The Philadelphia area is a hotbed for healthcare — several academic medical centers, prominent health systems and prestigious hospitals call the region home.
Even with steep competition, Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based Main Line Health continues to grow, improve and stay relevant in the competitive healthcare environment under the leadership of John Lynch III, or Jack, as he's known to all Main Line employees. Mr. Lynch has served as the system's president and CEO since 2005.
Here, Mr. Lynch shares Main Line's strategic imperatives and how he keeps the system — and his leadership skills — up to snuff in today's competitive healthcare environment.
Question: Main Line Health was recently named in the top quintile of health systems in the nation for medium-sized health systems by Truven Health Analytics. What do you believe has attributed to the system's success?
Jack Lynch: Main Line Health has a long-standing commitment to patient safety and high quality care, which is the foundation for MLH's strategic plan and provides a starting point for our success. Our strategic plan is comprised of six strategic imperatives: patient experience, highly engaged people, market growth, research, clinical education and financial performance.
Ultimately, our vision is to provide a superior patient experience to all who come to us. We can't achieve that without our dedicated employees, physicians and volunteers. Through ongoing training, open communication and commitment to education, our employees, physician partners and volunteers are engaged — and it shows. Whether it is a commitment to our culture of safety or achieving recognitions such as Truven, our successes are only possible because of our dedicated MLH family.
Q: Since you took the helm at Main Line, the system has added a hospital and two health centers. Can you provide some background on those expansions? What do you find to be the most challenging aspects of expanding the Main Line market, and what do you find to be most rewarding?
JL: MLH is on a mission to grow patients' ability to access our facilities for all aspects of their healthcare needs — providing a superior experience and accessibility are drivers of all our business decisions.
Riddle Hospital saw the changing tides of the healthcare industry and realized that they could benefit from the strength of a system. We recognized Riddle's value, and we were happy to welcome them into the Main Line Health family. That was about six years ago, and it has been a phenomenal partnership. Immediately we integrated Riddle into our culture of safety and, over the past five years, Riddle's commitment to this initiative has been exceptional, and the results show.
In the future, we're looking for continued growth, and we are focused on ambulatory care and offering more convenient regional access to our communities.
Q: Main Line is located just outside a very robust healthcare provider landscape in Philadelphia with many academic medical centers. How do you position the system to add value to the Philadelphia-area healthcare market?
JL: If you're a resident of Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs, you have the benefit of having access to the most advanced medical care in the country with several renowned health systems located within a rather small radius.
As I mentioned earlier, as part of our strategic plan, we focus on research and clinical education. We think of ourselves as different from traditional community health providers because we encompass a robust scientific and clinical research institute, including a strong community-based clinical trial program.
Main Line Health has the distinction of being Magnet designated for nursing, and we're in the process of our third site review. We're very focused on a superior patient experience, and we have a very clear mission — patient care — with complementary missions of research and education.
Finally, what sets us apart is the 10,000 members of the MLH family who commit themselves to delivering superior care each and every day to our patients and our community. Because of our engaged workforce, we are able to attract and attain the best in the industry to benefit our patients.
Q: How do you continually develop your leadership skills to keep up with the changing healthcare industry?
JL: I've had great mentors, and one of them taught me the concept of lifelong learning. Given the complexity of the industry and the amount of change we face, I want to stay current. If we as leaders don't commit to lifelong learning, we're doing ourselves and our institutions a disservice.
I am an active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and I am engaged and interested in seeing what other systems are doing. We're all committed to continuous learning at Main Line, and I think we deploy technology that helps our team stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest practices of medicine, healthcare administration and superior service.
Q: What is the most important metric you look at regarding operations at Main Line Health? Has that changed throughout the years?
JL: I would say two sets of metrics are important to look at. First and foremost are quality metrics. We fastidiously maintain our quality dashboard and, at every board meeting, our board members focus first on our quality outcomes. The other important metric is financial performance. The most attention we give is to cost-per-case and the operating margin. We have to recognize that if we're losing money on Medicare, we have to lower the cost-per-case.
Q: How would people describe you as a boss? How would you describe your own management style?
JL: I like to think that I'm fair, that I'm willing to make tough decisions but look to others to carry out their responsibilities. I'm passionate not only about patient safety and quality, but also about diversity and building a diverse leadership team. Working to eliminate disparities of care based on race and ethnicity is also critically important.
I'm also passionate about integrity. If you're not honest, you don't have a spot on our team. And that is what we are — a team. I'm Jack to everyone in our institution — every housekeeper, patient, nurse, physician or security guard — because we're all working together, contributing our responsible pieces. This creates a culture where people feel very valued, and when people feel valued, they tend to give the very best of themselves every day.