Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Ebrahim Barkoudah, System Chief of Hospital Medicine at Baystate Health

Transcript

Dr. Ebrahim Barkoudah, System Chief of Hospital Medicine at Baystate Health · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr.
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  Abraham Barda, who's a system chief of hospital medicine
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  and regional Chief Medical
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  and Quality Officer at Baystate Health.
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  Dr. Barda, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today,
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  - Laura.
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  Thank you very much for having me
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  and for Becker uh, health for this great opportunity.
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  - Absolutely. And well, I'm looking forward
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  to our conversation and learning more about
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  how you're growing and developing at Baystate
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  and some of the things you're doing around
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  value-based care as well.
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  But before we dive into that,
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  can you tell us a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Absolutely. Um, uh, Abram Barda, I'm a clinician
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  with capital C and an executive by trade.
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  Um, um, currently the system chief, um,
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  and the regional chief, uh, medical
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  and quality officer for Baystate Health in Massachusetts.
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  Uh, Baystate Health is, uh,
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  a five hospital system in western Mass.
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  We serve collectively around 900, uh, thousand patients,
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  uh, throughout western mass and, uh, the New England area.
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  Uh, we are integrated teaching hospital network, uh,
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  with an academic regional site of UMass, uh,
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  Chan Medical school.
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  Um, like everybody who, uh, been in clinical medicine, um,
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  uh, clinician, I practice inpatient medicine,
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  hospital medicine in an academic setting.
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  Um, uh, after I, um, finished my, uh, clinical training, I,
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  uh, took, uh, a little bit more of, um, uh, the task
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  of learning about clinical research, the outcome, uh,
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  specific research of healthcare delivery that led me
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  to more quality training, to more finance, um,
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  and MBA training,
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  and led me to think a little bit about how we can
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  redesign the system, um,
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  and make it better for our patient,
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  make it more patient centric.
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  Uh, I moved across couple, um, uh, systems in Massachusetts,
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  uh, mass General, um, uh,
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  Brigham Women's Hospital in Boston,
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  and now I'm Baystate where, uh, I see, uh, more
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  of the system level, uh, function
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  of the healthcare delivery.
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  - Well, that's amazing to hear.
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  And you know, certainly some great experiences
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  that you've had throughout your career.
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  Could you tell me about the most successful project
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  from the last year or two?
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  What did you do and how did you measure results?
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  - Great question, Laura. Um, for the past year, I've been,
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  uh, quite, uh, consumed by how we can systemize
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  and standardize and the, the, the whole notion here,
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  and I'm gonna hone in more of the inpatient delivery
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  of the care and not just take the whole system and,
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  and try to rethink about the design, is, uh, how we can, uh,
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  focus on the patient throughout their journey, um, in that,
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  in that complex inpatient, uh, services that we do to serve,
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  uh, uh, the best interest for the patient.
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  So my goal here is, uh, uh, to, uh,
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  make sure we have a patient flow governance.
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  Uh, as a background, we all talk about hospital capacity,
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  how we can manage the access to care for the inpatient.
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  Uh, my job was, um, uh, to be part of bigger team
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  to think about that, um, the crowd, uh, uh, status
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  that we have always in emergency, um, department,
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  and how we can take that
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  and, uh, aim to deliver the best quality care
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  and implement, uh, stages for the patient to come
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  through our emergency department from any of our sites
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  and go through a care delivery for the inpatient
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  and aim to reduce length of stay,
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  get the right patient in the right bed for the right care,
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  and always measure that quality, um, the,
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  the value-based care where we deliver the best quality for,
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  uh, the reasonable or the lower cost to reach that value.
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  Um, Laura, we've been, we've been measuring it with
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  multiple, uh, tools.
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  Uh, the outcomes, what we, what we always focus on,
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  but I challenge my team to also think about the processes,
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  how the patient could initiate care earlier, IE when, uh,
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  any of us would go through the emergency medicine, uh, part,
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  how we can get to that patient faster, uh,
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  for any reason they could come, we can measure
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  that in the minutes and
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  how we can get the patient in the right bed,
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  and how we can gauge that team, uh, to initiate care faster
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  and how that lengthy stay will start look better.
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  Um, at the same time, we wanted
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  to also focus on the patient.
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  So we always measure patient satisfaction, uh,
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  the standardized metric.
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  And then, uh, when I take it a step further,
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  we start looking at the satisfaction for the caregiver
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  for nursing clinicians, the frontline providers.
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  You can optimize the system,
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  but you also need to keep your team in the middle, uh,
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  while you're looking at the safety
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  to experience the clinical quality and,
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  and the value as a, as a whole.
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  Um, we build a platform for, uh, the measurement where, uh,
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  our senior leadership would be also engaged in
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  that performance and we can get more direction, uh,
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  to optimize.
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  So, um, that, if I had to summarize it, the two s models,
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  systemization and standardization would be the combination
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  of, uh, bring the excellence in operation,
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  bring the digital health,
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  and how we can measure that, uh,
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  throughout the phases of care.
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  And of course, the importance of having
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  that layer of quality.
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  Um, we will be also, uh, uh, sharing our experience in terms
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  of the patient flow governance
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  and our outcomes that we led here at Baystate Health.
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  - Wow, that's great to hear.
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  And certainly just some fascinating, um, results
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  that are coming from, um, your initiative to, um, make sure
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  that patients are getting the right care
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  and, um, in the right place at the right time.
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  I think it is certainly something that
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  so many different organizations, um, are, are aiming for
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  and, and feel like that's a,
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  a really an important imperative over the next few years.
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  Now, when you're looking at what you're at today,
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  what are some of your top priorities
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  for the next 12 months or so?
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  What's really top of mind for you?
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  - If I had to, uh, share that, uh, with the audience, Laura,
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  uh, we all thinking about, uh, how the value,
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  um, uh, care, the, the, the value based care, uh,
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  that we are aiming all to deliver.
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  Uh, the goal here is for us, the challenge,
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  everyone in the system after we've seen many, many slices
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  of the data that we could do a safe care in the hospital,
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  you're probably familiar with, uh,
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  many studies retrospectively collected outcomes, um, about
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  how we could do what we do better in terms
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  of the quality and safety.
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  So, uh, that would be absolutely in the core of the mission
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  of how we can care for the patient with the best, uh,
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  approach, patient centric, cost efficient,
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  and the sustainability of healthcare delivery,
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  especially in the light of, uh, uh,
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  what we're seeing in terms
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  of the financial instability subsystems.
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  Um, I, I would like always to, uh, say innovation,
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  but that might hold me back a little bit
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  because we want to make sure that we're meeting, uh,
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  the standard of care, to say the least.
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  As a clinician, I always hold myself accountable
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  for standard of care and then make sure that is, um,
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  systemized across our system.
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  So, like probably everyone in the country, we're, we're part
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  of integrated teaching academic network where we need
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  to have the complex patients, uh, in a specific, uh, uh,
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  beds on specific services.
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  So the systemization is, is the second layer of my priority
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  where, uh, let's be sure collectively that we're, uh,
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  delivering the care that, uh, decision to treat the,
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  the team buildup would be matching, uh,
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  what our patients they're asking for and how our providers
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  and, and, um, um, stakeholders,
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  they're also part of that engagement.
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  Uh, we've been faced with a lot of, uh, burnout.
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  Uh, we want to make sure we also care for the team.
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  So in the core of what we do, uh, is, uh, value-based care,
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  uh, the layer of the systemization and the care delivery
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  and the access to the care
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  and what brings it together is our wellbeing, our,
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  our approach to make sure we build a sustainable healthcare
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  in the community, in, uh, the teaching hospitals
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  and academic medical center, and have it as a continuum.
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  - That's amazing here.
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  And absolutely, you know, just so critical, um,
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  as you were saying, to have that standardized
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  and systematized, um, approach to care
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  and quality of care to achieve
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  the outcomes that you're looking for.
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  Um, I, I think it's so crucial and helpful to see
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  and think about how you're looking at that
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  and building strong teams and systems for the future.
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  Now, before we wrap up here, I'm wondering,
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  how do you anticipate your role
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  and teams will change in the future?
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  We've talked about some of the changes happening in the
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  healthcare space, and certainly, um, a lot of, you know,
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  the, the challenges as well as opportunities, um, can,
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  can really be helpful,
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  but also are transformative on the health system level.
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  - Um, that is, that's an excellent question
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  because I, I would, healthcare will not be static.
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  We need to be, um, uh, dealing with that agility of
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  what our patient needs, how the environment around us,
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  and especially coming out of, uh, the covid zone.
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  And, and again, we're gonna go back
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  to the financial stability and the access
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  and sustainability of our, uh, industry.
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  Um, personally, I see, um, my role
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  and my team, there will be more system level where we need
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  to look at the system as a whole.
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  We need to, um, innovate more of that healthcare delivery.
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  Uh, for, for, um, specific, um,
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  examples is, uh, how we can, um, lower the cost,
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  how we can, uh, sustain the nursing staffing,
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  how we can build a team that we know we, uh, uh,
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  all suffered during covid
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  and how that would look like for the patient side.
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  Uh, the regulations also that coming,
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  that would also require us to, uh, think about how we can,
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  uh, do better and how our, uh, trends and, and,
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  and the, the patient coming to, uh, our hospitals,
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  to our clinics, to our urgent care will be cared
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  for 24 uh, hours.
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  The, the one thing, um, the one thing glad
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  that I would like also to share that, uh, that, uh,
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  chief uh, medical, uh,
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  and quality officer role is also evolving.
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  There, there, um, many articles, uh, about
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  how we can also bring, uh, more of that, uh,
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  system level thinker
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  and be able to connect the way we do, uh,
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  throughout our meetings, throughout the Becker platform, uh,
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  to, uh, rethink and bring it back home
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  and say, okay, this is working, this is not working.
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  How we can change and, uh, keep innovate what we're doing.
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  - I love that. Dr.
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  Barta, thank you so much for joining
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  us on the podcast today.
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  It, it's really fascinating to hear how that chief medical
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  and quality officer role, um, you know,
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  really is important on the system level
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  and has been growing in how you can think strategically
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  and make an impact on patients.
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  And then too, to look at, you know, on the value side,
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  the outcomes and, and the quality.
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  Um, just really being elevated is so refreshing to hear.
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  Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been a fun conversation
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Thank you very much for having me, Laura,
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  and I hope we connect very soon.