Heitham Hassoun, MD, serves as Vice President and Medical Director of International at Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles.
Heitham will serve on the panel "Leading with Transparency" at Becker's Hospital Review 12th 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 in Chicago from April 25-28, 2022.
To learn more about the conference and Heitham's session, click here.
Q: What are your top priorities for 2022?
Heitham Hassoun: We have a core commitment to stay focused on the patient. In a complex environment like global healthcare, the real measure of success remains our patient outcomes, whether at our medical center in Los Angeles or at partner institutions overseas. One of our top priorities is to grow our team to better serve our patients and providers. We’re bringing in top talent to help us enhance healthcare delivery in other parts of the world. The second priority is to expand into new markets, products, and service deliveries. That includes developing affiliations for consulting and advising healthcare providers outside the U.S, telehealth and second opinion services. A third priority is to extend our knowledge transfer in education and training for healthcare professionals globally.
Q: How do you plan to pivot strategies this year to better serve patients?
HH: We are elevating our capacity for telehealth consultations and virtual care delivery. We’re also investing heavily in increasing our in-country presence and collaborating to support local healthcare organizations to bring world-class care closer to the patient. We never go it alone—it’s about building strong, durable relationships in key strategic areas with best-in-class collaborators
Q: What technologies and innovations are you most excited about in healthcare right now??
HH: Artificial Intelligence and virtual care are certainly high on the list. We’re exploring how these technologies can bridge existing gaps in mechanisms, diagnostics and therapeutics of disease conditions that afflict large populations. The focus is on decoding significant amounts of phenotypic and genotypic patient data. We’re especially keen on using AI to solve clinical problems associated with sudden cardiac arrest. Across the board, there’s just enormous potential in the synergy between the data sciences and clinical information. We’re also excited about holography and virtual care delivery. The potential applications in imaging, patient monitoring, advanced training, studying complex physiological systems and so on are really quite incredible.
Q: What advice do you have for emerging healthcare leaders today?
HH: First, be proactive. When we care for patients from overseas, we need to engage with the hospitals they come from. The core principle is really quite simple: patients are best served when they have local access to quality care and continuity-of-care when and where an international referral is appropriate. Patients also win when hospitals seek accreditation. When you're a traveling patient, there are so many financial, clinical and wrap-around services that need to be provided and international accreditation can help close those gaps.
Second, be strategic. Enthusiasm is always a plus, but it's not enough to be excited about testing the waters. That’s not the formula for success in mature global markets. You’re going to encounter programs that have evolved from years and decades of learning and refinement. You need to invest in a team of top people who have the experience and talent to create a pragmatic vision and implement it effectively.
And third, be patient. Global healthcare is not about immediate returns. The international healthcare space is for organizations that want to operate in a comprehensive way. You have to establish a presence and invest in the people and resources that will ensure success over time. It's about a sustained investment in a long-term endeavor.