Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Dr. Brendan Lloyd, Chief Medical Officer for Providence Clinical Network

Transcript

Dr. Brendan Lloyd, Chief Medical Officer for Providence Clinical Network · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  - There's a small circle of people who truly
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  - understand what it takes to lead a health
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  - system right now. The decisions are enormous.
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  - The variables are constantly shifting, and the stakes
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  - of getting a call wrong don't stay contained.
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  - That's not a complaint. It's a structural reality.
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  - And it's why the most effective c suite
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  - leaders are deliberate about where do they go
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  - to pressure test their thinking.
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  - Becker's fourteenth annual CEO and CFO roundtable
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  - brings together more than 1,500
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  - executive level attendees
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  - and nearly 400 speakers for four days built
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  - around growth, financial sustainability,
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  - workforce strategy, and the leadership questions that don't
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  - have easy answers.
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  - Join us November second through the fifth in
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  - Chicago.
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  - For the agenda and event details,
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  - visit beckershospitalreview.com
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  - and click on the events tab in the
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  - upper right.
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  - Welcome to the Becker's Clinical Leadership podcast. I'm
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  - Mariah Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to
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  - be speaking with Brendan Lloyd, chief medical officer
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  - for care delivery at Providence.
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  - Thank you so much for joining me today,
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  - doctor Lloyd. I'm really excited to learn more
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  - about how you're transforming physician leadership leadership at
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  - your system. But before we dive into it,
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  - I'd love for you to introduce yourself and
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  - tell us a little bit about your background.
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  - Background. Yeah. Thank you, and thanks for having
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  - me. Really excited to talk about physician leadership
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  - today.
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  - Brendan Lloyd. I'm the chief medical officer for
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  - care delivery at Providence, and so I work
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  - with our medical groups and hospitals across the
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  - system.
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  - I spent my entire career at Providence. I
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  - started as a dermatologist in one of our
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  - medical groups, and I've been more on the
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  - administrative side lately.
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  - Really excited to, you know, have the opportunity
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  - to think about physician leadership across such a
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  - large organization and so many different positions we
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  - engage with and how we really elevate their
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  - their voice across health systems like ours.
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  - Absolutely.
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  - Now I think we all know that physician
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  - leadership is going through an interesting transformation
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  - right now as the demand for a better
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  - work life balance grows, but the headwinds of
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  - our, you know, environment get harder.
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  - So how are you adapting leadership roles to
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  - balance these?
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  - Yeah. You know, physicians in general and especially
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  - younger physicians, I think we're seeing they're increasingly
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  - intentional about how they wanna invest their time.
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  - And I see that as a really good
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  - thing. It it it allows us to really
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  - kinda meet their expectations in terms of how
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  - we want them to participate.
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  - And so we've really started to think about,
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  - oh, with our leadership roles, how we can
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  - more clearly define the scope and responsibilities of
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  - those roles. We need to account for clinical
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  - practice responsibilities
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  - for the time that, physicians wanna spend away
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  - from practice. And having that, clearly defined scope
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  - and responsibilities upfront has been a big part
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  - of how we think about these roles going
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  - forward.
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  - Also spent a lot of time thinking about
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  - how we align expectations around the role. So
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  - coming to an idea of what a shared
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  - vision of success looks like for physician leadership
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  - roles, how we wanna measure it, and how
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  - we're gonna ensure that physicians have a meaningful
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  - impact with the work that they contribute.
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  - A big part of that also has been,
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  - thinking about a support system for our physician
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  - leaders. So really,
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  - really like diet partnerships look like,
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  - or other opportunities for us to make for
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  - sure physicians have the support they need to
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  - contribute with all of the things pulling on
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  - their time,
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  - as well as making sure that we're all
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  - on the same page about appropriate boundaries that
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  - balance that clinical practice, leadership responsibilities, and, again,
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  - time with families away from work.
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  - Absolutely.
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  - That's a lot of big changes you're looking
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  - at. When you're working on restructuring
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  - a leadership role and making all those changes,
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  - does that usually come with a new hire
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  - stepping into a position, or are you redefining
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  - existing roles where the same person stays in
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  - that role?
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  - Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, both
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  - can happen. I think open positions present a
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  - really clean opportunity to kind of reassess what's
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  - needed and what success looks like. So that
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  - might include rebalancing duties across different roles or
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  - emphasizing different goals or even adjusting for, like,
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  - a new leader's strengths or or their boundaries,
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  - for how they're able to contribute.
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  - So it's kind of a chance to start
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  - from the outcomes that we wanna produce and
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  - then understand how a physician perspective can help
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  - us get there together.
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  - I think it's really important when we have
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  - these openings to have an open competitive
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  - process for these types of transitions.
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  - That's been one way we found that it's
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  - allowed new voices to potentially come forward. So
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  - not necessarily
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  - not necessarily just kind of earmarking the next,
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  - leader in line,
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  - but really, having an open process to make
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  - sure that we're, understanding all the voices for
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  - physicians that may wanna participate in that. In
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  - other cases,
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  - it it is, more kind of reassessing goals
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  - for those incumbent leaders. Some of that is,
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  - is what I would call just really good
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  - hygiene for these roles. Like, the annual goal
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  - setting process is an important part of this.
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  - We wanna make sure we have smart goals
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  - for physicians that really kind of lay out
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  - what's expected over that year, where they can
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  - expect to contribute, and, again, how we're gonna
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  - measure that together.
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  - So that's a big part of that, or
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  - even for leaders who have been in those
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  - roles over a long period of time. And
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  - then sometimes even larger changes like reassessing the
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  - scope of responsibilities or time commitment are necessary
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  - for those established roles too. So, yeah, I
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  - think it's both, open roles but also constantly
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  - kinda reevaluating how to best how to make
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  - the most out of the existing position roles
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  - as well.
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  - Absolutely.
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  - That's a very interesting way of approaching both
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  - of these roles. And you're also doing something
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  - else that I personally haven't heard of yet,
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  - and that is creating topic based leadership opportunities
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  - and roles that physicians can step in and
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  - out of. Can Can you give us a
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  - rundown of how these roles work?
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  - Yeah. We really don't wanna limit physician leadership
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  - contributions
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  - to only those people that are ready for
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  - maybe a full time or more permanent position.
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  - So we have tried to offer, identify some
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  - of those places where maybe, physicians can contribute
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  - in a little bit less traditional role.
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  - And in some cases, those are really focused
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  - on one area that physicians have a lot
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  - of interest or excitement in, or sometimes it's
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  - being able to
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  - have some flexibility in terms of the the
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  - length of these engagements so that physicians can
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  - kind of move in and out of leadership
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  - roles and balance that again with other things
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  - that may be going on in their lives.
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  - We've been really seeing that, like, physician well-being
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  - and, innovation or application of technology are a
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  - few of the areas where some physicians have
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  - a great deal of interest in participating.
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  - And so that's been a great place to,
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  - open up some new opportunities for new physician
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  - voices to contribute.
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  - Some physicians seem a lot more comfortable with
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  - the narrower scope,
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  - and it helps them kinda fit again into
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  - their expectations and the balance they're trying to
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  - set.
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  - Recent example of that, like, I think, as
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  - you probably know, CMS has proposed some pretty
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  - significant changes to
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  - how,
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  - they're they're gonna handle, OB billing and coding
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  - and documentation next year.
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  - And so we recently engaged a physician with
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  - a particular interest in that area who has
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  - a really busy practice in OB hospitalist.
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  - Probably wouldn't have been interested in a longer
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  - term or significant portion of their time being
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  - spent in a row like this, but it's
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  - gonna be a great leader for us in
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  - terms of how we approach this and get
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  - our physicians ready and communicate with them about
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  - the changes that are coming in this specific
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  - area.
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  - That's so interesting.
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  - Since implementing these flexible row options, what have
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  - been some of the results?
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  - Yeah. And I think we're still learning about
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  - them, but, I do think we've created some
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  - significant space for some leadership voices that we
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  - would have missed otherwise because they would have
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  - been more delved in on their clinical practice.
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  - And I feel very confident that we're developing
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  - a deeper bench of physician leaders that really
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  - kind of have the tools for other leadership
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  - opportunities in the future.
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  - So it's nice to know that we'll have
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  - that that,
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  - set of folks that are ready to contribute
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  - in different ways that we can, seek out
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  - or that'll seek us out as those the
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  - right opportunity comes forward for them.
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  - I feel like I've got a better picture
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  - of the different paths that a physician leader
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  - might take in our organization over time. So
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  - that's helped to kind of, again, match roles
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  - to physicians
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  - and, kind of bring the right folks forward
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  - that may wanna participate in those. We're still
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  - learning how to best design these. I mean,
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  - they aren't without some of the usual challenges
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  - we have with physician leadership goals, like how
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  - we're gonna secure funding or accounting for the
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  - impacts on, you know, changes in clinical responsibilities,
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  - how those can impact patient access with how
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  - they can impact us, colleagues that work with
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  - those physicians.
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  - But we do think that these are really
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  - important part of, our physician leadership picture going
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  - forward.
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  - Amazing.
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  - Now a lot of systems are trying to
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  - figure out how to help the next generation
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  - of physicians get into leadership roles and feel
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  - like they have the balanced life they're looking
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  - for. But what do you think is something
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  - that seasoned leaders may be overlooking when it
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  - comes to training that next generation?
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  - Yeah. With the with the pace of change
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  - that we're experiencing in health care, you know,
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  - how we think about physician leadership does need
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  - to change. And so,
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  - that's been something that I think, a lot
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  - of physician leaders are thinking through how best
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  - to account for that.
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  - We know that meeting younger physicians where they're
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  - at in terms of their expectations and and,
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  - again,
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  - meeting their expectations about this intentionality
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  - of where they're gonna engage that we talked
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  - about is really gonna be essential to designing
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  - and and delivering the best care experience across
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  - province. We can't do that without the physician
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  - voices being a part of it. And so
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  - figuring out the right rules to kind of
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  - match against those physician expectations is gonna be
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  - a huge part of that.
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  - Another thing that I would say is it's
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  - really thought it's never too early to start
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  - investing in physician leadership development.
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  - I find that that works best, like, far
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  - in advance of a formal role for physicians
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  - if they've got tools like, the ability to
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  - have difficult conversations or reading financial statements or,
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  - leading teams,
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  - that those are gonna help in their clinical
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  - practice, and then they're gonna set them up
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  - for success when a role does come around.
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  - And so getting those started early has been
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  - a big part of how we're thinking about
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  - that development as well. The last one I'll
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  - mention is just that in a mission center
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  - organization like Providence,
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  - I think leadership development for physicians goes hand
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  - in hand with mission formation for physicians. There
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  - are two ways that, we find that physicians
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  - feel a lot more connected to the organization,
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  - have a better understanding of where we're headed
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  - together as partners.
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  - And so,
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  - we bring those together, as we think about
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  - how we develop physician leaders, it's gonna be
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  - part of how we thought about this as
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  - well.
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  - Great. Well, this has been such a great
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  - discussion, and I really appreciate you joining me
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  - on the podcast and sharing all of this
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  - today.
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  - Oh, thanks for having me. It's been a
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  - lot of fun to think about how we,
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  - finally engage this next generation of physician leaders.
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  - And the traditional roles aren't going away either,
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  - but I think the more physician voices that
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  - we are participating in the process, that's gonna
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  - be a better thing for Providence and, for
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  - health care in general.