Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Access, AI, and Physician Leadership in Community Health Systems with Dr. Larry Ward

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Access, AI, and Physician Leadership in Community Health Systems with Dr. Larry Ward · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:03
  podcast.
• 0:04
  I am thrilled to be joined by a
• 0:05
  brilliant physician leader.
• 0:07
  We're joined today by doctor Larry Ward.
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  Doctor Ward is the chief medical officer at
• 0:12
  the Holy Cross Medical Group. He's also done
• 0:15
  a master's in public health,
• 0:17
  and and other degrees.
• 0:19
  Doctor Ward, can you take a moment and
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  introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
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  about Holy Cross and about your your career?
• 0:26
  Thank you, Scott. I appreciate the invitation and
• 0:29
  the opportunity to talk with you.
• 0:31
  Yeah. I'd love to talk to you about
• 0:33
  Holy Cross. So, Holy Cross Health is a,
• 0:37
  part of Trinity Health,
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  located in Michigan.
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  It is,
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  low we are located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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  It's a single hospital,
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  soon to be a three ED system. The
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  hospital is about 557
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  beds.
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  It's, we just celebrated our seventieth anniversary,
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  of working in the Fort Lauderdale area. It's
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  a it's a faith and mission based Catholic
• 1:01
  health system, obviously, part of Trinity, as I
• 1:03
  said. There are about 600 physicians on medical
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  staff.
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  We have about, 70 primary care physicians, about
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  300 total clinicians in our medical group.
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  And I'm happy to say I'm the first
• 1:15
  CMO,
• 1:16
  in the medical group in the last ten
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  years. The,
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  position was empty, and they decided that they
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  wanted a a,
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  dyad clinician leader with the president of the
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  medical group. And so, I was recruited down
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  here and was very happy to join here
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  just a couple months ago.
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  Fantastic. And and talk a little bit about
• 1:34
  what made you excited to join? What brought
• 1:37
  you there?
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  What was the motivation? What excites you about
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  this?
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  Yeah. No. It's a great question. So,
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  and it's not just being in Florida, although
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  that that is a part of it. But
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  for me, it was it was really,
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  a
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  health system on the rise.
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  Holy Cross is one of the the top
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  performing
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  ministries,
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  within, Trinity Health,
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  and a lot of there's some strong leadership
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  carrier and a a terrific foundation
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  of physicians
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  with a great,
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  niche within the Fort Lauderdale community.
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  Very well respected,
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  long history, many firsts
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  done at Holy Cross, but but even now
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  are is really poised for some great growth
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  going forward.
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  Their Trinity is investing a lot, within,
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  the Holy Cross,
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  system.
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  So I was very excited. I felt that
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  there was something that could really be grown
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  here, could really be made into something
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  that is doing great now, but has a
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  lot of opportunity for even greater growth, and
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  opportunity going forward. So that that was very
• 2:44
  attractive to me. I love the people that
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  I met here, love the physicians that I
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  met here, and was happy to join this
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  community.
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  Fantastic. And and and talk a little bit
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  about sort of the Trinity Health system, great,
• 2:57
  compassionate,
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  empathy based system. A little bit about Trinity
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  Health.
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  You also spent a a great year of
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  career at Jefferson University, another fantastic system.
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  Talk a little bit about Trinity Health and
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  and and and and their mission. I mean,
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  it's an incredibly well run organization.
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  Mike Slobowski is a fantastic leader.
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  And and talk a little bit about
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  Trinity Health and their and their sort of
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  faith based mission.
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  Yeah.
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  The the mission based
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  aspect of Trinity Health was a was a
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  large attraction for me.
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  The
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  it's obviously, it's a it's a Catholic organization,
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  but it's it's the key is that we're
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  really we take care of everybody
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  no matter who it is,
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  that it's really driven by that patient focus.
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  And every organization
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  talks about a patient focus.
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  Not as many really
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  keep that promise to our patients. And
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  I think that and I've seen this so
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  far in my time that we're here. Patients
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  really are at the leading edge of what
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  we do. And every meeting
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  here at Holy Cross and at Trinity has
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  started with a reflection.
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  Not necessarily
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  a religious aspect, although sometimes they are, but
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  it's more so it's just a reminder at
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  the beginning of every meeting of why we're
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  doing this. And there's always some aspect of
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  that patient focus that's brought in as we
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  begin that. And it really does go through
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  everything that this organization does that I've seen
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  so far. You know, it's it's different than
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  the last four years I spent at a,
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  mid sized health system in Delaware. And like
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  you said, prior to that, I was, at
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  academic centers. The last one was about the
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  last ten years at Jefferson.
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  So I have a lot of perspective I
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  feel about the various organizations,
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  you know, the non religious based, the religious
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  based, kind of community
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  systems, the the large academic centers,
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  and they're all different. They all have positives
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  and negatives.
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  Jefferson, you know, is a growing, you know,
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  now a huge system
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  with many positives to it. But it's it's
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  just a different environment.
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  I wanted to get and why I joined
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  my prior position and why I'm now here
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  at at Holy Cross. I wanted to really
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  get where in the more community based,
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  area of health care, really working within the
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  community. We all have
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  educational aspects and GME programs, but it's really
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  the physicians,
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  the other clinicians,
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  the APPs, and our patients that are at
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  the center of what we do.
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  And for me, that was where I wanted
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  to go on my career, and I've loved
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  every minute of it.
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  And and talk about we're out the country.
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  We're seeing different shortages of physicians
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  against a growing aging population.
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  What are you seeing in Florida? It it
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  seems like a lot of physicians want to
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  move here, but is it still tremendous shortages?
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  I know it's a state where you it's
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  very hard to get a primary care physician
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  in many places about concierge care. What does
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  shortages look like in Florida compared to what
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  you've seen up north?
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  Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, so
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  when I was in Philadelphia, and I spent
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  about thirty years in Philadelphia,
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  there, you could recruit people. You could recruit
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  physicians.
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  You have to make sure because there was
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  such fierce competition between
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  large systems.
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  Philadelphia has several large systems as people know.
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  And they they they fight for patients
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  aggressively with each other with most of them
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  having very thin margins. So before you hired
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  a new physician,
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  you had to make sure you had enough
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  patients to be able to do it,
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  to be able to make them viable financially,
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  and that their program could thrive.
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  When I went to,
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  Bay Health in Delaware, it was very different.
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  It was more of a,
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  rural type health care. And for there, we
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  had many, many patients and huge deficits in
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  the number of physicians,
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  the number of the the access that we
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  had. But we just could not hire enough
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  physicians, And we relied on
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  a lot of visa based,
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  physicians and hired a lot of APPs.
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  Here in Florida, it's interesting because it's it's
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  sort of a mixture of the two. Here,
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  we can recruit people,
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  and and get physicians down to Florida,
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  but yet we also have a huge deficit
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  in the number of physicians. So we could
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  continue to hire and hire. And right now,
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  we our deficit on Manunga pro primary care
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  physicians is enormous.
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  Just anecdotally, I talk to people and they
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  say I can't find a primary care doctor
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  down here. There's no single large system down
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  here or single large insurers. So there's a
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  lot of different health systems here. There's a
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  lot of different insurers. Some systems take different
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  insurances, so on and so forth.
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  But nobody dominates the market down here, which
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  is interesting to me. It's different than what
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  I'm used to. But still we have access
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  issues.
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  So I'm still learning the market here, but
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  it seems that there's a tremendous opportunity to
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  hire people if you can get enough space
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  to put them because there's a definite need
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  among the population.
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  Facing to hear that. It's interesting, isn't it?
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  It must be so interesting to see the
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  different markets and and how how that plays
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  out.
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  Completely fascinating. Yeah. I I wasn't sure when
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  I came here. I'd I'd heard that there
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  was difficulties in in access and so on.
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  But, yeah, to to talk about and to
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  talk to people, and we're going through a
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  process right now to really get, like, our
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  new market data. And it's it is it's,
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  you know, there are a few specialties,
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  that many places know that, you know, are
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  are
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  are particularly difficult,
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  behavioral health,
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  urology,
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  ENT. These are ones that just everybody's desperate
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  for. And primary care. Primary care is is
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  although, again, I could hire people, we don't
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  necessarily have the space for it. We need
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  to think outside the box in terms of
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  how we do access
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  and how we support our current doctors so
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  that they could have, like, larger patient panels
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  and so on. But but still, we there
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  it's we do need to just hire more
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  physicians. That's that's what we need to do,
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  basically.
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  Fantastic. And talk about as you've started a
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  new role,
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  moved down to Florida,
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  and and when you look at sort of
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  being chief medical officer,
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  talk a little bit about what are you
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  most focused on and excited about as you
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  look at the rest of 2026,
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  the remainder of this year?
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  Yeah. I mean so, again, we're you know,
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  I think
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  many of the same things that are in
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  many medical groups and hospitals across the country.
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  You know, we're looking at we're looking at
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  access and finance and people and efficiency and
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  and, you know, how we best manage our
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  patients.
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  I think the things that for this year,
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  I think is gonna be fascinating for me.
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  Obviously, the impact of Medicaid cuts,
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  from from the bill that passed last year,
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  federally,
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  you know, that that those effects are rippling
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  across all of the health care system and
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  how that impacts Trinity and Holy Cross and
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  the other systems in the area is something
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  to keep a move, you know, a look
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  on. Access still to me is, you know,
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  is everybody's number one about how we how
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  we manage our access. I think one of
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  the fascinating things will be,
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  you know, how we incorporate
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  AI
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  into things. So, you know, it's still sort
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  of nibbling at the edges right now, but
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  it's the type of thing that I believe
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  is going to come gradually and then suddenly.
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  So I wanna see when that sudden
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  change happens over and where we actually
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  apply it to what we do on a
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  daily basis. So that'll be interesting to see
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  what the rest of the year brings for
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  for that in particular, I think. When when
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  when you talk about artificial intelligence, we've seen
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  so much over the last couple years. And
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  what I almost think of is the administrative
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  side,
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  where the revenue cycle, ambient listening, which is,
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  I guess, a mix of administrative, but helping
• 10:43
  physicians take back some of their time and
• 10:45
  and so forth, predictive analytics.
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  Where are you seeing sort of use cases
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  on the clinical side that you're starting to
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  see make a difference?
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  Yeah. I, you know, I think we're starting
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  and Trinity is take trying to take the
• 10:59
  lead on this really be, you know, at
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  that leading edge.
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  We're an epic system as our most large
• 11:05
  systems nowadays. But,
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  so we're going system wide to implement a
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  lot of things actually this month,
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  around AI, which is exciting.
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  But I think a lot of it you
• 11:16
  know, I think early on, there were some
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  attempts to,
• 11:20
  focus on
• 11:21
  diagnosis.
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  And and I think that was difficult to
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  do. And I I think AI companies have
• 11:28
  kind of ramped back on that. I think
• 11:29
  where we really have opportunities
• 11:32
  are particularly around
• 11:34
  efficiencies
• 11:35
  in
• 11:36
  what how the the physician experience
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  and the support of the physician.
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  You know, I think there are there are
• 11:44
  companies now that are looking at care coordination.
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  And can we rather than having somebody, a
• 11:50
  nurse,
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  contact every patient,
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  can we use AI for 90% of that
• 11:55
  patient contact?
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  You know, those are the types of things
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  that I think as as it's hard for
• 12:00
  us to maintain our
• 12:02
  recruitment and retention, not just the physicians, but
• 12:04
  of support staff.
• 12:07
  We can't hire enough medical assistants here. We
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  we it's difficult for us to get nurses
• 12:11
  in most medical groups.
• 12:13
  So are there ways for us to utilize
• 12:15
  these non physician
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  support
• 12:18
  groups,
• 12:19
  to to support the roles that they would
• 12:21
  otherwise do? So care coordination is one. There's
• 12:24
  some data analytics abilities, as you mentioned.
• 12:27
  I think the inbox management, I think, will
• 12:30
  will really ramp up over time.
• 12:32
  These things that are not
• 12:34
  critical for
• 12:36
  clinical thinking, which I think is still very
• 12:38
  typical for AI to do well,
• 12:41
  but can be a support
• 12:43
  for what the physician does clinically, I think,
• 12:45
  is the area that it's gonna really excel
• 12:46
  in the next several years.
• 12:49
  No. Fantastic. And and and doctor Ward, you've
• 12:51
  had this great career,
• 12:53
  really impactful career,
• 12:55
  leadership at the very top level.
• 12:57
  What advice would you give to emerging leaders
• 13:00
  trying to have impactful careers, particularly physician leaders?
• 13:04
  Yeah. I mean, yes. So starting to think
• 13:06
  about, you know, how how what would I
• 13:09
  tell people, especially as we have, you know,
• 13:11
  always the always changing environment of medicine. Right?
• 13:15
  Which is one of the reasons I love
• 13:16
  it and why I love physician leadership.
• 13:19
  You know, there are a few things that
• 13:20
  I would focus on.
• 13:21
  I think as I've
• 13:23
  gotten
• 13:24
  longer in my career, my you know, we're
• 13:27
  always adapting our kind of leadership philosophy.
• 13:30
  And my leadership philosophy, I think, has over
• 13:33
  time developed to be more of a servant
• 13:35
  leadership mindset
• 13:37
  where, you know, I'm a steward of whatever
• 13:39
  organization I'm in
• 13:41
  and I'm the voice of the clinician
• 13:44
  as a CMO. But I'm also a part
• 13:45
  of leadership.
• 13:47
  So I need to understand
• 13:49
  both sides of it,
• 13:51
  and I need to try and make sure
• 13:53
  that the physician voice is in everything we
• 13:55
  do.
• 13:56
  That needs to be the key of whatever
• 13:59
  somebody does.
• 14:00
  I think as physician leaders, people often struggle
• 14:05
  how to be how to how to balance
• 14:07
  those two roles. How are you the physician
• 14:09
  advocate,
• 14:10
  but also a part of administration and working
• 14:12
  with non physician leaders?
• 14:14
  And that is the the biggest challenge that
• 14:16
  physician leaders
• 14:18
  have. Finding you know, it's always a balance
• 14:20
  trying to to
• 14:23
  satisfy and please everybody, which is often not
• 14:26
  possible.
• 14:27
  So most of my day is spent trying
• 14:29
  to thread the needle to do the best
• 14:31
  I can between patients,
• 14:32
  administration,
• 14:34
  physicians,
• 14:35
  financial aspects, everything else in between.
• 14:38
  The other thing I would say is you
• 14:39
  need to,
• 14:40
  you need to think in terms of systems.
• 14:42
  And I think my master's in public health,
• 14:44
  which was early in my career, really helped
• 14:46
  with that. Focus on how your system
• 14:50
  particularly
• 14:51
  works around access.
• 14:53
  How do patients see us? How long does
• 14:54
  it take to get into us? How can
• 14:57
  we reach out and be where they need
• 14:58
  to be?
• 14:59
  How can we use a wider team
• 15:02
  so that it's not just on a physician?
• 15:04
  I think we're really at a point where
• 15:06
  we're redesigning
• 15:08
  the physician experience.
• 15:10
  AI is a part of that. That population
• 15:12
  health infrastructure,
• 15:14
  all of that is a part of that,
• 15:15
  but it's it's putting yourself in the the
• 15:17
  shoes of a patient,
• 15:19
  how they access your system, and how you
• 15:22
  can
• 15:23
  bring your system to them as easily as
• 15:25
  possible, I think, needs to be the focus
• 15:27
  of where we're moving in the years ahead.
• 15:30
  Thank you. It's so fascinating to watch.
• 15:33
  People try to do some things
• 15:35
  more as systems than necessary as individuals. Sort
• 15:38
  of systems and teams versus individuals,
• 15:41
  even on the AI side, trying to do
• 15:42
  things as an enterprise level versus you and
• 15:44
  I plugging into chi g p t and
• 15:46
  seeing how to systemize that to make that
• 15:48
  happen at the enterprise level. And it and
• 15:50
  it really is fascinating how that evolves, isn't
• 15:52
  it?
• 15:53
  It it is. But, you know, to to,
• 15:55
  you know, to what you're saying, we can't
• 15:58
  forget about that individual connection
• 16:00
  because
• 16:02
  the
• 16:03
  I think the space for physicians going forward
• 16:07
  is going to be that individual connection. That's
• 16:09
  what sets us apart from AI and from
• 16:12
  everything else in there. In
• 16:14
  the end,
• 16:16
  patients always trust
• 16:17
  their physician more than they're gonna trust AI
• 16:20
  or
• 16:21
  a non physician coordinator or something like that.
• 16:24
  So we have to we have to maintain,
• 16:26
  you know, strongly.
• 16:28
  We have to maintain that physician independence and
• 16:31
  that physician
• 16:32
  center being the center of the team and
• 16:34
  that one on one connection with our patients.
• 16:36
  That's why we all went into medicine.
• 16:38
  And, again, I need to as a physician
• 16:41
  leader, we need to maintain
• 16:43
  that as the prime aspect of what we
• 16:46
  do and the and the physician
• 16:48
  importance
• 16:49
  in
• 16:50
  everything that happens around the health care system.
• 16:53
  So we think about systems in terms of
• 16:55
  how we build things, but that that physician
• 16:58
  being the center of that relationship with patients
• 17:01
  has to remain
• 17:02
  the the primary thing that we focus on.
• 17:06
  No. I think that's so right. This this
• 17:07
  notion of
• 17:09
  this direct patient care to go with systems,
• 17:13
  the sort of people with technology.
• 17:15
  I I I I think that you've nailed
• 17:17
  that exactly right, and I think that's where
• 17:19
  we have to go. It's not to lose
• 17:21
  the empathy and compassion that, quite frankly, Trinity
• 17:23
  Health is so famous for and so good
• 17:25
  at to go with systems thinking and and
• 17:27
  growing and taking care of things as a
• 17:29
  system. And and again, your population health background
• 17:31
  is so important to that thinking.
• 17:34
  Doctor Ward,
• 17:35
  so thankful for you joining us today on
• 17:37
  the Becker's Healthcare podcast,
• 17:39
  a a remarkable leadership career.
• 17:41
  Thank you for taking the time with us
• 17:43
  today. Thank you very, very much.
• 17:45
  Thank you so much for the opportunity. I
• 17:47
  appreciate it.