Researchers have argued that there is no perfect CEO personality, and leaders of hospitals and health systems possess an array of qualities and strengths, ranging from softer skills such as honesty and openness to financial and technical knowledge. However, there are certain skills some are particularly focused on right now in today's challenging healthcare environment.
Becker's asked several healthcare CEOs to share the skills they are honing at this point in time — and how they're going about it. Among the areas that have drawn their attention: adapting to changing technology, enhancing one's listening skills and articulating a clinical vision to those in their health system.
Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.
Laureen Driscoll, MSN, RN. Chief Executive of Providence South Division (Irvine, Calif.): At no time in my 30-year career have I seen so many disruptive developments in healthcare, most of which I believe will further enhance patient care. When faced with a new challenge, I educate myself, I seek subject matter experts for guidance and analysis of the pros and cons, and as a trained nurse, I process issues through that lens. My focus always is on how the subject at hand will provide better patient care and a better caregiver experience.
Who would have thought just a few years ago that artificial intelligence would be one of those disruptors with so many possibilities? AI presents a seemingly limitless field of applications that demand new ways of thinking. I'm embracing AI — with a certain degree of caution — to help advance our work on several fronts. Among those are patient engagement, diagnostics, algorithms that predict the best treatment protocols and managing paperwork for our nurses and providers. The more I understand the capabilities, the better I'll be able to lead the transformation of our division, which encompasses our California operations.
Also demanding new insight is the ability to recruit and retain a highly skilled and committed workforce. We're recovering from the workplace shortages that followed the pandemic, and I've adapted new skills to lead our efforts in meeting the expectations of our new generations. In recruiting new caregivers, our vision is not just to deliver great care, but to deliver it in a way that creates the best experience possible for both patients and caregivers.
Part of that is to nurture the connection to our mission, and our success is evident in our 2023 caregiver experience survey. Our "highly sustainably engaged" score increased by three points and "intent to stay" was three points higher than the healthcare norm. I've learned that when culture is based on a foundation that provides meaning and purpose, it creates an environment where people want to seek care and in our case, where people want to work.
I'm most excited about the continuous transformation of the healthcare delivery system as we consistently raise our goals for quality health outcomes. We're committed to a fully integrated network, but getting there requires educating myself, listening, practicing diplomacy and finding answers to some tough questions as we develop a seamless continuum that both enhances and simplifies the patient journey.
Change is never easy, but our endgame, a value-based, consumer-centric healthcare system delivered by a highly skilled workforce trained in patient-friendly technology, is our unwavering promise. Keeping that promise is on my shoulders, and that means humbly updating my own skills and tactics to meet unprecedented challenges. The key to earning buy-in is to recognize challenges. The latest technology is difficult to learn, so I study and process, then demonstrate to our teams they, too, can master it. And the payoff will be significant.
David Herman, MD. CEO of Essentia Health (Duluth, Minn.): Last year, our leadership team said that healthcare needs different leaders right now. We have the opportunity for that to be us. But that means we need to change the way that we lead. And the reason we need to change the way that we lead is because the methods that worked before in changing healthcare don't seem to be working as well as they did in the past because the conditions have changed so much. So we said we need to avoid the seductive part of moving down to managing rather than leading, because that can be very seductive. We have to stay up at this leadership level, and leadership has to move from being the teacher to also being the learner. So I'm trying to be a better learner and a better teacher as we work with our teams to navigate our way through all this, all this work that we need to do.
I believe that leadership's job is to articulate the "why" and the vision and to bring resources to the table and to help our teams work our way through this. But there's so much change that the people who know the work best have to really be engaged in doing that. So I have to be a better listener. People talk a lot about active listening, but I also believe that there's a thing called intentional listening that I'm trying to do right now. And with that intentional listening, I also believe that language shapes thought, but thought shapes our language. So what I'm trying to do is listen to people and find out what it is about the change that's making it so difficult for them. Are they change averse or are they risk averse? And if they're change averse, then can I help them in a particular way? And if they're risk averse, then we can say, "OK, what are you afraid of? What are the risks with this change? And how can we work together going forward?"
I also believe that the language that I use matters. And I've tried to frame my conversations using different words than I have before. I think if we use the terms, "if we change," we can imply a choice that we may not have. If we use the words, "when we change," we may imply that it's something that's happening in the future and not happening right now. So I've tried to be very intentional about that to use the words, "as we change," to really put it in the present right now. And I think that's really helped me have richer conversations and has helped me listen better and find out about the exciting part of changes for people and the part that's difficult for them as well. What I've tried to frame this in is, I believe that we have to have urgent optimism that we do need to change, and we do need to change now. But that change will lead to a better place for the people and communities who are privileged to serve as well as for us.
Brian Johnson, MD. President of West Penn Hospital (Pittsburgh): Given the evolving healthcare landscape, further educational experiences for leaders like me will be critical to achieving the quintuple aim, especially based on what we learned during the COVID pandemic. Although I have an undergraduate degree in business administration and have consistently sought mentorship to guide my leadership development, my educational endeavors continue. First, I am currently completing an executive MBA from the University of Tennessee Haslam School of Business. Second, I continue to seek both formal and informal leadership coaching, including through the MBA program via a previous industry leader. It's important to recognize that there will always be someone who has experiences and perspectives unique to yours and that will be helpful in your own professional development. To that point, the informal discussions between MBA classmates working through similar challenges are exceptionally important and helpful to understanding and addressing issues and opportunities that arise daily in my own leadership role. Last, but extremely critical, is the learning and development I achieve every day via actively listening to both our front-line team members and my patients during daily rounds within the hospital. There are no better sources of information, insight and inspiration than what I find through those engagements.
Through PEMBA, there is focus on leadership, strategic initiatives and financial modeling related to healthcare strategy and at-risk insurance contracts. It's critical to have the ability to assess the current health of an organization and create strategic clinical projects, understanding the global financial impact to the organization and patient population. While the financial impact is an important piece of strategic modeling, it's important to not immediately focus on bottom line finances during implementation. Rather, relationship building and creating a clinical vision that improves quality and reduces cost through active care coordination should be the North Star. It's not about care rationing, but rather care coordination. Meeting patients where they are and how they want to be met through active listening is paramount. Reducing duplication of testing and other services and helping patients to understand what positively and negatively impacts their care, outcomes and quality of life cannot be overstated.
To that end, learning how to better engage patients with a primary care provider and empowering primary care providers via useful data is imperative. We are rich in data but often poor in actionable data. We must learn to close this gap. We can't effectively implement strategy, nor engage physicians, without actionable data. Finally, we must interact with the front lines to help them to see that vision through active listening. Each person needs to understand their role in the mission and strategy. It's our job to listen and close the loop. We need to build an environment where our team members want to be engaged.
Formal education tied to economic models that allow us to pivot from a fee-for-service world to a more clinically effective, value and data-driven atmosphere is imperative, but only part of the puzzle. Leadership coaching becomes critical to driving a vision and creating an environment where people want to be engaged. I currently maintain an experienced leadership coach whom I meet with biweekly to help navigate strategy implementation, change management and conflict resolution. We work through actual situations in real time and assess opportunities and success. The UT PEMBA program ties these pieces together through an organizational action plan project, where we are expected to develop and implement a strategic model that positively impacts and prepares our own organization for the future. It brings all the pieces together and puts them into action. We also cannot repeatedly change strategies as challenges arise; we can pivot but not totally change directions. We need to stay focused while anticipating potential shifts that achieve the identified goal. It's only then that we can learn how to bring high quality care to our patients, keep our staff engaged and inspired, and remain financially solvent in the decade ahead.