Bill Klaproth (host): Welcome to the ASHRM podcast, made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance, safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management.

You can visit ashrm.org/membership to learn more and to become an ASHRM member. I'm Bill Klaproth, and with me is Andrew Smokowicz, Manager Risk Department at Penn Medicine, Lancaster General, as we meet an ASHRM Rising Stars Award winner. Andrew welcome.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah. Hey Bill. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Host: Excited to talk to you. So first off, congratulations on the award.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Thank you. I appreciate it. It was great, great honor.

Host: Yeah, I love it. So can you tell us about your journey into the field of healthcare risk management and how did you get to where you're at right now?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, so, so great question. I had a relatively unconventional journey into healthcare risk management. I actually am about 20 years into my healthcare career now. I started in 2006 as a student x-ray tech assistant, completed my associate's degree and became an x-ray tech. Later I became the supervisor of the radiology department, and that's where it all started for me.

I worked doing the event report management. They pulled me into doing a lot of the quality work for radiology. Our local Lancaster general risk department then named me one of their risk management stars that they had at the time. And so that led me to kind of thinking about this whole risk management career.

How do we do event investigations? And then a few years later, the job opened up. And so I actually had a colleague that said to me, you're kind of crazy for looking into risk management. There's a lot of nurses in that. I don't know if an x-ray tech is necessarily somebody they're looking for, but it was great foresight, I think by my manager at the time and the vice president that said, Hey, I think that's exactly what we're looking for. We want to look into some of the diagnostic error and kind of our diversify our thought process, as far as having different people from different medical fields within our risk management department.

So, it really did give us a broader perspective, and actually we've adopted that here. We have a physical therapist with us now and a host of other different positions, couple nurses an ultrasound tech. So, yeah, that was kind of my start in the journey. Certainly appreciated it. And we have a good group here now that kind of has grown from that.

Host: Yeah, it's interesting how people get to where they're at. So thank you for explaining your journey into healthcare risk management. We appreciate that. So, what does that mean to you to be recognized as one of ASHRM's Rising Stars personally and professionally.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, this was a great honor for me. It's a great milestone. It provided me a little bit more validation that you can come from an unconventional background. You can make meaningful contributions in this profession in healthcare risk management. I think a lot of people do go through this period where they still relate to their previous occupation.

So I think receiving this award, in addition to some other milestones, this told me like, risk management is where I want to belong, where I want to stay for a while. And it feels great. Personally, I'm a father of two kids, a husband, so I think for them at 16 and 13 they can kind of see, Hey, dad's going through this.

Dad got this career achievement. So that was great. And then, here at the hospital, our leadership team also kind of rewarded me and recognized the fact of hey, this is a great national honor that Andrew received. And they were all quite proud and, we had a little get together and it, it was a really great feeling.

Host: Yeah, it certainly sounds like you have found a home in risk management for sure. So how has earning this award impacted your professional development and career path?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, it gave me, I think it gave more confidence, further credibility. Even at eight years in into risk management, you still have this, some people have been here a long time and to be able to say to them, Hey, I'm recognized here at the national level, we knew, do know what we're doing when we make recommendations on risk management topics when we're identifying something; we truly are pulling out things that are concerning and noteworthy and, have good recommendations that go behind that. So at Lancaster General and more broadly at Penn Medicine, we're really looking at high reliability, and moving that way as an organization to say, Hey, we want all of our patients to be completely safe.

So I think this, to get this nationally, to continue to grow professionally, each of our risk professionals in both experience and education and these career milestones is a really good look for our department.

Host: So tell us about some of your work. Can you discuss any successful risk management projects you've led at Penn Medicine Lancaster General?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, absolutely. In this last fiscal year, we actually hit record numbers for both our safety event reporting and our percentage of reports that are considered near misses, so those things that could have impacted patient but did not because our staff recognized them earlier in the process. So that was something we rule out, rolled out a big initiative for to see, hey, can we get these near misses?

Can we make some meaningful changes with them? So we hit those record numbers this last year. So that was a great. A great goal for us, great goal for an organization that we really headed up here in the risk department. We also revised our RCA process. So we did a study, we moved to RCA 2 model, which we were able to decrease staff interviews, event finalization, make our employees less nervous when they were coming into an RCA and that actually, that article we wrote on that was published in the ASHRM Journal, which is pretty cool to see shortly after receiving the Rising Star Award to then get a publication by ASHRM and all these pieces coming together. It is really rewarding.

Host: I love it. You're on the move, Andrew. I love it. Things are happening.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: It feels good. It's good to see people kinda leaning into this career field. Because admittedly, I didn't know much before I got into the radiology quality side of things exactly what risk management did and what they're about and it's been great to see.

Host: So let me ask you this, why do you love risk management? It sounds like you're really passionate about this and love what you do.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, because you really get to see everywhere, we get everything from environmental concerns to down times to, hey, there was complications somewhere in a procedure, you know, medication events, just about everything. So for me to come from such a specific area, to be able to see everything and get to talk to people all across the organization, it's really been great. And you do get to see, to have the knowledge of really the things going around, going on in your organization.

Host: Can you talk about ASHRM a little bit? How have they been pivotal or instrumental, if you will, in your career development?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, ASHRM's been great. Since the time before I transitioned to risk management, I learned I was going to go to Seattle for the 2017 conference. As soon as I got there and had learned about, I got to go to a bunch of good sessions right off the bat to start about three months into my career, and we learned different sessions.

I still remember one was to be a bridge and not a bucket. So that was a good lesson to learn early on. Because a lot of times people do try to dump everything into you as a risk manager, a risk professional. From there, I got to go to San Diego last year. I just recently renewed my certification, my CPHRM.

So to be able to do the webinars that they offer, to use the exchange on their webpage, all of that stuff is great resources to have available because it is, you are kind of the risk professionals in your organization. So, outside of having a national or state organization like this, there's not a ton of resources to necessarily get, but this is a great centralized area to get it all from.

Host: Absolutely a lot of educational opportunities and especially at the conference, a great way to go and learn and immerse yourself in risk management and meet other people as well. That networking is really huge. And speaking of that, can you talk about any mentors that have helped you along the way, Andrew?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah, I've had quite a few. I think going back to my radiology time, we had great managers who brought me into leadership, first off, who kind of tasked me with getting involved with that quality committee. Do you want names specifically or?

Host: Give them a shout out. Yes.

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: Yeah. Love to. Yeah. So, yeah, Jessica Hamaker, who was the manager of X-ray at the time, she's now our Director of Radiology.

And then Rob Leach, who managed me in CT, co-chaired the radiology quality committee with me. And then obviously my risk management leadership that brought me into this field. They told me it would take about five years, to get it down as a risk manager. I still think that's maybe an underestimate, initially as a young naive person sitting there, I thought, no way.

I'm going to pick this up quickly. What is this risk management world about? But, you get different things on a daily basis. So definitely, you know, Michelle Crum, who has moved to a different organization now, and Beth Katz, who's my current vice president, they're great to have, their leadership, their experience.

Michelle has told me I was kind of her right hand at the time. I was the senior risk manager. So she really tasked me with a lot, empowered me to do a lot and Beth certainly has now, and she challenges me quite a bit, but while remaining extremely supportive. So certainly appreciate all of those individuals.

Host: Good shout outs. There you go. Nice work and good to have people like that behind you. Absolutely. So what advice then do you have for newcomers to the field of risk management?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: I think the biggest thing is to listen to what's going on around you. Really trust your gut, and that was one of the things I learned early on. You gotta develop your gut to a degree. There's certain things that may jump out at you right away, Hey, that's not, it doesn't seem like a big deal, or other people may downplay it, but you as the risk manager really have to say, okay, no, that does sound troubling, and I do need to speak up.

So I think to do that, to speak up despite other people may not feel it as something that needs to be addressed right away. We've certainly had our challenges here where things that we've thought were not as big, right, initially, really grew into something else. So that's probably one big thing.

I would also just say to continue to grow and build on experience, to continue to learn more. Because experience, I think, is pretty much, quite a bit in this field. If you're not continually learning and evolving, we have rapidly changing environment. I think when I was in ASHRM last fall, there were a couple sessions on artificial intelligence, so that, that's going to be a challenge for us upcoming.

So you're going to continue to see these things. So I think this is a job you always have to be flexible, always changing, always challenging yourself.

Host: As you said, AI is a big thing that everybody is talking about, so you need to deal with that. Cyber threats another huge one. So many things to deal with and something always new around the corner, so dealing with those things, right, you absolutely have to stay on your toes and keep up with those things.

Well, Andrew, this has been great. Thank you so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to add?

Andrew Smokowicz, MHA, CPHRM: I really appreciate being here. I think it's great that ASHRM is doing this. I think I have listened to a couple of the podcasts myself. They're very informational. I think it's great that they're also looking at different avenues as far as the webinars in different areas where people can get their education and just learn more about the world of healthcare risk management, because it is, it's an area you don't know much about necessarily until you really get into it. And it, it really does become a great field to be in.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. So, and thanks for the podcast shout out. We love doing it. And, glad to see that it's been beneficial to you and hopefully beneficial to all the ASHRM members. Andrew, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Yeah and congrats again. And that was Andrew Smokowicz sharing insights and experiences as a recipient of the ASHRM Rising Stars Award. For more information, go to ashrm.org/ASHRM-member-spotlight and the ASHRM Podcast was made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance, safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management. You can visit ASHRM.org/membership to learn more and to become a member. And 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.

Thanks for listening.