Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Jeffrey Cohen, MD, FACS, FASCRS, CPE, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Operating Officer at Hartford HealthCare

Transcript

Jeffrey Cohen, MD, FACS, FASCRS, CPE, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Operating Officer at Hartford HealthCare · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:00
This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
0:02
Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
0:04
doctor Jeffrey Cohen, executive vice president and chief
0:07
clinical operating officer at Hartford HealthCare. Doctor Cohen,
0:10
it's a pleasure to have you on the
0:11
podcast today.
0:13
Thank you, Laura. It's an absolute pleasure to
0:15
be here. I, always look forward to these
0:18
interactions, and
0:20
I,
0:21
I very much admire,
0:23
how Becker's has has grown and developed over
0:25
the years into being really the,
0:28
the,
0:29
bringing together the thought leaders in this country
0:31
around health care. So congratulations on that.
0:35
Well, thank you so much. I know I'm
0:36
always excited to be speaking with leaders like
0:38
you. And particularly, I know you'll be speaking
0:40
at our annual meeting coming up here in
0:42
April. So it'll be fun to catch up
0:44
and get a chance to see you face
0:46
to face as well as, connect with many
0:48
of your colleagues from around the country too.
0:50
So this is gonna be fun.
0:51
I know we're gonna talk today a lot
0:53
about the innovation that you do at Hartford
0:55
HealthCare, really some of the big aspirational goals
0:57
that you have as well as how you've
0:58
been able to grow and and, continue to,
1:02
provide great patient care, there in Connecticut. So
1:05
before we do that, though, I was curious.
1:07
Can you, just introduce yourself briefly and tell
1:10
us a little bit about your background, as
1:11
well as Hartford HealthCare for listeners who are
1:14
new to the Becker's podcast and community?
1:17
Sure. I'd be happy to. So,
1:19
obviously, I'm here today representing Hartford HealthCare.
1:23
I am the chief clinical operating officer, as
1:25
you said, which is,
1:28
I oversee,
1:30
the clinical aspects of the,
1:32
enterprise,
1:33
but really the, integration
1:36
of all of our clinical work that we,
1:39
that we perform. So at this point, we
1:41
are now the largest health care system in
1:44
Connecticut.
1:44
I don't know if that's, like, the tallest,
1:47
short person,
1:48
but Connecticut being what it is. But we're
1:51
about an $8,000,000,000
1:52
in revenue,
1:54
health care
1:55
system. Our,
1:57
growth rate has been significant
1:59
over the last decade. In fact, our our
2:02
CAGR is,
2:03
roughly 12%
2:05
over the last, five, six years.
2:07
We're now nine hospitals,
2:10
all in Connecticut,
2:12
and,
2:14
we have about
2:15
500
2:16
sites of service,
2:18
through our ambulatory network,
2:20
which includes
2:21
over 20 ambulatory surgery centers,
2:25
50 now urgent care centers,
2:28
and,
2:29
other imaging centers, etcetera. So we are very,
2:33
dispersed,
2:35
health care system, meeting people where they are
2:38
on any given day. We
2:40
we take care of roughly
2:42
25,000
2:43
people every single day,
2:46
and, we have almost 50,000
2:49
colleagues,
2:50
in Hartford HealthCare. So,
2:53
clearly a medium sized health care system.
2:56
We've been expanding access to care tremendously
2:59
over the last decade,
3:00
and we look forward to doing more of
3:02
that in the coming years.
3:04
I love that. I I think it's, so
3:06
critical to have that mission
3:08
of very much, you know, being attuned to
3:11
where you're at today and then serving community
3:13
well, but then also,
3:15
aspirations to continue to spread that and be
3:17
innovative and really change with the time. So
3:20
I think first and foremost, let's start off
3:22
with, you know, kind of how you got
3:24
to where you are today. What are is
3:26
an important initiative that you led or something
3:28
you can tell us about the last couple
3:30
of years that, you know, has really moved
3:32
Hartford HealthCare forward? What did you do, and
3:34
what were the results?
3:36
Sure.
3:36
So,
3:37
first of all, I I I think that
3:39
it's important
3:40
in perspective to
3:42
maybe go back about fifteen years ago,
3:45
because if you're looking for the foundation of
3:48
where we are today and where we're going,
3:50
you can't know where you're going if you
3:52
don't know where you've been. And
3:54
around that time, we really moved in a
3:57
very different direction.
3:59
We believed that the best thing to do
4:01
at that point was to have a truly
4:03
clinically integrated health care system. So in order
4:06
to do that, we blew up the governance
4:08
system. We got rid of hospital,
4:12
boards and,
4:13
and built regions as well as an oversight
4:16
system governance,
4:18
which was out of fiduciary responsibility for not
4:20
only the financials,
4:21
but the strategic direction. And we brought in
4:24
regional and national leaders to be on that
4:26
board. So that allowed us to then have
4:29
an integrated system, which we then built out,
4:33
in a clinically integrated way
4:36
by,
4:37
building up our institute model.
4:40
And that was brought to us we really,
4:42
stole unabashedly from the Cleveland Clinic. Our chief
4:45
strategy officer had come from there. And today,
4:48
we actually have seven very robust,
4:51
institutes, and they span our health care system.
4:54
And they allow for
4:56
standardization,
4:57
clinical integration,
4:59
taking away variation,
5:02
across our system. And I always like to
5:04
say, most people don't know our geography,
5:06
but if you enter Hartford HealthCare in Norwich,
5:09
which is in Eastern Connecticut,
5:12
more rural, or you enter Norwalk, which is
5:15
maybe the sixth borough of New York City,
5:18
you're going to feel the same about Hartford
5:20
HealthCare, and you're gonna get an integrated experience.
5:24
And to do that, we had to build
5:26
the infrastructure first and the foundation. And then
5:29
the key thing we did about a decade
5:31
ago
5:32
was say,
5:34
that patients wanna be taken care of where
5:36
and when they wanna be. And at that
5:38
time, we were thinking more about geography.
5:41
So we felt that,
5:43
building an extensive ambulatory network
5:47
and putting
5:48
sites of service,
5:50
whether they be hubs for our institutes, whether
5:53
they be imaging centers, urgent care centers,
5:56
ambulatory surgery centers, putting them as close to
5:59
people's home as possible.
6:01
And our vision
6:02
for that decade leading up to 2025
6:05
was
6:06
for us
6:07
to be within 10 miles of every resident
6:10
in the state of Connecticut.
6:11
Well, we succeeded in that a few years
6:14
ago, and now we morphed to being in
6:17
everybody's home. And maybe I'll get some more
6:19
of that a little bit later,
6:21
if we have the opportunity to talk about
6:23
how we're in people's homes. But the key
6:25
thing was
6:27
that we wanted
6:28
to be as close to people as possible.
6:31
And in doing so,
6:34
I think that we differentiate ourselves. You know,
6:36
we talk about health care,
6:38
everybody's got the best people, and I certainly
6:41
feel we do. But I know that
6:44
the the drive of people to be in
6:46
health care means that almost everywhere has wonderful
6:49
people. So if you have really great people
6:51
and you have good technology,
6:54
maybe that's the starting point, but you have
6:56
to differentiate
6:57
yourself in some way that's meaningful for patients.
7:00
So now, when you ask, what is the
7:02
thing we've done the most over that last
7:04
year or so to be in people's homes
7:07
and to do things differently,
7:09
is we rolled out something called HHC twenty
7:12
four seven.
7:14
And I believe this is revolutionary,
7:16
and I have to say, even in Connecticut,
7:18
even though we've even had a Super Bowl
7:20
ad this past year, I don't think that
7:23
people understand exactly
7:25
how impactful and meaningful that is.
7:28
So,
7:29
what this basically is
7:31
is on demand access
7:34
to clinicians
7:35
at any hour, any day,
7:37
twenty four hours a day, three hundred and
7:39
sixty five days a year.
7:41
And
7:42
what that means in practice is
7:45
we've developed an app that you can download
7:48
from anywhere,
7:49
from the App Store,
7:51
and,
7:53
that
7:53
app, once you register,
7:55
is linked to you personally.
7:57
And it has all of your personal information.
7:59
It is linked to your epic chart, so
8:02
it has all of the data
8:04
of the medical record,
8:06
and
8:07
it, is an AI based platform, because everything's
8:10
AI based these days. But in this case,
8:13
it,
8:14
it starts out with an AI chatbot,
8:17
that takes down the information when you interact
8:19
with it. And then within minutes, once it
8:22
assimilates that, asks you the appropriate questions, which
8:25
are algorithms that we have built
8:27
with kHealth,
8:29
which is a start up, no longer a
8:31
start up,
8:32
Israeli based company out of New York,
8:36
that it will then link you to one
8:38
of our clinicians.
8:39
That might be a doc, it might be
8:41
an APP,
8:42
and it's literally within minutes,
8:44
and it's twenty four hours a day.
8:46
So,
8:48
imagine the power of this and why I
8:50
think this is revolutionary.
8:51
You no longer need to leave your home
8:54
to get care
8:55
by an HHC clinician.
8:57
So even though we built out this extensive
9:00
network,
9:01
over
9:02
500 sites of service over the entire state
9:05
and a little bit into the adjacent states,
9:08
What we now have in you the palm
9:10
of your hand is the ability to get
9:12
health care
9:13
when you want,
9:15
at the time you want,
9:17
and you can do it from your own
9:19
home. So I'll give you a tangible example.
9:21
Let's say my wife is traveling for business
9:24
and I'm at home, and I've got
9:27
my three little kids there. They're not in
9:29
reality, and that's a little anymore. But let's
9:31
say I have a a two year old,
9:32
a four year old, and a six year
9:34
old at home, and they're sleeping. And it's
9:36
two in the morning,
9:37
and I don't feel well.
9:39
And
9:40
I'm a little concerned,
9:42
maybe I have some indigestion,
9:44
but I I I'm a little worried. Do
9:46
I pack them up, these three little kids,
9:49
wake them up, and bring them to the
9:50
emergency room? Because no urgent care center is
9:53
open.
9:54
And what's my other alternative? Just wait till
9:56
morning, be more anxious.
9:59
But here,
10:00
I can go on a virtual visit,
10:04
AI platform based
10:07
with my medical record,
10:09
with a provider,
10:10
a clinician,
10:11
who is part of Hartford HealthCare.
10:13
They can see me.
10:15
They can evaluate me, and decide
10:18
that maybe it is indigestion.
10:20
Maybe I'm not having,
10:22
true chest pain. And I don't have to
10:25
leave,
10:26
my own home.
10:28
And imagine if it's, something like a really
10:30
bad rash,
10:32
that's really bothered you to in the morning.
10:33
They can even link to your pharmacy,
10:36
call on a prescription,
10:37
and if you have delivery, it can be
10:39
delivered to your home and you never left
10:40
home. So you can see why, Laura. I
10:43
I think this is absolutely revolutionary,
10:46
and I think that, it's really gonna catch
10:49
on. I will tell you, in eleven months
10:51
that we've started this,
10:53
we have now had 42,000
10:56
interactions,
10:57
42,000
10:58
patients
10:59
who did this from their own convenience,
11:01
and we're now, doing about 250
11:05
patients a day.
11:06
And in one of my roles, I have
11:08
to think about workforce.
11:10
And if the average primary care might be
11:12
seeing 20 to 25 patients a day, that's
11:15
10 primary care providers
11:17
that were just taken care of virtually instead
11:20
of by bricks and mortar.
11:21
So I could go on and on about
11:23
this. The only thing I think I'll add
11:25
is
11:26
going forward, we're just starting this month with
11:29
a company called Cadence,
11:31
another start up. And this company
11:34
is,
11:35
another one of those amazing,
11:38
AI platform based companies on home monitoring.
11:41
So imagine the power now that we're gonna
11:44
have home monitors in place in people's homes
11:47
to manage their chronic disease states, diabetes,
11:50
hypertension,
11:51
congestive heart failure, keep these people out of
11:54
the hospital,
11:55
but link it to HHC twenty four seven.
11:58
So now the clinician who's interacting with you
12:01
in the middle of the night will have
12:03
EKG tracings. They'll have all types of different,
12:08
data to manage your care. You can tell
12:10
how excited I am about this. Oh, that's
12:13
amazing.
12:14
And really cool to,
12:16
hear how everything links up together,
12:18
think through what that means for the patient
12:20
journey, patient care, and access to care across
12:23
the the, patient population. And it's just incredible
12:27
to have that kind of speed and, really
12:29
a direct link into
12:31
physicians, APPs, other clinicians that can make a
12:34
big difference
12:35
in in in help in a variety of
12:37
ways. And then two, to know that coming
12:39
evolution,
12:40
of home monitoring and the technology that can
12:43
really, make a a benefit, big difference. I
12:45
can imagine that's saving, again, ER visits, clinical
12:48
visits, maybe even on the prevention side,
12:51
making sure that people are are,
12:54
focused in,
12:56
monitoring things and so that they don't, you
12:57
know, get to be too big of a
12:59
problem, which I know is a huge, huge
13:01
benefit for the health care system and the
13:03
health of patients overall. So, it seems like
13:06
there's so many cool things going on right
13:08
now.
13:09
I'm I'm curious. What else is ahead? What
13:11
are some of the big priorities and headwinds
13:12
that you're thinking about? What could potentially stall
13:15
some of this progress?
13:18
You
13:19
know, they're all great questions, but, obviously, that's
13:22
a really good one because in this time,
13:24
there is so much going on. And, you
13:26
know, I'll I'll paraphrase,
13:28
our CEO, Jeff Flax. And,
13:31
for those who don't know,
13:33
Jeff, you should know him.
13:35
For a long time, he was the best
13:36
kept secret,
13:37
in terms of visionary
13:39
CEOs and leaders in health care. But over
13:42
the last, I would say, since since COVID
13:45
and he really led
13:47
Connecticut,
13:48
partnered with the governor
13:50
or,
13:51
us during the pandemic
13:53
to,
13:54
mitigate,
13:55
and save so many lives that I don't
13:57
think would have been saved without his being
13:59
at the forefront. And as we know in
14:01
leadership,
14:02
it's it's being out in front is what,
14:05
is what creates great leadership
14:07
and and as we like to say, leading
14:09
from the front.
14:11
So Jeff loves to say
14:13
that there's no better time to be in
14:14
health care.
14:16
And, when I'm in the room with him
14:19
and he says that to external people and
14:21
to other,
14:22
people in health care, they they sort of,
14:24
at best, scratch their head and otherwise, they
14:26
look stunned. But the reality is there is
14:29
no better time. You just mentioned yourself, Laura.
14:32
We can get better faster
14:35
now and with less friction,
14:38
due to technology
14:39
and artificial intelligence
14:42
and all the partnerships and work that's being
14:44
done. But I do wanna say I'm not
14:46
naive, and neither is he. There are a
14:49
lot of headwinds. And and in fact, in
14:50
our board meetings, we always start with what
14:53
are the headwinds,
14:54
because we wanna level set even as we're
14:57
doing a lot of innovative stuff. So there's
15:00
obviously the regulatory
15:02
and legislative pressures,
15:05
whether it's Medicaid cuts, whether it's, cuts to
15:08
research funding,
15:11
tariffs. I mean, in my chief operating officer
15:14
role, I have to deal with the supply
15:16
chain cost going up. In some areas, we're
15:18
up 15%
15:19
since last year.
15:21
So, it's really hard with thin margins
15:24
to still be profitable,
15:26
you know, no margin, no mission.
15:28
Workforce,
15:29
supply and demand, and if we have time,
15:30
I'd love to get into that as well.
15:32
But the,
15:34
but given all of that
15:36
and and and what's out there,
15:39
the technology
15:40
has made clinicians' jobs actually so much easier.
15:44
And it's bringing back
15:46
the joy of of health care, the joy
15:48
of being in it. I'm a I am
15:50
a part time clinician.
15:51
I joke that I play one on TV
15:53
more than I do in real life, but
15:54
I I I am a practicing colorectal surgeon.
15:58
I do see patients.
15:59
And I will say the data that I
16:01
have
16:02
now
16:03
makes the care so much safer.
16:06
The quality is so much higher.
16:09
And, ironically,
16:10
health care is actually more human now. So
16:13
one of the other partnerships that we have,
16:14
and this is now all over the country.
16:16
We're not unique, but we are an investor
16:19
in Abridge.
16:20
And a bridge
16:21
is this,
16:24
fascinating,
16:26
technology
16:28
of ambient listening.
16:29
And it's it's gotten so good that you
16:32
can have a conversation with a patient in
16:34
a room, and it will take out all
16:36
that extraneous stuff and distill it down to
16:39
really the important details.
16:41
And what I love about it is,
16:43
you can now look at the patient across
16:46
the room. You can make eye contact. You
16:48
can pick up those pieces
16:51
of
16:52
of their subtlety,
16:53
of their body language, how they look. And
16:56
when you were looking down at a computer,
16:58
and I never did this because I was
16:59
never as good at typing as I needed
17:01
to be and also talking.
17:03
But for so many doctors that I even
17:06
I went to, they'd always be looking down
17:08
at the computer,
17:09
putting data in, and rather than looking at
17:12
me as the patient. And I, as a
17:14
clinician,
17:15
I love being able to make that eye
17:16
contact. And given that I'm a surgeon and
17:19
people tend to be very scared and very
17:21
anxious in my office,
17:22
it's even better because I can hopefully connect
17:25
with them and and put them at ease.
17:27
So these kinds of things
17:29
are making the world
17:31
so much better for health care.
17:33
And if I could interject,
17:36
one overriding,
17:38
guidepost for us is we talk about all
17:41
the time,
17:43
a two e two.
17:44
I think you've heard that before from some
17:46
of us,
17:48
access,
17:49
affordability,
17:50
excellence,
17:51
and health equity.
17:52
Everything we do
17:54
fits under those categories.
17:57
And,
17:58
and so
17:59
what we do today to create more access
18:01
to care, as I spoke about before,
18:04
HAC twenty four seven,
18:06
think about the access to care. Think about
18:08
the fact that if you are in a
18:11
remote remote rural area, forget about being in
18:13
a city,
18:15
that you can immediately connect to care right
18:17
away.
18:18
So people that are underserved, people where there
18:20
are no where there's a a health care
18:22
desert. So you can do all of this,
18:24
and we can connect people
18:26
in a in a much easier way
18:28
and connect to more people. And, by the
18:30
way, it's so much more affordable.
18:33
I mean, it's it's
18:35
one tenth the cost
18:37
to do RHHC twenty four seven or even
18:39
go to an urgent care center,
18:41
than it is to go to an emergency
18:43
room.
18:45
Our excellence,
18:46
I think, is unsurpassed.
18:49
I may be bragging a little bit, but
18:50
the American Hospital Association awarded us the Quest
18:53
for Quality prize this past year.
18:57
One hospital healthcare system in America gets that
19:00
every year. You get a trophy. We treated
19:03
it as our Stanley Cup. We passed that
19:05
trophy around for the year. We celebrate it.
19:08
We take it everywhere.
19:10
And,
19:11
we've even made replicas to put in people's,
19:15
hospitals and offices. So so this is all,
19:19
what our focus is
19:21
and where
19:22
we're taking things,
19:24
as you asked for the upcoming year, what
19:26
our priorities are, is really
19:28
to,
19:29
to
19:30
excel, to exceed,
19:32
and to be the best at getting better
19:33
at a two e two.
19:37
That's amazing to hear. And and truly getting
19:39
that recognition,
19:41
is so unique and special. And I love
19:42
the way you're celebrating
19:44
with your team too and continuing to elevate
19:46
that, keep their front and center to have
19:48
that type of quality and,
19:50
you know,
19:51
type of care really,
19:53
continue
19:54
to permeate throughout the organization. Now I I
19:56
know you mentioned workforce, so I would like
19:58
to dig into that just a bit. I
19:59
know that's something that hospitals and systems across
20:02
the country are
20:04
thinking differently about now and strategizing differently about
20:06
just because of the, you know, talent pipelines
20:10
the way they are in many places. You
20:12
know, there are shortages of certain skilled,
20:15
positions that you're trying to cover. And then
20:18
two, the the introduction of technology of AI
20:20
and and how that really,
20:23
is influencing the human workforce too is such
20:26
an interesting thing. So I know there's a
20:27
lot of factors coming into here. How are
20:29
you thinking about that from your seat? Where
20:31
do you see, things evolving at Hartford HealthCare
20:34
and just in health care in general?
20:36
Yeah.
20:38
So I'm I'm glad we could segue back
20:40
into that because,
20:43
this is this is some stuff that I'm
20:45
I'm really proud of, and and I can
20:48
say that because I'm not actually the person
20:50
directly responsible for making some of it happen,
20:52
so I can celebrate others as part of
20:54
the process.
20:56
A number of years ago,
20:58
dating back to prior to the pandemic and
21:01
then the great resignation,
21:03
we started up,
21:05
Hartford HealthCare CampusCare.
21:08
And this actually the genesis of this was
21:10
more about
21:11
our very extensive rehab network,
21:14
our physical therapists, our our our,
21:18
trainers,
21:19
our athletic trainers, etcetera.
21:21
And we were starting to be asked by
21:23
colleges in the state and even prep schools
21:26
if we could help out with their student
21:28
athletes, etcetera.
21:30
So we actually devised an entire enterprise. We
21:33
have a business line now, which is,
21:35
HHC
21:36
campus care.
21:38
And we have partnered we're partnering about seven
21:40
or eight universities,
21:42
colleges in the state. We're now in prep
21:44
schools,
21:45
where we went in and we started out
21:48
with being
21:49
the athletic trainers or rehab after injuries for
21:53
the student athletes.
21:55
But what was very clear
21:56
quickly was that we're in healthcare.
22:00
And some of the universities
22:02
said, you know, we're struggling with our student
22:04
health,
22:05
and maybe you can help us with that.
22:07
Well, one thing led to another, just to
22:09
fast forward in the interest of time, we
22:12
ended up dovetailing this into student health.
22:15
And in in those,
22:17
universities and colleges,
22:19
we now supply the student health on campus
22:22
connected to EPIC, so it's, again, one shot.
22:25
We love that connectivity.
22:27
We have the student athlete part, and probably
22:29
if anybody has kids and they send them
22:31
to college,
22:33
they know that one of the biggest needs
22:35
in college campuses is mental health. Well, we
22:38
happen to have the largest behavioral health network
22:41
in the state,
22:42
and so
22:43
this was easy for us to get into
22:45
it and put psychologists,
22:47
psychiatrists, social workers into
22:50
the the campuses and into the universities
22:52
and take care of the mental health needs
22:55
of the students
22:56
and sometimes even the faculty in these
22:59
places. So one thing leads to another, we're
23:01
already there,
23:02
and now
23:04
we start developing pipelines.
23:06
And initially, it was pipelines around nursing.
23:09
And we have two medical schools that were
23:12
the main teaching hospital support, so we always
23:13
had that pipeline as well.
23:15
But what we've come to realize is, and
23:17
especially with the so called great resignation, is
23:20
we had to enhance this. And we had
23:23
to grow this because we don't produce produce
23:25
enough let's use nurses as an example. We
23:28
don't produce enough nurses
23:29
in the state of Connecticut
23:31
to take care of all the needs here,
23:33
not even close.
23:34
And
23:35
some number of those people leave after they
23:37
get trained. So we have opened up new
23:40
nursing schools with some of our colleges and
23:42
university partners.
23:44
Obviously, we're the training ground.
23:47
We have an amazing innovation
23:49
and simulation
23:50
center in Hartford,
23:52
60,000
23:53
square feet. So we do a ton of
23:54
training there. We opened one up, a satellite
23:57
one, at Eastern Connecticut State University
24:00
in partnership with the state schools,
24:02
and we built a nursing school there. So
24:05
now you see the pipeline
24:06
is starting to increase. We're starting to do
24:09
that with the community colleges,
24:12
and now we're reaching into the high schools.
24:15
In fact, one of them is called the
24:16
REACH program
24:17
and, CT Ready are a couple of these
24:20
programs
24:21
where we're now
24:22
training people to become radiation technologists, which is
24:25
our biggest shortcoming,
24:26
or other areas, echosynographers,
24:29
different areas
24:30
where there are tremendous shortages in health care.
24:34
And by the way, Laura,
24:36
we're now,
24:38
where are there shortages?
24:39
Plumbers,
24:41
carpenters,
24:43
all sorts
24:44
of jobs that people stop going into.
24:48
And now there's such a tremendous shortage that
24:50
we're building out those pipelines as well.
24:53
So at this point,
24:56
we
24:57
I don't wanna jinx ourselves,
24:59
but we've had to manage our travelers.
25:03
We have
25:04
reduced our traveler cost
25:07
and numbers by over 90%
25:09
in the last couple of years. We have
25:10
virtually no
25:12
contract labor in nursing on any campus, and
25:15
this gets to our culture. Once you don't
25:17
have to do that, now we grow our
25:19
own, we build our own, we invest in
25:21
our own, we educate them to grow even
25:24
more,
25:24
and we use tuition reimbursements, loan forgiveness,
25:28
all the things that people are using, but
25:29
we've integrated
25:30
into what we now call our People Promise.
25:33
And with our People Promise, which focuses on
25:37
career,
25:38
culture,
25:39
well-being, and total rewards, those are our four
25:42
parts of that, We take care of our
25:44
48,000
25:45
plus colleagues on an everyday basis.
25:48
And I have to give a shout out
25:49
here.
25:51
She's only been with us for two years
25:52
this week, but Rose Sheehan, who you have
25:55
recognized at Becker's,
25:57
she's our chief people officer.
25:59
She was our first one. She came from
26:01
mass general Brigham,
26:03
where she'd spent a couple of decades, and
26:05
she's been here for two years.
26:08
I just love her. She has been a
26:10
breath of fresh air here, and she has
26:12
led our people promise.
26:15
It has taken us to places I am
26:16
sure we would not have gone on our
26:18
own. So any chance you have to to
26:20
interview her, I think you will find it
26:22
to be a wonderful experience.
26:26
Well, that sounds fantastic. I definitely will, have
26:29
to connect with her and just continue kind
26:31
of building out,
26:32
this this beautiful,
26:34
portrait that that we have with,
26:37
Hartford HealthCare. As you mentioned, you know, interviewed
26:39
your CEO, Jeff Flax, and,
26:41
you know, this kind of interview too has
26:43
just really shed so much more color on
26:45
how things are operating, your mission, and what
26:48
you've been able to do to to reach
26:49
that. Now before we wrap up here, and,
26:51
you know, I I love, the opportunity to
26:54
speak with you,
26:56
I wanted to ask you about growth too,
26:58
as you're looking forward. Where are some of
27:00
the opportunities? And and I know you talked
27:02
about continuing to
27:03
expand and elevate,
27:05
what you're doing at Hartford HealthCare and become
27:08
more,
27:09
patient centric and and improve the patient experience.
27:11
And so what does that look like? How
27:13
are you getting from where you are at
27:14
today to where you wanna be in 2035?
27:18
So I love finishing on this because this
27:21
is maybe of everything I've talked about, this
27:23
might be the most exciting,
27:26
adventure that we're embarking on. So I mentioned
27:29
before that we had,
27:32
completed our last ten year journey
27:34
of being within 10 miles and now within
27:36
everybody's home,
27:38
in the state of Connecticut.
27:40
So, of course, we've launched HHC
27:42
twenty thirty five,
27:44
and that is to be the most consumer
27:46
centric health care system
27:48
in the country.
27:50
And
27:51
that is,
27:52
I I am unbelievably passionate about this.
27:56
I I just love this concept.
27:58
We don't tend to think about
28:00
health care,
28:02
as consumer centric, and and I have personally
28:05
been a physician for
28:08
over forty years now.
28:10
And if somebody
28:11
had talked about
28:13
consumerism in health care when I was starting
28:15
out and when I was been training,
28:17
that was a dirty word. You you you
28:19
could never say that. People would bristle at
28:21
it,
28:23
talk about consumer no. We're we're a higher
28:26
loftier goal than that. Well, guess what? I
28:28
don't think there's any loftier goal
28:30
than to be consumer centric.
28:32
Again, I'll I'll quote Jeff.
28:35
He likes to point out that we are
28:37
all customers and consumers
28:39
all the time.
28:41
We are only patients for a very, hopefully,
28:43
a very short period of time.
28:45
And in every other walk of life,
28:48
everything we do,
28:50
we are
28:51
consumers, and we have an expectation
28:54
of getting
28:55
basically what we want,
28:57
where we want it, when we need it.
29:00
And heck, with Amazon, you you order something,
29:03
it's in your doorstep six hours
29:05
later. You need a ride somewhere,
29:07
you call for Uber now with self driving,
29:10
with Waymo. I mean, these are the type
29:13
of things that people have come to expect.
29:15
In health care,
29:16
I I know patients who are overjoyed if
29:19
they get an appointment a month from now.
29:21
I can't I can't fathom that. And we
29:23
always talk about if you
29:25
get a new diagnosis of cancer,
29:27
every night that you put your head on
29:29
the pillow and you haven't met with your
29:31
new team that's gonna take care of you
29:33
and hopefully save your life, is a night
29:35
when you believe that you're gonna die and
29:37
that you are not,
29:39
gonna be here to be with your family.
29:41
So this,
29:44
enterprise,
29:46
I was gonna say aspirational, but it's not
29:48
aspirational. We're already in this
29:50
in this space,
29:52
and we are going to drive
29:54
consumerism
29:55
so that we meet people where they are,
29:57
when they are. HHC twenty four seven is
30:00
just the first part of that. We have
30:03
a ton of partnerships,
30:05
and we are always looking for more as
30:07
long as it's all in the goal of
30:09
enhancing the experience
30:11
of our patients
30:13
as consumers of health care.
30:15
And I will tell you,
30:18
that that's
30:19
I think I'm not naive to this.
30:22
As a clinician myself,
30:24
I know that we have to change the
30:26
mindset, not just
30:28
to help our patients,
30:29
but I know that the world forever
30:32
revolved in health care, revolved around our providers.
30:35
Our clinic oh, by the way, I'm on
30:36
a crusade to change providers to clinicians.
30:39
That's a separate story. But but as clinicians,
30:43
that
30:44
the world evolved around us.
30:46
And our staff, our colleagues in the offices,
30:49
did everything they could
30:50
to obviously
30:52
help the clinicians to take care of the
30:54
patients, but it was always about the clinicians.
30:56
Well, now we have to have that sea
30:58
change to make it about
31:00
the patient as the consumer of health care.
31:03
And I know that we will succeed,
31:06
in that. I'll lead by saying we're about
31:08
to launch our own patient GBT,
31:12
which is,
31:14
again, the next part of this component
31:17
so that patients will have that information
31:20
at their fingertips,
31:21
but it will be,
31:23
it'll be,
31:24
not just random
31:28
GPT that's out there. This will be,
31:31
proprietary.
31:32
It'll be so that your data, your information
31:35
doesn't get out into the,
31:38
into the world.
31:40
And this is just one more exciting thing
31:42
that we're doing to think about the patient
31:45
at the center of care. So as you
31:47
said, so I'll reinforce it.
31:50
I love that. Doctor Cohen, thank you so
31:52
much for joining us on the podcast today.
31:54
This has been a fantastic discussion.
31:56
I, learned so much from you and especially
31:58
excited to think about where Hartford HealthCare is
32:01
going as well as where health care is
32:03
going in the, you know, in general. So
32:05
thank you again for your time. Excited to
32:07
see you in a few weeks at the
32:08
annual meeting, and,
32:10
look forward to continuing this discussion there as
32:12
well as, you know, many other things that
32:13
we talked about today.
32:15
Well, and Laura, I really appreciate you and
32:18
your entire team
32:20
and with Scott's leadership,
32:22
at Becker's. It's really, as I said at
32:24
the beginning,
32:24
it's become the aggregate
32:27
the, convener
32:29
of health care leadership,
32:31
and innovation throughout the country. And so I
32:34
too am very much looking forward to,
32:36
to being with you in a couple of
32:38
weeks from now.