Investing in our teams’ well-being has never been more important. The entire healthcare industry continues to be challenged by serious staffing issues, and Hackensack Meridian Health is no exception.

Cleveland Clinic has embraced a high-reliability concept called “deference to expertise.” “We recognize caregivers and patients are the experts here,” says Anthony Warmuth, FACHE, executive director for clinical transformation.

As hospital leaders consider how to innovate and improve patient care in the middle of lingering workforce shortages, they might consider what UCSF Health’s Robert Wachter, MD, calls a “digital-first” approach to care redesign.

The critical role of the supply chain function in delivering high-quality patient care has once again come to light as U.S. hospitals, health systems and other care facilities continue to deal with unpredictable product shortages and quality issues.

Whatever part of the industry or profession we have worked in, chances are we unwittingly developed a second family—a community. This group’s contributions, influences, troubles and victories touched our life in significant ways. I would venture to guess that whether we believed these contributors were a part of our direct circle or members in our periphery, we became attached to their hopes, dreams and accomplishments, as well as their disappointments.

Ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion becomes part of a health system’s bloodstream—and not just a program or a box to check—is vital to effective leadership that ensures provider teams feel well cared for, want to stay, and perform at the top of their abilities, system leaders say.

This is a challenging time for companies across the board and particularly in healthcare services, contending with an uncertain economic backdrop, labor market challenges and ever-evolving patient preferences.

It’s 7 a.m., April 13, 2022, at Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Healthcare System, and an overflow unit is opening as planned.

When many people hear the word “coach,” they tend to think of a sports coach, who motivates players to improve their own and their team’s performance, often through providing advice and direction.

When leadership at the very top of the organization—governance—makes health equity a priority, improved patient safety outcomes is the result, say experts.

The leadership of Providence Alaska in Anchorage was concerned that the movement to value-based care could be incongruent with the perspectives and perceptions of its largely independent clinical staff. The future success of the system was anticipated to be mostly predicated on how tightly aligned it could be with its physicians.

Prior to joining the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, Endless Mountains Health System, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Montrose, located some 40 miles north of Scranton, had seen year-over-year declines in revenues. “We were seeing a declining population in our rural service area and declines in reimbursement,” says CEO Loren Stone, FACHE. “We were looking for a way to stabilize our operating and financial environment.” 

In the more than eight years since the inception of Summit Health’s transitional care management program, several “tricks of the trade” have become apparent.

This web extra goes into more detail on the seven phases of authenticity leadership and building trust that is highlighted in the Careers column in this issue.

Even before the pandemic, economic sustainability was a challenge for community and rural hospitals, given the operational and financial issues they faced daily. The pandemic’s impact has made it even tougher for many to remain fiscally sound. In this environment, community-based hospitals need to do something different, not just better, to attain long-term sustainability.

The benefits of using genomic science in population health management may be growing increasingly clear to healthcare providers as the data accumulates, but do patients automatically buy in to the approach, and what if they don’t? 

Recently retired physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and others should be able to easily take on the roles they successfully managed pre-retirement. For those who have been retired for a longer time, creative integration can allow returning personnel to assume less rigorous roles that still provide relief to current physicians and staff.

Isolation created by social distancing is taking its toll on many healthcare workers. 

Before the pandemic, the desire to help all patients receive the right care at the right time in the right place fueled a dramatic increase in the use of telehealth by hospitals, rising from 35% of hospitals in 2010 to 76% in 2017, according to the American Hospital Association. 

The events of 2020 shined a glaring light on racial disparities and inequities in our country and healthcare that persist as we begin 2021. Racism has been declared a public health crisis. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting an uncomfortable fact the healthcare industry has struggled with for years: the American health system, designed with the best of intentions, sometimes fails those who need it most. 

With the world’s attention turned to COVID-19 and its devastating (and as yet unknown) consequences, it’s easy to allow the current crisis to delay progress on the work that many of us have been leading for decades to champion gender equity and anti-racism. 

Six hospitals led by ACHE Members and Fellows were among 103 organizations worldwide recently recognized by the International Hospital Federation’s Beyond the Call of Duty for COVID-19 Program.

Since the start of the pandemic, leadership teams at provider organizations across the country have had to make changes to the way they meet. Some teams have worked virtually the entire time, some have worked via a combination of in-person and virtually, while others have continued to meet in-person but with new social distancing practices in place. 

After the redesign of two patient care floors at the University of Chicago Medicine’s Center for Care and Discovery, staff conducted a post-occupancy evaluation in April 2018, seeking feedback about the medical center’s general design and comparing the two newly designed floors with three existing inpatient floors.

Providing the capabilities for staff to work from home and using EHRs to their full capabilities are two ways organizations can take advantage of information technology.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the healthcare field has the will and momentum to continue to expand telehealth services like virtual visits to their patients, says John Kravitz, CIO at Geisinger, Danville, Pa., and 2020 and 2021 chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives board of trustees.

Perhaps one of the most-talked-about aspects of IT during the pandemic has been virtual health. It seems nationwide use of telemedicine has been ignited, knocking down previous obstacles. Many healthcare organizations, it seems, are making their plans accordingly. 

Throughout the country, IT has played a crucial role in helping provider organizations navigate the COVID-19 crisis. Organizations that had strong IT foundations already in place prior to the pandemic benefitted greatly. 

Healthcare IT has played a significant part in helping healthcare providers manage the COVID-19 crisis, with many innovations being implemented on short notice and at rapid speed. Here are some examples of IT innovations that have been used successfully.

How has COVID-19 affected your organization? We rely on volume- and value-based payments, and our outpatient volume has dropped 30% since March due to COVID-19. Rural health systems traditionally have fewer resources, and  given the added strain of the pandemic, we had to strategically adapt to the new environment to survive.

Healthcare executives can do a lot to support their physicians on the front line of the COVID-19 crisis. Experts recommend the following strategies for helping physicians manage the physical, emotional and financial toll of battling the virus.

As this unprecedented event continues to impact our communities, ACHE will regularly share news about our members on the front lines. These news stories are intended to highlight the amazing work our leaders are doing as they confront the novel coronavirus and the disease caused by it, COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on several aspects of healthcare, including the workforce. 

Though many healthcare leaders believe just culture is essential to the success of an overall high-reliability safety strategy, some question whether the model can fulfill its potential. 

Abington-Jefferson Health, Abington, Pa., a two-hospital system that became part of 14-hospital system Jefferson Health in 2015, began its patient safety journey 20 years ago. 

Healthcare Executive talks with Victoria W. “Tori” Bayless, FACHE, CEO, Luminis Health, Annapolis, Md., on the importance of health equity and her organization’s approach to ensure disparities in healthcare quality and access are eliminated.  

Healthcare Executive talks with Marc L. Boom, FACHE, FACP, president and CEO, Houston Methodist, Texas, on how his organization is employing innovation in their strategies and operations to improve patient outcomes, engage their staff and clinicians, and provide more efficient and positive results.  

Healthcare Executive talks with Nick Macchione, FACHE, director, San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency, on the importance of health equity and his organization’s approach to ensure disparities in healthcare quality and access are eliminated.  

Healthcare Executive talks with Ninfa M. Saunders, DHA, FACHE, president/CEO, Navicent Health, Macon, Ga., on how her organization is employing innovation in their strategies and operations to improve patient outcomes, engage their staff and clinicians, and provide more efficient and positive results.  

Healthcare Executive recently asked four CEOs what skills and qualities they thought were most important for healthcare leaders to guide their organizations in the next decade. Here is what they had to say.

The three female healthcare executives featured in the November/December issue of Healthcare Executive shared their advice for women on advancing in their careers. 

Many healthcare leaders have plans and goals for the direction of their career, but fail to think about what comes after.

The three institutions profiled in September/October issue of Healthcare Executive provide their advice and recommendations for providers that may be newer to the telemedicine journey. 

What do we mean when we say innovation? Innovation is a newly implemented, more efficient and better process for solving a problem or meeting a need. It must also be measurable.

Achieving the break-even point on Medicare is not only an important goal in itself for many healthcare organizations in need of cost transformation, but also a driver of overall efficiency and cost savings. 

It’s extremely important for leaders and other members of healthcare organizations to understand what innovation is—and what it isn’t.

To encourage employees to not only identify but follow through on creative ideas for improving customer relationships, Southcentral Foundation, Anchorage, Alaska, rolled out a decentralized approach to innovation. 

Opioid-related safety events can be a deadly problem for healthcare organizations, according to ECRI Institute, Plymouth Meeting, Pa.