A self-proclaimed "change junkie," Robert Meyer has excelled in today's fast-changing healthcare environment.
He started his role at Phoenix Children's Hospital as a consultant overseeing a turnaround. Now, as president and CEO of the hospital, Mr. Meyer has expanded several world-class centers of excellence and broadened pediatric care access to the 1.1 million children who live in the market, making Phoenix Children's one of the top 10 children's hospitals in the nation by volume.
Here, Mr. Meyer discusses how collaborations — even some with former competitors — have helped Phoenix Children's grow into one of the top 10 children's hospitals in the nation, as well as his attitude on change and how healthcare keeps him on his toes.
Question: You joined Phoenix Children's in 2003 after working as a consultant for the hospital. What was behind your decision to stick around?
Robert Meyer: There are both tangible and intangible answers to that question. One is, at Phoenix Children's, I found personal satisfaction — I "drank the Kool-Aid" of a children's hospital and became committed to the mission of taking care of kids.
The second part of it: I had been doing consulting for 18 years and thought changing careers wasn't a bad idea. I had run hospitals, did consulting and then went back to hospitals. I looked at the Phoenix marketplace at the time and saw the fourth largest pediatric market in the country with consolidation and growth opportunities. We've been able to grow this, from a volume perspective, into one of the top 10 children's hospitals in the county. With the 1.1 million children who live here, we have the patient volume to do any program we want. Over the last 10 years, we've developed bone marrow, liver, heart and kidney transplant programs, a high-end cardiac program and a neurosciences program. Not to mention we’re home to one of the busiest Level I pediatric trauma centers in the country with exceptional outcomes.
On the consolidation front, in 2011 we were able to cut a deal with what was at the time [San Francisco-based] Catholic Healthcare West — now Dignity Health — to combine the pediatrics program from St. Joseph's Hospital with ours in one facility. We were opening a new building that had just been completed, and spreading additional capital cost over more volume was attractive. Fortunately they agreed. We have a children's hospital today that's comparable to any major urban market in the country, which was the ultimate goal we set 10 years ago.
Q: How has your job changed in the last 10 years?
RM: I think it has expanded. We've become very multifaceted. When I came here, it was predominately a hospital administration job; We had 38 employed physicians when I started — we have 270 today. Also, we got into the clinically integrated organization business recently, and we're expanding our academic and research affiliations and getting into genomic medicine with the Molecular Medicine Institute. The job just continues to develop.
To make that all work, we've recruited some very good people, strong executives, to run the medical group and hospital. For example, we just recruited a senior vice president of research administration. He brings skill sets we didn't have in terms of running a research institute.
The fundamental job I do is setting the strategic direction and vision for where we're going, so that hasn't changed. It's been our strategic vision from the beginning as to what we're truly trying to accomplish: A children's hospital enterprise comparable to [those of] major cities in the country with broad services and programs.
Q: With all of this expansion, how do you continue to develop professionally?
RM: I'm a quick study; and, going back to collaboration, where we don't have the expertise, we collaborate. We have a lot of people here who do have the expertise, and they are instrumental in getting these things done. There's a clinical joint venture with [Rochester, Minn.-based] Mayo Clinic in high-end services. For instance, we partner with them for bone marrow transplants. They [care for] the adults, we [care for] the children and we present it as one combined program to transplant networks. Of the 87 transplant programs in the country, we have the second best mortality outcomes in the country. Our heart transplant program is a collaboration with St. Joseph's Hospital [in Phoenix]. We look at who has the expertise.
Q: Do you see collaboration as the future of healthcare?
RM: From my perspective, yes. Look at us and our clinically integrated organization. We wanted to do direct contracting with large employers, but no one contracts separately for pediatrics even though pediatrics is 15 percent of the spend on most plans. So we developed a collaborative relationship with Dignity Health and what was then Vanguard — now part of [Dallas-based] Tenet — in a comprehensive contracting network that covers the entire region. We offer competitive insurance products and networks. Without collaboration, there's no way we can participate in that kind of a network. Collaboration is going to be required.
Another issue is, with our success managing chronic illnesses, young adults are graduating from our care. We're focused on transition programs for many of the children we've taken care of for years but are now adults who need other care. There, collaboration works best because the adult hospitals are completely unprepared for the influx of patients. It's a reflection of tremendous success in the field. Transition, research and teaching all scream out for collaboration. Most children's hospitals are not part of large systems. Being acquired provides the benefits I've been talking about, but we chose to do it another way, and so far, so good.
Q: Phoenix Children's has shown remarkable growth in its relatively short history. Beyond collaboration, to what do you attribute its successful growth?
RM: First, market growth, but we've also grown programs. We've recruited a lot of physicians. There are a lot of component parts to it. We needed a new physical building — we were out of inpatient capacity almost the day the hospital we bought and renovated was opened. You can build brick and mortar hospitals until the cows come home, but if you don't develop the centers of excellence to fill them, they stay empty.
Our strategy has a major geographical component. We established ambulatory centers all across the Valley to expand services out to where people live. We're pushing services out to the community.
And we've got a lot of partners. We have three teaching relationships, with the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, Creighton University, which came with affiliation with St. Joseph's, and an emerging partnership with the Mayo Clinic/Arizona State University joint venture medical school. Collaboration has been a big part of the strategy, too.
Q: What projects are coming up in 2014 that you're most excited about?
RM: No program comes up that quickly, but I'm excited about some of our recent programs. The liver transplant program launched in December 2013, and we've done seven transplants since then — meaning it became a large program quickly. The heart transplant program just passed 30 transplants.
One project that's really taken off was becoming a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center. That was a mission-driven change. The leading cause of death in children is traumatic injury. It took time to build and [the center] opened a couple years ago. The community has accepted the programs and gotten behind them. And, our mortality rate is half a percent for trauma, so we've got very strong outcomes.
Q: Of everything you've achieved since you joined Phoenix Children's, what accomplishment are you most proud of?
RM: I would say if I had to pick one it would be the integration between Phoenix Children’s and what was our largest competitor, St. Joseph's. Look at the benefits of combining the two programs: For example, when we went into it, we were the 14th largest cardiac program. Combined, we're in the top five. When you look at it, the single event that transformed the organization was that particular event.
Q: What excites you most about working in healthcare today?
RM: It's the same thing that's excited me over the last 30 years: continual change. I'm a change junkie. People have different personality types, and change is something I thrive on. Healthcare is a dynamic, changing, challenging and high-opportunity business to be in, and it's very rewarding. The other thing would be taking care of kids. I came here as a consulting partner to oversee a turnaround, and I never left.