Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Robert Corona, DO, MBA, FCAP, FASCP, CEO at SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital

Transcript

Robert Corona, DO, MBA, FCAP, FASCP, CEO at SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:02
The most important health care decisions don't happen
0:05
in isolation.
0:06
They happen when leaders come together.
0:08
Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings together more than
0:11
3,500
0:12
hospital and health system executives this April in
0:15
Chicago.
0:16
With 800 speakers from Ascension,
0:18
Cleveland Clinic, CommonSpirit and more, the conversations get
0:22
real. Leaders will share how their scenario planning
0:24
for policy shifts, breaking through value based care
0:27
barriers, and building clinical teams that translate
0:46
This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
0:49
podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by
0:51
doctor Bob Corona, who is the chief executive
0:54
officer at SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospitals,
0:57
as well as the John b Henry Professor
1:00
of Pathology at SUNY Upstate Medical University.
1:03
Doctor Corona, it's a pleasure to have you
1:04
on the podcast today.
1:07
Good afternoon, Laura. It's great to be with
1:09
you. I appreciate it.
1:12
Absolutely. Now I'm excited for our interview today
1:15
because I know there's so much happening in
1:17
the health care space and particularly doing some
1:19
innovative things, at the university hospitals. But before
1:22
we dive in, can you just tell us
1:24
a little bit more about yourself and the
1:25
health system overall?
1:28
Yeah. A little bit about our health system.
1:30
So we're,
1:31
three hospitals. We're, a university hospital,
1:34
a community hospital, and, Galistano Children's Hospital. And,
1:39
the university hospital is in a urban area
1:42
downtown. The community hospital is a little more
1:44
suburban, and the children's hospital is downtown.
1:48
We,
1:49
work collectively 752
1:51
beds.
1:53
56 of them are in the children's hospital.
1:57
We're the busiest trauma center
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overall for
2:01
children in the state of New York and
2:03
the second busiest adult trauma center. And combined
2:06
makes us the busiest trauma center.
2:08
And I think it's largely a byproduct of
2:10
fact that we're the only academic medical center
2:12
for a significant
2:13
part of the state of New York. Pretty
2:16
much the Central And Northern New York refers,
2:19
trauma to us.
2:21
We,
2:22
we've been growing like crazy.
2:25
We're
2:26
about to embark on
2:28
a big addition,
2:29
and, we've been opening up satellite sites,
2:33
in some of our regions north,
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west and east of us.
2:38
So, we're pretty excited about the growth and
2:43
excited about the future.
2:46
That's great to hear. And, you know, it's
2:48
always exciting to have that kind of growth
2:50
mindset or to be looking in the future
2:52
and seeing that pathway of how you can
2:54
get bigger and continue to serve your patients
2:57
well. Now when you think back to 2025,
3:00
what was the most important initiative that you
3:02
led? What did you do, and what were
3:03
the results?
3:05
So we had a number of very important
3:07
initiatives
3:08
that,
3:10
I'm very proud of.
3:12
So we've
3:14
bolstered our quality group up and we have
3:17
improved
3:18
from a two star to a three star
3:20
hospital, which is pretty tough considering some of
3:23
the
3:24
physical plant issues that we're dealing with with
3:27
a hospital built in the sixties.
3:29
But,
3:30
quality is improving.
3:32
We just were reaccredited,
3:36
I guess you would call it, by magnet.
3:38
We're now
3:39
a a magnet hospital. We we were originally
3:43
given magnet status
3:45
during the peak of COVID. So everything was
3:48
done virtually. This was the first time we
3:50
had the magnet
3:51
people on campus and we
3:53
renewed our magnet status and we're the only
3:56
magnet hospital in our region, so we're very
3:58
proud of that.
4:01
We initiated something called Respect and Heal, which
4:04
is an initiative to reduce workforce violence.
4:08
We've held a couple of conferences and got
4:10
participation
4:11
from a large percentage of the hospitals in
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the state of New York.
4:15
It's yielding some,
4:17
legislation, which we're very proud of. And we're,
4:21
going to be having another conference related to
4:25
work workforce violence.
4:27
I share some best practices. We're,
4:30
gonna be implementing a a k nine unit
4:32
as a result of some of the stuff
4:34
we learned at our previous conferences.
4:36
And, we're doing some research now, some what
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they call
4:41
photo voice,
4:42
quality research with our, with our medical college.
4:45
So
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very proud of that. And then,
4:49
kind of a innovative thing that we're doing,
4:51
we we have a a robust functioning
4:54
drone and robot transport program. We call it
4:57
our autonomous machines program.
4:59
So we are fortunate that we're in a
5:02
test site for
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the FAA
5:05
for, drone transportation. So we've taken advantage of
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that,
5:09
and we now regularly,
5:12
drone transport
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pharmaceuticals,
5:15
specimens between our hospital and some of our
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retail pharmacies.
5:19
And we've now have
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done a few
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flights non line of sight,
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beyond line of sight, they call it, between
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a cancer center that's 35 miles away from
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our main laboratory.
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And,
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we're gonna be starting a drone transportation to
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a retail pharmacy we're building
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in a community about 50 miles away. So
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we have a we have a a full
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time pilot. We have,
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several,
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drone.
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We have a full time pilot that flies
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regular
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fixed wing and,
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rotary,
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aircraft, and we have pilots that are drone
5:59
certified now. And we've we've done about,
6:03
oh, about 6,000
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successful safe flights so far. We fly every
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single day,
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between our institutions.
6:15
That's incredible to hear. And I think especially,
6:17
you know, in looking at the ways that
6:19
you have gone about just improving the workplace,
6:22
making a big difference. I know that magnolia
6:25
accreditation is a huge, huge accomplishment. And then
6:28
looking also into the ways you're leveraging technology,
6:31
with the autonomous machines program, and especially drones,
6:34
it seems particularly
6:35
innovative and interesting.
6:38
You know, in setting up a program like
6:40
that, what does it take? What kind of
6:41
resources as well as skills and leadership do
6:43
you need, to, you know, bring that type
6:46
of program,
6:47
and put it into place?
6:49
So you mentioned that I'm a pathologist. So
6:51
back when I came out of industry, I
6:53
was in industry for about sixteen years as
6:56
a medical officer for
6:58
a a medical device company.
7:01
I wanted to really
7:04
ramp up our,
7:06
transportation system
7:08
in the pathology department. We were not really
7:10
doing a great job of transporting specimens with,
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some of our
7:15
our cars. And so, I started to think
7:17
about drone
7:18
transportation then. That was, like, in 2014.
7:22
Everybody thought it was nuts.
7:24
So I just kept, kept at it.
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And I think
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when I moved from a chair of a
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department
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to the CEO of the hospital, I got
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a little more attention
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and had a few more resources and just
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kept pushing.
7:38
And with a little bit of luck because
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of our
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FAA
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research site in this area, we were able
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to leverage, that that position and start to,
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develop expertise in drones. And then we just
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started building on it and hired a pilot,
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then hired some engineers,
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and,
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really have
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a number of people focused on it. We
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also have robots in the program too. We've
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hired some people
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that were with,
8:08
Google and their autonomous,
8:09
machines division that have helped us with our,
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robots. And so we now have about 13
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robots that do various
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transportation efforts within the hospital.
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And, our next step is to give the
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robots and the drones to communicate so there's
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no longer a need for a human in
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the loop when we transport things. And so
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it's an exciting area. We're getting a lot
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of, interest,
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even from industry to,
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to work with us.
8:37
That's fascinating to hear and, you know, really
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cool to be on the forefront of some
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of those,
8:42
changes in transformation in the health care space.
8:44
Now looking ahead, what are some of your
8:46
big priorities and headwinds you're focused on for
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2026?
8:51
So the biggest priority is we got, $450,000,000
8:55
from the state of New York. Thanks to,
8:57
governor Hochul, who came to visit and saw
9:00
how desperate we were for,
9:03
additional space. We are way over capacity
9:06
almost every day. But today, for instance, we're
9:08
at a 120
9:10
capacity in our med surg unit, and we're
9:12
way overflowing in our children's hospital.
9:15
So she realized that and gave us the
9:18
the money to, to build a new emergency
9:21
department, a new burn unit. We're the only
9:22
burn unit for a significant part of the
9:24
state of New York.
9:26
And, also
9:27
some additional operating rooms, imaging, and some laboratory
9:31
space. So that's a big priority.
9:33
There's a lot of paperwork, a lot of
9:35
design work. The design team
9:37
that we've cons that that we picked is
9:40
starting tomorrow.
9:42
So we're gonna be looking at the the
9:44
new design of the, we're calling it the
9:46
annex at this point, but it's really gonna
9:47
be a big acute care facility.
9:50
So that's a big priority.
9:51
We have a couple of parking garages to,
9:54
to build.
9:55
We have more ORs to build at our
9:57
community hospital and new sterile processing.
10:00
And, we're gonna build two new ambulatory
10:03
facilities,
10:05
in the North and then one in the
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East. So,
10:09
feel like I'm, I'm in the construction business
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because that's that's largely what, what we're focusing
10:15
on in 2026.
10:19
Got it. Oh, wow. That's, you know, that's
10:20
amazing to hear. And it sounds like a
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very much needed,
10:23
expansion in in, bringing in additional capacity into
10:27
the,
10:28
health system and and into the communities. I
10:30
think especially, you know, when you look at,
10:32
how important it is for more patients. I
10:35
know it's expected to continue to to grow
10:37
the demand of health care and the, access
10:39
in the coming years. And so that's great
10:41
to hear you're in a place where you
10:43
can do that type of expansion and and
10:44
grow your footprint.
10:46
What do you think is the hardest thing
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that you'll have to do in the next
10:48
year will be?
10:50
Well, I also think that's probably gonna be
10:52
the hardest thing, and it's just really to
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manage
10:55
the growth and the capacity strain that we
10:58
have presently.
10:59
And, you know,
11:01
Upstate New York is
11:03
is experiencing somewhat of a renaissance.
11:06
You may have heard that,
11:08
one of the chip manufacturers,
11:10
Micron,
11:11
has committed to a $100,000,000,000
11:14
investment to build four fabrication,
11:17
plants in in our Syracuse Northern Suburbs.
11:22
And there's an expectation of,
11:26
at a minimum, 50,000,
11:29
jobs either related to Micron or the supply
11:32
chain or other, businesses that would be associated
11:35
with that growth.
11:36
We've heard,
11:38
we we've heard estimates of the population growing
11:40
by, 200,000.
11:43
And also,
11:44
Chobani, the yogurt manufacturer,
11:46
is building a $3,000,000,000
11:49
plant
11:50
just east of us
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that's gonna bring a a significant number of
11:53
jobs and then, you know, demand for health
11:55
care and that's an area we serve too.
11:58
So I think managing the growth and,
12:02
not overwhelming our staff with the capacity strain
12:05
we have is probably the hardest thing we
12:07
have ahead
12:09
of
12:10
us.
12:11
That makes a lot of sense. And, certainly,
12:14
having that lens of the staff and the
12:15
clinical teams and everyone involved, you know, being
12:18
able to make sure that they're in a
12:20
great position to handle that increased capacity and
12:23
not feel stressed or overwhelmed is important.
12:26
When you're thinking about those types of things,
12:28
is there any, I guess, thing you're considering
12:31
for the next year or planning on to
12:32
really make sure that they are in a,
12:35
great place, I I guess, in terms of
12:37
clinician or physician wellness and those kinds of
12:40
things?
12:41
Yeah. So we're we have a we've appointed
12:44
a a chief wellness officer who's an outstanding,
12:47
individual who's
12:50
a person who's scaling back her,
12:53
cardiothoracic surgery practice.
12:55
And,
12:56
she's been a driving force behind,
12:58
building some recharge
13:01
facilities we have. So we have recharge rooms
13:04
in both of our
13:06
community hospital and our downtown, university hospital.
13:10
We're doing a lot of wellness,
13:13
education,
13:15
initiatives.
13:16
And,
13:17
we're building,
13:19
hopefully, some,
13:20
exceptional,
13:22
throughput operations
13:24
centers. We have one big one that's
13:27
built off campus that's been helping us with
13:29
the load balancing.
13:32
We have
13:33
wellness people come in and speak all the
13:35
time. We're trying to implement, I think like
13:37
every other institution,
13:40
new technologies that reduce the administrative burden for
13:43
physicians and nurses. Like I mentioned, the, the
13:47
robots have helped a lot with,
13:49
the nurses having to run around the hospital
13:52
and, some of the new technologies, for instance,
13:55
that we're looking at, we're,
13:57
we're hoping to implement in the coming year.
14:02
Got it. That is helpful to know in
14:04
great that you've got a team in place
14:06
to really support the clinical endeavors.
14:09
Before we wrap up here, I wanted to
14:11
see your perspective on growth too. Where do
14:14
you see some of those best opportunities for
14:15
organizational growth, especially as you see the community
14:17
continuing to grow around you?
14:20
Yeah. So we we see it, like, I
14:22
think everybody else sees tremendous opportunity for, growth
14:26
in the ambulatory space.
14:28
There's a lot of people that don't wanna
14:30
come to Downtown Syracuse to see our specialists,
14:33
and so they want access points,
14:35
where they live. So we've been working with
14:38
the community hospitals
14:40
to provide services. For instance, one community hospital,
14:44
has our general surgeons cover their service. We
14:48
have,
14:49
ICU specialists, intensivists, and in another community hospital,
14:53
we have cancer specialists in other community hospitals.
14:56
So we we see, multiple access points,
15:00
in the region as as key.
15:03
But, you know, there has to be a
15:04
balance on that. We can't do all of
15:05
that ambulatory work at once. And so
15:09
we we do have to grow our inpatient
15:11
bed capacity,
15:13
you know, as well as ambulatory. So it's
15:15
a balance.
15:17
And we have a lot of regulations in
15:19
in New York State being a public hospital,
15:21
being a state hospital
15:22
in the SUNY system. And so,
15:25
the the growth, requires a lot of administrative
15:28
work.
15:31
I can imagine so. Doctor Corona, thank you
15:33
so much for joining us on the podcast
15:34
today. This has been really helpful to understand,
15:37
you know, where you're at today, where you're
15:38
looking to grow and go. And I'm excited
15:40
to see you as well in April at
15:42
our annual meeting. I know, you'll be speaking
15:44
there and truly continuing to expand upon some
15:47
of the things we talked about today, as
15:48
well as share any new updates, at that
15:51
time. So looking forward to seeing you and
15:53
and continuing this conversation.
15:55
Thank you, Laura. Appreciate it, and, appreciate Becker's,
15:58
giving us the attention.