October 15, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode of the MGMA Insights Podcast, host Daniel Williams, Senior Editor at MGMA, interviews Sean Nguyen, MHA, the 2025 Harwick Innovation Award winner and System Director of the Interventional Pain Service Line at Ochsner Health.
Nguyen shares how his “One Reason for Visit” model revolutionized multidisciplinary care for patients with back pain by breaking down silos, improving patient access, and creating a coordinated, scalable system across a 45-hospital network. He also reflects on his Louisiana roots, how his experience with FEMA during Hurricane Katrina shaped his healthcare leadership, and how collaboration drives sustainable innovation.
Tune in to learn how Nguyen’s approach can help your practice enhance care coordination, streamline scheduling, and improve patient satisfaction — no matter your size or specialty.
Key Takeaways
[01:36] – Winning the Harwick Innovation Award
Sean shares the story behind receiving the Harwick Innovation Award and credits his Ochsner team’s collective effort in transforming care delivery.
[03:11] – About Ochsner Health’s System-Wide Reach
Sean provides an overview of Ochsner Health’s 45-hospital system, spanning Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, emphasizing the organization’s focus on innovation, collaboration, and excellence in care.
[05:40] – Roots in Louisiana and a Passion for Community
Growing up “down the bayou” in Houma, Louisiana, as the son of Vietnamese immigrants, Sean learned the value of family and community. After Hurricane Katrina, his work with FEMA in recovery and behavioral health inspired his career in healthcare leadership.
[11:22] – Breaking Down Silos in Patient Care
Nguyen explains how fragmented care for patients with back pain led to the development of the “One Reason for Visit” model — streamlining access and ensuring consistent triage regardless of specialty or location.
[15:46] – Implementation: Building Collaboration Across Systems
Sean details how his team partnered with Epic and clinical leaders to connect decision trees across specialties, standardize initial visits, and gain clinician buy-in through transparent communication and trust-building.
[20:45] – Buy-in, Measurable Results, and Patient Impact
The initiative reduced wait times, expanded same-day availability, and boosted patient satisfaction. Nguyen also notes culture change as one of the most meaningful outcomes, as teams embraced shared goals over silos.
[29:35] – Scaling the Model to Chronic Disease Management
Sean outlines opportunities to apply the “One Reason for Visit” framework to chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma, cancer, joint pain, and women’s health — emphasizing the need for both top-down and grassroots collaboration.
[34:13] – Innovation Through Teamwork
Drawing inspiration from his Avengers pin, Sean compares his multidisciplinary team to superheroes — each with unique strengths working together for patients’ benefit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:00):
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Podcast Network.
Today, we're back with anotherone of our MGMA award winners.
We're gonna be making a bigannouncement at our leaders
conference. It's gonna be inOrlando, September 28 through
October 1, and hope to get tosee you there.
(00:22):
So today, we are celebrating our2025 Harwick Innovation Award
winner, Sean Nguyen. Sean issystem director of the
interventional pain service lineat Ochsner Health. Sean has been
recognized for his leadership intransforming how
multidisciplinary care isdelivered across a large health
(00:45):
system and also breaking downsilos, improving patient access,
and creating a blueprint forcoordinated care. Sean and I
have had fun getting to knoweach other offline here, and
he's been helping me a littlebit with some innovation and
technology issues that I washaving with my computer. So with
(01:07):
all that said, Sean, welcome tothe podcast.
Sean Nguyen (01:11):
Thank you for having me.
Daniel Williams (01:13):
Yeah. It's so good to have you here, and I
wanna congratulate you again,for receiving the Harwick
Innovation Award. That is areally cool award that MGMA does
hand out to, an MGMA member eachyear. And, I've been asking all
the award winners, thisquestion. When you first learned
(01:35):
that you had won the award, whatwas that like to you?
Sean Nguyen (01:40):
Oh, goodness. I was in shock for probably a good six
hours and had just come off thetails of a really large report
out operating energy to oursenior executives in the system.
And so I honestly didn't thinkit was real. I got the voice
message, and it wasn't until thevery next day when I think, your
(02:02):
team emailed me about logistics,and I was like, okay. Now it's
real.
And I feel bad because I didn'tcall Rebecca back or anything.
And I was like, oh, this islegit. It's real. Yeah. I'm I'm
floored.
I'm I'm honored. I'm humbled. Itsucks that, you know, it also
just doesn't able to be includedfull group because none of this
(02:25):
was be possible without the fullteam support at Ochsner Health
in the different service lines,our physicians, my physician
partner, our APPs. There's somany people that are so worthy
of this award as well at OchsnerHealth across the entire
industry. Yeah, I would not behere without the support of
(02:46):
those many people as well.
And so, thank you for the shoutout. Thank you for, this as
well.
Daniel Williams (02:54):
Sean, thanks for sharing that with us. Let's
just break down a couple ofquestions about your background
and about your organization, andthen we'll get deeper into this
Hardwick Innovation Award andwhat went into you being
nominated and actually receivingthe award. So first of all,
(03:15):
let's just talk about OchOchsner Health first. Tell us
about that organization.Anything you might wanna share,
where it's located, the size andscope of it, anything else
relative to Ochsner Health.
Sean Nguyen (03:28):
Yeah. We're a, more than 45 hospital health system,
based out of New Orleans,Louisiana, but we span across
Louisiana, Mississippi, some inAlabama. We also have, 65 plus
clinics out along the Gulf Coasttowards The Carolinas as well.
And so very, very large healthsystem based out of New Orleans.
(03:53):
I serve as the interventionalpain service line leader.
And so I see myself as basicallythe internal glue everywhere
that we have interventional painservices, pain medicine, pain
management services. So we havemultiple clinics. We do pain
procedures both in clinics,hospitals, ASC type settings,
(04:14):
across more than half of thosecampuses across, all of our
areas. And so been with theorganization now, for, close to
seven, eight years, and I'vebeen having so much fun since.
It's been a wild ride.
Our health system really focuseson innovation, teamwork
(04:35):
excellence as well. So ourhealth system really is very
multifaceted. We have cancercare, we have primary care,
women's and children's, and allthe different specialties as
well. And so, yeah, the last sixyears in this role for me has
been really just being that glueamongst all of our campuses when
(04:57):
it comes to pain medicine. AndI've been having a wild ride
with it.
I think this particular project,that I was nominated for really
crosses and cuts through otherareas and specialties. So I'm
super excited about being,talking about it today and
sharing, what we've done atOptional Health as well.
Daniel Williams (05:19):
Yeah. That is wonderful. So thanks for sharing
that information. Let's get toknow you a little bit better,
and then we'll dig into, thisparticular, project that you
were nominated for. So are you aNew Orleans native, or how long
have you been in New Orleans?
Sean Nguyen (05:38):
I actually grew up down the Bayou in Hobo,
Louisiana. It's about an hourSouth Of New Orleans, and, yes,
there are places South Of NewOrleans. We are very much closer
to the Gulf Of Mexico and grewup there. I've been there most
of my life, elementary, middleand high school there and moved
(05:58):
to the big city of New afterKatrina. And so I grew up very
family oriented.
My parents immigrated over herefrom Vietnam during the war. And
and so having grown up inLouisiana, very, very well
rooted, crawfish boils on theweekends or oysters or always
(06:21):
big on seafood. But when Katrinahit, which we're actually coming
out to the twentieth yearanniversary since, hurricane
Katrina made landfall here,being so rooted in community and
being so rooted into people,when Katrina hit, FEMA came in
(06:43):
and were looking for, differentindividuals that had so much
community connections and knewhow to be able to leverage that
to disseminate resources andhelp out in any way. I had
barely just started college atthat time. And so I was able to,
you know, work with FEMA, beemployed by FEMA to be able to
(07:06):
help out with recovery effortsand help from a mental
behavioral health perspective,connecting resources, and and
and and helping stand upcommunities in some of these
FEMA trailer parks.
And so we talk about, like, youknow, a lot of people being
displaced due to the hurricane,but they were in these FEMA
(07:29):
trailer parks with no ability tobe have human connections or
being able to talk about theirgrief and impact. And so being a
part of the FEMA organizationand the recovery efforts, I was
just coming in to not onlydisseminate information and
resources, but create acommunity for people to feel
safe and feel connected in thoseareas. And so that was my first
(07:53):
true. Introduction into healthcare and into a public health
population health behavioralhealth perspective as well. And
so that was over twenty yearsago coming up and and and I've
been in health care in a form ofhealth care ever since.
(08:14):
And it's been a wild ride beinghere going from something so
recovery and disaster andtraumatic to now being in such a
large health system makingsystematic impacts and policy
changes and and and working withamazing individuals day in, day
out.
Daniel Williams (08:32):
That is remarkable. Alright. Well, thank
you so much for sharing that.Let's talk about that nomination
then. You clearly you weretelling us you're rooted in that
New Orleans area.
I've got a lot of family downthere and spend a lot of time
when I can to get down there andsee people and eat great food
(08:53):
and just have a lot of fun,listen to great music. So that
is a it really is so rooted incommunity. In fact, I just
wanted to share one thing beforewe get into that. When Katrina
did hit, I was already out in Iwas in California at the time. I
was trying to place myself thatI was in California at the time,
but I have a lot of familythat's in Mississippi and
(09:16):
Alabama, and so a lot of thosecousins stayed with family
members, like my direct familyeither, in Alabama or
Mississippi, and they stayed forquite a while, like several
weeks, maybe moving into monthsas well.
(09:37):
So that was where you see sawpeople really step up and open
up their homes for people. Andso were you displaced, or were
you at you were in the FEMA sideof it, so you were actually
helping, work there?
Sean Nguyen (09:50):
We were helping. I was helping. Our home got some
wind damage, but no flooding,thankfully. And so, we also have
a, convenience store, cornerstore. And so the power was out
for quite some time.
And Right. You were seeing these18 wheelers of of of people all
in the 18 wheelers just comingout, and we would flag them down
(10:12):
to stop them. And we didn't wantany of our our produce or stuff
to go bad or, our drinks andeverything. So we were just
giving things out, to people inneed as they were being,
transported out of the NewOrleans area. And so, again,
just helping out wherever we canand and being part of that.
And then from there, going downto the Civic Center in Houma, to
(10:37):
just play our part and do whatwe can to help out wherever we
can.
Daniel Williams (10:40):
Yeah. That is remarkable, and that is gonna be
a powerful moment there whenthat twentieth anniversary of
that tragedy is celebratedbecause I've I've again, I've
got a lot of family down there.I've got a lot of others who I
connect with and just to see thecity rebuild, both just from a
(11:04):
bricks and mortar side of it,but also just from a human
standpoint of just recoveringfrom that and pulling together.
So thank you so much for sharingthat part of it. So let's get
into that nomination now.
One of the things you werenominated for here, I wanna make
sure I get this right, that youwere highlighting how patients
with back pain often enter thesystem through different
(11:26):
specialties. It might be ortho,neuro, pain, PT, PM and R, all
these different places they canenter the system. And what you
identified was that can reallylead to fragmented care. So walk
us through what you saw, whatyou identified, and then some of
(11:47):
the other things you did to seechange in that way.
Sean Nguyen (11:52):
We've always had this, idea, and we've had a
bricks and mortars clinic, whatwe call back in spine, where
these specialties would sittogether, and see patients
together, collaborate together.I felt like ideally that's the
gold standard. But with so manypatients coming in for back
pain, I believe it's like one infive patients typically have
(12:16):
chronic back pain or back painissues. We know that patients
are all over the place gettinghaving back pain issues. But we
couldn't replicate having everysingle specialty in one clinic,
every single place acrossLouisiana, Mississippi, and what
(12:36):
have you.
And so how do you essentiallytake that gold standard and
apply it across multiple areas,whether it's down the Bayou, in
Holland, Raceland, whether it'sin Shreveport or large
metropolitan like Baton Rouge,New Orleans, Covington as well.
How do you scale that withoutbreaking the bank or creating,
(13:00):
more bricks and mortars or eventaking, our our highly
specialized neurosurgeons ororthopedic spine surgeons out of
being able to do major clinicand major procedure areas and
surgeries as well. And so wetried to figure out how to then
disseminate all of that care andbreak down silos by still being
(13:23):
able to work together, butmaximizing everybody's access
together and leveraging eachother. And so this idea of, oh,
you're coming in through ortho,you're only going to stay in
ortho, or you're coming inthrough pain medicine and only
staying in pain medicine. Whatwe did was kind of removed all
those barriers and said, youreally just need one reason for
(13:47):
a visit and then just line upall the specialists together.
So patients are not going toknow, I have a back pain, who do
I go to? You can technically goto every single one of those
specialties, but is it acomprehensive plan of care for
you? Same thing with like a rashon your skin. Do you go to a
(14:10):
dermatologist? Do you go to anurgent care?
Do you go to a pain doc just forpain? Do you go to an allergist
or an immunologist? How dopatients know who to go to and
how do they triage their ownissues? And you can't expect
that. And so on the system side,what we knew what we had to do
(14:31):
was create a singular reason fora visit and then line up all of
our specialists to be able toanswer that call.
I think lining them up was onlypart of the solution. We wanted
to make sure that initial visitfor that patient was the same
standard of care, no matterwhere they are and no matter
(14:54):
what specialty they're enteringthe system from. And so every
single clinician, regardless ofspecialty, should be able to
triage that patient in the sameway to get them addressing their
acute issues while still beingable to work them up to the
right specialists based on thatinitial assessment with that
(15:14):
patient. And so we weredefinitely looking at this from
a multifaceted perspective. AndI thought, first, let's get
everybody in the room and see ifthey agree.
And secondly, what systems andworkflows are patients
traditionally using that we canleverage that way and then make
(15:36):
it easy and seamless for themand for our clinicians at the
same time.
Daniel Williams (15:40):
Going further into this program, you
spearheaded something that y'allcalled, it's what we've been
talking about, but this onereason for visit approach for
spine care. And anybody thatworks in the business world and
and also in the health careworld, we know that there's a
tendency to wind up in silos.You know, we're I'm in this
(16:04):
group, and this is our silo, andthis is this silo over here. You
are able to really put togetherinfrastructure for teams to work
on this collaborative approachto making things work. Talk
about that, that really seeingand identifying this way to
approach it, one reason forvisit.
Talk about that, how it cameabout, and how it's had its
(16:27):
success.
Sean Nguyen (16:29):
Yeah. I looked at, we use decision trees when it
comes to scheduling, with eachof our specialties. And so each
specialty has, you know, areason for visit surrounding
back pain, back issues, spineissues. And so in orthopedics,
might be back, neck, spineissues. In neurosurgery, it
(16:52):
might be a surgical consult forback pain.
For pain medicine, it's backpain in general. And physical
therapy even, it might just bemobility issues. And so when I
knew that each of those servicelines or each of those
specialties had that reason forvisit, What I did was I worked
(17:17):
with our EPIC team, which is ourelectronic health record,
medical record system. Ouranalysts from there, our access
to care team, I said, is there away where we can connect all
those dots to one uniformdecision tree then based on what
(17:38):
those decision trees currentlyhave? There's like, yeah, you
technically do it.
It's never been done before withus. I said, let's try it. You
know? Yeah. But they're like,okay.
Well, you can connect thosedots, but how do you then fix
everything after that? And sothen it's like, to their credit,
it's like, Okay, well, I guess Ido need to get the clinicians
(17:59):
all on the same page as well.And so bringing in all the
clinicians together and said,clinically speaking, we do
operate differently. We all havedifferent modalities on how we
treat back pain. And we createsome sort of common ground, at
least for the initial visit.
If we're going to spearheadthis, if we're going to say then
(18:23):
patients are going to then justgo through one reason for visit,
will the care be the same if Ienter through ortho versus I
enter through neuro versus Ienter through PT? And so having
that one reason for visit reallygets the scheduling piece
(18:43):
cleaned up and gets the patientto then just the first available
based on their location andbased on their preferences, and
gives you a menu of cliniciansand specialties to the patients
on the forefront. But then oncethe patient selects the
(19:04):
available time that works forthem, the location that works
for them, and the specialists,it's the specialists that they
want or care for, based on thosethings, are they still getting
that holistic care or thatcomprehensive care that we
talked about, like having thatgold standard of having all
(19:26):
those specialties in the oneplace. And so our clinicians
helped with that perspective andguided us as the business
leaders, as the administrators,how to be able to standardize
that initial care by, again,addressing the acute issues
while then working up thepatients to the appropriate care
as well.
(19:46):
So multifaceted, so detailoriented. Getting the
infrastructure was absolutely abigger component, being able to
connect those decision trees,but then also the clinical
decision tree as well, makingsure then our clinicians felt
comfortable without stepping oneach other's toes on how to
(20:07):
respect each other's modalitiesand bringing together something
so comprehensive on the clinicalaspect for that initial visit as
well. It's definitely stillalways a work in progress, but
seeing those two things cometogether and keeping it simple
for our patients, getting thepatients to the right care,
right place, right time. Ourservice line CEO, Dawn PV talks
(20:30):
about making sure that we havethat appropriate care no matter
where they are. If it's just NewOrleans, if it's in the rural
side of Louisiana, if it's inanother city or town, even if
they don't have neurosurgeryservices that only have pain
services, how do we still havethat same high level quality of
(20:51):
care no matter where we are atthe right place at the right
time for our patients?
Daniel Williams (20:56):
Yeah. How in the world did you get buy in?
You know, people are in theirsilos. They have a way that,
hey. This works.
It may be Yeah. Frustrating. Itmay be challenging, but we've
been doing it this way forever,and it works. So, Sean, why in
the heck are you trying to getus to do it this new way? So
(21:18):
what was the buy in like?
Because our listeners areprobably going, it sounds good,
but my group wouldn't do this.So
Sean Nguyen (21:25):
Oh, trust me. There's definitely like, there's
differences among specialties,and then there's differences
amongst the locations and theregions and, like, the flavor
from from one corner ofLouisiana to the other corner of
Louisiana to the one corner ofMississippi as well. Absolutely.
It took a lot of interactions, alot of conversations, a lot of
(21:51):
it took over two years of justshaking hands, getting to know
people. I I that is also myapproach when it comes to making
any impactful change is to getin person, connect the dots, get
to know people, and understandthe why behind everything.
I think most of our ourphysicians, our APPs, anybody in
(22:15):
health care can get behind thewhy, because it's for the
betterment of our patients.Right? And and so getting behind
the why was easy, but, buildingthe trust, that this is the
right thing to do for ourpatient and this is how we're
we're gonna make it happen, Ithink that absolutely took a lot
longer. And giving thereassurances that was necessary.
(22:39):
During that entire tour ofgetting in front of people,
getting connected with ourclinicians and our teams and the
clinics and procedure areas.
I was picking up a lot moreinformation, lot more nuggets to
polish some of those processes,to polish and be more empathic
(22:59):
and considerate of things thatwere laid out in certain regions
that were did not apply in otherregions. And so how do you take
all those things intoconsideration? Absolutely. It's
not perfect. It's never going tobe a 100% perfect, but the more
centered we get or close tocentered that we can get people
(23:20):
on the same page, I think theresults of that really do
benefit the patients and ourteams more so than where we are
or where we were previously.
And so we're not all on the samepage, but we are absolutely much
closer to center than we havebeen previously. The patients
get to win at the end of the dayfor that. Yeah. And and so a lot
(23:45):
of handshaking, a lot of justgetting in front of people and
and talking through, the nuancesof that and getting the team
also there with me. And so thatbuy in started off small and
eventually became more of aripple effect that got more
people in on it and then winningover early adopters and
(24:06):
champions of certain areas aswell, and using that grassroots
approach of being able to makechange impactfully.
My personal philosophy when itcomes to change, when it comes
to operations and management hasalways been using a public
health perspective of like thatsociological model. Absolutely,
(24:30):
I wanna change patients, but ifI cannot impact their family or
in this case, if I can't, if Ican change the clinicians, but I
can't change the unit ordepartment or the clinic to get
on board, then that change won'tbe reinforced outside of the
clinic and the unit, then is thecampus on the same page? And
(24:53):
then across this campus is thesystem on the same page? Do we
have policies that reinforce thethings that we're trying to
build? And so it was verymultifaceted from that
perspective and making sure thatwe have reinforcements on every
single level to truly makesystematic change that
reinforces this change on everysingle level.
(25:14):
Using that socio ecologicalmodel was really what was part
of my blueprint in getsustaining this change as well.
Outside of communication,outside of building the trash
trust, outside of being able totalk through it and getting all
those infrastructures in place,we wanted to make sure that
(25:34):
every single level wasreinforced for this change, to
make sustainable changes andlasting end changes.
Daniel Williams (25:42):
Yeah. And it took a lot of work. It took a
lot of empathy. It took a lotof, you know, transparent
communication, it sounds like,to get that buy in. But once you
got it, what I'm seeing from thenomination is that now you have
proof of concept because in thenomination, it says, because of
(26:04):
this initiative, patientsatisfaction increased, wait
times have decreased, same dayavailability is more accessible.
So you can take that to otherdepartments or to other
initiatives moving forward togo, hey. When we get this buy
in, when we're working togetherin this way, these, metrics,
(26:27):
have all improved, of thosemetrics, of those measurables,
what's the one that stood out toyou the most?
Sean Nguyen (26:34):
I still get the occasional calls from either
physicians or team members insome of the other parts of
Louisiana, Mississippi. Hey, Icalled and the patient got an
availability tomorrow, eventhough they were looking for
orthopedic spine, neurosurgerywas available or pain medicine
(26:56):
was available to see me tomorrowas well, and I got seen, that
next day availability, theability to still see the
patient, close to their home orclose to where they work, to
give them that option, I thinkthat has been at least
reinforcing for me, that it'sworking as well. Yes, the
(27:18):
metrics are all there as well,and we're absolutely getting
those metrics in and, thatreinforcement, but still being
able to get a phone call fromone of our clinicians and the
team to hear back about how thisis working or how there's still
opportunities for improvementmeans they're still buying on
this. And that for me is my ownpersonal satisfaction in all
(27:41):
this as well. I know again,statistically, that most
patients that come in with backpain, maybe two out of the ten
are going to be surgical casesthat get escalated to that
availability.
And then our payers already, alot of insurance companies are
(28:02):
already allowing direct accessfor physical therapy. So
patients don't know, oh, I am inback pain. I actually can go to
physical therapy first and getcare from a conservative therapy
perspective. And they should,you know? So building that into
the decision tree is a, again,changing culture and also
(28:23):
educating our patientpopulations that it's okay.
We all are all the same people,same team trying to treat for
the same things, and we're hereto support you and be able to
make it easy for you as well.That has been one of the biggest
results in all this is the slowculture change for me that
stands out for me through thework that we've done. To your
(28:46):
point, absolutely. I can seethis being applied for diabetic
care, where endocrine, GI,primary care, even our pain
team, our neurology team, allworking together around diabetic
care a lot more seamlessly andeven physical therapy as well.
(29:06):
Working all in tandem arounddiabetic care, hypertension, put
all the cardio team with primarycare and others together, taking
our major chronic diseasesacross multiple areas, making
slow impacts in those areas byhaving more of a concert of
(29:27):
specialties and primary careteams working a lot more in
unison and harnessing thesystemness of coordinated care.
I think that is absolutely a lotof what our private practice
teams are doing, but to be ableto scale that, it's going to be
harder for our private practicegroups to be able to do that.
(29:48):
And so being in a health system,you get to leverage that
footprint a lot bigger as well.And so taking a page from them,
I think was something that wecan learn from each other
constantly, whether you're in alarge health system, whether
you're a mom and pop clinicbased care as well. I think we
can absolutely leverage andlearn from each other
(30:09):
constantly.
Daniel Williams (30:11):
Okay. So you alluded to it, and I brought it
up as well. This is somethingthis is a model that can be
adopted across the system. Youidentified, diabetic situations.
There's also asthma, joint pain,women's health, cancer services,
and other services as well.
(30:32):
So if any of our listeners areout of practice or listening and
wondering, okay. Well, how do Ido this? What what might be a
friction point, a challenge,anything there related to it or
maybe even just a first stepwhere they want to adopt this in
their practices? What issomething you would share with
any of our listeners right nowto make sure, this at least gets
(30:55):
off the ground in the right way?
Sean Nguyen (30:58):
I am so used to starting from the ground up,
being boots on the ground, andand being able to get everybody
on the same page. When we'retalking about such a large
initiative Mhmm. It what I didfor me was I got, a couple of
subject matter experts on thesame page with me and then went
(31:19):
straight to the top. And thenfrom the top, we were able to
get more people on board toreinforce the things that we
were trying to do orimplementing the changes that we
saw and then getting then morebuy in from more leaders that
got their teams on the same pageas well. I think being able to
(31:39):
leverage certain leaders orcertain subject matter experts
because they have the trustalready built into their teams
or their regions was able tohelp me as the project leader to
be able to scale this project asquickly and as far as I did.
And so I would say, get yoursubject matter experts on board,
get, some boots on the ground,get the voice of the customers
(32:02):
in on this, and go straight tothe top to get buying in to be
able to cascade down. I I thinkyou can absolutely work either
way, either top down approach orbottom up approach, but there
has to be a a concerted effortof both sides coming together,
and being able to be in unisontogether to to be able to scale
(32:23):
this either across either otherreasons for visits, other across
other disease states as well tobe able to, again, effectively
look at coordinated care andpopulation health from that
perspective as well.
Daniel Williams (32:37):
That is the nuts and bolts of your
innovation that got you rewardedin this, Hardwick Innovation
Award. So we're gonna end with acouple of fun questions. So,
Orlando, that's just right downthe old coastline for you, and
then take a left into theCentral Florida there. So are
(33:02):
you gonna be there in person toaccept your Alright.
Sean Nguyen (33:06):
Looking forward to it. It's gonna be my second MGMA
leaders conference. My first onewas last year, and I was
completely blown away about justbeing able to be seen and be
able to be amongst colleaguesand peers across the entire
industry. It was an amazing oh,and actually overwhelming a bit
(33:26):
for me, but it was nice to seelike minded individuals in the
room. I got to take so much backfrom that conference, hearing
from both other health systemsand private practice groups and
and multi specialty groups, someof their best practices and
share, again, misery lesscompany.
(33:48):
It would share war stories
Daniel Williams (33:49):
with each
Sean Nguyen (33:50):
other as well, about what they're doing. That
was a very, very immersiveexperience as well. I'm actually
also actively going through the,CMPE process, and I was able to,
get the opportunity to go to thepre conference workshop. So I'm
excited to go back again and getmore nuggets from that and and
(34:11):
and and connect with differentcolleagues that have gone
through that process as well. Sosuper excited to be returning to
MGMA Leaders Conference thisyear in Orlando.
Be there the entire time for thepre conference as well. So I'm
excited. And I might sneak insome time to either visit the
mouse or, you know, go out toone of the other theme parks as
(34:33):
well. I'm always excited to getin some of that time because my
kid at heart always and willalways be a kid at heart. Yeah.
I'm excited for a silhouette.
Daniel Williams (34:43):
That is so exciting. So the last question.
So for our video viewers,they'll certainly be able to see
this pin on your lapel. It's abig a. I recognize that for
people who are hearing thisonly.
It appears to be the Avengersemblem. What is the story behind
(35:05):
this? You're in the MCU orsomething. What is happening
with the pin there?
Sean Nguyen (35:12):
I I I can't divulge all trade secrets with the MCU
team, But I can say, havingpreviously worked at a
children's hospital and workingin pediatrics, I needed to
desensitize the suit and Yeah.As much as I can. So at first,
it became me buying a few pins,Disney pins or other character
(35:34):
pins. But then it became teammembers getting me pins because
they saw different wins. Andthen patients started getting me
different pins as well as I wasrounding on the different areas.
And so I have a huge pincollection of different
characters and and different,areas. And, I thought it would
be appropriate wearing theAvengers pin today because this
(35:56):
particular project came with somany different amazing heroes
coming together to make such abig impact for, different pay
this patient population. And so,I thought it was appropriate to
wear the the Avengers pen forthis particular one. So that's
where that Avengers pen camefrom for sure.
Daniel Williams (36:16):
That that is an incredible story. Is there an
Avenger you most identify with?
Sean Nguyen (36:22):
I'm probably a Thor, big person, sometimes
also, doctor Strange justbecause how, quirky I can get
Yeah. With some of thecharacters. But, yeah, I I more
so, a big head, nerd and all ofthat. Yeah.
Daniel Williams (36:43):
That is incredible. Well, Sean Wynn,
thank you so much for sharingyour story with us today.
Sean Nguyen (36:49):
Daniel, thank you so much for having me, and thank
you to the MGMA entire team for,recognizing Ochsner Health,
recognizing me as part of, thisentire organization to do what's
right for our patients and forthe innovations that we've done.
Daniel Williams (37:05):
Yeah. That's just an incredible story, and
congratulations to you forreceiving that 2025 Harwick
Innovation Award. And specialcongratulations to all of those
team members who you are sharingthis with as well. And to our
listeners, you can learn moreabout the Harwick Innovation
Award and this year's winners atmgma.com/leaders. You can learn,
(37:32):
also, and I'll put it in theepisode show notes, learn how
you can go out and, either learnmore about the award winners for
this year or look how you cannominate someone for next year
or suggest to them a gentlenudge to nominate you for one of
our awards next year.
(37:53):
So I'll put that informationabout our awards page in our
episode show notes. So untilthen, thank you all for joining
us on the MGMA podcast, and Ihope to see you all and see Sean
at this year's leadersconference. Thank you so much.
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Podcast Network.
Today, we're back with anotherone of our MGMA award winners.
We're gonna be making a bigannouncement at our leaders
conference. It's gonna be inOrlando, September 28 through
October 1, and hope to get tosee you there.
(00:22):
So today, we are celebrating our2025 Harwick Innovation Award
winner, Sean Nguyen. Sean issystem director of the
interventional pain service lineat Ochsner Health. Sean has been
recognized for his leadership intransforming how
multidisciplinary care isdelivered across a large health
(00:45):
system and also breaking downsilos, improving patient access,
and creating a blueprint forcoordinated care. Sean and I
have had fun getting to knoweach other offline here, and
he's been helping me a littlebit with some innovation and
technology issues that I washaving with my computer. So with
(01:07):
all that said, Sean, welcome tothe podcast.
Sean Nguyen (01:11):
Thank you for having me.
Daniel Williams (01:13):
Yeah. It's so good to have you here, and I
wanna congratulate you again,for receiving the Harwick
Innovation Award. That is areally cool award that MGMA does
hand out to, an MGMA member eachyear. And, I've been asking all
the award winners, thisquestion. When you first learned
(01:35):
that you had won the award, whatwas that like to you?
Sean Nguyen (01:40):
Oh, goodness. I was in shock for probably a good six
hours and had just come off thetails of a really large report
out operating energy to oursenior executives in the system.
And so I honestly didn't thinkit was real. I got the voice
message, and it wasn't until thevery next day when I think, your
(02:02):
team emailed me about logistics,and I was like, okay. Now it's
real.
And I feel bad because I didn'tcall Rebecca back or anything.
And I was like, oh, this islegit. It's real. Yeah. I'm I'm
floored.
I'm I'm honored. I'm humbled. Itsucks that, you know, it also
just doesn't able to be includedfull group because none of this
(02:25):
was be possible without the fullteam support at Ochsner Health
in the different service lines,our physicians, my physician
partner, our APPs. There's somany people that are so worthy
of this award as well at OchsnerHealth across the entire
industry. Yeah, I would not behere without the support of
(02:46):
those many people as well.
And so, thank you for the shoutout. Thank you for, this as
well.
Daniel Williams (02:54):
Sean, thanks for sharing that with us. Let's
just break down a couple ofquestions about your background
and about your organization, andthen we'll get deeper into this
Hardwick Innovation Award andwhat went into you being
nominated and actually receivingthe award. So first of all,
(03:15):
let's just talk about OchOchsner Health first. Tell us
about that organization.Anything you might wanna share,
where it's located, the size andscope of it, anything else
relative to Ochsner Health.
Sean Nguyen (03:28):
Yeah. We're a, more than 45 hospital health system,
based out of New Orleans,Louisiana, but we span across
Louisiana, Mississippi, some inAlabama. We also have, 65 plus
clinics out along the Gulf Coasttowards The Carolinas as well.
And so very, very large healthsystem based out of New Orleans.
(03:53):
I serve as the interventionalpain service line leader.
And so I see myself as basicallythe internal glue everywhere
that we have interventional painservices, pain medicine, pain
management services. So we havemultiple clinics. We do pain
procedures both in clinics,hospitals, ASC type settings,
(04:14):
across more than half of thosecampuses across, all of our
areas. And so been with theorganization now, for, close to
seven, eight years, and I'vebeen having so much fun since.
It's been a wild ride.
Our health system really focuseson innovation, teamwork
(04:35):
excellence as well. So ourhealth system really is very
multifaceted. We have cancercare, we have primary care,
women's and children's, and allthe different specialties as
well. And so, yeah, the last sixyears in this role for me has
been really just being that glueamongst all of our campuses when
(04:57):
it comes to pain medicine. AndI've been having a wild ride
with it.
I think this particular project,that I was nominated for really
crosses and cuts through otherareas and specialties. So I'm
super excited about being,talking about it today and
sharing, what we've done atOptional Health as well.
Daniel Williams (05:19):
Yeah. That is wonderful. So thanks for sharing
that information. Let's get toknow you a little bit better,
and then we'll dig into, thisparticular, project that you
were nominated for. So are you aNew Orleans native, or how long
have you been in New Orleans?
Sean Nguyen (05:38):
I actually grew up down the Bayou in Hobo,
Louisiana. It's about an hourSouth Of New Orleans, and, yes,
there are places South Of NewOrleans. We are very much closer
to the Gulf Of Mexico and grewup there. I've been there most
of my life, elementary, middleand high school there and moved
(05:58):
to the big city of New afterKatrina. And so I grew up very
family oriented.
My parents immigrated over herefrom Vietnam during the war. And
and so having grown up inLouisiana, very, very well
rooted, crawfish boils on theweekends or oysters or always
(06:21):
big on seafood. But when Katrinahit, which we're actually coming
out to the twentieth yearanniversary since, hurricane
Katrina made landfall here,being so rooted in community and
being so rooted into people,when Katrina hit, FEMA came in
(06:43):
and were looking for, differentindividuals that had so much
community connections and knewhow to be able to leverage that
to disseminate resources andhelp out in any way. I had
barely just started college atthat time. And so I was able to,
you know, work with FEMA, beemployed by FEMA to be able to
(07:06):
help out with recovery effortsand help from a mental
behavioral health perspective,connecting resources, and and
and and helping stand upcommunities in some of these
FEMA trailer parks.
And so we talk about, like, youknow, a lot of people being
displaced due to the hurricane,but they were in these FEMA
(07:29):
trailer parks with no ability tobe have human connections or
being able to talk about theirgrief and impact. And so being a
part of the FEMA organizationand the recovery efforts, I was
just coming in to not onlydisseminate information and
resources, but create acommunity for people to feel
safe and feel connected in thoseareas. And so that was my first
(07:53):
true. Introduction into healthcare and into a public health
population health behavioralhealth perspective as well. And
so that was over twenty yearsago coming up and and and I've
been in health care in a form ofhealth care ever since.
(08:14):
And it's been a wild ride beinghere going from something so
recovery and disaster andtraumatic to now being in such a
large health system makingsystematic impacts and policy
changes and and and working withamazing individuals day in, day
out.
Daniel Williams (08:32):
That is remarkable. Alright. Well, thank
you so much for sharing that.Let's talk about that nomination
then. You clearly you weretelling us you're rooted in that
New Orleans area.
I've got a lot of family downthere and spend a lot of time
when I can to get down there andsee people and eat great food
(08:53):
and just have a lot of fun,listen to great music. So that
is a it really is so rooted incommunity. In fact, I just
wanted to share one thing beforewe get into that. When Katrina
did hit, I was already out in Iwas in California at the time. I
was trying to place myself thatI was in California at the time,
but I have a lot of familythat's in Mississippi and
(09:16):
Alabama, and so a lot of thosecousins stayed with family
members, like my direct familyeither, in Alabama or
Mississippi, and they stayed forquite a while, like several
weeks, maybe moving into monthsas well.
(09:37):
So that was where you see sawpeople really step up and open
up their homes for people. Andso were you displaced, or were
you at you were in the FEMA sideof it, so you were actually
helping, work there?
Sean Nguyen (09:50):
We were helping. I was helping. Our home got some
wind damage, but no flooding,thankfully. And so, we also have
a, convenience store, cornerstore. And so the power was out
for quite some time.
And Right. You were seeing these18 wheelers of of of people all
in the 18 wheelers just comingout, and we would flag them down
(10:12):
to stop them. And we didn't wantany of our our produce or stuff
to go bad or, our drinks andeverything. So we were just
giving things out, to people inneed as they were being,
transported out of the NewOrleans area. And so, again,
just helping out wherever we canand and being part of that.
And then from there, going downto the Civic Center in Houma, to
(10:37):
just play our part and do whatwe can to help out wherever we
can.
Daniel Williams (10:40):
Yeah. That is remarkable, and that is gonna be
a powerful moment there whenthat twentieth anniversary of
that tragedy is celebratedbecause I've I've again, I've
got a lot of family down there.I've got a lot of others who I
connect with and just to see thecity rebuild, both just from a
(11:04):
bricks and mortar side of it,but also just from a human
standpoint of just recoveringfrom that and pulling together.
So thank you so much for sharingthat part of it. So let's get
into that nomination now.
One of the things you werenominated for here, I wanna make
sure I get this right, that youwere highlighting how patients
with back pain often enter thesystem through different
(11:26):
specialties. It might be ortho,neuro, pain, PT, PM and R, all
these different places they canenter the system. And what you
identified was that can reallylead to fragmented care. So walk
us through what you saw, whatyou identified, and then some of
(11:47):
the other things you did to seechange in that way.
Sean Nguyen (11:52):
We've always had this, idea, and we've had a
bricks and mortars clinic, whatwe call back in spine, where
these specialties would sittogether, and see patients
together, collaborate together.I felt like ideally that's the
gold standard. But with so manypatients coming in for back
pain, I believe it's like one infive patients typically have
(12:16):
chronic back pain or back painissues. We know that patients
are all over the place gettinghaving back pain issues. But we
couldn't replicate having everysingle specialty in one clinic,
every single place acrossLouisiana, Mississippi, and what
(12:36):
have you.
And so how do you essentiallytake that gold standard and
apply it across multiple areas,whether it's down the Bayou, in
Holland, Raceland, whether it'sin Shreveport or large
metropolitan like Baton Rouge,New Orleans, Covington as well.
How do you scale that withoutbreaking the bank or creating,
(13:00):
more bricks and mortars or eventaking, our our highly
specialized neurosurgeons ororthopedic spine surgeons out of
being able to do major clinicand major procedure areas and
surgeries as well. And so wetried to figure out how to then
disseminate all of that care andbreak down silos by still being
(13:23):
able to work together, butmaximizing everybody's access
together and leveraging eachother. And so this idea of, oh,
you're coming in through ortho,you're only going to stay in
ortho, or you're coming inthrough pain medicine and only
staying in pain medicine. Whatwe did was kind of removed all
those barriers and said, youreally just need one reason for
(13:47):
a visit and then just line upall the specialists together.
So patients are not going toknow, I have a back pain, who do
I go to? You can technically goto every single one of those
specialties, but is it acomprehensive plan of care for
you? Same thing with like a rashon your skin. Do you go to a
(14:10):
dermatologist? Do you go to anurgent care?
Do you go to a pain doc just forpain? Do you go to an allergist
or an immunologist? How dopatients know who to go to and
how do they triage their ownissues? And you can't expect
that. And so on the system side,what we knew what we had to do
(14:31):
was create a singular reason fora visit and then line up all of
our specialists to be able toanswer that call.
I think lining them up was onlypart of the solution. We wanted
to make sure that initial visitfor that patient was the same
standard of care, no matterwhere they are and no matter
(14:54):
what specialty they're enteringthe system from. And so every
single clinician, regardless ofspecialty, should be able to
triage that patient in the sameway to get them addressing their
acute issues while still beingable to work them up to the
right specialists based on thatinitial assessment with that
(15:14):
patient. And so we weredefinitely looking at this from
a multifaceted perspective. AndI thought, first, let's get
everybody in the room and see ifthey agree.
And secondly, what systems andworkflows are patients
traditionally using that we canleverage that way and then make
(15:36):
it easy and seamless for themand for our clinicians at the
same time.
Daniel Williams (15:40):
Going further into this program, you
spearheaded something that y'allcalled, it's what we've been
talking about, but this onereason for visit approach for
spine care. And anybody thatworks in the business world and
and also in the health careworld, we know that there's a
tendency to wind up in silos.You know, we're I'm in this
(16:04):
group, and this is our silo, andthis is this silo over here. You
are able to really put togetherinfrastructure for teams to work
on this collaborative approachto making things work. Talk
about that, that really seeingand identifying this way to
approach it, one reason forvisit.
Talk about that, how it cameabout, and how it's had its
(16:27):
success.
Sean Nguyen (16:29):
Yeah. I looked at, we use decision trees when it
comes to scheduling, with eachof our specialties. And so each
specialty has, you know, areason for visit surrounding
back pain, back issues, spineissues. And so in orthopedics,
might be back, neck, spineissues. In neurosurgery, it
(16:52):
might be a surgical consult forback pain.
For pain medicine, it's backpain in general. And physical
therapy even, it might just bemobility issues. And so when I
knew that each of those servicelines or each of those
specialties had that reason forvisit, What I did was I worked
(17:17):
with our EPIC team, which is ourelectronic health record,
medical record system. Ouranalysts from there, our access
to care team, I said, is there away where we can connect all
those dots to one uniformdecision tree then based on what
(17:38):
those decision trees currentlyhave? There's like, yeah, you
technically do it.
It's never been done before withus. I said, let's try it. You
know? Yeah. But they're like,okay.
Well, you can connect thosedots, but how do you then fix
everything after that? And sothen it's like, to their credit,
it's like, Okay, well, I guess Ido need to get the clinicians
(17:59):
all on the same page as well.And so bringing in all the
clinicians together and said,clinically speaking, we do
operate differently. We all havedifferent modalities on how we
treat back pain. And we createsome sort of common ground, at
least for the initial visit.
If we're going to spearheadthis, if we're going to say then
(18:23):
patients are going to then justgo through one reason for visit,
will the care be the same if Ienter through ortho versus I
enter through neuro versus Ienter through PT? And so having
that one reason for visit reallygets the scheduling piece
(18:43):
cleaned up and gets the patientto then just the first available
based on their location andbased on their preferences, and
gives you a menu of cliniciansand specialties to the patients
on the forefront. But then oncethe patient selects the
(19:04):
available time that works forthem, the location that works
for them, and the specialists,it's the specialists that they
want or care for, based on thosethings, are they still getting
that holistic care or thatcomprehensive care that we
talked about, like having thatgold standard of having all
(19:26):
those specialties in the oneplace. And so our clinicians
helped with that perspective andguided us as the business
leaders, as the administrators,how to be able to standardize
that initial care by, again,addressing the acute issues
while then working up thepatients to the appropriate care
as well.
(19:46):
So multifaceted, so detailoriented. Getting the
infrastructure was absolutely abigger component, being able to
connect those decision trees,but then also the clinical
decision tree as well, makingsure then our clinicians felt
comfortable without stepping oneach other's toes on how to
(20:07):
respect each other's modalitiesand bringing together something
so comprehensive on the clinicalaspect for that initial visit as
well. It's definitely stillalways a work in progress, but
seeing those two things cometogether and keeping it simple
for our patients, getting thepatients to the right care,
right place, right time. Ourservice line CEO, Dawn PV talks
(20:30):
about making sure that we havethat appropriate care no matter
where they are. If it's just NewOrleans, if it's in the rural
side of Louisiana, if it's inanother city or town, even if
they don't have neurosurgeryservices that only have pain
services, how do we still havethat same high level quality of
(20:51):
care no matter where we are atthe right place at the right
time for our patients?
Daniel Williams (20:56):
Yeah. How in the world did you get buy in?
You know, people are in theirsilos. They have a way that,
hey. This works.
It may be Yeah. Frustrating. Itmay be challenging, but we've
been doing it this way forever,and it works. So, Sean, why in
the heck are you trying to getus to do it this new way? So
(21:18):
what was the buy in like?
Because our listeners areprobably going, it sounds good,
but my group wouldn't do this.So
Sean Nguyen (21:25):
Oh, trust me. There's definitely like, there's
differences among specialties,and then there's differences
amongst the locations and theregions and, like, the flavor
from from one corner ofLouisiana to the other corner of
Louisiana to the one corner ofMississippi as well. Absolutely.
It took a lot of interactions, alot of conversations, a lot of
(21:51):
it took over two years of justshaking hands, getting to know
people. I I that is also myapproach when it comes to making
any impactful change is to getin person, connect the dots, get
to know people, and understandthe why behind everything.
I think most of our ourphysicians, our APPs, anybody in
(22:15):
health care can get behind thewhy, because it's for the
betterment of our patients.Right? And and so getting behind
the why was easy, but, buildingthe trust, that this is the
right thing to do for ourpatient and this is how we're
we're gonna make it happen, Ithink that absolutely took a lot
longer. And giving thereassurances that was necessary.
(22:39):
During that entire tour ofgetting in front of people,
getting connected with ourclinicians and our teams and the
clinics and procedure areas.
I was picking up a lot moreinformation, lot more nuggets to
polish some of those processes,to polish and be more empathic
(22:59):
and considerate of things thatwere laid out in certain regions
that were did not apply in otherregions. And so how do you take
all those things intoconsideration? Absolutely. It's
not perfect. It's never going tobe a 100% perfect, but the more
centered we get or close tocentered that we can get people
(23:20):
on the same page, I think theresults of that really do
benefit the patients and ourteams more so than where we are
or where we were previously.
And so we're not all on the samepage, but we are absolutely much
closer to center than we havebeen previously. The patients
get to win at the end of the dayfor that. Yeah. And and so a lot
(23:45):
of handshaking, a lot of justgetting in front of people and
and talking through, the nuancesof that and getting the team
also there with me. And so thatbuy in started off small and
eventually became more of aripple effect that got more
people in on it and then winningover early adopters and
(24:06):
champions of certain areas aswell, and using that grassroots
approach of being able to makechange impactfully.
My personal philosophy when itcomes to change, when it comes
to operations and management hasalways been using a public
health perspective of like thatsociological model. Absolutely,
(24:30):
I wanna change patients, but ifI cannot impact their family or
in this case, if I can't, if Ican change the clinicians, but I
can't change the unit ordepartment or the clinic to get
on board, then that change won'tbe reinforced outside of the
clinic and the unit, then is thecampus on the same page? And
(24:53):
then across this campus is thesystem on the same page? Do we
have policies that reinforce thethings that we're trying to
build? And so it was verymultifaceted from that
perspective and making sure thatwe have reinforcements on every
single level to truly makesystematic change that
reinforces this change on everysingle level.
(25:14):
Using that socio ecologicalmodel was really what was part
of my blueprint in getsustaining this change as well.
Outside of communication,outside of building the trash
trust, outside of being able totalk through it and getting all
those infrastructures in place,we wanted to make sure that
(25:34):
every single level wasreinforced for this change, to
make sustainable changes andlasting end changes.
Daniel Williams (25:42):
Yeah. And it took a lot of work. It took a
lot of empathy. It took a lotof, you know, transparent
communication, it sounds like,to get that buy in. But once you
got it, what I'm seeing from thenomination is that now you have
proof of concept because in thenomination, it says, because of
(26:04):
this initiative, patientsatisfaction increased, wait
times have decreased, same dayavailability is more accessible.
So you can take that to otherdepartments or to other
initiatives moving forward togo, hey. When we get this buy
in, when we're working togetherin this way, these, metrics,
(26:27):
have all improved, of thosemetrics, of those measurables,
what's the one that stood out toyou the most?
Sean Nguyen (26:34):
I still get the occasional calls from either
physicians or team members insome of the other parts of
Louisiana, Mississippi. Hey, Icalled and the patient got an
availability tomorrow, eventhough they were looking for
orthopedic spine, neurosurgerywas available or pain medicine
(26:56):
was available to see me tomorrowas well, and I got seen, that
next day availability, theability to still see the
patient, close to their home orclose to where they work, to
give them that option, I thinkthat has been at least
reinforcing for me, that it'sworking as well. Yes, the
(27:18):
metrics are all there as well,and we're absolutely getting
those metrics in and, thatreinforcement, but still being
able to get a phone call fromone of our clinicians and the
team to hear back about how thisis working or how there's still
opportunities for improvementmeans they're still buying on
this. And that for me is my ownpersonal satisfaction in all
(27:41):
this as well. I know again,statistically, that most
patients that come in with backpain, maybe two out of the ten
are going to be surgical casesthat get escalated to that
availability.
And then our payers already, alot of insurance companies are
(28:02):
already allowing direct accessfor physical therapy. So
patients don't know, oh, I am inback pain. I actually can go to
physical therapy first and getcare from a conservative therapy
perspective. And they should,you know? So building that into
the decision tree is a, again,changing culture and also
(28:23):
educating our patientpopulations that it's okay.
We all are all the same people,same team trying to treat for
the same things, and we're hereto support you and be able to
make it easy for you as well.That has been one of the biggest
results in all this is the slowculture change for me that
stands out for me through thework that we've done. To your
(28:46):
point, absolutely. I can seethis being applied for diabetic
care, where endocrine, GI,primary care, even our pain
team, our neurology team, allworking together around diabetic
care a lot more seamlessly andeven physical therapy as well.
(29:06):
Working all in tandem arounddiabetic care, hypertension, put
all the cardio team with primarycare and others together, taking
our major chronic diseasesacross multiple areas, making
slow impacts in those areas byhaving more of a concert of
(29:27):
specialties and primary careteams working a lot more in
unison and harnessing thesystemness of coordinated care.
I think that is absolutely a lotof what our private practice
teams are doing, but to be ableto scale that, it's going to be
harder for our private practicegroups to be able to do that.
(29:48):
And so being in a health system,you get to leverage that
footprint a lot bigger as well.And so taking a page from them,
I think was something that wecan learn from each other
constantly, whether you're in alarge health system, whether
you're a mom and pop clinicbased care as well. I think we
can absolutely leverage andlearn from each other
(30:09):
constantly.
Daniel Williams (30:11):
Okay. So you alluded to it, and I brought it
up as well. This is somethingthis is a model that can be
adopted across the system. Youidentified, diabetic situations.
There's also asthma, joint pain,women's health, cancer services,
and other services as well.
(30:32):
So if any of our listeners areout of practice or listening and
wondering, okay. Well, how do Ido this? What what might be a
friction point, a challenge,anything there related to it or
maybe even just a first stepwhere they want to adopt this in
their practices? What issomething you would share with
any of our listeners right nowto make sure, this at least gets
(30:55):
off the ground in the right way?
Sean Nguyen (30:58):
I am so used to starting from the ground up,
being boots on the ground, andand being able to get everybody
on the same page. When we'retalking about such a large
initiative Mhmm. It what I didfor me was I got, a couple of
subject matter experts on thesame page with me and then went
(31:19):
straight to the top. And thenfrom the top, we were able to
get more people on board toreinforce the things that we
were trying to do orimplementing the changes that we
saw and then getting then morebuy in from more leaders that
got their teams on the same pageas well. I think being able to
(31:39):
leverage certain leaders orcertain subject matter experts
because they have the trustalready built into their teams
or their regions was able tohelp me as the project leader to
be able to scale this project asquickly and as far as I did.
And so I would say, get yoursubject matter experts on board,
get, some boots on the ground,get the voice of the customers
(32:02):
in on this, and go straight tothe top to get buying in to be
able to cascade down. I I thinkyou can absolutely work either
way, either top down approach orbottom up approach, but there
has to be a a concerted effortof both sides coming together,
and being able to be in unisontogether to to be able to scale
(32:23):
this either across either otherreasons for visits, other across
other disease states as well tobe able to, again, effectively
look at coordinated care andpopulation health from that
perspective as well.
Daniel Williams (32:37):
That is the nuts and bolts of your
innovation that got you rewardedin this, Hardwick Innovation
Award. So we're gonna end with acouple of fun questions. So,
Orlando, that's just right downthe old coastline for you, and
then take a left into theCentral Florida there. So are
(33:02):
you gonna be there in person toaccept your Alright.
Sean Nguyen (33:06):
Looking forward to it. It's gonna be my second MGMA
leaders conference. My first onewas last year, and I was
completely blown away about justbeing able to be seen and be
able to be amongst colleaguesand peers across the entire
industry. It was an amazing oh,and actually overwhelming a bit
(33:26):
for me, but it was nice to seelike minded individuals in the
room. I got to take so much backfrom that conference, hearing
from both other health systemsand private practice groups and
and multi specialty groups, someof their best practices and
share, again, misery lesscompany.
(33:48):
It would share war stories
Daniel Williams (33:49):
with each
Sean Nguyen (33:50):
other as well, about what they're doing. That
was a very, very immersiveexperience as well. I'm actually
also actively going through the,CMPE process, and I was able to,
get the opportunity to go to thepre conference workshop. So I'm
excited to go back again and getmore nuggets from that and and
(34:11):
and and connect with differentcolleagues that have gone
through that process as well. Sosuper excited to be returning to
MGMA Leaders Conference thisyear in Orlando.
Be there the entire time for thepre conference as well. So I'm
excited. And I might sneak insome time to either visit the
mouse or, you know, go out toone of the other theme parks as
(34:33):
well. I'm always excited to getin some of that time because my
kid at heart always and willalways be a kid at heart. Yeah.
I'm excited for a silhouette.
Daniel Williams (34:43):
That is so exciting. So the last question.
So for our video viewers,they'll certainly be able to see
this pin on your lapel. It's abig a. I recognize that for
people who are hearing thisonly.
It appears to be the Avengersemblem. What is the story behind
(35:05):
this? You're in the MCU orsomething. What is happening
with the pin there?
Sean Nguyen (35:12):
I I I can't divulge all trade secrets with the MCU
team, But I can say, havingpreviously worked at a
children's hospital and workingin pediatrics, I needed to
desensitize the suit and Yeah.As much as I can. So at first,
it became me buying a few pins,Disney pins or other character
(35:34):
pins. But then it became teammembers getting me pins because
they saw different wins. Andthen patients started getting me
different pins as well as I wasrounding on the different areas.
And so I have a huge pincollection of different
characters and and different,areas. And, I thought it would
be appropriate wearing theAvengers pin today because this
(35:56):
particular project came with somany different amazing heroes
coming together to make such abig impact for, different pay
this patient population. And so,I thought it was appropriate to
wear the the Avengers pen forthis particular one. So that's
where that Avengers pen camefrom for sure.
Daniel Williams (36:16):
That that is an incredible story. Is there an
Avenger you most identify with?
Sean Nguyen (36:22):
I'm probably a Thor, big person, sometimes
also, doctor Strange justbecause how, quirky I can get
Yeah. With some of thecharacters. But, yeah, I I more
so, a big head, nerd and all ofthat. Yeah.
Daniel Williams (36:43):
That is incredible. Well, Sean Wynn,
thank you so much for sharingyour story with us today.
Sean Nguyen (36:49):
Daniel, thank you so much for having me, and thank
you to the MGMA entire team for,recognizing Ochsner Health,
recognizing me as part of, thisentire organization to do what's
right for our patients and forthe innovations that we've done.
Daniel Williams (37:05):
Yeah. That's just an incredible story, and
congratulations to you forreceiving that 2025 Harwick
Innovation Award. And specialcongratulations to all of those
team members who you are sharingthis with as well. And to our
listeners, you can learn moreabout the Harwick Innovation
Award and this year's winners atmgma.com/leaders. You can learn,
(37:32):
also, and I'll put it in theepisode show notes, learn how
you can go out and, either learnmore about the award winners for
this year or look how you cannominate someone for next year
or suggest to them a gentlenudge to nominate you for one of
our awards next year.
(37:53):
So I'll put that informationabout our awards page in our
episode show notes. So untilthen, thank you all for joining
us on the MGMA podcast, and Ihope to see you all and see Sean
at this year's leadersconference. Thank you so much.
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