What One Hospital CEO Learned By Hitting The Road

Earlier this year I conducted a four-month tour of the healthcare system where, since last year, I have served as CEO. Along with a rotating group of other senior leaders who accompanied me, I spoke to thousands of employees and visited 33 sites, including hospitals, clinics, surgery centers, labs and billing offices.

It was one of the most valuable things I’ve done in my nearly three decades as a hospital executive.

The tour of the Indiana University Health system, which serves most of Indiana with 15 hospitals and over 30,000 employees, allowed me and other senior leaders to gather fresh insights and interact with frontline employees throughout the system. We saw their immense positive spirit, the many ways they connect with our healthcare mission, and the innovation happening at all levels to better serve patients.

This was no episode of Undercover Boss. We planned the tour’s stops and widely promoted them after hearing employees say they wanted more direct contact with senior leaders. We hoped employees would show up loaded with questions and concerns. Happily, they didn’t disappoint!

One of my goals was to identify obstacles that can hinder efforts by employees to deliver the care patients expect. Employees weren’t shy sharing their thoughts:

• Finding rapid access to inpatient beds for new patients, especially those with complex conditions, is an ongoing challenge. That’s especially the case at our larger “destination” hospitals, such as the academic health center and children’s hospital in Indianapolis, where capacity runs high. Employees have responded by finding innovative ways to be more efficient and open up bed space faster while keeping care and safety standards high. But more can certainly be done.
   

• The opioid crisis has stretched the resources of all our facilities, along with the communities they serve. Wherever I visited, employees talked about substance abuse like it was an ongoing storm – and they are among the first responders. Their comments showed me anew that the scale of the opioid crisis will require a communitywide response.
   
• Billing issues persist in healthcare, materially impacting many patients’ experiences. These issues are made more difficult given the complexities of high-deductible health plans.  Employee after employee told me stories of billing woes – from those tasked with the paperwork and dealing with the insurance companies to almost anyone trying to decipher charge statements. It’s clear we need to do more to improve the billing process for patients and healthcare providers.

No doubt, the concerns I heard from employees apply to most major health systems. But when you hear your employees sharing their concerns in frank discussions, the issues become personal. We look to strengthen efforts to find solutions to all of these pressing issues. In fact, by the time we relaunch our next set of employee meetings next year, we will be talking about workable solutions.

During my tour I was given a T-shirt with the message: “ONE Tour: Four months, 33 stops. And all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

I like the tee. But the message misses the mark. Hitting the road on a CEO tour brought a broad payoff: a better appreciation of the system I’m honored to steward and a renewed commitment to its dedicated employees and the patients we serve.