Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Kevin M. Spiegel, President & CEO of HSA Florida Medical Center

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Kevin M. Spiegel, President & CEO of HSA Florida Medical Center · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Hospital Review
0:34
podcast.
0:35
My name is Will Riley from r one.
0:38
With me today is Kevin Spiegel. Kevin is
0:41
CEO,
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at HSA Florida Medical Center.
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Kevin, welcome to the podcast. Will, thank you
0:48
very much. Really happy to be here and
0:50
back at Becker's.
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Good stuff. Kevin,
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to start us off, tell us a little
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bit about your role,
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h HSA Florida Medical Center, and some of
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the key priorities that you and your team
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are focused on. Yeah. I mean, first of
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all,
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I love a challenge.
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And I'm at
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Florida Medical Center now,
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little over seven months.
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The hospital was acquired,
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by HSA through bankruptcy.
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So the environment
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and the community
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had been challenged.
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One of the things I'm most proud of,
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things that I've done is really turning around
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hospitals and serving the community in the most
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optimal way,
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which I'm very proud of.
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This hospital historically is a four fifty bed
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hospital,
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acute care tertiary services,
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specializing
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in cardiac
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and
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stroke,
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as well as all surgical and medical services.
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The economic
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area
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in in in Lauderdale Lakes is a little
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challenged.
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A lot of immigrants,
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a lot of,
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underserved
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and
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uninsured and underinsured
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in the community,
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which makes,
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you know, providing high level tertiary services even
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more
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difficult. But we are committed
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to serve that community
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in the most optimal way. And some of
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those things, I'm so proud of.
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So what's on your mind as you go
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into 2026?
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You've obviously got, a bit of a unique
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background as well and context around the hospital
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too that you're trying to deal with. Yeah.
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I mean, you know,
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I've been doing this a while,
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and I've learned one thing that
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every year brings new and dynamic challenges
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to the health care industry.
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And somehow we do get through it, some
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positive, some negative.
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But health care in The United States is
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committed
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to to to provide services to the uninsured
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and the underinsured,
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and and that's one of the things I'm
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most proud of. Got you. Got you. I'd
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like to talk a little bit about technology
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before we get into some of the more
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financial aspects of of of health care today.
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Health care's
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historically moved quite cautiously
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around new technologies.
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Is that the same with artificial intelligence technology
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today,
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or does does it feel different with with
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AI to you? Oh,
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AI is certainly
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brand
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new, at least to the health care industry.
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There are so many advantages
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like ChatGBT
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and other platforms.
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We use a, a scheduling,
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platform I have in the past
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that that has a predictability
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that can populate
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physicians and nurses schedules,
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with an AI component.
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Makes it so much easier. You you know,
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go back in time.
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Doctors and nurses would have to sit at
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the computer for hours and hours and hours
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just scheduling people. And then when they release
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the schedule, people don't like it. Now you
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built in rules and almost let the employees
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self schedule.
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So there are certain
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wonderful,
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wonderful
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benefits
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of AI, especially in healthcare. Because,
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you know, with all the challenges, we have
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to be as efficient
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as possible.
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In in in health care innovation, you often
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hear about a couple of different archetypes
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archetypes,
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incumbents
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who are large
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established health systems payers or legacy vendors who
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sort of control the data and infrastructure
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and and have scale.
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And you hear about insurgents,
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newer entrants, technology companies, start ups, people seeking
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to disrupt
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established models.
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How do you see
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the future playing out around this new AI
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paradigm between those two participants? I I have
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to tell you, I'm excited
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about
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a lot of these new startups that come
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to the market because if they can actually
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disrupt
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some of the older things because
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truthfully, you you know, how medicine is practiced
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in The United States, a senior senior physician
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teaches younger, but then the younger guys have
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been taught by someone who's been doing this
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for a long time and some of are
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those the most current
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technologies
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going forward?
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They are they conservative?
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Absolutely.
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Are they proven?
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Absolutely.
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But it's not cutting edge.
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And I think that we're entering into a
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new
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dynamic
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in the health care industry that really embraces
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the,
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the new technologies and the new ways of
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doing things. And if you if we use
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the word disruptive, yeah, I think it's it's
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disruptive but in a positive way. Okay. I'm
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excited.
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And where for you, where's the big opportunity
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to do that in your organization? I think
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it's all over the place. Yeah.
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I think it's
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you know, obviously in in in oncology and
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cancer treatments, you know, we we focus a
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lot
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at Florida Medical Center on the cardiology
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innovations.
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And I can give you one quick example.
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You know, we were using
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multiple catheters
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to do,
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cardiac ablations.
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Today,
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new catheters, you can use one catheter
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for
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a multitude of things, and it's
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that therefore, it's
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more cost effective,
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less time
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under the fluoroscopy
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for the patient, and better outcomes.
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And
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I'm more excited today than ever that a
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lot of these new innovations, a lot of
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what we will see here at Becker's
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this week,
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will only bring new innovative
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technologies.
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Last year,
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I had the pleasure of seeing so many
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new companies
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from
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outside of The United States coming to The
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US and coming with new innovative
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ideas that are just
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unbelievable.
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So, you know, I'm excited to go to
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the floor to see some of the lectures
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here
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health care.
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As you,
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think about adopting and using some of these
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new technologies, whether it's on the clinical or
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the administrative side of your business,
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how how are you thinking about governance? And
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how are you thinking about governance in the
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c suite, particularly around new technologies like AI
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that are a bit different perhaps from what
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what you implemented before?
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I mean, governance,
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we are blessed
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that we have such a,
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a history. Although we did go through bankruptcy,
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we still have a medical executive
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committee, board of directors, community advisory board
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that is really rooted in the community
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in a positive way.
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That, I believe, has given the hospital strength.
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And, you know, they talk about,
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have you flown on an airplane that went
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through bankruptcy?
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Of course, because most of them in that
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time period went through. And, you know,
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a lot of hospitals have closed. You know,
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one of the things I'm most proud of
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HSA
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is they go into communities and save these
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hospitals
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from closure
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and take them to the next and invest
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money into the local communities they serve.
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So I'm
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very
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excited
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regarding that governance,
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that oversight,
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and the collaboration
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between,
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the corporate,
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the medical staff,
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and,
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the community advisory boards.
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Let's talk a little bit about the,
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financial,
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environment.
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Obviously, we've got quite a dynamic,
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legislative
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environment and
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and potentially an unpredictable one.
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I'm curious about how that is impacting you
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and payer payer provider dynamics as well and
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how those are playing out for you. Yeah.
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I'm glad you asked that question because,
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you know, one of the things of of
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getting through and being a new player in
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the community, we participate in everything.
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Some of our neighboring hospitals
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are not.
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And I think that's an opportunity for us
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so those patients can come to us and
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be in that
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work.
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Florida is challenged. A lot of doctors
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are trying to opt out of Medicaid
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and Medicare because they're they're just poor payers.
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So we somehow are, you know, we're like
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Switzerland. We play with everybody,
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and we don't, you know, go out in
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network just to prove a point or to
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try to increase. We're a low cost,
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low provider of care financially
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for the patients and the payers.
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And who benefits is actually the community. And
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so I'm I'm very excited about that.
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And is perhaps the environment that you're in
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allowing you to
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create a new
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dynamic with some of the payers around you?
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I I do. I I think that we're
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starting to get,
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acknowledgment from a lot of the payers in
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the community about that we are one of
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the most cost effective alternatives
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other than very large,
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very high rates,
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of some of the
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large,
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extremely large academic medical centers
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in in in the Florida region.
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How are you seeing,
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technology play a role in the on the
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administrative side of of your operation? So we
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talked a little bit about
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payer relationships.
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Obviously, there's more and more automation coming in
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in terms of how things like claims are
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processed and,
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and and that that that whole process. So
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how is that playing out for you? I
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think we are gonna have to partner yourself
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with real proven people that this is their
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core competency.
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Hospitals, their core competency is taking care of
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patients. Mhmm.
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So, you you know, you we're gonna have
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to partner
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with with firms out there that that is
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their core competency,
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that they can bring efficiencies
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and technologies to the table
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a lot better than if we did it
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ourselves.
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Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
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Tell tell us a little bit about the
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patient experience.
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What what what what are you what are
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you focused on from a patient experience perspective
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at the moment? I I have to tell
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you that, you you know, we're a,
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a joint commission accredited
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stroke program.
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And one of the things I really like
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is that, you know, when 911
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brings the patient there, they're paralyzed half their
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body,
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and recognize they call a code stroke, take
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the patient, bring the patient to the lab,
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and and actually
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remove that clot.
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And you can actually see
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the patient's brain reperfuse,
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and they get their mobility
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back almost immediately. It's remarkable.
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And to sit and talk to those patients
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right after and and how happy they are
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that this stroke was stopped. Sometimes it it's
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too emotional for them, but others,
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they see that they and then they end
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up going home
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then versus the old days when they had
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to then go to a nursing home and
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have someone else take care of them, and
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they're actually going home on their own two
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feet.
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So there has been some remarkable
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things. You know, then we also find out
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from the patient what caused that blood clot
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to go to their brain. Was there some
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issue with their heart, appendage,
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issue, or atrial fib, or,
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or a PFO,
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in the heart, and that we can actually
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solve these issues for these patients?
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And and and technology
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has,
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you
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know, really leapfrogged
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other things, and but medicine has clearly
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benefited
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by
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AI and new technologies.
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And and and again, you're gonna see here
14:06
at Becker's
14:07
this week a lot of different companies
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that are coming to The United States to
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share, but that has
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positively
14:17
disrupted
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the environment. Yeah. So it all comes back
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to providing
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great clinical care for the folks in your
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community.
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Cost effective care
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that is
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absolutely,
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much better than the way it was. We
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have to improve. You know, we have to
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become more efficient.
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And, you know, I'm I'm more excited in
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my whole career today than I have been
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in many years.
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Fantastic. Kevin, thanks so much for talking to
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us today. Really appreciate it. Appreciate you very
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much. You have a great, great conference. Thank
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you. You too. Thank you. Bye.