On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, Quint Studer welcomes Kelvin Hanger and Maria Ashdown from Good Samaritan Hospital to discuss their approach to leadership, best practices for improving patient and employee experience, and the importance of finding joy and replenishment in your work.

In his role as President and Chief Operating Officer of Good Samaritan Hospital, Kelvin focuses on providing the high-quality care patients have come to expect from TriHealth facilities. Maria Ashdown serves as Chief Nursing Officer of Good Samaritan and has responsibility for all six of their emergency departments.

On this episode, Kelvin and Maria share several key performance improvement initiatives and offer best practices for healthcare leaders facing similar challenges, including:

• New leader onboarding, mentorship, and how to use peers as resources
• Service line ambassadors to assess challenges, barriers to success, and opportunities for process improvement
• Support for “floaters” to reduce anxiety and ensure every employee feels a sense of belonging
• Holding teams accountable to quality metrics and best practices for improving patient experience

About Kelvin Hanger

Kelvin Hanger is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Good Samaritan Hospital. He previously served in the same role for TriHealth Hospital Inc. He is responsible for the operations, management, strategic planning, quality, safety, and program development for the hospital. He is focused on ensuring Good Samaritan Hospital continues to provide the high-quality care patients have come to expect from TriHealth hospitals. Along with being a Hospital President, he is also the System Executive over Surgical Services.

Kelvin moved to Cincinnati, Ohio from Louisville, Kentucky where he received his degree from the University of Louisville in Business Administration. He has been in healthcare for 33 years beginning in 1984 working for Humana in the actuary department and multiple market offices within the company.

Kelvin is very active in the Evendale Community and has held multiple board positions within professional healthcare organizations throughout his career. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel from the Commonwealth of Kentucky by Governor Ernie Fletcher. Kelvin fosters strong physician relationships and empowers his team to deliver exceptional patient experiences.

About Maria Ashdown

Maria Ashdown, MSN, RN, NE-BC, VP, Chief Nursing Officer at Good Samaritan Hospital since 2022 and serves as System Director, Emergency Services at TriHealth, since 2018, with responsibility for all six emergency departments. She has been a part of TriHealth for more than 20 years, starting her career as a staff nurse on the orthopedic/trauma unit at Good Samaritan Hospital in 1991. She served in a number of progressive leadership roles over thirteen years in the Emergency Department at Bethesda North and has served as chair of the Nursing Operations Council and co-chair of the Stroke Committee. Maria maintains Nurse Executive Board Certification (NE-BC).

Chief Nursing Executive Jenny Skinner states, “Maria has been an integral part of our nursing leadership team, proven leader with a passion for leading teams to greatness. She has demonstrated success in building strong teams, pursuing excellence, and collaborating across operations.”

On this week’s episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Quint Studer is joined by special guest Dr. Riya Pulicharam, a pediatrician by training, certified clinical trials investigator, and co-founder of Caret Health. Over her 20+ year career, Dr. Pulicharam has led more than 500 studies and a number of initiatives focused on reducing total healthcare costs for chronic disease management programs. Dr. Pulicharam shares about her experiences in designing clinical care pathways, particularly for high-risk patients with complex chronic conditions, and emphasizes the need for user-friendly platforms and industry-wide innovation.

Dr. Pulicharam also highlights the challenges faced in scaling population health programs to larger organizations and stresses the importance of a centralized approach, advocating for automated data reconciliation and task management. Her ultimate goal is to reduce hospitalizations and emergency room visits while improving patient satisfaction through informed clinical decision-making and by addressing social determinants of health. The discussion underscores the crucial role of data and technology in improving patient care.

To learn more about Dr. Riya Pulicharam’s population health platform, visit www.CaretHealth.com.

About Dr. Riya Pulicharam

Dr. Riya Pulicharam is the co-founder of Caret Health, a clinical execution platform for value-based population health. For more than 20 years, Dr. Pulicharam has served as the National Medical Director for Population Health at Legacy Healthcare Partners (now Optum Care).

A pediatrician by training, Dr. Pulicharam was a research fellow at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, and later founded the Clinical Research, HEOR, and population health departments for the Legacy Healthcare Partners. Dr. Pulicharam has led more than 500 research studies and is widely recognized as a certified clinical trials investigator.

Dr. Pulicharam's primary focus lies in population health, where she addresses social determinants of health and designs clinical care pathways for high-risk patient populations managed within value-based organizations. Notably, her work has been instrumental in various quality improvement initiatives aimed at reducing total healthcare costs for chronic disease management programs, which have been prominently featured in several publications.

Driven by a commitment to improving healthcare outcomes, Dr. Pulicharam is currently dedicated to reducing hospitalizations and ER visits for high-risk patients. Her work emphasizes the integration of healthcare technology, automation, and machine learning. Notably, Dr. Pulicharam has invented and patented a groundbreaking population health platform (Caret Health), which achieved a remarkable 57% reduction in hospitalizations and ER visits for high-risk elderly patients with multiple comorbid conditions.

On this episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, Quint Studer hosts Dr. Stephanie Montgomery, Partner, Build a Brain, Build a Life, Build a Community, an organization committed to equipping every parent with the knowledge and tools needed to maximize their child’s brain capacity from day one. Stephanie’s career began in the classroom, where she developed a zeal for improving educational outcomes and a passion for literacy and learning. She’s now turned her interest toward early brain development and is leveraging her experience to inform, equip, and support parents and caregivers across the U.S.

Their discussion emphasizes the importance of collaborative efforts between healthcare systems and pediatricians to integrate brain-building practices into routine care settings. This includes nurse training videos, scripting assistance, coaching sessions, and partnership calls to inform healthcare providers about effective brain development strategies for young children. The end goal? To ensure consistent support for parents to nurture their child’s cognitive growth and create lasting positive outcomes for families and communities.

To learn more, interested parties can visit BuildABrainNow.com or contact Stephanie Montgomery directly via email.

Additional Resources:
- Video on Childhood Brain Development (5 minutes)
- Website: BuildABrainNow.com
- TMW Newborn Implementation Trial

About Stephanie Montgomery, Ed.D.
Stephanie is a native Georgian with over 24 years of experience in education and community partnerships. Stephanie has served Northwest Georgia as a School Improvement Specialist in literacy and academic achievement. She has worked as an ELA Specialist and liaison to help strengthen relationships between state and local school systems. Through this work, she has developed a unique lens for identifying issues related to readiness skills and achievement gaps. She is skilled at working with teams to bridge the gap between knowledge and research, helping put policy into practice. Stephanie has also served as a classroom teacher, district-level curriculum coordinator, and grant writer.

Stephanie serves students and families in her community through various non-profit organizations. She works with the Get Georgia Reading campaign, Ferst Readers, and library task force committees to bolster access to literacy resources. As a Commission on Children and Youth Executive Board member, she assists in strategic planning and developing educational programming. Committed to sharing her passion for literacy and learning, Stephanie continues to tutor students with academic challenges and learning disabilities in her spare time.