See the silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic and how a healthcare leader applied it to his team.
Richard Evans is the senior vice president of patient services and chief experience officer at NewYork-Presbyterian.
Mr. Evans will serve on the "Transforming Healthcare With the Power of Innovation" panel at Becker's 10th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference on Nov. 7-10 in Chicago.
To learn more and register, click here.
Becker's Healthcare aims to foster peer-to-peer conversation between healthcare's brightest leaders and thinkers. In that vein, responses to our Speaker Series are published straight from interviewees. Here is what our speakers had to say.
Question: What is the smartest thing you've done in the last year to set your system up for success?
Richard Evans: We have leveraged the imperative and openness to change that the pandemic created to take a fresh look at our entire operation. This includes the patient experience, quality, technology use and collaboration with our two excellent medical schools. We have proven that we can change faster than we ever thought and we want to harness that energy and creativity going forward.
Q: What are you most excited about right now and what makes you nervous?
RE: I'm most excited about the work we are doing to support and engage our workforce in a very challenging time and how we are thinking about the journey of our customers and patients in a much more integrated and responsive way. We are engaged in work that is cutting edge and transformative. I'm still nervous about the course of the pandemic and its many echoing after effects.
Q: What will healthcare executives need to be effective leaders for the next five years?
RE: Healthcare executives have learned over the last two years that authentic and appropriately transparent leadership is critical for success in motivating and leading our teams. Our front-line caregivers have been through so much. They must know that we see their real challenges and truly understand what they are going through and what they need and prioritize.
Q: How are you building resilient and diverse teams?
RE: We have a wide array of programs and services to support our teams in their professional and personal lives. Also, we are adding to it constantly as we dialogue with our colleagues about their needs and priorities. This is combined with a dynamic and multi-pronged effort to recruit and retain staff. We know this is something that everyone is focused on, especially in our market.
Our commitment to creating a diverse culture that promotes a feeling of belonging is also a major focus. It's a "must have" in our vibrant city. Our Dalio Center for Health Justice is doing great work in this arena. Part of that work includes advocating and working for health justice for the communities we serve. I can't think of a more challenging time for healthcare in my two decades of experience, but I remain optimistic about the future, given all that we are doing at this critical point.