On this episode of The Vurge, Rebecca sits down with Gretchen Britt, Vice President, Information Technology at Liberty Health. She talks about her journey from the NICU to HIT leadership, her fervor for giving back to the community by volunteering for the hospital foundation and her initiatives in empowering women in healthcare, using her superpower of empathy in fostering connections.
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On this episode of The Vurge, Rebecca sits down with Gretchen Britt, Vice President, Information Technology at Liberty Health. She talks about her journey from the NICU to HIT leadership, her fervor for giving back to the community by volunteering for the hospital foundation and her initiatives in empowering women in healthcare, using her superpower of empathy in fostering connections.
Thanks for listening! Like what you hear? Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and be sure to subscribe to The Vurge for the latest episodes and more!
Interested in being a guest on the show? Click here to learn more.
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Verge, where today we have Gretchen Britt from Liberty Hospital. She's the vice president of IT there. Welcome, gretchen.
Speaker 2:Hey Rebecca, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here today, Awesome.
Speaker 1:How is Kansas City area? Are you sunny, warm?
Speaker 2:You know it was kind of raining this morning. It's been humid as heck. My office is actually very stuffy today. It's that time of year where we're having trouble already keeping up, so you're like hot and sweaty in the morning and they freeze you out in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the AC our AC is broken in my office and my husband is not too happy about that, so hopefully we'll get that fixed here. But it's cool like the windows are open, so it's not too bad, that's good, that's good. So thanks for jumping on, jumping into my hot seat, and we'd love to get to know you a little bit more and find out what really made that, what really made you decide to make that jump into the dark side, because you've done some wonderful things being a nurse and then you made jump over to IT. So can you tell us about your background and all the amazing things we've talked about before in?
Speaker 2:your nursing career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've actually been in healthcare now for 25 years, straight out of high school, so dating myself for sure Started out as a certified nurse's aide. I got the certificate in high school and I knew I wanted to work in the hospital. I wasn't. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a nurse, but I wasn't sure when that path you know when that would happen I ended up learning how to scrub surgical procedures. It's the beauty of working at a small town hospital. They kind of say are you interested in something? You say yes and then they train you. So I was working as a scrub tech when I decided to go back to school and become a registered nurse. So I did that and came to Liberty.
Speaker 2:At that time I worked in the NICU at the bedside. I was a bedside nurse here for many years, you know, taking care of babies, taking care of new mamas, educating on all things newborn and working at a level to NICU. I then decided I needed some more kind of critical care. So I went to Children's Mercy, which is our local children's hospital here, and I joined open heart surgery and I did trauma there and I got some excellent critical care which then brought me back to Liberty, to the NICU.
Speaker 2:You know I worked as a bedside nurse for quite a long time and then I found myself doing extra things where I then lobbied for a position in our NICU called a charge nurse. I just wanted somebody to be in charge to help manage those things on the back end. So that kind of set me on a leadership path within the NICU, so still doing the bedside, but then getting to do different operational things, and started getting involved in different IT projects and anything you know out there that I could get involved in. I tried to do that, basically inserted myself wherever I wanted to be. So at that time I was able to then become our supervisor of our whole birthing center and did that for several years and I was that, that nurse that helped everybody else with their documentation, that helped our physicians with their documentation and, you know, anything that I could do with process improvement. I was really looking for how I could make things better for everyone else. So it's kind of a long, strange career that then led me over to the informatics side.
Speaker 1:What is your most memorable moment working in the NICU that you just like still stands out for you today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Actually I have a moment that it was 2011. I had a baby this was actually published in the paper so I can go into some details on it. But we had a baby that was supposed to go home had a critical aortic stenosis so healthy out in the room and just watching for those subtle signs that that baby had and realizing that something wasn't quite right and trusting your gut, you know, bringing that baby in for observation, watching. You know we did lots of tests, working with the pediatrician saying something is not right. I just can't put my finger on what it is. That baby later decompensated, thankfully, we were able to transfer, got him down to get the life saving care that they needed, and she did well. After that, the parents actually came to see me and brought me her little picture and is a reminder every day of why we do what we do.
Speaker 2:You know babies are like little puzzles. They cannot tell you what is wrong with them. So with a baby, with an infant, a newborn, you have to really be watching. You have to do thorough assessments. You have to make sure that you are catching every little detail and trusting your gut when something doesn't seem right. That's one example.
Speaker 2:Her picture is actually sitting here on my desk and I look at it all the time and think you know this is why we do what we do is for these babies, for these mamas, for these, you know, these new families, for all of our patients, that the patient is number one at the forefront of everything that we do. And I mean that memory. Actually it just it will. It lives with me forever because I know that I took those extra steps.
Speaker 2:I, you know it was very subtle what we saw, and you know, keep putting those pieces of the puzzle together and keep trying to figure out what it is that's wrong. And you know, working with our team, working with the, in partnership with the other nurses in the NICU, we saved a life that night. That's not the only baby over the years, but that one really, really stands out for me and I mean I had a great team here that night that we all worked together. It was stabilized, gathered the care that she needed to the hospital with that tertiary care that she needed. So you know, situations like that that'll just always stick with you as a nurse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. I tell my girls that you have two brains right your head and then your gut, and your gut tells you so much in so many different situations, right, so it's true.
Speaker 2:It's true Because you're like ah, is she just a little dry, is she breathing just a little fast? That doesn't seem right, you know, if you had you not taken that extra, look, you know, you, just you just wonder what outcome could have, could have been.
Speaker 1:Right, right. How many babies have you delivered? Like what's the max? Like twins, triplets, quadruplets, Like what? How many?
Speaker 2:So for us twins, we're a level two NICU here, so and now we're actually called a special care nursery. But at the time that I was there it was a level two NICU and so for me it was twins was the most that we could do. You know we have certain protocols and that you have to follow. If they're, you know, less than I think it was 33 weeks of time, they had to transfer to Children's Marcy, those sorts of things. Of course, anybody that walks in, you still have to stabilize and transfer and do what you need to do. But yeah, twins was the most that we could do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we thank you and all the nurses out there, because I, you know, I've had two girls and I remember getting in the car with the first one in the car seat, thinking, oh my God, I wanted to take you all home with me, because how am I qualified to take this little nugget home and like actually attempt to keep her alive with no clinical background? Right, can you just come in the car with me for like the next five years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually. I got several job offers over the years from parents. The same thing please come home with us you know we're not ready yet those sorts of things, especially if you had like a late preterm or that was there just feeding and growing for a while and you really bond with those, with those families, and spending that extra time and they get used to having you there. So I've kept up with several babies over the years and watching them grow and they're now graduating high school. So that's amazing to see. You know you start as a little preterm baby and now you're graduating high school and going to the prom and doing all those things. So it's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, but you all helped with so much with all of that, so thank you so much. So over to your over to your IT side. So you started out working your way through the hospital and in different management roles and and then moved over to physician support coordinator role where you were helping them and so, I'm assuming, with the EHR and all their documentation, and so really, what was the best part about that role, what was the hardest part, and which EMR were you using at the time?
Speaker 2:Right. So the role physician support coordinator was actually supposed to be just training for the all script sunrise clinical manager. That's what they hired. Our physicians were we're feeling frustrated, weren't feeling heard, felt like they weren't getting the training that they needed. So they actually took an analyst position and made it into this physician support coordinator role.
Speaker 2:The beauty of the role was that there are no boundaries there. You know what do you want to do with this? So me being me, I'm like well, I want to learn everything. I want to see all the technology that they're using. I want to understand how it all works and how I can help them. So it went from not only being the person that they could call for their issues and then I was supposed to put in their tickets. But hey, I can solve these problems, I can fix your issue. Let me help you and just get you buttoned up right now so that you can move on with your day. To training in the electronic health record, the Sunrise Clinical Manager to. Hey, I'm going to lead my own projects. I want to do this. I want to roll out the EPCS when we're getting ready to do our control, our controlled substances and getting our physicians to to use e-submit, which is a challenge.
Speaker 2:For a while they weren't really into it. It was. You know it's hard to get that buy in, but once you get by and you see the ease of use, then you get others to start doing it. So it was really fun because this was a role that had never existed and I got to do what I wanted with it, make it what I wanted, and so now, of course, my expectations with that role are very high. That I want people that are it takes the right personality right. Yeah, you have to be patient. You have to understand that they're not mad at you, they're mad at the system, and to be able to brush it off and not get upset, um, you have to, I think, be a very social person, right, you're going to be social, to go out there and put yourself out and and do these be, you know, be able to be comfortable talking with a physician. I always felt being a, a seasoned nurse right gave me that edge too, that I was very absolutely physicians.
Speaker 1:I'm comfortable speaking up when I need to and I'm comfortable being their partner and working with them yeah, whenever I would work with physicians and training them in EHRs and in my history, I always try to find the small wins.
Speaker 1:You know that that kind of get them engaged and turn their ears on they have so many things going on and so many patients that they're and as well to your point. Being patient is always, is always key and not taking it to heart right of that, because there's so many things. Yeah, like when I had a laptop thrown down at my feet one time, um, when I was, uh, and, and it was just physician, you know that was very upset and it wasn't anything that I particularly did, but the EHR was, you know, being installed and they were moving from paper to EHR and and that's stressful time, especially when, if you look back when we installed, there wasn't a lot of knowledge about the implementations or bridging those gaps between the technology and what the clinician is actually doing or how they're using it. I feel like we've come such a long way, um, definitely.
Speaker 2:I think in the beginning it was more taking that um paper and then just putting an electronic format, not yeah, that's eliminate the waste what? Yeah, what can we do to make it better? How can we help you make those workflows better? Not just let's take this piece of paper and throw it in and make it electronic. Yeah, we've come a long way, right we?
Speaker 1:yes, absolutely, and now you have, you know, voice recognition and all these other things you know to help the clinicians and providers. Um. Are there any wins in terms of implementation? Um, and bridging the gap that you've done that liberty to that you would want to tell our listeners um yeah, I think um a a win.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling mixed on this win. Right now. We're rolling out some new documentation called working diagnosis. Um, it's within the Sunrise Clinical Manager and this is supposed to speed up providers workflows um assist them with their documentation, better assessment and plan management, and I think it's been key to get the feedback from our user group, our physician IT group, and ensuring that we're meeting their needs, not trying to recreate what we were doing before, but working in partnership with them to meet their needs. I think that that has been key um, and hearing them when they're.
Speaker 2:When they're, you know things aren't working. You know, maybe, maybe we try something and you know we failed on it. Great, let's take what we failed, let's learn from that, let's back up and let's move forward in a different direction. Um, that's been something. We're rolling that out right now and trying to figure out the best way to give them the support that they need and and really be at the elbow to help them to be successful. I think anytime that you work in partnership with those end users, that is a win for you yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:When I was CIO, putting in IT governance and committees to have every allow everybody you know to have a voice. Um was one of the key initiatives and and I, you know, completely agree with what you're doing um there at Liberty. So, gretchen, throughout your career you have been such a go-getter in terms of putting your eye on a prize and going out and getting it done and sort of figuring it out on the way. But what are some of the resources that have helped you through your career, either tangible resources or mentors, uh, good and bad bosses that have helped you along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. So I think, for me, I've always been a fighter. I've been a fighter since I was a kid and I'm going to do I'm going to go above and beyond. I want to excel and I want to be the best at whatever it is that I do. So I think that internal innate drive that I have has been a great personal resource for myself to tap into.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I was just doing my thing. I was the charge nurse in the NICU and I had a director at the time that said you know what we're doing, this staffing and scheduling project. I really think that you would be good at this. She saw something in me that I didn't know was there and pointed me in that direction, which was a win right. I don't know that I would be where I am today had somebody not said I think you could do this. I never had considered a career in IT. I knew it was fun. I knew that I liked being the one to make process changes. Maybe it would have happened later on, but I really credit that director for really saying you would be good at this and nominating me and letting me run with it.
Speaker 2:I think physicians throughout my career, physicians believing in me has been, you know, that partnership that I had from them One particular, dr Kay Gerstner. I was doing a circumcision with her and I said, hey, you know, there's this scholarship that they're doing through William Jewel College, through the foundation. I thought about applying it's for the RN to BSN program. She said hold on, wait a minute, you don't have your bachelor's degree. I said no, I don't. She goes. You are one of the smartest nurses that I know. I'm shocked that you don't. I said I think I'm going to do it. Would you write a letter of reference for me? They're over our circumcision procedure as we're taking care of this sweet little baby. We talked about my path and what I want to do and she wrote this amazing letter. That was just phenomenal that I was able to turn in and help me along my way. You know Dr Adiga, who's our president and CEO here at the hospital. When I said I wanted to go down into the IT path, he was the one that had to interview me as the physician leader and he was so supportive. He was so supportive of me. He was then, and he still is today, as my CEO. So I think those people that have supported me have been key.
Speaker 2:And then since being in the role, honestly for me networking chime has been huge. To find that network, that people in the NICU we were a group of women who all worked together. I came over to the IT side, I didn't feel like I maybe had that core group of people that you can bounce ideas off of and do those things. And I went to the chime boot camp not even 30 days into my role and I met this core group of people that have been amazing and we have a text chain and we can say, hey, what do you think about this? Or I'm going through this, is this something that has anybody done this before?
Speaker 2:So I think finding that network and that group of people that you can rely on, I felt like I found my people that day. I remember wrapping up it was a very emotional day and just saying that I have found my people. I found that core group that I can turn to, and then the mentors that you get through chime. I've got Erin, mary Theresa Meadows. I mean she's a nurse. I remember when I was the last day of the fall forum and I met her and I said what do you have?
Speaker 2:what advice could you give me as a nurse, walking down the path that you once walked on, and we talked about going back to school and what degree I should go for, because I'm now working towards my master's degree. So I think developing that network, finding those people that you can reach out to, that you can be vulnerable with, that has been key since taking this role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel the same way about chime. I tell all CIOs that don't know about it and people that aren't even in healthcare, it's, hands down, the best conference you'll ever go to. The sessions are always great, the people are always great, and I enjoyed it so much when I was CIO and even now that I'm with Divergent. What are some other things that you're passionate about outside of work?
Speaker 2:So I'm really excited to give back to our hospital foundation. So it is outside of work, but it is related to work in a way, but it's more about supporting our community. So, as I had just talked about, the foundation was where I got my scholarship to go back to school. I went to William Jewel College here in Liberty got my bachelor's degree in nursing. Okay, you know, at the time I didn't have the resources to go back to school. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. You know I was a mom, two kids married, lots of things going on. You, you put a lot of things in the way. So for me, the foundation is something that I have been trying to give back any opportunity that I can if I whether it's volunteering or attending Events or bidding on things that I have no business bidding on just to give them some more money.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm now Actually just was voted onto their advisory board, so I get to do a year on that and then eventually will become an official board member where I get to help Guide the foundation and hopefully give others like myself opportunities and scholarships and, you know, any anything that I can do to give back. So I'm just very excited to be a part of that and now to be able to contribute even further.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, I feel the same way with my nonprofit and just it's now time to give back. And how do we help? You know, other women rise up to leadership roles, and so that's that's awesome that you have time to do that now. What can you tell us about Liberty liberty as it is now, and how you are standalone a hospital and your strategic initiatives moving forward for the organization?
Speaker 2:So we just dropped a big one recently. We are standalone hospital, currently 204 bed acute hospital just north of Kansas City, missouri, and We've got 15 clinics. We have a great provider group. We have a fantastic board and we have an amazing leadership team and I'm really excited that. You know, liberty, we're going on 50 years. I think next year is going to be our 50th year and Our area is growing at just a rapid pace. So we there are a lot of things that we want to do as an organization to keep providing care and to expand on the care that we can provide for our community. So we actually just Announced that we are going to be looking for a strategic partner for our our health system. We want to look for somebody who's out there who can partner with us, who can help us achieve the goals that we have to take care of our community and, you know, make sure that we are still here in another 50 years taking care of the community. That's awesome. It's very exciting.
Speaker 1:So you've done lots of things in your career, gretchen, and Moved your way up the ranks to become a VP of IT. What are you doing to help other women rise up? In your area that is known to be male heavy.
Speaker 2:It is. I actually was just having this conversation with my daughter last night about how we can support women and build each other up and I think I want to serve as a mentor, you know, to others. So anything that I can do to be a mentor there are a few that are on my team here that I try to. You know I try to reach out to all of them, but if there's anything that they need for me growth opportunities, questions, anything that I can share with them I try to do that. I think it's important that we talk about those things that are real. You know we are in a male dominated field and and me I'm a health care worker. You know, in a in a male dominated field where we're not all health care workers. So I think I said I should say clinician. We are all health care workers, but how can we give back to those is is Sharing our stories. You know, how did I grow, how did I get to where I'm at? Share the failures, anything that I, you know, what have I done that I failed at that I can share and how I learned from those failures. Talking about real things like imposter syndrome, I mean, when I took this role. The imposter syndrome was just so real. Like what am I doing here? What am I doing here, sitting in this seat? So being able to have those real, live conversations with people and to know that, okay, she looks confident on the outside, but she's felt that way too much. And it's okay to feel that way.
Speaker 2:And you know, push for things that we believe in, fight for those things that you know. You know, if something feels wrong, fight for it and demonstrate that to others. You know, if I I've got to walk the walk and I've got to talk the talk, right, I have to do what I want my daughter to be someday. I want to demonstrate those, those traits, those characters, those characteristics. You know I'm not, I'm not bossy, I'm just the boss, right? Those are those things that we hear. It is women and trying to let go of those stereotypes and just, you know, we're all in this together. It shouldn't matter that we're a male or a female, we're all in the role, we're all here for the patients, we're all here for the right thing. So, you know, anything that I can do to give back is what I would like to do going forward, help to mentor those.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, I have two girls as well, and so raising them to be strong in this sort of rough world is very important to me. It is. And making sure they're set up with the tools to you know be successful.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so you've done lots of stuff. I can't wait to see where you're going. I can't wait to meet you in person at Chime in November. Yes, yes, I will be there and follow you know your organization's strategic initiatives and see where that goes. I have one last question before we end, and I would really like to know what you see as your superpower.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I would have to say empathy is my superpower. I think being able to understand others and what they're going through and be authentic in that goes back to being at the bedside as a NICU nurse. I mean working with new families in their most vulnerable times and truly understanding what they're going through, hearing them and helping them through it. I think that transitions well into my role today as VP of IT here at Liberty, in that I have to build relationships with people, having those positive relationships.
Speaker 2:Empathy is key. Me being able to develop a relationship, whether it's, you know, to my fellow leaders, to our physician group, our nurses, you know, hearing from end users out on the floor and understanding the pains that they're going through and then what can I do to make it better. I think building those relationships and being authentic and understanding what they're going through I think it's key to the reason that I'm in this role today, because obviously I'm not a tech wizard. That's not my specialty. You know, I am a caregiver. I am here to take care of patients and I'm here to do what's best for the greater good. So I would have to say empathy definitely.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for your time today and, like I said, I look forward to meeting you in person at Chime. Thank you, I appreciate you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for tuning into the Verge podcast brought to you by Divergent, a leading healthcare IT consulting firm. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the follow button to stay up to date with the latest IT developments and the exciting ways tech is transforming healthcare today.