Ian Jasenof, MD, serves as chief medical officer of Mile Square Health Center, part of Chicago-based UI Health.
Dr. Jasenof will serve on the panel "Strategies to Retain Employed Physicians and Skyrocket Engagement" 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 roundtable, which will take place Nov. 7-10 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Jasenof's session, 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?
Dr. Ian Jasenof: UI Health Mile Square Health Center will be the sole healthcare provider in the newly renovated Auburn Gresham Healthy Lifestyle Hub located at 79th Halsted streets in Chicago. Mile Square will have more than 11,700 square feet of space in the building, including 12 patient rooms, six dental suites, a procedure room and an on-site phlebotomy lab. Our anticipated opening is mid-August 2022. Always Growing, Auburn Gresham was awarded the first Chicago Prize, a $10 million grant competition of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation that sought to invest in collaborative initiatives using physical development to spur economic activity, strengthen civic infrastructure, and improve the safety, well-being and economic mobility of residents on the city's South and/or West sides.
Q: What are you most excited about right now and what makes you nervous?
IJ: It has been a challenge and privilege to lead the design team on this multimillion-dollar project. In order to accommodate the needs of the community and anticipated volumes, I promoted adopting the designing of the space using the "on-stage, off-stage" concept to maximize the patient cycle time and improve the patient experience. Our work stations will be enhanced by design to permit maximal communication with the dyad team of the provider and support personnel.
Q: How are you thinking about growth and investments for the next year or two?
IJ: We have expanded our quality improvement team to incorporate the concept of clinical integration. Value-based healthcare has been a major paradigm shift in healthcare, and ensuring the providers and support teams are well-versed in evidenced based medicine is key. Maximizing the capabilities of our EMR, Epic, has been important for our journey.
Q: What will healthcare executives need to be effective leaders for the next five years?
IJ: Recruitment of key leadership will always lead to success. It will also be a challenge given the competition of late. I have been fortunate to recruit, vet, hire and have a robust onboarding process for our site leaders and providers. Of course, our COO has been an amazing partner with our success.
Q: How are you building resilient and diverse teams?
IJ: The continued challenge of COVID-19 is always present. It has an ongoing impact on staffing. We continue to promote COVID-19 vaccinations as well as the boosters. Also, recruitment of our associate team members has been extremely challenging. The labor pool has been rather limited, thus we have to continue to promote our positions and work closely with our HR department.