Becker's Hospital Review

26 POPULATION HEALTH 26 CEO / STRATEGY How 6 hospital CEOs are responding to the coronavirus By Morgan Haefner H ere is how six hospital CEOs, from large national systems to small com- munity hospitals, are responding to COVID-19: 1. Wayne Meriwether, the CEO of 75-bed Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center in Leitchfield, Ky., took to Facebook with a plea for members in his community to "take the COVID-19 pan- demic seriously." Mr. Meriwether said based on low-end projections, the region could ex- pect 22,500 infected and 1,125 critically ill pa- tients. Mr. Meriwether said, "We have talented physicians, mid-level providers and staff that are prepared to combat the coronavirus head on," but with only six ICU beds, he asked the community to "please do your part and give us a fighting chance." 2. CommonSpirit Health, a Chicago-based system with 142 hospitals in 21 states, will sus- pend patient billing related to the testing and treatment of COVID-19. Of the decision, the health system's CEO Lloyd Dean said, "e last thing our patients should worry about if they experience symptoms characteristic of this coronavirus is the cost of seeking care." 3. Rick Sutton, CEO of Southeast Health in Dothan, Ala., was candid with his community about the limited number of COVID-19 tests the hospital has — only several hundred for patients with the most severe symptoms. "We are not prepared to do things like drive-thru testing because of the limited availability of tests," he told local news station WTVY. 4. David Tam, MD, the new president and CEO of Lewes, Del.-based Beebe Healthcare, joined the organization early to assist efforts to combat the novel coronavirus. Dr. Tam told the Cape Gazette, "I felt a sense of duty as a fu- ture leader in the community to begin as soon as possible and continue the momentum of Beebe's great work." 5. Michael Dowling, CEO of New York City- based Northwell Health, told NPR's member station in Boston that while the next couple of months will be challenging for health systems, he is optimistic about defeating COVID-19. "It may be a rough couple of months, and as I've said many times, it's not what happens here that matters, it's how you respond to it. And healthcare organizations are very adaptable and they're very resilient," he told WBUR in an interview March 16. 6. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic's CEO Gianrico Farrugia, MD, said the organiza- tion is prepared to address the outbreak, but acknowledged that staffing and beds could become an issue. "It all depends on how seri- ously the population takes social distancing," Dr. Farrugia told MedCityBeat. "at is what will determine how many hospital beds we need; and about a tenth of them are ICU beds. And those tend to be ones … yes, we can make more — we have ways of increasing hospital capacity — but that's a limit that's pretty hard to exponentially increase." n Hospital CEO turnover could slow down due to coronavirus By Morgan Haefner A cross industries, CEO turnover fell 42 percent from January to February, a change coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said could re- flect reactions to the novel coronavirus. While CEO turnover for hospitals doubled from six moves in February 2019 to 12 moves in February 2020, hospital CEO turnover for February of this year is down 33.3 percent from January 2020. "The slowdown could be a reaction to COVID-19, as companies hunker down and determine their next steps. Making a leadership change during a time of such uncertainty will not inspire confidence in workers nor shareholders," Andrew Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a prepared statement. n American women's unpaid labor worth $1.5T in 2019 By Emily Rappleye T he average American woman does four hours of un- paid labor per day, compared to a man's two and a half hours, according to an editorial in The New York Times based on data from an Oxfam analysis. Unpaid labor typically includes child care, care for elderly and sick relatives, cooking and cleaning. When valued at min- imum wage, the amount of unpaid labor women did in 2019 in the U.S. amounted to $1.5 trillion. Globally, that number was $10.9 trillion, more than the world's 50 largest compa- nies made in revenue in 2018, according to the report. While this invisible labor gap has narrowed, it is still signifi- cant, according to the the authors, who wrote, "Women pro- vide a huge unacknowledged subsidy to the smooth func- tioning of our economies." n

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