Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Leading Through Change: AI, Capacity Strategy, and the Future of Care with Victor Navarro, MD

Transcript

Leading Through Change: AI, Capacity Strategy, and the Future of Care with Victor Navarro, MD · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Chanel Banger. Today, I have
• 0:04
  the pleasure of speaking with doctor Victor Navarro,
• 0:07
  the chief clinical officer of the central region
• 0:09
  of Jefferson Health System, who joins the podcast
• 0:12
  today to share insights into his background, trends
• 0:15
  he's keeping an eye on, and a bit
• 0:16
  more. Doctor Navarro, thank you so much for
• 0:18
  joining me today. Oh, my pleasure, Chanel. Thanks
• 0:20
  for having me.
• 0:21
  Of course. Well, to get us started, could
• 0:23
  you please introduce yourself and tell us a
• 0:25
  bit about your background and Jefferson Health System?
• 0:28
  Sure. Sure will. I'd love to. Thanks very
• 0:30
  much. Yeah. My name is Vic Navarro.
• 0:33
  As I as you said, I'm a chief
• 0:34
  clinical officer for
• 0:36
  one of the four regions within Jefferson Health,
• 0:38
  the Central Region, which is essentially the Metropolitan
• 0:41
  Philadelphia area covering seven health care,
• 0:44
  hospital facilities for of of our 33.
• 0:48
  I'm a transplant physician by training. I still
• 0:52
  practice,
• 0:53
  but I have become the chief clinical officer
• 0:56
  in the Central Region, and I took this
• 0:57
  role in 2023.
• 1:00
  My my main responsibilities
• 1:01
  are to oversee the quality,
• 1:03
  safety, regulatory
• 1:05
  programs,
• 1:06
  for the Central Region. I also oversee the
• 1:09
  medical staff office, and I also help our
• 1:11
  critical service lines
• 1:13
  to grow from a strategic and even operational
• 1:16
  perspective,
• 1:17
  as part of a big team.
• 1:19
  That includes our transplant programs, heart and vascular,
• 1:22
  musculoskeletal
• 1:23
  cancer,
• 1:24
  women's programs.
• 1:26
  So that's my role.
• 1:28
  Perfect. Thank you so much for the introduction.
• 1:30
  And now moving into the meat of the
• 1:31
  podcast a bit, I'm curious to know
• 1:34
  what are the trends that you're currently watching
• 1:36
  either in transplant
• 1:37
  space, executive leadership, or just health care overall?
• 1:41
  Yeah.
• 1:42
  Sure. Well, I'll tell you,
• 1:43
  in talking with my colleagues, reading the literature,
• 1:46
  keeping one's ear to the ground,
• 1:48
  I think the most important thing we've got
• 1:50
  to keep an eye on is artificial intelligence
• 1:52
  and technology.
• 1:54
  You know, this is a tool that it
• 1:56
  seems to be most sort of carefully regulated
• 1:58
  and scrutinized at the organizational level. And Jefferson
• 2:01
  with this very large system of 33 hospitals
• 2:04
  has a robust process for this. But, you
• 2:07
  know, there's risk involved in artificial intelligence and
• 2:09
  technology, but it's so useful in so many
• 2:12
  ways.
• 2:12
  It can help with administrative
• 2:14
  tasks, predictive analytics, as you know,
• 2:17
  very much in diagnostic
• 2:18
  support.
• 2:19
  And and I think as we move further
• 2:22
  and further, AI is gonna become incredibly important.
• 2:25
  Actually, it already is important,
• 2:27
  for alleviating the doctors and other providers of
• 2:30
  of administrative
• 2:32
  tasks.
• 2:33
  Everything from scribing
• 2:35
  to, you know, other things that our that
• 2:38
  our front office does.
• 2:40
  Jefferson is very deep into and a and
• 2:42
  a leader of the pack on,
• 2:44
  ambient listening for among our providers in the
• 2:47
  office,
• 2:48
  now in the hospital, and now it's being
• 2:49
  adopted by our nurses.
• 2:51
  But I'd also like to see,
• 2:53
  our own health system and,
• 2:55
  in general,
• 2:56
  more patient facing artificial intelligence
• 2:59
  technology such as conversational agents
• 3:02
  becoming tested and deployed.
• 3:04
  Things that might help patients
• 3:06
  prepare for procedures.
• 3:07
  And that really allows us on the
• 3:10
  the clinical end to become more efficient because
• 3:12
  we can deploy these processes that will interact
• 3:15
  with patients, help them prep, let's say, for,
• 3:18
  you know, a a colonoscopy
• 3:20
  or another surgical procedure.
• 3:22
  And we don't have to take the time
• 3:24
  of our of our, operating room staff to
• 3:26
  do that. So I think that's one of
• 3:28
  the big things. The other thing which I
• 3:30
  think we've got to keep a close eye
• 3:31
  on is virtual and care and home care.
• 3:34
  You know, hospitals at home are very important,
• 3:37
  and all health systems
• 3:38
  are investing heavily in virtual and remote monitoring.
• 3:42
  Certainly at Jefferson where we have a large
• 3:45
  health plan,
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  This is very important for our members so
• 3:48
  that we can, after discharge, give them an
• 3:51
  opportunity for virtual care to have follow-up soon
• 3:54
  after their discharge.
• 3:55
  But virtual care is critically important to maintain
• 3:58
  access.
• 3:59
  I think we've got to keep a close
• 4:01
  eye on precision medicine,
• 4:03
  whether that's in the area of genomics
• 4:06
  or biomarkers.
• 4:08
  And it has such a potential great impact
• 4:10
  in oncology
• 4:11
  and other areas such as brain disease, brain
• 4:14
  health, Alzheimer's disease.
• 4:16
  And then I think, you know, workforce in
• 4:18
  general,
• 4:19
  labor shortages are something that we're living with
• 4:22
  every day, and employee costs nonetheless continue to
• 4:25
  rise. And this puts a lot of pressure
• 4:27
  on healthcare organizations.
• 4:29
  And so we've got to be increasingly
• 4:31
  efficient on how we manage our, our workforce.
• 4:35
  Obviously, we're asking our our providers to become
• 4:38
  increasingly more productive.
• 4:40
  So we've got to be really creative and
• 4:42
  be mindful of shifts in workforce.
• 4:46
  Absolutely.
• 4:47
  A lot of innovative things happening in health
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  care right now. Thank you for walking us
• 4:51
  through that. And now looking forward into the
• 4:54
  rest of 2026,
• 4:56
  what are you most focused on and excited
• 4:58
  about? And then I kinda want you to
• 4:59
  look back at the past six to eighteen
• 5:02
  months. So can you talk about an initiative,
• 5:04
  a project, or something that you or Jefferson
• 5:07
  Health has accomplished that you're proud of? Sure.
• 5:09
  Sure. You know, Jefferson has become,
• 5:13
  you know, as you know, Chanel, a very
• 5:14
  large health system, and we have a few
• 5:17
  strategic health,
• 5:19
  medical centers that are are
• 5:22
  tertiary or more quaternary care. You know, centers
• 5:25
  that will provide transplant care, for example, or
• 5:29
  take care of the most complex vascular procedures.
• 5:33
  Certainly in the central region where I'm located,
• 5:36
  our tertiary
• 5:37
  slash quaternary facility, which is Thomas Jefferson University
• 5:41
  Hospital,
• 5:42
  is bound by city streets and, you know,
• 5:44
  height restrictions. And it's an older facility,
• 5:47
  yet still very, very productive and very packed.
• 5:50
  And so one of the most important things
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  that we've done over the past six to
• 5:55
  twelve months
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  is to look at our assets, our bed
• 5:58
  capacity within Thomas Jefferson University Hospital as well
• 6:02
  as other hospitals within our central region. And
• 6:04
  start to guide our patients
• 6:07
  from our emergency department, for example, to one
• 6:10
  of our other hospitals for care that might
• 6:12
  not be required
• 6:13
  to be rendered in our university hospital. You
• 6:16
  know, for example,
• 6:18
  a patient who has an aortic dissection needs
• 6:20
  to be within the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
• 6:24
  walls. However, many other patients who might have
• 6:26
  heart disease,
• 6:28
  other infectious diseases,
• 6:30
  vascular problems
• 6:32
  could very easily and be taken care of
• 6:34
  very well at another hospital, for example, Methodist.
• 6:37
  And so we've we've developed,
• 6:39
  we've developed great processes
• 6:42
  to,
• 6:43
  redistribute so to speak in a compassionate way
• 6:46
  where patients understand what's going on and are
• 6:48
  in agreement to some of our other facilities.
• 6:50
  And I think this is gonna be key
• 6:52
  for the future, particularly for
• 6:54
  health systems that like ours where you've got
• 6:57
  very, very many hospitals, you're just, you know,
• 6:59
  distributed in in large areas, but you've got
• 7:02
  to figure out ways to provide high acuity
• 7:05
  services.
• 7:06
  And you can't do that in every space.
• 7:08
  You've got to figure out,
• 7:10
  where these high acuity specialties can operate in
• 7:13
  the most efficient
• 7:15
  and highest quality way. And that may just
• 7:17
  be one or a few hospitals within these
• 7:19
  large health systems. So it's really incumbent upon
• 7:22
  us managers to figure out ways to keep
• 7:25
  those patients,
• 7:26
  coming to these high acuity hospitals,
• 7:29
  to keep the capacity there for them
• 7:31
  yet to not prevent or create barriers for
• 7:34
  patients who may have lower acuity disease but
• 7:37
  still need hospitalizations
• 7:39
  while they can be taken care of at
• 7:40
  some of our other hospitals. So managing capacity
• 7:43
  is something that I think we've done well.
• 7:45
  And at Jefferson, there's certainly more to do
• 7:47
  because we are undergoing tremendous renovations
• 7:50
  of our emergency room and and building new
• 7:53
  units and and our floors to create capacity.
• 7:56
  But until that's all said and done, we
• 7:58
  do have to you know, we we are
• 8:00
  always on top of keeping patient capacity at
• 8:03
  its absolutely optimum.
• 8:05
  Absolutely. That's amazing to hear. And
• 8:08
  I'm curious to hear from your perspective as
• 8:10
  the practicing clinician and somebody that's worn different
• 8:13
  hats throughout the Jefferson Health System. What advice
• 8:16
  would you give to evolving leaders looking to
• 8:18
  have that same impact and drive in the
• 8:19
  careers as you have?
• 8:21
  Oh, well, thank you. That's a very nice
• 8:22
  question.
• 8:24
  I have been with Jefferson for a long
• 8:26
  time.
• 8:27
  It's actually connected in some ways since 2001,
• 8:30
  and I've seen the landscape of health care
• 8:33
  change both locally, nationally, and I think Jefferson
• 8:35
  is responding really well to it.
• 8:38
  My advice is that any health care leader
• 8:40
  has to be committed to being flexible.
• 8:43
  Things change on a dime within, you know,
• 8:45
  week by week, month by month.
• 8:47
  New regulations appear, you know, new processes may
• 8:51
  appear that improve efficiency. So one must really
• 8:54
  be flexible and open to change.
• 8:56
  And realizing that sometimes you don't know what
• 8:58
  you don't know, and you've got to be
• 9:00
  open to what other people have to say
• 9:02
  and what other health systems might be doing,
• 9:04
  particularly systems that are operating in a similar
• 9:07
  demographic in our situation in urban environments.
• 9:10
  So flexibility is important as is resilience because,
• 9:13
  you know, change can be tough. But, you
• 9:15
  know, change is important. It helps us grow,
• 9:19
  and it also makes us stronger. So I
• 9:21
  think one has to
• 9:23
  commit to be resilient
• 9:25
  and to be communicative and resourceful with one's
• 9:27
  team because there is a lot of talent.
• 9:29
  Sometimes that talent is hidden and we have
• 9:32
  to coax it out of people, but really
• 9:33
  a lot of good ideas,
• 9:36
  and focus can come out of our our
• 9:38
  various team members.
• 9:40
  I think that's the most important advice I
• 9:42
  can give, to be flexible, to be resilient,
• 9:44
  and to look within for strength. There are
• 9:46
  a lot of pressures out there. You know,
• 9:48
  we mustn't worry about what other health systems
• 9:51
  are doing, at least not too much. We
• 9:53
  have to really worry to be sure that
• 9:55
  we're continuing to provide high quality, you know,
• 9:58
  mission driven care.
• 10:00
  Yes. We must focus on volumes and we
• 10:02
  do that through making the best use of
• 10:04
  capacity.
• 10:05
  But I think living the mission of your
• 10:07
  organization is another important piece of advice I'd
• 10:10
  give.
• 10:11
  Excellent advice. Well, doctor Navarro, I wanna thank
• 10:13
  you for your time today. But before I
• 10:14
  let you go, is there anything else that
• 10:16
  listener, Chanel?
• 10:17
  Well, no. I appreciate that, Chanel. You know,
• 10:19
  I think,
• 10:21
  Jefferson, as as I've said a few times,
• 10:23
  is a very large health system with hospitals
• 10:26
  in many different venues, and I think this
• 10:28
  adds to the depth and dimension of what
• 10:31
  we can offer from the from the extent
• 10:33
  of the Lehigh Valley where the Lehigh Valley
• 10:36
  Health Network has become part of Jefferson to
• 10:38
  now New Jersey as well as metropolitan
• 10:41
  Philadelphia.
• 10:43
  The high acuity advanced specialty services that we
• 10:46
  offer and system line efficiencies, I think, will
• 10:49
  be a model for
• 10:50
  similar
• 10:51
  diverse health systems such as Jefferson.
• 10:54
  Got it. Got it. Well, that's a great
• 10:56
  note. And on, Doctor. Navarro, I wanna thank
• 10:58
  you once again for your time today and
• 10:59
  for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare
• 11:01
  podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye
• 11:03
  now.