Beyond his official role as CEO of Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health, Robert Garrett also sees himself as the system’s chief mission officer — a role he says reflects the values that have guided his leadership.
Mr. Garrett led Hackensack University Health Network prior to its 2016 merger with Meridian Health, which created Hackensack Meridian Health — an 18-hospital system with more than 38,000 team members. He served as co-CEO of the newly formed system before becoming its sole CEO in 2018.
Mr. Garrett told Becker’s that amid today’s financial pressures and ongoing uncertainty, he is more focused than ever on sustaining key leadership traits so that the system is able to achieve consistent growth and pursue its short- and long-term financial and operational goals. He discussed the leadership principles that have guided him in navigating change, shared the system’s strategic priorities, and offered advice to his peers.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: You’ve led Hackensack Meridian Health through a period of significant transformation. What leadership principles have guided you in navigating change at this scale?
Robert Garrett: I call myself a “chief mission officer” as well, because the system’s mission has guided me through my career, through these challenging times that we’re facing now. We go back in and think about our strategies, and we’re thinking about our decisions and our goals, but to make sure that there’s a strong connection to mission and how Hackensack Meridian should transform care to be the leader of positive change.
I truly believe that you must also have a robust vision that’s based on innovation. As we study organizations in healthcare and outside of healthcare, those that are most innovative and create a culture of innovation have been the most successful and most sustainable over time.
And then what also guides me are our core beliefs that we have — whether that’s being creative or courageous or compassionate or collaborative or connected. Those are fundamental, foundational principles for me as a leader.
There are other attributes that played well through challenging times. One is to be a good listener. Listening is a very underrated area of leadership. Many leaders are good communicators — good speakers — but they don’t maybe necessarily listen enough.
And I’m reminded of a great quote from Leadership expert and Pastor Andy Stanley: “Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing significant to say.” That’s a great quote that I go back to about how important listening is.
Additionally, in these challenging times, everybody’s a little different. So we need to understand that. You can have the best strategies in the world, but you have to have a strong culture as well. We need to have an aligned and strong culture to execute on our strategy. That old adage — that culture eats strategy — is even more important in these uncertain and challenging times.
Also, be a strong communicator. It’s so important. That definitely got us through COVID — whether it was verbal communications, whether it was team meetings, town hall meetings, written updates. And as part of being a strong communicator, it’s important as CEO to also be a cheerleader for your organization. I am certainly optimistic by nature, but I want to convey confidence. I want to convey optimism, particularly as we go through these types of times where people are stressed.
Q: As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve — from financial pressures to workforce shortages — how are you prioritizing and balancing immediate system needs with long-term innovation goals?
RG: I don’t see our strategies as being that different from a short-term or a long-term perspective.
There’s a balance today between operational efficiencies and growth opportunities. But both of those strategies — whether it’s achieving operational efficiencies or looking at new opportunities for growth — they both need to use technology to really be successful.
With a few of those goals, we’ve been engaged since COVID in a very robust fashion. Just last year, we hired almost 1,300 bedside nurses — including 860 new graduates — which strengthened our relationships with our nursing schools and other allied health schools. We have new incentive plans in place to recruit and to retain nurses, as examples like tuition reimbursement and loan forgiveness. And those strategies resulted in having a nursing vacancy rate that’s about 5%. Those strategies are really important for the short term, and they will stay as open water in the long term as well.
[W]e also opened … New Jersey’s first private medical school in over 60 years. That has produced over 400 physicians, over half staying and practicing in New Jersey. So that’s helping us on the physician workforce shortage issues. That’s a key strategy for the short term, because we’re producing those doctors. But over the long term, it’s really going to produce that generation of new physicians that we’re excited about.
On the workforce side, those strategies are both long term and short term — they reinforce each other.
Financially, we’re identifying opportunities to redesign our care delivery model. That could be — and this is probably more long term — but we are developing plans short term to start saving money right away, with most of the results hopefully over the long term.
We’re making major investments in our academic medical centers. A $1.3 billion investment at Jersey Shore University Medical Center includes building a 10-story critical care tower with new beds, new critical care units, new operating rooms and surgical suites. JFK University Medical Center in Edison is getting a $600 million infusion that will support many of those same needs — more beds, private rooms, and operating rooms and advances in technology.
We’re opening comprehensive public wellness centers, and we’re also opening up surgical centers, urgent care centers, and partnering with organizations to expand our primary care network. If we’re really going to get at the root causes of chronic disease, we need to have more primary care physicians.
We also partnered with One Medical, which is a division of Amazon to open several locations over the next several years. We’ve already opened two, and we’re about to open a third later this year. So that’s moving along nicely. And the feedback’s been great — very efficient.
We rolled out a hospital-at-home program at our three academic medical centers, and we’re expanding that throughout our network and to community hospitals as well. It helps us manage capacity at our hospitals and provide care in a convenient, timely manner in people’s homes.
Q: If you could pass along a piece of advice to other hospital CEOs, what would it be?
RG: My advice to CEOs is to stay focused, stay the course — try to block out some of the noise. It can be very distracting. And try to stay true to your mission.
I consider myself a chief mission officer as well as a CEO. Get out there, be visible, because our teams need our support and our leadership more than ever before.
And the other advice — I always try to, and hopefully I practice what I preach on this one — but try to balance your work with your personal life. We all need that downtime. We need to spend time with our families, and that helps us be strong — both mentally and physically.
If we can achieve those few principles — keep the balance, stay focused and stay the course — I think we will certainly get through these challenging times.
