Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Building a Stronger Community Health System Through People, Prioritization, and Workforce Development

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Building a Stronger Community Health System Through People, Prioritization, and Workforce Development · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  At Insight Global Health, we are dedicated to
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  helping you and improving health care for everyone.
• 0:05
  That means building stronger teams and delivering sustainable
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  solutions that truly make a difference.
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  We offer a full spectrum of talent and
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  technical services and deliver cross industry expertise
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  to bring you innovative best practices to solve
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  the problems that we face in health care.
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  We're not just promising you results, we are
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  delivering them. Visit us at insightglobal.com.
• 0:26
  This is Haley Rutger with the Becker's Healthcare
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  podcast. And today, we are recording live at
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  the Becker's twenty twenty six annual meeting. Right
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  now, I am joined by Robert Chestnut, senior
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  vice president and chief financial officer of LMH
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  Health. Robert, thank you so much for joining
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  me today. Great to be here, Hailey.
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  Now to start, could you please briefly introduce
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  yourself, your role, and the scope of your
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  organization, and what's currently commanding most of your
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  attention as a leader?
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  Great. So LMH Health is a sole community
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  hospital, Lawrence, Kansas. We sit right outside the
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  greater Kansas City area. We have about a
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  160
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  providers that we either employ or have PSAs
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  with. So pretty much the entire market. 174
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  bed hospital.
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  We provide, you know, the full suite of
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  services, specialty,
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  you know, cardiology,
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  oncology,
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  urology, the whole whole, gamut.
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  And,
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  it's, been around for a 100. We have
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  a mission of taking care of everybody in
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  our community, and we try the best we
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  can to do it.
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  Well, thank you for that introduction.
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  Now I'm gonna pivot the conversation a little
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  bit. So in a year marked by rapid
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  change, what recent decision or pivot required the
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  most leadership conviction from you, particularly when it
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  came to aligning people, resources, or capabilities?
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  Hailey, for us, it's been our clinic enterprise.
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  As you know, we we've really grown,
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  in primary care and all of our specialty
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  practices
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  primarily by acquisition.
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  And so a a lot of these groups
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  were private practices maybe ten or fifteen years
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  ago. So we've undertaken a project to transform
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  the clinic enterprise, and that is that that
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  takes a lot of effort, a lot of
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  participation
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  from all of our
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  employees, physicians,
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  other clinicians,
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  as well as, you know, administration
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  to re relook at everything, how we do
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  registration, how we do admissions, how we we
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  do referrals,
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  everything, because we kinda came to the recognition
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  that we have built sort an an inefficient
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  model that needed to be changed.
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  Now how did that moment challenge your assumptions,
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  and what did it change about how you
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  approach decision making talent or organizational
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  readiness today?
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  I think probably the most important thing for
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  us was to make sure that we had
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  the right people at the table.
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  It takes
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  a whole lot of patience and time
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  and effort to bring everybody together that really
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  needs to have input in making those kind
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  of changes.
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  And that and that takes patience, quite honestly,
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  more than anything else because you have to
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  just realize that you don't get it right
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  the first time. A lot of times, you
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  start meetings and realize there's somebody that needs
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  to be in the room that's not there.
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  So we've really tried to be mindful of
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  that because I think the changes that we
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  are going to make are ones that
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  hopefully will sustain themselves over time instead of
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  just being
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  sort of short term solutions that end up
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  not being well thought through.
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  Now when you think about the forces reshaping
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  health care right now, where do you believe
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  leaders need to be more decisive, especially when
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  balancing speed, risk, and having the right teams
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  in place?
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  When when I think about being decisive,
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  one of the things that's important to me,
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  I think, in leadership is to prioritize.
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  You know, there are more problems than there
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  are time to solve them. And so a
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  lot of times, it can get a little
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  overwhelming as you go through and you're and
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  you're figuring out that there's just all these
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  things that are changing and and you've gotta
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  solve. But prioritization is really important in management.
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  It gets a little overwhelming for the staff
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  sometimes to see all the changes that are
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  around the org you know, around the world
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  and health care.
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  And I think that's that's one place where
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  you can slow down,
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  try to take, take your time, be thoughtful,
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  and attack things in a, you know, measured
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  fashion.
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  As uncertainty has become the norm, what leadership
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  habit or mindset has been the most critical
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  in keeping your organization and your people moving
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  forward?
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  I think the mindset
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  is really focusing on people. You know, we
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  have about 2,000 employees at LMH Health, and
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  they're all different types, shapes, and sizes, and
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  different levels in the organization.
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  I think it's really important to focus on
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  people first because,
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  you know, they're taking care of patients. They
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  they've gotta you've gotta figure out what motivates
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  them, how to put things together in a
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  way that, they're gonna take the ball and
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  run with it.
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  So I I think that my mindset has
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  been focusing on on people and situations and
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  making sure that I've got the right people
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  at the right place to be successful.
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  Absolutely.
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  Now final question for you. Looking five years
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  ahead, how do you expect global labor dynamics
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  to shape the health care workforce, and what
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  strategic shifts are you making now to stay
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  ahead of that change?
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  Well, I think there'll be less.
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  I don't think there's any doubt about that.
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  Mhmm.
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  The workforce is is shrinking.
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  It's becoming more difficult to find all the
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  positions that you need. I think for us,
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  what we're adopting and we can do this
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  probably a little bit more than maybe in
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  larger metro areas is sort of is sort
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  of the philosophy of growing your own. You
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  know, we're a community of about,
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  our county is about a 125,000.
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  We're the only hospital,
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  in that in that region. So for us,
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  what we're really doing is focusing on internships.
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  We're focusing on,
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  you know, different things where we can get
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  young people interested in health care. Even in
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  high school, we work through our our,
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  local,
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  tech school to talk about how we train
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  phlebotomists, how we train medical assistants, and and,
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  you know, just all the different
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  skill sets that it takes to have a
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  good health care system. So I think for
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  us, it's recognizing that we can't take that
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  workforce for granted
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  because,
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  we have to get them interested early,
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  show them how they can develop their career,
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  and and really be with them,
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  each step of the way.
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  Absolutely.
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  Well, that's it for today's conversation. It was
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  a pleasure speaking with you today, Robert. Right.
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  Thank you. Thank you.