The connection is strongest among women and people older than 65.
Social interactions that companion caregivers and other in-home aides provide their clients can stave off the loneliness and social isolation that can have negative effects on memory function.
"Based on existing research, loneliness has been associated with cognitive function. However, there's some bias that cannot be ruled out by existing studies," Xuexin Yu, co-author of the study, told HealthLeaders. "For example, loneliness could be a preclinical syndrome of cognitive impairment, rather than being a risk factor, which means it's the individual's withdrawal of social participation because of their impaired cognitive function, leading to loneliness."
Using data from the Health and Retirement study, an ongoing study by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), where loneliness was measured by individuals self-reporting loneliness status, Yu and her team used a longitudinal model that measured the loneliness status of participants in the first eight-year period and then memory function in the subsequent years. Evaluating data from more than 9,000 participants aged 50 and older, they found that a longer duration of loneliness was associated with lower memory scores and faster rate of cognitive decline.
This association was strongest among participants over the age of 65 and women.
"Our study finds that there is an association between loneliness and memory aging, suggesting that society, family members, or friends and neighbors should pay attention to older adults’ emotional support or social support as we find that loneliness has a tremendous effect on the individual's memory aging," Yu explained. "And, given the increasing prevalence of loneliness, particularly during the COVID pandemic, it's very important to take care of older adults' loneliness status."
The researchers found that looking after an older adult's loneliness status beginning in the midlife stage may help them maintain memory function.
The NIA acknowledges social isolation and loneliness as risk factors for poor aging outcomes. However, while an older adult may live alone, they may not always be alone or isolated from people.
"A key scientific question is whether social isolation and loneliness are two independent processes affecting health differently, or whether loneliness provides a pathway for social isolation to affect health," Lisbeth Nielsen, PhD, part of NIA's Division of Behavioral and Social Research said.
Most of what is known about the effects of social isolation and loneliness comes from research by the late John T. Cacioppo, PhD, which found that the two are different, but related. While social isolation is objective—a physical separation from other people—loneliness is subjective—a feeling of being alone.
Researcher Steve Cole, PhD, has studies the ways that psychological stress is linked to negative health outcomes affecting the nervous and immune systems. According to Cole, loneliness can act as a fertilizer for other diseases.
"The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer's disease," he said in an article for NIA. "Loneliness promotes several types of wear and tear on the body."
Through her research looking at older residents in high-crime neighborhoods specifically, Elena Portacolone, PhD, found that structural factors may also contribute to an older adult's social isolation.
An associate professor of sociology at the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California San Francisco campus, Portacolone noted that in addition to their limited number of relationships, the older adults’ fear of violence, wariness of neighbors, and neglected surroundings were noted as structural obstacles.
"The primary takeaway from this research is that interventions to increase older adults' social integration should address not only their behaviors, but their overall surroundings," Portacolone said. "We need to concentrate our attention on the influence of social policies, institutions, and ideologies in the everyday experience of isolated older adults."
Qualenta Kivett talks about the importance of transparency and showing up for your employees.
Tampa General Hospital (TGH) was recently acknowledged by Forbes as the number one employer for women in the nation, moving up 12 spots from last year. In addition to half of the C-suite being women, 70% of the hospital's senior vice presidents are women, which according to a recent McKinsey report, is almost double the average in other health systems.
As the hospital's chief people and talent officer, Qualenta Kivett, JD, is quick to note, however, that she's not alone in her efforts to cultivate a strong organizational culture—noting that her colleagues and teammates throughout the organization share in these efforts.
Kivett recently spoke to HealthLeaders about the importance of transparency within healthcare organizations, mentorship, and how the hospital ensures the benefits they offer align with their employees' needs.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: As chief people and talent officer, how much influence do you have on the overall organizational culture at TGH?
Qualenta Kivett: I share that responsibility, which I appreciate. Although, it's oftentimes looked at that people in talent, the CHRO, or the HR office owns culture, it is very much an understanding here that we all own culture. Similar to that, we all own quality.
My role is to understand best practices, to understand techniques and ways that we can improve and maintain our culture, but it's all of our responsibilities to influence and uphold the culture that we are working toward.
At this point, we've had a climate change. We know what our climate is, but the true testament of culture is when all of us leave, and the next generation of leaders come in, does that culture remain?
HL: Does TGH have childcare assistance or benefits for employees?
Kivett: Part of our success is that we look at our data, and I want to start there because sometimes it's a misconception that all women are primary caretakers within an environment of children. What we did this year is a benefit survey to understand what the organization needs as a whole. We were able to take that and dissect out by different categories; so, we looked at individuals who identified as women and what they wanted. Childcare was one of the top offerings we had, but it was higher on the list for our male population.
We have a daycare on campus, and we also have sick care. So, if a child is sick, they can bring them to an isolated, safe area away from the rest of the children to be cared for while the parent is at work. We offer that, and we have a wide range of benefits that support our organization as a whole.
HL: Are there mentor/mentee opportunities at TGH?
Kivett: We have a formal program called LeadPGH, and it's a leadership development program that focuses on self-direction. Based on each group, they self-direct under our pillars where they want to concentrate their education and their collaboration. After graduating from that program, they go into an alumni program and then connect with a mentor. They list the top three mentors they would like, and then we meet with them on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to provide that support.
We also have informal programs which makes us unique. If somebody reaches out to a leader, they will respond, including the CEO. He responds to every team member email that he gets. For us, what that creates is an environment where people will stop you and have that conversation or say, 'I'd like to meet with you.' All of us within the executive and formal leadership levels make time to meet with individuals in an informal way as well.
Hl: What career development opportunities are available to TGH employees?
Kivett: We have a people development institute [that's] free to our team members, and it’s a partnership with the University of South Florida. Team members [earn badges as they study], [which they can] substitute for education and/or experience where it's appropriate. If you're able to learn the way, then that provides more access and opportunity.
We also have tuition reimbursement, and we also have programs where you can work at a decreased schedule and go to school while being paid your regular wages so that we can support our team members to continue to develop. That's an important one that helps set us apart, especially during such a challenging time.
HL: How has the hospital handled the industry staffing shortage and how would you say this reflects the culture?
Kivett: We lead with four leadership attributes that have been defined by our CEO. He created, in partnership with an IO psychologist, a leadership program.
We lead with authenticity, vulnerability, kindness, and transparency; and that is an expectation of all leaders within our organization. We're projected to be at 70% of our leaders having taken the course and training by the end of September.
We've had nursing shortages through the last ten years in the industry. I don't think we're immune to that, but I do think the transparency of where we are and what we need to do has been something that has set us apart.
Another piece of this is also listening. We [conduct] a few different surveys, and we take the information and it results in change. If people feel that their voice is heard, then they're going to stay and provide their voice to the organization.
From a benefits survey, we're shaping our new benefits that will be happening for the next calendar year [where] we're rolling out new aspects of our benefits structure and additional resources.
The last is being agile. We realized that just because those of us are in leadership positions, we don't know everything. That's the authentic piece, right? By involving the team that's doing the work, the team members have the opportunity and are welcome to help solve the issues that we're running into; and we do accept that feedback. We've had programs develop as a result of that. Our DENI director was hired because of feedback and listening sessions that our CEO held.
Findings indicates an ‘urgent need’ for an alternative approach to measuring patient safety in nursing homes, researchers say.
A significant percentage of pressure ulcers are not reported by nursing homes says a recent study published by Medical Care, an industry journal, which assessed the accuracy of nursing homes self-reporting situations where residents have pressure ulcers.
For hospital admissions claims with pressure ulcers as the primary diagnosis, 22.4% of them weren't reported by the nursing homes. For those claims with pressure ulcers as the secondary diagnosis, 45% of them weren't reported by the nursing homes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) allow nursing homes to self-report the data it contributes to the Minimum Data Set (MDS). However, academic and government studies have reported inconsistencies between these reports and medical records
The discussion portion of the study notes that pressure ulcers were substantially underreported by nursing homes from 2011 to 2017, which makes the safety measures CMS developed based on that data inaccurate.[CD1]
Pressure ulcers were chosen for this study because they're ultimately preventable and can be managed "with vigilant care."
"Our strategy was to assess whether pressure ulcers identified as present-on-admission (POA) in Medicare hospitalization claims for nursing home residents were reported by nursing homes on assessments used by CMA to create patient safety measures," the study stated.
Combining different data sets, using statistical modeling, and considering the strength of their findings next to alternative specifications, the team examined the accuracy of the self-reported data. They also considered whether the severity of the pressure ulcers and or race of the resident played a role in the self-reported data which, along with initial findings, would determine how informative CMS public ratings are in indicating pressure ulcer risk in a nursing facility.
The research team identified more than 110,000 hospital admission claims with pressure ulcers as the primary diagnosis, more than 290,000 claims with it as the secondary diagnosis, and slightly more than 60,000 skilled nursing facility (SNF) claims with it as the primary diagnosis.
The severity of the pressure ulcers varied from white residents to non-white residents. The study found that the percentage of stage four pressure ulcers was "substantially lower" in white residents compared to Black and Hispanic residents.
"This is the first national assessment of the accuracy of nursing home-reported data on pressure ulcers to CMS,” the study stated, “and coupled with previous findings on underreporting falls, indicates an urgent need for an alternative approach to measuring patient safety in nursing homes."
The new program provides dermatologic care for the less-mobile elderly.
Stanford University has developed a telehealth program to provide patients living in long-term and senior living facilities with the ability to submit high-quality photos of their skin for providers to screen.
The elderly are at highest risk of developing skin cancer, with 74% of new melanomas found in those over the age of 55, according to the research for the new program, designed to prevent delays in cancer diagnosis.
Conditions such as skin cancer are detected incidentally when patients either come in for a screening or another reason and their provider notices it, said Kavita Sarin, MD, PhD, co-author of the research.
Teledermatology could potentially play a big role in dermatologic care, though it does have some limitations, she said.
"Teledermatology, the way it's implemented now, doesn't allow for the identification of incidental findings, nor does it enable full body skin exams," Sarin explained. "It’s hard for [a provider] to take full pictures of every part of their body as they could do in person."
Another limitation for teledermatology is the inability of providers to the patient's skin, which she said is an important part of detecting skin cancer.
For the study, Sarin and her team piloted teledermatology solution in a local senior living community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using guided, in-residence skin scanning and outlier lesion identification, they evaluated the value and use of a service like it for patients having difficulty accessing dermatological care, along with patient satisfaction.
Twenty-seven residents participated, with three skin cancers identified within the group. Eleven of the 27 residents were scheduled for follow-up appointments and four began home treatment.
The clinic also offered its teledermatology option to younger patients during the pandemic, many of whom preferred it to in-person appointments. While the younger patients were comfortable with useability of the application, their older patients struggled with logging on and following prompts.
The cohort did see that some residents were relogging on to the application with the assistance of a caregiver or family member. This motivated them to send clinical staff into the senior living community to help patients navigate the application, take pictures of their skin for her to review, note their clinical history and any questions they may have about their skin or changing lesions.
"While teledermatology was an excellent option, it was difficult for many elderly patients to access and be able to use," Sarin said. "So they were, in many ways, our highest-risk patients during COVID, but they were also the ones with the most barriers to access for care."
As they conducted the in-residence screening, clinical staff used dramatiscopes, a tool that allows them to see features such as pigmentation of a mole, to examine the patient's skin.
"If someone just sent in photos from home, they wouldn't have dermascopic photos. We would just be able to only look clinically which provides us with less information," Sarin said. "But if we suspect something we would have you come in, and then when they come into the clinic, we could look we could look with the dramatiscope and determine if it needed a biopsy."
While dramatiscopes are complex pieces of technology to handle, Sarin believes that in the future a user-friendly version may be beneficial add-on device when screening high-risk individuals with dramatiscopes.
Out of the participants, 88% were satisfied with the application, and 77% said they would recommend it to others. For the accuracy of the photos, 92% agreed that they accurately represented their skin. However, despite its positive reception, 31% of patients said that they'd prefer to see a dermatologist in-person after the pandemic.
The study also notes that the in-residence screening took longer than the usual 15 minutes an in-person visit takes, with the full body photography and dermoscopy conducted by clinical staff taking about 35 minutes. The doctor reviewing the photos and speaking with the resident virtually took a total of 20 minutes.
"I think there's a lot of potential in teledermatology," Sarin said. "The biggest challenge, of course, is that a lot of the people in senior living communities and nursing homes are slower to take up modern technology; so usability is very important in building teledermatology for the elderly."
The significant difference in the staffing of clinical workers in disadvantaged areas can affect the quality of care residents receive.
Clinical workers for nursing homes in disadvantaged areas are "staffed for fewer hours" compared to those in other areas, new research published by the Journal of American Geriatrics Society shows.
Much like other areas of the healthcare industry, staffing shortages have made maintaining the rate and quality of regular operations difficult. The pandemic further aggravated the shortage, with nursing homes being heavily affected.
Lack of access to care in any area contributes to health disparities in a community. A disparity like this can have negative effects on patient safety and health.
"Most skilled nursing facilities are already concerned about low staff-to-resident ratios," Jasmine Travers, PhD, MHS, AGPCNP-BC, RN, senior author of the study, said in a statement.
For their research, Travers and her colleagues from New York University mapped the deprivation index scores of different neighborhoods, looking at the income, education, and employment of their residents, as well as housing. Then, taking the deprivation index scores of 12,069 nursing homes in the nation, the researchers analyzed their quality of care and staffing according to payroll-based data.
They found that 16% of the nursing homes were in "severely disadvantaged" neighborhoods, and that these facilities were usually either for-profit, located in rural areas, or caring for a high proportion of Black residents and Medicaid recipients.
Also noted were significant staffing differences by neighborhood for nursing home workers providing direct care to residents. In the disadvantaged areas, staffing for physical and occupational therapists was 38% lower, 30% lower for RNs, and 5% lower for certified nursing assistants (CNAs).
"We found that nursing staff with generally lower salaries and training–CNAs and LPNs–had smaller or no disparities in staffing compared with RNs," Travers said. "This suggests that nursing homes in more disadvantaged communities may be substituting care by staff with less training."
The team concluded that certain interventions will be needed to improve the staffing disparity for nursing homes in disadvantaged areas; but in ways that will support the facilities, not penalize them.
"This might include enhancing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to the facilities using geographically 'micro-targeted' funding sources, workforce recruitment efforts focused on pay, transportation, and working conditions, and efforts to retain staff such as opportunities for CNAs and LPNs to complete training as RNs," Jason Falvey, PT, DPT, PhD, first author of the study, said in a statement.
For the first time in the hospital's history, three women hold the titles of CEO, COO, and CNO.
Women are at the forefront of leadership for LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, an HCA Healthcare facility located in Blacksburg, Virginia, for the first time in its 50-year history.
Lauren Dudley serves as the hospital's CEO, Devin Tobin serves as the hospital's COO, and Lisa Carson serves as the hospital's CNO.
Dudley took the role of CEO in June, when she succeeded Alan Fabian who currently serves as market president for the LewisGale Regional Health System.
Previously, Dudley served as the COO for HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she was recognized for leadership in construction projects and technology upgrades.
"I am proud to be joining the leadership team at LewisGale Hospital Montgomery. For 50 years, [the hospital] has delivered comprehensive healthcare to residents of the New River Valley," Dudley told HealthLeaders. "I'm very excited to continue building on a solid foundation and path forward for continued growth and success."
Tobin has served as the hospital's COO for over a year, being appointed to the role in the summer of 2021. Prior to that, she served as the hospital's vice president of operations where she managed the facility's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In that role, she also served as ethics and compliance co-chair, and introduced bariatric surgery as a new service line.
Tobin said the hospital has a history of strong executive leaders, and that she, Dudley, and Carson are a continuation of that.
"Even more exciting is the fact that we are helping to positively influence the gender diversity among executive positions in healthcare," she told HealthLeaders. "Women make up 80 percent of all healthcare buying decisions and compose 65 percent of the U.S. healthcare workforce. We are proud to have a team that is representing our workforce and continuing our commitment to the care and improvement of human life."
Carson, who has worked for HCA Healthcare for almost three decades, was hired as the hospital's CNO in May. Prior to her current role, she served as assistant chief nursing officer at Henrico Doctors' Hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
"As the chief nursing officer of LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, it is an honor to be an advocate and voice not only for our patients, but for all the nurses," Carson told HealthLeaders. "Working side by side with two other strong female leaders and knowing that we are not only taking care of our community but helping pave the way for young girls to know that they have the ability to be anything they want makes the work that much better."
Lauren Dudley, Devin Tobin, and Lisa Carson hold top leadership roles at the for-profit Blacksburg, VA hospital, serving as chief executive officer, chief operations officer, and chief nursing officer, respectively.
Dudley succeeded the hospital's previous CEO, Alan Fabian, in June. Fabian now serves as market president for the LewisGale Regional Health System.
"Lauren's had tremendous success streamlining operational efficiencies, service line expansion, and capital improvements within several HCA Healthcare facilities," Fabian said in a statement. "I'm certain she'll continue to build on a solid foundation and path forward for LewisGale Hospital Montgomery's continued growth and success, anchored by industry-leading quality and colleague management."
Previously, Dudley served as the operating officer for HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital, where she was recognized for leadership in construction projects and technology upgrades.
"I am proud to be joining the leadership team at LewisGale Hospital Montgomery. For 50 years, [the hospital] has delivered comprehensive healthcare to reisdents of the New River Valley," Dudley told HealthLeaders. "I'm very excited to continue building on a solid foundation and path forward for continued growth and success."
Tobin has served as the hospital's COO for over a year, being appointed to the role in the summer of 2021. Prior to that, she served as the hospital's vice president of operations where she managed the facility's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In that role, she also served as ethics and compliance co-chair, and introduced bariatric surgery as a new service line.
Tobin said the hospital has a history of strong executive leaders, and that she, Dudley, and Carson are a continuation of that.
"Even more exciting is the fact that we are helping to positively influence the gender diversity among executive positions in healthcare," she told HealthLeaders. "Women make up 80 percent of all healthcare buying decisions and compose 65 percent of the U.S. healthcare workforce. We are proud to have a team that is representing our workforce and continuing our commitment to the care and improvement of human life."
Carson was hired as the hospital's chief nursing officer in May and has worked within HCA Healthcare for almost 30 years. Prior to this role, she served as assistant chief nursing officer at Henrico Doctors' Hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
"As the chief nursing officer of LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, it is an honor to be an advocate and voice not only for our patients, but for all the nurses," Carson told HealthLeaders. "Working side by side with two other strong female leaders and knowing that we are not only taking care of our community but helping pave the way for young girls to know that they have the ability to be anything they want makes the work that much better."
"It is our responsibility to pay it forward to aspiring women leaders in healthcare," Dudley said. "I have been blessed with inspiring mentors in my career that ignited my passion and ambition; I commit to the same in creating opportunities for the next generation. Female leaders will emerge when they lean in, show up, and stay true to themselves."
The state department of Health Care Policy and Financing will pilot the program.
A flagship program developed by the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing to ensure that older adults can live in the comfort of their own home for as long as they can has received $2.3 million for qualifying seniors in the Denver area.
CAPABLE’s goal is to demonstrate that modern investments in short-term interventions will not only enable older adults to stay in their homes longer, but also lower medical expenses and improve health outcomes and their quality of life.
Colorado VNA is one of the first CAPABLE programs and has provided services to qualifying older adults in the greater Denver area since 2017. It has since served more than 300 clients.
"HCPF is excited to team up with community partners to expand the CAPABLE program," Cassandra Keller, the department's community options benefits section manager, said in a statement. "This is a great opportunity to help individuals remain successfully and safely living in their homes."
Through the program, clients are visited by an occupational therapist (OT), an RN, and "handy worker" to work with them on increasing their mobility and improving the functionality of their home for four to five months. Clients have shown improvement in daily living, independence, safety, and health after completing the program, according to a release announcing the grant.
The grant, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, will be used to support the expansion of the CAPABLE program, enabling the department to assist Health First Colorado members.
Colorado VNA will work alongside community partners and HCPF for the program's implementation. They will also provide community education staff in each area of service to do outreach and inform people about the program and its benefits.
"This funding will support our mission of providing quality, care, and comfort to those Health First members who choose to stay in their homes safely with the assistance of our CAPABLE team," Julie Nunley, Colorado VNA president, said in a statement. "We are excited to collaborate with HCPF to bring this to fruition."
Decline is most notable among certified nursing assistants.
Infectious disease outbreak preparations in nursing homes should include emergency staffing plans, such as centralized "strike teams" that can be temporarily deployed to provide supplemental staffing, a recent study says.
The study, Staffing Patterns in US Nursing Homes During COVID-19 Outbreaks, noted that significant staffing declines during a severe COVID-19 outbreak continued even as much as 16 weeks after the outbreak's start. And even though facilities temporarily increased hiring, contract staff, and overtime to boost staffing, these measures did not fully replace lost staff—particularly certified nursing assistants (CNAs).
Karen Shen, PhD, co-author of the study of the John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said she and her team had heard about staffing challenges at nursing homes, but hadn't seen any measurable research on it. Other papers examining nursing home staffing, Shen said, were showing that there wasn’t a real issue.
Because of this, Shen and her team conducted their own study to examine the relationship between COVID-19 outbreaks and nursing home staffing patterns.
"We looked at about 3,000 facilities who had what we called severe outbreak in the second half of 2020," she said. "The average facility in that sample experienced an outbreak where they had 135 staff and resident cases—so big outbreaks—and we were curious what happened to staffing during those."
Using the facility’s daily staffing payroll data from June 2020 to January 2021, Shen and her team measured facility staffing, absences, departures, and the use of overtime and contract staff per week. They found that severe outbreaks were associated with a significant drop in staff due to elevated absences and departures.
For example, four weeks after an outbreak began, staffing hours were 2.6% below the mean of preoutbreak levels—even with "substantial" measures such as overtime and increased hiring being used to bolster facility staff. With those being temporary measures, staffing continued to decline—16 weeks after the beginning of an outbreak, staffing hours were 5.5% below the mean of preoutbreak levels.
"What we [found was] that when the outbreak is at its peak, it's about half and half, but because those people are coming back and people stop being absent, we find that a few months after the outbreak, there's still an effect where there’s a lot fewer staff at the nursing home than when the outbreak started," Shen explained. "But it’s almost entirely due to the increased turnover during the outbreak."
The decline was most notable among CNAs, according to the study's data, which could be due to the lower increase in new hires compared to licensed practical nurses (LPNs) or RNs. Shen said this decline wasn’t because CNAs were more likely to be absent or leave a facility—both scenarios occurred equally with CNAs, LPNs, and RNs. Rather, the facilities opted to hire more contractors or ask current staff to work overtime.
"I think it says something about the CNA pipeline, especially right now, being potentially the most constrained and probably because they’re just not offering good enough wages or benefits for someone to want to take that job right now," she said.
The results of the study suggest a need for policies that would ensure a facility's ability to maintain adequate staffing levels both during and after an infectious disease outbreak.
"We think it makes sense to send strike teams to nursing homes that might be experiencing large outbreaks and might be experiencing staffing shortages so we can make sure that patient care isn’t affected," Shen said.
"And I think in the long term, some of the things we talked about [were] just improving the pipeline of workers—in particular CNAs—into nursing homes by making those positions more attractive," she said. "One way that policymakers could do that is by potentially increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates to nursing homes."
Jay Krishnaswamy, who has over 20 years of healthcare administration experience, re-joins the Modesto, California-based facility to lead the hospital.
Doctors Medical Center announced today that Jay Krishnaswamy will return to the facility to serve as CEO.
He succeeds Warren Kirk, who will continue serving as the CEO of Tenet Healthcare's Northern California Group, which includes Doctors Medical Center, Doctors Hospital of Manteca, Emanuel Medical Center, San Ramon Regional Center, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, and Twin Cities Community Hospital.
"Jay has extensive experience in healthcare administration and has been with Tenet Healthcare for 20 years. With our hospital's expertise in providing a higher level of care for our patients, Jay will be working closely with our sister hospitals to help us broaden the care we provide as a market," Kirk said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to grow within our community and expanding the services we provide."
In his new role, Krishnaswamy will oversee the operations of Doctors Medical, a Tenet Healthcare operated facility located in Modesto, California. He will lead the executive planning and directing of medical services for the 394-bed, full-care hospital.
Krishnaswamy joins from Tenet's Dallas headquarters, where he has served as vice president of hospital operations since 2020.
Krishnaswamy has served in several executive roles within Tenet operated hospitals, including Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis and Baylor Scott and White Medical Center (formerly Doctors Hospital at White Rock Lake). From 2004 to 2008 he served as associate administrator at Doctors Medical Center, and prior to that, he was the hospital's chief quality officer from 2002 to 2004.
"I am thrilled to be back in Modesto at Doctors Medical Center," Krishnaswamy told HealthLeaders. "I look forward to partnering with our physicians, colleagues, and community leaders to continue to enhance the legacy of excellent care we have provided to our community for more than 60 years."
Last month, Doctors Medical Center was recognized as a high performing hospital by U.S. News and World Report. The facility received high ratings for its treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure, kidney failure, and stroke.
The hospital also celebrated 60 years of service to Central Valley and surrounding communities in Modesto, California. During a celebration for the occasion at the hospital, Tenet CEO, Saum Sutaria, MD took the time to thank staff for their work during the pandemic.
"The work you have done unquestionably has saved lives. It is a remarkable thing the way in which this organization has come together and put aside their own issues and own fears to take care of this community in the midst of this pandemic," he said. "I offer my sincerest thank you."
