Join Dr. Olga Kagan, founder of the Food Allergy Nursing Association (FANA), as she shares insights on revolutionizing food allergy care through nursing innovation, technology, and evidence-based practice. Learn how FANA is empowering nurses to lead transformative change in this critical healthcare subspecialty while improving patient outcomes and quality of life.
Olga Kagan, PhD, RN, CIMI, FHIMS, Founder, Food Allergy Nursing Association (FANA)
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
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Megan Antonelli 0:29 Hi, Welcome to Health Impact, digital health talks. This is Megan Antonelli, and I am excited to be here today with Dr Olga Kagan, founder of the Food Allergy Nursing Association, and a distinguished nurse, scientist, educator and entrepreneur, Dr Caton brings a unique insight into how nursing leadership and technology are transforming food, allergy care and patient outcomes. Hi, Olga, how are you today?
Olga Kagan 0:53 I'm good. Thank you for having me. Megan, I appreciate the invitation.
Megan Antonelli 0:58 Yeah. Well, it's such a pleasure to meet you at health impact in January. And, you know, food allergies is such a, you know, it's such a big topic and such an area of interest for so many. Tell us a little about, you know your journey, and you know how you came to, you know, sort of spark your passion for both nursing informatics and the Food Allergy challenge. So
Olga Kagan 1:22 I started becoming interested in nursing informatics when I worked at the World Trade Center Program, which happened after 911 we got a grant, established the program, and we part of the program was research. We had to collect data on a number of conditions that people were experiencing short term, and also watching them longitudinally over a period of time, and with just the sheer amount of data that we were collecting. You know, to analyze would be a nightmare doing it by hand. So of course, we looked at solutions like the electronic medical record. And so that's first, it was very basic, just the digital version of a paper chart. And then eventually, you know, it got advanced, and now we definitely see more interoperability and whatnot. So, but that kind of sparked my interest in informatics in terms of food allergies. As a nurse, you know, we, as nurses, we always deal with allergies, not specifically to food allergies, but things like anaphylaxis to latex, blood transfusions, medications, etc, and so this is something that we need to be familiar with so we can provide adequate care. But food allergies were not really something that were prevalent back at the time when I was brand new nurse, and certainly something that evolved and became pretty this has become a prevalent problem, chronic condition that we're seeing today. And so that's sort of like where I started with two of those things that I'm very passionate about currently. Yeah,
Megan Antonelli 2:59 no, it's amazing to think. I mean, I try, you know, 911 it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, right, that we didn't have electronic health records then, but we didn't, you know. I mean, there's been such a we talk about how slow health care moves, but in reality, you know, now, you know, I guess 15 years later, we are looking at, certainly having, having a lot of access to those data points, you know, and I think you talked a little bit about, you know, kind of the allergy, and how food allergies weren't something that we were aware of. I imagine they did, they did exist, but they've been exacerbated by both our environment, and then, of course, we have food sensitivity and around that, and that there's a difference. Tell us. Tell me a little bit like, is it a metabolic physiological response? What's the what do you think has one changed in that we have a greater, greater awareness of it now, but also in terms of just the the physiology behind that to help our audience understand absolutely
Olga Kagan 4:03 yes. So food analogies is an IG mediated response, which is different from sensitivities, like one example is on people, let's say lactose intolerant, so when they drink milk, they're really the problem is not being able to digest the sugar, versus an allergic reaction, which is IG mediated reaction, which is an allergic reaction that leads could potentially lead to a fatal outcome if not treated properly. I know that the moment, the only line of treatment that we have is epinephrine, emergency epinephrine, and nowadays we've got more than one option, so which is nice for the consumer, because they now have options of injectable epinephrine and also brand new that just came up to the market, that's a nasal spray. So that's exciting for food allergic community to have access to different
Megan Antonelli 4:52 wanted so I mean, I know me also as a mom. You know when your kid, when my kids were young, and actually they're six. Years apart my two boys and my first, you know, it was, you know, maybe there was some occasionally, there was a kid with peanut sensitivity in the class, and so you had to be careful, or there were no peanuts allowed. But then, by the time Owen was in school, there were never any peanuts allowed, which is also interesting, because in California, it's less so he brings a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school every day. But in New York, it was always very sensitive in the public schools, and you weren't allowed to bring any nuts back then. So I don't know if it's still the same, but you mentioned, you know, so as a mother and a nurse, of course, that that is something that made you very aware of the issue of food allergies. Tell us a little bit we like to focus on, sort of the founders, stories of the women we interview. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to found the Food Allergy Nursing Association. Thank you.
Olga Kagan 5:53 So yes, as a mother, I had two children, and actually my life sort of changed as a result of becoming a mother to two children who had food allergies and being a nurse, and, you know, dealing with anaphylaxis in my professional life, you know, then kind of prompted me to learn more about food allergies, because that's one area that in school, as a nursing school, we covered almost nothing. We it was maybe a minute or two. We kind of said it in passing that you could be allergic to all those things, foods as being one of them, and that was it. And curriculum hasn't really changed much when it comes to food allergies, even though it's an emerging health problem, with 33 million Americans having food allergies, and two 20 million worldwide, the current nursing curriculum hasn't reflected that in in their updates, and so I think it's important that we cultivate a more food allergy informed nursing workforce, so they could provide allergy competent care when they provide care at the bedside or a clinic setting, anywhere throughout the continuum where patients interface with health system, and so to do that, you know, I said, you know, we have to find a way where we can have an organization, where we can bring together nurses who share, say, similar passion and interest. And that's one of the pillars for our food allergy Nursing Association today, is to cultivate a more allergy informed nursing workforce. Another pillar that we have in our organization is innovation and collaboration. Because as an innovator, you know something that I actually been doing for as long as I can remember, except I never called myself an innovator until recently, because as nurses, I feel like we always think about workarounds, but we don't think of them as being innovative so but now that we know what it is and we can claim it, we can say that we certainly are innovators. And one of the things that came out in terms of this innovation within allergy space is because of the technology we have at our fingertips, we can deliver care to populations that were historically marginalized and had access issues. So now we can use tele nursing, and we can develop new models of care, for example, developing an allergy nurse educator role that could potentially be the person who can be an extension of the allergist or provider to provide care in areas that are not easily accessible to specialty care, and we have a lot of those deserts, right? So when people can't travel, you know, there's only maybe one allergist that is within four hour drive. We had this actually upstate New York. We have some, a family that the closest allergies is within four hour drive, and so you also wait times, you know, to see specialists. Sometimes takes six nine months to even get an appointment. And so to alleviate some of those problems in healthcare, I think we could definitely harness technology and nurses that could help bridge the gap, deliver education, deliver whatever it is that we can delegate to nurses. Before this, providers can perhaps see those individuals for a more specialized care, and then outsource some of the education and some of the other follow up things to nurses. So this is something that been on my mind, and I know I'm not the only one. There are a number of us who've been thinking along the same lines. And so that's one other pillar within our organization that we're trying to support is those development of those models of care, alternative models of care to help people with food allergies. And the last the third one is nurse led research. That's something that's been also very, very interesting to look at. We've done well actually conducting an integrative review now to see how much been published by nurses, what type of research been published in that space. And we're not finding a lot, and it. Would really be important that nurses are involved in research in a space and build body of evidence.
Megan Antonelli 10:06 So I imagine, I mean, when you think about, I mean, I know many friends who have waited, many, you know, long, long waits to get in with an allergist, right? It is there. There's not many of them. They're highly specialized, and there's a huge demand. And then, of course, what happens is, you end up in the ER, with nurses who aren't, you know, as you said, that the training has not been, you know, where it needs to be on this. So the nurses, as they are with everything, but particularly this, or the front line, in terms of dealing with, you know, folks who are emergent in this, you know, as you look at, and, you know, your journey has, I mean, it just makes sense, right? I mean, you were in this environment where there were so many points of, you know, doing the research on 911 where you were looking at, you know, various, you know, some people with sensitivities, others with more chronic ailments that came out of, out of that. But, you know, doing that in kind of a paper based environment, and then seeing how, once we had the electronic health record, which is nice to hear, right? It's nice to hear a the positive, right? I mean, having the electronic health record does allow, enable great research, right? And so having those points of data to see that, and when, when you get into more specialty care and highly specialized challenges for patients that we can use that so tell me a little bit about when you think of not just the innovation but the technology around informatics, like what empowers The ability to start looking at food allergies and how they're impacting, you know, patients well
Olga Kagan 11:48 in relation to food allergies, I think one of the technologies that we definitely could utilize is the remote technologies. So like virtual nursing, things that are, you know, we can utilize wearable devices. I mean, they're just so many nowadays, and with the integration of artificial intelligence, so there's a potential for many decision a clinical decision support type of tools that could be employed. I know we're far from this right now, still in that specialty, but I think there was a great potential. It's just a it's just a matter of really bringing the right people to the table and understanding, okay, where the needs are. And actually, in that vein, I'm going to California in a few weeks. We're going to have a session at the American Academy of Allergy as my immunology slash world allergy Congress meeting. And that session is an innovation sprint where we are going to bring a small group of people, about 40 people or so, and they're going to break out into small groups, and we are going to try to look to see what some of the challenges are in that allergy space, and then try to solve for those challenges. I know it's going to be a mini session only, you know, less than two hours. But you know, we got to start someplace. And I think that would be great idea of having diverse stakeholders who attend this conference to come together. And, you know, think of what are the pressing challenges, and how can we address those challenges? And, you know, being a nurse on the team really is promising for me to know that more nurses, hopefully will join and we can work together with physicians and vendors. And, you know, industry on solving challenges.
Megan Antonelli 13:30 Yeah, no, I know you've been involved in a lot of the hackathons and the, you know, the MIT hackathon, I think I read in your in your bio, and you know that. And back to your, your point around nurse led innovation, you know, again, at the front lines of what, what's happening in healthcare, you know, really, to understand, you know where those problems are, and you know, so that's what I think you know, watching your journey in terms of what you've done, you know, you really found a gap. And now you're, you're meeting it both with with the Association. And then, of course, what the association can bring through education and training, and then bring by bringing those folks together to further innovate, which is awesome to talk a little bit about, you know, because I'm just curious. I mean, actually, my son, my older son, had a, what was a gastro problem, but we thought it was allergies. We didn't know what it was, so we went through a lot of diagnosis for a long time, but again, you know, went to a gastroenterologist instead of what ultimately ended up being a urology problem, but it was such a long diagnosis, and you know, probably a nurse on the front lines would have, you know, sort of caught it, but because we were sort of in this high level specialty care, we didn't catch the challenges. And we thought it was allergies for years, and, you know, but in thinking about, you know, that diagnosis, the diagnosis challenge that is the American healthcare system in general. Because it tends to be so high, highly specialized, but then also that there is, I mean, there's a definite proliferation of allergies right now. So sometimes you're like, Oh, it must be, what's your, you know, when you look at kind of where, where we are in society, of why there's more. I mean, one, sometimes awareness allows for that. But what are your What's your thinking as an expert on this?
Olga Kagan 15:22 Well, I'll be honest right now, we don't really know the cause, right? So there are multiple theories, one of them being hygiene theory. We're living too clean, etc. But what I am finding is that definitely there are newer conditions that are emerging as people, you know, becoming more sensitive. And again, we don't know if it has to do with climate change. It has to do with all of the things that in our food chain, you know, we just like you know, we don't. We really don't have one particular cause at the moment that we can pinpoint to. Otherwise it would have been easy. We could have just eliminated it and then get rid of this issue, right? Unfortunately, not, not yet. I know researchers are hard at work trying to figure it out, and there's definitely connection with the immune system and the gut. So for sure, gut for intestinal component plays a huge role in our immune response. So the research has looked at all kinds of things like, you know, parasites and so a lot has to do with microbiome and then we actually, there's actually a number of researchers and some studies that are being funded to look at that. And the conference that I'm going to, I'm really hoping to learn more about some of the newer resources that's coming out. Because every year, there's something new that we're learning, like, for example, we're learning that, as you know, science is always changing, that in the past, avoidance was the strategy from having an allergic reaction. Now you know, the school of thought has changed because more research came out and saying early introduction is actually the solution. Instead of avoiding we really need to introduce those allergenic foods early in life, things like peanuts, for instance, right? So this way, children can develop immunity to the product and not avoid it, because we found that avoiding it actually made us more sensitive. And so science changes, and then we follow the science. And so in this case, we learned it from our researchers out of the UK, they had a study. They looked at Israeli children who ate bomba, which is like a peanut snack, and who lived in the UK, and those also who lived in Israel. And so they were able to find, find that those who were introduced bomba early in life, which they do in Israel, they had less food allergies than those who lived in the Western countries or in Europe at the time. So it was just interesting to see how research really helps us understand the future direction and how we can benefit our population that is suffering with that condition,
Megan Antonelli 18:01 which really comes back to that, you know, the informatics piece of that, right? And being able to have all that data, you know, to look at, to look across all those points of information, you know, in terms of, I mean, I remember, like, you know, and I think I don't know anymore, because it's been so long, but you're not supposed to give your peanuts, you know, peanuts for a long time, I think, you know, strawberries were always something that was like a little, you know, sensitivity. So you wait until the baby was two or something. So it is interesting. And of course, that is science. That's the nature of research and learning, is that we follow, you know, what science has happens. And sometimes there's going to be, you know, mistakes and errors, and then we go back and, you know, do the right thing. And that's, you know, what's so important about having folks like you kind of, you know, watching and seeing and doing that research. So you have this conference coming up in San Diego. Tell me about sort of where the association is in terms of membership. Do you guys do an annual event? How is it growing? How are you getting the word out? You know, tell me a little bit about where that is.
Olga Kagan 19:05 I'd love to so we started in 2019 you know, I thought about and I said, Okay, we there's all this knowledge gap, and, you know, there's so many things, there's so much need. And I started talking to a couple of colleagues who had similar passions. And so we decided that we're going to convene a small group of nurses, which we did with shared interest. And then slowly, we, you know, worked on different projects. And then in 2022 we published an article with our vision of developing an allergy nurse educator. And all of a sudden, people were emailing asking, oh, how can I get involved? And, you know, can we be part of this organization? So we made a decision to open it up to other nurses, and then within two years, we have close to 100 members. And I said, you know, it's interesting now that we have all these nurses, like, what do we do? Like, you know, there's definitely interest. There's definitely. Uh, individuals who are passionate and share our vision. And that's how we decided to incorporate and establish this not for profit, food allergy Nursing Association in 2024 literally, like a couple months ago. And while we while we weren't incorporated for a few years, we still run it like a an organization. We had committees, we had speakers, we had all those things that we kind of did out as a labor of love, and then now we're still doing it as a labor of love, but now we have more structure, obviously, you know, now we have paid membership because we need some revenue to offset some of our administrative costs. You know, the you know how it is with the website and attorneys and accountants and all the things that you need, an insurance, etc, so all those things that come with running an organization, and it's like building a business, which we are hard at work at, you know, building the website and trying to build our membership and looking to solicit donors, because, you know, our membership fees are very, very low, just so we can make sure that nurses can afford to be part of our community. We still continue providing speaker series on different topics. Within food allergies, we bring different experts. They're not always nurses. Sometimes they're physicians, allergists, mental health professionals, because, you know, psychosocial component is a big part of food allergy management. The registered dietitians, social workers, I mean anybody who touches a patient. Because, as you were mentioning earlier, the care has gotten so fragmented and so specialized that nobody, you know, very few people are looking at the whole person. And so as nurses, we are trained to look at the whole person you know, from the time they, you know, are born, to the time that they enter healthcare system, to the time they enter school, to the time they enter, you know, camp, extracurricular activities, you know, wherever they go, we have to make sure that they are taken care of. You know, that they know how to manage their food allergies no matter what situation they're in, what setting they're in, whether they're in school or whether they're in play dates or birthday parties. We want to make sure that parents are well versed to read labels, how to, you know, navigate social situations, you know, things of that nature
Megan Antonelli 22:21 is part of your mission, to get it to be part of the curriculum, you know, like in terms of the nursing education, yes,
Olga Kagan 22:31 so within our organization, our mission is really focused on promoting education, leadership, research and collaboration. And we are definitely looking at those three pillars that I mentioned before. One of our pillars is a research which, you know, developing nurse led research in that space and building and building body of evidence. Another pillar is innovation, which is developing newer models of care and collaborating with other professionals to do so, and things like allergy nurse educator role, for example, that could be delivered remotely or in a shared capacity between providers. And then lastly, is education, because we do want to cultivate a more allergy informers in the workforce, yeah,
Megan Antonelli 23:20 and especially in such a rapid, evolving, you know, research space to have that, you know, education want to be part of, you know, obviously the institutionalized academic part of it, but that virtual educator also, because you can adapt that to whatever the most current research is, so that that makes total sense. So you talked a lot about, you know, kind of the tools and the applications of virtual nursing, and how that can can help with that, you know, making those available and obviously increasing the access to that information and that education. Are there other areas that you're super, you know, sort of excited about in terms of the emerging trends around healthcare technology?
Olga Kagan 24:01 Yes. So as I mentioned, Telenor saying, or, you know, virtual nursing using variable technology. So these are all great things that we could potentially tap into. But what I'm also excited about is my work that we do with him, health information management system society, because in my wearing my informatics hat, we are really trying very hard to bring all different stakeholders together to solve healthcare challenges. As I said before, it's all about holistic view. It's not just about a vendor or about a provider, or about, you know, the payer. It's all of us working together, and I think that's how we're going to improve our healthcare system. So one of the things we're actually doing this year at the hims Conference, which this year happened to very much overlap with the other conference that I'm going to in California. So I'll be helping from. On to the next. And we are launching our first nurse led, I'm sorry, Nurse hack for health tech a thon at HIMSS, and we're very excited about that. We're going to be bringing about 120 individuals together. They're going to work in small groups. It's sort of like a mini hackathon. They're going to be working in small groups on different problems within healthcare industry. And we are hoping that we'll bring together not just nurses, but physicians, payers, you know, employers, triple different sectors. What day
Megan Antonelli 25:34 is that? HIMSS?
Olga Kagan 25:35 It's going to be on Thursday, March 6, and it's going to be from 830, to 12, I believe. So fantastic.
Megan Antonelli 25:43 Well, that'll be great. And, you know, San Diego to Las Vegas, it's not bad, yeah, to spend some time on the on the West Coast. Well, we like to ask our guests often, sort of, if you think of one challenge you know that you want to kind of solve using technology, is there something that really just, you know, whether it's as a nurse or as a food allergy nurse, that you know, you think is, is the biggest problem that we've just got to tackle? Well,
Olga Kagan 26:12 I guess, given my current focus on food allergies and technology, I think my biggest focus would be to really look at a food allergy specialty and make sure that nurses are available and are able to be part of care in a efficient manner using technology. Because to me, we've got nurses, got the expertise, got the technology, and I think it's just a matter of marrying those two together, and it's been done in other areas. Why not do it in allergy care and really help our patients access care quickly at the lower cost, you know, that require commute, you know, I just feel there's just so many benefits, and we just have to make it happen, which I know requires a lot. But you know, especially from the financial standpoint, we'll share
Megan Antonelli 27:09 with our audience how they can get involved, either, you know, by becoming a member or reaching out to you and hopefully supporting the Food Allergy Nursing Association.
Olga Kagan 27:19 Well, I am on LinkedIn. Olga Kagan, of course, food allergy Nursing Association is also on LinkedIn. We're also on Instagram and Facebook. We have a website, www food allergynursing.org and we're welcoming any nurse. Actually, our membership consists of nurses who are expert nurses, to novice nurses, to who are in food allergy space, and also nurses who are just interested in learning more, and as well as healthcare professionals who are nurse allies. We even have a fan of Fana club that we're trying to build, and this is for donors who want to help us put our mission and vision to life. And so if you're interested, would love to have you and and grateful for any support that you can provide.
Megan Antonelli 28:08 Oh, perfect. Well, thank you so much. Olga, it's a pleasure talking to you, and you know, I'm so glad I got to know you at health impact this month. And you know, for the work that you're doing, because it's so it's just so important and to give both nurses and obviously patients that the access to that specialty care that they need. So thanks so much for joining us. Thank you to our listeners today on digital health talks, and you know, I hope you enjoyed Dr Kagan's insights and highlights into this. You know, incredible. You know, potential for you know, through this, nurse led innovation to transforming specialty care and to learn more as as Olga shared about fans mission, get involved. You can visit food allergynursing.org, and you know, for more innovative perspectives on health technology, subscribe and follow us at Digital Health talks. Thanks, everyone.
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