Health systems are in an era of continuous change without a defined endpoint and leaders are grappling to describe what they’re experiencing. Some see the current moment as a period of transition between pre- and post-COVID worlds, and as organizations shift from EHR-driven to AI-powered.
But that’s not how Rob Sumter, executive vice president and market COO of Ascension Illinois as well as president of Ascension St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago, sees it.
“We’re not in a state of transition,” he said in a recent “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast” interview. “We’re in a state of transformation.”
Transition implies a bounded period — a before, a passage, an after. Transformation is continuous and open-ended. It does not resolve into a new normal but instead requires a fundamental operating model shift for health systems to become more fast-paced and resilient to change. Rather than treating that as a source of anxiety, he sees it as a clarifying frame: if transformation is the permanent state, the task is not to wait it out, but to keep the mission visible through it.
“We have to continuously keep our eyes on what it is that we do,” he said. “What’s our mission? What’s our vision? It’s the patients that we take care of, and we have to make sure that we do that.”
For Mr. Sumter and his team at St. Louis-based Ascension’s Illinois market, keeping the patient at the center of every conversation is not a values statement; it is a daily operational discipline — the fixed point around which every external uncertainty gets calibrated. C-suite leaders across the industry have similarly framed transformation as a leadership mandate for this period, not an option. He said leadership meetings and conversations with associates are structured to keep that orientation present regardless of external pressures.
One of the most fundamental aspects of change management is communication, which becomes especially important as the pace of transformation accelerates. When an initiative is delayed or a direction is adjusted in response to new conditions, Mr. Sumter said the obligation runs deeper than relaying the news.
“You really have to continue to meet with your staff, the employees, keep them informed of what’s going on, the changes,” he said. “If there are delays and things that we set out to do, we have to explain what’s going on, why is there a delay, and how we’re going to get past it when the delay is no longer there. So it’s constant and continuous communication.”
The leader Mr. Sumter points to as a model for navigating transformation at scale is Eduardo Conrado, CEO of St. Louis-based Ascension.
“He has fundamentally transformed our culture while continuing to focus on operational excellence,” Mr. Sumter said. “If you invest in your people and keep your people at the forefront, they’ll keep your patients at the forefront. They’ll take care of your patients.”
The focus on leadership with empathy and curiosity guides the organization to empower employees so they’re capable of decision-making around the mission, in addition to the margin.
“It is not a focus on just the financial performance,” Mr. Sumter said. “But if you invest in your people, your people will invest in your patients. Then the results of that, of course, will be getting us to sustainability, financial performance, and the things that we need to be around for the next 100-plus years.”
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