‘Leap of faith’

When Albert Owusu-Ansah, MD, joined Bryan Health in 2007, he arrived as a pilot tasked with flying a not-yet-finished plane. Brought in to be the leading neonatologist for the new Bryan Health NICU, he was joining a program that was still being built, including its eventual home in the women and children’s tower on Bryan East Campus.

Born in Ghana, Dr. Ansah attended medical school there. He spent a year beginning his pediatrics training before coming to the United States to complete his residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He spent seven years training there and stayed on as an attending neonatologist for six additional years.

One day, he got the call from Bryan administration asking for his interest in starting the NICU program.

“I was fascinated by the idea of being a part of the group starting it,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often. You go through your whole medical career and that might never happen.”

What was a premature delivery like before modern NICUs?

Carol gave birth to Barb at Lincoln General Hospital in 1962 at around 24 weeks gestation. Even now, the survival rate for 24 weeks is roughly 40%, according to the National Institutes of Health. Back then, it was much smaller.

Carol remembers noticing blood that day, prompting her family to call an ambulance. She laid down flat on the ground and waited to be picked up. She was brought to Lincoln General, where Barb was born, over three months premature.

“I remember crying because I didn’t think she would live,” Carol said. “But the doctor reassured me that it was possible. He said that if her organs could support her body, she would have a chance.”

Barb spent three months in a small incubator from that period. She had to be resuscitated multiple times during feedings because she couldn’t breathe and eat at the same time.

With the care of LGH doctors and nurses, and a determined mother, Barb survived her premature birth and has gone on to live a happy, healthy life.

He said after several visits to Lincoln, he came away impressed with administration and staff. But it wasn’t an easy decision to leave his job in a lively metropolis and uproot his family. Ultimately, the people in the administration and staff, as well as the infrastructure built up across the system, were enough to seal the deal.

“There was something that made me feel like this was going to work,” he said. “They weren’t throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. I thought that the foundation was there to make this successful.”

Before the NICU was established, the number of deliveries at Bryan Medical Center was “rather low,” Dr. Ansah said. That’s because the facilities were not equipped or allowed to treat babies with even the slightest of complications. Instead of having to send families to another hospital in town or even up to Omaha, staff were excited by the idea of treating more new children in house.

While the tower was under construction, Dr. Ansah worked behind the scenes to get to know Bryan and Lincoln. He credits Laurie Ketterl, a former Bryan labor and delivery nurse, with getting him acclimated.

Ketterl started working at Bryan right around the merger of Bryan Memorial and Lincoln General hospitals in 1997. She had prior NICU experience before moving to Lincoln, making her well-equipped to help develop the new program.

“I was seen as one of the people here who had those extra baby skills,” she said. “I loved labor and delivery, but I think the NICU was where my heart truly was.”

With the idea for a Bryan NICU long in the works, Ketterl, then an assistant nurse manager, was part of a team sent to a conference about NICU development and construction.

“We knew we could do it, but we had to do it right,” Ketterl said. “It wasn’t one of those things that I was ever afraid to do. We just had to put one foot in front of the other.”

From there, the NICU development team drew up plans for their space within the women and children’s tower, secured funding and hired people like Dr. Ansah to operate the NICU once it was up and running. Ketterl said some major goals for the developing program were to prioritize high-level patient care and modern amenities. She said that creating a comfortable, supportive environment for the parents was almost as important as the care given to their babies.

Ketterl helped to interview neonatologist candidates to lead the NICU. Dr. Ansah was one of the last doctors they met.

“The minute we met him, we knew he was the one,” Ketterl said. “The smile, the kindness – he was the whole package.”

The NICU officially welcomed its first patients in 2008. The early days of the NICU included gradually scaling care from most stable to least stable newborns. Dr. Ansah and his team examined their capabilities in two-week intervals; if they could provide comprehensive for a baby born at 38 weeks, then they could go to 36 and 34 and so on. In 2021, the NICU cared for and successfully sent home a baby born under 23 weeks’ gestation, the youngest-born surviving infant in Nebraska hospital history. At the time, the Bryan NICU was only the seventh facility in the U.S. to discharge a baby born below this threshold.

Over 15 years since the NICU opened on Bryan East Campus, the program is going strong. NICU leaders continue to add leading-edge technology, including the cold cap and neonatal transport unit. Dr. Ansah was the only neonatologist in the NICU for almost two years. Now, he is joined by a team of neonatologists, nurses and nurse practitioners.

Moving forward, Dr. Ansah wants to see the NICU continue to evolve to serve an increasing number of families in the area. 2024 was the first year of the NICU Patient Family Advisory Council, a group comprising NICU staff and current and former families who went through the NICU. The group met quarterly to discuss improvements that could be implemented in the NICU, including updates to the visitation policy and the parent snack station.

Looking back on his leap of faith in deciding to come to Bryan, Dr. Ansah said he loves where he works. Lincoln has become his home, and he feels that Bryan shares the qualities that make Nebraska a great place to live and work.

Take Your Next Step

If you enjoyed this story, you can read more patient stories, or you can subscribe to our Journeys magazine.

To learn how you can support the work of Bryan Health, please contact the Bryan Foundation staff by calling 402-481-8605.