The culture of each organization has improved the patient experience in different ways. Athena Minor, from Ohio County Healthcare, changed their vision statement to "Outstanding Care Here," which includes taking care of coworkers and community partners. Lara Klick from Tampa General Hospital believes that if employees feel respected and valued it will help them provide great patient care. Mallary McKinney from UnityPoint Health focused on establishing shared values like foster unity so that there was an emotive connection with patients.

During a recent panel discussion, healthcare professionals gathered to discuss the mix of employed, independent, and contracted physicians at their respective organizations. While there is no ideal mix, it was noted that there has been an increasing trend towards employment for physicians.

Jefferson Health is an 18 hospital health system located in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 2013, it was a standalone three hospital health system. In response to the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital, they opened up 18 beds in an old pediatrics unit. However, they also experienced rapid growth in high tertiary and quaternary care volume. They focused on network retention and in-system referrals, opening up a dedicated transplant unit and expanding their cardiac medical ICU. Common challenges included a staffing crisis, difficulty hiring techs, frontline managers and specialty physicians, ICU boarding and a lack of access to capital.

Giles Bruce, an assistant editor with Becker's Healthcare, introduced a panel of healthcare professionals discussing how to bring humanity to the revenue cycle without losing their edge. Each panelist then introduced themselves and discussed recent patient-friendly revenue cycle initiatives they have implemented.

Brian Zimmerman, the moderator, highlights the discussion by introducing the topic of how healthcare C-suite departments have changed in recent years, and the challenges the industry faces with executive churn. 

This is a discussion on how to develop leaders within an organization. The panelists discussed how they spot budding talent, the importance of promoting from within and developing people. They shared their experiences of how they mentor and develop individuals, as well as how they look for people who exhibit curiosity, can work across organizations, and have the skills to make things happen.

Chris Pass, CFO at John Muir Health, discussed the challenges of making investments during the pandemic while balancing long-term needs with innovative investments. Pass gave an example of expanding a cancer service line with new equipment to demonstrate how decisions are made.

Penn State Health, founded by Milton S. Hershey, is a leading healthcare system with 5 hospitals and 18,000 employees. Recently, the organization put together a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) playbook to address the issue of patient bias in healthcare.

Compliance programs have become an essential component of modern-day businesses. Organizations allocate resources towards compliance programs to mitigate their risks and remain compliant with legal and regulatory requirements. Not only does this build trust with customers and employees, but it also enhances business processes and encourages innovation.

The panelists discussed the unique strengths of millennial and Gen Z physicians, the difference between great leaders and great individual contributors, and how organizations can meet the expectations of new young leaders. The discussion also highlighted the differences in expectations between physician generations. The panelists agreed that organizations need to be purposeful in how they train new young leaders and meet their expectations.

Stanford Healthcare has created a data science team that is focused on developing AI models and infrastructure. The team is led by Chief Data Scientist Dr. Nigam Shah, who is part of the IT leadership team. The team works to ensure that AI models are fair, reliable, usable, and provide value to patients, providers and the healthcare system. They focus on making sure that predictions are delivered in a timely manner and that the infrastructure is efficient and user friendly.

As the healthcare industry continues to face challenges, it's important for finance colleagues to be aware of potential economic downturns.  Dane Wheeler, Martin Hutson, John Kurvink and Amy Raymond shared their insights on how to prepare for hard times.

Dr. Gary Kaplan and Dr. Ketul Patel are the leaders of a merger between the Virginia Mason Medical Center and the Common Spirit system. Dr. Kaplan is the founder and driver of the Lean Six Sigma concept to healthcare, which is a better workflow and efficiency with the Virginia Mason production system. They plan on implementing some of these practices across the whole system.

Over the past two years, healthcare organizations have seen a number of executives and leaders leave their positions. Honor Health experienced turnover of two senior leaders, while Memorial Healthcare System saw high turnover at the VP and director levels. At Catholic Health, VP level positions are being prioritized significantly due to a growth phase.

At Becker's 13th annual meeting, moderator Brian Zimmerman introduced two panelists: Anisha Suit - Chief Financial and Strategy Officer for First Choice Health, which provides medical management services and an EAP. Anne Duffy - Chief Financial Officer of Cottage Hospital in New Hampshire.

Paige Twenter, the moderator of the discussion panel, described the panel's structure before asking each panelist to discuss the most important service lines to their organization and why. The four service lines that were discussed were cardiovascular, neurosciences, cancer care, and orthopedics. The panelists explained how they create centers of excellence, fund the broader mission, and alleviate demand in other areas.

The panel discusses how healthcare has a lot of opportunity to become more consumer-centric. Health Systems need to think about how they care for people and make healthcare relevant throughout their lives, understand what's important to them, what's meaningful to them, and what's valuable to them. They need to make sure that there are enough touches along the patient care journey and follow up on the patients. They also need to make sure that they provide personalized experiences based on a 360 view of who they are and what their preferences are.

Dr. Copeland explains how health equity should be positioned within a healthcare system by integrating it into the business model, connecting it to the values and mission of the organization, and creating goals around it. He also discusses the need to transform and enable the culture in order to ensure that it's top of mind for all staff members.

In a recent discussion led by Mackenzie Bean, three panelists shared their perspectives on the strategic priorities of their respective healthcare organizations. These priorities include creating a healthy workforce, financial sustainability, and value-based care for excellent quality and patient outcomes. Kathleen Theobald emphasized the importance of investing in and fostering the wellbeing of all those associated with healthcare.

Healthcare consumerism has been a topic of conversation for a decade now and has accelerated due to Covid. We need to rebuild trust and credibility with patients, look at them as individuals rather than just "consumers" and be faster and more flexible in our response to their needs.