Amy Dirks Stevens of AVIA: “Seeing Light at the End of the Tunnel; 5 Reasons to Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”

This crisis is really shedding a light on the biggest heroes in health systems, who are often not at the top of the healthcare hierarchy. From the janitors who disinfect rooms to the transporters who move gurneys, these workers are showing up every day and the world is finally recognizing how valuable and vital this work is and always has been.

As a part of my series about the things we can do to remain hopeful and support each other during anxious times, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Dirks Stevens.

Amy Dirks Stevens is the EVP, Digital Strategy Performance and Practice Lead at AVIA. She has held significant leadership roles across the healthcare spectrum, including health systems, clinical integration organizations, ambulatory services, and physician practice management. She has been responsible for operations, strategy, and growth at local, regional, and enterprise levels for large, multi-national for-profit health systems with academic and quaternary centers, as well as community faith-based, non-profit systems.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I started my career in Issue Management and Public Policy, working on the corporate and government side of community engagement and unwanted facilities for the economically disadvantaged and tribal communities. I then spent time in the energy and environmental sector. I also worked in Community Planning, including land use and the long-term infrastructure development for regions, which necessarily included healthcare. Then I moved into Healthcare Strategy and Operations for HCA Healthcare and then onto smaller not-for-profit/faith-based systems, including safety net hospitals. In 2016 I joined AVIA, the leading digital transformation partner for healthcare organizations across the country. Over the past four years I have helped lead our Provider Solutions and software development teams and am building out our Center of Operations Transformation.

I always felt a pull towards healthcare. My dad battled different types of cancers for 30 years and was the first man in the US to survive 48 radiation treatments. During this time, I saw the vast difference in care between geographies and types of hospitals and providers. I struggled with the inconsistencies of care and the impotence of the patient and family to make it better. I knew that I wanted to help make care delivery better, at scale.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The book Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leaders is one that I come back to often, and it takes on special meaning right now. It was written in 1994 by Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and I first read it early in my career. One of the fundamental principles of the book is about the right leaders for the right times — from frontline, military-like leaders who are crisis managers, to energetic and creative leaders who are builders, to measured and calm leaders who are sustainers. Different situations call for leaders with different skill sets who will be able to engage different followers.

During the COVID-19 public health crisis, this book has made me think about the right type of leaders we need right now at the front of the crisis, particularly in health systems. As we move through the different stages of COVID-19, we may need different types of leaders to emerge.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. The fears related to the coronavirus pandemic have heightened a sense of uncertainty, fear, and loneliness. From your perspective, can you help our readers to see the “Light at the End of the Tunnel”? Can you share your “5 Reasons to Be Hopeful During this Corona Crisis”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. This crisis is really shedding a light on the biggest heroes in health systems, who are often not at the top of the healthcare hierarchy. From the janitors who disinfect rooms to the transporters who move gurneys, these workers are showing up every day and the world is finally recognizing how valuable and vital this work is and always has been.

2. We are making healthcare convenient for consumers. COVID-19 is accelerating the implementation of digital front door capabilities, which provide a more connected and frictionless experience for consumers. Multiple members in the AVIA Network have gone from hundreds of telehealth visits to thousands in just one month. Systems that had already started remote monitoring have scaled these solutions quickly to send out thousands of pulse oximeters and thermometers for people to be able to shelter in place and manage COVID-19 from home and out of the hospital. We’re finally making healthcare more accessible to consumers, and I don’t think we’ll ever go back.

3. We’re modernizing and automating healthcare, which has historically been the least productive and efficient industry sector, even after the federal government. Automation can target repetitive and error-prone tasks that drive up costs and contribute to clinician burnout, which will spike after the COVID-19 surge. Digital solutions can meaningfully automate work with greater precision and accuracy, freeing up this expert workforce to personalize time with patients, while reducing clinical variation.

4. We’re seeing that digital is the great connector. At AVIA, we’ve long believed in the power of digital to accelerate transformation and connections. For the past eight years, we’ve had a growing group of now 50+ forward-leaning health systems who saw how important connectivity was inside of healthcare — from doctor to doctor, doctor to patient, physician practice to caregiver, even patient to patient. These health systems have made very concerted efforts to build that connectivity infrastructure in the past few years.

Now we’re showing just why that connectivity has been so important, because due to the spread of COVID-19, we need to connect people and patients who aren’t in the same physical location. Digital tools like virtual visits allow physicians to see patients from the safety and comfort of their home without exposing them to crowded and potentially infectious clinical locations and, just as importantly, reduces wait times and crowds at in-person care sites. Even when they’re in the same physical location, physicians can use telemedicine technology to be more efficient. For example, a pulmonologist can still be in the hospital but use virtual tools and cameras to round on multiple patients quickly, save critical PPE, and keep themselves protected so that we don’t lose doctors to illness and quarantine.

5. The power of the network has never been more valuable. AVIA’s network includes 50+ health systems, ranging from small, rural hospitals to academic medical centers to large, urban health systems. Their profiles and patient populations may look different, but they are all united by COVID-19 and are all eager to share and learn response strategies that have been working. It’s been so important to have a structure to quickly share learnings directly with peers who are experiencing the same thing or who are about to experience the same thing. For example, many Members in our network are sharing new and innovative strategies for supply chain challenges, like sharing templates for 3D printing of N95 masks. We’re seeing incredible value in being able to find the right people at the right time who are willing to share accurate, raw, and unfiltered information. And I think these expert networks will only become more valuable over time.

From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

1. Look for opportunities to create and collaborate. We’re seeing stunning examples of creativity and collaboration across health systems and in communities, including partnerships with companies to solve PPE shortages or grassroots efforts to produce homemade masks. Health systems are no longer operating in a bunker mentality, but in a broader ecosystem. We can too.

2. Find ways to work differently. We’re seeing how so many jobs can be done at home, providing greater flexibility and removing barriers to performing work. Take this opportunity to create new and intentional routines. And be mindful of how your colleagues are responding to this time and creating their own new routines, which may include homeschooling and necessary, flexible hours.

3. Learn new skills. This is an opportunity to informally upskill people, to learn new aptitudes and develop new interests. Inside health systems we’re seeing people rise into new roles — for example, innovation leaders are now charged with creatively sourcing PPE and working in the supply chain, where they typically haven’t spent time.

4. Have the hard but necessary discussions. Conversations about long-term care and advanced directives with loved ones who are battling COVID19 produce significant anxiety, especially since they likely can’t be had in person due to social distancing. But these conversations need to be had. There are digital tools out there to help facilitate these conversations. One of AVIA’s sister companies is Wisercare, a digital platform that guides patients and care teams to the best and most appropriate choice at the right time. It can be deployed remotely for patients to complete independently, or with telephonic or video facilitation.

5. Stay connected to your colleagues and community. Digital is a tool not just in healthcare, but in our every day. Use digital to chat with the co-worker you usually see in the kitchen. FaceTime your family. Take advantage of the power to connect with people at the press of a button.

What are the best resources you would suggest to a person who is feeling anxious?

We’re seeing a surge in behavioral health requests and access to these services. We know that patients are struggling with behavioral health needs, and so are providers. Many health systems, which are often the largest employer in their community, are offering free online behavioral health services to all their employees.

Another one of AVIA’s sister companies is called LIFEXT, which combines digital tools with one-on-one coaching for a custom employee engagement program that optimizes wellbeing and performance. The thesis is that we can all learn resilience and mindfulness, skills that are more important than ever right now.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My favorite quote is by an unknown writer, and it’s incredibly relevant right now: “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

AVIA was already rallying the nation around the desperate need to care for vulnerable populations. In 2018, we launched the Medicaid Transformation Project, a national effort to transform healthcare and address related social needs for the most vulnerable. Inspired to act, 30+ health systems joined this movement and committed to transformational change — digital deployed at scale to improve the health needs of 75 million Americans, while reducing overall cost of care.

This commitment will be more important now than ever. Due to economic hardships, more people will be on Medicaid and struggling with social determinants of health. One of the most powerful ways we have to address social needs is through digital, like behavioral health apps on mobile phones or new tools like remote monitoring that can reduce access barriers and allow clinicians into people’s homes.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amydirksstevens/

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!