The role of top hospital and health system executives is evolving with the push toward defining a great culture as health systems consolidate, reimagining care delivery and boosting the workforce for a more financially sustainable future.
Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health fully acquired Centennial, Colo.-based Centura Health earlier this year, and former Centura CEO Peter Banko has taken on a new role as division president with CommonSpirit. He sees several changes in his role over the next year, primarily to provide clarity to his team, ownership for governance, leadership and caregivers with the goal of solidifying the system's mission and sustainable bottom line.
"The real hard tasks ahead are finally achieving the consistency and predictability systemness and scale through a true system, and process-orientation, a unified clinical and physician enterprise, and hyper competitiveness in each market," Mr. Banko told Becker's.
Shelly Schorer, CFO of CommonSpirit's California division, echoed Mr. Banko's focus on financial sustainability, noting an increased focus on strategic financial moves that maintain access, quality of care and cost control as inflation continues to grow more rapidly than reimbursement.
"This is not really new for a CFO, but I believe our shift to partner with operations and strategy to form a collaborative approach to changes will be enhanced," she told Becker's. CommonSpirit is going through a system reorganization to consolidate into fewer divisions and leverage relationships and economies of scale between hospitals within the same division. Exhibiting strong leadership will be critical to making the transition smooth.
Marty Sargeant, CEO of Los Angeles-based Keck Medical Center at USC, said, over the next year, he's dedicated to deploying his leadership model throughout the medical center to ensure leaders continuously seek feedback, monitor progress and adjust plans as necessary. He is working with leaders and co-learning with those on the frontline to renew the system's culture of purpose.
"We started with listening sessions with our front line leaders and are now transitioning to recalibrating our leadership expectations," Mr. Sargeant told Becker's. "Giving our managers the tools, development, space and skills to ensure we are engaging our caregivers in a meaningful way, especially with post-pandemic stressors, impacting resilience, still looming large in our caregivers' daily lives."
Gina Calder, president of both Barnes Jewish St. Peters (Mo.) Hospital and Progress West Hospital in O'Fallon, Mo., said there is a need to "radically increase" the prioritization of talent development. As the talent pool shrinks across disciplines, and demand for healthcare services increases, a dependable workforce is more important than ever.
"Proactive outreach to diverse and global communities will help to close some of the gap," said Ms. Calder. "It will also be critical that we become more innovative and accelerate how we develop, grow and leverage the potential of existing staff. I will have to learn and engage other leaders to flexibly apply our team's skills and strengths beyond conventional spaces. At the same time, I must help us avoid inadvertently putting talent, especially diverse talent, on a glass cliff by ensuring a sustained balance of support and challenge."
Cliff Megerian, MD, CEO of Cleveland-based University Hospitals, sees consumerism being a huge focus for his system in the next year and is revamping his leadership as a result. UH has incorporated putting the patient first into its strategic plan and aims to accelerate efforts next year.
"Our goal is to provide high-touch, compassionate care at every point in the consumer's journey, from requesting an appointment and getting one quickly, to arriving at our locations and being treated by everyone with empathy and a smile; to receiving outstanding, high-value care; to efficiently scheduling their follow-up appointments and tests; to easily understanding their healthcare billing – so that our 'customers' feel they had a 5-star patient experience," said Dr. Megerian.