Clinician Spotlight: Carrie Hallock

VP, Clinical Excellence

Clinical and support staff are the backbone of the healthcare industry. Often asked to work with few resources to deliver care at the most important times in a patient’s care journey, clinicians deserve recognition and appreciation for all they do.

Faced with a workforce crisis like never before, health systems and hospitals need someone who understands these challenges — and at Get Well, we do understand. And we certainly appreciate those on our staff who have spent time as clinicians. That’s why we’re launching the Get Well Clinician Spotlight series — an opportunity to give the clinicians who work for Get Well the recognition they deserve and the space to share their stories and thoughts about the biggest challenges facing today’s clinician workforce.

Carrie Hallock, CP Clinical Excellence
Carrie Hallock
VP, Clinical Excellence

Please share a little about your clinical background and what brought you to Get Well.

I received my BSN from Villanova University and worked as a critical care nurse in many different health systems across the country specializing in surgery, trauma, transplant and burns. Patients I cared for were critically ill and oftentimes I was spending a lot of time educating my patients’ families to help keep them informed and ease their anxiety around their loved ones’ condition. I came to Get Well after I was working at a hospital who was an early adopter of Get Well’s inpatient solution. After learning about how Get Well engages patients, families and care team members throughout the care experience, I jumped at the opportunity to join their team. 

How have you used Get Well solutions in the field?

I began my role at Get Well as an onsite navigator at one of our community hospital client sites. I was immersed in the day-to-day operations and spent time with both staff and patients leveraging the inpatient solution. I rounded on patients and gathered feedback and answered questions but more importantly, spent time with the staff understanding how use of our inpatient solution could fit seamlessly into their daily care processes with their patients. I launched the first ever pathway through inpatient focused on gathering at the point of care patient sentiment around their care experience. 

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy having the opportunity to interact with various health systems across the country and listening to the challenges they face today and how they are hoping patient and family engagement technology can be a part of the solution. I love rounding out on the units in hospitals with Get Well and seeing the smile on a pediatric patient’s face as they use Get Well from their bed or talking to a front line nurse about how they are using Get Well to educate their patients and families. As a wife, mother, and daughter, I also enjoy seeing how our technology can have such a positive impact across different generations and in various stages of life and health care encounters. 

What are some of the biggest challenges facing today’s clinician workforce? 

Coming out of the past two years of the pandemic and the toll that has taken on our clinical workforce, I think the biggest challenge continues to be staff burnout due to high census and acuity of patients coupled with staff shortages and high turnover. We have a workforce of people who have dedicated their career to providing hands-on care to patients during some of the most vulnerable and critical moments in their lives and this workforce is faced with providing the best care and patient experience possible while also taking on more with less help. 

What is the best way to address those challenges?

I believe the best way to address these challenges has to be a multi-pronged approach with people, process, and technology. Giving patients and families easier ways to be more proactively involved in their care experience and be more autonomous with non-clinical needs will be key. At the same time, as the staffing shortages and turnover are hopefully addressed over time, identifying ways to increase efficiencies in the care team’s workflows will be essential. Any opportunity to automate required documentation in the patient’s chart and remove duplication of efforts will help.