Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Krysta Dancy

In this captivating episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, delve into the world of expert insights as Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm engages in a thought-provoking and informative discussion with Krysta Dancy, MA, MFT, CBD(CBI), Certified Provider Educator, Founder and CEO of Dancy Perinatal.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website. 

This material was prepared by Quality Insights, a Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. Publication number 12SOW-QI-ARPA-122024-GK

Transcript

Welcome to "Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights," the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care. 

In each episode, Quality Insights’ Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys. 

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm. I am Dr. Jean Storm, the Medical Director at Quality Insights, and I am very excited about the guest that we are going to be talking to today. We have with us Krista Dancy, who is a perinatal care specialist. She specializes in provider education.

She is a licensed therapist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and holistic trauma therapist specializing in perinatal mental health and birth trauma. She has more than 15 years of experience in psychology and has worked with new families for years. Krista is a CEO of Dancy Perinatal Counseling, which she started after being unable to turn away pregnant or postpartum clients in need of counseling.

And I am very excited because we're going to be talking about something that is very important, especially now that we are It's still in the post pandemic period. We're going to be talking about burnout. Um, particularly amongst health care workers. Um, something that is very important that we should all be focusing on.

And Krista also serves as the co director and clinical supervisor at the place within a nonprofit that affords, that provides affordable counseling. So just fantastic work that she is doing. Krista, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Thank you so much for having me. What a lovely, warm welcome. I appreciate 

it.

Great. So let's just jump in. Tell us how you came to do what you do. 

Yeah. I always say that this is the specialty that chose me because, um, long story short, uh, I was so fortunate in my early years as a therapist working towards licensure to work with a lot of combat veterans. And, um, they were my first teachers on the subject of PTSD, it became a passion of mine through my work with them.

Um, later as I became a new mom, I attracted a lot of new moms to my practice and started to see what looked like PTSD symptoms. But outside of a combat context and so it became this little niche of mine at the time of Helping people who had PTSD as a result of birth I always say that's the first specialty that chose me what that ended up developing into was about 10 years and I decided it was really easy to have perspective on what that meant Um, you know, after the fact in my nice cozy therapy office, well after the fact, and that I really needed to understand better what it was like at the bedside.

So to get there as quickly as possible, became a certified birth doula, started attending births at the bedside and had this lightning moment, uh, witnessing a PTSD response in a staff member, um, and realizing, Oh my gosh, I'm doing all this training on trauma informed care for medical providers and professionals.

And completely missing the elephant in the room that so many of these care providers have their own trauma. And what do we do? Oh my gosh. Um, and that, so that happened almost at this point a decade ago. I'm about 20 years in now. And so that was kind of the impetus of like realizing, you know, if we want to create trauma informed care, we really need to create a trauma informed system.

It has to start at the top. And so now passionately moving more and more, especially post COVID, it's become more of an interest. Like, how do we support our staff who have PTSD or trauma symptoms as a result of the care they give? And it's something I'm so passionate about because I feel like if there's anybody that you really want to support, it's the caregivers.

Yeah, I would agree. I think there, there is. I think we do need to look at that post in this post pandemic period. We have to think about, um, the role of trauma and what healthcare workers, you know, what they experienced. So in your role, you're both a therapist and you're a CEO. So you must encounter a significant amount of emotional and mental strain.

Have you personally experienced burnout and how did you recognize it in yourself? 

Oh, yes. That's a good, I love this question. Absolutely. What I will freely tell people is the only reason that I am still able to do this work in all the facets of it is because I have a trauma therapist. And that's true.

That's real. It's not, it's not hyperbole at all. Um, This work has put me in interaction with a lot of both secondary and primary trauma and traumatic experiences. I've experienced PTSD in my own life, um, two different times, uh, like fully diagnosable, complete with flashbacks and all of that. Um, and then lesser degree trauma more times than that.

And I feel like if it wasn't for the fact that I had this understanding, I wouldn't still be doing this work. And that's why I feel so. Passionate about a little bit of know how goes a long way because I've gotten to read the benefits of that know how like it really is pretty Um treatable preventable.

We can support people through it and help them stay in their careers and love their careers Um, so how did I know I was burnt out? uh Well, I can align it with what i've experienced and what I also teach which is we know that compassion satisfaction In other words, like how people rate it, does it feel good to give care?

Uh, as we start to reach burnout, the answer becomes no, not really. Um, people who are in caregiving professions like therapy, like medical care are people who, who like to be in a position of taking care of others or they wouldn't be drawn to the role. There's a lot easier ways to make money. There's a lot easier ways to provide for your family.

Uh, that's why I like this group of people so much because among all the options they have chosen to. Do something that matters deeply in the world. And so when it stops mattering, that's a sign, that's a sign that we need help and we need support. Um, and I know and have seen and have personally experienced that if we treat it, like if we treat burnout as a symptom instead of the illness itself, if we treat it as a symptom, in this case of like unaddressed trauma is my opinion.

We actually can do something about it. We actually can alter the trajectory of that and help people have careers that feel meaningful for the longterm. 

I think that's music to a lot of healthcare workers ears who are listening out there, I'm going to say. Um, You know, when we talk about the emotional toll of being constantly immersed in difficult situations, like the pandemic did, um, and maybe even still now there's COVID is still kind of, um, you know, wrecking havoc, I think, in a lot of, um, nursing homes, we have a lot of nursing homes, staff members who, who listened to the podcast.

So, you know, whether it's clients sharing their trauma or managing organizational challenges, how do you. Maintain your own well being while navigating such intense demands. And how do you what you what advice do you give others who are navigating? 

Yeah, I mean, there's so much I could say about this, it ought, I should put it in a book, there's a lot to say, because I have so many tips and tricks, but we don't have that time, so I'll give a few, um, for me, part of my, um, we'll just say, I like to call it a maintenance plan, because I think, to me, the parallel is like, you know, within a hospital system, when we buy really expensive equipment, we have sort of a plan to maintain that expensive equipment, because we know wear and tear is a part of it, I look at care providers, The same way.

Wear and tear is a part of it, so we have to have a plan to maintain health and to maintain functionality. So part of my maintenance plan is to have access to a therapist trained in EMDR. Um, that's one of my strongest recommendations. That, um, I'm able to get in touch with as I have critical incidents that as I have experiences that, um, I'm struggling to recover from, uh, another one is there's a lot to be said for the maintenance of a healthy nervous system.

Essentially, um, we understand so much more about trauma than we ever have, which is part of why I'm so excited about the subject. And whereas in the past, we've basically said like we've grouped trauma with perhaps other mood or anxiety disorders. Um, it's been stigmatized as, you know, sort of like toughen up or look on the bright side or just be thankful or whatever it is.

We actually now understand that, uh, PTSD is purely the outcome of memory formation process that went sideways. It didn't happen how it was supposed to happen. And so instead of it, the memory being encoded as past tense and therefore this whole time heals all wounds, um, it doesn't get encoded as past tense.

And so instead of time healing that wound. Any time it's triggered, your body and your senses behave as if it's in danger of happening right here and now, even if it's not, which is incredibly frustrating to people experiencing that because they can't rationalize it away. So for me, I know that if I bring a healthier nervous system into these high stress environments that I'm in, I'm likely to weather.

And I also know that if I take care of myself immediately after a bad experience, I am more likely to encode the memory correctly instead of pathologically and less likely to experience trauma over time. So there's aspects of making sure I get adequate rest, making sure I get adequate movement, making sure I am nourished and hydrated, having a place to debrief and vent and have an empathetic listener to the experiences that I have.

Um, those are some of my top, like, First aid after a bad experience at work recommendations. Obviously there's more, but those are easier to get to. 

I love those. And I think those are fairly easy to implement. Um, in the mental health field, trauma is something you encounter daily, both in your clients and as a professional working in the high, in a high stress environment.

So how do you think the trauma that healthcare workers experience differs from that of their patients or their clients? 

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, on, on a level of symptoms, I don't think it differs. And, you know, I know that the literature makes a distinguishing line between like primary trauma, secondary trauma, vicarious trauma for the purpose of research.

I understand why they did that, but in like the clinical world where I'm working with a client, it doesn't really matter because the symptoms display the same. Um, I think, so if the symptoms display the same, then what's the difference, the difference is sort of more in the causation end of the, um, the timeline.

And what I mean by that is like. The average person across a lifespan, the lifespan prevalence of PTSD for the general population is about 8%. So in a whole lifetime, 8 percent of the people have PTSD. We see statistics in healthcare, depending upon discipline, as high as the 30s, in the 30 percent range. Um, PTSD prevalence right now, not lifetime, currently.

So I think the biggest distinguishing is not in the symptom range, but in the fact that there's like a lot more exposure and a lot more opportunity to get PTSD, right? I mean, you are walking into people's lives at a time that is high stakes and unknown outcomes with a high degree of responsibility, multiple times within one shift.

Um, for some people, depending upon discipline. So there's just a lot of opportunity to have PTSD, which is why I really want us to think about it as a maintenance plan instead of it like, oops, you're one of the unlucky ones who got it. Let's think about it. Like, it's probably a foregone conclusion for most people across the span of their career.

So let's have a plan for how to both prevent SS entry. 

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So if we talk about the root cause of burnout for healthcare professionals, I'm hearing you say that you feel that it is, it is trauma. 

Totally. Yeah. 

Yeah. And I think that a lot of, yeah, it's so funny because I don't think a lot of healthcare workers kind of think about that.

You know, they just think, Oh, it's just, this work is not for me. Or, uh, you know, maybe I wasn't meant to do this. And I think in getting people to think in a different way is, is a really important. 

Yeah, so I love that you highlighted that and that you caught that. What I often say is if you take a Venn diagram of Symptoms of burnout on one side and symptoms of untreated PTSD on the other side, there is a very, very near perfect overlap.

So I think what we are often talking about at a policy administration level, when we're talking about, um, burnout, I think what we're actually talking about is unaddressed PTSD a lot of the time, not always, but a lot. And that's actually good news because we know how to treat PTSD. We know how to treat PTSD efficiently and effectively.

Um, we don't know as well how to resolve burnout. It's a little bit more nebulous. So I actually think this is good news and reason to be optimistic because that puts it in the range of pretty solvable. The majority of the time. Um, it's very predictable that cross a career of untreated PTSD on your nervous system, where the source of your trauma triggers is your workplace that you have to reenter over and over and over.

It's like, if I punched you in the arm in the same place over and over and over, there would be a time period of increasing pain. And then there would be a time period in which the nurse would stop signaling to you that you're in pain and you would start to go numb. And that is a very close parallel to what happens on a psychological level to a nervous system that is constantly in a fight and flight trigger for PTSD over and over and over for self preservation.

It goes into a state of numb and numb looks a lot like burnout. Okay. It looks a lot like, I don't enjoy this, this doesn't feel meaningful, I'm not moved by the work I do anymore, they feel cynical, they feel detached, and it is completely predictable, and we can't actually prevent it and address it when we understand it this way, so that's part of why I talk about it so much, because I want people to feel optimistic.

That's wonderful. I think that that's great. And I will say I've seen a lot of, you know, there's a lot of talk about about burnout, you know, especially post pandemic, um, with a lot of health systems, you know, that are doing work, um, you know, to, to treat or prevent it. But do you think the system on the whole is doing enough to, to address the mental health needs of healthcare workers?

Um, or do you think that there needs to be more that's done, you know, to support, you know, them through burnout and trauma. 

Oh my gosh, I think there's so much to be done. I think there's so much to be done. I see individuals, um, in increasing awareness of this issue and increasing passion for this issue.

I'm optimistic that this awareness is starting to reach levels where it can actually influence policy. That it can actually influence leadership choices. Um, what I even noticed, because I've been speaking about this for some time, is that there's an increasing interest at an institutional level now that wasn't even there five years ago, because, um, post pandemic, so many people are concerned about attracting and retaining talented staff.

Um, and so I do see that there's an awakening to it, but It feels collectively like there's still a lot of, well, what do we do with that? What do we do with that awareness? What, what's the next step? What's the answer? How do we, um, spend money and create policies that are going to be effective? Um, and I think there's a lot more to be done.

But the good news is, the answers are not complex. The answers are pretty simple. The execution is always where it gets bogged down, right? But the answers are pretty simple. So I feel really optimistic about the future. And also, I think that not nearly enough has been done at this point. 

That's fantastic.

I'm glad you're optimistic. That makes me feel optimistic. 

Somebody has to be. 

I agree. I agree. So, so if we, you know, want to give healthcare workers, maybe just some small practices or daily habits. To help them, um, avoid burnout, manage trauma in a healthy way. Could we give anybody, everyone, anyone listening out there some, some, just some small tips that they can, um, implement on a daily basis.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, some of these tips I'm going to say, I want to acknowledge to people who might be listening may not be something within your control. Um, I'm still going to save them just in case it ever becomes within your control, but I want to acknowledge that systemically, some workplaces are not supportive of these things.

Uh, if it is within your control, we see definitive proof that, um, healthy REM sleep within a window of a traumatic experience is is protective against PTSD. And what we know is a lot of caregivers have disturbed sleep patterns for a variety of reasons. Um, and so what is typical advice, it would be like, if you have classic primary insomnia, we're gonna tell you to get up and distract yourself and to stop trying to force it, right?

Try again later. Um, and we're talking about sleep hygiene and all that, that advice is bad advice for PTSD. So one of the first things I will say is if you have had a hard shift, if you have experienced something that was intense, do whatever needs to be done to get sleep as soon as you can after. Um, even if that means you need supplements or medical support for that first sleep, we know that REM sleep is protective.

Actually, it's been theorized that PTSD is better understood as a symptom of sleep disorder. Um, because the causation is so clear, so we don't know that for a fact, but there's such a clear, I shouldn't say causation, no, causation has been proven actually. We know that if people get, um, that REM sleep early on, that they do a lot better than the people who don't.

The other thing that I would say is, um, most of our highly effective trauma therapies involve some form of bilateral stimulation. So it's at the point now where that's a recommendation I make to all the professionals that I'm giving care of is that we start incorporating bilateral and that just simply means right left alternating stimuli.

It's easy enough to do in headphones with music. You can find it for free anywhere you stream your music. Um, I will, if I leave a difficult experience, a difficult birth, something that's made me feel emotional or distressed, I will put in headphones and listen to bilateral music before I pull out of the parking lot even.

Um, as a way to aid my brain, we, we theorize maybe it's somewhat is related to the rapid eye movement. It's the right left that is somehow helpful in the processing of memory and emotion. Um, other forms of bilateral happen to include taking a walk, swimming, some forms of yoga, drumming, um, anything that's alternating right left is really, really helpful.

And I would recommend that that is just something that everyone kind of incorporates. Um, and then a final thing, as silly as this sounds, so often people who are in high acuity environments sacrifice their own biological needs, such as hydrating and eating. What we know is that, um, your nervous system is distressed by that, uh, hydration and vasopressin have a really close inverse relationship.

We know that it is helpful to your nervous system. to look out for your nourishment and look out for your hydration, especially after a distressing event. The theory is that it seems to signal to your nervous system, Hey, the danger has passed and we're safe now. So one of the things that I recommend is that in addition to if you are able to control that, um, sleep immediately following space between shifts immediately following also, if you're able to take really good care of your physical body, uh, if you can go for a walk, if you can put in bilateral music, if you can give yourself a nourishing snack, if you can hydrate well, and if you can rest.

Those things all signal on a primitive, you know, central nervous system level. Hey, we're not running away from the bear anymore. We don't need to be in fight and flight anymore. We can close this chapter. This bad thing is over and it helps. The idea theoretically is that that helps the memory process begin in a functional way instead of a dysfunctional way.

I love these little tips. I mean, it sounds very simple, but I, I, they're restorative. I mean, it's so simple 

and it's so annoying too, because it kind of sounds like we're talking about like self care and that's why I like to give a little bit of the understanding of the science behind it to understand it's, it's deeper than self care.

Um, but yeah, if you think about what happens after a really upsetting event, probably people can think about examples that they have had from their work if they're listening to this. Um, the first thing you do is you can't sleep, you startle awake, you push too hard, you try to distract yourself. You don't eat anything.

Your stomach feels upset. You forget to drink, right? So the first thing we do is pile on the stress response our body's already having and make it harder for the repair to start. 

Absolutely. So those are great tips. So I'm assuming you're going to say that leadership now needs to kind of get on the bandwagon of this and make sure that they're supporting, um, healthcare workers, if they go through a traumatic event, um, you know, in, in, in doing supporting, um, workers, re reminding them and, and making sure that all of those things are happening.

Um, and, but, but. Maybe more. So how can organizations build a culture of support and healing, um, you know, to help healthcare workers get through trauma? 

Yeah, I love that question because there's so much that we can do. Um, one again, it sounds really basic, which is we actually know that workplace cohesion, the ratings that staff give of workplace cohesion is inverse to their PTSD levels across the staff, meaning the better that they feel their workplace cohesion is.

The less, the lower their levels of PTSD as a workforce. And so we know that workplace cohesion is a very important part of nervous system regulation. So any initiatives towards that effort, I think get passed off as sort of like icing. That's a nice idea. I think we need to prioritize that as first line because your workplace culture is the first place that you walk into after the traumatizing event.

It's the first exposure after what could be potentially traumatizing and how it is has a big impact on how your nervous system perceives it. Other things that we know evidence based ideas would be things like, um, giving adequate time off after a bad outcome. Uh, because of all the things I talked about, because if we pile the stress response on without enough restorative sleep in between, what happens is things that wouldn't have been traumatizing by themselves are traumatizing by the compounding factor.

Um, we also know that having spaces on site for down regulation of the nervous system are incredibly helpful. So a space could be a green space, could be a quiet, reflective space, could just be a friendly staff break area, but a place where we can truly sort of exhale, okay, like in this space, I have 10 minutes and I can do what I need to do.

If that's cry, if that's. You know, um, access like spiritual resources inside myself, if that's have a snack, if that's breathe, whatever it is, I can do this and I can downregulate my nervous system. Um, we also know that trauma training similar to like the conversation I'm having with you right now. So, The majority of physicians have never even received one hour of training like this.

And so we know that giving them this little bit of information goes a long way because this is a highly resilient, resourceful group of people. It's a little bit of information, a little bit of training on what to look out for, how to help themselves. They have lower staff turnover, lower absenteeism rates, less requests to be reassigned to a new location when they get that.

And so I always like to say, I know some of these things are hard to sell on like a budget level or on a logistical level, but how expensive is it to replace, you know, one of your staff versus any one of these measures. And I think it's pretty easy to show. We don't have the research yet. I think it'd be pretty easy to show a return on investment.

Um, and I look forward to that being researched in the future because I think it's so easy and cheap. It's, it's not about. Uh, it's not about this being pie in the sky, it's just about a will with a little bit of knowhow if the will and a little bit of knowhow are there, we could do a lot with a little on the subject because it really is so fixable.

Yeah, I, I can imagine. I, I was a, a physician in a, in nursing homes during the pandemic, and I honestly, if there was a little space for 10 minutes just to take a breath. I think that would have been amazing. Life saving. So yeah, I think the sixes are, are, are fairly simple. Yeah, 

so they are because we are we're built to you know, I think it's so important to say like people think oh You're gonna talk about PTSD.

It's gonna be a real downer Well, I hope it's not because what I'm trying to say is actually we were built to be resilient in the face of traumatic experiences Particularly medical professionals tend to be a pretty gritty bunch of people similar to my early experiences I worked with literally, you know special forces in the military.

This is not weak group of people. This is a tough group of people, right? Like medical professionals are resilient, resourceful and tough group of people. They do a lot with a little, so it really doesn't take a lot, but we can't ignore it and expect it to go away or get better. 

I agree. You know, we, we talked about, we've been talking about the pandemic and Um, you know how it's really brought to light.

Um, you know, I think the underlying levels of stress and trauma and just exacerbated those, you know, underlying stress and trauma and then, you know, manifested in burnout. How do you think the pandemic exacerbated the challenges for health care workers? And do you think that all of those challenges Do you think that the pandemic has had a lasting effect?

Like do they, they still have an effect on healthcare workers ability to cope with trauma and stress moving forward? 

Oh, yeah. Such a good question. Um, so first to what you said, you know, what's the pandemics effect been on this? Not good. It's been not good. And I have never said that to an audience that anybody gave me a confused look.

Everyone's like, yeah. We are all aware is not been good. Um, you know, my background started in obstetrics. I know that for physicians, we were looking at PTSD rates somewhere or hovering around the 30 percent range. Um, during the pandemic, it got into the mid forties and, uh, they were specifically measuring high severity symptoms, so it's not comparing apples to apples because whereas all severity was in the 30 percent range, high severity was now in the mid 40 range.

So. We know that, um, we got to a place where about half of physicians were walking around with active severe PTSD. Uh, I'm not seeing a lot of good follow up on that. So I ask everywhere I go, like, do we think it's gotten better? Um, I'm curious if you have feedback on that. I, the feedback I'm getting is no, I don't think it's, I don't think it's as severe as it was at the height.

I don't think it's gone back to baseline. We'll see what the data shows. What do you think? 

I think it's a very interesting question and I, I wonder a lot about it for nursing homes. So we're, we have unprecedented numbers. Staffing challenges right now in long term care facilities. So I really wonder if it's a result of, um, you know, trauma during the pandemic that has not been, um, has not been assessed or looked at.

Um, it just kind of ignored, like go on. And, and then, you know, and I will say this, I think that we've faced a period of time after. The pandemic where there was a lot of, um, individuals who said it was all fake or was all made up, or, you know, there was a lot of conspiracy theories and still a lot around vaccinations and all that kind of thing.

So it maybe has created an environment where that trauma does individuals maybe are, have shame maybe of even examining it. 

Yeah, and we know that that can make it worse. Yeah, absolutely. I think that I see that too. The other thing that, so back to think about what I was saying earlier, which is that a supportive cohort, right?

And the ability to take care of your biophysical needs immediately following a difficult experience. All of that's protective. COVID was a barrier for all of that. Staff cohesion was at all time low. Many staff didn't even get to see each other's faces, let alone chitchat by the metaphorical watercooler, right?

There, many staff were under orders not to socialize with one another because of the fears of infection risk and that sort of thing. Um, We know that this is kind of a deeper topic for another day, but our nervous system, we regulate dyadically, we regulate in dyad. And so if we are cut off from our cohort of coworkers, we are cut off from sympathetic, um, contact.

We're cut off from being able to blow off steam with one another, cut off from eye contact, the ability to see a person's smile, all of those things puts our nervous system into a state where we are a lot, more at risk of this impact that I'm talking about, because we are coming into a difficult experience already distressed.

And then we leave the difficult experience, none of the tools to self regulate. We leave the difficult experience and are in isolation, um, combined with what some people saw in terms of sicker patients for outcomes, right? What people experienced who were treating COVID patients themselves, what people experienced in the obstetric wards, what people experienced in.

You know, nursing home care and then now where we're at is I don't think we're, I don't think we're in the same state where we're at the fever pitch of it, but I don't think we've gone to baseline. And the reason I say that is because now there's a downstream impact where, um, staffing shortages mean inadequate time off between difficult experiences.

More things become an emergency because we don't, we don't have the ability to afford time, the time needed to get good care. Okay. Um, more things become an emergency because there's not enough hands on deck, there's not enough proactive decision making, and that impacts staff cohesion, that impacts my ability to rest, to take time off, that means that staffing shortages say like, well, I can't give you time to go down regularly in a nice quiet space because I can't afford to give you that time.

So they're not getting adequate, uh, rest in between difficult experiences. At the same time, there's less hands to carry all the work. And so it's really created this space in which it's kind of the perfect storm for trauma and, and by proxy burnout. And I think like, it's important to acknowledge that because if we just keep saying, Oh, it's fine now it's behind us.

I actually don't think that that benefits the staff because inside themselves, they know they're not. I think it's better to say. No, this is real. You're not making this up. We're in this together. We're trying to problem solve this. We're open to how we can problem solve this. Let's collaboratively work because what we know is We are social creatures who heal and understand difficult experiences within community.

Think about all of our many ancestors who would have gone through difficult experiences within their community and didn't have access to EMDR, didn't have access to the latest technology, didn't know the central nervous system science, but they knew how to heal in community even so. We are wired for that.

And when we build community where we're like, Hey, we don't have the answers, but we're acknowledging the problem. And we're open to collaborating on this together. Everybody collectively sighs. Everybody collectively says, okay, I'm bought in towards the solution and that sort of action is actually really protective against things like PTSD and burnout.

So I want people to feel like, yes, there is a real problem. COVID really did exacerbate an already present problem and accelerated an already present problem. Um, and that's okay. That doesn't mean we just throw our hands up and say, well, it's just going to be terrible for all of us. 

Yeah. I, I love that. I had a, I had a sigh when you said we'll have a collective sigh.

So 

it's like, 

okay, 

well it feels terrible when you're struggling. It feels terrible to get the message either overtly or covertly. Nah, it's just your problem. It's going great for the rest of us. It's like, no, it's not. And that's okay. It's okay. 

I agree. So I could talk about this all day, but we don't have all day.

So here's the last question. If you were in charge of healthcare in the United States, what is the first thing you would do? 

Okay. I love this question. I thought, because I have a list, but you asked the first, the first thing I would do is that every facility has access, ideally on site. To a mental health professional who understands the central nervous system component of PTSD so that there is immediate response.

I think the fact that professionals have to go find it themselves. Um, and it means they're not getting it, I think if it were for the cheap cost of a mental health professional salary, which is really pretty cheap compared to all other expenses within an institution, um, I think that we could create a workplace that people are like thankful that they're at.

So that's the first thing that I would do is just have this lovely little corner, a little quiet space. Has an open door at the end of your shift. Come on in. Let's begin downregulating your central nervous system right now. Let's not even send you home carrying this, um, you know, piggybacking on that when somebody has a really bad outcome, which is different at each job, how you define that.

But everyone knows what that is for their job, that, that they would have the opportunity to go see, go see the therapist right now and then go home the rest of your shift and your next shift we have covered for you. Go rest. Would, it. transform overnight the culture and this mental health issue overnight.

I love that. And I really hope it happens. I think that it would transform healthcare. Absolutely. 

Imagine the care. This is the thing. I'm sorry. One more plug. I know. I deeply believe because I know we're all concerned about patient outcomes and patient satisfaction. We've been able to draw the through line.

For instance, that empathetic staff have better patient satisfaction scores and better patient outcomes are less likely to end up in any litigation. I deeply believe that the literature is just lagging and we're going to be able to show the same connection where, when, when the professionals received the kind of support I just described, um, that their patient care skyrockets because I've seen it over and over and over again, clinically that those professionals who feel well supported, give excellent care and are amazing colleagues.

I would agree 100%. Yes. And I've seen it in real life. Thank you, Krista, so much for sharing your insights. I enjoyed this conversation tremendously. If people listening want to find out more about you, where can they do that? 

Yeah. So my program related to this is called critical incident support program.

They can look that up. Uh, if they're interested, they can find me all over any place on the internet, but the easiest place would be CISP. Thank you At, uh, dot Dancy perinatal. com. So CISP dot Dancy perinatal. com would be a link to learn more about my work, particularly with professionals. 

Fantastic. I so appreciate that.

I'm going to actually look that up as soon as we finish here. Yes. Krista Dancy, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing all your valuable insights. 

Thank you for inviting me. 

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you found value in what you heard, please consider subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform.

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