Jaspal Singh, MD, MHA, MHS, FCCP, FCCM is a Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Physician at Carolinas HealthCare System.
On April 14th, Dr. Singh wll give a presentation at Becker's Hospital Review 9th 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 April 11-14, 2018 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Dr. Singh's session, click here.
Question: Describe one of your best colleagues. What it is that person does/brings that makes them indispensable to your organization?
Dr. Jaspal Singh: My best colleagues are the ones that not only have experience and knowledge, yet passionately strive for deeper learning and understanding to enhance their work. I have a colleague who is chair of his department who, despite his busy duties, is constantly learning, reading and sharing his knowledge with the rest of us. He has led various initiatives and committees, and whenever challenged, brings in outside resources and experts to help guide his teams. He is naturally more comfortable with risk-taking initiatives, innovation and process improvement as he has done his homework, and is humble enough to recognize his own knowledge needs to be enhanced to solve problems. Drawing on this collective experience and knowledge, his teams waste far less time and are more successful in endeavors, whether related to educational programming research and development, applying data analytics, or creating new patient care pathways. Moreover, my colleague has an uncanny ability to mentor emerging leaders to share in this approach, thus sustaining and spreading the work. Colleagues such as the one I describe inspire a culture of excellence, which makes people invaluable to any organization.
Q: What did you notice about your healthcare experience the last time you were at the receiving end as a patient?
JS: I continually seem surprised at how increasingly expensive healthcare is becoming. Medications are difficult to afford even for those with financial means. Minor procedures can cost tens of thousands in the current environment. Moreover, since costs are being passed to patients, I can see why many patients refuse or delay services. Similarly, my family members and I have personally delayed elective procedures and refused expensive medications even though we think in the long-run these might be helpful. Added to the expense is the lack of complete cost transparency in cost transactions in healthcare. We believe this is a very treacherous situation for patients and families, and are hopeful the current focus of our organization to evolve to more cost containment and increased transparency will be helpful to our communities.
Q: As a leader, what is the best investment you made in your own professional development in the past five years?
JS: As much as I enjoy leadership-directed seminars, readings and workshops, I feel the best investments involve true introspection paired with excellent mentoring/coaching. I invested in some more advanced leadership assessment tools and worked with a coach to understand how to build around my strengths and weaknesses. I also shared some of what I learned with trusted mentors outside of my direct division structure. That, in turn, has helped to create a nurturing support and development structure. To me, this process has been more valuable than picking up another leadership book or reading another leadership article on social media.