Karen Barber has worked at the Yoakum, Texas hospital for 30 years.
Recently, Yoakum Community Hospital (YCH), a 25-bed critical access hospital in Yoakum, Texas, announced that its CEO will be retiring this fall.
Karen Barber, who has led the hospital as CEO since 2006, originally joined the hospital in 1992 as a labor and delivery nurse. She will continue in her role through November 11.
"The entire Board is extremely supportive of Karen’s decision and thankful for her many years of friendship and exemplary leadership," Ronnie Leck, chair of the YCH board of trustees, said in a statement. "Board members, hospital staff at all levels, volunteers and the community at large have greatly benefited from her highly participative leadership style and commitment to reach the best solutions and decisions during the best and worst of times. Karen has truly been a great leader."
The hospital is managed by Community Hospital Corporation of Plano Texas, which will collaborate with the YCH board and lead a search for Barber's successor.
Karen Barber, CEO, Yoakum Community Hospital. Photo courtesy of Yoakum Community Hospital.
Barber recently spoke with HealthLeaders about her experience working at and leading the hospital, which celebrated 100 years of service this year.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HL: What kept you working at YCH for 30 years?
Barber: It's home for me; these are my friends and my neighbors that I get to work with and take care of. That's really what it boils down to for me. I had no interest in going anywhere else and I've really enjoyed it. It's been very satisfying to work with people I know.
HL: What originally brought you into leadership?
Barber: The need within the facility. When leaders left, those positions were available. I didn't have an interest in it, but I felt like that was the direction I needed to go, and I had the support of my family and my peers as well.
HL: I've talked to a lot of women CEOs who say that they're an accidental CEO, is that your experience?
Barber: What you're saying is so true because I've been a CEO almost 17 years, [and] it was not something I ever thought I wanted to do. But, also back 17 years ago, there weren't as many nurses in the CEO position. When I did take the CEO position, I felt like there wasn't as much resistance as I thought there could have been for a woman or a nurse in a CEO position. I think that's gotten easier because it seems to be [more welcomed]; a nurse can run a hospital.
HL: How does your background as a nurse help you lead as a CEO?
Barber: It's been my strength because I understand what [the nurses and clinical staff are] doing out there. I know what the staff needs, I know what the patients need. And I work well with medical staff and feel like they trust me because I'm not an outsider coming in to run a business. I'm here to take care of the patients.
HL: What healthcare advancements that have come over the last 30 years stand out to you?
Barber: Electronic Health Records. And telemedicine, recently for us. And robotics, because we do tele-neurology and that has been a tremendous benefit to our community.
HL: What are some of your favorite career highlights and accomplishments?
Barber: We were recognized as one of the top 100 rural hospitals, and that was significant for us.
Something else that was special to me, is we started a program years ago called Club Med [where] we work with local juniors and seniors at our high school. We do monthly classes with those kids to give them exposure to job opportunities and how a hospital works. One of the highlights for me has been we've had several of those students that have come back that now work for us. We have two nurse practitioners, we have two rad techs, as well as lab techs [ who went through the program.
HL: What has been your experience leading as a woman in healthcare and leading as a nurse?
Barber: You can't be a nurse and not have compassion, and I think that carries over into the CEO position. In healthcare there are good days and then there are not good days, and you still have to care for those caregivers, not just the patients.
Our core values here are respect, integrity, stewardship, and excellence, and if we follow our core values, that is what benefits the patients that are in our facility as well as each other.
HL: What advice do you have for aspiring healthcare leaders?
Barber: Be sure that the decisions that you make are in the right interests of those that you serve, not you, personally, stick to your core values, and set the example.
HL:What are you looking forward to following your retirement?
Barber: I look forward to spending time with family. [My husband and I] have six kids and nine grandkids. So, lots to do; that will keep us busy.
Robert G. Riney originally joined the health system in 1978 and has served as system COO since 2003.
The board of directors of Detroit, Michigan-based Henry Ford Health announced the new system president and CEO today.
Robert G. Riney, who served as interim president and CEO following Wright Lassiter III's departure, has been named the system's permanent president and CEO.
Riney originally joined Henry Ford Health in 1978. He has served in numerous leadership positions, most recently as COO of the health system, a role he's had since 2003. During his 20-year leadership tenure with the organization, he has served as president of healthcare operations, SVP and chief administrative officer, SVP and chief human resources officer, and VP or organizational design and effectiveness.
"Henry Ford is home," Riney said in a statement. "Home to incredible innovation, cutting-edge science, and an unwavering commitment to our colleagues and to the communities we serve. It's a place where, despite even the most daunting of challenges, making the impossible possible happens every day. I am energized and excited to lead this special organization. I look forward to Team Henry Ford continuing to innovate, excel, and grow in serving our patients, members, communities, and each other."
Riney succeeds Lassiter, who departed his role of leading the $6.6 billion integrated health system this past summer to serve as CEO of CommonSpirit Health, an $8.3 billion nonprofit health system headquartered in Chicago.
While Riney has big shoes to fill, system board chair, David Breen, is confident in his leadership ability. "With Bob at the helm, Henry Ford Health is under the guidance of a leader who has seen our organization through some of its greatest challenges, and for whom a lifetime commitment to team members, patients, and our communities has been his calling and his mission," Breen said in a statement. "His strategic insights and ability to foster meaningful business partnerships and drive advancement of our clinical, research and academic distinctions are noteworthy. Additionally, he is very skilled and focused on fostering a culture of belonging between team members, patients and members, and our communities."
Rhonda Jordan, SHRM-SCP, shares how the role of the HR department in healthcare has changed and discusses the DEI workforce initiatives she is proud of implementing at Virtua.
Editor's note: This conversation is a transcript from an episode of the HealthLeaders Podcast. Audio of the full interview can be found here and below.
Rhonda Jordan, SHRM-SCP, hasn't always worked in healthcare or in human resources, but it's certainly where she feels at home.
Her passion is reflected in the many leadership accolades she has received over the years, including several just in 2022. She was recently named one of Savoy Magazine's 2022 most influential black executives in corporate America, and in November she will be receiving the Human Resources Lifetime Achievement Award from the HR Department of the Year Awards.
Jordan currently serves as executive vice president and chief human resources officer for Virtua Health, a five-hospital, $2 billion community health system headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey. She has served in leadership roles at Virtua for almost 25 years and has a human resources career that has spanned more than 30 years.
During our conversation, Jordan spoke about how the HR department evolved during that time. She also talked about Virtua's many DEI workforce initiatives and the power of teamwork, and she shared advice for future leaders.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: What has your career and leadership journey been, and why did you switch from working in marketing to healthcare?
Rhonda Jordan: I've just had a remarkable journey. I received my undergraduate degree at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. I am a transplant to New Jersey and was able to also obtain my Master's degree, while raising three daughters, all online.
During my time here at Virtua, I also became Six Sigma Green Belt trained and STAR Coach trained, and I am a senior professional in human resources, which is a certification that I'm most proud of through the Society for Human Resource Management.
I am a true testament that you can utilize skills learned from other industries to propel you into a different industry. My degree is in marketing, and I wanted to go into retail and be a buyer, which is what I did for the first part of my career. When I relocated to New Jersey, I realized that that's not an industry that I wanted to remain in. I thought about what skills that I utilized in that industry that might be applicable to a different industry. I hired people, I coached people, I fired individuals, [and] I also learned about budgeting, accounting, and inventory.
My first job in New Jersey was working for a company where I recruited talent for organizations, and I did that for about a year and a half, and then ended up at Children's Hospital as their director of career services. When I went to healthcare, I truly felt this was the right place for me. I believed in the mission of what healthcare stands for; you are delivering care to people who need it most. It's helped align, for me, what was important in my own value set, which was helping individuals reach their potential.
When I think about healthcare as well as human resources, we remove the barriers for individuals. We remove those barriers so that doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers can provide the care and support to those individuals who need it most.
I'm glad that there was someone who gave me an opportunity to be able to do this job because someone took a chance on me. I have loved my journey in healthcare as well as my journey in human resources.
HL: During your 30+ year career in healthcare, how has the HR department evolved in that time?
Jordan: [When] I think about my time here at Virtua, which I can't believe it's coming up on 25 years that I've been here, I've seen HR evolve from being a transactional department to one that is truly seen as a strategic partner and critical to the function of the organization.
When I think about just the last two years in healthcare and human resources alone, recruiting, retaining, and developing talent have never been more important. One of the examples that's happened at Virtua, we were on the cusp of talking about individuals working remotely. You didn't see that a lot in healthcare; there were some roles that could be performed at home that were done well, but for the most part you were in the office every day.
My team, now, is largely remote. They come in [to the office] for those important things that they need to be in for, because when you think about human resources being client-facing, they're here when they need to be in front of an employee, or when they need to be here for a particular meeting. But I would never have anticipated my department would be largely remote.
One of the top items for me and our organization, right now, is being able to develop strategies that retain our employees. We have individuals that are choosing to leave healthcare, so how do we create an environment where people want to stay, that they're able to thrive and grow? We have been focused on listening to what our employees have to say to us and developing strategies that they've helped us with. Our employees have told us what is important to them: They want to feel valued, they want to feel like they belong, and they also want to have a sense of purpose.
When I talked earlier about how I felt like I had found my niche in healthcare, I felt like I was connected to the mission of the organizations. When I think about Virtua helping you Be Well, Get Well, and Stay Well, many of our employees are aligned to that they want to feel that higher purpose. Our employees have told us that they want a job where they can continue to contribute, where they can grow, and where they are connected to something that is bigger than themselves. We as an organization want to ensure that we're establishing clear pathways for growth and make it easy for individuals to pursue training and development, and ongoing education.
[HR is] integral to helping this organization create a culture where people want to grow, thrive, and stay. Burnout is a big thing for us right now, when I talk about being able to retain individuals. People are tired, and we as an HR department have to create those strategies to remove that.
HL: Speaking of burnout and retaining great talent, what workforce DEI initiatives are you currently leading at Virtua?
Jordan: Virtua Health has been on that journey for a good number of years.
We [created] a common definition and language around inclusion, diversity, and equity. We listened to the voice of our colleagues. We created a team that defined what that was going to be for us, and what were the things that we were going to focus on.
[We created a] diversity and equity committee called IDEA, made up of high-level leaders in the organization, those who lead our affinity groups, and some of our physician leaders. That group has helped us develop what our agenda and our call to action would be. We have three main goals that we focus on around elevating the value of inclusion, diversity, and equity, creating an equitable workplace, and cultivating an inclusive culture.
We have what we call our affinity groups that are grassroots. We let our colleagues tell us what community they want to form. We have four of these groups with two more slated for this year. They promote awareness, education, and mentorship across the organization. It's designed to foster and nurture that inclusive culture and that sense of belonging. It's a place where safe and honest dialogue can occur. I've been so proud of the work that these groups have done.
One that I will call out is our LGBTQ+ group, [called] Out. That group helped inform for us what our new primary care practice would be, and that primary care practice is called Pride. As we were developing what would be the artwork, what are the things we had to consider, who needed to be the clinicians, it was the Out group that helped us on the development of that private practice, which [recently] opened.
We also trained our leaders and our staff around unconscious bias and emotional intelligence, so that we can spot these things in the workplace. And we can call each other on it. We've had more than 900 leaders that have participated in different education sessions, and we've also had the broader colleague community go through different trainings.
HL: How does your leadership style play a role in your achievements and everyday work?
Jordan: I do the work because I enjoy and I believe in the work; it is definitely not for the accolades and the recognition.
A leader needs to have a great team, and when I think about the team of individuals that I get to work with in the human resources department, I'm only as good as they are. It is important that as a leader, you surround yourself with talented, dedicated individuals. We're not alike and I like having individuals that are different than me, because they're able to challenge me to even be better from a leadership perspective. It's about allowing individuals to thrive. It's about building the right team around you.
HL: What advice do you have for women and others in healthcare who either aspire to be leaders in the sector or in human resources?
Jordan: Pay it forward; be an advocate for other women. There are times I've had individuals that have taken me under their wing; we have to do that for other women. I love coaching and mentoring others, being that advocate, and paying it forward.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. Individuals are willing to help you, other women are willing to help you, so ask for advice.
The last thing I would say is get involved; being involved in whatever is important to you and being able to give back, I think as women we should do that.
The transaction, which was first announced in April, transfers all assets of MercyOne from CommonSpirit to Trinity Health.
Livonia, Michigan-based Trinity Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system, has completed its acquisition of MercyOne Health System, a nonprofit Catholic health system based in Iowa, the organizations announced this week.
Plans for the transaction were first announced in April, when Trinity Health, a $20.2 billion health system signed an agreement to acquire all facilities and assets of MercyOne from its parent company, CommonSpirit Health.
Prior to the transaction, MercyOne operated under a joint operating agreement between Trinity Health and CommonSpirit (previously Catholic Health Initiatives.) Now that the acquisition is complete, the MercyOne system's facilities and assets, including its home care, hospital, and infusion locations, are operating under Trinity Health and its electronic health record.
MercyOne will continue to retain its name and branding while operating as a part of Trinity Health.
"For close to 25 years, we have served Iowa communities. With MercyOne now fully part of Trinity Health, we are a stronger and more unified system that will strengthen MercyOne's ability to serve our patients, colleagues, and communities," Mike Slubowski, president and chief executive officer of Trinity Health, said in a statement. "Health care providers across the country continue to face unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-pandemic, but together, we are stronger. With our shared history and Catholic mission, we look forward to continuing a legacy of high-quality care for generations to come."
"[The] closing further advances MercyOne's Vision to provide a personalized and radically convenient care experience for Iowans and neighboring communities. We are delighted to become a full member of the Trinity Health family which will further our goal to be a more strongly connected system of health services," Bob Ritz, president and chief executive officer at MercyOne, also said in a statement. "We are grateful to CommonSpirit for their support in the transition and for more than 25 years of successful partnership in Iowa. We look forward to further strengthening the Mission of MercyOne."
The healthcare, professional business services, and retail trade sectors received the most notable employment gains last month.
The healthcare sector was once again one of the top sectors with notable job gains, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment situation summary.
In the month of August, healthcare employment rose by 48,000, with the most growth experienced in physician's offices and hospitals.
The ambulatory sector gained 22,000 jobs, which includes 15,000 jobs gained in physicians' offices. Additionally, hospitals gained 15,000 jobs and nursing and residential care facilities gained 12,000 jobs during August.
So far this year, healthcare has added 412 jobs, BLS reports. But, despite the steady increase in jobs over the past eight months, employment is still below February 2020 levels by 0.2%, or 37,000 jobs.
Total nonfarm payroll employment gained 315,000 jobs in August, with the healthcare, professional business services, and retail trade sectors receiving the most notable gains.
With this growth, nonfarm employment has risen by 5.8 million over the past 12 months, BLS reports.
Employment is continuing to recover from the pandemic, and total nonfarm employment is now 240,000 higher than its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.
Virtua Health's chief marketing officer details the health system's strategic marketing innovations that have led to successful service to patients and consumers.
Consumers are calling the shots, now more than ever, in healthcare. To keep up, healthcare marketers should focus on implementing consumer-led and consumer-focused strategies to retain current patients while also bringing new patients to the organization.
Virtua Health, a nonprofit health system serving communities in southern New Jersey and the Philadelphia area through five hospitals and over 270 care locations, is doing just that.
As the chief marketing officer of Virtua Health, Chrisie Scott, MBA, oversees the organization's marketing, communications, public relations, and human experience departments. She also oversees the consumer access center, which is available for patients to call 24/7 to get questions answered and get connected to care.
"I like to think that I'm the connector for the organization. I get to hardwire the brand, the culture, and the clinical excellence in ways that are motivating and relevant to the audiences we serve," Scott says.
Scott works closely with the other executives within the organization, including Virtua Health CEO Dennis W. Pullin, FACHE.
"I report directly to the CEO, and that is critical because it allows me to stay laser-focused on his agenda and road map for the organization. It gives me that close-up understanding of what's in his heart and his head, so that I can shape the most impactful strategies and narrative," she says.
Scott says she is aligned with many of the other senior leadership team members, too. "My job is to be the connector, and the first connection piece is that I bring the voice of those who we serve to the C-suite."
"I'm fortunate to have an incredible relationship with my clinical executives. This allows me to figure out how we intersect quality and safety and marry that with the overall experience, so that it's meaningful to our consumers."
"Of course, every marketing officer has to be able to validate their return on investment with their financial executives," Scott says. "I learn a lot from them and hopefully they learn a lot from me, especially with so many digital marketing tools and our ability to reach the right customer, on the right channel, at the right time. I help them understand how that works together, how we measure that, and report back to them."
The consumer leads the strategy
Part of Virtua Health's marketing strategy is to utilize its electronic health record (EHR) with its marketing customer relationship management (CRM) system. Through this capability, Virtua Health targets specific consumers and shares relevant information and messaging to try to connect them to their next best health action, Scott explains.
"What we've been able to do is, by taking a step away from traditional marketing and mass media marketing, we can identify high-risk patients who would benefit the most from the services and screenings that we offer," she says.
Virtua Health also uses AI in its marketing strategy to "rapidly test the marketing messages in their creative." Sometimes this includes doing A/B testing and seeing which images and calls to action garner the most response.
The AI "test quickly looks at who's responding to what, and we change up our marketing in real time to be as impactful as we can," Scott says.
The use of technology also promotes a humanistic approach. "We spend a lot of time on our team focusing on the language of healthcare," she says. "We're in tune with our words and the emotion and behavior that it connotes, and so we're spending a lot of time utilizing that."
Virtua Health also uses AI with its advertising buying process, which enables the health system to "find consumers and different audiences based on their media consumption and the channels that they're using," Scott says. "We're doing a lot of that to help us find both new consumers as well as existing ones that are engaging with those platforms."
It's important to note that Virtua Health's marketing strategy starts with the consumer's needs, then uses technology to help innovate and meet those needs.
"One of the first things we did to bring the consumer voice to life is we recruited for a digital insight panel. Think of the old-fashioned focus groups, except they can now be summoned up digitally and segmented," she says. This enables the health system to ask different audiences things that are relevant to them. There are about 30,000 consumers who are involved, which helps Virtua Health stick to its strategy of asking what the consumer wants, then delivering it.
Utilizing the CRM allows the health system to get even more personalized, she says, "to reach people and serve them information that's most valuable to them. And we're constantly optimizing that."
The marketing team has an "interactive storytelling studio" that they utilize to share Virtua Health's and patients' stories. They also offer virtual tours for patients and potential patients to check out the hospitals and their offerings prior to being on location.
"If you were to come here, it would look like a television studio to you. We produce testimonials there. We do instructional videos. Our team is doing 360-degree virtual tours, which has come in handy during the pandemic. And we've got a studio for producing podcasts. We're using that to its full advantage to help tell Virtua's story and connect with the consumer," Scott says.
Targeting specific consumers
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the health system was able to successfully convey to patients the seriousness of overcrowding and patient surges.
"This was such a massive undertaking. People listened; when we said stay away, they stayed away," Scott says.
But after the initial surge, the health system also needed to let patients know that it was safe to get care if they needed it, especially when it came to chronic condition care, heart attacks, and cancer screenings.
"[We had to communicate that] not only is it safe to come back, but it's urgent that they come back because they've not been in touch with their health in a very long time," she says. The marketing team developed a set of strategies, worked closely with the health system's leadership team, and utilized the CRM.
"Everyone that we've ever treated before technically had a next best health action that they could take and should be taking. We used our CRM to personalize those outreaches to the patients to help them get activated."
The health system also focused on utilizing mass media to convey "that now is the time to get back to care. Using our propensity models within our CRM, we were able to look for people who had higher risk of having developed more serious complications around their health. We sent out some great messages around that," she says.
Virtua Health also looked at which patients opened emails but may not have interacted with the emails further. This would result in a follow-up email to point patients toward the right care.
"We had great success, I would say in particular, getting people back to primary care, and getting those people who had chronic issues back into their treatment regimens." They also saw success in connecting with those who needed routine screenings, such as mammograms and colonoscopies.
One of the organization's most successful CRM strategies this past year was targeted communications that influenced more than 11,000 mammogram appointments. This resulted in 1,395 breast cancer diagnoses for patients who may not have otherwise scheduled their screening due to COVID-19 and pandemic restrictions.
Additionally, when Virtua Health educated patients about not delaying colon screenings, it launched a campaign for digestive health, which resulted in over 750 appointment requests in a short period, to help identify people at a higher risk.
Through utilizing a CRM attached to an EHR, the organization reconciles the financial metrics of its marketing outreach with patients' resultant actions, she says.
"Marketing has this huge business responsibility. An investment is made in marketing to help connect people to care. The margins that are gained by the organization by growing these businesses help us reinvest in healthcare and help us continue to provide that care," Scott says. "We continue to be a not-for-profit organization, but you still have to have revenue, and you still have to prove that the money that's being invested in that is coming back into it."
The marketing team uses a humanistic standpoint to ROI, including "the ROI of saving lives and the ROI of connecting people to healthcare," she says. "We do a great job on our team of working closely with our finance team, and we work to reconcile the investment that we've made in marketing, and messaging, and campaigns, with the growth that we've seen."
"Marketing is truly not only serving the mission of the organization, but it's also helping the organization stay financially viable so that we can grow and continue to serve the community."
She adds, "Our brand positioning is about being here for good, and that has resonated with the consumer during this time. It's served as the backdrop during the pandemic."
Marketing matters
Through the act of engagement and storytelling, marketers have the chance to make a difference for both the organization and the consumers.
"One thing I like to always say is that we, as marketers, have so much power," Scott says. "Part of that power is in our ability to use language and storytelling to help connect to people's hearts. I believe that one of the fundamental roles of healthcare marketing is to be a better part of somebody's day. If we're trying to connect people to care, or if we're trying to reassure them about symptoms they may have been looking up, or if we're trying to encourage them to take control of their health and feel confident and empowered in what they do, marketing truly has that ability."
Scott adds, "We're not the surgeons, we're not in the OR, we're not saving lives in that way. But we can have a profound impact on somebody's life through the way we position our organizations, tell those stories, and connect people to what matters."
Dartmouth Health CEO Joanne M. Conroy, MD, shares insights into what it's like to lead a rural academic health system and how rewarding she finds her position.
Editor's note: This conversation is a transcript from an episode of the HealthLeaders Podcast. Audio of the full interview can be found here and below.
Joanne M. Conroy, MD, has served as president and CEO of Dartmouth Health (previously Dartmouth Hitchcock Health), New Hampshire's only academic health system, since 2017. Her career has come full circle, as she graduated from Dartmouth College in 1977.
The health system serves rural communities in New Hampshire and Vermont through six hospitals, a visiting nurse and hospice program, and numerous clinics, and operates in partnership with the Ivy League university.
Additionally, Conroy is the American Hospital Association chair-elect designate and will become chair of the AHA in 2024.
During a recent HealthLeaders podcast interview, Conroy shared insights into the benefits and challenges of leading a rural health system, described her 4 tenets of leadership, and offered advice for future leaders.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: What is Dartmouth Health's role in serving communities across New Hampshire and Vermont?
Joanne Conroy: When we think about the communities we serve, it's not just the patients we serve, but those communities that the patients live in. We realize that in rural parts of the country, your zip code has a lot to do with your healthcare, and so when we think about serving communities, it's not just addressing the healthcare needs of those patients we serve, but understanding and trying to mitigate the environmental and social factors that lead to poor health.
We have a fabulous population health group that has a broad definition of population health, and they've done an analysis on longevity according to zip code. [They found] you can live in Claremont, New Hampshire, and your anticipated lifespan would be 15 years less than if you lived in Hanover, New Hampshire. There are many reasons why those are less healthy environments for people to live in and bring their families up in. Those are the things that we're focusing on addressing; the issues that are associated with simple things like appropriate housing, access to fresh food, even how the communities are addressing opiate use disorder; all of those have an impact on communities and the health of the people that live in them.
We are the most rural academic medical center, so our reach is really broad. Not only are we serving patients all the way up to the Canadian border, but we serve many patients from rural areas of Vermont as well. We only have 170,000 people within a 30-mile radius. I think the second most rural academic medical center is Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and they have about 230,000 people within a 30-mile radius, which is how the degree of your rural nature is determined.
With it comes great opportunities to use telehealth, to provide services to our neighboring hospitals that are not part of our network in a way that allows them to be financially strong and sustainable so they can continue to serve those communities. In essence, when you serve rural communities, you serve through other members of those communities: other hospitals, other organizations, other nonprofits. That's how you're effective in delivering care in rural America.
HL:What are some of those challenges that your organization is facing due to being a rural health system and how are you addressing those as CEO?
Conroy: Recruiting people to come work in rural America has been tough for years. Here are a couple of things that we have done:
1.Understanding the barriers for people to move to rural areas that we serve. Sometimes it's housing and being able to access and identify housing for an individual or their families.
2. Transportation. We support a number of public transportation systems because they move our employees around and they move our patients around as well.
3. Creating a spectrum of experiences for the providers [and] clinical staff so they see the whole continuum of how we provide care to patients. Our hospitalists [provide care] at our academic medical center where it can be super intense, especially as we've gone through the pandemic. But they also provide inpatient services at our critical access hospitals. People can get a little bit of a breather from the intensity of the academic medical center to take care of people in a smaller hospital that may be focusing on surgical throughput or caring for people with low acuity concerns in the community.
The same opportunity is there for our nurses. They can move up the career ladder by working in several different rural environments. They don't have to leave the system to advance their career, because we're so widely distributed.
HL:Earlier this year the health system rebranded as Dartmouth Health. Why was there a rebrand and what was the three-year strategic plan behind the new name and logo?
Conroy: It shouldn't have taken three years, but we were doing it in the middle of a pandemic. Many people would say, 'Why didn't you just stop?' but we felt that we had changed so much as a system over the last five to six years that we needed to reintroduce ourselves to the community.
Part of the new brand was spending some time thinking about who we were in the community and comparing ourselves to other organizations across the Northeast. Our NCI-designated cancer center has the highest patient engagement scores of any NCI designated cancer center in the country, our children's hospital is the only one in the state, [and] we're the only academic medical center in the state. The innovations and the care that people can get here at the academic medical center are truly extraordinary and they can access that care from anywhere [and] from the communities in which we have facilities.
As we thought about who we were, we said we were world-class institutions that were woven into the fabric of our communities, and that's part of delivering rural healthcare. There's no anonymity. When I go to the supermarket locally, you're going to have a conversation with people who either receive care in your facility or work in your facility. And sometimes, frankly, you solve some pretty big problems in aisle three of the co-op.
That's the beauty of living in a rural environment when you're so close to the people you serve, and we felt that talking about ourselves as part of the community was important. It's different when you're delivering care to your friends and neighbors, rather than people that you might never see again in a more urban environment.
HL:What has your career journey looked like so far?
Conroy: Well, I never thought I would end up here. I was a 1977 graduate of Dartmouth College, one of the first classes to be co-ed here, and it was a great experience. I was a full scholarship student and worked at a local restaurant for three of the four years here, which allowed me to pay for everything that the scholarship doesn't cover that's part of your education.
I left here never thinking about coming back, and moved to South Carolina. My subsequent moves, though, actually kept bringing me further and further north. I was working outside of Boston when somebody called me about the job [at DH]. I applied, and it's interesting, during the interview I realized that this was an opportunity for me to pay back a debt that I had to this broad community that had supported me in my education. I am not sure that I would have been able to achieve what I've achieved in my life without a full scholarship, as well as an incredibly supportive community that became my friends and neighbors while I went to undergraduate here in Hanover.
Sometimes you feel like your career goes full circle and so it seemed like exactly the right move.
HL:How would you describe your leadership style and how has it evolved over your career?
Conroy: As you go through your leadership experiences, you start to depend on more than facts. You depend on your gut, and there is something about your intuition which can't be ignored as a leader.
I give a lot of leadership talks, and I've got four tenets that I use all the time:
1. Authenticity. You need to be an authentic leader. That means people feel like you're not manipulating them, that you are being honest and straight with them. Part of that is being a little bit vulnerable, which is always great when a leader can do that with great authenticity.
2. Integrity. All of us need to commit to things. And if we can't deliver on them, we have to tell people why and when they can expect us to deliver on those promises.
3. Responsibility. We all make choices, and you have to be accountable and responsible for those choices you make; they get you to where you are.
3. Being committed to something bigger than yourself. That's what healthcare is all about. People who come here for a financial or reputational gain are probably in it for the wrong reasons. There's nothing that sustains leaders more in healthcare than looking at the impact you have on the lives of everybody that you work with and care for.
HL:What advice do you have for aspiring healthcare leaders who are curious, but maybe wary, of serving in leadership roles for rural institutions?
Conroy: I would advise them that it's an important part of their leadership training to understand rural healthcare. 20% of the people in the US receive healthcare in rural health systems, so it's not like we're an anomaly.
In rural systems you know everybody, and it's a great way to learn how to get things done. And it's not always because you've figured out the answer to a problem, but it's because you develop relationships. You can appreciate the challenges that people you're working with are facing because they are your neighbors. You learn a lot about how to create win-win solutions, how to lead authentically, and [how to] create coalitions within your community to improve health. All those skills are incredibly important and translatable to a higher density environment.
Sometimes it's hard to get those experiences in an urban or a busy suburban environment where you don't necessarily know everybody. I can tell you that first couple of weeks I was here, I received a call from the governor of the state to welcome me and introduce himself. That doesn't happen in a lot of large sites. And there are a lot of benefits of really spending part of your career in rural healthcare.
Labcorp has acquired the New Jersey academic health system's outreach laboratory business and some related assets.
New Jersey-based RWJBarnabas Health has closed a deal with life sciences company, Labcorp.
The organizations announced last week that Labcorp acquired RWJBarnabas Health's outreach laboratory business and select related assets, creating a collaboration that will expand physician and patient access to laboratory services. Through the deal, Labcorp will offer RWJBarnabas Health patients expanded health plan coverage, enhanced rural services, and the potential for lessened out-of-pocket lab costs.
In a statement shared with HealthLeaders, representatives from RWJBarnabas Health said that "the decision to divest this business was part of an overall strategic effort to create an integrated Laboratory service line at RWJBarnabas Health that will increase efficiency and consistency, and align our resources to deliver the highest quality, safest testing for our patients and communities."
When asked why the health system is collaborating with Labcorp versus a different organization, the representative said that "[the health system] assessed the capabilities of various providers and determined that LabCorp was the partner best suited to meet our long-term needs."
In the press release that came out on Wednesday, RWJBarnabas Health's COO, John Doll, said "By working alongside Labcorp, we will provide comprehensive testing services and enhance the laboratory service offerings. We are always evaluating how best to serve our patients, clinicians, and physicians. This strategic business decision will provide a high-performing, streamlined outreach network to support our community."
"The communities, physicians, and health systems we serve are central to everything we do at Labcorp," Bill Haas, senior vice president of Labcorp Diagnostic's Northeast Division, said in a statement. "Our expanded relationship … will build on the solid foundation RWJBarnabas Health has developed, and will offer patients and providers enhanced access to high-quality laboratory services, seamless data integration and connectivity, and exceptional value to help improve patient care and outcomes."
Financial and additional terms from the deal were not disclosed.
The news comes one month after Labcorp announced its second quarter revenue results, which was $3.7 billion for the second quarter of 2022, versus $3.8 billion last year for Q2. RWJBarnabas Health announced it had $4.6 million in net assets as of June 20, 2022.
The news also closely follows RWJBarnabas Health and Saint Peter's Healthcare System's decision to call off their merger plans following the Federal Trade Commission's move to block it due to alleged anticompetitive behavior.
CEO exits have experienced a 20% increase in exits reported through the end of July 2022 compared to July 2021, but there also was a decrease in executive movement from June to July 2022.
The most recent CEO Turnover Report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. found that hospitals and the healthcare sector were among the top industries experiencing CEO turnover in July 2022.
"Healthcare, and hospitals specifically, are under a tremendous strain emerging from the pandemic. Staffing shortages have created concerns about care, and varying legislation on abortion will impact hospital systems differently depending on the states in which they have hospitals, an incredible challenge," Andrew Challenger, SVP of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. said in a statement.
Last month, hospitals experienced nine CEO exits, which is less than the 15 CEO exits that happened in June. The decrease is promising for hospitals, which are currently under a lot of pressure due to staffing issues, inflation, and post-pandemic woes.
But, through the end of July 2022, 71 CEOs have made exits from their hospital posts, a 20% increase from the 59 CEO exits announced through the end of July 2021.
As we move closer to the end of the year and Challenger, Gray & Christmas continues to track hospital CEO turnover rates, we'll be able to better tell if total hospital CEO exits for 2022 will beat the 101 exits in 2020 and the 112 exits in 2021, or if turnover will start to slow.
Reasons why CEOs left their posts in the healthcare sector include: executives stepping down to serve as hospital chair, to serve in an advisory role to the new CEO or to the organization, to leave for new opportunities, or to retire.
Reported CEO exits across all industries have dropped to its lowest monthly total since April 2020, with only 58 CEOs leaving their positions in July 2022. This is a 45% decrease from the 106 CEO exits recorded just the month before.
Through the end of July, 832 CEOs have made exits across all industries, which is up 8% from the 770 CEO exits reported through the end of July 2021.
"The economy is facing uncertainty right now, but it’s much more positive than in early 2020," Challenger said. "Inflation fell in July, gas prices are falling steadily, the job market remains tight, and supply chain issues have mostly cleared up. Consumers lack confidence at the moment and interest rates are rising to bale inflation, which might slow business borrowing and some growth plans."
Catholic Health's CEO shares how the Long Island, New York health system is tackling the community's access to good, healthy food.
More than 250,000 people living in New York's Nassau and Suffolk Counties are food insecure. That's 25% of all the adults that live on Long Island, according to Long Island Cares.
Catholic Health, an integrated health system that serves around 25% of Long Island's population, is aiming to address that challenge.
Catholic Health has six hospitals, numerous ambulatory care facilities and clinics, and a home care service that have a finger on the pulse of its patients' social determinants of health (SDOH), including food access, which affects communities all over the country.
"We've seen here in the New York/Long Island market that, because of various changes going on post-COVID, access to healthy food is a challenge, and inflationary pressures have made it difficult for so many families to get access to food," Catholic Health president and CEO Patrick M. O'Shaughnessy, DO, MBA, told HealthLeaders.
According to Long Island Cares, 79,000 children on Long Island are food insecure. And when schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, children who relied on school-sponsored and supplied meals were affected.
"Those were their only source of meals," O'Shaughnessy said. "In the United States alone, 38 million people—12 million children—are food insecure. That's a statistic we have to commit to and improve … Making sure that folks are aware that there is help out there, that there is a mechanism, and to seek assistance if they are food insecure is important."
The Challenges
Food insecurity has been exacerbated by the pandemic, inflation, an overall increase in the cost of living, and labor workforce issues, he said.
"The impact of the labor workforce issues, we're still feeling this in the healthcare sector, certainly, but around the country, it disrupted supply chains, farming, bringing fresh food to the table, and distribution," O'Shaughnessy said. "All these things further accelerated the problem."
He added, "I have every bit of that confidence that it's going to get better, and the whole point of why we're talking today is to bring awareness to food insecurity. Too many people downplay the importance of food's impact on your overall health and wellness; you truly are what you eat."
Another challenge is the cost of food, and how inexpensive foods are leading to an increase in chronic diseases.
"It's one of the first times in the history of humankind that we see the most calorically dense and nutritionally depleted foods," he said. "They're the cheapest and most available, yet those that are more nutritionally dense and healthy for you are expensive and becoming harder and harder to buy."
"Nationally, you see incidents of cardio and cerebral vascular disease, cancer, and diabetes is increasing," O'Shaughnessy said. "Food plays a major role in all of this, and we as healthcare leaders and healthcare providers [need to] address the fact that food plays a big piece into our overall health and wellness and focus our interactions to be equally focused on disease prevention and health and wellness."
Those incidents are also affecting the health system's Long Island communities.
"We see chronic disease incidents rising certainly in Long Island; we see this in terms of rates of diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia or high cholesterol [and] stroke. And while we have cutting edge, state-of-the-art treatments to treat people when they develop these diseases, wouldn't it be great if we could bend the disease curve and get upstream of that, and help people live longer, healthier lives?"
The Solutions
Addressing food insecurity and SDOH needs to come from the top, O'Shaughnessy said.
"It's important for leadership to address these issues and focus on SDOH," he said. "It starts with leadership."
O'Shaughnessy says it’s a privilege to lead Catholic Health while the organization launches new disease-based therapies and interventions and an increased focus on effectively screening people for food insecurity in its primary care sites and emergency rooms.
"We built [food insecurity screening] into our electronic health records so that our nurses, social workers, [and] care managers will actually ask [patients] relative questions relative to if they are food insecure and how often has this been an issue for them," he said.
Screening is also part of emergency room visits.
"When [patients] come into our emergency room we consider it a soft vital sign to ask about food insecurity; meaning how many times in a week or a month did you feel you couldn't get from paycheck to paycheck and have enough good, healthy food to eat," he added.
Additionally, Catholic Health, in partnership with Long Island Cares, Catholic Charities, and the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island have launched programs in August to address food insecurity among patients.
"This is where health systems have to partner with community-based organizations," O'Shaughnessy said.
One of the programs, in partnership with Long Island Cares, provides food insecure emergency room patients with bags of food.
"We call them 'Go Bags,' and these are bags of nonperishable food that will be stored in the emergency rooms, and when we identify people at a time of crisis, we'll immediately give them food," he said. "We'll also plug them into a [food security] program."
Through a partnership with Catholic Charities and the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, the health system also enrolls food insecure patients into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ensure they receive ongoing food benefits.
Additionally, the health system has partnered with Island Harvest and Adelphi University nutrition graduate students to build programs that track how the community is doing around food security, he said.
"Our homecare agency is one example of that," he said. "As people are enrolled in homecare, we can actually go in their home and see what's in their refrigerator. You can learn a lot about somebody about what's in their refrigerator or what may not be."
"We've made over 336 food deliveries since the program's inception just going into some houses alone," he said.
'You Have to Take the Blinders Off'
O'Shaughnessy's advice for other hospital and health system executives when it comes to addressing SDOH and food insecurity is to be active and proactive.
"You have to take the blinders off," he said. "If you're going to truly bend the disease curve, you have to look at what's driving disease burden, and food insecurity plays a major role in that."
Food insecurity causes an increased risk of chronic conditions (40% or more), which is where the most money is spent in healthcare, he said. In order to address that, healthcare organizations need to focus on SDOH to improve the health and wellness of its population in a preventative manner.
"It's not difficult to initiate [food insecurity programs]," he said. "Organizations are quick to want to partner with healthcare systems because they also appreciate and know the interrelation interplay between food insecurity and chronic disease development. They'll be a great partner for you."
He also spoke about the importance of screening patients for food insecurity.
"If you don't screen patients, you'll never know what's going on," he said. "You'll be surprised to find the number of people that will share that they're having difficulty with this."
"Every interaction counts," he added. "Every family, every person, every child that we're able to intervene on and help them get access to good food, will certainly lead to a much longer, healthier life."
Editor's note: This story was updated on August 25, 2022.