Becker's Hospital Review

60 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP POPULATION HEALTH Nation's 1st telehealth chair on changing culture By Georgina Gonzalez S arah Rush, MD, serves as the chief medical information officer of Akron (Ohio) Children's Hospital, and in May 2020, she became what is believed to be the first endowed chair of telehealth in the nation. She spoke to Becker's about the creation of the role and what it has meant for the hospital. e chair position, made possible by a $1 mil- lion donation from philanthropist Marci Mat- thews, was spurred by the telehealth boom brought on by the pandemic. In 2019, Akron Children's had just 275 telehealth appoint- ments, but in 2020 had completed over 55,000 virtual visits. Also, in spite of the general na- tional decline in telehealth usage, Akron com- pleted around 45,000 telehealth visits in 2021. Despite the hospital's previous efforts to in- tegrate telehealth into behavioral and emer- gency department care, Dr. Rush said it was the pandemic that caused the change. "I think, conceptually, people had not been able to really wrap their brains around what telehealth could do," she said. "I think organi- cally through the process of doing and seeing and both sides of it, the providers learning how to do it, the patient learning how to do it, it just sort of naturally happened. Now I think it's become really ingrained in a way that I don't think it would have had we not been put into that situation of having to do it." e creation of the role freed up funding and allowed Dr. Rush to concentrate her efforts into developing telehealth programs. "Using these funds to help put devices into places where patients could get to has really been important and putting in that technology infrastructure to allow it to happen," she said. Importantly, the creation and subsequent au- thority of her position encouraged the hospi- tal to embrace telehealth. "It was being an ambassador and champion, to help change the culture of how we think about it and how we use it and what are the areas where we can start to do better with it to improve quality of care and also value," she told Becker's. "I think this is my own per- sonal opinion, is that this vertical hierarchy of medicine where the physician stays at the very top, needs to look different. I think we'll do better and provide a different kind of care that reaches the right people at the right time with what they actually need." With Dr. Rush's leadership, the hospital was able to grow its primary care platform with the goal of reducing emergency department visits by connecting patients to their own pe- diatrician quickly. Its behavioral health team was also able to connect across the Ohio re- gion, and Akron was also able to integrate nurses into schools in the region, connecting them to students virtually. Looking forward, Dr. Rush is prioritizing health equity and access to care regarding telehealth. "I don't think there's ever going to be an abso- lute substitution for an in-person visit in all cases, but I think there's tons of opportunities that we're missing currently, where we can use technology to reach people and stay con- nected. I think that's really been the key to all this, making healthcare convenient because the more convenient it is, the more likely we are to seek it." n Dignity Health St. Mary CEO honored with African American Heritage Award By Georgina Gonzalez C arolyn Caldwell, president and CEO of Long Beach, Ca- lif.-based Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center, has been awarded the 2022 African American Heritage Award. Ms. Caldwell's work in advocating for underrepresented commu- nities and her action-based strategies in aligning business results with these communities helped her win the honor, according to a March 1 news release shared with Becker's. She received the award at the Aquarium of the Pacific's African American Festival and was nominated by the president of the Long Beach Branch of the NAACP. "I would like to thank the Aquarium of the Pacific's leadership and nominating committee for this honor. I am humbled to re- ceive this prestigious award, which was previously given to two board members of St. Mary Medical Center — Dr. Minnie Douglas and Dr. Felton Williams. It is an honor to be in amazing company among these outstanding individuals," Ms. Caldwell said in the release. "As an African American leader in our community with a science background, it is my hope that I can be an example for young people who are interested in pursuing these roles." n Younger women dropped participation in February workforce By Georgina Gonzalez F or the first time in five months, women's par- ticipation in the workforce dropped, particu- larly for younger women, Bloomberg report- ed March 4. Labor force participation for women between 25- 54 saw a decrease to 75.8 percent, compared to a large increase for the same age of men to 88.8 percent. Around 48,000 women over 20 left the labor force in February according to the National Women's Law Center. Black women and Asian women led the drop out of the workforce, whereas white women saw an increase and Hispanic women's participation was unchanged. The results from February may signal issues with childcare. n

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