Bill Klaproth (Host): This is Today in Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. I'm Bill Klaproth. And with me is John Weimer, Senior Vice President of Kettering Health, and Rett Manley, Nursing Consultant at Omnicell as we dive into a critical challenge in healthcare, reducing the burden on nurses by optimizing clinical workflows and modernizing medication management as we explore how to simplify fragmented processes and eliminate administrative friction that detracts from patient care. John and Rett, welcome.

John Weimer: Thanks, Bill. Thanks for having us on today.

Host: Yeah.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Thank you, Bill. Good to be with you again.

Host: Yeah, Rett. Thank you. Good to see you. All right, John, I'm going to start with you. So when you think about optimizing nursing workflows, what does that mean in today's healthcare environment?

John Weimer: So, I think when you talk about optimizing nursing workflows, it is reducing that cognitive burden that we see on our nurses and our clinicians and making sure that we focus on activities that actually have value and meaning to their work.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: I'll definitely segue into that. The goal is to make the nursing workflow easier without sacrificing safety. We're, you know, having to look at these equipment that we have and the nurses are clicking in three or four different places. They're making, you know, phone calls to pharmacy, looking for their meds. We're trying to simplify the overall workflows. And as you mentioned earlier, Bill, it's to reduce the overall friction that they're noticing day to day.

Host: Absolutely. So, make nursing workflows easier. That's always a great goal. Not only does it help the nurses, but also better patient outcomes as well. So, that's really important. And, John, what are the main workflow challenges that nurses are facing?

John Weimer: Well, I think what we see today is just an amount of significant time, a non-value added task. They're constantly navigating different systems. There's variability as well as complexity as how they're documenting with the rising acuity that they're seeing, and that they always feel like technology is being thrust upon them and they weren't actually part of the design of the workflow and the design of the technology to meet their needs.

Host: So, they didn't really feel like they had a seat at the table or somebody was advocating for them.

John Weimer: Correct.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Right.

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. And then, John, are there specific areas where current technology falls short when it comes to simplifying workflows for nurses?

John Weimer: Yeah. I think what we see today is a lot of legacy systems that require the nurses to navigate through those. Lots of clicks, lots of steps. It's a big cognitive load for them that they continue to go through. We continue to develop systems that we see, and we need to engage the frontline nurses in that because the workflows currently don't reflect the unit pressures that they're on. And then, our current dispensing systems often lack advanced analytics, nurses, time wasting, what does inventory look like. So, just a good opportunity for us in that space.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Yeah. So, something that's unique to Omnicell, and they put a lot of energy and emphasis onto that, is we have to start—and we do this now—but you have to start by watching real-world workflows and watching, being with the nurses. You know, we can have historical data on what are some of the pain points, but until you're in the trenches with them, seeing what they're doing, what the problems are, it's going to be hard to solve for that because these problems can shift and change as the care continuum shifts and changes.

But the big thing, and John mentioned it, you want the nurses to feel like they do have a seat at the table. We have to build these solutions and workflows with the nurses. If you don't build it with them, it's not going to work. It's not going to, you know, gain traction. And the amount of valuable insight they have with, you know, frontline patient care is, you know, we can't take that for granted. We have to use that information.

Host: Yeah. We just did a podcast earlier. And they were saying people have always designed systems for nurses without nursing input.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Correct.

Host: And that doesn't really make sense. And that's kind of what you're talking about, right?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Absolutely.

Host: Well, let me ask you this first. How can health systems and industry partners work together to effectively in workflow improvement?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Yeah. And I'll highlight what we spoke about just a second ago. We have to build it with them, not just for them. We have to look at the feedback that they're giving us, what are the problems they're trying to solve, and then put our clinical expertise into that to make it work. If it doesn't fit the workflow, it's not going to, you know, it's not going to get used

Host: So, there's a lot of excitement around the new Titan XT. So, what is that and why does it matter?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Yeah. So, that's something we're very excited about. Titan XT, it's our next generated automated dispensing system. It'll be operating on Omnisphere ADS, which is going to live on the cloud. The benefit with this is it's a much—and we will talk through it more—it's a completely redesigned software. The hardware has, you know, gone through significant improvements. It's designed to be smarter, more efficient, without sacrificing safety. But as we move through, we're going to be able to incorporate AI into this for more better data collection, better reporting, kind of to increase the optimization of the equipment.

Host: Okay. You really see this as a game-changer then, this new iteration?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: It is. it's going to significantly set ourselves apart. You know, what we use today is still a wonderful piece of software. We use ColorTouch. But it's, you know, got some years on it. This is a much more modern user-friendly interface that the nurses are going to be able to be up and running with this significantly faster without a lot of the burdens. A lot of the manual steps that they normally would go through will automatically occur for them with the new Titan XT.

Host: Okay. So, let's talk about the workflow that it can help improve with the Titan XT. From an operational lens, how do you see Titan XT addressing workflow challenges?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Sure. So as we go to the cloud, that's going to make the connectivity much easier across the portfolio, as well as the analytics. The analytics are going to help us with understanding what medication needs to be where. So as we can better define that, we're going to decrease the amount of stockouts, for instance, that we're going to have. It's going to allow for us to have better alignment with pharmacy and nursing. And the overall patient experience and overall user experience is going to be significantly increased.

Host: So, this is all good. Optimizing workflows is really important, so this really can be a benefit. And John, how does then Titan XT from your point of view leverage automation or analytics to support smarter decision-making?

John Weimer: Yeah. So, I was appreciative that yesterday I actually got to put my hands on the machine. So when you think from a nurse perspective, just that intuitive design, how you're actually getting the medications out, all the safety features that they've added, and it really does allow the nurse to optimize their time at the medication cabinet. And when you think of the ability to scale that across departments, it's impressive. So, I really appreciate that.

And then, when you think about as we're working to deploy this, just making sure that we're championing that amongst our teams. And I would agree with Rett, just that collaboration between pharmacy and nursing is critical as you work to deploy this throughout your system.

Host: And this seems to be well received by the nursing staff then?

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Very much so. And that's a big thing is when they're designing these new platforms, the front end user feedback is paramount. And if you don't have that, you can drive a product. But if you don't get the buy-in upfront to help put that information, that expertise into the design process, you're not going to have as good of a chance to be successful. So, that's why they put a lot of, you know, emphasis on partnering with great current customers, new customers potentially learning what the pain points are, what can we do to make it better, safer, faster, more efficient. So, that's kind of where we are now.

Host: So, looping nurses in on this design and evolution of it really is important to the development of the product.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Absolutely. Yes. When we involve them early in the healthcare world, we find that, if you can explain the why, any change management, if we can explain the why, there's going to be a much better buy-in for that. So, that's huge for us at Omnicell. When we go through a process change, we're trying to learn the problems, we're trying to fix those problems. But when we roll it back out to the team, there's going to be change. So the end user, if we know the why, why are we trying to make this better? Why are we trying to fix this? Why are we trying to make this faster, more safer, what happened? Once they understand the why, the buy-in is significantly increased.

Host: Yeah. And John at Kettering, why did you see this as a viable or a really important product to use?

John Weimer: So as we continue to see workforce challenges, we see need for better medication safety and the need to engage with our clinicians, particularly our nurses on the floor. This is just that technology that he spoke of that Rett said, that ability to be at the medication cabinet and safely get your medications and be able to complete that task and go get it to your patients is critical. When you think of the scale across our health system and how that could impact medication safety and just the speed at the machine is critical for us.

Host: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, you're very happy with this product and the usage of it, and are excited for the next evolution.

John Weimer: Absolutely.

Host: Yeah. Well, this has been a great podcast. I want to thank you both for stopping by. I'd love to get quick final thoughts from each of you on this, as we talked about optimizing clinical workflows and modernizing medication management. John, let me start with you, final thoughts on this.

John Weimer: Yeah. I think it's just important if you're health system and you're deploying this technology or any technology, is making sure that you're focused on the long-term strategy. Because really leaning into this and helping the nurses or your team understand the why will increase buy-in, and long-term will increase the satisfaction of your workforce.

Host: Yeah. All right. Rett, wrap it up for us.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Yeah. My two big takeaways are when you're building something, build it with the nurses, not for them or at them. Make it so that something that they want, show them that it's going to make their workflows better, but take the input that they've given us, and then the technology has to simplify the workflows, it can't complicate. So, those are the two big things. Partner with them, make it easier, more streamlined, more effective, more efficient.

Host: Yeah. Well, we appreciate your work at Omnicell. I know you're working hard to make the lives of nurses easier. So, thank you for that. And John, thank you for partnering with Rett here and talking about Kettering's use of this. It's really fantastic. So, thank you so much, both of you.

Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN: Thank you, Bill.

John Weimer: Thanks, Bill.

Host: Thank you for being here. Yep. Once again, that is John Weimer and Rett Manley. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you at aonl.org/nursing-leadership-podcast. This is Today in Nursing Leadership. Thanks for listening.