Day24: Where Healthcare Meets Exponential Innovation
Day24: Where Healthcare Meets Exponential Innovation is a podcast that delves into the transformative moment in healthcare, represented by a metaphor on the 24th day of peaceful walks at Radnor Lake in Nashville.
Imagine Radnor Lake, an eighty-five square acre lake, tranquil and vast, where lily pads begin to grow, each only one square inch in size. On the first day, there’s just one lily pad, seemingly insignificant on such a large body of water. But each day, the lily pads double, steadily covering more of the lake’s surface. By Day 24, the pads have grown to cover just 1% of the lake—a small, but noticeable change that hints at the scale of what’s to come. However, in the next few days, the exponential growth becomes dramatic. By Day 30, Radnor Lake is completely covered, having surged from 1% to full coverage in a relatively short period.
This exponential growth, deceptively slow at first, reaches a tipping point where it accelerates rapidly, a powerful analogy for the healthcare innovations emerging today. Just as Radnor Lake’s transformation seemed gradual until the final days, so too does the impact of biotechnology, AI, genomic sequencing, device platforms, emerging datasets, and the invention of other transformative technologies, which, though seemingly incremental, are now poised to reshape the healthcare landscape at a pace few can anticipate, yet alone understand.
Each episode will explore how these exponential innovations are addressing urgent healthcare challenges—from rising costs and limited access to workforce shortages and an aging population. Host Eric Thrailkill, a longtime leader in healthcare technology and innovation, brings his wealth of knowledge and insight to guide conversations on these pivotal developments.
As these innovations continue to scale and accelerate, "Day24" brings together experts who are not only shaping the future of healthcare but are also focused on deploying solutions that make a tangible impact. Guests from diverse fields will share their perspectives on how we can harness the rapid pace of change to ensure these advancements are both effective and sustainable. They’ll discuss the complexities of implementing new technologies within existing healthcare systems, regulatory impacts, transformative business models, and the importance of aligning innovation with real-world needs. Listeners will gain insight into the strategic, operational, and ethical considerations that come with exponential growth and the methods by which leaders are striving to measure success beyond traditional metrics, emphasizing improvements in patient outcomes and cost control.
"Day24" is not only about exploring innovation but also about defining what meaningful progress looks like in an industry facing seismic shifts. By emphasizing equal measures of health outcome improvement and cost containment, the podcast is committed to reshaping how success is defined in healthcare. Through compelling conversations, Eric and his guests will illuminate paths to scale these groundbreaking solutions, sharing how visionary ideas can transition from pilot projects to widespread practice. With "Day24," listeners are invited to join the journey at a time when exponential innovation is not just a concept but an active force reshaping healthcare for the better.
Please remember to rate and review this podcast, wherever you obtain your favorite podcasts, and thanks to all of you for tuning in.
Day24: Where Healthcare Meets Exponential Innovation
10 - Nurse Innovation with Dr. Bonnie Clipper
In this episode of Day24: Where Healthcare Meets Exponential Innovation, host Eric Thrailkill sits down with Dr. Bonnie Clipper—nurse leader, author, and founder of Innovation Advantage. Recorded at HLTH Europe in Amsterdam, Bonnie reflects on her journey from bedside nurse to Chief Nursing Officer to VP of Innovation at the American Nurses Association. She shares how virtual nursing has evolved post-pandemic, how her team empowers hospitals to launch sustainable virtual care programs, and why nurse-led innovation is critical to the future of healthcare. Bonnie also offers sharp insights into AI, trust, and what startups must get right to make a real impact.
Please be sure to rate and review Day24: Where Healthcare Meets Exponential Innovation wherever you received your podcasts!
thanks for joining the Day 24 podcast
Bonnie Clipper:it's always great to be with you, Eric.
Eric Thrailkill:A couple of thoughts on Amsterdam. A beautiful weather. The folks here feel like it's hot, but it's. Mid seventies.
Bonnie Clipper:It's gorgeous weather. It's a lovely city. There's amazing people here. Love Amsterdam.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. Fantastic. You've got a brilliant career as a, as an educator, as an advisor, and really leading innovation for organizations today. And we'll dive in a little bit of that, but give us a little bit of your early background, educational background, and then early career into nursing. And then we're gonna touch on the a NA and nurse innovation.
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, I absolutely be happy to do that. I'm a nurse by background, as you said. I am doctorally prepared in executive leadership from Texas Tech University. I have had an incredible journey as a nurse. Spent several years providing direct patient care, moved into some leadership positions. Was a chief nursing officer for over 21 years. And then had the amazing opportunity 21 years. Yes. As
Eric Thrailkill:a CNO.
Bonnie Clipper:Let's not say that out loud again, Eric. But it's a long time.
Eric Thrailkill:I've been in the industry over 40, so if that's You get it. You. You're young. Yes, you're young.
Bonnie Clipper:And I had the amazing opportunity to become a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse fellow, which was just an incredible chance to really meet with. The, just the most top-notch, amazing people in healthcare, in nursing. And as part of that, we had to choose a topic that we could be able to contribute to for the rest of our careers through speaking, publishing other contributions. So at the time, this was 2014 to 16, and I decided to dive into innovation. And in Nurse World, that was a new concept. It was not commonly talked about. People didn't know what it was, why you would use it, how you would use it. So really connected with four other colleagues that were Robert Wood Johnson Fellows. And we wrote a seminal white paper the Innovation Roadmap, A Guide for Nurse Leaders that's been downloaded. Hundreds of thousands of times. And that set me up for an incredible opportunity to be recruited to be the first vice president of innovation at the American Nurses Association.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. Fantastic. And what year was that?
Bonnie Clipper:You're testing my memory. I was at the A and a 17 to 19.
Eric Thrailkill:17 to 19. Okay. So reflecting a little bit back at that time. So EHRs High Tech Act meaningful use deployment. Of electronic health records, price, transparency, interoperability, all of this is occurring. And nurses is it fair to say we're. Maybe not as involved as they should have been or
Bonnie Clipper:left behind for the large part. At that time, we really thought innovation had a lot to do around the EHR,
Eric Thrailkill:right?
Bonnie Clipper:Nurses were not necessarily educated on what innovation was, how it would benefit them, why they should be involved, nor were they included. So it took several years. And we continue in nursing. I think there's a really solid core there were probably at that time just 3, 4, 5 of us that started the innovation bandwagon and in nursing, and now I'm super proud to say there are tons. Hundreds now that are really talking about innovation and nursing, and that means a million different things. So a lot of opportunities have come out of that, and I think we're starting to see nursing innovation thrive in the ecosystem of healthcare innovation.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. Safe to say pandemic related activities brought a lot of virtual technology and including virtual nursing. How would you. Say that originated some of those tools, technologies that really made a difference during that short time period and gaining momentum post pandemic and to really recognizing that virtual nursing is a, is a key contributor to value across a number of different front.
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, I think the. The pandemic did a couple of things. Certainly in Nurse World. It's still incredibly sad that we actually lost caregivers, physicians, nurses, other clinicians that literally gave their lives. During the pandemic, we also learned the benefit of nurses, and I think it allowed us finally to see around the world how nurses contribute very solidly as the largest. Part of the workforce in healthcare, what nurses do and why they're so crucial to a successful healthcare ecosystem. As a result of that, we also learned because we were forced, that care could be provided. Or virtually in, in many ways to many patients.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. Not only inpatient, but
Bonnie Clipper:outpatient at home clinics, practices at home. We learned a whole lot and as a result of that, it was really a springboard for what we are seeing today in terms of how virtual nursing is continuing to evolve. Yeah.
Eric Thrailkill:And. Today take me through a little bit of your, the origin of Innovation Advantage, your organization and working with making an assumption here of both enterprise organizations as well as early stage. Innovators with bringing tools and technology to the industry?
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, we do a couple different things at Innovation Advantage. We work with different hospitals and healthcare systems as well as a healthcare consortium and to help them really. Think through their approaches to different problems that they're trying to solve. So whether it's trying to figure out how can they onboard three or 400 nurse residents as opposed to the hundred they're used to onboarding. We've done some really cool work in that space. We also do nurse leadership. Coaching to really help improve the overall individual performance with the goal of proving the hospital performance on quality, safety, financial outcomes, whatever they may be. The other part of what we do is I created the virtual nursing academy, and that's where we work with hospitals and health systems that educate and enable them to build, launch, and optimize a virtual care program. So we don't sell the technology, we're Switzerland. Doesn't matter to us what you use. The principles are generally the same. We've now worked with 30 hospitals and health systems and we see patterns and trends, and we've been able to capitalize on that so that we've created a playbook where we can help hospitals build their care model. It's up to them to identify what technology they wanna use to decide how they want to use it, but we can share with them what we've seen work and what doesn't. Work quite as well.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. That's amazing. And my guess is we're learning, we're still continuing to learn what does work well and on the front end of some of those engagements, is there an assessment of what's in place today? And maybe aligning that with the values of the of the organization. Yeah. To. Get them to be where they need to be or where they want to be.
Bonnie Clipper:There, there is, and that's, we teach people how to fish, so we teach them what they should be looking for, how they can identify the gaps and how to work to build those gaps, fill them in their own organization. We don't do the work for them. We teach them how to do the work because we want to make sure that after they're done. With us, they can continue to do it, iterate and improve it on their own. Otherwise, all we've done is build a dependency and we didn't wanna do that. We wanted to teach them how to do it and how to be successful so they could continue to iterate and decide what are the use cases? How should they build their business case? What should they be looking for? How are they gonna develop a communication plan? How are they gonna govern this structure? What are the outcomes they should be measuring? So we help them with those decisions and create their own program.
Eric Thrailkill:Education, recruitment, retention, tomorrow's nurses that are graduating today, give us let's zoom out for a little bit. How would you describe the state of, let's call it us first nursing today? And I'm assuming some of your clients could be European, or are they mostly domestic?
Bonnie Clipper:Today they're mostly domestic, although as I've had more and more conversations here, certainly even talk to a hospital, CEO in another country, there is a lot of interest in deploying virtual nursing.
Eric Thrailkill:Similar challenges. I'm assuming
Bonnie Clipper:workforce and costs are typically the top. Yeah. Aging
Eric Thrailkill:populations. Yep. Shortage.
Bonnie Clipper:Yep. Yeah, so I, I think that there are gonna be more and more similarities. For us, really, it's trying to show people what are the benefits and how can they go about creating their own program, their own care model in their organization, and do what's right for them. We know there was a study published last fall, so we know 75% of hospitals in the US are exploring virtual nursing. Of those 75. 30% of chief nursing officers self-reported, they're not sure how to start.
Eric Thrailkill:Wow, okay. Gosh.
Bonnie Clipper:So those are typically the people that reach out to us. They say, Hey, we're super interested, or Hey, we just spent millions of dollars and bought a system. Could you help us make sure it sticks and it works the way we think? It will
Eric Thrailkill:put together all the processes and Yeah. And get those investments. Is it, are those. Tools and technologies first, a financial ROI are they a work way of life? Are they an improvement in quality and patient safety? As a goal with those virtual nursing tools or how do most organizations assess? We're gonna make this investment in people, process and technology and our return will be measured by X.
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, there's a whole lot of, it depends in there. Of course, organizations that spend multi-millions of dollars want to see a financial return in hard dollars, typically speaking because there are such a diverse variation across different vendor platforms, we see it in a variety of different ways. It, in my opinion, the most clean cut and easiest way to see a true ROI is to go for. Things like virtual observers or virtual sitters, right? Because if you can reduce your. Sitter labor and reduce your falls. That's a clean ROI. It's less clean on some of the other ways to implement virtual nursing. Although we are seeing it, we are seeing more and more evidence around the country of reducing end of shift overtime. That's real money. Interesting. We are seeing nurses being able to take their lunch, their meal, their breaks. And that means that they are not only able to sit and eat, which is amazing as everyone should. We are also seeing that there is a financial impact to that as well. On the outcome side, again, we're seeing trends around the country reductions in, like to stay reductions in readmissions. Certainly improvements in some of those safety bundles from a patient care perspective reductions in pressure injuries. So I think it really depends in terms of what you're looking for. We are seeing improvements in retention and reductions in burnout and turnover as a result of assistance with documentation. So it depends how the organization is implementing it.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. I think a lot about care transition and as care moves to a lower side of service, including the home is care moved from treatment to health, that there's this new oppor, maybe not new opportunity, but additional value into where care is delivered. Regardless and consistency of that, but that care transition that you talked about would be a key key objective for most organizations.
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah. And what's incredible is that we continue to see, in the couple of years we've been doing this. We really encourage organizations not to focus just on virtual nursing, but rather virtual care, whether it's across the continuum, inpatient, outpatient, home care, wherever it may be. And we continue almost every other month, there's a new clinician role in the virtual care world. So we have technology that allows virtual respiratory therapists to help wean patients that are intubated. We are seeing virtual. Case managers, care coordinators, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, unlicensed personnel. We are seeing all kinds of virtual care roles emerge. Pt, ot, speech, nutrition, chaplains
Eric Thrailkill:that yeah, all very roles specific and niche specific. Specific where you can really leverage a lot of the technology that's being implemented
Bonnie Clipper:and it continues to grow.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Talk a little bit about trust today. So I think all of us realize trust in the healthcare system has had a shock over the last few years. It's been widely viewed by the public that they generally trust their physicians and nurses, but trust in the process, trust in the cost of care, trust in some of the administrative and scheduling. Complexities is has impacted a lot of people's lives. How do you think about nurses today in a very complex environment with a lot of change, with some uncertainty and some headwinds facing the organizations that they work with? Think about trust in their peers and physicians in the system and with patients.
Bonnie Clipper:We've seen for, gosh, 20 plus. Some years that nurses remain the most trusted profession. So I think we know from a nursing perspective, we need to utilize our role as advocates, ambassadors, influencers caregivers, care providers, whatever you might call it. We have to use that wisely and not erode that trust, but continue to build upon that trust. At the same time, we live in a world that. There's so much misinformation everywhere. We are trying to work with patients and their families to help them understand how to avoid the misinformation and in fact focus on science and data and facts and not be swept into mainstream influencers that are. Yeah. Not advocating for patients, but rather pushing other agendas.
Eric Thrailkill:Significant conflicts of interest are emerging. Let's talk a little bit about technology. The tech associated with remote monitoring. The ability to have a device or a monitor provide real time feedback. And then leverage ai, whether it's predictive analytics and maybe some of the newer generative tools is a fairly new addition. Within the industry it's several years old and some of the devices, but they're improving. The cost is being reduced. More people are using them, more organizations are prescribing them. How do you think about this? Advancing technology and where care is provided in the intersection of these devices and data with the care that's being provided by nurses.
Bonnie Clipper:It I see AI evolving very rapidly. It's also just a tool, right? So it helps nurses, physicians, other clinicians, provide the care that they provide faster, smarter, safer, more efficiently. But it's a tool, so it's. Technology enabled care. It's care that we can provide utilizing technology that helps us do it better. The technology isn't touching patients, it isn't having conversations, it isn't caring for, my mother, your child. It still takes a human in the equation to, to do this. And I don't see in the next. Several years that we are going to have robot nurses, right? There's nothing out there that makes me believe that I do not see it as a replacement in any way, shape, or form in my line of sight right now. I think it's gonna be incredibly important that we keep the humans in the loop and it's the people that will continue to be that direct link to provide care to patients and their families.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. No, I totally agree. And do you think some of these tools are beneficial? To nurse leaders with better information and maybe some, again, some predictive capabilities.
Bonnie Clipper:Yes, of course and certainly things that allow us to synthesize data and make our lives easier. I think there's a lot of stuff out there to be aware of and some of it is just not good. A common conversation I have and a pushback I have with companies when they wanna show me their latest and greatest AI nurse. There is no such thing that does not exist. The term nurse refers to a human being. We are specifically trained and licensed. There is not an AI nurse. There are tools that support nurses that make our lives easier. And some of those, are here today. And I think that where the opportunities exist to help us synthesize. Patient records charts, read through things, and literally give us a quick summary of what's going on with the patient and maybe, hey, over the last couple of days, this med's been missed, or This lab is high, you should check on this. That helps us critically think and turn into better clinicians, better nurses, that I absolutely welcome the help.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. I'm really high on some of the summarization tools with. PDFs and documents and in and out of locations, and the ability to really bring to a clinician's point of view at the time that they needed the information that they need. As we are wrapping up here I know you advised some early stage companies and some startups. And gaining traction or frankly just gaining attention, but some of the enterprise organizations today, I, I know firsthand from my perspective that this is also challenging today. What would, how would you advise those that are doing the innovating and that are building businesses and leveraging technologies, including AI and healthcare?
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, really look for the unique problem that you're trying to solve. Get the input of nurses, physicians, other clinicians upfront. I cannot tell you how many companies want to come to me and show me their thing. I say no to probably nine and a half outta 10. There's a lot of junk out there. There's a lot of, hey, there are 29 of these that already exist, but ours is really better. I don't, I'm, I don't believe it. I've not seen that be the case. So I think it's really about being very specific about the problem you're trying to solve. Things that do have a clinician perspective included from day one. Some of those are incredible technologies. There's a lot of stuff, even things here that have been designed and not really pulled in the clinician perspective. So when you push on some of the pain points or ask them questions about what about this or signing in and back out of my other thing and back into this thing those sometimes are not issues that, designers or even vendors have thought of. They just said, oh, somebody, you'll have to sign into this. You can't have a nurse or a physician sign into three and four things or 10 things on a shift. It's not gonna happen. And that means it won't be used.
Eric Thrailkill:It's just a non-starter at that level. Do you see the role of physician leaders, a chief nursing officers, those that are innovating at the enterprise level, being open to really articulate some of the challenges that they have and. And work with those that are innovating on the startup side by helping with some of that identification, some of that problem identification.
Bonnie Clipper:I think it really does depend on the system and how well resourced the system is. It's such a dynamic healthcare environment. There's a lot going on in the reimbursement, the resource front, right? That some organizations are literally just focused on how are they going to reduce costs? How are they going to fill their shifts? How are they going to hire enough nurses? How are they gonna keep their physicians? There's a lot of day-to-day strategy that oftentimes rises into the number one position, and that means that they're not able to spend as much thinking time on what are tomorrow or next year's issues, and how might we find a partner and innovate through that. I have the great pleasure to work with CNOs around the country, and so many of them literally are just continuing to focus on the big issues, which quite often are, workforce. Yeah. And meeting budget and productivity goals.
Eric Thrailkill:Yeah. So these day-to-day operational challenges, a little bit of policy uncertainty regarding reimbursement in the us and perhaps here as well. Staffing requirements recruitment, retention, et cetera. Require significant management time and that small amount of time that, that maybe existed at one point in time or could exist again in the future is is highly valued.
Bonnie Clipper:And also I would add to that, Eric, that I think we are seeing more than ever the bar is being raised higher and higher for what is the return on investment for any investment in technology. So prove to me in advance. How much money you're going to save if we buy this thing. So I think we continue to see that bubble up over and over again.
Eric Thrailkill:No that's fantastic. Hey, you've been great, generous with your time. Where can listeners of day 24. Reach Bonnie Clipper.
Bonnie Clipper:Yeah, feel free to reach me on LinkedIn. I am, I'm a top global nurse influencer, so I'm always happy to reply back to people, but you can find me out there on LinkedIn.
Eric Thrailkill:That's awesome. Okay. Thanks for your time, Bonnie. It's a pleasure. Thanks. Safe travels back. Okay.
Bye-Bye.
.png)
