The CEO Forum Magazine has released its 2019 list of “10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare in America,” which spotlights leaders and health systems with truly innovative practices in delivering care, modeling their business and using new technology.
Based on the magazine’s criteria of what constitutes a Transformative CEO, which is one who “creates new value that reinvigorates a company, reinvents an industry or reboots society,” and the interviews I have conducted with the CEOs, and the new value created came in three categories: care delivery, business models, and new technology.
Care delivery
The CEO Forum selected Sentara Healthcare in “10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare” for pioneering Integrated Health with both health plans and hospitals; Horizontal Leadership; structured arrangements with corporations; and even applying Jeff Bezos’ business principles to a health system so it is truly customer obsessed and agile.
Sentara Healthcare President & CEO Howard Kern said, “We focus on getting our health plan members to a primary care physician who can coordinate their preventative care. Getting patients primary care is fundamental to providing access to essential preventative care, which keeps them out of the hospital and emergency rooms — the most expensive kind of care. To the extent we can do that, the patient is going to get access to affordable, quality care.”
Northwell Health was selected for creating a model of significant growth from two hospitals to 23, with $12 billion in revenue and 68,000 employees. The CEO has accomplished this with a people model where he meets with each employee and infuses positive messages and vision to inspire and galvanize staff.
President & CEO Michael Dowling told me, “I describe the health system because we’re not just hospitals. We have 710 ambulatory sites. These are locations outside the hospital where our patients get services in the communities where they live and work. It improves access, improves quality. Most cancer care is delivered as an outpatient service. Most surgery can be outpatient. Imaging is outpatient. We have moved all services out of the hospital that don’t need to be delivered there.”
The CEO Forum Group selected Hackensack Meridian Health for the unique leadership practices including: a noteworthy model for merging two major systems, an alliance with Carrier Clinic to bridge behavioral and acute care. Additionally, Hackensack Meridian pioneered the redesign of medical education by creating a world-class medical school where different disciplines get specialized degrees with associates from other parts of the hospital system. This breaks down silos and fosters teamwork.
According to Hackensack Meridian Health CEO Robert Garrett, “A breakthrough in care delivery is this: some of our urgent care centers will now add a behavioral health component. Why should someone struggling with mental illness get caught up in an emergency department setting if they really don’t need that level of acute care?”
Business models
The CEO Forum selected St. Baldrick’s Foundation for creating a new important structure to help cure cancer and help participants to actually experience elements of what patients do. As the largest charitable funder of childhood cancer research grants, St. Baldrick’s has created a unique and highly successful model in corporate partnerships.
“We don’t believe that any one hospital, no matter how well-funded, has a monopoly on talent, or great ideas and innovation, said Kathleen Ruddy, St. Baldrick’s Foundation. “Innovation can come from unlikely places, and there are over 200 institutions in this country that treat kids with cancer and all work collaboratively to advance research. We vet and fund the best research ….”
Stamford Health and CEO Kathleen Silard were selected in “10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare” for building a new hospital which could be the first completely patient-centric structure, including: private rooms with family work space, private bathrooms and bucolic views; individually prepared restaurant-quality food; and a resource library to share all medical records and information with families as partners in healing.
Silard says, “In an era of mega-mergers, you see complete consolidation in the market of hospitals joining together …. We’re a little different [and] have our sights set on remaining independent. We exist for the purposes of the community, and we are providing university-excellent care in a warm, caring environment, and that’s our uniqueness.”
The CEO Forum selected Grady Health System for category exclusivity in the Urban Hospital category. Already one of the nation’s top trauma and stroke centers, Grady is transforming how it delivers care to vulnerable populations, while continuing to excel in clinical innovations. With unprecedented philanthropic support, Grady demonstrates what safety net providers can achieve when a community comes together.
President & CEO John Haupert explained, “Grady has differentiated itself among safety nets, and we have created some marquee clinical services of excellence in stroke and neuroscience care, burn care, trauma care, cardiac care, and neonatal intensive care. Those services draw a broader array of patients with a broader ability to pay either with insurance or otherwise. It is all centered around how we continue to fund this mission. Right now, Grady provides around $270 million a year in charity care.”
New Technology
Cleveland Clinic was selected for its world-class clinical care and the team model, where everyone is aligned to superior patient experience. It uses the salaried physician model so all incentives are on quality and care experience, and the vision in advanced technology will allow Cleveland Clinic to do surgery where the patient and the surgeon are in different parts of the world.
President & CEO Dr. Tom Mihaljevic gave an example of innovation that is being utilized and explored at Cleveland Clinic. “Robotics … allows us to enter any part of the body through tiny incisions, meaning it reduces the invasiveness of the surgery. The other big attributes of robotics is that the instruments that we use are much more precise and much more refined ... so that is yet another benefit. But a third and a very exciting potential opportunity in robotic surgery, in general, lies in the fact that we could now do the operations at a distance.”
Ochsner Health System was selected for their work in AI to predict potential patient challenges hours before they might occur. Ochsner is known as a true destination health center in areas including liver transplants and excellence in pediatric care. Additionally, experiencing Hurricane Katrina has helped build a unique, passionate culture of care and empathy.
Said President and CEO Warner Thomas, “We are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict and prevent adverse events in the hospital in real-time, notably becoming one of the first health systems in the world to use this type of technology…. In our units where we’re using this technology, there is a 44 percent reduction in cardiac arrests and other adverse events outside of the ICU.”
Royal Philips was designated as an industry leader in the Healthcare manufacturing category because they were able to transform a 128-year old company from electronics to Healthcare and become a leader in several categories including their unique augmented reality concept for image-guided minimally invasive surgeries.
“We decided to spin out the television, consumer electronics and lighting businesses and focus the company on what you could say is one of the world’s unmet needs, great healthcare technology,” said Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips. “In healthcare technology a lot is changing, like the emergence of big data and artificial intelligence. So, just making medical scanners is not good enough. It’s interpreting the medical data and getting to the right diagnosis that is going to make the difference in healthcare.”
Nutrisystem (recently acquired by Tivity Health) was selected because of their focus on personalized weight management solutions, particularly the first nationally marketed DNA Body Blueprint, along with its flagship brand Nutrisystem, which has helped millions lose weight for nearly 50 years, and the Keto-friendly plan from South Beach Diet.
“We’re constantly innovating,” Nutrisystem President & CEO Dawn Zier told me. “One of the newest things we’ve just come out with is DNA Body Blueprint, which actually analyzes your genes and provides all kinds of information on your metabolic predispositions and guidelines for losing weight. There’s so much talk about personalization, it doesn’t get more personal than that.”
