The leadership team at Baylor Scott & White Grapevine have spent the past year sharpening workforce engagement and hospital throughput as it prepares for sustained population growth and ongoing capacity pressure in North Texas, according to Naman Mahajan, president of the hospital.
Mr. Mahajan, who has led the Grapevine campus for more than three-and-a-half years, said leadership concentrated on two areas where the organization could have the greatest near-term impact.
“One is really looking at our employee engagement and our team member turnover, and then combining that with – and this is a national issue – throughput and capacity management,” he said during an interview with the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “Those were two big initiatives we as a senior leadership team focused on going into the last year of where we could really make an impact.”
Addressing early-career turnover
The executive team at Baylor Scott & White Grapevine conducted a deep dive into workforce data, which revealed a significant challenge with first-year turnover among nonlicensed team members, which at times previously exceeded historical norms.
“When we really dived into our data, the challenge that we had was looking at first-year turnover for our nonlicensed team members,” Mr. Mahajan said. “In particular months, we had exceeded 30% when you looked at historical turnover rates for that group of team members.”
The high turnover rate stemmed partially from the scope of responsibility assigned to nursing managers, who were overseeing both licensed and nonlicensed staff with limited capacity to provide early support. Mr. Mahajan and his team smoothed out the scope of responsibilities for nurse managers and supervisors to take a more balanced approach.
Nonlicensed personnel were reassigned to report to unit supervisors, a change that led to measurable improvement in retention while also strengthening leadership development across the organization.
“We saw a significant decrease in first-year turnover,” Mr. Mahajan said. “Secondly, as a byproduct of that, we also help strengthen our bench for future leaders within the organization.”
Improving discharge efficiency and capacity
At the same time, Baylor Scott & White Grapevine intensified its focus on throughput and capacity management, working closely with hospitalist leadership to identify operational barriers to timely discharge. Although multidisciplinary rounds were already in place, leaders found that discharge targets were often missed without clear follow-up. The hospital added a structured 2 p.m. check-in to identify obstacles when anticipated discharges did not occur.
The approach brought together physicians, nursing, case management, imaging and lab services, and contributed to an increase in the percentage of patients discharged before noon. To address weekend constraints, the hospital also introduced a virtual option for multidisciplinary coordination.
“That also has been successful of increasing the number of patients that are actually discharging on the weekends,” Mr. Mahajan said.
Another key initiative was the launch of a discharge hospitality suite, designed to free inpatient beds while improving the discharge experience.
“If your care plan has been completed and you are ready for discharge, however, your ride is not available or another thing is precluding you from leaving the building, we actually can get you out of a patient room into a nice area with lounge chairs, TVs and more,” he said.
Discharge education and medication reconciliation are completed in the suite, which Mr. Mahajan said has driven improvements in patient experience scores related to discharge instructions.
“We are keeping our patients healthier, getting them out of their patient rooms sooner,” he said. “It’s a great win all the way across the board.”
Winning patient and physician preference
In a competitive healthcare market, Mr. Mahajan said success depends on earning the trust of both patients and physicians.
“You need both in order to have a successful organization,” he said.
On the patient side, the hospital launched a “commit to sit” initiative, encouraging physicians to sit with patients during conversations — a practice Mr. Mahajan said was shaped by a personal experience. When his child fell ill, Mr. Mahajan and his wife experienced the emergency room first-hand.
“The biggest difference, what really calmed me down and set this, from a patient’s perspective, was when the physician actually sat on the sofa next to my wife and walked her through what exactly was going on with our child,” he said.
Since launching the program, the hospital has seen improvements in patient perception of physician communication.
“Many studies have shown, and we have actually seen it in our patient experience scores, when the physician sits at the head of the bed and, has a conversation with the patient, their perception, even though the time spent is the same, is that the doctor was much more attentive,” Mr. Mahajan said.
For physicians, particularly independent specialists, operational efficiency is central to engagement and loyalty. Giving time back to physicians in their day through efficient ORs, on-time starts, equipment readiness and onboarding processes aligning nurses with physician preferences has made a big difference for the clinical teams and the bottom line.
“If we operate a highly efficient procedural area, we can get physicians out earlier or they can add in a couple more add on cases,” Mr. Mahajan said.
Naman Mahajan will speak at the Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting on April 13-16, 2026 in Chicago! Limited sponsorship and attendee spots are still available. Email agendateam@beckershealthcare.com for more information.
