Hospitals and health systems are seeing a shift in operations as the industry moves to a post-COVID-19 era. Growth strategies are evolving, communications are becoming more consumer-centric, and the landscape of care continuum continues to change.
Executives working toward the healthcare system of the future will take learnings and innovations from the pandemic and apply them to their organizations' strategies to ensure they don't fall behind.
"We have many learnings from the pandemic, particularly building more virtual capabilities and focusing on our outpatient presence," says Ketul Patel, co-CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle. "As a new system, we have geographies that we don't cover, and part of our growth strategy is to ensure that we're creating capacity and access for patients where we historically didn't have services."
"[We're in] one of the fastest growing markets in the country, and so the health systems here are being heavily fueled by population growth," says John Haupert, CEO of Grady Health in Atlanta. "But if you look market-wide, there's a number of competing health systems and it's still kind of an arms race to [see] who's going to outdo whom."
Executives will build upon and create new growth strategies, they will switch their focus to be more patient-centric, and care will be inside and outside the walls of the hospitals.
"[What] we started doing is when we began to initiate all the digital means of access, we also began installing a customer relationship management system (CRM system)," says Kreg Gruber, CEO of Beacon Health System in Elkhart, Indiana. "What we're doing is tying that into our wellness initiatives and using that data to be in contact with our patients to manage their care, which then stimulates growth for services, screenings, and all those sorts of things."
Additionally, executives will be open to more partnerships, and will continuously work to repair staffing issues.
"Leaders and most of the CEOs in Orange County are working together to create internships, partnerships, and sponsorships, to help the underserved communities increase high school graduation and college enrollment rates," says Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County in Irvine, California. "These efforts ensure success and develop a bigger population to meet our staffing needs, as well as elevating the health of the community."
Jim Cotelingam, who has served as interim chief strategy officer since February will lead the strategy office team in implementing new growth plans.
Cleveland Clinic has appointed a new chief strategy officer, the health system announced Tuesday.
Jim Cotelingam, who has served as interim chief strategy officer since February, will lead the strategy office team in implementing the clinic's growth plans. He will lead the focus on market intelligence and analytics, enterprise strategy development and major strategic initiative implementation, and strategic transactions including mergers and acquisitions and affiliations.
"[Cotelingam] is a seasoned and thoughtful leader who brings distinguished experience across the healthcare sector," James Merlino, MD, chief clinical transformation officer for Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement. "His insight and leadership will guide the future direction of our enterprise and drive our domestic and international growth strategy."
Cotelingam has more than two decades' experience in healthcare leadership and joined Cleveland Clinic in 2019 where he served as executive director of strategy. During his tenure he helped establish the health system's five-year strategic framework.
Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic, he served as senior vice president of strategy, director of operations, and director of business development at Trinity Health, a Catholic health system headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, where he led strategic growth initiatives and contributed to doubling the size of the healthcare organization.
He also served as president and CEO of Trinity Health International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trinity Health.
Tim Putnam, DHA, MBA, shares details about his career experiences, working on the Biden-Harris Administration COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, and his thoughts on rural healthcare and lessons learned, as he departs from his current role.
Margaret Mary Health (MMH), a nonprofit, rural critical access hospital in Batesville, Indiana, is saying goodbye to its CEO, Tim Putnam, DHA, MBA, at the end of August. The rural healthcare champion announced his resignation in July, and has served 38 years in hospital operations and over 12 years as CEO for MMH.
"Stepping down from my current role will afford me the chance to explore new career opportunities while finishing out my work with President Biden’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force," Putnam said in a press release.
Liz Leising, who has served as chief nursing officer and vice president of patient services at MMH since 2016, has been named interim CEO.
HealthLeaders spoke with Putnam prior to his departure about his healthcare career, his experience working on the Biden-Harris Administration COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, and his thoughts on rural healthcare.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: What has your healthcare career journey looked like?
Tim Putnam: I started in non-healthcare; my original degree was in lasers and optics. Back in the 80s, when lasers had only been around for not even a decade and a half, I fell under a lucky star working at the Laser Treatment Center of the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati on research and development projects with the Father of Laser Medicine, Leon Goldman.
I am a purely technical guy with no healthcare background at all, but I became enthralled in the ability to have an impact on patients. I worked research and development for years and then that led to work with minimally invasive surgery. That led to a master's in business administration into more leadership responsibility outside of surgery.
And that led to a rural CEO position at a great community hospital in Illinois. I have a rural background, grew up in a small town. When I started working in the small towns and realized the decisions that I made, and the people I worked with, made a difference for people that I live next to, it started to hit home. That's where I found my passion. You fight the challenges together, you succeed together, all the patients that are cured of cancer because of your team's work, the babies that are delivered—everything is different in rural healthcare because it's so much more personal.
The hospital in Illinois led me to a position back here in my home state of Indiana, so I've been able to work almost 13 years not too far from where I grew up.
HL: What are some of your favorite accomplishments you reached during your tenure as CEO at MMH?
Putnam: MMH has grown quite a bit and I think we have stayed true to our mission.
We were in the lead on the transition from volume to value, and one of the first rural hospitals in the country to have an accountable care organization. We had to partner with other hospitals across the nation to have enough covered lives.
It led us to some other things like our addictions and behavioral health program. Very few rural hospitals are aggressive when it comes to preventing behavioral health issues, treating those, [and] working with addictions. Because of our work with a transition from volume to value, we realized that unless we treated the behavioral health issues or addictions issues, we weren't going to be able to have an impact on the physical issues.
Putnam: I've been lucky to be part of several rural leadership and healthcare leadership positions.
With regard to the Graduate Medical Education Board in Indiana, that has been a pleasure. The state of Indiana, to keep physicians from leaving the state, formed that several years ago. We've done a phenomenal job of increasing the residencies, encouraging hospitals to expand the residencies. Bright kids that are growing up in Indiana, they're going to medical school in Indiana and don't have to leave the state to be able to complete their residency program. I'll stay with that probably to the end of the year, that's a gubernatorial appointment. I'll work with the hospital association to [find] someone who's actively in healthcare leadership in the state at a hospital [to] replace me, but I'll stay as long as the governor will have me, or until there's another candidate to step up for that.
The Biden COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force has been a great honor to be part of, working with a team of dedicated people to evaluate what has happened during the pandemic from a perspective of equity, and what do we learn from it, and how do we do better. It's been intense [and] it has been enlightening. I bring the rural aspects because I see it every day, and what we found is so many of our issues are the same. It's been exciting to work with that, but that will be wrapping up in October, when the final report will be coming out.
On top of leading a healthcare organization during the pandemic, which you think would immerse someone enough, a task force met on a regular basis virtually, with people across the nation, and [we] heard from subject-matter experts around everything from vaccinations, long COVID issues, the impact of mental health on the country during COVID. So not just the disease itself, what are we seeing with suicides, what are we seeing with behavioral health, addictions, and then looking forward. What I found is the resources of this nation are vast, and there are brilliant people that are committed to making this a better country, and just being able to sit alongside them has been phenomenal.
HL: Margaret Mary Health received a 5-star quality rating from CMS in May, placing in the top 10th percentile nationwide. What strategies and other factors led to this accomplishment?
Putnam: It is the culture in our hospital. This goes to how we take care of patients; we take care of them like friends and family, because there's high probability they are.
We've been lucky, some of our partnerships with other large academic medical centers and large facilities has been phenomenal. We've had a partnership with The Christ Hospital on cardiac services. When you look at door to-balloon time at the average hospital that has a cath lab, you strive for the goal of 90 minutes. Our time is 110 minutes, but our cath lab is 45 miles away in another system. [The] partnership that we've got between the local ambulance service, our team, being on the same page as that team of cardiologists that work there, gets phenomenal outcomes, and our patients know it.
The desire to get the best outcome for your friends and family drives this quality, drives the patient satisfaction, it all links together. We want to be the hospital that these large systems want to work with. We're self-aware, we can't do everything, so we need to have friends and partners.
HL: By mid-May, MMH had administered more than 25,000 COVID vaccine doses. What strategies were in place to ensure the rural community gets vaccinated?
Putnam: We have a great team of people that have been dedicated to vaccines and vaccinations for years. Years ago, we ran a drive-thru flu vaccine program. People would drive up, they fill their paperwork out, the kids would stay in the car seats, get their shots, get the Band-Aid, and rolled on.
That set us up for how we were going to do it as a community. In the middle of winter, we set up a drive-thru COVID vaccine clinic. At first, we were out in the cold with pop-up shelters, then the city converted the city garage, so we had drive-thru processes rolling through there.
We made it easy for our population. We had good partners with the state to be able to do that. We convinced them that we knew what we were doing, and we also had a lot of volunteers from the community that came out. There's no doubt our team was in the lead on this, but our community came together to do it.
HL: What changes are needed for rural health systems and rural hospitals to be more successful?
Putnam: One thing I've learned is that there are some great people who work in rural healthcare, and rural healthcare leadership is hard. Half the rural hospitals in the nation are losing money. Before this year, there was one that closed every two and a half weeks in the country. It's not for lack of effort, it's not for lack of desire to serve your community, but it's a challenge out there.
I hope that in the near future, the value of being able to have everyone, no matter whether you live in a rural community or not, have access to quality healthcare, [and it] is seen as a higher priority. We're a stronger nation if we do.
We have to realize that rural is not small-urban, there are things that are inherently different about it. [Rural hospitals] need partnerships with [larger] hospitals that can do things that they can't do. They need a payment model that fits to what they do. So much of it is about the cost of readiness and how do you stay ready in your ER 24/7 when your volumes swing so heavily? How do you have an active and effective OB program, when the rules are written for OB programs in a large city?
Looking at some of the regulations and standards through a rural lens is important. I often ask people who write the rules and regulations that affect us negatively, 'what did the rural people in the room say when you proposed this?' To which, there's no answer because there were no [rural-minded] people in the room.
Scott Reiner details his healthcare journey and how he strives to bring health and well-being to low-income countries.
Earlier this month, Scott Reiner, the CEO of Adventist Health, announced his upcoming departure from the health system. Reiner, who has led the nonprofit, faith-based system since 2014, will leave at the end of the year to establish a family foundation to focus on global health and well-being.
Well-being isn't a new focus area for Reiner. In April 2020, Adventist Health acquired Blue Zones®, an organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of communities across the globe and to transform the health system's approach to caring for the overall health and well-being of the communities it serves.
In October 2020, the West Coast-based health system announced the launch of its new Well-Being Division as a "breakthrough move to promote community well-being."
In a recent interview, Reiner shared how he strives to bring health and well-being across the globe to low-income countries with his family foundation and detailed what his healthcare career journey has looked like so far.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: What has your healthcare career journey looked like over the years?
Scott Reiner: One of my first jobs was a nurse's aide in one of Adventist Health's hospitals in Northern California called Adventist Health St. Helena. I took a journey of completing my Bachelor's in Nursing at another Adventist Health hospital in Glendale, California, and had a chance to practice nursing for a few years.
I had opportunities shortly thereafter to progress into supervisor and manager [roles] that I had never anticipated that I would get into. I found it interesting to manage both clinical and business, and it struck a chord, so I went back to graduate school. I got a Master's in Health Administration, and then took on various responsibilities in for-profit healthcare [and] nonprofit. I did managed care contracting, ran physician groups, and then re-entered back in the hospital market in '94 or '95, and became a vice president of a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.
From there, it grew with progressive responsibilities, and I landed back in 1999 at Glendale, where I started as a nurse, as the CEO, and was there for about eight years. Then I was asked to come to the system office, little did I know at that point, as a progression for the CEO position. I [served as] COO for about four years and now I'm just finishing my eighth year as the CEO for Adventist Health.
HL: What are some of your favorite achievements and accomplishments you reached during your tenure as CEO?
Reiner: One of the greatest things I'm proud of is the amount of impact the organization has had. We established about eight years ago this idea that we wanted to double our impact, with the idea of impact being people that we can take care of, or new services we can render, or new communities that we can gain access to. Our organization is 83% government payer, so we're in some tough markets as far as socio economic levels, and so we take a lot of care of a lot of disadvantaged populations.
Over this course of time, we've doubled the number of contacts we've made, the number of patients we've seen, and revenue. We've added six new communities to our base and over 100 different clinics and access points to new services.
We've [also] moved the organization from what I call a "federation of hospitals" to an "operating model." The best part about that is we have achieved best in quality and safety for three or four years in a row now, and top quartile in operating performance. Quality and safety are important for the patient, and operating performance is important in order to sustain the income that we earn so we can send it back into our communities.
The journey we're on now is transforming the hospital system into a health company focused on well-being. It is this notion of saying "how can we improve both community and individual wellbeing?" Well-being is more than the absence of disease, it is also tackling other areas of socioeconomic conditions, access to new services, physical, mental, social, and even I'd say spiritual impact.
The pandemic has set a challenge, but I'm proud of how our system has responded. It's responded with patience and incredible resources, ingenuity, innovation in taking care of our communities.
HL: What goals do you hope to achieve for the health system by the end of the year?
Reiner: We have to do two things at once. We have to have the incredible care of our communities and the everyday care of our patients, and we have to launch our strategy, because I'm still here for the next six months and we'll continue to build the knowledge, and the energy, and understanding that the work toward well-being is what this country needs. It's what our communities need. It's not the absence of taking care of patients in the hospital, it's the addition of doing the other things that we've talked about.
HL: After you depart Adventist Health, your next chapter will be to "establish a family foundation that is focused on global health and well-being." What led you to that decision and what do you hope to accomplish with the foundation?
Reiner: So, this has been something we've been thinking about as a family for a while. Myself and my family have been concerned about disadvantaged populations and the access they have, especially in low-income countries. My son, for example, has lived in Africa a couple different times and has a Master's in Global Public Health. My wife and I have spent quite a few times going overseas and looking into low-income countries and looking at what's not available for them.
There's enough data and financial resources in this country to fix ourselves if we wanted to. Now, that's a matter of will. I would say in some of these lower income countries, they may have great will, but they don't necessarily have all the funding to do the work.
What we're excited about with our foundation is to create a model, or work on models that exist, to improve well-being especially in rural-based communities and in low-income countries to this expression of living their best life. That is an altruistic goal, but it's a matter of improving their access to food, water, basic primary health, and basic primary education.
Then it's this idea of can you make a difference over a period of time with a community as a new model. Now we would call that community-based well-being. We're interested in trying that in a few communities outside of this country to see if in fact a model that could be replicable and approached and then caring for those communities.
For me personally, it's going to be interesting to get back to taking care of individuals. When you're running a large healthcare corporation, you do a lot of cool things at scale, but you don't always get to see the direct outcome to the individual. We're interested in getting to know those who we are directly helping.
[This is] separate from Blue Zones, but you may have an idea of a connection here. Blue Zones is a company that Adventist Health has acquired, and they became the framework for us to do well-being work. It's a proven model to change environments, change policy, and help people orient themselves toward a healthier lifestyle of well-being.
It's not the same company, but maybe we'll do some collaboration, because they're focused on the footprint of Adventist Health and North America. We're going to be in a different spot focusing on well-being in low-income countries.
Edmund Sabanegh Jr., MD, MBA will serve as president and CEO of The Guthrie Clinic, effective September 13.
The Guthrie Clinic board of directors have announced the next CEO of the Sayre, Pennsylvania-based health system.
Effective September 13, Edmund Sabanegh Jr., MD, MBA will succeed Joseph Scopelliti, MD, who has served as president and CEO since 2012. In December, Scopelliti announced his plan for retirement, where he stated he would continue in his role until a successor was put in place.
Sabenegh will lead Gurthie Clinic's continued path to expansion and improving healthcare accessibility and maintain the system's "laser focus" on exceptional care, value-based care transformation, technology innovation, and affordability. He will also work to attract healthcare talent through the system's growing teaching platform.
"Guthrie strives to deliver the kind of care that we all want as patients: We want to keep our care local and accessible. We want to be assured that we are receiving the highest quality and best experience possible," Sabanegh said in a statement. "Guthrie has been, is, and will remain a healthcare beacon that shows that high-quality, high-value, patient-centered care can absolutely be delivered locally in rural communities."
Sabanegh joins Guthrie Clinic from Cleveland Clinic, where we served in leadership positions for more than a decade. He most recently served as president of the main campus and regional hospitals, where he expanded clinical services, achieved nationally recognized value performance for the health system, and helped with the acquisition and integration of new hospital health systems.
Prior to that, he served as Enterprise Director for Cleveland Clinic's 1,000-member Care Affordability Task Force, where he lowered the cost of care and created financial efficiencies.
Sabenegh also served for 21 years in the United States Air Force, where he served in leadership roles including chief of medical staff, chief consultant for the Surgeon General, and chief operating officer at the largest Air Force hospital.
Effective September 1, COO Saum Sutaria, MD, will assume the role of CEO.
Tenet Healthcare CEO Ron Rittenmeyer is stepping down from his role, the healthcare services company announced on Monday.
Rittenmeyer, who has served as CEO and executive chairman for over three years, will continue to serve as executive chairman of the company and the board through the end of 2022.
Saum Sutaria, MD, president and COO of Tenet will assume the role of CEO on September 1 where he will continue to report to Rittenmeyer.
"When I joined Tenet as Executive Chairman and CEO almost four years ago, I had two major objectives," Rittenmeyer said in a statement. "First, was the transformation of the business in terms of improving quality of care and service to build long-term, financial stability. Second, was to develop and execute a succession plan through the organization, enhancing our leadership at every level and identifying my replacement. During the past several years, Saum and I have worked closely together through extraordinary times including COVID, and at each step, he has continued to demonstrate excellent leadership in framing the right strategic and tactical pathway."
Sutaria joined Tenet in January 2019 to serve as COO and then was promoted to president later that year. He joined the board in 2020.
Previously, Sutaria worked as a leader in healthcare and private equity for McKinsey & Company, where he served clients on strategic, operations, and financial issues for 18 years.
"I am honored to serve as CEO and continue our work in building a truly unique and diversified healthcare enterprise," Sutaria said in a statement.
Mark Bohen, MBA, shares insights into the Boston-based healthcare system's marketing strategies, how the pandemic has affected them, and what marketing strategies are still to come.
In November 2019, Partners HealthCare CEO Anne Klibanski, MD announced a five-year strategic plan and rebranding for the Boston-based health system, renaming it Mass General Brigham to highlight the system's two prestigious academic medical centers: Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Klibanski, who still leads Mass General Brigham, explained in a previous statement that patients are, “at the center of all we do. The overall aim of our strategy and the new name is to create the premier integrated health care system of the future, built on the strong reputations of our academic medical centers."
Mark Bohen, MBA, who previously served at Beaumont Health in Michigan, joined the health system in September 2020 as chief marketing officer. Since then, he's led the patient-focused marketing and rebranding efforts through the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic to unify the Mass General Brigham brand.
Bohen recently spoke with HealthLeaders about the health system's marketing strategies, how the pandemic has affected them, and what initiatives are still to come.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: Where is Mass General Brigham now in its five-year strategic plan?
Mark Bohen: The overall strategy is to bring all these world-class institutions together and form an integrated health system of the future, where the patient is at the center. We're making great progress. In fact, we recently announced two major initiatives that reflect how we're coming together as an integrated system.
The first [initiative] is that we launched our Sports Medicine Business on Monday. This is an initiative that brings all our world-class providers and clinicians together. Sports Medicine provides the patient with a better experience and a single-entry point into our system depending on their location and needs. It's the first time that we've launched a system-wide clinical service like this, so we're excited about that.
We also announced an enterprise radiology clinical service. Here, we're [also] putting patients at the center and offering high-quality imaging read by our world-class experts regardless of where you are, whether you want to come to downtown Boston or get your imaging done in the [outer] communities, it's the same experience read by the same world-class clinicians. [We're] trying to meet people where they are in the community.
HL: How was your transition to chief marketing officer of Mass General Brigham during the pandemic? What challenges faced you when you arrived?
Bohen: It was a bit unusual to join during the pandemic. Of course, we're all remote, and so I started working from my house in Michigan. It's always challenging to start at a new job, but then you layer on doing it during a pandemic and trying to understand the business, meet people, develop relationships. It was certainly challenging, but it's been terrific.
I'm so impressed with the work that people are doing, the research that leads to all the breakthroughs, innovations, and new therapies. We can help people in our communities and around the world. During the pandemic, we all came together and collaborated as a system. We treated so many people who had COVID, we have administered a lot of vaccines and a lot of COVID tests. We did that all working together as a system.
HL: How has the rebranding effort affected consumer engagement, retention, and patient experience?
Bohen: During COVID, all our focus was on our patients and on our employees, making sure they were OK.
Over the past few months, we've been doing more and more to roll out the visual identity part of [our rebranding. We've changed the signs on some of the hospitals and a few more are in the works now. We're rolling it out in phases. We're still in the pandemic [and] we've got another surge happening now, so we want to make sure that we're putting our focus where it needs to be, which is on our patients and our employees.
We've also done some work on what the MGB brand stands for. We did a lot of development work on the value proposition, positioning, and research which we've turned into creative because we want to start communicating what MGB stands for externally. We launched a brand campaign locally starting July 4, and then [we have commercials playing] during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. [Our brand] is about using our research to develop new clinical breakthroughs and innovations, and to make sure we deliver that great care in our local communities but also around the world and that's what we're communicating in those brand commercials.
HL: What marketing strategies have you utilized through the pandemic?
Bohen: Our focus was on the people who had COVID-19, testing, and then when the vaccines came a lot of focus was on getting patients and employees vaccinated. All elective procedures were halted for a period and people understandably didn't want to come to the hospitals for procedures. But then as time went on, when it was safe to come back in, we did encourage people to come.
We had a campaign, broad-based TV, digital, social, and other forms of communication to let people know that it's safe to come back, that they shouldn't delay care, and that certainly helped. Now we're just about at pre-pandemic volume levels, so people are coming back and getting those important cancer screenings and other preventative measures too.
Now, our marketing strategies are focused on building the brand, building awareness for the brand, and making sure people know what it stands for.
And, you know, we'll continue to make plans for the next fiscal year, which starts October 1. We want to continue and add to our marketing strategies. We're excited about the future here and the opportunities are limitless for our marketing department. We're new, we came together as an MGB marketing department last fall, and so we're working together more effectively and just beginning to hit our stride.
HL: What are your marketing strategies moving forward?
Bohen: To me, the practice of marketing is both an art and a science, and we want to make sure we bring more science to the table to inform our marketing decisions.
We want to bring classical marketing principles to marketing here at MGB … to infuse how we develop our marketing strategies and programs. We'll focus on consumer insights, focus on data analytics, measuring return on investment on our marketing activities, developing deep skills in the digital social area, making sure that we understand consumers' media consumption behavior. People are omnichannel, so we need to be where consumers are. Those types of principles and practices, and the discipline around understanding the consumer will serve us well going forward.
Oftentimes I'm asked, 'What's your social media strategy?' and I always like to say we have a marketing strategy that includes social media, but it also includes other media and tools in our toolbox. That's how I think about it is what can the marketing practitioner bring to reach consumers where they are, and sometimes it's social, whether it's organic or paid, sometimes it's search, but then also, sometimes it's more broad-based and even traditional forms of media. It's never good to be a one-trick pony; people consume information through all forms of channels. When we're talking about a new brand or a new clinical service like sports medicine, you've got to create the awareness first, then once people are aware, then they can do their own research and find you, whether it's organic search, or paid search, or social.
Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County, shares expansion plans, innovations, and advice for future healthcare leaders.
Editor's note: This conversation is a transcript from an episode of the HealthLeaders Women in Healthcare Leadership Podcast. Audio of the full interview can be found here.
Annette Walker has more than 40 years of experience working in the healthcare sector and has held senior leadership positions at some of the nation's largest healthcare systems in the country.
She currently leads the expansion of City of Hope into Orange County by working with physicians, community leaders, and healthcare experts to bring innovative cancer care and research closer to the patient populations served by the system.
In January 2020, City of Hope opened its first Orange County location in Newport Beach and there have been plans to further expand the cancer care footprint in the county. In this podcast interview, Walker provides background on the expansion, how City of Hope strives to meet the community's cancer needs and advice for future healthcare leaders.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: City of Hope announced a $1 billion investment to build a new comprehensive cancer campus at FivePoint Gateway in Irvine, which is slated to open in 2022. How will this new campus assist in City of Hope's goal to cure cancer?
Walker: One of the most important things for leaders in healthcare is trying to understand what a community needs and tailoring our services to fit the needs of the community.
Orange County, California has 3.2 million residents and [it's] the sixth-largest county in the United States. When our team got on the ground, we evaluated how people were receiving cancer care in the community and we came to understand that nearly 20% of [residents] need to leave Orange County to get specialty cancer care and access to clinical trials.
What we are specifically addressing is that 20% [of patients] and that is our niche. City of Hope is a specialty cancer and research hospital. We have [more than] 400 physicians who are specialized in a specific area of cancer, and in addition to that, we have 800 scientists and researchers are dedicated to finding the cure for cancer.
Irvine is going to be the centerpiece; that's where a comprehensive cancer center is going to be. We're on schedule, and on budget, to open next August. We are also on schedule to break ground on Orange County's only specialized cancer hospital in 2022.
But in addition to that, we understand how people live and how they travel. There will need to be some more convenient access positions at different parts of the county because we understand and know how far someone will travel for a particular service. For example, with radiation oncology, one of the other services we provide, how far from Irvine can that be for our patients to still feel like it's convenient? We're mapping out the problem patterns of Orange County, the populations of Orange County, and their predicted diagnosis of cancer.
In some areas of the country, traffic patterns are not as important, but they're a big deal here. It's one of the additional reasons why we decided to come to Orange County. We're 55 miles away from Doherty, California. That doesn't sound like a terribly long distance in certain parts of this country, but in Orange County, that can be a two-hour drive each way. So, if you add a four-hour commute on top of a cancer treatment, then your day [turns into a] 12-hour day. It's burdensome. There are people who do it; 3,000 people do it when we were originally doing this study, but it's just not what's right for the patient.
We are answering a call to come to Orange County to specifically meet that need to put specialized cancer experts on the ground and [provide] clinical trials to people who have the most difficult and challenging cancers to make sure they have access to the latest and the best that science has to provide.
HL: Can you talk a little bit more about the other locations that are slated to open in Orange County, including the Lennar Foundation Cancer Center, and Orange County's only hospital exclusively for treating and curing cancer?
Walker: The cancer center, which is going to open in August 2022, is the Lennar Foundation Cancer Center. Lennar was generous to City of Hope and the community of Orange County in making a significant landmark donation of $50 million to ensure that we could have the center on the ground for the people of Orange County. Lennar has been a citizen of Orange County for many years and has built many homes in our communities. [The company] has always given back and this is one of the most significant ways that they're giving back.
The Cancer Center is going to be a fully comprehensive specialty cancer center, [where] we'll be doing surgery, all types of cancer treatments, [and conducting] clinical trials; it will be a gamechanger for access to the Orange County community.
[Additionally,] the hospital, which we are going to break ground on next year, will be Orange County's only specialty cancer hospital. You might ask why that matters. Cancer is complex, is often chronic, and doesn't just affect the patient, it also affects the family. Imagine a place where 100% of the people who work on that campus understand cancer. They understand the patient's journey, they are highly specialized, so we have the benefit, or the luxury of [being] solely focused on cancer. It's going to be the most leading edge with the most highly expert types of personnel that you can find.
HL: What other initiatives is City of Hope driving for cancer care and research?
Walker: We have over 700 clinical trials that are focused on beating cancer. Today's cures may be just around the corner.
Currently, some of the top four cancer drugs that are used for cancer treatment were discovered at City of Hope. The synthetic human insulin discovery was [also] done at City of Hope and led to the founding of the biotech industry through a relationship with Genentech. So, we have an amazing history of discovery and that's not stopping.
City of Hope also has three Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facilities, which means we can manufacture the drugs that are used in the trials. It's an unusual capability.
There's another initiative that City of Hope is calling ‘Access Hope.’ The intellectual capital that I just talked about, like those 400 doctors, 800 scientists, 700 clinical trials—we believe more people should have access to that. Access Hope is a company that we formed to assist in the democratization of cancer specialty care. We now have over 2 million lives enrolled.
For instance, Amazon is one of the clients, and their employees [in Washington] can access a City of Hope expert and that expert will work with their physician in Washington to help make sure that the protocols that that patient is on are the very best, just as if they were in the City of Hope facility.
HL: As a mother of six, yourself, what advice do you have for those to further their career path while also looking to have a family?
Walker: I believe you can do both, but I also believe it's a woman's choice. I have the greatest respect for women who choose to stay at home; that is a career. If you choose to work for somebody else and work outside the home, that's also a choice. You must do what's best for your family.
I hear women ask, 'When's the best time to have a baby?' 'Should I have a baby?' 'Is it going to ruin my career?' If you're worried about having a child [will ruin] your career, my first advice would be to go find a new company. Currently, many women have proven that that's not an issue.
The other thing is don't put your personal life on hold for a career. I'm at the later stages of my career, and I've had some amazing jobs, places I have loved working for and had a long tenure with, and I decided to leave them. A big deal is made, 'Oh my gosh, what are we going to do without you?' Then you a month later you find out that the organization is proceeding, things are working out, organizations are resilient, and will continue.
Your family does not necessarily have that resiliency. So, don't put that personal development on hold for a job. You can do both, and you can claim both, but don't be deferential. Because at the end of the day, your family's still going to be there, and someday you're going to retire. Be clear where you're putting investments and what your long-term investments are.
HL: What leadership advice can you pass on to women and others who strive to serve in leadership roles in healthcare?
Walker: Healthcare is a wonderful industry and it is friendly to women. But we still have a way to go if you want to see more women in the top spots.
I'm going to talk about what I think is maybe one of the most essential characteristics of a leader that I think leads to success. Everybody has bad things happen to them, has disappointments, gets insulted. But what people like that do is they choose to take that disappointment or that challenge and choose to make it a learning opportunity; they build resiliency and strength.
So, if you [have a] disappointment … you can step back and say, 'What can I learn from this to make me stronger?' That's what successful people do. If you're going to build a leadership muscle, the one I would build would be resilience. You will prevail over time—you may not prevail tomorrow—but over time it's going to matter because those are the people that make it to the top.
The physician-owned healthcare system will aim to give patients quality, value-based care in the South Florida hospitals, where they are ready to take on the current COVID-19 surge.
Steward Health Care System, a Dallas-based physician-owned healthcare network, has acquired five South Florida Hospitals from Tenet Healthcare Corporation.
Steward, which currently operates in nine states, added North Shore Medical Center, Coral Gables Hospital, Hialeah Hospital, Palmetto General Hospital, and Florida Medical Center to its ranks on Monday.
In a statement, Ralph de la Torre, MD, CEO of Steward, said that the organization will aim to give patients quality, value-based care in its new South Florida hospitals, especially amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
"Steward Health Care takes a physician’s approach to patient care. Everything we do is about improving our patients’ well-being, which requires not only tailoring care to each patient, but also learning from and engaging with every community we serve," de la Torre said in a statement. "I am humbled by the opportunity to expand our footprint in my beloved home state. We know there are health challenges here and we are eager to work with local leaders to address them together."
Sanjay Shetty, MD, Steward's president of North America, led and established clinical innovations during the pandemic and will oversee all five hospitals.
"Steward understands that combatting the resurgence of the COVID pandemic in South Florida is our most urgent and immediate priority," Shetty said in a statement. "Already, we have begun to redeploy PPE, ventilators, and other vital supplies needed for the care of COVID patients from our other facilities throughout the country to hospitals in this market. As a physician-led hospital system, we are committed to providing all our patients with access to critical supplies and treatments, and we will work hard to build trust and ensure the best possible outcomes by listening to and learning from our partners in South Florida."
Steward currently operates 44 hospitals globally, including 34 hospitals across the country in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah, and has over 5,500 providers and 43,000 healthcare professionals serving 12.3 million patients a year.
Holly McCormack, MSN, who previously served as the rural hospital's CNO, shares her goals and upcoming initiatives as CEO.
Holly McCormack, MSN has worked at Cottage Hospital, a Level IV trauma center and 35-bed critical access hospital, based in Woodsville, New Hampshire, for more than a decade and has worked in healthcare for more than two decades.
Following the resignation of the former rural hospital CEO Maria Ryan earlier this year, McCormack was chosen to serve as interim CEO, and then permanently installed as CEO in April.
McCormack, who said she will complete her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree in December, recently spoke with HealthLeaders about how the previous CEO set her up for success, how her background as a nurse helps her lead, and what she hopes to accomplish in her new leadership position.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders:How did your previous role as CNO prepare you to lead the hospital?
Holly McCormack: The CNO role is just so rich with quality and operational experience, and those things are so important to leading the whole organization. You have the fiscal accountability for the areas that you're responsible for, and for me, that was a majority of the hospital already. I understood the finances in those areas, and I understood the quality indicators.
Also, having been at Cottage Hospital for 11 years, it was an advantage to already know the staff, know what's important to the community, and know strategically what makes sense for our organization.
HL:What succession planning was in place to ensure a successful transition at Cottage?
McCormack: My predecessor knew that I one day would be interested in being the CEO of an organization and she always encouraged me to prepare myself for that. She provided me a lot of experiences with various leadership groups even prior to deciding to leave the organization.
She and I met with each department leader in the organization so that we could do a handoff and know what's important to them and what they would like new the CEO coming on to know.
Before I became the permanent CEO, I was named the interim CEO, and so there was an overlap. That gave us a chance to work together, for me to have some experience, but also have her here to ask about the history behind [processes], or why a decision was made. It was a great way to set me up to be successful.
HL:What current pain points are you looking forward to addressing as CEO?
McCormack: One of the things that are difficult right now are workforce issues. It just seems that all hospitals in this area are vying for the same employees. We all have vacancies in our hospitals and we find it difficult to fill them. [However,] that is also an opportunity and so that's something that I've started a few initiatives working with the local colleges and with the local high school so that we can start preparing for our future workforce. It might not solve the problem today but hopefully, it'll pay off in dividends in the future.
We [hosted] what I'm calling a ‘healthcare careers exploration camp’ at the hospital for some local high school students. Each day they [had] a couple of presenters talk about various job opportunities within the hospital and then [had] some observational time too.
We [provided] a well-rounded view of what you can do when you work in a hospital. Even if you're somebody who doesn't want to be right at the bedside taking care of patients, we want them to know all opportunities that are out there.
This exploration camp is geared towards sophomores going into junior year or juniors going into senior year, because we know they're thinking about whether they're going to go to college or not, what type of school they'd like to go to, so we're aiming it right at that group because I think that's going to be important.
We're also working with another local college to provide an education for an LNA program and we're looking at starting our own LNA program because that's the job category that we really need here in the hospital. We're working with the colleges to make sure that we have the students here as part of their experience.
It's important for [students] to be able to spend time in a rural community hospital and see the amazing things that we do here. Our building is smaller than they're used to for a hospital and I think they might equate that with the work here not being as exciting or challenging, and what they find is that it is. Our community still needs us, and we provide all the services that they need. [Students] can get great experiences here and it's rewarding to take care of your community.
HL:How would you describe your leadership style? How does your background as a nurse help you lead?
McCormack: I have this natural, authentic leadership style. For authentic leaders, integrity and transparency are important. Authentic leaders are known to put their heart and soul into what they're doing. I am here and I lead this organization because I believe in it, I love it, and I want it to be successful. Those characteristics naturally lent themselves to my nursing career as well. I wanted to help people, I wanted to be there for them. You always hear about nurses being the most ethical profession, and so I think those things go hand in hand.
There's a natural leadership that comes with the nursing profession through the process of delegation and that function of nursing. I started my career as a nursing assistant, then a nurse, then a charge nurse, followed by a manager, and then I became a director. I followed the natural chain of progression over the years through my nursing career and that led me to this CEO position because I wanted to make a larger mark on what I was doing.
HL:What upcoming initiatives in your organization are you excited about pursuing?
McCormack: Because it's early in this new position, I'm in my first 90 days, I'm assessing the community and seeing what our needs are. I am doing some analysis and feasibility studies about what we need to bring to this community. We know that in healthcare, there's this large focus on promoting the health of our community and being aware of those social determinants of health, but also, looking at strategically what outpatient service lines make sense for us to have as a hospital.
One thing we have in place here already that's helped address some of the mental health crises in the state of New Hampshire is our Ray of Hope Geriatric Behavioral Health unit. That's a great example of something that not only the community needed, but our state needed.
Continuing with that mindset, I want to take time to see what it is our community needs and then make sure it makes sense for a hospital, and then move forward.