Marlene Icenhower: Senior Risk Specialist at Coverys (Raise the Line)

Hi, I'm Sh Ghani. Thanks for checking out the raise line interview series.

In which me and my cohost doctor Rishi Desai and registered nurse, Janna Amil, explore how to strengthen our healthcare system with some amazing leaders in medicine, technology, education and government.

And they have some great advice for people starting careers in healthcare as well. I hope you will watch these highlights and then go listen to the full podcast interview wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Shu. And today on a raise line, I'm really happy to be joined by Marlene Eisenhower.

Marlene is a senior risk specialist at RIS with more than 30 years of combined medical legal experience in a variety of settings.

Can you tell us a bit about how you got into a medical legal area? Sure.

Sure. So, uh even as a little kid, I was really interested in science and medical type issues.

So, um after a few years in college, um I enrolled in a nursing program in my hometown and back then in the early 19 eighties, it was a whole lot easier to, to get into nursing school.

I just kind of trotted down the lane and, and enrolled and I was accepted. Um, but at the time I didn't know a whole lot about what nurses did.

I didn't have any nurses in my family. Um, so I guess that I sort of enrolled kind of as a lark just because it seemed interesting to me, um, as the years went on and I got more experience, uh, I got a lot more interested in the idea of medical mistake, the concept of medical mishap uh and how they were um mitigated and remediated after the fact, um you know, the investigation, the conversations with the family, dealing with the staff, uh the lawyers, all of that.

So that's what eventually got me interested in law school. And then during law school, I did an internship uh in a risk management department in a hospital, uh which was really the beginning of my interest in risk.

Um after practicing as a medical malpractice defense lawyer for years and years, uh I finally ended up um in risk management consulting and risk management.

So that's, that's how it all uh all started kind of on a lark. I'd say, what advice would you give to current and future healthcare providers um about meeting the challenges of COVID and, and beyond.

So I, you know, health care is changing really fast. It's gonna change over the next couple of decades.

And right now we're sort of on the poised on the brink of, of a time of transition where we're seeing the old guard move out, the new guard move in.

And, you know, I hear a lot of frustration from, from new providers, um, with some of the practices that are like hangers on vestiges of the past.

Um, you know, the technology issue, old medical procedures. Um, but I would encourage folks that are new to healthcare, uh, to recognize that they're the people that are gonna shape the future.

Um I would also uh encourage them um to recognize the incredible strength that they bring to the table in terms of innovation and their ability and comfort with social media technology, artificial intelligence.

Um These things are gonna pay a play a huge part in the future of medicine and are gonna change the way that they interact with patients um for the better I think, and these folks are the people that are gonna be able to implement that and change our system to be the system that they wanna practice in.

So I think, you know, to a large extent, the new generation is gonna make medicine into what they want it to be. Um I would also, I suppose encourage them to keep being innovative and look, look for ways to improve and streamline the way that we deliver medical care and embrace uh the the team concept of medical delivery rather than the captain of the ship model.

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