On April 8th, Eric will serve on the panel “Supply Chain – Navigating Change, Using Technology to Increase Productivity and more” 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 April 6-9, 2020 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Eric’s session, click here.
Question: What, from your perspective, is the biggest challenge about the future of work for hospitals, and what can they do about it? (i.e. automation, desire for more flexibility, clinician shortages, etc.)
Eric Tritch: I think one of the biggest challenges for hospitals is and will be adapting to changes in the marketplace and how patients want to receive care. No one wants to go to a hospital and people have busy lives and want convenience at home, at work, or on the go. Hospitals need to adapt to this mindset and either develop ways to meet this need or partner with those who can. We will still need high acuity and procedural care, but to diagnose and schedule needs to be much more convenient along with follow up care. Systems that can also leverage technology to make clinicians work more efficient without increasing burn out, leveraging AI to let them provide their expertise most effectively will be important and making sure to maintain a connection with the patient.
Q: How can hospitals reconcile the need to maintain inpatient volumes with the mission to keep people healthier and out of the hospital?
ET: I don’t think this is a big concern, people are living longer and we have a lot of disease to deal with and treat. My lease is from a metropolitan area, with an academic hospital that is seeing inpatient growth and we are challenged with capacity. For community and rural hospitals this is a real concern. There needs to be proper care available in the community and making sure this is balanced and available is a challenge.
Q: What’s one lesson you learned early in your career that has helped you lead in healthcare?
ET: I think one thing that resonates for me is that at the end of the day it is still a people business. We are caring for people with people. We can’t lose sight of that in the technology race. We need to be ever mindful of our patients and clinicians human dignity and our relationships while we try and drive efficiency through advanced technology and analytics.
Q: What do you see as the most exciting opportunity in healthcare right now?
ET: I’m excited about the mindset the new generation of physicians are bringing to the table. They seem very open to challenge the status quo and partner with experts in other fields with new ideas to transform healthcare delivery.
“What’s one lesson you learned early in your career that has helped you lead in healthcare?
The greatest lessons I learned in healthcare were three things on my first day of medical school: “listen to your patients they will tell you what is wrong, don’t be over-enamored with technology, and give every patient something for their time of need”. More true today!
What do you see as the most exciting opportunity in healthcare right now?
With society’s obsession with technology, now is the time to harness cutting edge technology to facilitate the human interaction, not replace it.
Healthcare has had calls for disruption, innovation and transformation for years now. Do you feel we are seeing that change? Why or why not?
As the saying goes, “One person’s innovation is another person’s disruption”. Transformation may be the most over-used word in healthcare today. True transformation (dramatic change) will come from a grass roots movement (outside the corporate walls) and led by synthetical thinkers who by doing what is best for patients will find it is best for business.”
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.
