and an incredible staff. So how can I be happier?
Well, that's great. And and given that you've played a critical role in so many things. I know it's hard to pack all of this in terms of the work but the founding the organization started in what year?
Well, 1990 monitor was sold and we weren't allowed to use that word with presby and 1991. And Margie came on board.
Wow. Okay, so, so the foundation has, for example, at that point in time played a critical role with your leadership in terms of HIV. I mean, everything that was going on back then I'm gonna pluck it from things but I mean, I'd like to start there because that's really what was going on in the world. At the time,
my interest from college on I'm fascinated by social movements and, and social revolutions. How does societies fix themselves? How does societies evolve into places that are more just and kinder to the population? So I got involved. When I told you, I was reluctant to run a traditional foundation. So I go to a meeting of council on foundations, and they have a group called funders concerned about AIDS. And I go, and I meet the most incredible people, many of them are still my friends, it was an extraordinary group. Most foundations didn't want to touch it, they had board members who looked at it as upon aids as some kind of maybe religious or I don't know, whatever reason they didn't want to touch eight. So there were a few of us who were sort of revolutionaries, and we came together around the country. And I became very active with them very active in Pittsburgh. And as I know, they're probably younger members on this call. It was a death sentence. And there was so much we didn't understand. And I remember one of my favorite people, Carrie stoner was in the office and he was dying. I mean, he knew he was dying. He ran the Pittsburgh aids Task Force. And he was sweating. And you I'm the mother of three young kids caring for parents. And I said, Carrie, I can't take your hand. I mean, I, we didn't know how he was communicated. And he was so wonderful. He said, Let's hug. So we just gave each other a big hug. But there was so much terror. People didn't know how you communicated. As you remember, children weren't allowed to come to daycare, if and even public schools, if there was a parent, in fact that it was a very difficult time. But we've been committed, we became the fiscal agent for the state. We run the state planning collaborative, we run the Minority AIDS initiative for the state of Pennsylvania. So we have a phenomenal HIV AIDS team. We've been committed for 30 years. I met him once they committed.
And I imagined Absolutely, I was just gonna say that and and even though the world has changed, what's important to me is that people don't forget that people don't forget that period of time, particularly people who were younger and didn't experience what you saw and what you were privy to both positive and negative. So let's talk about the pandemic, we've been connected at the tech Council, because I've been really admiring a lot of the work that you've done both on the think tank II side in terms of convening people, but also around your advocacy around issues that really early on, we saw a lot of devastation, obviously, the bifurcation community, but you know, nursing homes, we can go back, you know, not even that long ago, where you and I and your team were, you know, educating us, because we knew that this was such a critical piece of the puzzle in terms of the pandemic. So what kinds of things that you've done over the last year in terms of the pandemic, I really want to shine the light on so many of those things?
Well, we went into a different mode. And the mode was, let's pick a limited number, we picked three things where we thought we could make a difference. So we're influenced by the pandemic. So number one, let's look at what was happening in nursing homes. We do a lot of training and coaching in nursing homes we do a lot of work with. We've been on a large federal grant for close to six years to improve care and nursing homes. And we watched people dying, we knew that it was like lighting a flame near gas or something explosive. And we could not get the traction we wanted. We knew that if you release people from hospitals, you know what happened, what Andrew Cuomo is being blamed for it now, we knew at the time this was a disaster you someone with HIV, and excuse me, with with COVID-19 into a nursing home, you were just lighting a fire. So my daughter said, Mom, are you okay? She said, You seem really over the top on this. And I said we are. I mean, we know people are going to die a lot of people are going to die in nursing homes, and they did. So we're turning that into coming up with a new model of care. We want a new model, we want to actually blow up the current model of skilled nursing and turn it into a different approach. We're looking at something we call the teaching research nursing facility connected to academia with excellent infection control, but a whole new experience for seniors. So that was one. Secondly, there was no federal agent See in charge. So I'm sure everyone noticed the logistics were awful. Supplies expertise, were never in the right place where they were needed. Some people were hoarding them because they were frightened. They didn't know if they'd be next. But they would be sitting on things that were needed within their region, but they weren't getting from one place to another. And you know, I sit here in the shadow of Carnegie Mellon, as most of us many of us do. And I said, This is ridiculous. I mean, in no other industry, would you have this chaos, this inability to get the personnel and supplies where they're needed. So we said, we need a national Patient Safety Authority, modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board. It's not only the pandemic, where we totally screw up in protecting workers and patients, that on an average year, we have at least 250,000 people who die of preventable and underlined preventable medical error. And also, people who are injured way more are injured from errors that could be prevented. So again, looking at the National Transportation Safety Board, we realize that all of the technology that we use in transportation, for autonomous vehicles for auto pilot for airbags, do you realize nobody is brought that to health care? So that's been a mission to create this agency, particularly one that brings all of the safety technology to healthcare? As you know, I do. I've been driving you crazy about this. I listened to your speakers. And I say, Can we focus them on healthcare, like, I'm glad you can send the semi down the Pennsylvania Turnpike with me driving and everybody safe, but I can't get people out of a hospital for a hernia operation without an error. And then the third area we picked is maternity maternal health, particularly taking another look at what is a successful childbirth. And we just had a program today is black maternal health day. And we just had a program that was absolutely astonishing. But really our country if you ever want to see Exhibit A of racial inequity in health care, take a look at maternity.
Wow.
So those are three areas. And we've been obsessively focused on trying to bring about reform there.
And you you have like, the thing that we admire about you and that I admire about it is that you have you have been relentless about the issues that you have seen for so long. And feel like the tech community just needs to shift the light slightly, just slightly, and address the issues of patient care, safety, and including, you know, maternal health. So let's talk just let's dig in a little bit about maternal health. We're looking forward to actually hosting a session on May 10, I believe, to explore the topic. But can you talk about to us about the work like dig a little bit deeper into that, because that's an area that has come up through many, many conversations. And unfortunately, Pittsburgh has been highlighted as an as in the limelight in terms of terrible, terrible results in terms of our care,
and maternal and infant mortality. We actually think it is so bad that we didn't even have an agenda in this area we had to but let me say this maternities, also a marker for other health issues. We in the United States have amazing blinders. We don't look at other countries. And we think in this country that a successful pregnancy is alive mother and alive, baby leave the hospital. So if you go to Australia, which we did, they look at maternity and the UK does totally differently. Their idea of a successful pregnancy begins preconception that the mother, the baby, the family unit, that that everything is prepared and done as well as it can prior to the birth. And that means three risk assessments where a woman has assessed that a highest level of risk, a whole host of public services kick in. This is before they've ever delivered before they ever go into the midwife center with the hospital. The and they use their relationship their ratio of midwives to obese or an exact opposite of ours. So they have say in the UK, I think it's a 35,000 midwives and 3500 ob so whatever it is, were the exact opposite. But in Australia, they not only they follow the mom and the baby home, they want to make sure that they go into the home they do risk assessment again. They have midwives who come in and do lactation consult consulting. And if the mother and baby aren't bonding, the country provides child development centers that supports the mom, but also gives extra help to the baby that It starts right away. You don't have to wait, you don't have to get on a list. But and these are fabulous facilities paid for by the state to make sure that the mom and the baby and the family unit are thriving. So it's a whole different approach to maternity, but I think it could work here. And hopefully, we have the support for it.
So you know, in on May, May 10, we're actually launching with the with your organization, a, we're, we're hosting Ellen vet short for the utmc and Nicole Lambert of Myriad Genetics. So really appreciate that we're gonna do further further dives in terms of, of this space. So really appreciate you pushing us pushing us to sort of have a lot of these hard conversations and not sweeping it under the rug. And for those of you who don't know, Karen, you should be able to tell she doesn't sweep anything under the rug, but particularly when it comes to the issues and the matters that she represents in terms of her work. So you know, we were we were pretty excited. Last year, I guess it was last year, it seems to slip right by me. But last year, we we did the launch of lift off PGH. Right, you started that we tried to help with some of the things in terms of femme foreigner, we have some really interesting women from around, can you talk about the purpose of lift off and explain to that, explain to our listeners that because there's two things that I just want everyone to understand? Well, they are a foundation, they're also an Karen made reference to them being a research arm and a think tank. And that is really where I think people need to hear the opportunities in terms of the material that they have, that is accessible to all around all the matters that we're talking about here. So I just wanted to give a shout out. Because sometimes people think, oh, she's just giving grants. And that's not, that's not the case, you're creating practices, you're creating policies, etc. So talk about lift off.
So and we did we do program demonstrations, research, coaching, training, I mean, we do a lot of things other than just give grants, and we get grants, we get a lot of public support for what we do. So I'm a Consumer Electronics Show grouping, which you would think is funny, because I joke, I'm like, the only white hair there, you can pick me out of the 180,000 people in a minute. But what is amazing about CES is number one, the healthcare the digital health track, which is beyond just digital health. It's the it's looking into the future. And I get very excited about all the potential and going down on the floor and getting all the demos of all the different gadgets and devices and things that could really make health care much better. That gets me very excited. The other thing I noticed, we have very little Pittsburgh presence. So here I am with the largest conference in the world, I'm in the health track, they have their own Convention Center. It's so huge. And if we're lucky in any year, we get one presenter from Pittsburgh, I went into nobody I know not a single person I know. And so lift off was our idea. Can we bring the CES spirit to Pittsburgh? Can we get people excited about transferring what is available in technology to what actually happens in the practice or in the unit and at the bedside. And so the goal was to get us inspired because with the amazing schools of Health Sciences we have here and the technology edge we get from CMU which is prodigious. Can't we put this all together and can't we be on the cutting edge, I mean, honestly, we should be taking I listened when you go down on the floor, as you know, there are all these stages, adversities are presenting in different countries are presenting. Nobody from Pittsburgh is presenting and my feeling is we should be taking this over. But if we could transfer some of the the brightest minds that I hear on business as usual, and they are incredible doing safety in other industries to healthcare. Pittsburgh would would be on top of the map we'd have the largest.so.
here's here's another just sort of behind the scenes about Karen, is she has she has watched and listened and her staff have been involved in participating in many of our shows. Behind the scenes, Karen will say why does that not apply to healthcare? Adri Why does not that and it can be anything from trucking technology to you know, contactless initiatives to autonomy. So if you're listening here, understand that's the that is the view. And the approach that Karen has, there should be no reason that if there's a technology solution that touches humans, that shouldn't be health should be a part of those solutions. And she's relentless. And I got to tell you, she's all opened up my eyes to make me think differently about how people think about their technology solutions. So you were going to be exploring digital twins, and you want to talk about something that totally blows my mind and the opportunities that they present on on May 26, actually, so can you talk about what excites you in this space?
Well, this will be obvious to all of us, our research enterprise during COVID. Yes, for vaccines, terrific. For treatments, we have the slow, clunky, randomized clinical trial approach. We're not very inventive other countries, and there's an article in New England Journal, it's worth reading, if this interests you. Other countries took different approaches, and they were much more fleet than we were, there's more we can do to be real time to be active. And if you're a parent of a kid with a severe genetic disability, you don't have forever to wait. And yet the randomized clinical trial is so slow. And they don't even do a lot of trials for a lot of sort of what I would call less, less prevalent conditions. So I'm listening to CES it was it was virtual this year. And I'm listening to the presentation on digital twins. So I get very excited, right? I'm talking about it, anyone who listened, and I'm talking about it. Lonnie Snyder at the ionair Foundation, he said, Oh, you know, Dr. Sal, has, you know, this amazing doctor who is at the cutting edge of science and in on the globe? Oh, he's very interested, he started to do work with digital twins. So doctors to hell came and did a presentation. It's absolutely incredible. It's not only that he is engaging patients, okay, guys, here's a real revolution, right? He's engaging patients in their care decisions. So by using your digital twin, which has all the same characteristics, the life experience, the demographics, all the things about you, you can look at what different treatments, the pluses and minuses of different treatments. And he's doing it to engage patients as well, so that we can be part of our treatment decisions. So you can see why I'm so excited about this. But it also cuts the time. And it personalizes it individualizes this for you, because although we love the idea of control groups, I don't have a twin. I mean, you can put whatever control group you like, there's not going to be I don't have a twin, there's not going to be another me there. But with the digital twin, there's a me there. So
I'm pretty excited about I am so excited. But honestly, I feel like to me, that is one of the biggest inflection points that I've seen in a really, really long time. And you know, we do have the Chief Technology Officer of ANSYS coming and the founder of unlearn AI on May 26. And that is only going to talk about digital twins and some of the things that they're working, that are healthcare related in some non health care related. And it is and it's right here in our backyard. So we're just totally blown away by it. So what what else is exciting to you right now, like in terms of in terms of this next 12 months ahead, you know, either concerning and it can be concerning as well as exciting.
Well, I tried to reach out to interesting people, right, some kids once said, what I do is collect interesting people I was Yeah, I hope so. So a couple of the things one is the work that's going on at the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins, and DARPA and DLD are funding on the battlefield. So I'm like over the top on something they have called Madeira, which is mechanical device interoperability, blah, blah. So Madeira, is like a pot that goes onto a battlefield. And if people wounded soldier alive for three days, it actually does the intervention, it diagnosis and treats and keeps people alive for up to three days till they can be evacuated to the right treatment facility. So, you know, I look at some of the clunky work that happens around rapid response teams in our hospitals. Unfortunately, they're random people who come together in an emergency. And I said, can you fit Madeira in an elevator? Like, if I'm going south, I want Madeira can Derek come and keep me alive for three days till you find the right surgery. So anyway, that kind of is very thrilling, and the other is what can be done with the EHR. So we all like to whine about the electronic health record, we hate it. It's clunky. It's not interoperable data aren't up to date. So let's flip that and look at what we can do with that clunky thing that all the doctors hate. What you can do for safety and quality is extraordinary. So I look at there's a genius from the University of Utah named David classen. And he has been amazing He's the most upbeat person that ever lived. And he tells you all the things you could do right now with the data we have. And that gets me jazzed. So those are two things.
So, you know, I hope everyone who's listening here just gets a glimpse of what the passion is, but also the amount of collaboration that she facilitates, or organization facilitates, because that's really our conveners there actually serve as conveners on policy issues. And those issues as we incurred are tied to safety, but it really tied to patient care. But it's it's limitless. It's limitless in terms of the work that she's been leaving and convening in, you've been a treasure, I have been very lucky to get to know you in the role that I've been in, and you've shaken my hand, and I'm pretty stubborn. And you've shaken my head, and how to people apply for grants? I mean, there are people who are going to want to know that are their RFPs that are open now what you know, what's the situation?
So I told me, I always listen in at noon, and she gives away free gifts. I never went, right. Number one, I'm sorry. never went I wanted that plane ticket to anything in the world. So I said, I agree. Okay, if anyone listening wants to write a letter to me, and they have a proposal for how something they're working on, can relate to patient safety, quality and new model of senior care, better outcomes of maternity, anything that is related to health, we will give out three small grants up to three. So send me a letter, tell me what your proposal is. And I just feel that, you know, everybody comes on and they give away something. So Wow,
that's awesome.
And we are giving away $60,000, in two weeks of project we did with innovation works right to healthcare safety challenge. So we're giving away prizes, people around the globe, who came up with the ways of applying technology to patients.
And so for them to find out, they go to the website, how should they should
they find to go to our website to see if they're working on anything that might interest us. But like I haven't even mentioned, team mental health. So we're passionate about teams. HIV AIDS are three areas I mentioned. And you might find something else there. So send me a letter, tell me what you're proposing. And if it fits with our agenda, we would love to help you further your work.
Wow, that's a surprise
to Hawaii. But trust me, you may like this better.
Now, and trust me, you won't, you won't regret being affiliated with the kind of resources that are there. So Karen, we're all good things, unfortunately come to an end. But that doesn't mean it's the ending of our relationship and the work and collaboration, really appreciate your leadership. It's just an under estimate in terms of the work that you've done. any way that we can shine the light on you and your team, amazing collaborators. And you're just thinking about just incredibly hard problems that many people are afraid to address or don't know how to address. So reach out to her, she will respond. I promise you that. And she will have you know, she will have a lot of ideas whether or not you get grant or not, she definitely will have ideas. So Karen, Dr. Feinstein, I like calling you that whenever I get a chance to thank you so much for taking the time. I know you have a crazy schedule and are just absolutely busy. Hopefully, that this time will transform into something ecstatic. We were all together, as we mentioned earlier, and you know, we raised our hats to that at the tech council we are planning on in person event soon. So we're pretty excited about that as well. And now tomorrow, tomorrow, we have really cool guests as well. And Jonathan, I'm really glad to get the both of these folks on. Jonathan, are you there?
I am. I tell you what,
talk about tomorrow,
we're super pumped. Because tomorrow, I didn't realize Greg bear was an author. But we have Greg bear in mind by just stopping by their new book when you wonder you're learning. It's all about how Mr. Rogers and his philosophy actually plays into STEM education and how scientists want to work in this day and age. So it's gonna be such a fun conversation with these guys. So happy
to book it's a book right that's being released next week. And so we want to help Pittsburgh, you know, Greg and Ryan, and it's also on Audible and we are really want to shout this to the world because they've been doing a lot of work in learning and young kids. So thank you, Dr. Karen Feinstein and your incredible team. Thank you for your work and leadership. I will see all of you here tomorrow. Stay safe.
See you guys
Transcribed by https://otter.ai