Cultivate 'benign dissatisfaction' and look beyond healthcare, says Gosnold Innovation Center CEO Raymond Tamasi

In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Raymond V. Tamasi, president and founder of Gosnold Innovation Center, former president and CEO of Gosnold on Cape Cod, a behavioral healthcare company based in Falmouth, Mass.

Mr. Tamasi will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable titled "Advancing population health" at 10:55 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 14. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.

Question: What keeps you excited and motivated to come to work each day?

Raymond Tamasi:  I have always been driven by the excitement of finding better ways to deliver care and treat patients. As a behavioral health professional, the stigma of addiction and mental illness affects the expectations that patients have about the care they receive. It has been my passion to create systems that communicate respect and dignity to these patients and help them understand that they have a chronic illness. Given the lack of understanding and judgmental attitudes that exist in our society about addiction, I've never suffered from a lack of motivation to change these perceptions.

Q: What is one of the most interesting healthcare industry changes you've observed in recent years?

RT:  The growing awareness and acceptance of behavioral health disorders as critical drivers of healthcare utilization and costs is finally enabling the treatment of these disorders as healthcare conditions, not poorly informed personal decisions. Of course this has been fueled by the opioid epidemic, but more than that, as hospital payments transition to value-based reimbursement, it has become imperative that hospital executives examine how to integrate behavioral healthcare options into their systems. This development places new value on the expertise of those with behavioral health knowledge and experience in the integration with general medical care. Five or 10 years ago this was unimaginable.

Q: What is one piece of professional advice you would give to your younger self?

RT: Don't waste time trying to fit your ideas and visions into commonly accepted norms. Validate and grow them with people who are smarter than you are — and not necessarily those in the healthcare industry. Be better at recognizing that the best of innovative ideas can be learned from non-healthcare industries. And finally, spend more time cultivating and developing internal leaders who can perpetuate a culture of innovation and "benign dissatisfaction" with the status quo.

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