August 4, 2025 • 23 mins
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!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Thrailkill (01:11):
thanks for joining the Day 24 podcast
Bonnie Clipper (01:15):
it's always great to be with you, Eric.
Eric Thrailkill (01:17):
A couple of thoughts on Amsterdam.
A beautiful weather.
The folks here feel like it'shot, but it's.
Mid seventies.
Bonnie Clipper (01:23):
It's gorgeous weather.
It's a lovely city.
There's amazing people here.
Love Amsterdam.
Eric Thrailkill (01:28):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
You've got a brilliant career asa, as an educator, as an
advisor, and really leadinginnovation for organizations
today.
And we'll dive in a little bitof 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 onthe a NA and nurse innovation.
Bonnie Clipper (01:50):
Yeah, I absolutely be happy to do that.
I'm a nurse by background, asyou said.
I am doctorally prepared inexecutive leadership from Texas
Tech University.
I have had an incredible journeyas a nurse.
Spent several years providingdirect patient care, moved into
some leadership positions.
Was a chief nursing officer forover 21 years.
(02:12):
And then had the amazingopportunity 21 years.
Yes.
As
Eric Thrailkill (02:15):
a CNO.
Bonnie Clipper (02:16):
Let's not say that out loud again, Eric.
But it's a long time.
Eric Thrailkill (02:19):
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 (02:24):
And I had the amazing opportunity to become a
Robert Wood Johnson ExecutiveNurse fellow, which was just an
incredible chance to really meetwith.
The, just the most top-notch,amazing people in healthcare, in
nursing.
And as part of that, we had tochoose a topic that we could be
able to contribute to for therest of our careers through
speaking, publishing othercontributions.
(02:47):
So at the time, this was 2014 to16, and I decided to dive into
innovation.
And in Nurse World, that was anew concept.
It was not commonly talkedabout.
People didn't know what it was,why you would use it, how you
would use it.
So really connected with fourother colleagues that were
Robert Wood Johnson Fellows.
(03:07):
And we wrote a seminal whitepaper the Innovation Roadmap, A
Guide for Nurse Leaders that'sbeen downloaded.
Hundreds of thousands of times.
And that set me up for anincredible opportunity to be
recruited to be the first vicepresident of innovation at the
American Nurses Association.
Eric Thrailkill (03:25):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
And what year was that?
Bonnie Clipper (03:28):
You're testing my memory.
I was at the A and a 17 to 19.
Eric Thrailkill (03:32):
17 to 19.
Okay.
So reflecting a little bit backat that time.
So EHRs High Tech Act meaningfuluse deployment.
Of electronic health records,price, transparency,
interoperability, all of this isoccurring.
And nurses is it fair to saywe're.
Maybe not as involved as theyshould have been or
Bonnie Clipper (03:55):
left behind for the large part.
At that time, we really thoughtinnovation had a lot to do
around the EHR,
Eric Thrailkill (04:02):
right?
Bonnie Clipper (04:02):
Nurses were not necessarily educated on what
innovation was, how it wouldbenefit them, why they should be
involved, nor were theyincluded.
So it took several years.
And we continue in nursing.
I think there's a really solidcore there were probably at that
time just 3, 4, 5 of us thatstarted the innovation bandwagon
(04:23):
and in nursing, and now I'msuper proud to say there are
tons.
Hundreds now that are reallytalking about innovation and
nursing, and that means amillion different things.
So a lot of opportunities havecome out of that, and I think
we're starting to see nursinginnovation thrive in the
ecosystem of healthcareinnovation.
Eric Thrailkill (04:42):
Yeah.
Safe to say pandemic relatedactivities brought a lot of
virtual technology and includingvirtual nursing.
How would you.
Say that originated some ofthose tools, technologies that
really made a difference duringthat short time period and
gaining momentum post pandemicand to really recognizing that
(05:05):
virtual nursing is a, is a keycontributor to value across a
number of different front.
Bonnie Clipper (05:11):
Yeah, I think the.
The pandemic did a couple ofthings.
Certainly in Nurse World.
It's still incredibly sad thatwe actually lost caregivers,
physicians, nurses, otherclinicians that literally gave
their lives.
During the pandemic, we alsolearned the benefit of nurses,
and I think it allowed usfinally to see around the world
(05:33):
how nurses contribute verysolidly as the largest.
Part of the workforce inhealthcare, what nurses do and
why they're so crucial to asuccessful healthcare ecosystem.
As a result of that, we alsolearned because we were forced,
that care could be provided.
Or virtually in, in many ways tomany patients.
Eric Thrailkill (05:57):
Yeah.
Not only inpatient, but
Bonnie Clipper (05:59):
outpatient at home clinics, practices at home.
We learned a whole lot and as aresult of that, it was really a
springboard for what we areseeing today in terms of how
virtual nursing is continuing toevolve.
Yeah.
Eric Thrailkill (06:14):
And.
Today take me through a littlebit of your, the origin of
Innovation Advantage, yourorganization and working with
making an assumption here ofboth enterprise organizations as
well as early stage.
Innovators with bringing toolsand technology to the industry?
Bonnie Clipper (06:35):
Yeah, we do a couple different things at
Innovation Advantage.
We work with different hospitalsand healthcare systems as well
as a healthcare consortium andto help them really.
Think through their approachesto different problems that
they're trying to solve.
So whether it's trying to figureout how can they onboard three
(06:55):
or 400 nurse residents asopposed to the hundred they're
used to onboarding.
We've done some really cool workin that space.
We also do nurse leadership.
Coaching to really help improvethe overall individual
performance with the goal ofproving the hospital performance
on quality, safety, financialoutcomes, whatever they may be.
(07:19):
The other part of what we do isI created the virtual nursing
academy, and that's where wework with hospitals and health
systems that educate and enablethem 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 youuse.
The principles are generally thesame.
We've now worked with 30hospitals and health systems and
(07:40):
we see patterns and trends, andwe've been able to capitalize on
that so that we've created aplaybook where we can help
hospitals build their caremodel.
It's up to them to identify whattechnology they wanna use to
decide how they want to use it,but we can share with them what
we've seen work and whatdoesn't.
Work quite as well.
Eric Thrailkill (08:00):
Yeah.
That's amazing.
And my guess is we're learning,we're still continuing to learn
what does work well and on thefront end of some of those
engagements, is there anassessment of what's in place
today?
And maybe aligning that with thevalues of the of the
organization.
Yeah.
To.
Get them to be where they needto be or where they want to be.
Bonnie Clipper (08:20):
There, there is, and that's, we teach people how
to fish, so we teach them whatthey should be looking for, how
they can identify the gaps andhow to work to build those gaps,
fill them in their ownorganization.
We don't do the work for them.
We teach them how to do the workbecause we want to make sure
(08:40):
that after they're done.
With us, they can continue to doit, iterate and improve it on
their own.
Otherwise, all we've done isbuild a dependency and we didn't
wanna do that.
We wanted to teach them how todo it and how to be successful
so they could continue toiterate and decide what are the
use cases?
How should they build theirbusiness case?
What should they be looking for?
(09:00):
How are they gonna develop acommunication plan?
How are they gonna govern thisstructure?
What are the outcomes theyshould be measuring?
So we help them with thosedecisions and create their own
program.
Eric Thrailkill (09:12):
Education, recruitment, retention,
tomorrow's nurses that aregraduating today, give us let's
zoom out for a little bit.
How would you describe the stateof, let's call it us first
nursing today?
And I'm assuming some of yourclients could be European, or
are they mostly domestic?
Bonnie Clipper (09:32):
Today they're mostly domestic, although as
I've had more and moreconversations here, certainly
even talk to a hospital, CEO inanother country, there is a lot
of interest in deploying virtualnursing.
Eric Thrailkill (09:43):
Similar challenges.
I'm assuming
Bonnie Clipper (09:45):
workforce and costs are typically the top.
Yeah.
Aging
Eric Thrailkill (09:48):
populations.
Yep.
Shortage.
Bonnie Clipper (09:50):
Yep.
Yeah, so I, I think that thereare gonna be more and more
similarities.
For us, really, it's trying toshow people what are the
benefits and how can they goabout creating their own
program, their own care model intheir organization, and do
what's right for them.
We know there was a studypublished last fall, so we know
75% of hospitals in the US areexploring virtual nursing.
(10:14):
Of those 75.
30% of chief nursing officersself-reported, they're not sure
how to start.
Eric Thrailkill (10:20):
Wow, okay.
Gosh.
Bonnie Clipper (10:22):
So those are typically the people that reach
out to us.
They say, Hey, we're superinterested, or Hey, we just
spent millions of dollars andbought a system.
Could you help us make sure itsticks and it works the way we
think?
It will
Eric Thrailkill (10:34):
put together all the processes and Yeah.
And get those investments.
Is it, are those.
Tools and technologies first, afinancial ROI are they a work
way of life?
Are they an improvement inquality and patient safety?
As a goal with those virtualnursing tools or how do most
(10:55):
organizations assess?
We're gonna make this investmentin people, process and
technology and our return willbe measured by X.
Bonnie Clipper (11:04):
Yeah, there's a whole lot of, it depends in
there.
Of course, organizations thatspend multi-millions of dollars
want to see a financial returnin hard dollars, typically
speaking because there are sucha diverse variation across
different vendor platforms, wesee it in a variety of different
(11:24):
ways.
It, in my opinion, the mostclean cut and easiest way to see
a true ROI is to go for.
Things like virtual observers orvirtual sitters, right?
Because if you can reduce your.
Sitter labor and reduce yourfalls.
That's a clean ROI.
It's less clean on some of theother ways to implement virtual
(11:44):
nursing.
Although we are seeing it, weare seeing more and more
evidence around the country ofreducing end of shift overtime.
That's real money.
Interesting.
We are seeing nurses being ableto take their lunch, their meal,
their breaks.
And that means that they are notonly able to sit and eat, which
is amazing as everyone should.
We are also seeing that there isa financial impact to that as
(12:07):
well.
On the outcome side, again,we're seeing trends around the
country reductions in, like tostay reductions in readmissions.
Certainly improvements in someof those safety bundles from a
patient care perspectivereductions in pressure injuries.
So I think it really depends interms of what you're looking
for.
We are seeing improvements inretention and reductions in
(12:30):
burnout and turnover as a resultof assistance with
documentation.
So it depends how theorganization is implementing it.
Eric Thrailkill (12:38):
Yeah.
I think a lot about caretransition and as care moves to
a lower side of service,including the home is care moved
from treatment to health, thatthere's this new oppor, maybe
not new opportunity, butadditional value into where care
is delivered.
Regardless and consistency ofthat, but that care transition
(12:58):
that you talked about would be akey key objective for most
organizations.
Bonnie Clipper (13:03):
Yeah.
And what's incredible is that wecontinue to see, in the couple
of years we've been doing this.
We really encourageorganizations not to focus just
on virtual nursing, but rathervirtual care, whether it's
across the continuum, inpatient,outpatient, home care, wherever
it may be.
And we continue almost everyother month, there's a new
(13:24):
clinician role in the virtualcare world.
So we have technology thatallows virtual respiratory
therapists to help wean patientsthat are intubated.
We are seeing virtual.
Case managers, carecoordinators, pharmacists,
pharmacy techs, unlicensedpersonnel.
We are seeing all kinds ofvirtual care roles emerge.
(13:47):
Pt, ot, speech, nutrition,chaplains
Eric Thrailkill (13:50):
that yeah, all very roles specific and niche
specific.
Specific where you can reallyleverage a lot of the technology
that's being implemented
Bonnie Clipper (13:59):
and it continues to grow.
Eric Thrailkill (14:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Talk a little bit about trusttoday.
So I think all of us realizetrust in the healthcare system
has had a shock over the lastfew years.
It's been widely viewed by thepublic that they generally trust
(14:21):
their physicians and nurses, buttrust in the process, trust in
the cost of care, trust in someof the administrative and
scheduling.
Complexities is has impacted alot of people's lives.
How do you think about nursestoday in a very complex
environment with a lot ofchange, with some uncertainty
(14:42):
and some headwinds facing theorganizations that they work
with?
Think about trust in their peersand physicians in the system and
with patients.
Bonnie Clipper (14:53):
We've seen for, gosh, 20 plus.
Some years that nurses remainthe most trusted profession.
So I think we know from anursing 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 andnot erode that trust, but
(15:17):
continue to build upon thattrust.
At the same time, we live in aworld that.
There's so much misinformationeverywhere.
We are trying to work withpatients and their families to
help them understand how toavoid the misinformation and in
fact focus on science and dataand facts and not be swept into
(15:40):
mainstream influencers that are.
Yeah.
Not advocating for patients, butrather pushing other agendas.
Eric Thrailkill (15:48):
Significant conflicts of interest are
emerging.
Let's talk a little bit abouttechnology.
The tech associated with remotemonitoring.
The ability to have a device ora monitor provide real time
feedback.
And then leverage ai, whetherit's predictive analytics and
(16:09):
maybe some of the newergenerative tools is a fairly new
addition.
Within the industry it's severalyears old and some of the
devices, but they're improving.
The cost is being reduced.
More people are using them, moreorganizations are prescribing
them.
How do you think about this?
Advancing technology and wherecare is provided in the
(16:29):
intersection of these devicesand data with the care that's
being provided by nurses.
Bonnie Clipper (16:35):
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 provideutilizing technology that helps
(16:59):
us do it better.
The technology isn't touchingpatients, it isn't having
conversations, it isn't caringfor, my mother, your child.
It still takes a human in theequation to, to do this.
And I don't see in the next.
Several years that we are goingto have robot nurses, right?
(17:22):
There's nothing out there thatmakes me believe that I do not
see it as a replacement in anyway, shape, or form in my line
of sight right now.
I think it's gonna be incrediblyimportant that we keep the
humans in the loop and it's thepeople that will continue to be
that direct link to provide careto patients and their families.
Eric Thrailkill (17:41):
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
And do you think some of thesetools are beneficial?
To nurse leaders with betterinformation and maybe some,
again, some predictivecapabilities.
Bonnie Clipper (17:52):
Yes, of course and certainly things that allow
us to synthesize data and makeour lives easier.
I think there's a lot of stuffout there to be aware of and
some of it is just not good.
A common conversation I have anda pushback I have with companies
when they wanna show me theirlatest and greatest AI nurse.
There is no such thing that doesnot exist.
(18:13):
The term nurse refers to a humanbeing.
We are specifically trained andlicensed.
There is not an AI nurse.
There are tools that supportnurses that make our lives
easier.
And some of those, are heretoday.
And I think that where theopportunities exist to help us
synthesize.
Patient records charts, readthrough things, and literally
(18:33):
give us a quick summary ofwhat's going on with the patient
and maybe, hey, over the lastcouple of days, this med's been
missed, or This lab is high, youshould check on this.
That helps us critically thinkand turn into better clinicians,
better nurses, that I absolutelywelcome the help.
Eric Thrailkill (18:48):
Yeah.
I'm really high on some of thesummarization tools with.
PDFs and documents and in andout of locations, and the
ability to really bring to aclinician's point of view at the
time that they needed theinformation that they need.
As we are wrapping up here Iknow you advised some early
stage companies and somestartups.
(19:11):
And gaining traction or franklyjust gaining attention, but some
of the enterprise organizationstoday, I, I know firsthand from
my perspective that this is alsochallenging today.
What would, how would you advisethose that are doing the
innovating and that are buildingbusinesses and leveraging
technologies, including AI andhealthcare?
Bonnie Clipper (19:32):
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 manycompanies want to come to me and
show me their thing.
I say no to probably nine and ahalf outta 10.
There's a lot of junk out there.
There's a lot of, hey, there are29 of these that already exist,
(19:56):
but ours is really better.
I don't, I'm, I don't believeit.
I've not seen that be the case.
So I think it's really aboutbeing very specific about the
problem you're trying to solve.
Things that do have a clinicianperspective included from day
one.
Some of those are incredibletechnologies.
There's a lot of stuff, eventhings here that have been
(20:16):
designed and not really pulledin the clinician perspective.
So when you push on some of thepain points or ask them
questions about what about thisor signing in and back out of my
other thing and back into thisthing those sometimes are not
issues that, designers or evenvendors have thought of.
They just said, oh, somebody,you'll have to sign into this.
(20:37):
You can't have a nurse or aphysician sign into three and
four things or 10 things on ashift.
It's not gonna happen.
And that means it won't be used.
Eric Thrailkill (20:43):
It's just a non-starter at that level.
Do you see the role of physicianleaders, a chief nursing
officers, those that areinnovating at the enterprise
level, being open to reallyarticulate some of the
challenges that they have and.
And work with those that areinnovating on the startup side
by helping with some of thatidentification, some of that
(21:06):
problem identification.
Bonnie Clipper (21:08):
I think it really does depend on the system
and how well resourced thesystem is.
It's such a dynamic healthcareenvironment.
There's a lot going on in thereimbursement, the resource
front, right?
That some organizations areliterally just focused on how
are they going to reduce costs?
How are they going to fill theirshifts?
How are they going to hireenough nurses?
(21:28):
How are they gonna keep theirphysicians?
There's a lot of day-to-daystrategy that oftentimes rises
into the number one position,and that means that they're not
able to spend as much thinkingtime on what are tomorrow or
next year's issues, and howmight we find a partner and
innovate through that.
I have the great pleasure towork with CNOs around the
(21:50):
country, and so many of themliterally are just continuing to
focus on the big issues, whichquite often are, workforce.
Yeah.
And meeting budget andproductivity goals.
Eric Thrailkill (22:00):
Yeah.
So these day-to-day operationalchallenges, a little bit of
policy uncertainty regardingreimbursement in the us and
perhaps here as well.
Staffing requirementsrecruitment, retention, et
cetera.
Require significant managementtime and that small amount of
time that, that maybe existed atone point in time or could exist
(22:22):
again in the future is is highlyvalued.
Bonnie Clipper (22:24):
And also I would add to that, Eric, that I think
we are seeing more than ever thebar is being raised higher and
higher for what is the return oninvestment for any investment in
technology.
So prove to me in advance.
How much money you're going tosave if we buy this thing.
So I think we continue to seethat bubble up over and over
(22:45):
again.
Eric Thrailkill (22:45):
No that's fantastic.
Hey, you've been great, generouswith your time.
Where can listeners of day 24.
Reach Bonnie Clipper.
Bonnie Clipper (22:54):
Yeah, feel free to reach me on LinkedIn.
I am, I'm a top global nurseinfluencer, so I'm always happy
to reply back to people, but youcan find me out there on
LinkedIn.
Eric Thrailkill (23:04):
That's awesome.
Okay.
Thanks for your time, Bonnie.
It's a pleasure.
Thanks.
Safe travels back.
Okay.
Bye-Bye.
thanks for joining the Day 24 podcast
Bonnie Clipper (01:15):
it's always great to be with you, Eric.
Eric Thrailkill (01:17):
A couple of thoughts on Amsterdam.
A beautiful weather.
The folks here feel like it'shot, but it's.
Mid seventies.
Bonnie Clipper (01:23):
It's gorgeous weather.
It's a lovely city.
There's amazing people here.
Love Amsterdam.
Eric Thrailkill (01:28):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
You've got a brilliant career asa, as an educator, as an
advisor, and really leadinginnovation for organizations
today.
And we'll dive in a little bitof 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 onthe a NA and nurse innovation.
Bonnie Clipper (01:50):
Yeah, I absolutely be happy to do that.
I'm a nurse by background, asyou said.
I am doctorally prepared inexecutive leadership from Texas
Tech University.
I have had an incredible journeyas a nurse.
Spent several years providingdirect patient care, moved into
some leadership positions.
Was a chief nursing officer forover 21 years.
(02:12):
And then had the amazingopportunity 21 years.
Yes.
As
Eric Thrailkill (02:15):
a CNO.
Bonnie Clipper (02:16):
Let's not say that out loud again, Eric.
But it's a long time.
Eric Thrailkill (02:19):
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 (02:24):
And I had the amazing opportunity to become a
Robert Wood Johnson ExecutiveNurse fellow, which was just an
incredible chance to really meetwith.
The, just the most top-notch,amazing people in healthcare, in
nursing.
And as part of that, we had tochoose a topic that we could be
able to contribute to for therest of our careers through
speaking, publishing othercontributions.
(02:47):
So at the time, this was 2014 to16, and I decided to dive into
innovation.
And in Nurse World, that was anew concept.
It was not commonly talkedabout.
People didn't know what it was,why you would use it, how you
would use it.
So really connected with fourother colleagues that were
Robert Wood Johnson Fellows.
(03:07):
And we wrote a seminal whitepaper the Innovation Roadmap, A
Guide for Nurse Leaders that'sbeen downloaded.
Hundreds of thousands of times.
And that set me up for anincredible opportunity to be
recruited to be the first vicepresident of innovation at the
American Nurses Association.
Eric Thrailkill (03:25):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
And what year was that?
Bonnie Clipper (03:28):
You're testing my memory.
I was at the A and a 17 to 19.
Eric Thrailkill (03:32):
17 to 19.
Okay.
So reflecting a little bit backat that time.
So EHRs High Tech Act meaningfuluse deployment.
Of electronic health records,price, transparency,
interoperability, all of this isoccurring.
And nurses is it fair to saywe're.
Maybe not as involved as theyshould have been or
Bonnie Clipper (03:55):
left behind for the large part.
At that time, we really thoughtinnovation had a lot to do
around the EHR,
Eric Thrailkill (04:02):
right?
Bonnie Clipper (04:02):
Nurses were not necessarily educated on what
innovation was, how it wouldbenefit them, why they should be
involved, nor were theyincluded.
So it took several years.
And we continue in nursing.
I think there's a really solidcore there were probably at that
time just 3, 4, 5 of us thatstarted the innovation bandwagon
(04:23):
and in nursing, and now I'msuper proud to say there are
tons.
Hundreds now that are reallytalking about innovation and
nursing, and that means amillion different things.
So a lot of opportunities havecome out of that, and I think
we're starting to see nursinginnovation thrive in the
ecosystem of healthcareinnovation.
Eric Thrailkill (04:42):
Yeah.
Safe to say pandemic relatedactivities brought a lot of
virtual technology and includingvirtual nursing.
How would you.
Say that originated some ofthose tools, technologies that
really made a difference duringthat short time period and
gaining momentum post pandemicand to really recognizing that
(05:05):
virtual nursing is a, is a keycontributor to value across a
number of different front.
Bonnie Clipper (05:11):
Yeah, I think the.
The pandemic did a couple ofthings.
Certainly in Nurse World.
It's still incredibly sad thatwe actually lost caregivers,
physicians, nurses, otherclinicians that literally gave
their lives.
During the pandemic, we alsolearned the benefit of nurses,
and I think it allowed usfinally to see around the world
(05:33):
how nurses contribute verysolidly as the largest.
Part of the workforce inhealthcare, what nurses do and
why they're so crucial to asuccessful healthcare ecosystem.
As a result of that, we alsolearned because we were forced,
that care could be provided.
Or virtually in, in many ways tomany patients.
Eric Thrailkill (05:57):
Yeah.
Not only inpatient, but
Bonnie Clipper (05:59):
outpatient at home clinics, practices at home.
We learned a whole lot and as aresult of that, it was really a
springboard for what we areseeing today in terms of how
virtual nursing is continuing toevolve.
Yeah.
Eric Thrailkill (06:14):
And.
Today take me through a littlebit of your, the origin of
Innovation Advantage, yourorganization and working with
making an assumption here ofboth enterprise organizations as
well as early stage.
Innovators with bringing toolsand technology to the industry?
Bonnie Clipper (06:35):
Yeah, we do a couple different things at
Innovation Advantage.
We work with different hospitalsand healthcare systems as well
as a healthcare consortium andto help them really.
Think through their approachesto different problems that
they're trying to solve.
So whether it's trying to figureout how can they onboard three
(06:55):
or 400 nurse residents asopposed to the hundred they're
used to onboarding.
We've done some really cool workin that space.
We also do nurse leadership.
Coaching to really help improvethe overall individual
performance with the goal ofproving the hospital performance
on quality, safety, financialoutcomes, whatever they may be.
(07:19):
The other part of what we do isI created the virtual nursing
academy, and that's where wework with hospitals and health
systems that educate and enablethem 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 youuse.
The principles are generally thesame.
We've now worked with 30hospitals and health systems and
(07:40):
we see patterns and trends, andwe've been able to capitalize on
that so that we've created aplaybook where we can help
hospitals build their caremodel.
It's up to them to identify whattechnology they wanna use to
decide how they want to use it,but we can share with them what
we've seen work and whatdoesn't.
Work quite as well.
Eric Thrailkill (08:00):
Yeah.
That's amazing.
And my guess is we're learning,we're still continuing to learn
what does work well and on thefront end of some of those
engagements, is there anassessment of what's in place
today?
And maybe aligning that with thevalues of the of the
organization.
Yeah.
To.
Get them to be where they needto be or where they want to be.
Bonnie Clipper (08:20):
There, there is, and that's, we teach people how
to fish, so we teach them whatthey should be looking for, how
they can identify the gaps andhow to work to build those gaps,
fill them in their ownorganization.
We don't do the work for them.
We teach them how to do the workbecause we want to make sure
(08:40):
that after they're done.
With us, they can continue to doit, iterate and improve it on
their own.
Otherwise, all we've done isbuild a dependency and we didn't
wanna do that.
We wanted to teach them how todo it and how to be successful
so they could continue toiterate and decide what are the
use cases?
How should they build theirbusiness case?
What should they be looking for?
(09:00):
How are they gonna develop acommunication plan?
How are they gonna govern thisstructure?
What are the outcomes theyshould be measuring?
So we help them with thosedecisions and create their own
program.
Eric Thrailkill (09:12):
Education, recruitment, retention,
tomorrow's nurses that aregraduating today, give us let's
zoom out for a little bit.
How would you describe the stateof, let's call it us first
nursing today?
And I'm assuming some of yourclients could be European, or
are they mostly domestic?
Bonnie Clipper (09:32):
Today they're mostly domestic, although as
I've had more and moreconversations here, certainly
even talk to a hospital, CEO inanother country, there is a lot
of interest in deploying virtualnursing.
Eric Thrailkill (09:43):
Similar challenges.
I'm assuming
Bonnie Clipper (09:45):
workforce and costs are typically the top.
Yeah.
Aging
Eric Thrailkill (09:48):
populations.
Yep.
Shortage.
Bonnie Clipper (09:50):
Yep.
Yeah, so I, I think that thereare gonna be more and more
similarities.
For us, really, it's trying toshow people what are the
benefits and how can they goabout creating their own
program, their own care model intheir organization, and do
what's right for them.
We know there was a studypublished last fall, so we know
75% of hospitals in the US areexploring virtual nursing.
(10:14):
Of those 75.
30% of chief nursing officersself-reported, they're not sure
how to start.
Eric Thrailkill (10:20):
Wow, okay.
Gosh.
Bonnie Clipper (10:22):
So those are typically the people that reach
out to us.
They say, Hey, we're superinterested, or Hey, we just
spent millions of dollars andbought a system.
Could you help us make sure itsticks and it works the way we
think?
It will
Eric Thrailkill (10:34):
put together all the processes and Yeah.
And get those investments.
Is it, are those.
Tools and technologies first, afinancial ROI are they a work
way of life?
Are they an improvement inquality and patient safety?
As a goal with those virtualnursing tools or how do most
(10:55):
organizations assess?
We're gonna make this investmentin people, process and
technology and our return willbe measured by X.
Bonnie Clipper (11:04):
Yeah, there's a whole lot of, it depends in
there.
Of course, organizations thatspend multi-millions of dollars
want to see a financial returnin hard dollars, typically
speaking because there are sucha diverse variation across
different vendor platforms, wesee it in a variety of different
(11:24):
ways.
It, in my opinion, the mostclean cut and easiest way to see
a true ROI is to go for.
Things like virtual observers orvirtual sitters, right?
Because if you can reduce your.
Sitter labor and reduce yourfalls.
That's a clean ROI.
It's less clean on some of theother ways to implement virtual
(11:44):
nursing.
Although we are seeing it, weare seeing more and more
evidence around the country ofreducing end of shift overtime.
That's real money.
Interesting.
We are seeing nurses being ableto take their lunch, their meal,
their breaks.
And that means that they are notonly able to sit and eat, which
is amazing as everyone should.
We are also seeing that there isa financial impact to that as
(12:07):
well.
On the outcome side, again,we're seeing trends around the
country reductions in, like tostay reductions in readmissions.
Certainly improvements in someof those safety bundles from a
patient care perspectivereductions in pressure injuries.
So I think it really depends interms of what you're looking
for.
We are seeing improvements inretention and reductions in
(12:30):
burnout and turnover as a resultof assistance with
documentation.
So it depends how theorganization is implementing it.
Eric Thrailkill (12:38):
Yeah.
I think a lot about caretransition and as care moves to
a lower side of service,including the home is care moved
from treatment to health, thatthere's this new oppor, maybe
not new opportunity, butadditional value into where care
is delivered.
Regardless and consistency ofthat, but that care transition
(12:58):
that you talked about would be akey key objective for most
organizations.
Bonnie Clipper (13:03):
Yeah.
And what's incredible is that wecontinue to see, in the couple
of years we've been doing this.
We really encourageorganizations not to focus just
on virtual nursing, but rathervirtual care, whether it's
across the continuum, inpatient,outpatient, home care, wherever
it may be.
And we continue almost everyother month, there's a new
(13:24):
clinician role in the virtualcare world.
So we have technology thatallows virtual respiratory
therapists to help wean patientsthat are intubated.
We are seeing virtual.
Case managers, carecoordinators, pharmacists,
pharmacy techs, unlicensedpersonnel.
We are seeing all kinds ofvirtual care roles emerge.
(13:47):
Pt, ot, speech, nutrition,chaplains
Eric Thrailkill (13:50):
that yeah, all very roles specific and niche
specific.
Specific where you can reallyleverage a lot of the technology
that's being implemented
Bonnie Clipper (13:59):
and it continues to grow.
Eric Thrailkill (14:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Talk a little bit about trusttoday.
So I think all of us realizetrust in the healthcare system
has had a shock over the lastfew years.
It's been widely viewed by thepublic that they generally trust
(14:21):
their physicians and nurses, buttrust in the process, trust in
the cost of care, trust in someof the administrative and
scheduling.
Complexities is has impacted alot of people's lives.
How do you think about nursestoday in a very complex
environment with a lot ofchange, with some uncertainty
(14:42):
and some headwinds facing theorganizations that they work
with?
Think about trust in their peersand physicians in the system and
with patients.
Bonnie Clipper (14:53):
We've seen for, gosh, 20 plus.
Some years that nurses remainthe most trusted profession.
So I think we know from anursing 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 andnot erode that trust, but
(15:17):
continue to build upon thattrust.
At the same time, we live in aworld that.
There's so much misinformationeverywhere.
We are trying to work withpatients and their families to
help them understand how toavoid the misinformation and in
fact focus on science and dataand facts and not be swept into
(15:40):
mainstream influencers that are.
Yeah.
Not advocating for patients, butrather pushing other agendas.
Eric Thrailkill (15:48):
Significant conflicts of interest are
emerging.
Let's talk a little bit abouttechnology.
The tech associated with remotemonitoring.
The ability to have a device ora monitor provide real time
feedback.
And then leverage ai, whetherit's predictive analytics and
(16:09):
maybe some of the newergenerative tools is a fairly new
addition.
Within the industry it's severalyears old and some of the
devices, but they're improving.
The cost is being reduced.
More people are using them, moreorganizations are prescribing
them.
How do you think about this?
Advancing technology and wherecare is provided in the
(16:29):
intersection of these devicesand data with the care that's
being provided by nurses.
Bonnie Clipper (16:35):
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 provideutilizing technology that helps
(16:59):
us do it better.
The technology isn't touchingpatients, it isn't having
conversations, it isn't caringfor, my mother, your child.
It still takes a human in theequation to, to do this.
And I don't see in the next.
Several years that we are goingto have robot nurses, right?
(17:22):
There's nothing out there thatmakes me believe that I do not
see it as a replacement in anyway, shape, or form in my line
of sight right now.
I think it's gonna be incrediblyimportant that we keep the
humans in the loop and it's thepeople that will continue to be
that direct link to provide careto patients and their families.
Eric Thrailkill (17:41):
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
And do you think some of thesetools are beneficial?
To nurse leaders with betterinformation and maybe some,
again, some predictivecapabilities.
Bonnie Clipper (17:52):
Yes, of course and certainly things that allow
us to synthesize data and makeour lives easier.
I think there's a lot of stuffout there to be aware of and
some of it is just not good.
A common conversation I have anda pushback I have with companies
when they wanna show me theirlatest and greatest AI nurse.
There is no such thing that doesnot exist.
(18:13):
The term nurse refers to a humanbeing.
We are specifically trained andlicensed.
There is not an AI nurse.
There are tools that supportnurses that make our lives
easier.
And some of those, are heretoday.
And I think that where theopportunities exist to help us
synthesize.
Patient records charts, readthrough things, and literally
(18:33):
give us a quick summary ofwhat's going on with the patient
and maybe, hey, over the lastcouple of days, this med's been
missed, or This lab is high, youshould check on this.
That helps us critically thinkand turn into better clinicians,
better nurses, that I absolutelywelcome the help.
Eric Thrailkill (18:48):
Yeah.
I'm really high on some of thesummarization tools with.
PDFs and documents and in andout of locations, and the
ability to really bring to aclinician's point of view at the
time that they needed theinformation that they need.
As we are wrapping up here Iknow you advised some early
stage companies and somestartups.
(19:11):
And gaining traction or franklyjust gaining attention, but some
of the enterprise organizationstoday, I, I know firsthand from
my perspective that this is alsochallenging today.
What would, how would you advisethose that are doing the
innovating and that are buildingbusinesses and leveraging
technologies, including AI andhealthcare?
Bonnie Clipper (19:32):
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 manycompanies want to come to me and
show me their thing.
I say no to probably nine and ahalf outta 10.
There's a lot of junk out there.
There's a lot of, hey, there are29 of these that already exist,
(19:56):
but ours is really better.
I don't, I'm, I don't believeit.
I've not seen that be the case.
So I think it's really aboutbeing very specific about the
problem you're trying to solve.
Things that do have a clinicianperspective included from day
one.
Some of those are incredibletechnologies.
There's a lot of stuff, eventhings here that have been
(20:16):
designed and not really pulledin the clinician perspective.
So when you push on some of thepain points or ask them
questions about what about thisor signing in and back out of my
other thing and back into thisthing those sometimes are not
issues that, designers or evenvendors have thought of.
They just said, oh, somebody,you'll have to sign into this.
(20:37):
You can't have a nurse or aphysician sign into three and
four things or 10 things on ashift.
It's not gonna happen.
And that means it won't be used.
Eric Thrailkill (20:43):
It's just a non-starter at that level.
Do you see the role of physicianleaders, a chief nursing
officers, those that areinnovating at the enterprise
level, being open to reallyarticulate some of the
challenges that they have and.
And work with those that areinnovating on the startup side
by helping with some of thatidentification, some of that
(21:06):
problem identification.
Bonnie Clipper (21:08):
I think it really does depend on the system
and how well resourced thesystem is.
It's such a dynamic healthcareenvironment.
There's a lot going on in thereimbursement, the resource
front, right?
That some organizations areliterally just focused on how
are they going to reduce costs?
How are they going to fill theirshifts?
How are they going to hireenough nurses?
(21:28):
How are they gonna keep theirphysicians?
There's a lot of day-to-daystrategy that oftentimes rises
into the number one position,and that means that they're not
able to spend as much thinkingtime on what are tomorrow or
next year's issues, and howmight we find a partner and
innovate through that.
I have the great pleasure towork with CNOs around the
(21:50):
country, and so many of themliterally are just continuing to
focus on the big issues, whichquite often are, workforce.
Yeah.
And meeting budget andproductivity goals.
Eric Thrailkill (22:00):
Yeah.
So these day-to-day operationalchallenges, a little bit of
policy uncertainty regardingreimbursement in the us and
perhaps here as well.
Staffing requirementsrecruitment, retention, et
cetera.
Require significant managementtime and that small amount of
time that, that maybe existed atone point in time or could exist
(22:22):
again in the future is is highlyvalued.
Bonnie Clipper (22:24):
And also I would add to that, Eric, that I think
we are seeing more than ever thebar is being raised higher and
higher for what is the return oninvestment for any investment in
technology.
So prove to me in advance.
How much money you're going tosave if we buy this thing.
So I think we continue to seethat bubble up over and over
(22:45):
again.
Eric Thrailkill (22:45):
No that's fantastic.
Hey, you've been great, generouswith your time.
Where can listeners of day 24.
Reach Bonnie Clipper.
Bonnie Clipper (22:54):
Yeah, feel free to reach me on LinkedIn.
I am, I'm a top global nurseinfluencer, so I'm always happy
to reply back to people, but youcan find me out there on
LinkedIn.
Eric Thrailkill (23:04):
That's awesome.
Okay.
Thanks for your time, Bonnie.
It's a pleasure.
Thanks.
Safe travels back.
Okay.
Bye-Bye.
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