Jeffrey Flaks serves as President and Chief Executive Officer at Hartford Healthcare.
Jeffrey will participate in the keynote panel "Strategy in the Pandemic Years - What Stays, What Changes" at Becker's Hospital Review 11th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place virtually from May 10-27th.
To learn more about the conference and Jeffrey's session, click here.
Question: Share one change brought on by the coronavirus pandemic that you’d like to see stick, especially in healthcare?
Jeffrey Flaks: A purposeful focus on reducing and eliminating healthcare inequity. Communities often in the very neighborhoods of our hospitals and care centers lack adequate and equal access to care. It took a global crisis to shine a bright light on this travesty we’ve known about for decades. I am proud of our efforts so far at Hartford HealthCare, creating awareness and taking action. Yet know we need to do so much more. We have held thousands of outreach clinics and mobile care sites to provide testing and vaccines. We will expand these efforts, through and beyond COVID, with additional physical and emotional health supports ― bringing care, hope and healing to those who have been too long ignored and need us most.
Q: What is one essential trait leaders need to lead effectively in healthcare today?
JF: In one word: agility. In a crisis, you have to throw out the book on how you run the operations normally. You don’t have the luxury of time when making decisions or the benefit of being perfect. You make decisions that you feel are best for the organization and patients based on current information. But being faster doesn’t mean being better; you have to adapt and change when you have newer and better information.
Q: What would you like to see as the defining theme of 2021 for your industry?
JF: “Better than normal.” It’s natural to look forward to things returning “back to normal.” But in healthcare, there must be no going back. In several important areas, the COVID-19 pandemic has helped us recognize that what we accepted as “normal” was nowhere near good enough. “Better than normal” is our goal — a health system that is more equitable, more convenient, more engaging and more prepared.