A group of about sixty nurse managers, hospital leaders, and new nurses gathered in Texas for a nurse residency graduation ceremony. The Chief Nursing Officer of the hospital, Dr. Cole Edmonson, addressed the crowd.

During his speech, he rhetorically asked, “...Well, you know, who would really want my position as CNO?” A few chuckles and half-smiles spread across the room, and one young graduate nurse raised her hand. Everyone’s heads turned towards her in silence.

The nurse, Amy K. McCarthy, DNP, RNC-MNN, NE-BC, CENP, decided to take advantage of her awkward gesture with an email:

Dear Dr. Edmonson,

I hope this finds you well. I’d love to hear more about your nursing journey and see if you have any advice for someone who would love to follow a similar path.

Sincerely,

Amy McCarthy

(The girl who raised her hand)

New Nurse on a Board

Later, McCarthy’s email pinged with a response.

She met with Dr. Edmonson for about an hour, discussing his career, her career goals, and what a hospital CNO does. She also shared that she had some experience with PR and communications.

Dr. Edmonson placed her in her first board position—a Communications & PR liaison for the DFW Great 100 Nurses—just six weeks later. “I found myself in a room surrounded by some of the most prominent nursing leaders in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex and wondering what I could contribute to this group!”

McCarthy understood she was new to nursing, but used the valuable skills she had built in communications while serving on the board. “I focused on creating a communications plan and leading work around social media, website design, and media engagement. I was lucky to find such an amazing community within this group and from the beginning these nurse leaders took me under their wing and mentored me. That was my starting point.”

Growing into Leadership

McCarthy was always interested in healthcare, but wasn't sure about nursing until a summer internship in college, where she spent the summer in their maternal field medicine clinic. "We saw hundreds of pregnant women per day. I worked alongside nurses and nurse practitioners, and loved the time I spent at the bedside connecting and supporting these women in their journey to have a baby. Being able to walk with them through some of the most vulnerable moments made such an impact on me—I knew that I wanted to spend my career advocating and supporting this population."

She was eventually placed in a nurse residency spot in the newborn nursery. McCarthy went up the leadership ladder in newborn nursery, from supervisor, to manager, to director. "My favorite part was mentoring new nurses," she recalls. "It was never about leading from a place of authority, but leading to teach and have a lasting impact on nurses and their impact in healthcare."

Mentorship has been key in McCarthy’s career. She even made it the focus of her doctoral work, studying the self-efficacy of nurses and the impact mentorship can have on nursing involvement in board leadership positions.

When she ran for Texas Nurses Association Secretary, she was only about four years into her nursing career. Three of her mentors came with her to Austin to help her campaign and she became the first millennial nurse to serve on that board. McCarthy later ran for a position on the board of directors of the American Nurses Association due to encouragement from a mentor. She ended up running for a Director-at-Large seat and won. “That’s the power of mentorship.”

Venturing into Healthcare Tech

A colleague of McCarthy's reached out to ask if she would be interested in an advisory position for a healthcare tech company, Hippocratic AI. After a year of serving on that council, the Chief Nursing Officer position opened up and she was selected. "It has been completely different than anything I'd ever done. I always pictured being the Chief Nursing Officer of a hospital. So this was a shift."

Now, McCarthy is able to use her clinical expertise in the tech space. "I might not be a tech expert, but I work with engineers, researchers, and innovators who are incredible, are very knowledgeable about the space, and are always willing to teach. I feel grateful to be able to serve as a bridge between nursing and tech."

The tech gap continues to grow in hospitals, McCarthy says, so she hopes to see more nurses leading in the tech space. "Updating technology can be incredibly helpful to clinicians, to remove administrative burden and to make our workflows more efficient. Right now, clinicians can't sustain in this environment, which is leading to their mass exodus from the profession. That is the problem I am trying to solve in my role and it is what motivates me everyday."

What is Hippocratic AI?

Hippocratic AI uses generative AI technology to create AI agents that can be used in the healthcare setting. "People always think 'Oh, robots,' or 'That interactive voice response when I call the pharmacy,' but these agents are conversational and have the ability to interact with patients."

Hippocratic AI has a team of 6,000 nurses who are constantly teaching their AI agent, Rachel. "Rachel is like our Siri or Alexa." These nurses teach Rachel motivational interviewing skills for patient-facing conversations.

Some of the ways Hippocratic AI uses their AI agents include:

• Pre-procedure calls. The AI agent can call the patient 10 days before, six days before, and three days before a colonoscopy, for example. "Today, it would be almost impossible to call patients at that frequency. There are not enough resources. Here, the AI agent can give ongoing educational touchpoints."

• Hospital education. The AI agents have the ability to perform the admission checklist and chart it for the nurse, and the nurse can look at the chart and receive a summary. These agents can also help with education throughout the hospital stay. "We always say that admission starts at discharge, but that rarely happens—these agents can assist in making that a reality."

• Post-discharge phone calls. Hippocratic AI agents can call after discharge on any cadence the clinical team sees fit. "That's incredible, especially with populations such as women and infants. I can't tell you how many times I wanted frequent touchpoints with patients after they went home, but we did not have the resources,” McCarthy shares.

• Other scenarios. Insurance case management, health initiatives, pharmacy refills, and education can all benefit from these AI agents.

Where Do Nurses Fit in the AI Puzzle?

McCarthy explains that the team of nurses listens to all the interactions to give feedback and continue to help their AI agent, Rachel, learn. Rachel has also learned to bring a real human into the conversation if the patient mentions anything emergent or concerning, like chest pain. McCarthy also acknowledges the need for real human interaction in moments of vulnerability, such as birth, death, or a difficult medical diagnosis.

You’re still able to do some education, but the AI can supplement you when you're having a busy day, McCarthy explains. You can focus on the most pressing education or the education that brings you the most joy and connection with your patients. "It's like any other form of delegation, with the nurse being the leader in this work."

Hippocratic AI has also launched an AI Agent App Store, enabling clinicians across the U.S. to design AI agents tailored to their clinical expertise and workflows. Nurses can create agents for tasks like patient education and the initiative includes a revenue-sharing model to compensate nurses for their expertise.

Breaking Barriers

McCarthy sees her nursing journey from new grad to CNO of a nursing tech company as one of perseverance.

If you put yourself out there, and don’t get what you want, don’t end it there, she urges. Keep going. Make your failures the start of a conversation, not the end of it. “How can I deal with this? Where can I go? How do I not hold resentment? How can I make a difference? How do I keep pushing that glass ceiling?”

“If I could show nurses a resume of all my failures, that resume would be way longer than my successes. But learning to work through those barriers have helped me get to where I am today.”

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