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Category: healthcare

  • Kora Behavioral Health: Month One! 🚀

    I can’t believe it’s been a little over a month since we got our first patient at Kora!

    Ayan Said, nurse entrepreneur and co-founder of Kora Behavioral Health a group home in Phoenix Arizona, is standing in teal scrubs , holding her red stethoscope and smiling, inside her residential facility during her first month of operations

    Wooooo.. blows mind how quick that time flew by!!

    I’ve been meaning to update my blog and thought this would be a great come back post.

    I recently posted something similar on my LinkedIn titled “4 things I learned my first week running a behavioral health company” and I want to keep it as an ongoing series because it was SO fun to put together! Plus I’m trying to document my journey as much as possible this time around! 😁

    LFGOOOOOOO

    5 (surprising) things I learned my first month running a behavioral health startup:

    1. Be confident AF! Confidence isn’t automatic for me – I remind myself every single day that I do belong here. That unshakeable self-belief allowed me to tap into my abilities, show up, stay motivated, keep at it regardless of what’s going on externally and has directly impacted my company. We’re only a month in and Kora already has happy patients and staff – hell yeah 🙌🏾
    2. Action > overthinking + researching. I spent waaaaay too many hours planning, perfecting, overanalyzing. All I really need is an MVP (minimum viable plan) and to take that first step. And honestly, even if that MVP took me in the ‘wrong’ direction, I quickly adjusted and still learned something, still came away with a new idea/insight which was still incredibly valuable.
    3. Don’t stop marketing/networking even if the day to day gets crazy busy. I’ve made it a rule to schedule at least 6 hours of networking every week whether it’s a local meetup, conference, in-person visits to facilities/referral partners, posting on socials, outreach, lots and lots of outreach.
    4. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel – forms, templates, policies/procedures… Use what’s already there and tweak it with an LLM.
    5. What worked in my last 2 companies didn’t always work for this one… and what didn’t work at my last 2 startups might actually work now 😅 This one threw me for a loop because I’m still in the healthcare sector and I was sure (almost) everything would map 1:1 but it didn’t. I learned that instead of trying to force my previous experience/beliefs/frameworks into this company, I need to focus on building for my current company – what’s actually happening now and for it’s future. 


    What an awesome month filled with learnings and growth!!

    I honestly can’t wait to check in again in a few weeks!

  • A Simple 3-Step Framework to Boost Impact in Healthcare: Environment x Skills

    The most important lesson I learned this year can be summed up with a simple equation:

    Impact = Environment x Skills

    This concept, introduced by Bangaly Kaba on Lenny’s podcast, highlights how the interplay between your environment and skills directly affects your ability to do great work in healthcare.

    While originally aimed at tech professionals, this framework is incredibly relevant to healthcare settings. It helps nurses and healthcare leaders assess key factors, make informed decisions, and create data driven plans. Nurses can determine whether to stay in their current roles or seek new opportunities, while healthcare leaders can apply the framework to improve nurse retention, ensure patient safety, and reduce costs.

    Understanding the Equation: Environment x Skills

    To use this equation effectively, start by identifying and defining the key factors within both Environment and Skills. Customize these variables according to your specific role, team, and organization to focus on what’s most important to you.

    Key Factors in Environment

    • Manager: Is your manager supportive and invested in your professional growth, or are they unsupportive?
    • Resources: Do you have access to the necessary tools, equipment, and adequate staffing to provide safe and effective patient care?
    • Scope: Did you experience a solid orientation, or were you asked to be a charge nurse after only 6 months as a nurse?
    • Team: Does your team collaborate well, or is there high turnover in your unit?
    • Culture: Is the workplace culture collaborative and supportive, or is there a tolerance for bullying and toxic behavior?
    • Processes: Are hospital workflows efficient, or do they cause unnecessary delays and frustrations?
    • Compensation: Are you paid fairly, or does your hospital pay the CEO $23 million/year while claiming there’s no budget to hire more staff?

    Key Skills to Develop

    • Communication: Master clear and accurate communication, from detailed documentation to mastering effective handoff, and develop active listening skills to advocate for your patients.
    • Personal Influence: If you have ideas for improving patient care, do you take the initiative to share them? Are you a supportive preceptor for nursing students?
    • Execution: Demonstrate reliability in executing tasks, from timely medication administration to adapting to new workflow changes like a new EHR (Electronic Health Record).

    Next Steps: How to Use the Framework

    Once you’ve identified and defined these factors, rate each one on a scale from 1 to 5 to pinpoint strengths and areas needing improvement. Lower scores highlight significant challenges, while higher scores indicate strengths.

    Deeply reflect on the relative importance of each factor. For example, having a bladder scanner on every floor doesn’t compensate for toxic leadership. Negative factors can overshadow positives, impact your work and personal life, and even lead to burnout.

    Taking Action: Improve or Move On?

    Based on your ratings and insights, decide whether to improve your current environment or seek new opportunities that better align with your goals and overall well-being. For example, I struggled with handoff as a new grad but knew I would improve this skill over time. Conversely, changing a culture that tolerates bullying is much harder to change as an individual, and may take a longer period of time because it’s systemic. Adjust your decisions based on your influence over these factors and the time required for change.

    Conclusion

    This framework clarifies how your environment and skills interact and affect your overall impact. It’s more flexible than theoretical burnout models, can be customized to your role or team, and provides practical insights to guide your decisions. Whether you’re an RN at a hospital looking for a registered nurse career path change, working in another sector looking to switch to a registered nurse career, in nursing leadership or a healthcare leader aiming to improve your organization, this tool offers a practical insights to guide your decisions!

    Thanks for reading! If you’d like a detailed breakdown in PDF form, click the link below to download.

    References:

    1. Kaba, B. “How to Make Career Decisions.” Reforge. Available at Reforge Blog
    2. Rachitsky, L. (2024). “Frameworks for Growing Your Career: Lessons from Bangaly Kaba.” Lenny’s Podcast. Available at Lenny’s Newsletter
    Simple 3-Step Framework to Do Great Work in HealthcareDownload
  • Burnout, Implicit Bias and Quality of Care: A Complex Relationship

    Burnout, Implicit Bias and Quality of Care: A Complex Relationship

    Studies show that up to 70% of nurses and 50% of physicians experience burnout at some point in their careers. The negative consequences of burnout on healthcare workers range from individual effects on mental health such as depression and anxiety that lead to organizational impacts including increased absenteeism, decreased productivity, impaired decision making and so much more.

    Burnout in healthcare, which is chronic workplace stress, not only exacts a toll on the mental wellbeing of healthcare professionals but also significantly impacts the quality of patient care. What makes this issue even more pressing is the intricate relationship between burnout and implicit bias, an unconscious prejudice that can lead to unfair healthcare treatment. When burnout takes hold, it acts as a catalyst, heightening implicit bias and exacerbating disparities in patient care (AMA, 2022). As clinicians and other healthcare workers grapple with burnout in healthcare, their ability to provide unbiased, high quality care diminishes, leading to worse patient outcomes. Understanding this complex interplay is essential to fostering a healthcare environment where both providers and patients thrive.

    1. Decreased empathy and compassion: Burnout in healthcare can reduce empathy and compassion in healthcare workers, making it challenging to provide personalized, high quality patient care. Physicians experiencing burnout report reduced empathy towards patients, amplifying the need for targeted interventions (AMA, 2022). Compromised care has a negative impact on the clinician patient relationship, leading to reduced trust and potentially worsened patient outcomes.
    2. Increased risk of medical errors: Burnout escalates the likelihood of medical errors due to compromised attention from workload overwhelm or other stresses. Nurses facing burnout are particularly vulnerable, leading to an increased likelihood of critical mistakes, negatively impacting the outcome of a patient (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2019).
    3. Reduced patient satisfaction: Patients are less likely to be satisfied with their care when they are treated by a burned out healthcare worker. This is because burned out healthcare workers may struggle to be highly attentive to their patients’ needs leading to less personalized care, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s research that highlights the direct correlation between healthcare worker wellbeing and patient contentment levels (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2023).
    4. The Interplay between Burnout and Implicit Bias: Implicit bias, such as in the form of racial disparities, deeply worsens with burnout. Studies show that burnout in healthcare settings amplifies biases, and can impact healthcare worker decision making, perpetuating disparities and further amplifying biases (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021; American Psychological Association, 2020).

    What is Implicit Bias?

    Implicit bias is unconscious prejudice or discrimination that can lead to unfair treatment of others and is particularly harmful in the healthcare setting, where it can lead to disparities in care. For example, a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that Black patients were more likely to be misdiagnosed and to receive lower quality care than white patients. The study also found that implicit bias was a factor in these disparities.

    Implicit bias interacts with burnout to create a vicious cycle. When workers face burnout in healthcare, they may be more likely to rely on their implicit biases to make decisions about patient care. This can lead to further disparities in care. A study by the American Psychological Association found that white medical students who experienced burnout were more likely to endorse stereotypes about Black patients. This suggests that burnout may make healthcare workers more likely to stereotype patients and to provide them with lower quality care. To combat the intertwined challenges of burnout and implicit bias, healthcare organizations must:

    Tackling the Issues:

    To combat the intertwined challenges of burnout and implicit bias, healthcare organizations should:

    • Follow the Data: Healthcare organizations must follow the data to understand the complex interplay of burnout, implicit bias and how it correlates to patient outcomes. By partnering with technology companies supporting burnout data collection and analysis, organizations will be able to pinpoint where burnout stems from, allowing them to strategize on how to best promote a better and more supportive work environment for healthcare workers such as adequate staffing, resources, and training, fostering a positive atmosphere that values mental wellbeing, and other action plans to tackle burnout.
    • Integrate Implicit Bias Training: Raise awareness about implicit bias, its connection to burnout in healthcare, and equip the leadership team and healthcare professionals with strategies for providing unbiased patient care (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021).
    • Support Mental Health: Offer accessible mental health support, including counseling services and financial assistance for these services. Lastly, training the leadership team to recognize and support employees struggling with both burnout and implicit biases is crucial in creating an open and trusting organization that supports employees and puts patients first (American Psychological Association, 2020).

    Recognizing the complex relationship between burnout, implicit bias, and patient care quality is crucial. By addressing these issues strategically and holistically, healthcare organizations can cultivate a compassionate, equitable, and patient centered environment, benefitting both healthcare professionals and those they serve. Addressing implicit bias within the context of burnout is essential to ensuring fair treatment, improved patient outcomes, and a thriving healthcare system.

    References:

    • American Medical Association. (2022). Burnout and well being among physicians: A report from the AMA.
    • Kaiser Family Foundation. (2023). Patient satisfaction with care received from hospitals and doctors.
    • National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). The future of nursing, health, and care for older adults: Investing in a stronger workforce.
    • American Psychological Association. (2020). Racism and discrimination in healthcare: Impact on medical students and residents.
    • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2019). The state of the US healthcare workforce: Chartbook.