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74 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP The Corner Office: GBMC HealthCare System CEO Dr. John Chessare on Getting Beyond 'Hard Work and Good Intentions' in Healthcare By Tamara Rosin J ohn Chessare, MD, knew from a young age that he wanted to spend his career doing something that would improve others' lives. After deciding to become a physician, he was drawn to quality improvement, and after 37 years in healthcare, he has not veered from this path. Dr. Chessare became president and CEO of Greater Baltimore Medical Center HealthCare System in June 2010. There, he oversees GBMC, a 270-bed acute care nonprofit hospital; Greater Baltimore Medical Associates, a group comprised of more than 40 multi-specialty physician practices; Greater Baltimore Health Alliance, a coalition of GBMC-employed and private practicing physician partners; Gilchrist Hospice; and the GBMC Foundation. A pediatrician by training, Dr. Chessare joined GBMC after serving in a number of executive leadership positions. He served as interim president of the Caritas Christi Health Care System in Boston and was the president of Caritas Norwood Hospital, as well as senior vice president for quality and patient safety of the entire Caritas System. He's also held executive leadership positions at Boston Medical College/Boston University School of Medicine and Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center/Albany Medical College. Under Dr. Chessare's leadership, GBMC was honored in Sep- tember with the inaugural American Society for Healthcare Risk Management Patient Safety Award for its organization-wide ef- forts to improve patient safety. The award recognizes GBMC's use of lean and lean daily management to improve health out- comes for patients and reduce preventable harm. Here, Dr. Chessare took the time to answer Becker's Hospital Review's seven questions. Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. What's one thing that really piqued your interest in healthcare? I was your typical 18-year-old in 1970 — I wanted to save the world. I had initially been thinking about a career in foreign service, but the summer before I went to Boston College as a freshman I decided I wanted to help people by becoming a physician. I thought it would be a great way to spend my life. What do you enjoy most about Baltimore? Baltimore is a very diverse city. It's kind of sad that the press tends to highlight the negative or outrageous events that oc- cur. Although we have our share of problems — income in- equality is a huge issue — there are plenty of wonderful things. It's a great cultural city. There are great restaurants. Chesapeake Bay is a thing of tremendous natural beauty and it's an eco- nomic engine — a big, robust port city. Baltimore is just a won- derful place. If you could eliminate one of the healthcare industry's problems overnight, which would it be? It would definitely be the patient safety issue. Many hospitals still rely on hard work and good intentions alone. These are absolutely necessary, but they're dramatically insufficient for assuring safe and effective care. Other high-risk industries like nuclear power and commercial aviation have designed for safety. They assume humans will make human errors, so they've built systems around the humans to keep people safe. We are getting better about this in healthcare, but we still have some work to do. We are designing systems to help us get the patient out- comes we want, and we're taking advantage of the tremen- dous energy, hard work and intelligence of the doctors, nurses and others to get there. That's why we are so proud of GBMC for receiving ASHRM's Patient Safety Award. What do you consider your greatest talent or skill out- side of the C-suite? I'm a people person. I've also been a clinician, which I think is very helpful because I can talk to other doctors from a place of shared experience. I have phenomenal non-clinical colleagues as well, but doctors appreciate it when a lead- er has the deep process knowledge of the work they do. I know what it's like to take care of a sick child in the middle of the night and not having everything I need to do it. How do you revitalize yourself? I'm very lucky to have a wonderful family. I love spending time with them. I also love jazz music — I'm completely infatu- ated with the jazz musicians that come to town here. I had the pleasure of seeing the vibraphonist Warren Wolf perform. He's a 35-year-old musician from Baltimore. He's extremely talented. I just sat and listened to him in amazement. Music brings so much joy to people, and I find that very rejuvenating. What's one piece of advice you remember most clearly? There are two. One of the best pieces of professional advice I've ever received was to practice lean daily management. I used to think if I could only teach quality improvement a lit- tle bit better, improvement would catch fire and outcomes would be so much higher. Now I know how silly that was. Instead, the technique of lean daily management puts