Becker's ASC Review

34 HEALTHCARE NEWS 34 CEOs play the long game when it comes to future planning By Kelly Gooch F rom expanding healthcare access to innovation, health system CEOs have a lot on their minds as they think about the next year, as well as the next five or 10 years. Financial sustainability, retention and recruitment strategies, thoughtful adoption of technology, and meeting the demand for outpatient services were all common themes that emerged when CEOs discussed their near and long-term plans. Here is what five CEOs have told Becker's this year about their priorities both now and in the future: Pete November. CEO of Ochsner Health (New Orleans): Trying to be that place where our physicians and our caregivers want to practice because it's the right environment and they have all the resources they need. And they're excited about the mission of the organization. at's a big focus of where we need to go strategically. Certainly the digital evolution that's happened in healthcare and being very focused on that both from the perspective of finding new ways to provide care to our patients, better in different ways of providing care, using digital technology and using the technology to make it easier to practice medicine and provide care. Technology, too, can allow us to do things that we can't even imagine today in healthcare that will become possible. We're very focused on that, very focused on access. And I think we all know that healthcare is moving more to the outpatient setting. When that happens, your access is so important, and we've got to give our patients the ability to easily navigate the healthcare system. en I'm always very focused on making sure you have the right culture and organization. So people get up and know this is where they want to work because it's the right environment and they know they're appreciated and cared for and cared about and have opportunities and that they want to stay here. And that people want to come here because we have that culture. I also certainly want to continue our efforts around innovation. We definitely will continue to focus on our risk areas and ability to take financial risk within value-based care. en continued focus on programmatic building. We've seen this through our partnership with Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center, for example. Joon Sup Lee, MD. CEO of Emory Healthcare (Atlanta): e advantage we have is a bustling, diverse and growing metropolitan area. But ultimately, for us to sustain and continue with our mission, we're going have to grow our primary care, and we have to do that as rapidly as possible. We don't have enough primary care physicians as a whole, much less within the healthcare system. We also have to aggressively increase our capacity to perform outpatient care, whether that's in a formal ambulatory surgery center or a multispecialty center. And third, we are still pretty heavily concentrated in the greater metropolitan Atlanta area, and we need an ability to spread geographically. I don't think that it is practical for us to continuously build hospitals. ose imperatives for us to grow the outpatient component of primary care, as well as the geographical spread, are definitely going to require some different types of partnerships that will allow us to grow with the speed that's needed and the complexity in terms of coordinating that care. Michael Charlton. President and CEO of AtlantiCare (Atlantic City, N.J.): Goal No. 1 is what we're calling Vision 2030 to set the vision in the strategic direction for the organization. And not that finite time frame of typical strategic plans, two or three years, but really what is the next six years going to bring toward the beginning of the new decade for AtlantiCare? What's our vision of this organization? How to best serve our patients and our community given the framework of where healthcare is headed. e second key priority is how we support the well-being and the holistic well-being of our workforce. What is the workforce of the future going to look like? We deliver exceptional care to our patients, but we also make sure that our workforce is taken care of. Joyce Markiewicz, RN. President and CEO of Catholic Health (Buffalo, N.Y.): We're following our strategic plan very closely right now because, like every other health system, we've experienced Image Credit: Adobe Stock

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