Becker's Hospital Review

18 CEO / STRATEGY Why Allegheny's CEO took on a new title By Alexis Kayser C ynthia Hundorfean has served as president and CEO of Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network since February 2016. But she is taking on a new enterprise role in 2023: chief living health development officer. Ms. Hundorfean's new position will center her focus on spreading the network's "living health" strategy, hence the title. She said it is the logical next step for the system, which is accumulating data to support the strategy. "We have done so much work in the living health area that we just need to get out and start talking about it," Ms. Hundorfean told Becker's. e 22,000-employee Allegheny Health Network falls under Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health's umbrella, alongside health insurer Highmark. It was built up in 2013 to be a competitive, value- based care system in Western Pennsylvania — and as an alternative to other health systems for Highmark. e first few years aer Allegheny's inception were spent bringing the hospitals together and teaching them to operate as a system rather than in competition, Ms. Hundorfean told Becker's. en the health network worked with Highmark to establish joint goals, "living health" being one of them. Born of the system's "blended approach," the living health model zeroes in on personalized, preventive care, thus improving experience and outcomes while lowering costs. ere is no longer a line between Allegheny and Highmark, which allows the provider and payer to share and access a wider breadth of information, according to Ms. Hundorfean. When a patient visits their physician, they should be getting a personalized care plan, Ms. Hundorfean said. Social determinants of health, such as whether patients can get to appointments and which medications they can afford, should be taken into account. Between Allegheny and Highmark, there is plenty of information available to make those decisions, from EMR data to payer data, she said. "We had two halves of the puzzle: our piece, which is the provider piece, and the payer piece. And when we put them together, we always come up with better decisions together than we would have separately," Ms. Hundorfean said. e growing body of data demonstrates the model's success, Daniel Laurent, vice president of corporate communications for Allegheny Health Network, told Becker's. "We have an entire analytics group. ere are probably 300, 400 metrics we look at on a weekly basis — and we're watching them like crazy," Ms. Hundorfean said. Armed with that proof, Ms. Hundorfean said she is ready to share the living health model with other systems across the country. It is work she has already started with provider partners such as Hershey, Pa.-based Penn State Health, Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network and Newark, Del.-based ChristianaCare. But at the end of her first year, Ms. Hundorfean said she hopes if another health system heard the term "living health," they would immediately think of Highmark Health. To facilitate understanding of the strategy, Ms. Hundorfean said she sees herself speaking at conferences but believes most of the conversations will happen internally with representatives from different health systems. She told Becker's she wants different systems to learn from one another. Ms. Hundorfean will also play a role in integrating Bruce Meyer, MD, Highmark Health's new Western Pennsylvania market president, into the system. No new president and CEO has been named to Allegheny Health Network yet, as Dr. Meyer will choose how to compose his leadership team in his first few months, Ms. Hundorfean said. Prioritizing the living health model will continue to hold patients' well-being at the organization's core, according to Ms. Hundorfean. "We always put the patient in the middle of every decision, and I think we made a lot of decisions that would have been done differently otherwise," she said. n CEOs are leaving their jobs at younger ages By Molly Gamble A cross all industries, the average age of CEOs who left their roles in the first nine months of 2022 is four years younger than the year prior, according to an Oct. 26 Challenger, Gray & Christmas report. The average age of 56 for the first nine months of 2022 is down from the 2021 average age of 60. The year is shaping up to be the youngest batch of exiting CEOs since global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger began tracking ages in 2010, with the exception of 2020. Across all industries, 969 CEOs have left their roles in the first nine months of 2022, down 2 percent from the 991 who left their posts through the same time in 2021. The 82 hospital CEO changes recorded through September is up about 4 percent compared to the 79 recorded by the same point in 2021. "The last year has seen a complete revamping of the labor market," said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Many workers are choosing not to re-enter for a multitude of reasons, chief among them being lifestyle changes and early retirements. Those who can, are in many cases deciding they want to pursue their own interests instead of a traditional job. That's certainly a possibility as we see younger CEOs leaving their posts." The average tenure of exiting CEOs has also fallen so far in 2022, down to 9.96 years on average from the 10.13 years on average recorded in 2021. The last time Challenger tracked tenure this low was in 2014, when CEOs averaged 9.83 years. n

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