The 2nd NurseHack4Health: November 2020
Published Nov 19 2020 12:31 PM 3,078 Views
Microsoft

To contact Chris about Hello Harmony: LinkedIn,  Chris@nurseleadernetwork.com

 

Claire: On November 13, Johnson Johnson Sonsiel, Dev Up and Microsoft partnered to host the second annual nursehack4health, giving nurses and clinicians an opportunity to define new ways to save lives. Today I talked with Chris Recinos, nurse practitioner and previous Chief Nursing executive at Kaiser Permanente and nurse hack for health hacker. And Molly McCarthy, National Director for US health providers and health plans at Microsoft and moderator for the pitch presentations and nurse hack for health.

 

Hi, Molly. Hi, Chris. And welcome to the confessions of health geeks podcast. Molly, you're coming off of a big weekend. Do you mind sharing a little bit more about nurse hack for health?

 

Molly: Sure. Thanks, Claire for having us today. This past weekend was our second nurse hack for health. This past weekend we saw over 650 participants from across the globe, eight countries over 22 states with more than 44 hours spent really networking innovating and hacking for the greater good. really inspiring to see over 15 solutions. And really nurses looking to expand their technology skills this past weekend eager to share their creative ideas to improve patient communication, patient education, and nurses eager to join a community of innovators. And I was so pleased to meet Chris.

 

Claire: That's amazing. Those stats are truly amazing. Chris, do you mind doing a brief intro?

 

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Chris Recinos. And as of the last four weeks, I've actually left my role as the chief nursing executive for Kaiser Permanente. I'm a nurse practitioner by background and a doctorally prepared. So I am now leading my own organization, as an entrepreneur, and so happy to be here.

 

Claire: That's great. Well, I have some questions for you later. But first, Molly, you participated as a moderator for the final pitches this weekend. Do you mind explaining what stood out to you the most during those pitches?

 

Molly: Sure, yeah. So past hackathon, we we really wanted to provide each of the 15 teams with not just judging or, you know, criteria as to what stood out to us. But really, in addition, feedback for the team so that they could continue on to bring their solution really to fruition. So the weekend was all about creating a minimally viable product that can be rapidly applied in healthcare settings. I was a moderator of a group, there were four different pitches, each team had three minutes to pitch. And then we actually spent about 15 to 20 minutes, providing feedback, asking questions of the team. And one of the most outstanding pitches that I saw that really hit home both to me, and I believe, to many others on the call was an idea and solution from Chris, and her team of nurses called Hello harmony.

 

Claire: And I actually heard a little bit about that pitch, Molly from you earlier on Monday. So Chris, I'd love for you to use this opportunity to tell our listeners a little bit more about your solution and your pitch. And what inspired you to be part of the nurse hack for health.

 

Chris: Yeah, so I actually was not like planning on participating in the nurse hack route, because I hadn't heard about it. So the day before it actually was launched, I got an invite to a webinar and found out about it and immediately signed up and thought I would just join another group didn't think I was going to be kind of creating my own group. But I joined late. And so I was like, Okay, I need to create my own group. And I thought about, you know, the reason I joined it was really around, like, how can I impact patients outside of the way, you know, the patients that I touch every day. And it hit me that that I needed to create a solution that I saw many people struggling with. And so about three years ago, I woke up that it was a normal morning, and proceeded to go into my daughter's room and found her lifeless in her bed. She had died of suicide. And so we found out later on that part of the reason behind that was her she just had a an immense sense of isolation, had some depression and her friends knew about it and didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to have the conversation or let anybody know. And so you know, as I've been in my chief nursing executive position and seen my nurses dropping out because of their kids that are, you know, having challenges my own children having their challenges, I realized that there was just a solution that needed to be that needed to take care of this. And so what my team and I developed in under 24 hours, which was amazing, was a chat box based solution that takes the team through a scenario like a real life scenario based on a friend that they've created so they create the key friends can chat about what the likes and dislikes are. And it's really a gamification. So you kind of go in there just kind of talking to your friend, they respond to you the way that a normal friend will respond to you. But then it'll go into like a mental health scenario and and hope gave you the words that you need to help really normalize suicide prevention and isolation and teens. And so it was really just interesting to see the uptake, we created a minimal viable product. And then we include it teenagers in the development, I got all my kids and teens, we had all of the people on the group bring all their kids and teens, they're really the ones that gave us the idea for the solution. I knew what the problem was, but they gave us the idea for the solution. My daughter shared it with her friends on social media. And immediately we had like 50 to 100 teams reach out and ask, How can I find us on Apple, so I can't find it. And so I know that there's a need out there. And it's just been, you know, it's something you know, something beautiful was born out of this adversity that happened to my family. And you know, my husband and I now have a new fire around, like what our next steps and our you know, trip future trajectory is gonna look like.

 

Molly: first of all, I just want to say thanks to Chris for sharing her story, and really looking to help others. Teenagers, I know that I actually, Chris, I had my my two boys watch your pitch the other day, on Sunday, the recording because it's so powerful and so real in today's world, with COVID-19. So thank you.

 

Claire: So what's next? What are your plans to further this?

 

Chris: So I, you know, I my business action, LLC. So I have, I did not ever want to go any kind of industrial route, I like to joke that I'm not a good employee, I don't like being told what to do, I really like to really focus on my customers. And that's it, I want to hear I have anybody above me telling me what to do. And so um, so I didn't have a lot of experience in this space in terms of investors. And so I, I actually had several advisors and investors reach out to me after the meeting to ask about how they could partner, you know, how they could help. And I'm working right now with one of them who he raised, he's raised the largest investor around $60 million as a registered nurse. And so I'm working with him in terms of mentoring. And so next steps for me are what I'm currently looking for a technical advisors slash co founder for Hello, harmony, I'm working on building the business plan and the team members that will need to, you know, really create this in a larger way, and working with a partner marketing team around what marketing will look like around this. And I'm looking at, I'm really engaging with psychologists and others to make sure that we combine within the rules of HIPAA really look at how we can utilize the data that we find to really improve the mental health and well being. And I'm starting to reach out to partner with organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention around some of their campaigns that they're doing for teen suicide.

 

Claire: And all of this in this weekend, just 24 hours, and now you have a whole plan of what you're going to do. I love that. And what about nurse hack for health Molly? This is the second annual hack. So what's next for next year? How should listeners get involved?

 

Molly:  In terms of nurse hack for health, we this is a commitment that we do alongside our partners, Johnson and Johnson, as well as Sonsiel. And we're really truly committed to bringing nurses and developers together to learn from one another and create solutions that are much needed in the marketplace. So we look forward to our third nurse hack for health. And that will be may 14 to 16th right after nurses week. So I hope that everyone listening will join us or check out nurse hack for health.org to learn more. So thank you, Claire.

 

Claire: Great, thank you so much, Molly. And thank you again, Chris, for being on the podcast and sharing your story.

 

Chris: So if you'd like to find out more, you can reach me on LinkedIn. I'm Chris Recinos, the one and only LinkedIn at this moment, or you can send me an email at Chris ch ri s at nurse leader network.com. Great, thank you so much, and I will link those details below as well.

 

 

Claire: Thank you all for watching. Please feel free to leave us questions or comments below and check back soon for more content from the HLS industry team.

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