Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, CPE, Chief Medical Officer at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital

Transcript

Harpreet Pall, MD, MBA, CPE, Chief Medical Officer at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:03
  Podcast.
• 0:04
  We're thrilled today to be joined by a
• 0:06
  brilliant physician leader.
• 0:08
  We're joined today by a chief medical officer
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  at Hackensack Meridian Healthcare. We're joined by doctor
• 0:13
  Harpreet
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  Pawel. Doctor Pawel, can you take a moment
• 0:17
  and introduce yourself,
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  and and tell us a little bit about
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  Hackensack
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  Meridian
• 0:21
  and and about your career.
• 0:24
  Absolutely, Scott. Thank you again for having me.
• 0:27
  I'm Doctor. Harpreet Paul. I serve as the
• 0:29
  chief medical officer
• 0:32
  for Hackensack Meridian, Jersey Shore University Medical Center,
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  and K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital.
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  And I'm also a professor of pediatrics at
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  the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
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  A little bit about Jersey Shore University Medical
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  Center.
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  We're located in Neptune, New Jersey. We're an
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  academic,
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  referral center for the central and southern regions
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  of New Jersey.
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  And, we're high acuity, high throughput, and one
• 0:59
  of the fastest growing hospitals in the state.
• 1:02
  But I would say that we're also nimble
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  enough to be able to have some innovation
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  and,
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  testing of, pilots, and we're able to scale
• 1:12
  rapidly as well.
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  My role as CMO
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  is to strengthen,
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  the alignment that we have with our physicians,
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  to work with our quality improvement teams to
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  accelerate,
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  our improvements,
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  and also to drive safety and high reliability.
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  I'm really excited to modernize how we deliver
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  care.
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  And one of the really exciting things that,
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  I've noticed in healthcare over the past few
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  years is that we've got to,
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  we've got the opportunity to redesign how we're
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  transitioning
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  care out of the hospital and into the
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  home,
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  and into the community.
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  So that's really,
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  exciting for me as well.
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  Ultimately, our academic medical centers need to be
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  built for the future and not just managed
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  for the present. So, that's definitely a direction
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  that we're all fully aligned with.
• 2:08
  Fantastic. And you've had this amazing career. And
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  one of the things I love about your
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  career, doctor Paul,
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  is is aside from
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  medical school at McGill,
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  you've also been a lifelong learner. You you
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  did your fellowship
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  at Harvard.
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  You went back and did an MBA at
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  some point or did it while practicing.
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  Talk about for a moment that commitment to
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  constant improvement in lifelong learning, if you don't
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  mind.
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  Absolutely.
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  Being a
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  being in a leadership role in health care
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  is really a calling. It's,
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  it's really important for me to stay constantly
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  in touch with our teams and understand
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  how to best engage them and,
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  connect with them so that I can better
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  explain the why,
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  of,
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  directions that we're taking. You know, people follow
• 3:00
  clarity. They follow fairness and purpose.
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  And my role as the CMO is to
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  build a system where
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  exceptional care is really the norm and not
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  the exception. So that
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  intense focus on hardwiring
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  standard work
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  is critical.
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  And for me, the importance of
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  a lifelong journey of learning is really helpful
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  for me to know how to best
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  take all the changes in the environment and
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  the triggers that our teams are having, the
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  stressors that they're experiencing,
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  and help orient them into the work that
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  they do and why it really matters.
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  Thank you. And and and take a moment,
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  doctor Paul.
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  What trends are you watching right now in
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  health care the most closely?
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  Talk about what is on your mind.
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  Is it physician shortages? Is it technology?
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  Is it reimbursement?
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  What what are the top things that you're
• 3:59
  you're most focused on and thinking about currently?
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  Scott, I think that there's really
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  a handful of key trends that every CMO
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  is paying close attention to.
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  The first, as you've already mentioned, is sustainability
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  of our workforce. It's not just the shortages
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  that we're seeing, but it's how do we
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  redesign these teams so that they're having tenure
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  in the field?
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  How do we look at our APPs, our
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  physicians,
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  and
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  look at the scheduling, the support that they're
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  having with data,
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  and reducing the burden of our EHR documentation?
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  Recruitment alone isn't gonna solve this workforce,
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  problem that we're having. I think that redesign
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  is gonna be the new strategy.
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  Another key trend that I'm paying really particular
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  attention to is the clinical variation
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  and the importance of reducing that as a,
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  as a quality lever.
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  Unwarranted
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  variation is really a driver for the cost
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  and the inconsistency in the outcomes that we're
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  seeing.
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  One of the initiatives that we've led at
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  Jersey Shore is
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  a reduction,
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  in clinical variation. And we are having weekly
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  meetings with our frontline teams
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  to develop transparency
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  on data and
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  allowing the frontline teams to have a platform
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  to showcase some of their work that reduces
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  that variation.
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  Ultimately, if we don't intentionally reduce the variation,
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  the system's gonna produce variability by default. So
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  I think that that work is really important.
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  Another big,
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  trend that I'm seeing is the,
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  transitions of care from the hospital to the
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  community
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  and back from the community to the hospital
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  and ensuring that we're treating that as a
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  continuum.
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  So looking at our multidisciplinary
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  rounds in the hospital,
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  medication reconciliation,
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  looking at virtual
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  platforms that connect patients to primary care doctors
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  after a hospitalization.
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  Those are really important initiatives because,
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  a safe discharge is one of the most
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  powerful quality interventions that we have.
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  Data analytics
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  is really important. It's not just getting more
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  data to the teams, but how do these
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  teams use that data in a smarter way?
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  The clinical teams need the same
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  visibility into that data that they expect from
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  lab results.
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  So building that structure, those dashboards,
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  that variation reporting so that they can have
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  actionable clarity at the frontline level is really
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  important.
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  And at the end of the day, all
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  of these trends
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  are really driven by the culture.
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  The culture is set by the top. And,
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  as many of our listeners probably know, change
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  moves at the speed of trust. So trust
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  determines
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  if all of these, levers really change behavior.
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  Thank you very, very much. And and doctor
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  Paul, as you move towards 2026
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  and look at 2026,
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  what are you most focused on and excited
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  about as we move towards the next year?
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  Yeah. A couple of areas really stand out.
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  For me, what I'm really proud of at
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  Hackensack Meridian Health and at Jersey Shore
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  University Medical Center are are efforts towards reducing
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  clinical variation.
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  As I mentioned before, we've set up a
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  comprehensive structure for the hospital,
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  where we meet on a very regular cadence
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  to engage our frontline teams.
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  We're also focused on readmission and discharge,
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  patient cohorts and
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  ensuring that we've got a,
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  continuum of care, and it's not just a
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  transaction,
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  that discharge
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  out of the hospital.
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  What I'm really excited about in addition to
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  all of this is the clinical leadership that
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  we're,
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  creating at the hospital.
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  We've
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  been giving a lot of thought to how
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  our leadership is structured clinically,
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  how it's aligned with quality and patient experience
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  incentives.
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  And,
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  you know, thinking through strategically about building a
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  future bench is really important, not just filling
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  roles.
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  Because at the end of the day, our
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  our goal isn't just to manage our frontline
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  clinical teams, it's to unleash their potential.
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  Culture, again, is is really important and,
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  it has to be built very intentionally. And
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  I do wanna give credit to our
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  hospital president, Vito Buchelato, for setting that tone.
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  So all of these things are foundational level
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  moves, and, I'm really excited to be able
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  to continue that journey,
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  over 2026.
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  Thank you. And and take a moment on
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  on one other subject, doctor Paul. You've had
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  this great leadership career. You've been a tremendous
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  lifelong learner.
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  I'm a huge fan of McGill University, maybe
• 9:03
  a bigger fan of Harvard Business. I spent
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  a few years there, but a huge fan
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  of both great, great institutions,
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  as as well as the other place you've
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  studied Amherst and Drexel and and where you
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  did your residency. Fantastic career. What advice would
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  you give to emerging leaders? What advice do
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  you give somebody trying to have a fulfilling
• 9:19
  and and impactful career?
• 9:22
  Great question, Scott. I would say a few,
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  key things. One is
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  leading through value and not authority. With all
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  the rapid change that we're seeing in health
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  care, which
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  I know is gonna accelerate
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  over time,
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  it's really important to connect teams to the
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  why. People
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  follow clarity,
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  and leaders create that clarity and that purpose.
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  So sometimes with all this rapid change, complexity
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  becomes the default, and our core mission as
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  leaders is to provide
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  a purpose and a reason for why we
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  exist. And connecting those teams to that why
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  is,
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  really important.
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  Frontline teams don't resist change. They what they
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  do is they resist change when it's unclear.
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  So that would be,
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  one key
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  advice that I would give to our emerging
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  leaders.
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  Another would be
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  be clinically curious. It's
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  the changes that we're seeing and the complexity
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  that we're experiencing, especially with the implementation of
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  AI in so many facets of health care
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  is that health care is just too complex
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  for anecdotal leadership. You've got to really be
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  curious.
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  Trying to ask questions of the clinical teams,
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  understanding
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  where the pain points truly are
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  is going to be really important.
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  And understand how to access that data and
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  how to interpret it in a way that's
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  meaningful for the frontline clinical teams. I would
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  say that that's really important as well.
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  Relationships and trust is critical.
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  And, especially when we're under pressure to make
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  decisions in health care,
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  it's really important as a health care leader
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  that you're front and center and visible to
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  the teams. So rounding regularly
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  in the units of the hospital,
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  connecting with the teams, building that credibility,
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  following up with the teams because that's what's
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  gonna allow you as a health care leader
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  to have influence with the team when it
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  comes time to driving
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  change. So a couple of key things about,
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  change management that I've learned over the years
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  that I think is gonna serve our emerging
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  leaders really well.
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  Thank you, doctor Paul. What an amazing career.
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  I I wanna thank you for what you
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  do
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  in your career and your leadership.
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  Take one moment and tell us a little
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  bit more about Hackensack Meridian Health and your
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  pride in the institution.
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  I'm really excited about the direction that Hackensack
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  Meridian Health is going.
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  What we're developing at Jersey Shore is,
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  really exciting and it's connected to the broader
• 11:57
  health system. And that's the advantage of a
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  learning health system because
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  we can continuously
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  measure and share
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  pilots and initiatives from one hospital to the
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  rest of the network.
• 12:09
  We're leaning into digital integration,
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  system wide reliability,
• 12:14
  and a growth in our ambulatory
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  platforms and expansion.
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  Workforce is critical to us as well. We're
• 12:22
  looking at building a model that's,
• 12:24
  future proof.
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  So I would say that Hackensack Meridian Health
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  is a system that's willing to
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  rethink
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  old assumptions
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  and,
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  look at how we're gonna be able to
• 12:37
  build a,
• 12:39
  a model for the future. And
• 12:41
  the scale allows us to innovate with speed
• 12:43
  as well. So really exciting direction that we're
• 12:45
  taking.
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  I'm gonna ask you one last question.
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  It's
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  you're not from Jersey, I don't think. I'm
• 12:53
  not from Jersey originally,
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  but everybody from Jersey raves about the Jersey
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  Shore.
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  Is the Jersey Shore as much as it's
• 13:02
  cracked up to be?
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  It is all that and even better,
• 13:06
  Scott. So I you're right. I'm not from
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  Jersey, but having lived here with my family
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  for a number of years now,
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  the Jersey Shore in the summer has nothing
• 13:15
  else like it. So absolutely.
• 13:18
  Doctor Paul, I wanna thank you so much
• 13:20
  for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare
• 13:22
  podcast.
• 13:23
  What a pleasure to visit with you. Thank
• 13:25
  you so much for joining us. Such a
• 13:27
  pleasure, Scott. Thank you so much.