One chief physician executive says the primary COVID-19 challenge now is "getting everyone to think about it as an endemic versus a pandemic."
Now that COVID-19 has reached an endemic phase, one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare organizations is to "recharge batteries" for healthcare workers who have been on the frontline of the pandemic, says Jordan Asher, MD, executive vice president and chief physician executive at Sentara Healthcare.
Asher is one of more than a dozen healthcare executives set to participate in The Way Forward, a HealthLeaders leadership summit being held this week at the Loews Atlanta Hotel in Georgia. Asher will serve on a clinical care panel, and there will be panels for CEOs, chief financial officers, and chief information officers.
The focus of The Way Forward will be on sharing plans, thoughts, strategies, and impressions of the future of the healthcare industry. HealthLeaders' coverage of the leadership summit includes a Q&A interview of each panelist. The transcript of Asher's interview below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: Now that the crisis phase of the coronavirus pandemic has passed, what are the primary clinical challenges that you are facing?
Jordan Asher: We are facing three clinical challenges. The first is continuing the great work that we did during the pandemic. We were innovative and creative, and we want to continue that work.
The second challenge is finding ways to recharge batteries for clinicians and other frontline staff who worked during the pandemic. Everyone needs to recharge and get relaxation. We need to figure out how to do that even though we still have work to do as COVID-19 continues.
Third is dealing with staffing issues that have occurred, including workforce shortages related to the pandemic. There are staffing issues that we are all dealing with in healthcare. Across the country, it is just hard to fill positions across the board in every market. There is a labor shortage today.
HL: What are you doing to address workforce shortages?
Asher: We are doing several creative things. Number one is meeting workforce demands within the needs and desires of the workforce. So, we are getting creative around scheduling. We are thinking about automation to enhance what we do every day, and we are redesigning workflows to make jobs easier to do.
We are also trying to create our own internal staffing services such as traveling nurses. So, we are coming at this from multiple directions at the same time. At Sentara, we have multiple locations, and we can set up traveling staff services internally. It is like a match.com model—we find the people who want to do that type of work, identify the needs, and bring those factors together.
HL: Now that we are in a new phase of the pandemic, what are your primary COVID-19 challenges?
Asher: Our COVID-19 challenges now are getting everyone to think about it as an endemic versus a pandemic. Now that we have vaccines, now that we have treatments, now that there is much more immunity in the community, we need to shift from how we were thinking during the crisis and transfer our response to a new phase of the virus. We need to think about coronavirus as one of the things we are dealing with just like we do with the flu.
A challenge now is that everybody was thinking in a certain way for two years, but we have progressed in our science, our treatments, and our prevention. Now, we need to think about how we move forward more than we did during the first two years of the pandemic. Now, many people have had COVID, and many people are getting it again. There are COVID long haulers, and we need to learn how to treat that condition. We need to figure out how to think about the COVID boosters in a process model, and we need to think about public health measures and prevention.
HL: In the next year, in what areas would you like to launch clinical initiatives?
Asher: In the next year, we are focused on enhancing clinical initiatives, including how we get the care and services for the community into the community. So, we are focusing on health equity issues and disparities that we saw rise up during the pandemic.
We want to focus on behavioral health. There are two components we want to address. First, there is the psychiatric component or chemical imbalances. Second, there is the behavioral component of human beings in their overall health and wellness.
HL: In what ways are you enhancing existing programs related to behavioral health?
Asher: Behavioral health has been thought of differently than other conditions such as heart disease. It has sort of been disconnected. So, one thing we are doing is saying, "Wait a second. We need to reconnect behavioral health because we see it all the time in multiple situations."
We also need to think about the upstream services that are needed within behavioral health. Behavioral health is a bigger issue than just mental health. We need to address the areas that are rising up in a much more coordinated and longitudinal manner.
From a behavioral health standpoint, we need to figure out what makes patients tick. How do we activate patients? How do we engage patients both for their mental health and their other healthcare issues?
HL: Do you have any other insights on the way forward now that the crisis phase of the coronavirus pandemic has passed?
Asher: What I think we have learned and what we need to remember is that we must be adaptable. We must live with ambiguity, and we must embrace it. We must remember that we are managing multiple things at the same time, and we have to live with that complexity.
HL: How has the business of healthcare changed because of the pandemic?
Asher: We will have to treat the business of healthcare a little bit like we treated the pandemic. Meaning, we must get creative. We must do things differently, and we must think more broadly about what we do versus just taking care of patients when they are sick—and we need to figure out how that approach to care can be funded.
The new reality gets back to the conversation around labor shortages. From a business standpoint, we have inflation, which is driving up costs. So, I have inflation on one side, and even if I wanted to hire people, they are not out there. So, from a business model standpoint, I have got to say, "OK, how do I solve those problems? How do I think about process automation? How do I think about working at the top of licenses? How do I think about the business principles of the demand side of employees and what they are needing?"
Related: The Way Forward: Providence Focused on Workforce Shortages and Clinical 'Slippage'
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Workforce shortages pose a significant clinical challenge as the healthcare sector emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, says Jordan Asher, MD, executive vice president and chief physician executive at Sentara Healthcare.
Now that the coronavirus has entered an endemic phase, healthcare organizations need to address COVID-19 as an ongoing challenge such as the flu, he says.
When it comes to the business of healthcare, creativity will be required to plot the way forward in the endemic phase of coronavirus, Asher says.