David Rahija, PT, MPT, MBA, FACHE, serves as President of Skokie Hospital of NorthShore University Health System.
On May 26th, David will serve on the panel "Physician Compensation Ideas and Models, What Works What Doesn’t Work? What’s Your Best Suggestion For Physician Compensation?" at Becker's Hospital Review 11th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place on May 24-26, 2021 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and David's session, click here.
Question: What's one lesson you learned early in your career that has helped you lead in healthcare?
David Rahiija: I started my healthcare career as a healthcare provider. As I make decisions, design care processes, prioritize resources, I often put myself back on the frontline of care delivery. Ideas may make sense in concept, but I try to foresee how a decision will play out in reality given the complexity of care delivery. I never forget my lessons in direct patient care. They still serve me well today.
Q: What do you see as the most exciting opportunity in healthcare right now?
DR: Personalization and specialization through genomics, technology, and data will define how care is delivered in the years ahead. The days of a one-size-fits-all care delivery model will be difficult to sustain. As technology becomes more prevalent in the delivery of care, and talent becomes more specialized, it will be increasingly difficult for hospitals to provide everything, everywhere. With the advancement of genomics, care will increasingly be tailored to the unique genomic composition of each person. Furthermore, clinical analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will advance the quality and safety of the care we provide. These are promising, but expensive innovations. The challenge for our nation will be how to finance the healthcare system in a sustainable manner so we can provide advanced care to everyone in the US that can benefit from these innovations. This is an exciting time to be in healthcare and find opportunities to innovate and make a difference.
Q: Healthcare has had calls for disruption, innovation and transformation for years now. Do you feel we are seeing that change? Why or why not?
DR: Healthcare is in constant flux as a result of better medical and surgical interventions, technology, and evolving payment methodologies. This is more of an evolution than a revolution. Surgical procedures that would have resulted in an inpatient admission ten years ago are now being performed minimally invasive as an outpatient. We now have algorithms running in our EMR that can predict patient decompensation before it happens. Health systems are breaking out of silos and are managing patients across longitudinal episodes of care. The change is real for providers that have the resources and scale to deploy these innovations and transformations. Unfortunately, not all providers in our country have the scale to transform or resources to deliver these improvements for their communities—especially if they are caring for a disproportionate share of underfunded patients. This inequity and disparity in US healthcare will make change hard to measure on the macro level. However, healthcare providers are focused on innovation and delivering value so the arc of transformation is bending slowly in the right direction.