Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Dr. Sriram Vissa, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs at SSM Health DePaul Hospital

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Dr. Sriram Vissa, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs at SSM Health DePaul Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  This is where health care leadership comes together.
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  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
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  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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  speakers to Chicago April.
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  This series event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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  W. Bush. For the agenda and event details,
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  visit beckershospitalreview.com
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  and click on the events tab in the
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  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
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  in Chicago.
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  Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Elizabeth
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  Gregersen, a reporter here at Becker's, and I'm
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  thrilled to be interviewing doctor Sriram Visas, chief
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  medical officer and vice president of medical affairs
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  at SSM Health DePaul Hospital on the podcast
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  today. Doctor Visser, thank you so much for
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  joining me. I'm so grateful to be given
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  a chance to share your insights with our
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  podcast audience.
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  Thank you for, inviting me. It's always a
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  pleasure to join the Becker's podcast.
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  Absolutely. And before we dive in, could you
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  just give us a brief introduction
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  of yourself and maybe tell us a little
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  bit more about your organization?
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  Thank you. Yeah. So I am a hospitalist.
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  My background in internal medicine, and I've been
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  at, SSML DePaul Hospital for about, twenty one
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  years and have been responsible for, various leadership
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  roles.
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  DePaul Hospital is part of a large, Catholic
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  health care system, SSM Health, which is about
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  19 hospitals across four states.
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  We are based in the North County Of
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  Saint Louis. We are a five twenty three
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  bed community focused
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  hospital with about, 2,200,
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  team members and about 1,400,
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  providers including doctors and APPs.
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  Each year, we care about, 20,000 inpatients and
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  about, eight thousand found in observation and recovery
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  cases.
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  We deliver about six seventy babies a year.
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  We have about 60,000
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  ED and urgent care visits.
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  A couple of highlights for our community based
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  ministry.
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  We are the only baby friendly family birthplace
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  center in the North County Of Saint Louis.
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  We are a joint commission designated comprehensive stroke
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  center, and we're also a center of excellence
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  in bariatrics and orthopedic services.
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  Perfect. Well, thank you for giving us that
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  snapshot of, of DePaul Hospital.
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  I'd love to know you know, we're chatting
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  right after the New Year. But before we
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  kind of look ahead, I'd love to hear
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  about 2025
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  and maybe what have been the most important
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  initiatives or achievements that you've led at DePaul
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  Hospital in the last year. You know, how
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  did you reach those achievements, and and what
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  were the results?
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  Thank you. So, I would say the biggest
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  achievement would be our significant improvement in our
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  benchmark rankings in the realms of,
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  safety,
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  and variations of care with some continued work
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  underway in efficiency and mortality.
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  We,
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  partner with Visyant. It's a large, national organization
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  that compares,
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  like size hospitals. So we are in a
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  cohort core, large comprehensive complex
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  health care, ministries and about one ninety eight
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  hospitals.
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  Happy to report that we have had a
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  significant improvement. We're in the top five
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  percentile in the category of safety and in
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  the top, twenty fifth percentile in
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  efficiency and,
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  effectiveness of treatment, which would be our,
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  significant improvements in length of stay and, readmissions.
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  So the, this would lead us to, talk
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  in a little more detail about our length
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  of stay. So our biggest lift was reducing
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  the length of stay by half a day
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  in 2025.
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  And this is not a a finance project
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  more, but more as a a patient progression
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  and a care experience transformation.
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  And it really required a multidisciplinary
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  effort from all key stakeholders. It wasn't just
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  one team, carrying the burden.
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  We, really, looked at our multidisciplinary
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  rounding systems,
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  our teams,
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  and, created some changes in the way we,
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  manage our work every day.
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  We,
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  decided to have dedicated team members, including hospitalist,
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  care coordination members, physical therapists,
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  dedicated to a floor. So even though teams
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  would rotate, week on week off, the same
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  team members would be coming back to the
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  slower so that a team dynamic is built
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  over the, four to five months, and they
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  would be in a good cadence and rhythm.
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  We also added some, noon post on huddles
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  and a timely escalation of really same day
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  barriers.
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  We also worked on early morning discharges so
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  that we can create that space in the
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  room so that we could decant our ED,
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  and bring those patients upstairs as quickly as
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  possible because we know that once they're being
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  ready for admission, keeping them in ED and
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  boarding them causes more harm and
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  delay in initiation of care. We also used
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  our EMR. We use EPIC,
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  across SSM.
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  And one of the biggest cultural changes we
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  have did is to really improve the capture
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  of the expected day of discharge into our
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  EMR.
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  So that it's visible to the bed planners.
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  It's visible to the care coordination teams. It's
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  visible to the campus executive team leaders, including
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  the CNO and the CMO.
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  And then really validating and seeing how accurate
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  was that prediction the following day. So in
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  our, tiered escalation hurdles in the mornings, we
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  would,
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  declare how many we predicted and how many
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  actually left the hospital. And happy to report
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  that the gap,
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  decreased about 70% to about 80 to 85%
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  accuracy in our prediction.
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  As a result, our, acute length of stay,
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  we call it the financial length of stay,
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  went from about 5.5
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  to about 4.8 at the 2028.
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  So almost a half a day reduction in
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  our length of stay. And this has really
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  improved patient outcomes because
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  the shorter stay patients means safer timely care
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  transitions and fewer hospital acquired risks.
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  And, also, it increases the capacity to say
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  yes to transfer when it matters the most.
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  Perfect. Thank you. You know, I know our
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  audience loves to hear about results and outcomes,
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  but even more than that, they love to
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  hear how those results were achieved. So I
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  appreciate you kind of listing out for us
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  the exact steps that you took to to
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  hit those outcomes.
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  Looking ahead,
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  what are the next big priorities or maybe
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  headwinds that you're focused on tackling in 2026?
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  Yeah. So, our biggest priority would be to
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  continue the, length of stay initiatives,
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  to improve patient outcomes.
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  We are budgeting additional, length of stay improvements
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  in 2026
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  and, making our goals harder. But we wanna
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  continue on the momentum we created last year.
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  So we're linking our multidisciplinary
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  round reliabilities,
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  our morning discharge culture, and the barrier escalation
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  to a measurable financial and access benefit.
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  The, couple of other things related to length
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  of stay would be increasing capacity in our
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  ministry so that, we can,
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  create,
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  more transfers to our hospital. We, deliver a
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  lot of complex,
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  care in our ministries, and how can we
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  help our supporting hospitals by creating that space
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  so that we can be, their destination
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  of choice.
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  And lastly, the other priority I would say
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  would be our workforce stabilization,
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  reducing the,
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  core to con increasing the core to contingency
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  staffing ratio so that we have more dedicated
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  teams that,
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  identify DePaul as their primary ministry
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  versus,
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  having a a larger core group of staffing
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  nurses who would be floating around across the
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  region.
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  As far as head headwinds are concerned,
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  I would say that the challenge isn't launching
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  initiatives. It's the
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  consistency across the units and shifts in maintaining
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  that cadence and the standard work so that
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  we can, continue to, keep the momentum for
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  improving our performance.
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  Great. And, yeah, I guess jumping off on
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  those headwinds too, as we look into the
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  coming year,
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  is there anything you're anticipating
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  that might be a challenge or maybe the
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  hardest thing that you know is coming down
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  the pipeline that you're
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  preparing
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  for? Yes. Two things, stand out for us,
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  in this year as a challenge. The first
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  one would be the toughest operation challenge would
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  be the, intersection of, limited
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  behavioral health bed capacity and ED boarding. You
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  know, we have about one twenty six, beard
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  health,
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  beds in our, ministry,
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  but there is a significant
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  regional demand,
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  across multiple health care systems.
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  So,
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  we are working on changing some processes and
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  improving the way we can better provide care
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  for these BH patients and avoid ED boarding
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  times. Currently, our ED boarding time for such
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  patients is about twenty four to forty eight
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  hours.
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  This, creates an unsafe conditions,
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  also exposes our staff towards workplace violence because
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  they are sitting in our emergency rooms. And,
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  of course, it delays
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  initiating the comprehensive
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  multimodal
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  treatment that is important for our behavioral health
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  care patients so that they could get better
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  and go back to the communities,
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  they live in. So we are working on,
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  some improvements. For example, opening a a short
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  term area in our BH with, staffing when
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  available to take care of those patients.
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  We are embedding, central intake assessors back into
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  EDI in person to accelerate evaluations.
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  And then also,
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  tightening our tier escalation
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  and real time rounding so that we could,
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  identify any barriers and place these patients,
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  into, the appropriate level of care across the
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  BH platform.
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  One thing we, are sometimes limited is our
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  our two patients to a room,
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  situation where one patient may be,
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  violent or aggressive or could have some other
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  medical issues that could
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  unfortunately block the other bed and that limits
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  our capacities.
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  So we are looking at opening up some
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  single, patient BH rooms in a different hospital
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  across the region so that it could, improve
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  the capacity.
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  The second, would say hardest thing would be
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  really our sustaining and improving work in mortality.
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  While we continue to work on our length
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  of stay,
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  we are trying to strengthen our palliative care
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  and hospice,
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  services
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  so that we can provide the right level
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  of care for complex and end of life
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  care patients. And there is compassionate care that
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  and it improves outcomes. So these two would
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  be our hardest challenges for 2026.
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  Thank you for sharing that. And, yeah, I
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  feel like, you know, behavioral health and ED
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  boarding and then also
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  integrating palliative care,
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  both of those topics came up so much
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  in the last half of 2025
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  that, you know, I'm sure our audience
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  will be interested to hear, you know, how
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  DePaul Hospital tackles those in 2026. So we'll
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  definitely have to reconnect
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  again and and see how that's going. I
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  know, a lot of our audience could learn
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  learn from your experience.
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  To end things on a more positive note,
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  what do you see are the best opportunities
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  for growth at DePaul Hospital?
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  Yeah. That's really our strategic,
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  growth vectors for DePaul in 2026
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  would be the following. One would be our
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  destination services and transfers.
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  We really want to strengthen our position as
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  a regional destination for stroke
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  and select surgical specialties and gastroenterology.
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  We are the center of excellence, so we
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  wanna expand our bariatrics and orthopedic platforms
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  with the clinic growth, new programs, and targeted
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  provider recruitment.
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  We want to rebuild our complex surgical capacity,
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  with recruitment and outreach in neurosurgery and vascular
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  to so restore the full platforms.
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  We are the only North County, facility that
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  delivers babies, so we want to continue to
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  expand our maternal health and behavioral health services
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  through partnering with our local FQHC clinics
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  and also,
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  continue to work on our b h urgent
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  care that provides a good access point for,
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  less acute
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  b h patients.
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  Lastly, I would say our primary care footprint.
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  As we recruit and hire more, primary cares,
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  we would, increase the access points
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  and also innovative models to anchor network integrity
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  and then downstream specialty growth.
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  Great. Well, I'm excited to hear how all
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  those opportunities go for DePaul Hospital, and
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  I wanted to thank you again for joining
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  me on the podcast. I think it's been
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  a really amazing and informative discussion. So thank
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  you for your time and your insights.
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  Thank you. I would say in conclusion,
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  you know, our job is simple to say
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  and hard to do, which is a shortened
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  time to value for patients.
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  When we move
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  care forward every hour to our length of
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  stay work safely and compassionately,
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  quality rises, access expands, and our community wins.
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  So hope I was able to share some
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  of that work we are doing in, DePaul
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  Hospital this year.
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  Yes. Absolutely.
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  Thank you again, and and I invite our
• 13:01
  listeners to tune in to more podcasts from
• 13:03
  Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at
• 13:06
  beckershospitalreview.com.
• 13:08
  Thank you again, doctor Rissa, and I hope
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  everyone has a wonderful rest of their day.
• 13:12
  Thank you.