Leaders from two top-five cancer centers, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, shared with Becker's challenges they are facing this year and how they plan to address them.
Question: What challenge are you facing in the final half of this year and how are you addressing it?
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Peter Pisters, MD. President of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston): For the remainder of the year, our team at MD Anderson is focused on implementing our institutional strategy, which was designed to maximize our impact on humanity to finally end cancer.
Guided by that strategy and by the input from our workforce, we are working in myriad ways on enhancing and sustaining initiatives in key areas, such as optimizing the patient experience, building on employee wellness efforts and transforming our nursing program to enhance nursing careers and care delivery.
Amid these efforts, we must stay cognizant of the volatility of the current market and monitor geopolitical forces. We are monitoring these external headwinds and remaining collectively focused on a data-driven, disciplined approach to institutional finances and operational sustainment.
Jonathan Watkins. President of City of Hope Cancer Center (Atlanta): Like other health care organizations across the country, recruiting and retaining top talent has been a challenge since the pandemic. City of Hope is focused on enhancing our culture and living our mission, vision, values and behaviors to support our people and provide the best, compassionate care to our patients.
Our objective is to enhance the overall employee experience at City of Hope Atlanta, including mental health support, work-life balance initiatives and fostering a positive work culture. By leveraging talent analytics data, we aim to improve recruitment strategies, track employee engagement and predict turnover. We also are focused on providing our current employees with support through flexible work arrangements, training, employee resource groups as well as many other offerings.
Read about the best leadership advice these leaders have received here.