Becker's Hospital Review

61 61 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Living Like a Leader: A day with Providence St. Joseph CEO Dr. Rod Hochman By Alia Paavola B etween driving growth, meeting clinical objectives and navigating complex payer dynamics, there don't seem to be enough hours in the day for healthcare executives. Leaders succeed despite these challenges, each with their own habits, hacks, styles and methods — and Rod Hochman, MD, pres- ident and CEO of Providence St. Joseph Health in Renton, Wash., is no exception. Under his leadership, Providence has grown from an $8 billion organization into the nation's third-largest health system with rev- enues of $24 billion, nearly 120,000 caregivers and 51 hospitals in seven states. Dr. Hochman joined Providence Health and Services as group president in 2012, and became its CEO in 2013 aer it merged with Seattle-based Swedish Health Services. In 2016, Providence expanded its presence further, joining forces with Irvine, Calif.-based St. Joseph Health to form Providence St. Joseph Health. Recently, the system announced plans to rebrand in 2020. e system will drop St. Joseph from its name, but retain the St. Joseph's logo. Before joining Providence, Dr. Hochman was president and CEO of Swedish Health Services and held several leadership roles at Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare. For this installment of Becker's Hospital Review's "Living Like a Leader" series, Dr. Hochman offers a glimpse into how he manages his energy, teams and time. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clar- ity. Question: What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Dr. Rod Hochman: I usually wake up pretty early, before 5 a.m. Typically, I go for a run. at early morning run gives me a chance to really think through and plan my day. It helps me sort out my schedule and how we are going to deal with the items on the agen- da. But even before going on that run, I say a silent prayer to myself about our hospitals and 120,000 caregivers that are taking care of or about to take care of patients. I pray that we are going to do everything right that day for the patients who entrusted us to take care of them. Q: What's the first thing you do when you arrive at work? RH: Mike Butler, Providence's president of operations and strategy, and I are usually the first two who arrive at work every morning. e first thing we do is crank up our espresso machines. Aer we get our espresso, we have about a half an hour or so of quiet time. We spend that time thinking through the rest of the day and comparing notes and schedules. What's interesting about this routine is that whether we're in the office together or we're both off-site, we still do this first thing in the morning. Q: Is there anything that makes your office setup unique? RH: If you were to walk to the front door of our office building, you'd be greeted by a bronze sculpture of our foundress, Emilie Gamelin. If you came into our lobby, we have a statue of Mother Joseph, who was one of the founders of Providence in the North- west. en, if you walk into our conference center, there's a stained glass window that stretches across a lobby that gives the history of our health system. When you come up to our office suite, you would see pictures of the mission work that we do in Guatema- la and the kids that we take care of there. When folks come in, there's some sense of who we are as an organization when they walk through the doors. Q: Can you describe your daily routine? RH: My philosophy is CEOs do three main things: Communicate, set strategies and hire great people. To explain further, communication is key. You communicate what you're doing, you communicate your vision and you communicate the strategy. When you're done communicating, communicate some more. roughout the day I'm probably spending at least 60 percent to 70 percent of my time communicating externally and internally. No. 2 is the CEO sets the strategies of your organization to point the compass in the right direction for the organization. Ultimately you have to take accountability for setting the strategy and moving the needle. e third thing a CEO does is pick great people to do the work in a large organization like this. Once you have those great people, then you get out of their way and let them do their jobs. If you talk to most CEOs, those three things are probably 95 percent of what they do every day, are those three things. at's what I worry about. Q: Do you travel often? RH: Providence spans seven states. Typically, each week, I'll be away from home base somewhere. is could mean visiting our hospitals up in Anchorage, Alaska, or going down to Oregon to meet with our health plan team or heading to Southern California to talk to executives there. I really feel that in order to be an effective CEO, you have to meet people where they work. ere are weeks that go by that I haven't been in my office. Others on the executive leadership team do the same, traveling a lot to meet people where they work, instead of forcing them all to come to us. Q: How do you think your routine differs from that of other healthcare executives? RH: For me, I constantly try to keep front and center. I always work to meet people where they work, not where I do. I also think it's

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