MARTINEZ, Calif. – There is nothing in the Bay Area like the new business that is opening soon on Main Street, according to owner Michelle Y. Williams.
B.W. Health Care Education, Research and Innovation Hub at 518 Main Street is a health care education destination, offering drop-in continuing education courses for health care professionals and patient education. “It could be in person, in a class or a large seminar,” Williams explained.
She is an experienced registered nurse with a BS, MS M.S and Phd. in Nursing. Her background in teaching college and university classes, and work experience as Director of Nursing of Innovation Nationally, where her focus was Technology Strategy for Kaiser Permanente seem to make her uniquely qualified to provide the educational services she will offer.
Her team of experts teaches health care and provides education from required basic nursing courses to collaborative innovation seminars for physicians and entrepreneurs.
Williams is a Stanford Certified Master Trainer in Chronic Disease Self-management, and she plans to share that knowledge with patients. “They (Stanford researchers) collected data on chronic diseases for 40 years, to develop this,” she commented about the 2-hour a week, six-week program.”
“My team will have the ability to walk them through it. Patients will understand the problem (diagnosis) and be able to discuss it with their doctor as they develop skills to better self-manage their condition,” Williams remarked. Some insurance companies may cover those classes, but she said, “The patient side of the business is a non-profit, so we will work it out. Anyone who needs information will get it, even if they cannot afford to pay.”
She collaborated with physicians and nurses, and using advance technology they worked on designing a patient “room of the future” using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency for physicians.
One way they did that was to cut the time nurses spent communicating with physicians about adjustments in medications for the patient in any particular room. “We built a process. When a medical test is given (blood pressure for example) and the nurse has checked it, the machine transmits it to the physician, who then text messages the same or different dosage to the nurse. Meanwhile the nurse can continue to care for the patient.”
Wiliams will offer a 2-day boot-camp in Nursing and Clinical Informatics and a seminar with a renowned expert in AI.
She talked about how she chose nursing as a career. “I was in middle school in El Cerrito at the time, and went to the mall, where I saw a group of people who were walking with group leaders. They were from a nursing home. I fell in love with the notion of helping people,” she recalled. Unlike some students, she the found a Highland Hospital leader/executive to interview about nursing. She had heard her aunt “Bobbie” talk of her adventurous career in nursing, traveling abroad for 15 years. “A nursing career is important and it helps people,” Williams reasoned. Dean Keith Mahan helped her take all the right courses and she was on her way to a successful career in health care.
The business site is still wrapping up remodeling and furnishing, but doors will open in September or October. To find out more about the classes that will be available or be notified of the opening date, email Michelle Williams at mymcw4@yahoo.com .
