10 Healthcare Executives Who Persevered Through the Pandemic

Don't miss these interviews with notable executives on how they led their healthcare organizations through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged hospitals and health systems with unprecedented patient surges, a critically limited national PPE supply, national workforce shortages, and safety concerns for staff and patients.

The pandemic also brought forth the opportunity to innovate, introduced new creative strategies, and built upon reliable operational approaches already in place.

HealthLeaders spoke with numerous healthcare executives about the strategies they implemented to lead their hospitals and health systems through the pandemic.

1. Leading Through a Pandemic: Q&A With CommonSpirit CEO Lloyd Dean

CommonSpirit Health CEO Lloyd Dean spoke with HealthLeaders and detailed how he effectively managed the health system through the pandemic. CommonSpirit Health is one of the nation's largest healthcare systems, with over 700 care centers and hospitals across 21 states including California and Washington state, and as far east as Pennsylvania.

Dean's plan included utilizing a "toolbox" of strategies to focus on patient care, ensuring staff safety, and adapting to the changing situation.

"We have widespread communication platforms that allow us to keep our organization informed in real time of changes to our pandemic policies and procedures," Dean said. "As other health systems have experienced shortages of PPE, we have asked our people to conserve equipment as we strive to keep our care sites supplied. Our operations centers are monitoring and directing our operations day-to-day and hour-to-hour, as we rapidly integrate the latest knowledge of this virus along with evolving CDC recommendations."

2. St. Luke's CEO Sticks to Strong Health System Strategy and Vision During Pandemic

Prior to serving in his role as president and CEO at St. Luke's Health System, Chris Roth served as COO for six years and rose through various positions within the Idaho-based health system over the past 13 years. When Roth became CEO, he set goals for the organization and helped create a strategic plan for 2020. Then the coronavirus pandemic happened.

Roth spoke with HealthLeaders about how the health system's focus had to be tweaked due to the outbreak, but not by much.

"One of the things we're [asking ourselves], "Are we responding consistent to our mission and our vision?" and the answer is "Yes." Are we responding relative to our strategy of quality, safety, accessibility, and affordability?" and the answer is "Yes,"" Roth said. "I would say that the focus I laid out prior to the pandemic, relative to our priority areas, has really not changed."

3. RWJBarnabas Health CEO Reflects on COVID-19 Surge and Prepares for Second Wave

President and CEO of RWJBarnabas Health, Barry Ostrowsky spoke with HealthLeaders about what the COVID-19 pandemic surge looked like for the New Jersey health system. The health system has 11 hospitals and numerous care facilities located throughout the state, and has an ongoing partnership with Rutgers University, making it the state's largest academic health system.

Ostrowsky shared the strategies that were implemented to not only make it through the first wave, but to get ready for a potential second wave.

"I had asked our people to keep a diary [when this started] in their subject matter as to what they found was happening as we went through it," Ostrowsky said. "We're just about to take the data that was compiled in those diaries and look at a comprehensive after-action report that says these are the things we found out, these are the challenges, these are the solutions."

4. Collaboration During COVID: Tampa General Hospital Teams With Competitors on Patient Care

To meet the challenge or patient surges, president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital John Couris shared with HealthLeaders the ways that the hospital and its partner health system, USF Health, have collaborated with competing health systems to help their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We all agreed that when it came to a public health crisis, we were going to collaborate and innovate together and support our communities together. Prior to that, we were competitors. We still are," Couris said. "But when it comes to safeguarding the health and wellness of the community, you kind of have to transcend competition and collaborate. That's essentially what we're doing."

5. WellSpan Health CEO: 'Committed to Our Communities' During the Pandemic

WellSpan Health serves a diverse group of communities across 5 counties in southeast Pennsylvania and one county in northern Maryland. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, WellSpan has actively invested in taking care of its communities.

Roxanna Gapstur, PhD, RN, president and CEO of WellSpan, spoke with HealthLeaders about the importance of caring for their communities during the pandemic, including underserved and rural populations.

"Our main message is just that we are a trusted partner for our community, that we're leading the way during the pandemic," Gapstur said. "We're just committed to our communities and being a catalyst in building both health equity and ensuring that our communities have the very best care."

6. 3 Ways HCA Healthcare Stays Prepared for Hurricanes, Wildfires, and COVID

In the face of natural disasters and COVID-19, health systems and hospitals need to be prepared to protect their patients and facilities. HealthLeaders spoke with HCA Healthcare President of Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Perlin about the health system's strategy for disaster preparedness.

When it comes to implementing its disaster preparedness plan, the health system focused on what it already knew, specifically rigid protocols, emergency operations, and utilizing data analytics and technology.

"We start with what we call a 'universal hazards approach,' so that we don't have to reinvent what we haven't practiced," Perlin said. This keeps the health organization well-equipped to face disasters. "Operational plans are something that we think about 52 weeks a year."

7. Guide Your Hospital Successfully Through the COVID-19 Crisis: 4 Strategies

For the November/December 2020 edition of HealthLeaders magazine, I spoke with four healthcare executives about four areas that were impacted at their hospitals and health systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the strategies used to handle them. The strategies they implemented to successfully guide their organizations through this watershed year offer an inspiring blueprint for leadership during a crisis.

Howard Kern, president and CEO of Sentara Healthcare; Rachelle Schultz, president and CEO of Winona Health; Tim Howell, senior vice president of patient care services at University Medical Center Health System; and Kelly Jo Golson, chief marketing officer of Advocate Aurora, all detailed how their organizations rose to the occasion during the complexities brought on by the pandemic.

"We can't sit back as hospitals and wait for it to show up on our front doorstep," Schultz said during her interview. "We need to get outside of our walls, [see] where it's moving around, and work with our employers, our cities, our counties, other partners out in the community, to understand what's happening and to help manage that effectively."

8. Atlantic Health System CEO: 'This is All-Hands-on-Deck'

Atlantic Health System, a nonprofit health system based in the Garden State, faced coronavirus patient surges through a combination of predictive modeling, in-hospital and at-home care models, and playbooks created from their learnings so far.

CEO Brian Gragnolati spoke with HealthLeaders about how they grappled with challenges that arose from the pandemic, and what other health systems can learn from their efforts.

"What we've been able to do in our playbooks, whereas during the spring we had to on-the-fly create more ICU capacity, is have a plan on how to do that," Gragnolati said. "We have trigger points on when we open certain areas for care, and how we went through that."

9. MarinHealth CEO's Pandemic Advice: 'Remain Focused,' Don't Get Distracted

Dr. David Klein, CEO of Northern California–based MarinHealth joined the health system in September, the same month a new hospital pavilion called The Oak Pavilion opened on the North Bay Medical Center campus. The pavilion has 114 private patient rooms, a larger emergency department and trauma center, a new maternity area, and surgical and procedural areas.

Klein spoke with HealthLeaders about how his background as a practicing surgeon has shaped his leadership style, his experience leading through the pandemic, and what upcoming strategies he has in mind for MarinHealth post-pandemic.

"As a surgeon, my first focus has always been quality and safety. I have a clinical mind so when I address problems, I do a couple things. Number one is to make sure that we're ensuring the highest quality and safety," Klein said. "Number two is to make sure that we always put the patient at the center of everything we do and every decision that we make."

10. Sanford Health Finance Exec on System's Preparations for COVID During Flu Season

In HealthLeaders October Finance Podcast, Kent Lehr, chief of business development at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, spoke about how the rural health system was preparing for COVID-19 amid flu season.

Lehr, who joined the organization in August, said the system was learning from the first wave of COVID-19 and aimed to utilize its resources to protect patients during the upcoming flu season.

"I think that there's a misconception that if you're in a large-scale healthcare organization that you somehow sacrifice local healthcare delivery, and I think that's wrong frankly," Lehr said. "This pandemic is a great example of where scale helped enhance our ability to provide excellent local healthcare, and our organization is going to continue to do that."