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Q1: Can you talk about the circumstances at Community Health Network now, the challenges you face as an organization, and your key goals? How does your role as Chief Transformation Officer fit in?
Dr. McGill: Community Health Network is an integrated healthcare delivery system based in Indianapolis. We have five main hospitals, four smaller specialty hospitals, and 1,300 employee providers across all specialties.
CHN was founded about 60 years ago but solidified in the 1980s and 90s as we brought on a large number of practices, hospitals, and other groups. Caregivers in these groups have always had autonomy, which strengthens our functioning as a multidisciplinary organization. But it has also led to variation and inefficiencies. Physicians and leaders had their own approaches and “ways of doing things”, for instance scheduling OR blocks, placing referrals, or sending patients through the ED. Standardizing these approaches for efficiency’s sake has been a long-time priority.
As we emerge from the pandemic we’re also grappling, like many systems, with high labor costs and patients re-entering the system for treatments and diagnoses after delays. One key goal is to be consistently data-driven in our operations, to ensure we deliver care efficiently. We’re also focused on leveraging data in future decisions: CHN is a $3 billion organization, and it is simply not possible to run it, as we had to in the recent past, 45 days in the rear.
We aim to use data in everything we do and be smart around the investments we make in people, technology, and expansion. In my role as Chief Transformation Officer, I lead efforts to promote data literacy and optimization across the organization, so all our caregivers can obtain and leverage actionable, real-time data in their day-to-day jobs. This way we can take an informed approach to decision-making, improving operational efficiency, and strengthening our delivery of care.
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