This is Laura Dirdle with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor Shauna k Denham Wilkes, who's the chief experience officer at NYC Health Plus Hospitals Kings County. Doctor Denham Wilkes, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm delighted to be here with you. Absolutely. Now I'm looking forward to our discussion because I know, you know, there's so much happening in the health care space, and it really truly just interesting to see how, the whole idea of patient experience as well as team and employee employee experience has grown and developed over the years. And so I'm looking forward to learning more about what you're doing at Kings County. But before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit more about NYC Health plus hospitals as well as Kings County and and really what some of the accomplishments you're most proud of from the last year are? Thank you so much, Laura. It'd be my pleasure. New York City Health and Hospitals Kings County is in the heart of Brooklyn, New York literally and figuratively. We are the largest municipal acute care safety net hospital in Brooklyn and a level 1 trauma center. We're licensed for over 600 beds. We are part of New York City Health and Hospitals, which is the nation's largest municipal health system. And we do here at Kings County more than 1,000,000 clinic visits per year. We deliver over a 1000 babies and have highly rated centers of excellence for stroke, diabetes and behavioral health to name a few. Some points of pride for us this year include a special visit from Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child fame and baby to baby to distribute supplies for our mothers and newborns. Also, our free monthly produce boxes for patients of our robust and popular lifestyle medicine program and numerous accolades such as our gold and silver level beacon awards for our MICU, CCU, and NICU programs. Oh, that's really cool to hear. And, definitely, you know, what a great way to, inject life and energy into a program like having Kelly Rowland, to be distributing supplies and really, you know, having that as part of, the accomplishments from the last year. That it seems like it would be such a cool opportunity for the community. Oh, definitely. It was a wonderful surprise for both our patients and employees alike, and she couldn't have been more lovely spending time with our patients who had recently delivered babies and talking with them as a mother herself and really helping what I know will be a special 1st year for all of those babies and moms whose lives she touched that day. Really proud of that. Absolutely. That's amazing to hear. And, you know, definitely, it sounds like you've got, high volume of clinic visits as well, a lot to, you know, coming through the hospital and and system. So that's really great to hear. From your perspective, when you look into 2025, what are some of the big organizational goals that you're focused on and, really thinking a lot about for the next year? I think that 2025 really presents an awesome ex opportunity for patient and employee experience here at Kings County. And so the big organizational goals we're setting for 2025 center on our role as the anchor healthcare institution in this area, both for the provision of healthcare services and also as a top choice for persons in healthcare careers. And we've had a boom of new clinical and non clinical staff come on board. And we're one of those hospital settings where people come on board and stay for several years as a major part of their professional careers. And so we have this nice mix of, generations here in health care, new members to the health care community as well as persons who are established and experienced. And people choose Kings County because of our commitment to mission, vision, and values. And we wanna make sure that we continue to support our employees in their well-being and make sure that they continue to have reasons wonderful work that's already taking place here. In addition, we, in the, already taking place here. In addition, we in the care experience department not only focus on the employee experience because of its importance to the patient experience, but when we look at the patient experience lens itself here, we have had such fun working with our patients and families on their involvement in how we can make the experience better here at King's. We amplify the patient and family voice. We believe strongly in family our strategy our strategy for the Kings County of the future based on what the community is letting us know that their needs are for now and going forward. So we're really focused on, the environment of work for our employees and also the experience for our patients and family members who really look to Kings County as the place where they receive excellent health care without needing to leave the communities in which they live. That's amazing to hear. You know? And really cool to have that ability to connect so strongly not only with your entire teams, but then the patients in the community too for them to have the influence on the experience and where things are headed. And I'm wondering, especially as you mentioned, having, you know, multiple generations in the workforce, some folks that stay for years years and others who are energized and coming in and ready to make an impact right away, how do you really maximize the experience for both of those and everyone in between knowing that, you know, certain folks that might be at different places and what they need or expect from the workplace and others really have a lot to contribute on on a variety of levels? One of the great ways I love that we champion that here at Kings County in terms of how we work together across the generations is we have a strong and robust leadership listening practice here. And every week, our senior leaders, they, visit different parts of the hospital and engage in discussions with the staff members here about what's important to them, what challenges they're facing. And we model for our leaders as well as our staff the importance of respectful listening and compassionate communication. And I think by modeling that we have really, been able to hear from staff about what really concerns them. We've been able to remove barriers which help our frontline staff to do what they really came here to do, which is to work at the top of their licenses and to do the best that they can in the environment free of barriers. And I think that that has really shown up in the ways that staff have told us that they experience the work environment. Our recent employee feedback survey saw the highest number of participants who told us that they take a real pride in being part of a hospital that is so mission minded and that they feel supported by their leaders and listen to and that when they have concerns that they know what resources are available here. And one of the things that I would like to see us, do more in 2025 is not only have that awareness of the resources that we have put in place to support our employees, but also to see our employees take more advantage of those resources to know that it's always okay to prioritize self care and that we want to make self care accessible and really at the hand for our employees who do so much for the community where not only they serve, but where many of them also live. You know, as a major employee or employer in this area, we know that many of our staff members, they are not only working in the area, they're living in the area, they're providing care to their neighbors, community members, fellow parishioners, and households of faith. And so we wanna make sure that we, give our employees all the resources that they need to show up as their healthiest and best selves every day in in the work that they do. That's amazing to hear. And definitely, you know, it is such an important aspect of being a great place to work and a great team, just to have that energy and compassion. So that's cool to hear. And I I have one more question on the other side, on the patient side. You know, when you were talking about having families and and patients in the community be involved in, what that experience looks like and and really having the opportunity to listen, and apply some of the things that you're learning is really so helpful. I'm curious. What are you hearing from patients and families? What are they really, focused on, and and what do they really desire as part of their experience at Kings County? Well, I love to hear what our patients and family members have to say about the experience. They're very open in providing feedback to us and letting us know how much they love and and appreciate their primary care providers. When we get patient feedback, which we collect in a variety of forms both in person and virtually, they always have wonderful things to say not only about their primary care providers but about the support staff, the nursing staff. They tend to, name people by name and they're always delighted to hear that we take their feedback seriously by recognizing employees that are many healthcare institutions many healthcare institutions do struggle with in terms of access to care. Yes, we see so many patients over the course of every single year, but we want to make sure that our wait times for patients are respectful. And so those are things that we work on based on the given us about navigating such a large campus. It's 44 acres in the heart of Brooklyn. And so co locating practices so that patients flow through their healthcare experience in a way that has them navigating less of the campus but brings the care that they need into centralized areas. So for example, our comprehensive breast center is one such, area where the voice of the patient, resulted in all the services that are needed to address healthcare for persons who have breast disease are all located in, the similar footprint. And that has really helped our patients to address, their healthcare needs in a way that that, that shows that we respect what they've said to us and that we are willing to make change. We also have a very robust patient family advisory council here at Kingstown County, and it's diverse. It represents patients and family members who've received services from behavioral health, geriatrics, adolescent practice, birthing persons, just throughout the campus, and they meet on a monthly basis. They also have, subcommittees to address specific concerns, and they have really helped us to see campus and, the health care experience through a totally different lens. And the suggestions that they have provided have improved, several of our policies and even the way that we interact with each other. And so we anticipate that that will continue, and that we will continue to see the value of patient and family feedback and utilize it to improve such processes as how we flow our birthing persons through our labor delivery, our pre, pregnancy care, and our postpartum care as well. Absolutely. I I love those examples. It and really cool to have that type of influence to be able to act upon the, feedback that you're getting quickly and in a meaningful way. Now a lot of opportunities that we've talked about already for the next year, but I'm wondering also what are some of the headwinds that you're anticipating for the next year or 2? Well, in terms of headwinds for the next year or 2, when you're dealing with, such a large patient population, certainly we have quite a robust geriatric practice. And one of the things we highlighted this year in 2024 by having a special celebration for our super seniors, that's what we call our patients over the age of 90 years, is that, there are an ever increasing number of elders in Brooklyn who rely on our services. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of super seniors that Kings County serves. And so our focus on chronic diseases and our role in transitioning patients to long term care means that we need to remain prepared to manage the costs of this care, so that the growing number of elders who rely on our services will not feel the impact of you know, the fact that they are doing so well that they're aging in place, but that they will have the resources that they need and they can continue to rely on us to provide this care. Also regulatory uncertainty is certainly on our radar. Will there be state and federal health policy changes that will impact us in any way? As an anchor institution for our community, we owe it to our neighbors to mitigate any potential challenges so that And we intend to remain committed to that mission. And we intend to remain committed to that mission. And we remain committed to addressing and disrupting health disparities that show up in how our patients deal with issues of social determinants of health. And so our goal in addressing the headwinds that we anticipate for 2025, 2026, and beyond is to continue to provide that access to care that's exceptional and that addresses the health care needs of our communities that we serve in a respectful and equitable manner. That's amazing to hear. And and certainly, you know, just a lot of uncertainty as you mentioned right now, in where things are headed. But to have that type of team that you have, it sounds like, really being able to make changes and respond to anything that, is down the pipe and and have that page in the community front and center, seems like a really big opportunity there to kind of flipping the script on things. And so, it's just really helpful to know and understand how you're thinking through all of these things and addressing, those headwinds while continuing to provide access and good quality care to those that you're serving on a regular basis. Indeed. Yeah. We make significant investments also in technological advancements because that's also a potential area of, disparity. And since we know that, we want to make sure that we are investing in the technology that we need, whether it's AI, telehealth and on and on so that our patients also have what they need when it comes to technology and also the protection of their healthcare information as well. That's another value that we take very seriously and are committed to. Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, it'll be really interesting to catch up with you and see how some of that technology has made a difference, for you in the coming years. Now before we wrap up here, I'm wondering, from your perspective, how are you evolving as a leader, especially to meet some of the new, opportunities and and demands that are coming from both your teams as well as the community, as health care and the world changes? For me, it's so important to understand what it means to lead in a health care space like Kings County. And that does require that, not in a, a bubble where I'm not able to hear the voice of our patients as well as our staff members. So for me, my leadership evolution has really focused on being more visible and making sure that, I'm not overly prescribed in, beatings so that I don't meet where they are and understand what it is that I need to take back to those meetings in order to make sure that we are focused on the right issues. For me also, it's been very helpful to, get involved with, organizations that support leadership development for healthcare leaders. And so, networking, expanding my base of knowledge, participating in, leadership activities, hearing what it is that's going around around in institutions like mine, not only in the New York City area, but throughout the nation has fine tuned my focus as well because I find that, we're often dealing with many of the same issues And when we can collaborate on vision, on strategy, and talk about what the common denominators are in a way that, fosters growth, I find that that is another way that as a leader, it's important to involve. Certainly, one of the things that I have, focused on also is my own self care. It's one thing for leaders to, talk the talk, but it's important for us to walk the walk as well. When it comes to leadership, there is a certain level level of challenge and complexity and even stress that leaders do have to hold intention as they try to make sure that they are continually messaging and casting the vision for those who really deploy the strategy. But at the same time, it's important for me to take the opportunity to make sure that I'm as well as I can be and that not only do I take the opportunity for myself, but I share with staff the ways in which self care is a priority for me and how that, looks and how that can be, done despite the fact that we are such a busy and bustling hospital in the in order for me to be an effective leader, I first have to make sure that I'm effectively taking care of myself and engaging in activities that bring me joy within my personal life as well as with my family and with friends as well. I think that being a well rounded leader, means that you're constantly learning. And so I'm also engaged in developing my networking with others, but taking advantage of coaching opportunities as well so that I can continue to make sure that I'm addressing any blind spots in me so that it's not showing up in my work. So those are some of the ways that I'm evolving as a leader, and I'm so proud that, the work that I have done in the leadership space here in Brooklyn has led to, some accolades that although they feel personally rewarding, also I take pride in being able to receive those accolades on behalf of the wonderful men and women with whom I work and also the patients and families that we serve. That's amazing here. I love it. Thank you so much, doctor Dunham Wilkes, for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such a a fascinating conversation. I really learned a lot, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon. Thank you, Laura. It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for this opportunity.