Kirsten Largent’s extensive finance experience positions her well to take on the role of chief financial officer.
As the healthcare landscape grows more complex each year, appointing visionary leaders can make all the difference.
Enter Kirsten Largent, the incoming Chief Financial Officer of OSF HealthCare, a nonprofit organization based in Illinois.
Largent will succeed Michael Allen as OSF’s CFO and has been with OSF for almost 31 years, holding a variety of positions, previously the senior vice president of financial operations.
She has worked to modernize the financial planning process and develop a long-range plan focused on financial risk assessment and debt capacity analysis. She also worked to redesign the capital allocation process to align capital decisions to long-range strategic and financial plans. Additionally, she established a governance council to function as the monitoring body of the capital process.
On OSF’s website the organization offers numerous health and wellness resources including blogs, nutrition facts, symptom checkers, interactive tools, and a health library.
“That preventive or wellness focus, I think really does dramatically improve patient outcomes,” Largent says.
She says the organization has really leaned into a value-based care model that’s focused on quality, which has helped reduce the cost of delivering care, something she plans to continue as she steps into her executive role.
An Innovative Mindset
Largent says innovation “is in our DNA” at OSF HealthCare, and that begins with understanding where technology can be used to improve financial operations.
“It’s helped us become more efficient, and also use that technology to personalize care in that holistic way,” she says.
Digital innovation has also helped OSF provide critical care access to rurally based patients.
“We have a lot of patients that live in a rural setting or patients that also have financial struggles,” she says. “So, providing that access to both those populations is an area focus for us in innovation.”
Largent says the organization currently uses some automation, mainly in revenue cycle, which has been a helpful in streamlining some operations, and the organization is also exploring how AI and other technology investments can improve operations.
“In my role as CFO I think I can support [my team] through deployment of resources for innovation, ensuring that we're allocating a proper amount of capital so that we're investing in those new technologies,” she says.
While using technology for improvement is one thing, Largent also plans to focus on long-term growth and financial sustainability.
“The foundation of our financial planning is a long-term financial plan. We set those long-term targets, and our focus has been to strengthen our balance sheet and then at the same time create capacity so we can invest in all our different strategic initiatives,” she says.
“We use it as a guide to make our investments in a way that's financially sustainable.”
Largent also knows that there’s no straightforward path to measuring a ROI for innovation. “Financial rewards for innovation come later, as it takes time to understand and embed innovation in our operations.”
Whether it’s a new building, or a new care setting, says Largent, the innovation wheels are always spinning at OSF.
“We always, as an executive team, ensure that we think about innovation as part of a new project.”
Marie DeFreitas is the CFO editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Kirsten Largent has been appointed the new CFO of non-profit OSF HealthCare.
Community and holistic care efforts have led the organization to focus on value-based care models.
Robust innovation is a clear driving force at OSF