On October 11th, Vlad will serve on the panel “Getting to the Bottom Line: Investing in Data Analytics to Reduce Operational Costs” at Becker’s Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place October 9-12, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Vlad’s session, click here.
Question: What is the No. 1 principle you uphold and practice to effectively lead a team?
Vlad Toca: I greatly value the sharing of opinions and frequent communication with my employees. I actively seek to get acquainted with my team, as they are the ones that make our organizations successful and unique. If you fail to engage with your employees, you will miss out on valuable tips and opportunities for growth. Inviting active communication and allowing ideas to be shared in a safe environment creates confidence,and employee buy-in.
Q: As a leader, how do you stay connected to the actual work that is being done – and not just by watching others execute, but by executing yourself? If so, how do you balance between leading and executing personally?
VT: I realized early on that over time, teams can become habituated to their environment, and slowly fall prey to the temptation to skip important steps in critical processes–over time this leads to inefficiencies in costs and in time management. When I managed clinics, we decided checklists and workflows should be put in place for each department and role in order to standardize processes, and clarify expectations. I personally go through each checklist and perform the tasks in order to get a sense of the feasibility and work flow. Following this initial draft mode, the group would review and provide feedback and make necessary updates. It was important to the team that I was involved and engage in the new process roll-out.
Q: What contributes to better conversations between a health system’s financial and clinical leaders?
VT: Working closely with operations and financial leaders as well as clinical leaders, I feel confident in saying that both ultimately want to care for the patient, but approach this goal from different angles. It would be helpful to paint the picture for the clinical leaders how the bottom line, operating cost, and EBIDA affects the ability to hire FTE’s and develop programs that clinical leaders champion. By the same token, clinical leaders need to be able to paint the picture via a proven process of how having that support staff and new programs translate to a healthy and steady ROI for financial leaders.
