How Dr. Julius Johnson Uses Translational Science to Improve Access and Education Within Healthcare

Healthcare transcends just about everything we do in life! EVERYTHING IS HEALTHCARE! Gun violence is healthcare. Community development is healthcare. Immigration is healthcare. Everything that you think is not healthcare, is somehow tied back to the industry. Dr. Julius Johnson DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, understands this and has dedicated his entire career to making healthcare impact in and out of the clinical arena. With nearly 20 years in the field, Dr. Johnson has accomplished the following:

• Early Career: Upon graduating with a B.S. in Nursing at Binghamton University, Dr. Johnson worked at NYU as a new grad nurse in critical care for 15 months. Through this experience, he realized in-patient care was not a route he favored and was ready for a change.
• Mid Career: Dr. Johnson returned to Binghamton University for his Masters in Nursing. This led him to a role as a Nurse Practitioner (NP) at Essen Medical Associates where he performed a series of duties. By the time he left that company, seven years later, he had contributed to its growth in becoming the largest primary healthcare company in the country. He helped to fashion in and create transitional care to reduce rehospitalizations. 
• Senior Career: After this role, he headed to the University of Miami to pursue a Doctorate in Nurse Practice (DNP). With this degree, he returned back to NY and served as an Associate Professor at LIU-Brooklyn in which he later became the Chair of the School of Nursing.
• Executive: Currently, Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor at NYU, Past President of the Greater NYC Chapter for the National Black Nurse Association, and is now running his own company, Premium Health Depot. This company allows him to take on numerous health pursuits including performing injectable aesthetics, providing home based primary care, and the ability to provide numerous professional services. This is ideal for Dr. Johnson as someone who can't do just one thing; he is the epitome of a multi-faceted leader.

Dr. Johnson has found himself making an immense amount of impact in healthcare through translational (a.k.a transformative) science, a process for generating scientific and/or operational innovation to overcome long standing challenges. With translational science, you are creating solutions that are effectively catering to the people impacted by the problem and ensuring you are solving issues in a way that is favorable and accessible to them. Dr. Johnson mentions, 

Translational science, popularly known as transformation, means you are creating solutions that people can actually use. This is important because too often professionals come in and think they can simply throw money at a problem; sometimes even millions of dollars, seeking a quick fix. Then, these same entities get upset wondering why the problem wasn't fixed. The reality is no one is taking the time to truly connect with the communities being impacted. They are not reasoning with how these communities would like to experience solutions to these problems. All we need to do is ask them what they need.

There are numerous ways to approach this. Here is a case presenting how Dr. Johnson has approached solving pressing issues in healthcare using translational science. 

‍Case: Community Health & Defeating Barriers to Accessing COVID Testing Sites & Vaccinations

Background

COVID-19 completely shifted the way we live. Rather than being able to live our normal everyday lives, we were then, living in a world of frequent caution. We established a new normal where we no longer only cared for ourselves but also needed to become more sensitive towards how our health behaviors impact our friends, families, and communities.

Problem

During the height of COVID-19, there were limited COVID testing sites in NYC. These testing sites were only based in Manhattan. With these being the only testing sites for such a severe threat to our health, the government expected NYC residents, across all boroughs, to simply get on the train and come into Manhattan for testing. They were in for a rude awakening when this was not the behavior of NYC residents. At this moment, leaders knew they needed to call someone in for help. This is where Dr. Johnson comes in. 

Exploring the Problem 

With his knowledge of the culture and behaviors of NYC residents, especially Black residents, Dr. Johnson quickly realized this was an absurd expectation by the government. Dr. Johnson decided to gather the nurses within the Greater NYC Chapter of the National Black Nurse Association, their family and friends, congresspeople, chief nursing officers and professionals across NYC hospitals, for a Zoom conference call. The purpose of this call was to explore the impact of COVID-19 on nurses as this was important to the government. Dr. Johnson, then, shifted the conversation by reminding attendees,

We need to discuss what people in the community want instead of just what we want in terms of testing. We should consider placing testing sites in the places that our communities trust.

Fellow healthcare leaders couldn’t fathom why we couldn’t just place these sites anywhere; Dr. Johnson had to further break this down for them:

• COVID-19 was a new illness that many still weren’t fully educated on and didn’t trust. For that reason, people are not going to simply get up and get tested/vaccinated because they do not quite understand what this is about.
• People are also already comfortable with the local hospitals they typically visit for health services no matter how poor the quality of healthcare is. Why? Because it provides them with proximity to their friends, families and community members. 
• People want to be able to leave the hospital and have a simple commute home, independently. 

To truly understand how to deliver a solution, there was a need to go into the communities and ask people about their experiences with COVID as well as how they wanted to be catered to when it came to testing and vaccinations.

The Solution

This logic paved the way for a potential solution; to bring testing sites to other boroughs such as Brooklyn. Dr. Johnson presented the idea for these testing sites to be in places that our target residents, in this case, Black people and POC, are familiar with such as churches, community centers and popular local event venues. Once all stakeholders were in alignment on where these testing sites needed to be, there were two additional problems that followed:

• Who will be providing testing to ensure trust with these residents?
• How do we bring awareness to this newfound access to testing sites?

Dr. Johnson and his team welcomed people from Long Island, Westchester, and other communities to help with this initiative. His team intentionally scouted Black people and POC who were relatable to the target residents and genuinely cared about their health, safety and trust. As a collective, some people led the testing sites, some provided testing and vaccination, while others had to now help spread awareness that these sites exist. That group traveled door to door in the community to intentionally target the elderly population who needed more assistance and awareness of what’s going on. Most elderly people are not digitally savvy and usually have their younger family members perform tasks online for them. Dr. Johnson’s team took on the role of being their “younger family members” by educating them on COVID-19 and helping them sign up for testing and vaccinations. 

The Result 

30,000+  people of color in underserved communities throughout New York City were vaccinated. 

This level of impact was no one-hit-wonder. Dr. Johnson pursued leveraging translational science to also make an impact on Black Maternal Health. For Black Maternal Health, he and his team at the National Black Nurses Association created a Black Maternal Health Conference to combat death during pregnancies. Through this conference, thousands of health care professionals, women who have faced pregnancy issues, and family members who have lost loved ones to fatal maternal health issues, came together to discuss problems and solutions to this issue. This conference included a series of panels, simulations and research presentations. The impact of this conference, included:

• All attendees gaining more awareness of how to navigate Black maternal health
• Healthcare providers becoming more culturally competent and exploring new ways to care for Black women patients, especially during their pregnancy
• Families learning to cope from losses of loved ones who passed due to pregnancy failures
• Several Black Maternal Health conferences being planned on the west coast due to the success of this conference

Overall, this framework takes you through the following:

• Identify the problem 
• Identify who this problem is plaguing and their associated barriers to access
• Take time to think through the problem on your own
• Explore possible solutions
• Gather stakeholders
• Dissect the issue and potential solutions
• Confirm solution and plan of attack 
• Execute
• Solve
• Witness the impact

This approach is applicable to solving any issue across all industries. Try it out.

Interested in learning more about Dr. Johnson, check him out, here. 

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